ABSTRACT
American religion at the end of the 1980s seems to be simultaneously experiencing a revival and a crisis. New churches are proliferating, but the importance of overarching denominational structures may be diminishing. Some religious groups are experiencing a heady growth, while others, including some of the once-dominant mainline Protestant denominations, are declining and arguably are being “ disinherited.” Resurgent fundamen talists and evangelicals are flexing their political muscles, but religious conflict and controversiality is sharpening and the religious unity or harmony of the American people is a fading vision. Church-state tension is increasing and religiopolitical ideologies or variations of civil religion are polarizing. Young Americans of the Baby Boom generation are exhib iting a marked interest in religion, but their patterns of church shopping and church switching seem to reflect a consumerist orientation to religion that destabilizes particular commitments. Occult, New Age, and neopagan beliefs and practices are spreading, but they often seem to resist firm organization so that the survival of many new groups may be in doubt.
