Religion in America

Catalog description

From a religious point of view, major historians have described America variously as a righteous empire, a lively experiment in pluralism and a nation with the soul of a church. As these descriptions, taken together hint, American religious history is colored by the existence of three distinct and often conflicting forces: evangelical piety, a political pluralism and a distinctive form of civil religion. This course will attempt to trace and to celebrate the enduring vitality of each of these forces throughout the history of the republic and to make the student aware of the tensions which have arisen and which continue to arise as a result of the divided pedigree of American religion. Topics to be covered will include the New England way, immigration and nativism, Manifest Destiny and the rise of indigenous American religious communities.