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Reprinted from the forthcoming book entitled, "What America stands for," a symposium by Notre Dame committee on international relations.

In contemporary America institutional religion — the great religious bodies, Protestant, Catholic, and Jewish — grows with a vigor equalled only in the early decades of the nineteenth century. In the last two decades church membership has increased at a ratio twice that of the rapidly accelerating population. Nearly every American affirms that he is a Protestant, Catholic, or Jew while three out of every five are actually members of one of the more than two hundred denominations which dot the religious landscape. In a period marked by economic depression, global war, and efforts to contain Communist totalitarianism, Americans look to religion as a major defense of democracy and the "American way of life."

In contemporary US institutional religion grows with a vigor equalled only in the early decades of the 19th cent. From the earliest days before independence it was realized that religious liberty was the only workable rule in a land of increasing religious diversity. Yet contemporary trends indicate that America is being steadily transformed from a predominantly Protestant into a more or less equally Protestant, Cath & Jewish country. However, in some degree tension & conflict truly mirror the US religious scene; but religious individualism has not obscured the soc vision of the many Churches. IPSA.

For more than a century* private philanthropy has loomed large on the social horizon of American cities. Their governments, as inept and clumsy as they were politically corrupt, were not readily entrusted with delicate social service functions. Happily for urban welfare, Americans not only extolled the great virtue of charity but conspicuously practiced it. As no other people, they have made relief of human misery a part of their life purpose, devoting time, thought and money to the task regardless of its source: in some calamity of nature or in social maladjustment such as urban poverty, industrial conflict or world misunderstanding. Besides giving for giving's sake as befits religious folk—they have characteristically expected handsome dividends on their investment either in the way of improved character development or in more reasonable and just social arrangements. Many wage-earners and social reformers feared, it is true, that the benevolent enterprise might dull the people's desire for a better economic order. By and large, however, charity in America has been an aid and auxiliary of justice rather than its substitute.