At the church I visited, many of the parents had returned to regular church-going for the sake of their children, because they wanted their children to have a spiritual foundation. However, the manifestation of their spirituality was social, not simply individual. Many of the children were part of a youth group, and knew one another as friends. They went on retreats together, bonded at prayer meetings, as well as talked and joked about non-church related things. All of the regular members had made a substantial investment of time and effort in the community, and even those who mostly came on holidays clearly felt that church-going was something they 'should' do, to show their respect for the community, their faith, and perhaps most importantly of all for the sake of a familial tradition. Religion is not something that can be performed alone: even solitary prayer connects someone to beliefs, actions, and words of the past.

3. How are religious groups shaped in part by cultural elements, and how do religious groups engage or affect secular culture? Be sure to include observations of cultural elements in the religious experience at the site you visited to support your conclusions.

Even in America, a supposedly secular culture, the calendar year is governed by Christian celebrations, such as Christmas holidays and Easter holidays. Christianity has a strong emphasis on individuality: the individual soul's redemption is the focus of the faith, rather than the individual's responsibility to an earthly community, as was the case in other ancient religions. Also, Christianity was unusual in the ancient world as a religion 'of the book' that was portable to various societies through preaching. Because it was not tied to a specific nationality, eventually the idea of religion as a separate category, as something inherently different from what was secular and civic, was created. The notion of religion...

Some religious groups, for example, have tried to lobby legislative bodies to enact a conservative social agenda, while other link their faith to social activism, compassion to the poor, support for Israel, or simply freedom of worship (Gligoff 2010). In the group I visited, there was an implied support for what could be called 'conservative' talking points, such as supporting the troops at war without question, a lack of support for gay marriage, and a support of pro-life causes. But there was also a substantial amount of volunteerism to help the homeless, as evidenced by the flyers and literature around the church. Other than volunteering to help the needy, political conservatism was more implied rather than overtly stated, perhaps out of a desire not to alienate any church-goer who might be more liberal than his or her felloe congregants.