Southern Maine Community College: Religion and American Ethics

This essay examines the profound influence of religion on the ethical perspectives of Americans. It begins by tracing the historical impact of Christianity, emphasizing its role in shaping social contracts and values within the United States. The essay acknowledges the evolving influence of religion in public life, discussing both positive and negative aspects. It explores the ethical considerations that arise, particularly in relation to political and social issues. The essay also touches upon the boundaries between religious influence and civil society, emphasizing the importance of ethical decision-making and the diverse perspectives within American society. The conclusion highlights the ongoing significance of religious ethics and its impact on individual and collective values, providing a nuanced view of the interplay between faith and ethics in American life, and the sources used to write the essay. The assignment is available on Desklib for students to get help.

Running Head: INFLUENCE OF RELIGION ON AMERICA’S ETHICAL PERSPECTIVE
Topic: Influence of Religion on America’s ethical perspective
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1INFLUENCE OF RELIGION ON AMERICA’S ETHICAL PERSPECTIVE
Religion has become one of the basic things for the social contracts and ethical
perspectives of America. America’s growth as a Christian country dates back to the invasion
of the British colonizers and the successive arrival of the Christian Catholic priests whose
only mission was to convert the local people into Christianity (Johnstone 2015). Since then,
Christian religion has played a massive part in the American society as well as their ethical
perspectives.
In the recent times, it has been shown that the religion has lost some of its grip and
influence in the public life of America. This has some positive and some negative aspects
together. The practice of getting too much biased on the religious part will definitely make
the common people take some illogical decisions in difficult situations (Johnstone 2015).
Therefore, it is always important that the balance should always be maintained in this
scenario. Some people have opined that this is a very good thing while others believe this is a
very negative aspect in terms of the social development (Haynes 2014).
Recently, some surveys have been made and the results show that around two thirds
of the common Americans say that the impact of religion should not affect the politics,
business and other matters. Some persons have also opined in this context that the churches
must not come in the way of giving some particular candidate some special advantage in the
elections (Gur 2015).
Therefore, it is definitely very interesting aspect that churches have played an
important role in helping the people to fix their standpoints on the society. Moving on to the
next question of ethics, it must be pointed out that Christian ethics have been very significant
in most of the countries. Since some people say that the religious organizations have done
more harmful effects than its good ones, the ethical considerations have often helped the
people to take crucial decisions (Gur 2015).

2INFLUENCE OF RELIGION ON AMERICA’S ETHICAL PERSPECTIVE
The Congress of the United States has made the boundaries between the influence of
the organized religion and the civil society. In the society of the United States, no particular
religion is given the partial preference (Bauman, Bohannon and O'Brien 2017). All the people
in the society are permitted to practice all their religions freely. The negative influence of the
religion can be found when a particular person gets the preferential advantages in the state or
federal elections of the country.
This is an undue advantage and all the sections of the country and ethniticies must
begin the protests against that. The pervasiveness in the society should be all encompassing
and it should not give any unethical preference to anyone.
The society of United States is divided about the influence of the religion. Still, they
are always very hopeful regarding the ethical influence of the religion on their minds
(Bauman, Bohannon and O'Brien 2017). They can acknowledge and differentiate between the
good and bad through messages of the Bible as Jesus provided.
The conclusion of the paper can be drawn by saying that religion has mixed
influences on the society of United States but most Americans believe in the ethical
considerations of the religion over the individuals.

3INFLUENCE OF RELIGION ON AMERICA’S ETHICAL PERSPECTIVE
References
Bauman, W.A., Bohannon, R. and O'Brien, K.J. eds., 2017. Grounding religion: A field guide
to the study of religion and ecology. Taylor & Francis.
Gur, S., 2015. The effects of religion on the immigration process in the USA: An
experiment. International Relations and Diplomacy, 3(1), pp.28-40.
Haynes, J., 2014. Religion in global politics. Routledge.
Johnstone, R.L., 2015. Religion in society: A sociology of religion. Routledge.