American religious pluralism - An expression of american inequality (ePub)

Seminar paper from the year 2006 in the subject American Studies - Culture and Applied Geography, grade: 3,0, Ernst Moritz Arndt University of Greifswald, language: English, abstract: Die Arbeit gibt einen kurzen Überblick über die religiöse Geschichte der USA, sowie über die größten religösen Gruppen, die heute dort zu finden sind. Hauptthema der Arbeit ist, wie sich Religion auf das Konzept der Gleichheit der Amerikaner auswirkt.

America from earliest history on seemed to be a place of freedom for many people. Freedom in regard to endless space, freedom in regard to unbelievable business opportunities, but also freedom in religious terms.
America's first settlers, the Puritans, were in search of a place where they could follow their religion in a free way, and so at first sight helped to created a place where this was possible, the United States of America. Millions of people followed them in the course of time. Religious Freedom was from earliest history one of the major pull factors that made people come to America, as it was also explicitly guaranteed in the First Amendment to the Constitution:

Congress should make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.

However, since the Constitution was ratified a few hundred years have passed, and in the meantime millions of people have accepted the promise of religious freedom made by the government. Today America is a multireligious place, in which all religions should at least theoretical be equal. But its Christian roots in modern times are made more obvious than ever. So, for example, in 1954 the Pledge of Allegiance was supplemented with the phrase "under God":