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This introductory chapter discusses the continuity in American religiosity between 1972 and 2008. Some might see American optimism reflected in the fact that more people believe in heaven than in hell. Others might see American individualism reflected in the fact that more people think that God is concerned about human beings personally than say that they know God exists, or in the fact that following one's conscience ranks higher than following the teachings of one's religion on the list of what it means to be a good Christian or Jew. The chapter emphasizes that these items all share the remarkable characteristic that none of them has changed much in recent decades. By world standards, Americans remain remarkably religious in both belief and practice.

Chapter one commences with a thematic pattern within black religious thought that illustrates the various ways African Americans have sought to humanize their existence and flourish as a people. These examples underscore the functional value of black religiosity and distinguish it as one of the highest aspirations of African American character, namely, its claim on life. The chapter then illustrates the value of this functionalist approach to black religiosity in setting it within a wider conceptual context: a modern Euro-American philosophical trajectory that shifted attention away from the traditional object of faith (deity) to emphasize human subjectivity. Exposing the lethal effects of this “enlightened” humanistic discourse became necessary for black religious-intellectual culture. Along with post-Enlightenment cultural critiques, black intellectuals targeted an influential cultural ethos, replete with deficient models of humanity supported by influential forms of racialized reasoning. These important insights help make possible the coherency and intelligibility of the notion of sacred humanity.

This introductory chapter presents the major problem addressed in the book, states the thesis, and provides the context for the book, as well as its structure. Evoking W. E. B. Du Bois’s early twentieth-century sentiment that African Americans seek a new religious ideal emerging from past convictions, this chapter contemplates several questions: What might constitute a new African American religious ideal in the twenty-first century? How might one see it emerging from past convictions? Is it possible to grasp a fuller sense of the rich, layered texture of African American religiosity with this new principle? In addressing these questions, this chapter introduces a naturalistic framework for grasping the evolving nature of African American religiosity today. It also introduces the concept of sacred humanity that will be developed in later chapters, supported by available knowledge from science studies, critical theories in philosophy of religion, and the tenets of religious naturalism.

This chapter talks about how Korean American Protestant students at elite universities are more likely to maintain ethnic solidarity and group identity because of hybridized ethnoreligion. In the racialized university environment, Korean Americans are lumped with other Asian Americans in programs and studies. In choosing which campus organizations to attend, Korean American students have organizational options already based on ethnicity, accepting these racialized and ethnic identities as “the way things are.” The chapter's findings reveal that not only are Korean Americans more Protestant and religiously observant than their fellow Asian Americans are, but their churches are also more likely to be racially insular compared to other minorities. This insularity stems from a worldview that unifies Korean and Protestant identities. This merging of ethnic and religious identities is a process of hybridization that takes on uniquely American characteristics.

This chapter presents a historical account that helps us to understand Latin America’s religious present. Latin American religious history gives us a better understanding of the Latin American cultural background. Western religious traditions (Catholicism, Protestantism, secularism, evangelism) came to Latin American with different colonial powers: Spain, Portugal, the United Kingdom, France, and the United States. However, Latin America’s religious history also shows the agency of Latin American peoples, the ability to create and recreate practices and locations for religion in the public sphere, as we can find Native and Afro traditions like Umbanda and Santería. The agency of the people, and the influence of religious figures in the public realm, have been part of the Latin American religious experience.

The spiritual lives of American Nones follow a path of religious creativity and invention common to not only Nones but also “Somes,” as one might call the religiously affiliated. The author’s journey across historical and contemporary American spiritual landscapes begins in the introduction with a labyrinth walk with Dorit Brauer, a Spiritual None whose diverse, eclectic, self-authorized spiritualities sparked an early interest in the topic. Setting the stage for pilgrimages with Nones across the United States requires moving well beyond recent demographic data on the religiously unaffiliated and into their everyday experience of the spiritual. Here, the usual measures—belief in God, worship attendance, regular prayer—are increasingly less meaningful indicators of the extent or depth of American religiosity or spirituality.

This chapter examines what we learn from the religious experience of these Latin American respondents of lower socioeconomic status: religion as a relationship, and Latin American modernity as a construction that leaves room for a religious, spiritual presence. The chapter presents what respondents’ religious practices tell us about religion in general, the idea of religion as a relation, and a portrait of the Latin American religious landscape as “enchanted modernity.”