Religions in America

Week 14 = Dialogue and Reconciliation

2009-12-04T14:34:00.000-08:00

M 12/7 Principles of Interfaith Dialogue
Reading: Eck, Ch 7

In-class links: Meet Eboo Patel, Houston Dinner Dialogue, PC(USA) Interfaith Toolkit

W 12/9 Reconciliation
Reading: Feldman Ch 7-8

Final Project Due ~~in Class~~ - since class is cancelled due to severe weather, please submit your project by email or upload it to the Digital Dropbox on Blackboard. Thanks for a wonderful semester!

Week 13 = Islam in America

2009-11-23T13:35:00.001-08:00

M 11/30 What is Islam?
Reading: none

W 12/2 Muslims in America
Reading: Eck Ch 6

F 12/4 American Muslim Community After 9/11
Reading: bring an article that discusses Muslims in America, from within the past 2 years

RP #4 due in class

Week 12 = Family Values, Family Feuds

2009-11-13T15:12:00.001-08:00

M 11/16 Why "Family Values" is a Religious Issue
Reading: Feldman, Ch 6

Handout: Supreme Court Decisions [pdf]

W 11/18 Family Feuds
Reading: Bring 2 recent newspaper articles to class, both from the past year. One should be about the abortion debate and the other about the same-sex marriage debate. Both articles need to reference religion in some way.

F 11/20 Exam #4 in class

M 11/23 Religion in Popular Culture
Reading: none, we will screen an episode of M*A*S*H in class

W and F 11/25 and 11/27 - No Class, Thanksgiving

Final Paper - Guidelines & Sources (due 12/9)

2009-11-12T05:45:00.000-08:00

Your final project in this class is a compare/contrast research paper analyzing two documents in the history of American religion. Choose any two from the list below.

By giving you this list, I’ve eliminated one of the early steps of research for you: finding appropriate primary sources that are significant in American religious history. Your task will be to understand each document in its historical context (starting with who the author is and why s/he is important), analyze and understand the documents’ contents and arguments, and then compare and contrast the two documents, making useful conclusions about religion in America that incorporate your learning from across the semester. In other words, just because I’m giving you the sources doesn’t mean this is intended to be an easy assignment. The documents themselves take some dedicated puzzling before they will yield meaning. Your paper must be thoughtful, substantive, well-written, and demonstrate critical thinking skills.

Here's a helpful 3-page PDF handout produced by Princeton College’s writing program, titled “How to Write a Compare-and-Contrast Paper.” You don’t need to follow its instructions exactly, but if you haven’t done one before and you need some guidance it is a good place to start. My advice is, do not procrastinate this assignment until after the Thanksgiving break. Get started on it early. It will take longer than you think. I am happy to talk about it with you during office hours or look at an early draft or an outline.

There will be no leniency about the due date. The paper should be 7-8 double-spaced pages. It needs to be correctly and thoroughly sourced, using MLA or Chicago Style citations. It should have an evocative title, page numbers, be spell-checked and proofread. Paper is due IN or BEFORE class on 12/9/09, the last day of class. It will be docked for lateness if I receive it any time after the last class period ends.

Grading: Worth 15% of your final grade

The paper will be graded for historical accuracy and understanding of the historical context, quality of your research sources, creativity and thoughtfulness of the comparison and contrasts you identify between the documents and/or their authors, quality of the paper’s structure and writing, and relevance of your conclusions to the overall learning goals of the course.

Document Links:

John Locke, Letter Concerning Toleration, 1689 (Also on Google Books).

