ABSTRACT
American religion, like all other institutions, has made major adjustments in response to changes in the size and scope of the nation, but as the institution most intimately linked with values it has shown the tenacity exhibited by the value system itself. The historic American pattern of a more secularized higher status religion has been well described by Baltzell, who points out that, from the beginning of the nineteenth century, men often turned to the Episcopal Church as they became well-to-do. The separation of the church and state has increasingly given religion per se a specific rather than a diffuse role in American society. The special pressure on churches to proselytize and to tolerate each other, brought about by "voluntarism", is reinforced by another particular trait of American society–its geographic, and mobility. Secularity has been cited as a persistent trait of American religion and cannot simply be attributed to an increase in socially motivated church-going in the past few decades.
