Robert Putnam of Harvard University revealed significant shifts in attitudes toward religion over the past 50 years during his Stanford Presidential Lecture Monday evening at the Hewlett Teaching Center.

The professor of public policy at Harvard University published the results, based on a five-year study and surveys on American religious and civic life, in his latest book, American Grace:  How Religion Divides and Unites Us.

"We're surprisingly tolerant," Putnam said of Americans, who were once part of a more religious country.

The biggest religious shift occurred in the 1960s and was illustrated by two covers from Time magazine. The 1959 cover was a photograph of a "typical" American family going to church, while the 1966 cover simply had the title, "God is Dead."

During that turbulent decade, church attendance dropped 10 percent, and people became more secular. Taboos against premarital sex disappeared. But evangelical Christians and other Americans were deeply troubled by what they considered moral degradation.

In the 1970s and 1980s, they promoted "family values," and "Religious Right" became a political movement. Evangelical Christians grew from 23 percent of Americans to 28 percent during these two decades.

But by 1990, many Americans were repulsed by the politicization of religion, and there was a rapid rise in the number of people who said they had no religion. They were not necessarily atheists—they were just turned off by organized religion. While historically only 5 percent of the population responded "None" when asked for their religion, 30 percent answered "None" in 1990.

Also historically, until 1990 there was no correlation between politics and religion. But since then, the correlation—religious people tending to be conservative and secular people being liberal—has become more acute.

Putnam found that people actually changed their religion to fit their politics.

According to Putnam, Americans feel warmest toward Jews, Catholics and mainline Protestants. People in this country value religious diversity and overwhelmingly believe good people of other religions, even non-Christians, can go to heaven.

Putnam also found that religious people are more likely than secular people to be generous in contributing and volunteering for both secular and religious causes. "Theology has nothing to do with it," he said. "How many friends you have at your house of worship determines how generous you are."

Putnam is now conducting a parallel study of religion in the United Kingdom, where the typically secular British are concerned about an influx of religious newcomers.