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Religion in the United States is widespread, diverse, and vibrant, with the country being far more religious than other wealthy Western nations. An overwhelming majority of Americans believe in a higher power, engage in spiritual practices, and consider themselves religious or spiritual. Christianity is the most widely professed religion, with most Americans being Evangelicals, Mainline Protestants, or Catholics. Freedom of religion is guaranteed in the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. Many scholars of religion credit this and the country's separation of church and state for its high level of religiousness; lacking a state church, it completely avoided the experiences of religious warfare and conflict that characterized European modernization. Its history of religion has always been marked by religious pluralism and diversity. In colonial times, Anglicans, Quakers, and other mainline Protestants, as well as Mennonites, arrived from Northwestern Europe. Various dissenting Protestants who had left the Church of England greatly diversified the religious landscape. The religiosity of the country has grown greatly over time. Religious involvement among American citizens has gradually grown from 17% in 1776 to 62% in 2000. The Thirteen Colonies were initially marked by low levels of religiosity. The two Great Awakenings — the first in the 1730s and 1740s, the second between the 1790s and 1840s — led to an immense rise in observance and gave birth to many evangelical Protestant denominations. When they began, one in ten Americans were members of congregations; by the time they ended, eight in ten were. The aftermath led to what historian Martin Marty calls the "Evangelical Empire", a period in which evangelicals dominated U.S. cultural institutions. They supported measures to abolish slavery, further women's rights, enact prohibition, and reform education and criminal justice. The Episcopal Church, splitting from the Church of England, came into being in the American Revolution. New Protestant branches like Adventism emerged; Restorationists like the Jehovah's Witnesses, the Latter Day Saint movement, Churches of Christ and Church of Christ, Scientist, as well as Unitarian and Universalist communities all spread in the 19th century. Deism also found support among American upper classes and intellectual thinkers. During the immigrant waves of the mid to late 19th and 20th century, an unprecedented number of Catholic and Jewish immigrants arrived in the United States. Pentecostalism emerged in the early 20th century as a result of the Azusa Street Revival. Unitarian Universalism resulted from the merge of Unitarian and Universalist churches in the 20th century. The U.S. has the largest Christian and Protestant population in the world. 75% of Americans report praying often or sometimes and religion plays a very (46%) or fairly (26%) important role in their lives. Judaism is the second-largest religion in the U.S., practiced by 2% of the population, followed by Hinduism, Buddhism, and Islam, each with 1% of the population. Mississippi is the most religious state in the country, with 63% of its adult population described as very religious, saying that religion is important to them and attending religious services almost every week, while New Hampshire, with only 20% of its adult population described as very religious, is the least religious state. Congress overwhelmingly identifies as religious and Christian; both the Republican and Democratic parties generally nominate those who are. The Christian left, as seen through figures such as Martin Luther King Jr., Jimmy Carter, and William Jennings Bryan; along with many figures within the Christian right have played a profound role in the country's politics. History Ever since its early colonial days, when some Protestant dissenter English and German settlers moved in search of religious freedom, America has been profoundly influenced by religion. Throughout its history, religious involvement among American citizens has grown since 1776 from 17% of the US population to 62% in 2000. Approximately 35-40 percent of Americans regularly attended religious services from eighteenth-century colonial America up to 1940. That influence continues in American culture, social life, and politics. Several of the original Thirteen Colonies were established by settlers who wished to practice their own religion within a community of like-minded people: the Massachusetts Bay Colony was established by English Puritans (Congregationalists), Pennsylvania by British Quakers, Maryland by English Catholics, and Virginia by English Anglicans. Despite these, and as a result of intervening religious strife and preference in England the Plantation Act 1740 would set official policy for new immigrants coming to British America until the American Revolution. While most settlers and colonists during this time were Protestant, a few early Catholic and Jewish settlers also arrived from Northwestern Europe into the colonies; however, their numbers were very slight compared to the Protestant majority. Even in the "Catholic Proprietary" or colony of Maryland, the vast majority of Maryland colonists were Protestant by 1670. The text of the First Amendment in the U.S. Constitution states that "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." It guarantees the free exercise of religion while also preventing the government from establishing a state religion. However, the states were not bound by the provision, and as late as the 1830s Massachusetts provided tax money to local Congregational churches. Since the 1940s, the Supreme Court has interpreted the Fourteenth Amendment as applying the First Amendment to state and local governments. President John Adams and a unanimous Senate endorsed the Treaty of Tripoli in 1797 that stated: "the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion." Expert researchers and authors have referred to the United States as a "Protestant nation" or "founded on Protestant principles", specifically emphasizing its Calvinist heritage. The modern official motto of the United States of America, as established in a 1956 law signed by President Dwight D. Eisenhower, is "In God We Trust". The phrase first appeared on U.S. coins in 1864. According to a 2002 survey by the Pew Research Center, nearly 6 in 10 Americans said that religion plays an important role in their lives, compared to 33% in Great Britain, 27% in Italy, 21% in Germany, 12% in Japan, and 11% in France. The survey report stated that the results showed America having a greater similarity to developing nations (where higher percentages say that religion plays an important role) than to ot.... Discover the Barna Group Bob Goff popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Barna Group Bob Goff books.