蒙大英语国家-美国概况教案05 American Religion

1、PAGE PAGE 6Lecture Five American Religion Warming-up Questions1.Who were the first immigrants to America? They are mainly Protestants not in agreement with the Church of England.2.What are the main Protestant denominations?They are Baptists, Methodists and Presbyterians. 3.Which denomination is deri

2、ved directly from the Church of England?The Protestant Episcopal Church.4.Which is the largest Protestant group?The Baptists. Language studycongregation: 全体教徒persecution: 迫害counterbalance: 抵销，平衡doctrinaire: 教条主义的dissenter: 不信奉国教者outrage: 愤怒之极，伤害mythology: 神话 Detailed study1. Religious freedom in Ame

3、ricaReligion in America has never been identified with an oppressive or dominant social class or set of political institutions. The Pilgrim Fathers, and many of those who followed them, left Europe to be free to worship in their own way, not as the established authorities told them to. The church is

4、 a place where people can meet others with whom they would like to make friends. Religion for most people, is important mainly as a means of getting together with others in context which is so little defined that its values, expressing merely general good will, can be easily shared. Most clergymen r

5、un their churches in a way which fits in with the ideas of their congregations. People go to church and it helps them to feel that they have a place in a community. America is remarkable, as in the past, for its attachment to the principle of freedom of belief or disbelief. As the early Americans ha

6、d escaped from religious persecution in their old countries, so they were determined that there would be no religious oppression in the home they were building up. When the Bill of Rights in the United States Constitution was drawn up it began in its very first article by insisting that there should

7、 be no state religion, and complete freedom of belief and religious practice or non-belief has been jealously guarded from the beginning. Even around 1800 great care was taken to ensure that non-believers were not made subject to religious laws desired by those who are religious. Modern American rel

8、igious freedom in the law is often counterbalanced by a spontaneous social pressure in favor of religion, though not of any particular kind of religion. 2. religion and educationDevelopment of education in America was much influenced by religion in the early stages before and after Independence, but

9、 the government, even local government, had nothing to do with this. Public education grew up later in the nineteenth century. The Constitution seems to imply that public educational institutions should not provide religious instruction as part of the regular curriculum, and the Supreme Court recent

10、ly delivered a ruling to the effect that religious instruction in public schools was against the Constitution. Churches and organized religious bodies have not opposed such arguments, but have been ready to accept the idea that the religion of each person or of each group ought to stand on its own f

11、eet and to be quite distinct from government. 3. Protestantism3.1Protestantism identified to some extent with the idea of an Establishment, and for the older large Protestant groups to attract people who have secure personal prosperity. Just over three-fifths of all Americans are Protestants. These

12、are spread fairly widely among the different types of Protestant denominations. About two-thirds of the Protestants belong to denominations which had their origins wholly or mainly in Britain: Baptists, Methodists, Presbyterians, with much smaller numbers of Unitarians, Society of Friends and Salvat

13、ion Army. There groups, which in England are dissenters, have together ten times as many members in America as the last of the British denominations, that of the Church of England. Thus, although people of British origin are by now a small minority among foreign-born Americans, about half of all Ame

14、ricans have a link with Britain through their religion, and this fact well illustrates the place of Britain in the American culture. 3.2 The Protestant Episcopal Church. The Protestant Episcopal Church is derived directly from the Church of England, which it resembles in the form of its services and

15、 organization, though of course it lacks any connection with the state. Its adherents are often called Anglicans. Its origins can be traced to the non-rebellious element among the immigrants from England. Episcopalians in modern America include a high proportion of people with well paid jobs and con

16、sidering themselves to be of rather high social status, but their position is in some way equivalent to that of Episcopalians in Scotland. As in Scotland, this particular group is rather outside the main stream of Protestantism, though there may be a certain tendency for people who have ambitions fo

17、r social status to attach themselves to it. But a person who wishes to be elected to political office finds membership of this group a hindrance rather than otherwise. Rather similarly, America Presbyterianism has links with Scotland, though its surviving Scottish flavour has been more overlaid with

18、 Americanness than is the case with Anglicanism. 3.3The BaptistsThe Baptists are the largest Protestant group. From a beginning in the seventeenth century England the Baptists have continued on a small scale in modern England, where they are about one percent of the population. They also have some o

19、utposts, mainly based on nineteenth century missions, in Europe, Russia and all over the world. But in the United States they have their main strength, with twenty-five million members, divided among more than twenty branches, and concentrated particularly in the Southern Bible Belt. Some white sout

20、hern Baptists, including ministers, have liberal attitudes in relation to the Negroes, and stand up courageously in difficult circumstances for their belief in the equality of all human beings before God, whatever their colour. Meanwhile, most of the Negroes are Baptists too, but this does not mean

21、that black and white Baptists go to the same churches. In southern communities Negroes find their main social centre in their Baptist churches- and sometimes also a base from which to organize group action. 3.4 the MethodistsNext to the Baptists the most numerous Protestants are the Methodists, adhe

22、rents of the group which grew up in eighteenth century England following the lead of the clergyman John Wesley, who visited American then reluctantly drifted away from the Church of England, in which he was at first ordained, when he found that it was indifferent to the social and spiritual problems

23、 created by the beginnings of the industrial revolution. Most Methodists are united in the Methodist Church, which has a form of service based on that of the Church of England. Negro Methodists are mostly in two distinct African Methodist organizations. 3.5 the Society of FriendsOne might have expec

24、ted that the Society of Friends, or Quakers, would be one of the great American sects. One of the greatest states, Pennsylvania, was a Quaker foundation and for some time around 1700 the Quakers were the dominant group in New Jersey and Delaware. But the Friends do not go out to attract adherents, a

25、nd, as in England, they remain a very small and select group, with little over 100,000 members. They lost political power as a group long ago, because they insisted on making a really serous attempt to follow Christian morality, but many Quakers now hold important positions outside politics, and the

26、ir group is greatly respected. 3.6 CatholicsThe largest single religious group is that of Roman Catholics. More than one-quarter of all Americans are now of the Roman Catholic faith, and the majority of these are descendants of immigrants from Ireland, Italy and Poland. While the Protestants from Ge

27、rmany and Scandinavia tended to be very active in building up the middle west after the middle of the nineteenth century, most Catholics stayed nearer the east coast. They were concentrated especially in New York and Massachusetts, and are still a very important element of the population in those tw

28、o states. 3.7 Orthodox ChurchesThere are about five million members of the Orthodox Churches, mainly of course descendants of people who migrated from Russia or Greece or from other Orthodox parts of eastern Europe. It is probably safe to say that the Orthodox Church members are more outside the mai

29、n stream of American social and religious life, or less assimilated, than members of other religious bodies. Descendants of Orthodox immigrants tend to become assimilated by adopting another religion, usually Protestant. 3.8 JewishThree percent of all Americans are Jews, most of them originally from eastern Europe, including Russia. As far as their r