Melton: From the Occult to Western Esotericism
Overview of the Religious Situation
Religious life in America has shifted significantly in the last half of the twentieth century, and that shift begins with Christianity. From the founding of the United States to the recent past, Christianity has been on an upward trajectory. When the dust of the American Revolution settled and the new constitution took effect, adherence to the Christian cause was at a low ebb. Only 10 to fifteen percent of the public were church members. This is understandable in light of the fact that the American colonies had been populated by those Europeans who had the weakest ties to traditional social structures built around the land, family life and the church in the countries from which they came. While some very religious people came to the colonies to experience religious freedom, they were but a small minority. The vast majority came to escape oppressive economic conditions. The history of religion through most of the nineteenth and twentieth century has been one of the growth of Christian churches and their spread to every corner of the nation. Through camp meetings and the new measures they birthed, and later an innovative urban evangelism, by the end of the nineteenth century, church membership reached above 30 percent and by World War II finally claimed half of the population. By the end of the twentieth century, Christian church membership has reached above 70 percent of the population. Present-day America is the heir of an unprecedented history, with seventy plus percent of its citizenry having freely chosen to identify themselves as Christians quite apart from the physical pressure of the government. Amid all the jeremiads about America as a post-Christian land, we should be aware that our image of the post-Christian world has largely emanated from Europe, also a unique contemporary phenomenon as the only place on the globe where religions seem to be in decline. Meanwhile, in America, we reside in a land in which the major religious trend of the previous century has been the decline in the number of religiously unaffiliated from above 60 percent to less than 15 percent and the growth of Christianity from 35 percent to over 70 percent. Whatever we say about the growth of other religions in America, such growth has occurred simultaneously with the even larger growth of Christianity. Much of the expansion of America Christianity has been obscured by its many divisions. There are over 1000 Christian denominations in America, and among Evangelicals there has been an active search for a post-denominational structure. We tend to judge the relative vibrancy of the Christian world through the lens of our individual placement within the larger community and what is occurring in our own denominational home. Many have been affected by the stagnancy in growth or even decline in some older groups as Christianity has saturated the American population. Others have been disturbed by the seeming inability of the
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