The enormous religious vitality evident in the United States today sometimes mystifies those in the mainstream media who are charged with covering its effects. To assist members of the press in becoming more knowledgeable about religious matters, the Center sponsored "Toward an Understanding of Religion in American Public Life," a conference held at the Black Point Inn in Prouts Neck, Maine, September 27 - 28. Four seminars brought together five scholars and twenty-three journalists to examine historical and contemporary developments in Catholism, Judaism, and evangelical Protestantism that profoundly affect our society.

More Americans seem to be recognizing the emptiness of secular materialism, observed the first speaker, Center senior fellow and Catholic theologian George Weigel. And politics seems to be playing less of a role in shaping their lives. In this era, the complex, "Technicolor" Catholic Church--with its 60 million members from very diverse racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic groups--could become "the possible agent of a renewal of American public culture," Weigel suggested. He expressed hope that such a movement might induce the media to broaden its focus beyond clerical disputes. Since the Second Vatican Council in 1962, Weigel charged, press coverage of Catholcism has concentrated almost exclusively on a perceived liberal-conservative power struggle within the institutional Church. While this framework can explain some things, Weigel said, it does not come close to explaining everything. It ignores the overarching importance of the Church as a community of believers, and distorts such issues as liberation theology and feminism. Weigel urged journalists to adopt a fresh perspective and do some "real reporting on the lived experience" of American Catholics, especially regarding demographic shifts, devotional and intellectual life, ecumenism, the impact of the new catechism, and liturgy reforms.

Respondent Kenneth Woodward, the religion editor at Newsweek, agreed that journalists frequently do ignore or misrepresent the size and diversity of both American and world Catholicism, but he argued that the liberal- conservative analysis has more merit than Weigel concedes. Participants in the internal church debates of the past four decades "have viewed themselves" in these terms, Woodward said, and Weigel is "disingenuous" when he tries to dissociate the Church as an institution from its clerical establishment. Serious disagreements among Catholics about the role of women, the future of the priesthood, and economic justice cannot be so easily dismissed.

Turning to the United States' Jewish community, Jack Wertheimer of the Jewish Theological Seminary speculated as to why this tiny minority generates so much interest. Not only do Jews play a disproportionate role in American life, he proposed, but they also serve as a model for all ethnic groups that seek to be integrated into--and accepted by--the wider culture without forfeiting their distinctive identity. Wertheimer traced the history of how Jews, no longer subject to the external coercion existing in Europe, organized themselves in America. While religious life centered in synagogues of various denominations associated with different waves of immigration, the hub of communal life shifted in the early twentieth century to a plethora of philanthropic and welfare institutions dedicated to fighting anti-Semitism and aiding fellow Jews. Both religious and ethnic organizations emphasized the value of adapting to American life, however, and today Jews face the danger of being "loved to death" through intermarriage, Wertheimer said. Having won the struggle for acceptance, Jews can survive only if they realize that "to be Jewish means to be different."

David Brooks of The Weekly Standard commented on this predicament by referring to his own experience. The descendant of generations of increasingly assimilated Jews, Brooks adopted a stricter form of religious observance only at the urging of his wife, a dedicated convert. Many younger families in his Conservative Jewish congregation have also committed themselves to more rigorous study and ritual practices than their parents, he said. Their desire for the order and community that self-created religions cannot provide collides, however, with their modern allegiance to pluralism and the primacy of individual choice. In this contest between modernity and obedience, Brooks noted, ambivalence reigns. He expressed doubts about how long flexible orthodoxy, or "flexodoxy," can be sustained without real belief in, or submission to, an ultimate authority.

While less likely to question their faith, the country's 29 million culturally self-conscious evangelical Protestants must work their way around other social and political land mines strewn across the modern terrain. Nathan O. Hatch of the University of Notre Dame shed light on this often misunderstood group by focusing on the "populist impulse" that has long pervaded American Protestantism, and Grant Wacker of the Duke University Divinity School explored the complex motion of the contemporary "evangelical kaleidoscope."

Hatch pointed out that the early Republic, which had inherited colonial America's unusual and untidy diversity of religions, was swept by a wave of sectarian invention and enthusiasm that appalled the Founders. In a society without hardened distinctions of class or religious denominations, religious liberty spawned a "free market of religion" that challenged the dwindling authority of traditional churches and came to characterize America's subsequent religious history. Other professions, such as law and medicine, remained the province of the elite, Hatch said, but this country's religious leaders have come from all classes because "high culture was too weak to inhibit popular religiosity." The "virtually unlimited social space" of the United States provided an ideal climate for churches growing out of the popular culture. Methodists and Mormons, for instance, thrived despite--or even because of--their origins as fiery outsiders. Their movements embodied several enduring features of American evangelical Christianity. Flourishing first at the margins of power, evangelical denominations are unpredictable, uncontrollable, market-oriented, dynamic, spiritual, anti-elitist, sometimes intolerant, and ultimately determined to win respectability.

