How did religion affect the mindset of the average American in the 1990s?

Different religious beliefs by Americans definitely helped
shaped opinions on hot button issues like abortion, euthanasia, and gay marriage during
the 1990s.  The 1990s saw a significant number of evangelical Christians carry on the
political agendas of organizations like the Moral Majority from the 70s and 80s. This
included a clear stance against abortion, euthanasia, and gay marriage.  However, many
mainline Christian denominations made a more liberal turn where they became increasingly
more open to things like gay marriage as seen in the many churches that adopted polices
allowing gay ministers.

Another aspect to consider is the
affects postmodernism has had on religious beliefs in America. After the collapse of the
Soviet Union and subsequent end of the Cold War, and after racial and ethnic genocides
in the Balkans and Africa, many people in the West began to openly question modernist
notions of reality just like after the two World Wars. Many religious and nonreligious
people alike became uncomfortable with claims to absolute truth or certainty. They saw
the absolutist claims of Hitler, Stalin, Slobodan Milosevic, fanatical Muslim
terrorists, and even televangelists as dangerous to society. Postmodernism begs the
questions of what is truth and how can we know it along with if an individual claims to
know truth, how can we know that he or she really does know the
truth?

As a result of the explosion of postmodernism in
America during the 90s, people of all faiths, as well as the irreligious, have begun to
question foundational beliefs and doctrines with fresh perspectives and a more skeptical
outlook. The results were as different as the number of faiths in American society. For
some, postmodernism led them away from their faith in any type of official religion to a
more individualized form where they ultimately decide what they think is truth. For
these people any hint of someone or some institution trying to tell them what is truth
is seen as an invasion of privacy and disrespectful to their freedom of choice. For
others, postmodernism strengthened their faith as they shed some old assumptions and
embraced their faith in new and exciting ways. Rather than feeling threatened by other
religions, many of these people were more open to working with people of different
faiths. Others, like fundamentalists of different religions, saw postmodernism as a
threat to the belief in absolute truth itself and dug in their heels more in order to
protect their faith's truth claims.

Religion has always
affected the average American, but American religions like all others are not static
sets of beliefs that are practiced the exact same way over long periods of time. No,
religions change with the changes of society and the postmodern affects during the 1990s
on American religion can clearly be seen today.