Religion

Secularization question

Social Change

Politics and political leadership

Civil religion

Race

Evangelism and the New right

Religious Plurality

David Hollinger - 'De-Christianisation'. Look at what is left, not what has been lost. What is 'religion' in America and how does an expansion of our definition influence out understanding of 'secularization'? Assumes an international historical perspective which posits the American experience of religion as exceptional

Michael O'Brien - Need to stop assuming that religion in America has always been trying to take over the apparatus of the state. The story of religion has been more about the negotiation of boundaries. If religious groups took over the state, they wouldn't be able to offer themselves up as an answer to the ills of citizens

The 'Religious Marketplace'

Mark A Smith - Secular culture has consistently shaped religious culture more than religious culture has shaped secular culture. Even the most conservative religious groups have all come round to changes in American society, albeit on a different time line

David Sehat - Myth of religious freedom. The 'moral establishment' were established as the foundation of public good at least until 1940/. But - what about everyday experiences and the way in which minority religions have been able to carve out a space for themselves which might have acted in defiance of this predominantly protestant notion of 'public good'

Michael Hestrom - rise of liberal, spiritual cosmopolitanism defies the narrative of the inevitable rise of the evangelical right which has been retrospectively constructed

Robert Bellah - first articulated the idea of the civil religion. Made a indispensable contribution to the unity of the American nation

Constitutional development of 'secularization' - 1st amendment, 1791


Minnersvile School Distrcit vs Gobitis, 1940: Prayers. Overtunred in 1943. Important as had originally been defended on the basis that it was central to national unity


Everson vs Board of Ed, 1947 - funding of catholic school buses not found to violate the first amend, but applied the due process clause to 14th amend. Laws applying to the states


Engel vs Vitale - outlawed school prayers, 1962


Us vs Seeger - 1965 - non-theistic religions without deities. Recognition of religious plurality in American society

During the years of the 'culture wars' and conservative ascendancy, there have been some concessions which have blurred the boundary again:


  • Bowen vs Kendrick, 1988: religious groups can participate in federally funded family life and sex counselling

Pew Forum report, 2009 - 24% attended services of faiths other than their own. 23% doing Yoga, 2012 1/3 of under 30s had no religious affiliation (not just about plurality, but a plurality that clearly divides along generational lines?)


1948 - Normal Peale's confident guide to living

Welded closely to the goals of the state - JP Herzog's 'spiritual-industrial complex'

Foundation for Religious Action called for religion to be used in South Korea

1942: National Association of Evangelicals = first evangelical lobbyist group.

Manufacturing of civil religion' in the 1950s? 1954: 'one nation under god'

Mark A Smith - secular culture has shaped religious culture, not the other way round.

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Jack Butler - 'jack in the box' history. Focuses on fundamentalism and then doesn't recognise the importance of religion again until the rise of the evangelical right in the 1970s/80s

George Marsden - Although militant opposition to modernity did set fundamental christianity apart from its close neighbours, it was still ultimately more concerned with doctrine than it was with reforming society Fundamentalism - John Roach Straton of NY - preached about the sin rife in the inter-war years, but stressed more than anything that the 'bible' was the foundation of everything that was decent and right. Concerned above all with doctrinal observation.

We can't construct a binary between 'religion' and 'society'. Religious groups themselves have encouraged greater acceptance of tolerance - Tolerance Trio in 1933 . Inter-faith cooperation in the suburbs around route 128. Set up of 'Universal Fellowship of Met. Community Churches' in 1968 - gay churches

Modernity - Robert Orsi, St. Jude in Catholic immigrant communities from 1940 onwards. Use of modern comms technologies: Father Charles Fuller's 'Old Fashioned Revival Hour', 20 mil weekly listeners by 1943

Religions actively being shaped by trends in American society: Mormons, 1978 blacks, 1890 banned polygamy

Culture wars in 1990s: 'battle for the soul of America'. Stemmed from Jerry Falwell's 'Moral Majority'

Edward Blum - 'shape-shifting totem of white supremacy'

JB Haws - Rise of religious right meant that religion entered the mainstream of political discourse. George Romney --> Mitt Romney. 2007 NBC poll finds that 53% of respondents would feel very uncomfortable with voting for a mormon president

Sr. and Episcopal Church

Electoral support - transformed landscape in the south. 80% of white evangelicals voting for Reagan

R. Lawrence Moore: No-one gets an advantage from being religious when state and society are separate. Religions therefore have to 'respond' to the 'demands' of their customers. Has led to a model of success which is predominantly base on growth as a key indicator of success

Clarence Jordan - visited b the KKK when he came out in favour of civil rights

Daniel K Williams - By the 1970s, the GOP had managed to firmly embed themselves within the apparatus of the GOP

Suburbs around route 128 - Robert Drinnan was catholic dem who beat mod republican. Talked aobut civil rights and social issues. Inter-faith cooperation in

Church attendance up from 40-45% in 1890 to 60-65% in 1980s

Regional Variation

Charles Reagan Wilson - Civil religion in the south. Keep the bible that Jefferson Davis was sworn in with. United Daughters of the Confederacy

Civil rights - language of the bible was a language which MLK could speak to white-middle classes in

But black churches had been a key strength of the civil rights movement - George Freeman Bragg in 1922, a black minister, wrote how enlightenment, conversion and negro churches had been the positives of slavery