In 610 God revealed His word to Muhammad through the Angel Gabriel. Traditional worshippers attend Holy Angel Catholic Church in Chicago, 1973 . Up until the 1960s, the “Protestant establishment” (the seven mainline denominations of Baptists, Congregationalists, Disciples, Episcopalians, Lutherans, Methodists, and Presbyterians) dominated the religious scene, with the occasional Catholic or Jewish voice heard dimly in the background. The second set of battles in the courts centers around the religious establishment clause. Just as the cultural trend towards supporting religious pluralism has led to a broad free exercise of religion for marginalized groups, so the courts have also taken a generally strict stance over the no establishment clause to ensure traditional Christianity does not take a privileged role once again in the public square. The Middle colonists were a mixture of religions, including Quakers (led by William Penn), Catholics, Lutherans, Jews, and others. By the mid-1970s an ethnic revival celebrating the roots of African Americans, Mexican Americans, Native Americans, American Jews, and Asian Americans spawned.

African Americans wearing kufi hats are singing Southern Baptist hymns in Chicago churches (with portraits of Martin Luther King, Jr., and Nelson Mandela gracing the walls). The Books of Sorrow were composed by the Taken King, Oryx. Books on angels, fascination with reincarnation and the afterlife, New Age music, the selling of crystals, popular Eastern garb, and best-selling recovery titles testify to how widespread and “mainstream” seeker spirituality has become in our society. Students attend lectures, read set books and related Scripture passages, prepare assignments and sit an examination at the end of each semester. Replacing the already old notion of America as the melting pot nation, or a citizenry bound together by a set of universalistic values (e.g., democracy, equality, justice), multiculturalism argues for the beauty of diversity, the essentialist nature of ethnic identity, and thus the necessity for cultural pluralism. The Civil Rights movement, the “Sexual Revolution,” Vietnam, Women’s Liberation, and new “alternative” religions (e.g., yoga, transcendental meditation, Buddhism, Hinduism) all challenged the traditional church and its teachings, its leaders and their actions.

These “foreign” religions will no longer be simply descriptions in school textbooks or exotic movie subjects. The courts, then, will rule against certain religious practices when they believe a child’s welfare is in serious jeopardy. Supreme Court to rule against the sacramental use of peyote by Oregon Indians. The baby boom (those born between 1946 and 1965) had begun, and parents of the first baby boomers moved into the suburbs and filled the pews, establishing church and family as the twin pillars of security and respectability. Litigation and disputes over the First Amendment have increased dramatically since the 1970s and continue unabated today. The 1960s “revolution” has perhaps been exaggerated over the years. As Leidy indicated, however, Buddhism has expanded over the millennia to include a pantheon of deities in addition to Gautama Buddha. However, their tendency to accumulate souvenirs and mementos from their travels can sometimes lead to a cluttered and disorganized living space.

A wholly new religious space is being carved out in the American landscape—a space that has little to do with the traditional ethnic divide between black and white or the religious division of Protestant, Catholic, and Jew. Muslims of different sects are sharing mosque space in major cities. Two groups that have received much attention in recent years are the Religious Right, on the one hand, and New Age seekers on the other. Two popular expressions of religious vitality in post–World War II America are conservative Christianity (again, see essay on the Christian Right elsewhere on this Web site) and spiritual “seekers.” What kinds of factors (historical, personal, familial) draw some towards traditional religious practice and others to different and alternative ones? The list is endless, but let us consider three examples that illustrate the pluralistic nature of American religion at the close of the twentieth century: 1. the “boomer” generation of spiritual seekers 2. the growth of non-European, ethnic-religious communities 3. religious rights in the public square. One chief characteristic is that of being spiritual seekers. Once one of Marvel’s more obscure villains, Dormammu’s popularity has risen in recent years thanks to appearances in various media, most recently in the film Doctor Strange.