Public Religion and the Social Order

Catalog description

This seminar will study the religious dimensions of secular, social behavior by uncovering the experiences of ultimacy or sacrality in political, economic and social institutions, myths and behavior. Students will investigate a variety of ways that religious persons and groups have used historically both to interpret and to interact with the social order. In addition, the effect of changes in the political and social order upon religious communities and traditions will also be examined. Primary attention will be devoted to religion and the social order in the United States of America.