The Constitutional Basis of Religious Pluralism in the United States: Causes and Consequences

Ted G. Jelen
Additional contact information
Ted G. Jelen: University of Nevada, Las Vegas

The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 2007, vol. 612, issue 1, 26-41

Abstract: In this article, the author attempts to show how provisions in the U.S. Constitution enhance religious pluralism in the United States. Furthermore, religious pluralism arguably leads to religious vitality, which has a number of consequences for public life in the United States. Religion in the United States serves as a source of social capital, as a check against the conformist tendencies of U.S. public opinion; religious pluralism ameliorates the tendency to identify the nation with a particular set of religious traditions. The presence of religious ideas in public discourse also may render religious values less particularistic and more publicly accessible.

Keywords: church and state; pluralism; establishment; free exercise (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2007
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0002716207301176 (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:anname:v:612:y:2007:i:1:p:26-41

DOI: 10.1177/0002716207301176

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science
Bibliographic data for series maintained by SAGE Publications ().