15.3 Religion in the United States

By the end of this section, you should be able to:

  • Give examples of religion as an agent of social change
  • Describe current U.S. trends including megachurches, stances on LGBTQ rights, and religious identification.
Photo A shows several people holding an infant over a Baptismal font. Photo B shows a young person reading the Torah at a podium. Photo C shows two people embracing in front of a Church building.
Figure 15.11 Religion and religious observance play a key role in every life stage, deepening its emotional and cognitive connections. Many religions have a ceremony or sacrament to bring infants into the faith, as this Baptism does for Christians. In Judaism, adolescents transition to adulthood through ceremonies like the Bat Mitzvah or Bar Mitzvah. And many couples cement their relationship through religious marriage ceremonies, as did these members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. (Credit: a: John Ragai/flickr; b: Michele Pace/flickr; c: kristin klein/flickr)

In examining the state of religion in the United States today, we see the complexity of religious life in our society, plus emerging trends like the rise of the megachurch, secularization, and the role of religion in social change.

This lesson has no exercises.

The content of this course has been taken from the free Sociology textbook by Openstax