Roger Williams, Plea for Religious Liberty, 1644

Maryland Act of Religious Toleration, 1649

James Madison, Memorial and Remonstrance, 1785

James Madison (writing as "Publius"), Federalist 51, 1788

Thomas Jefferson's Letter to the Danbury Baptists, 1802. Page image: http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/religion/f0605as.jpg (source: LOC's virtual exhibit, "Religion and the Founding of the American Republic" which has JPG images of many of the originals, but only their title pages). His draft (forensically recovered by the FBI) is here: http://www.loc.gov/loc/lcib/9806/danpost.html, and the final version as sent is here: http://www.loc.gov/loc/lcib/9806/danpre.html

Angelina Grimke, "Appeal to Christian Women of the South", 1840

Abraham Lincoln's second inaugural address, 1865; additional resources on this text here

Billy Sunday, "Broken Down Altars" (n.d. but he undoubtedly gave this many times in his career between 1880-1920)

Martin Luther King, Jr. letter from Birmingham Jail, 1963 [PDF]

Mitt Romney, "Faith in America", 2007

Week 11 = Religion in the Civil Rights Movement

2009-11-06T11:19:00.000-08:00

M 11/9 Malcolm X, Part 1 (Chapters 1-12).
In-class link: How Long, Not Long! and The Price of Freedom is Death

W 11/11 No Class

F 11/13 Malcolm X, Part 2 (Chapters 13-19)

RP #3 due in class

Week 10 = Case Studies in Freedom to Worship

2009-10-31T17:41:00.000-07:00

M 11/2 Hindus
Reading: Eck, Ch 3
In-class link: Diwali09, Apu

W 11/4 Buddhists
Reading: Eck, Ch 4

F 11/6 "Legal Secularists," Jehovah's Witnesses
Reading: Feldman Ch 5

Week 9 = Catholicism and the Melting Pot

2009-10-23T13:56:00.000-07:00

M 10/26 Catholicism and AntiCatholicism in America
Reading: Feldman, first half of Ch 2 (up to p. 99)

W 10/28 Melting Pot Pluralism
Reading: Eck Ch 2 - skim 41-48, then read 48-61 closely

F 10/30 Exam #3 in class

Week 8 = Radical Redefinitions

2009-10-14T13:04:00.001-07:00

M 10/19 Shaker
Reading: The Shakers' Brief Eternity" [PDF]

W 10/21 Oneida
Reading: Oneida Documents [PDF] - the article starts on the middle of the second page, but I included the first page because of the engraving of the buildings at the top (in other words, ignore the fiction story on that page, it's unrelated). Then continue to follow the story as best you can through the cut & pasted columns on the next few pages. You're reading not only for information about the community, but about how they were portrayed by curious outsiders. This PDF probably won't print well, it's best read on a screen where you can magnify & reduce the image.

F 10/23 Mormon
Reading: Feldman, second half Ch 2 (pp. 99-110), and Beechwood, "A Mormon Woman's View of Marriage" [PDF]. Link for class: Romney family interactive timeline

RP #2 due in class

Week 7 = Religion in Worcester

2009-10-09T08:36:00.001-07:00

M 10/12 No Class

W 10/14 Religion in Worcester
Reading: none - Site Reports are due in class

F 10/16 Digital Project Upload Day
Reading: none - we will meet in a computer classroom, room S-209.

Week 6 = Exotic Plants of the Antebellum Spiritual Hothouse

2009-10-02T10:24:00.000-07:00

M 10/5 Transcendentalism
Reading: Essays in "The Dial" - choose 1 of the following 4 (search by author):
Emerson "Transcendentalism" or "Prayers" (Vol 2) or Thoreau's commentary on Confucius (Vol 3) or Charles Lane, "Life in the Woods" (Vol 4)

W 10/7 Spiritualism
Reading: none

Paper #2 is due in class (Film Analysis)

F 10/9 Exam #2 in class

Week 5 = the Antebellum Spiritual Hothouse

2009-09-25T13:36:00.000-07:00

M 9/28 (Myth of) the Protestant Century
Reading: R. Laurence Moore, Post-Protestant Culture, [PDF]

W 9/30 American Revivals
Reading: "Revival" in North Carolina Digital History

F 10/2 Antebellum Slave Religion
Reading: Albert Raboteau, "The Slaves' Own Religion" [PDF]

Links for class today:

Slavery and the Making of America original documents
WPA American Slave Narratives
LearnNC - Spirituals
Documenting the American South

