IN SO MANY GODS WE TRUST

By Richard N. Ostling

There is no country in the world where the Christian religion retains a greater influence over the souls of men,'' Alexis de Tocqueville wrote of the U.S. in 1835. The same could be said of American men--and women--in 1995. In one of the most faith-drenched of all nations, the citizenry contributes $57 billion a year to religion, plus untold hours of volunteer labor. Four out of 10 adults regularly tell Gallup they attended worship in the past week--and even if that count is inflated by good intentions, it still vastly surpasses weekly professional-sports attendance. An overwhelming 95% of Americans profess belief in God.

But Tocqueville's Christian monopoly is no more. Though Christianity still dominates by sheer numbers, the U.S. ``now has a greater diversity of religious groups than any country in recorded history,'' observes J. Gordon Melton, who will list 1,600 denominations, 44% of them non-Christian, in his next Encyclopedia of American Religions. Half of these have blossomed since 1960; some are homegrown, others imported by immigrants. Judaism, the first faith to crack Christian hegemony, is today deeply rooted in the U.S., although it is being eroded by secularization, low birthrates and high levels of intermarriage. Some experts say ethnic Jews will be outnumbered by ethnic Muslims early in the 21st century.

Among Christians, the most remarkable development of the past generation has been the shifting balance of power between the shrinking mainline Protestant denominations (e.g., Episcopal, Methodist, Presbyterian) and the growing Evangelical congregations (including Fundamentalists, Pentecostals and Charismatics). Besides being in synch with conservative political trends, convert-minded Evangelicals are quick to shed traditions, holding Saturday- night worship, say, or replacing hymnals with song sheets and soft-rock bands. In many cities, they have built huge local congregations, offering every imaginable social service from counseling to fitness centers. John Vaughan, who tracks these Protestant Wal-Marts in Megachurches & America's Cities, says a quarter-century ago, 10 U.S. Protestant congregations reported weekly attendance of 2,000 or more. Today 400 churches make this claim, with a new giant joining the list every few weeks.

In fact, according to a survey by Ohio's University of Akron, Evangelicals now surpass even Roman Catholics as the largest sector of active churchgoers, though Catholicism has a vast official membership that counts all baptized infants. The Catholic Church remains powerful, but its esprit is being sapped by theological discord, not to mention declines in attendance at Mass, in parochial-school enrollment and in women's religious orders. The priesthood is attracting fewer and fewer new recruits, so that by the 21st century, many church functions will most likely be performed by laymen--and women. Meanwhile, Evangelicals are making inroads into the traditionally Catholic Hispanic populations.

Judging only by the best-seller lists, one might imagine that the spiritual focus in the U.S. had shifted to New Age phenomena and various patented forms of self-improvement. According to Martin Marty, a University of Chicago church historian, the success of such panaceas ``tells a lot about what human beings are, not merely secular and material.'' But he sees scant evidence that pop spirituality is producing any permanent institutions: ``People might buy the book, but it drops there. It's largely individual. The movement carries no social power.''

Certainly not the power of the Evangelical organizations, which contributed mightily to November's conservative landslide. If sociopolitical tastemakers were caught off guard, it may be because they have tarried too long in what Yale's Stephen Carter calls The Culture of Disbelief, which is definitely not the culture of the country now or in Toqueville's time.

--By Richard N. Ostling

With reporting by DAVID BJERKLIE AND SHARON E. EPPERSON/NEW YORK, ANN BLACKMAN/WASHINGTON AND RICHARD WOODBURY/DENVER. CHARTS RESEARCHED BY DEBORAH L. WELLS, KATHLEEN ADAMS, ELIZABETH L. BLAND, RATU KAMLANI AND RICHARD RUBIN