As a leading modern industrial society, the USA is exceptional in the diversity and vitality of its religious life. Tocqueville had already made this observation in Democracy in America, the point of departure for the present essay. As Herberg noted in Protestant-Catholic-Jew, religion and ethnicity came together at the turn of the century to provide an important category of social identity to new groups of immigrants. We argue that a major factor in the absence of a labor party in the USA - another dimension of American exceptionalism - stems from the strength of ethnoreligious identity. To further the analysis of Tocqueville and Herberg, this paper considers that for Protestants, Catholics and Jews, respectively, the American experience has been exceptional.
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