Grant Wacker presented a "cultural profile" of evangelical Protestants today. Most importantly, he said, evangelicals are defined by their belief, established for them by the authority of the Bible, in "Christ's redeeming sacrifice." They emphasize individual autonomy as well, holding that every Christian needs to make a personal decision about religious commitment and to seek religious guidance directly from Scripture. But not only does "belief count," Wacker noted; "time counts." All evangelicals feel "an urgency about doing the Lord's work." Driven by this set of beliefs, they develop "distinctive behavior patterns." They feel obligated to "share the good news" through evangelization and, because they reject the distinction drawn between public and private endeavors, to undertake social reform. In the last twenty years, evangelicals have also adopted an adversarial posture toward the "duplicitous" outer culture. They are reacting, Wacker explained, to modernization, which has brought intrusions by the federal government, assaults by the mass media, and forced social interaction. Defending themselves with a variety of pragmatic and symbolic tactics, evangelicals are sustained by their firm belief that they are "here for a reason."

Hanna Rosin of the Washington Post commented on both Hatch's and Wacker's remarks. Assigned stories related to this religious community, Rosin said she came to know evangelical Christians as an outsider--and, for them, potential convert--and was struck by the strength and sincerity of their "living faith." She voiced uncertainty, however, about whether the growing pockets of religious fervor across the American landscape actually signal a more sweeping spiritual revival. Some radical new megachurches may, in fact, be "too good at responding" to their members' desires, Rosin suggested. Therapeutic jargon can cloud their religious message, which is narrowed and diluted to accommodate suburbanization, affluence, and the culture of convenience. Thus far, moreover, these new churches have failed to transmit their beliefs to younger generations.

How Americans' voting patterns reflect their complex religious affiliations was the subject of the final seminar. John Green of the University of Akron emphasized that survey data, often taken by journalists as holy writ, are in fact very imprecise. Information attained from well-structured voter surveys is like the Bible, he said: "we know it's true, but we don't know what it means." Evaluating data generated by a number of polls, however, Green concluded that "crude religious categories do make a difference in politics." Religion generates values, and those values influence political choices. Different religious groups, as defined by denominational affiliation, exhibit distinctive voting behaviors that are not overwhelmed by such competing factors as gender, region, or socioeconomic class. Distinctive opinions about social welfare policies also translate into support for particular political parties. In a Gore-Bush presidential race, Green speculated, both candidates would be likely to concentrate on wooing "non-traditional" religious voters, who could be won over to either side.

Respondent E. J. Dionne of the Washington Post and the Brookings Institution criticized the categories in Green's survey data as being somewhat misleading. He questioned, for instance, the validity of the criteria used for dividing "traditional" members of a particular religion from "other" members of that religion, and argued that significant ethnic and regional cleavages within religious groups should not be discounted. Data on attitudes concerning social-welfare policies are especially revealing about class and racial divisions within religious groups, Dionne said. He did agree with Green that religious appeals are likely to permeate the 2000 election. Recent bipartisan support for public funding of faith-based charities suggest that Republicans are trying to appear "less mean" and Democrats "less secular."

Center vice president Michael Cromartie moderated the animated and wide-ranging discussions that followed the formal presentations. Among those attending were Jay Ambrose of Scripps Howard News Service; Michael Barone of U.S. News & World Report; Peter Beinart, Michelle Cottle, and Gregg Easterbrook of The New Republic; Max Boot of the Wall Street Journal; Barbara Bradley of National Public Radio; Chris Bury and Karen DeWitt of ABC's "Nightline"; Larry Eichel of the Philadelphia Inquirer; Nancy Gibbs of Time; Jody Hassett of CNN; Deborah Howell of Newhouse News Service; Kim Hume of Fox News; Marshal Ledger of the Pew Charitable Trusts; Kathy Lewis of the Dallas Morning News; Robert Shogan of the Los Angeles Times; David Shribman of the Boston Globe; Paul West of the Baltimore Sun; and Claudia Winkler of the Weekly Standard.

The conference was made possible by a grant from the Pew Charitable Trusts.