How Traditions Adapted

              Manifold religions including groups such as African-Americans, Jewish, Orientals and Native Americans have suffered obstinate barriers from the American cultural status quos and were particularly affected by Christian hierarchal norms that plagued the society in its entirety. But firstly, the groups have been fashioned internally by their cultural communities building strong, unbreakable families that branch further than simply religion and externally by oppressive forces and the normative views on ideological civilization. The external oppression all of these groups felt in history almost imposed and forced their communities to fight for equality and create a more stable core foundation of their beliefs and backgrounds. Through the horrid events that were encapsulated in Nazi Germany during World War II the Jewish religion has become more cultural due to the stereotypical presumptions of the Jewish religion as a race. The “Holocaust has become, then a symbol that provides them with a sense of responsibility as Jews and help ensure Jewish continuity,” creating an ethnicity, or community, stemming from the religious roots.¹

            Throughout history, Christian ideology has had an everlasting effect on opinions and decisions made in the United States. They have infiltrated the government and created a mass of followers that essentially have the power to determine a religion’s validity, although true authority is mostly left to the leaders due to the separation of church and state. In a general sense only the elected leaders of the religion will be able to, not any outside forces unless individuals chose to shadow their own beliefs and divert from the original interpretive message. Outside perception of religions is nothing new; the ignorant majority viewed anything different or strange as wrong. Sometimes the external persona is molded by the media, as is the case with the oriental monk. The oriental monk is seen as a master, a leader in knowledge, wisdom and “has also acquired more and more fantastic powers in his recent manifestations”.² Popular cultures have morphed this identity into a spiritual figure that represents only a portion of a religion practice and has been taken out of context of the original intent.

            Native Americans attempted to reclaim their authority of their religions and “not listen to outsiders with their promises of liberation and deliverance”.³ They demanded privileges taken from them be returned and did so with their own personal backing without help form the various institutions that put them there in the first place. Mascots of the Natives Americans to some may be seen as comical, but to the Natives are seen as disrespectful to the warriors and people of their communities. They have filed suit against these types of mascots and many schools changed theirs as a result. The African American community has also attempted to reclaim their authority on their cultuses and traditions that they lost during their enslavement period through the Civil Rights Movement. Cultural realities of American life have shaped all of these groups in one way or another. Through the World Parliaments of Religion in 1893, oriental speakers adapted their presentations to suit more modernized practices in religions and recruited many export followers as a result while the immigration wave after the 1965 act boomed more ethic traditions. The Jewish Community formed more liberal stances than orthodox in Reformed and Conservative Judaism as well as the Native Americans having transformed to many sects such as the Peyote Way movement. African Americans were forced to conform the most due to slavery and segregation. In American slavery, they were taught Christian values and beliefs and after the Civil War were molded into what society and the public in general deems as the norm. Because of this many became Catholic or Protestant.⁴  Instead of identifying one as a race or religion one should ponder the humanity and spiritual side of the person rather than imposing and shaping religious agendas onto them.

¹ Lynn Davidman "The New Voluntarism and the CAse of the Unsynagogued Jews"

² Jane Naomi Iwamura "The Oriental Monk in American Popular Culture" Bruce David Forbes and Jeffery H Mahan, Ca, 200 UC Press pp 25-43

³   James Treat "Nature and Christian Indigenous voice on Religions Identity in United States and Canada" New York 1996. 

⁴ Albert J. Raboteau "A Fire in the Bones Reflections in African American History" Beacon Press Boston 1995. 

Themes of American Religion

My grandmother embodies a series of themes in American Religious history, most notably cultural religion. Historically, this form of religious expression is meant to carry on the teachings of the religion through practiced creeds, codes and cultuses both public and private while maintaining the community and heritage of a people. Her Irish heritage ingrained a sense of family and tradition deep within her being that stemmed from this innate sense of cultural religion. As she moved from Ireland to San Francisco she continued the sorts of practices that centered around her family and stayed highly involved in the church by sending her kids to the private school connected to the institution as well as helping any way she could. Today, she volunteers at the Irish cultural center and attends an Irish Catholic Church to remember and immerse herself in the ways of her homeland. The culture center acts as a focal point that communicates the essential actions and rituals one may do in order to fully delve into the mainstream and historical culture. She shadows the ritual calendar during the year; as one would in implicit cultural religion, including all of the important holidays as well as her own unique rituals such as lighting a candle every mass for my late grandfather. She celebrates not only her religion, but also the cultuses that sprouted from her religion regarding her background as an Irish immigrant. Though cultural religion is something phenotypically visible my grandmother also houses other themes that are less explicit such as her belief in denominationalism. The Catholic Church is often considered one denomination that constitutes a very organized body of one church that intertwines many. The Protestant Church, on the other hand, is comprised of profuse groups that can vary greatly in ideology, many of which are “vast and profound” differences according to Moberg in an analysis done on San Francisco.¹ This separation develops an overall understanding that they are all under then same vision for religion regardless of labels that have been assigned to them.² The Catholic Church and some Orthodox groups don’t see them as under the same bubble of Christianity but rather fragmented sects of what used to be the one church.³ Although her church may not follow the same ideals, she considers all Christian followers as a part of the same church as in the concept of denominationalism. In that respect, though she considers herself Catholic, she combines other sects of Christianity and acts more reformed like the Protestants. Combination is nothing new in American interpretations of religions. It has been around since the nineteenth century and continues to thrive in today’s society. Taking ideas and principles from the best parts of religion can create a better understanding of religion as a whole as well as a better follower of the religion. Some even take up the actual following of the different religions calling themselves names such as Christian Buddhist Spiritualist or Jewish Catholics to name a few. My grandmother does not go this far, but like I said before, takes a modern approach to certain aspects of Catholicism but stays true to the core practices involved in the Catholic religion. But unlike the Catholic lower clergy that take orders from the hierarchical demands of the Vatican, she does not follow this chain of command that tightly holds the grip of countless members of the church.⁴ These sorts of themes have been integrated in American Society in such a way that it becomes harder to distinguish the black and whites due to the blending greys. Though cultural religion holds tightly on the country, a New Age wave of ideals that challenges Orthodoxy like denominationalism and combination is slowly creeping up on ones vision of religion which is observed in the case with my grandmother.

¹David Moberg O. 2008. "PROTESTANTISM AS A STATISTICAL FICTION AND "THE NEW DENOMINATIONALISM." Review Of Religious Research 50, 30-31. Academic Search Complete, EBSCOhost (accessed September 5, 2013).

²Rodney Stark, and CHARLES Y. GLOCK. 2008. "THE "NEW DENOMINATIONALISM." Review Of Religious Research 50, 33-42. Academic Search Complete, EBSCOhost (accessed September 5, 2013).

³Moberg, 31

⁴Andrew Greeley 2001. "THE FUTURE OF RELIGION IN AMERICA." Society 38, no. 3: 32-37. Academic Search Complete, EBSCOhost (accessed September 5, 2013).