Synopsis
Many observers assume that America is a much less religious nation than it was forty years ago. According to Andrew Greeley, however, this is simply not true. Carefully analyzing surveys conducted over the past half-century, Greeley concludes that rates of church attendance, prayer, church membership, activity in church organizations, belief in life after death, and other measures of religious involvement have remained surprisingly constant.
Library Journal
Greeley, the eminent Catholic priest who is also a sociologist and popular novelist, provides a compelling overview of the survey data relating to popular religious belief and practice in the United States from 1940 to 1985. Using as his source the Gallup organization, the Survey Research Center of the University of Michigan, and the NORC at the University of Chicago, Greeley concludes that stability rather than secularization and change has characterized American religion over the past generation. He does, however, see evidence that humanae vitae provoked a major crisis in Catholic faith and practice in the Sixties and Seventies. Interestingly, Greeley finds no growth in biblical literalism. All large public and academic libraries should buy this account.-- Susan A. Stussy, St. Norbert Coll., De Pere, Wis.