Everybody Talkin’ ‘Bout Heaven: Dogma, The Sixth Sense, End of Days, and Establishments of Religion

The greatest and most explosive diversity in this famously diverse America lies in the profusion of its active religions. As much as it has been stitched together out of people from various nations speaking of a variety of languages, of various racial origins, multiple social classes, incompatible ideologies, and motley lifestyles, American society shows a spectrum of religions of which it refuses studiously to take official notice. It has done so from its beginning and remains proud of it and calls attention to it even=n in the First Amendment to the Constitution. In contrast to its other characteristics diversities, American faiths are not supposed to be boiled down in a melting pot to single national form. When such uniformity appears, it causes some embarrassment rather than simple ecumenical pride.