Religious pluralism has characterized America almost from its seventeenth-century inception, but the past half century or so has witnessed wholesale changes in the religious landscape, including a proliferation of new spiritualities, the emergence of widespread adherence to "Asian" traditions, and an evangelical Christian resurgence. These recent phenomena--important in themselves as indices of cultural change--are also both causes and contributions to one of the most remarked-upon and seemingly anomalous characteristics of the modern United States: its widespread religiosity. Compared to its role in the world's other leading powers, religion in the United States is deeply woven into the fabric of civil and cultural life. At the same time, religion has, from the 1600s on, never meant a single denominational or confessional tradition, and the variety of American religious experience has only become more diverse over the past fifty years. Gods in America brings together leading scholars from a variety of disciplines to explain the historical roots of these phenomena and assess their impact on modern American society.

Gods in America boasts a stunning list of notable contributors... this collection is not only an exceptional survey of the topic and a thorough introduction to many of its related themes, but is also a useful collection for thinking about fruitful questions for the future. * Religion in American History *
There is no better point of entry to the study of American religious diversity that this carefully constructed volume of essays by leading scholars of the various faith traditions now visible in the United States. The authors not only present the most important historical facts, but reflect discerningly on the theoretical issues of pluralism and authenticity. * David A. Hollinger, Preston Hotchkis Professor, University of California, Berkeley *

Charles L. Cohen is Professor of History and Religious Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Ronald L. Numbers is Hilldale Professor of the History of Science and Medicine at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.