This past week we began reading Mark Chaves’ book American Religion. In the first couple of chapters, he discussed trends in the population and different religious beliefs. What stuck with me in chapter two was his discussion of diversity in the religion. Chaves talked about how people’s everyday lives are becoming more diverse. That with time, more people have people of other religions and race. Although even with this increase in diversity in the country, churches still remain some of the most segregated areas of the country. This was never something that I’ve never thought about, but when he brought up the saying “11 a.m. Sunday is the most segregated hour of the week”, it made a lot of sense to me (p.27). Since I’ve always viewed America as a racially diverse country, hearing that there was still segregation was shocking, but not surprising. I have studied the past of racial segregation and discrimination in America and around the world and know theoretically that the effects of that are still not gone, it is shocking to see statistics about it because it’s nothing I’ve ever seen with my own eyes. As my family is not religious, while visiting the US and living here for a few months, I have not been to a church so I have not seen the environments that are there. I have always visited cities or towns that are very welcoming of diversity and have become accustomed to that being the way things are.