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America’s Ever-Changing Religious Landscape: Where We’ve Come From and Where We’re Going

Richard N. Ostling
RNO
Richard N. Ostling

March 1, 1999

The story of religion in the United States is the story of immigration. Ongoing waves of newcomers to this country, in combination with internal developments, have assured that no nation on earth has experienced such wholesale changes in its religious makeup or had such a lavish variety of faiths from which to choose. A brief survey of the past two centuries illustrates the point—and suggests no diminution of the trend in the future.