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American believers used to fight about theology. Catholics against Protestants. Christians against Jews. Mormons, at times, against everyone else.
Today's battle lines are more political — evangelical Protestants, for example, join forces with conservative Catholics, Mormons and Orthodox Jews in the fight against same-sex marriage. On the other side are secular nonbelievers, a growing segment of the nation's young people, who defend individual choices on sexual morality and oppose religious influence in politics.
Despite such polarization, America has not erupted in sectarian or political wars like, say, India, Sudan or the former Yugoslavia. Americans of every persuasion seem to live comfortably with religious tensions.
And that, Robert Putnam of Harvard and David Campbell of Notre Dame argue in a new book, is the great puzzle of U.S. religion.
"It's not just that we put up with religions outside our own," Campbell, co-author of American Grace: How Religion Divides and Unites Us, said in an interview. "We are willing to embrace people of other faiths."
The authors attribute this to several "bridges," including the rise of interfaith marriages and friendships.
More than half of U.S. unions include partners of different faiths, Campbell said. In fact, most Americans have at least two friends or extended family members of other faiths.
"As you become friends with people of other faiths," Campbell said, "you become more accepting towards people of all faiths and no faiths."
That, the authors say, is America's grace.
Church and state • A decade ago, Putnam made headlines around the world for his exploration of declining civic participation in his groundbreaking book, Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community. This time, he and Campbell turned their attention to the shifting nature of religious involvement.
They document what they describe as three seismic social shifts: the "socially tumultuous, sexually libertine 1960s," followed by a "prudish aftershock of growth in conservative religion," which, in turn, gave way to a negative reaction and a turn away from religion altogether by the younger generation.
"For many, their aversion to religion is rooted in unease with the association between religion and conservative politics," Putnam and Campbell argue. "If religion equals Republican, they have decided that religion is not for them."
This history has put politics at the center of American religion.
Drawing on data from extensive surveys in 2006-07, Putnam and Campbell conclude that Americans are more polarized than ever. The conservatives have migrated toward the most theologically conservative congregations, they write, while liberals have become less religious and more secular. And the moderate, essentially nonpolitical, middle has dropped almost entirely out of the religious landscape.
In all this movement, some unexpected results emerged.
Despite concern about organizing by religious conservatives, for example, liberal clergy are much more likely to speak about political issues over the pulpit.
And while today's young people of the so-called Millennial Generation are more likely to oppose abortion than their Baby Boomer parents, they also are highly accepting of homosexuality and same-sex marriage.
Religious Americans volunteer at much higher rates for religious and secular causes, give more money to religious and secular charities and are roughly twice as engaged in their communities as comparable secular Americans. But such believers also are less tolerant of dissent and less supportive of civil liberties than their nonbelieving peers.
The evidence suggests that the link between politics and religion is more complicated and nuanced than they expected, Campbell said. "We normally think of religion affecting politics, but we found that politics can drive religion."
Likability factor • According to the research by Putnam and Campbell, Jews are the most broadly popular group in America.
Next come Catholics, who seem to have risen in estimation since John F. Kennedy ran for president. Mainline Protestants are next, followed by evangelicals.
Mormons — who rank near the top for believing there is truth in other religions and for respecting the faiths of others — nonetheless are among the country's least-liked faiths, along with Buddhists and Muslims.
"After all of the church's efforts, public relations and attempts to emphasize Mormon goodness and assimilation, we are still the third most-hated religion in America," said Jana Riess, co-author of Mormonism for Dummies. "We like everyone, but almost no one likes us."
Riess said she often has been told by friends or associates that she is the first Mormon they have met and their opinion became more positive because of it.
"Looking at this research, it is important for Mormons to get out of our enclaves," she said. "We need to engage with the world as people who have something to learn as well as something to offer."
That's exactly what the authors concluded, too.
"It is clear from the research that Mormons act like an ethnic group," Campbell said. "That's where 'cocooning' comes in."
They marry their own and have fewer friends outside the faith.
"As a people," said Campbell, a Mormon who teaches at a Catholic university, "we need to do more reaching out across faith lines."
An inclusive eternity • Despite all the differences, 89 percent of Americans — including 83 percent of evangelical Christians — believe people not of their religion can go to heaven, according to the book's polls.
Most Americans maintain this belief, even when the overwhelming majority who are Christian are specifically asked if non-Christians can go to heaven. Mormons, who teach that theirs is the "only true church," ranked highest — 98 percent — for believing those of other faiths can go to heaven.
It could be because Mormons believe truth exists in every faith, Campbell said, and that everyone will see it more clearly in the hereafter. In fact, LDS doctrine teaches that everyone will have the chance to accept the Mormon gospel either here or in the afterlife. Mormons also believe that heaven is tiered and that many if not most people will find themselves at one level or another.
Not everyone is pleased by their congregants' perspective on heaven.
Putnam recently spoke to a group of conservative Lutheran clerics from the Missouri Synod, almost all of whom believe that people of other faiths are not candidates for the same eternal reward as they are.
When he told them that "86 percent of Missouri Synod Lutherans said that a good person who is not of their faith could indeed go to heaven," the "theologians were stunned into silence," according to Martin Marty, a premier American theologian who described the episode in an online column about the book.
One Lutheran minister wanly said that, as teachers of the word, they had failed, Marty writes. "Their work is cut out for them."
Reason to hope • The Putnam/Campbell analysis is "tremendously helpful in putting their finger on the problems," said Riess, acquisitions editor for Westminster John Knox Press and a religious-studies expert in Cincinnati. The authors identify political, racial and social polarization as main thrusts of American religion, she said, "and I can see that play out in key debates over homosexuality and gender."
Riess also likes the authors' emphasis on how to be good neighbors in a pluralistic melting pot. Putnam and Campbell conclude from their research that "religious Americans are better neighbors and more active citizens … than secular Americans."
But that isn't because of any theological positions or piety, they write. It is, rather, due to a faith's "network of morally freighted personal connections, coupled with an inclination towards altruism."
Riess seconds that impression.
"We are very practical," she said. "It is a lot easier for people of different faiths to get along if we play to those common values like neighborliness."
Given the Putnam/Campbell data, Riess said, that experiment is working.