Week 4 = Founding Parents

2009-09-18T11:50:00.001-07:00

M 9/21 Founding Parents
Reading: Feldman, Ch 1
AND we'll talk about the "Hidden Objects" Slave Religion website & what we learn from it

W 9/23 Founding Documents
Reading:
Locke, Letter Concerning Toleration (1689)
Jefferson, Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom (1779 written, 1786 passed)
Madison, Memorial and Remonstrance (1785)

F 9/25 Exam #1 in class

RNS's Friday Religion Roundup

2009-09-18T11:43:00.000-07:00

More news of the week in American religion from the Religion News Service. And Happy Rosh Hashanah. And NPR had a very interesting story this morning about Muslim HS football players during Ramadan - only 3 minutes long, worth a listen.

Links from our discussion of the Puritans

2009-09-16T10:29:00.001-07:00

Check out the Wednesday Religion Roundup on the RNS Blog from today to follow those current event stories I mentioned.

And here's the MA Bay Colony Seal, which was used from 1629 until 1684, when the colony's charter was revoked & it was rechartered in 1691 as a royal colony (i.e. Anglican again). Historian Jill Lepore writes of this image,

"we ought to understand that this engraving is just as fanciful as Frederick Cook's photograph of himself, sporting a furry parka, braving the Arctic snow.

"The original seventeenth-century Massachusetts Bay Colony seal (the model, of course, for our state flag) tells a fascinating story, a story of a place named by its inhabitants "Mattachusets," and considered, by newcomers, to be part of a "Nova Anglia." In that place, these newcomers claim to have found naked men who greet them with open arms, peaceably, with weapons exposed and arrows facing down. These naked men are begging for help. "Come Over and Help Us," this "savage" pleads, "share with us the good news of your savior, who will be our Lord. We have here an empty land, an Eden, yours for the taking."

"The vision of pagan natives peaceably and eagerly awaiting the good news of the gospel is, of course, the Puritans' fantasy, their fondest wish. When John Winthrop's ship, Arabella sailed across the Atlantic in 1630, the Puritans on board hoped to found a "city on a hill," a beacon of Christian truth and piety, for all the world to see. Part of their piety would derive from their devoted reading of the Bible, their daily prayerfulness, and the ecclesiastical ordering of their lives. And part of their piety would derive from the swiftness and gentleness with which they would convert the native "heathen" peoples to Christianity, thereby saving the Indians' souls, and enlarging the realm of Christ on earth. But this part of the Puritans' piety, alas, was never realized. The colony seal was a fantasy, a vision of a miracle, and little more." ("Whose History Is It?" remarks at the 1998 First Annual Community Forum on Historical Records).

Image source: http://www.irwinator.com/126/wdoc36.htm

Week 3 = Origins

2009-09-13T15:54:00.000-07:00

M 9/14 The Colonial Context
Reading: Eck, Ch 2 - skim 26-32, then read 32-41 closely

W 9/16 Puritans
Reading: (yes, ALL of this)
Anne Bradstreet poems (choose any 2)
Mary Rowlandson's Narrative (read the Intro, 1st, 2nd and 20th Remove)
John Winthrop, Modell of Christian Charity (1630)
Charles Hambrick-Stowe, "Puritan as Pilgrim" [PDF]

F 9/18 Quakers, Slaves and Dissenters
Reading:
Maryland Act for Religious Toleration (1649)
William Penn, Frame of Government (1682)
Hidden Objects: The Spiritual World of Slaves (requires Flash player)

Religion on the Web, Our Links

2009-09-11T11:30:00.001-07:00

Everyone looked at BeliefNet and took the Belief-O-Matic quiz

Denominational Websites we discussed - everyone checked out a different one:
United Methodist Church
Christian Science
Reform Judaism
Saddleback Church
Evangelical Lutheran Church of America
Southern Baptist
BuddhaNet
COGIC (Church of God in Christ)
Jaguar Moon Cyber Coven

