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This essay reads Will Herberg’s Protestant-Catholic-Jew alongside Robert Bellah’s “Civil Religion in America” to illuminate how mid-century thinkers constructed, rather than merely observed, a vision of, and for, American religion. Placing Herberg in direct conversation with Bellah illuminates why Herberg’s religious triptych depiction of America endured while his argument for an “American Way of Life”—the prototype for Bellah’s widely accepted idea of civil religion—flailed. Although Herberg’s “American Way of Life” and Bellah’s “Civil Religion” resemble one another as systems built on but distinct from faith traditions, they emerged from intellectual struggles with two distinct issues. Herberg’s work stemmed from the challenges wrought by ethnic and religious diversity in America, while Bellah wrote out of frustration with Cold War conformity. Both men used civil religion to critique American complacency, but Herberg agonized over trite formulations of faith while Bellah derided uncritical affirmations of patriotism. Bellah’s civil religion co-existed with and, more importantly, contained Herberg’s “Protestant-Catholic-Jew” triad and obscured the American Way of Life. In an increasingly diverse and divisive America, Bellah’s civil religion provided a more optimistic template for national self-critique, even as Herberg’s American Way of Life more accurately described the limits of national self-understanding.

Gaston contends that the literature from the 1930s reveals a spectrum of Judeo-Christian discourse. At one end of that spectrum were what he calls \"Judeo-Christian pluralists,\" who viewed religious diversity as positive, stressed tolerance as the centerpiece of democracy, and worried more about the dangers of religious nationalism than secularism. At the other end stood what Gaston refers to as \"Judeo-Christian exceptionalists,\" who endorsed narrower conceptions of America's religious diversity, regarded belief in a Judeo-Christian God as democracy's indispensable foundation, and deemed secularism the greatest threat to democracy in the modern world. Here, Gaston demonstrates that will Herberg was a quintessential Judeo-Christian exceptionalist and one of that persuasion's most ardent and articulate postwar defenders. His vision of American identity captured the intense fears about religious authenticity and secularization that sustained the Cold War's relentless juxtaposition of democracy with an antireligious enemy denoted by the term godless Communism.

Indications are that the success of the American experiment is fading. Perceived declines in family and religion are of particular concern as key aspects of civil society. But family and religion are difficult to measure, and it is challenging to have clarity about our own times and the past. The 1950s are commonly seen as the end of a long run of success for religion and family in America. Yet marriage and family have consistently gone through cycles of growth and decline. Thus, post-World War II religion was more “civil religion” than Christianity. To gain perspective on the past and envision the future, this essay revisits two classic books: Carle Zimmerman’s 1947 study of the family and Will Herberg’s 1955 study of religion. Zimmerman describes a decline in family structure that seems to fit the last 50 years. But other literature indicates that we may be at the trough of a cycle in family structure. How much does family structure matter to society, and what is the future of the family in America? Herberg describes religion as largely a way of “belonging”--more cultural than religious. How do cultural and “religious” dimensions contribute to the health of a society? Without vibrant religious faith and strong families, can we keep the republic?

Schultz discusses the treatise of Will Herberg posited in his book Protestant-Catholic-Jew, a classic American religious history first published in 1955. Fifty years after its first publication, Herberg's critique of pluralism is still impressive, as are his ideas about the importance of group identities and his derision of the \"melting pot.\"

Since Zygon: Journal of Religion and Science was founded 49 years ago and since one of its co‐publishers, the Institute on Religion in an Age of Science (IRAS), was founded 60 years ago, there have been significant developments in their various cultural contexts—in science, in religion, in culture, in academia, and in the science and religion dialogue. This article is a personal remembrance and reflection that compares the context of IRAS in 1954 when it was first organized with the context of IRAS and Zygon today. It considers the contemporary niche of IRAS in relation to the developments that have occurred over the past 60 years.

Because the United States government has always been shy about asking its citizens about their religious beliefs, during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries it had become axiomatic in government circles that such questions, requested in official form, would infringe on rights protected by the free exercise and the establishment of religion clauses of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution.

This article traces the basic qualities of big science and applies them to the history of what I envision as “big religion.” Big religion offers a model for understanding several developments in mid-century American religious history, including religious revival within the mainline churches and synagogues, an evangelical resurgence, and various forms of backlash as well. Like big science, big religion peaked during the postwar era (though it built on earlier foundations) and is characterized by heightened institutionalization, professionalization, centralization of knowledge, government entanglements, and public support, as well as opposition. With big science as a guide, the concept of big religion offers historians of American religion an analogous manner of understanding the development of institutions, individuals, and movements within American religion, as well as responses and backlashes against them, as part of the same overarching phenomenon.

The reform of the United States Immigration Act in 1965 transformed what Robert Bellah identified as \"American civil religion\" and one of its central components: America's unique religious pluralism. At midcentury, Will Herberg showed how religion functions in the creation of American identity through what we call here \"passive pluralism.\" This passive pluralism allowed the mainline religions of America to claim a presence within the nation. But the new immigration patterns have created what the author calls here \"active pluralism,\" which lays assertive claim to the meanings of public time and space. This argument is explored through the construction of an Orthodox Jewish ritual space or eruv in Los Angeles.