ShareThisEvery so often the nation's pollsters indulge their habit of asking people of religious faith precisely what it is that they believe.
Recently, the Pew Forum on Religion and American Life revisited the issue of religious faith and pronounced American spirituality to be a melange of traditional belief, fantasy, and mythology.
The Pew report is titled "Many Americans Mix Multiple Faiths."
For the first time in 47 years of asking these questions, the forum discovered that a slim majority of Americans now claim to have experienced a "moment of sudden religious insight or awakening" in their lives.
In earlier surveys, this "born-again" experience was reported overwhelmingly by evangelical Christians rather than by members of the mainstream churches. The new survey finds that religious and mystical experiences are reported more often by unaffiliated Americans than by faithful Christians.
If this be true, churchgoers are no more likely to experience "moments of sudden religious insight or awakening" than Americans who sleep in on Sunday morning.
Other revelations: One-third of American churchgoers also attend services of denominations other than their own. Thirty percent of Protestants and 20 percent of Catholics also worship in other churches.
Pew's summary of its findings states that many Americans "also blend Christianity with Eastern or New Age beliefs such as reincarnation, astrology, and the presence of spiritual energy in physical objects."
Moreover, "sizable minorities (up to 29 percent) of all major U.S. religious groups report having experienced supernatural phenomena, such as being in touch with the dead or with ghosts."
Nearly one in four Americans treat yoga not just as an exercise regimen but also as a religious practice. In addition, 16 percent of adults believe in the evil eye, a power possessed by some people to cast curses or spells that cause harm to others.
It would be easy to condemn loose and fanciful thinking in matters of religion, but it is in the long American tradition of assembling our faiths from many ingredients. Thomas Paine, the American prophet of democracy, resisted orthodoxy, proclaiming instead, "I am my own church."
Religious people act according to their beliefs, so faith and morality go hand in hand, at least in principle. But when faith is fuzzy and inarticulate, morality is unpredictable, often dominated by little more than good intentions.
Moral behavior is something else altogether. It demands service to others, even to the sacrifice of one's own life.
Faith, after all, is more than sentiment or the sum of one's untested opinions about religion. Faith is what moves us to make decisions and to act on them.
David Yount's new book is "Making a Success of Marriage: Planning for Happily Ever After" (Rowman & Littlefield). He answers readers at P.O. Box 2758, Woodbridge, VA 22195 and dyount31(at)verizon.net.
AMAZING GRACE
