Americas Religious History.nfo
American Religious History
Why does America, unlike virtually any other industrial nation, continue to show so much religious vitality? Why are the varieties of religion found here so numerous and diverse?
You will examine religion not only as a set of formal beliefs, ideas, communal or institutional loyalties, and styles of worship, but also as an influence on life "beyond the pews." This will mean investigating the subtle but important links that have long brought religion into close contact with the intellectual, social, economic, and political concerns of Americans.
To give just one notable and recent example: Professor Allitt explains how Martin Luther King, Jr., mixed appeals from the Bible and the American "civil religion" to press the case for civil rights.
The Living Voice
After scene-setting lectures that explain the religious situation of Europe in the early-modern period and the spirituality of Native-American peoples, Professor Allitt moves on to discussions of religion during the colonial and founding eras.
These lectures cover the Puritans, the First Great Awakening, the Revolution, the flowering of uniquely American religious tendencies (such as Mormonism), the story of African-American religion, and the sectional crisis and Civil War.
Religion in a Changing Society
By the mid-19th century, the American religious landscape was growing more variegated. Large numbers of Catholics, first from Ireland and later from Germany, Poland, and Italy, were coming to what had been an overwhelmingly Protestant land. Growing numbers of Jewish immigrants further diversified the urban religious landscape later in the century. Both groups sometimes became targets of suspicion and intolerance.
A third challenge came from 19th-century discoveries in geology, biology, physics, archaeology, and comparative religion, all of which raised questions about the character and origins of the Bible. Evolution in particular presented a world of constant predation and strife, promising anything but divinely sponsored harmony.
Cherished First Amendment principles of church-state separation and religious freedom had to be applied, mid-century, to difficult cases involving minority religions. Professor Allitt explains how, in a string of controversial decisions, the Supreme Court struggled to balance these two principles.
20th-Century Challenges
America became a great power in the 20th century and played a leading role in the world wars and the Cold War. Religious Americans agonized over how they should respond. Debates over the ethics of force and memories of cataclysms like the Holocaust continue to haunt American religious life.
And religion stood at the center of the upheavals of the 1960s. Many black civil rights leaders were ministers, inspired by the message of the Gospel as well as the promise of the American founding. Religious convictions likewise intensified debates over the Vietnam War and helped to energize the feminist movement.
Some Americans who felt dissatisfied with the Judeo-Christian tradition turned to variants of Islam, or Asian spiritualities such as Zen Buddhism. New waves of immigrants brought their own versions of these traditions, sometimes bumping up against unfamiliar American versions of Buddhism, Islam, and Hinduism. The story of American religious vitality and diversity continues.
This course is a good choice in either audio or video. The video version is illustrated with hundreds of maps, paintings, historical photos, and on-screen graphics.
Part I
Lecture 1: Major Features of American Religious History
Lecture 2: The European Background
Lecture 3: Natives and Newcomers
Lecture 4: The Puritans
Lecture 5: Colonial Religious Diversity
Lecture 6: The Great Awakening
Lecture 7: Religion and Revolution
Lecture 8: The Second Great Awakening
Lecture 9: Oneida and the Mormons
Lecture 10: Catholicism
Lecture 11: African-American Religion
Lecture 12: The Civil War
Part II
Lecture 13: Victorian Developments
Lecture 14: Darwin and Other Dilemmas
Lecture 15: Judaism in the Nineteenth Century
Lecture 16: Fundamentalism
Lecture 17: War and Peace
Lecture 18: Twentieth-Century Catholicism
Lecture 19: The Affluent Society
Lecture 20: The Civil Rights Movement
Lecture 21: The Counterculture and Feminism
Lecture 22: Asian Religions
Lecture 23: Church and State
Lecture 24: The Enduring Religious Sensibility
Roadside Signs: American Religious Vitality and the Study of History
By Professor Patrick N. Allitt
"When I first came to America in the late 1970s, I was very surprised to find the people among whom I was now living to be so religious, and particularly surprised to find that religious issues played a large role in many public controversies.
"Why is it that religion is still such a large and important part of American life? Scholars have advanced many theories to explain this, and I will review some of them in the course of these lectures.
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