One nation under God

America is one of the few countries where so many religions flourish side by side. Each religion has pockets of influence, and some hold sway over large regions - such as the Baptist church in the South, the Catholic church in the Northeast, and the Mormon church in Utah. Yet larger than any denomination is America's emerging civic religion - Protestant in flavor - which gives as much emphasis to the Fourth of July or Thanksgiving as it does to any sectarian holiday. Few major surveys of religion have been conducted in America until now. By participating in a commercial, computer-generated telephone survey, Barry Kosmin and Seymour Lachman were able to sample 113,000 people across the continental United States, making their National Survey of Religious Identification, the most extensive of its kind in contemporary America. One Nation Under God contains the fascinating and, at times, surprising results of their survey and analysis, giving unprecedented insight into the changing forces that shape our politics and beliefs, and the powerful social dynamics that make this country unique.