Ones students came up with to share:
First Church of Cyberspace
Universal Light - this is where Jeremiah became a "minister"
Jesus-is-Savior.com
ReDefine God.com - this is the "Religion 2.0" site
ReligionFacts.com
Secular Humanism
Scientology
Quaker Week
Rastafarianism
the Skeptic's Annotated Bible
Tsubaki Grand Shrine of America

Places to go for reliable research:
Adherents.com
Association of Religion Data Archives
Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life
Hartford Institute for Religion Research

New Info on How Immigrants are Affecting American Religion

2009-09-11T01:38:00.000-07:00

Boston Globe religion journalist Michael Paulson has a new entry on his blog ("Articles of Faith") about a panel he attended at the recent Religion Newswriters Association convention (I'll bet you didn't know there was such an organization). The details come from the director of the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, Luis Lugo. Paulson reports:

Immigration is leading to an increase in the number of Buddhists, Hindus and Muslims in the U.S., but a large majority of new immigrants are Christian. This stands in contrast to the situation in Europe, where a much higher percentage of immigrants are non-Christian.
Although Protestants outnumber Catholics in the U.S., new immigrants are overwhelmingly Catholic, and as a result, "immigration is tilting the balance within American Christianity in favor of Catholicsm." Also, Lugo said, "We're very close to becoming a minority Protestant country."
Many of the new immigrants are from Latin America, Africa and Asia. "What we are seeing is not the de-Christianization of America, but the de-Europeanization of American Christianity,'' he said. One effect of this, he said, is a rise in Pentecostal and charismatic worship styles in U.S. churches, because those more expressive forms of worship are often preferred by immigrants from the Global South.
Nearly a quarter of all Catholics in the U.S. are foreign born -- the highest percentage among any of the nation's largest faith groups. "To know what the country will be like in three decades, look at the Catholic Church,'' he said.
The Muslim population in the U.S. is more diverse, in terms of national origin, than the Muslim population in any other country on earth. No more than 8 percent of American Muslims is from any one country. This, again, contrasts with the situation in Europe, where, for example, many German Muslims are from Turkey, many Spanish Muslims are from Morocco, and many French Muslims are from Algeria.

In my view, this tends to reinforce what we discussed in class from Diana Eck's book, although she was more focused on "world faiths" in the US, and Paulson has an eye to the growing immigrant Catholic presence. Lots for us to think about here. If you want more details, head to the Pew link for the full report.

Week 2 = American Religion Now

2009-09-04T13:12:00.000-07:00

M 9/7 - No Class

3. W 9/9 A New Religious America
Reading: Eck, New Religious America Ch 1
Links: The Pluralism Project, and the National Congregations Study

4. F 9/11 Religion on the Web
Reading: prepare to discuss three websites:
1) BeliefNet (especially the Belief-O-Matic, which you should take)
2) one denominational site as assigned
3) one site you come up with yourself

How does the online religious landscape resemble, or differ from, the scene described in Eck's first chapter?

Due in class: Paper #1 (Personal Statement) - guidelines and assignment here

Just for Fun - the Friday Religion Roundup

2009-09-04T05:16:00.000-07:00

I follow a blog--an excellent one--written by religion journalists, called the Religion News Service. Here's this week's Friday Roundup of religion news. Worth reading, even if you don't follow all its links to the original stories. Have a great Labor Day weekend (or, technically, "national days of prayer and remembrance for victims of 9/11").

Week 1 = Course Intro

2009-09-02T11:11:00.000-07:00

1. W 9/2 Course Introduction

2. F 9/4 Is Sports an American Religion?
Reading: Joseph Price, "An American Apotheosis: Sports as Popular Religion" [PDF]

Due in class: RP #1 (guidelines and instructions here)

Read and respond to the essay by Joseph Price, “An American Apotheosis: Sports as Popular Religion.” How does Price define religion, and do you agree with his choice to define sports as a religion? How would you define religion and would “sports” count? Do you recognize “your America” in this essay?

At the end of your paper, write a discussion question for Friday’s class discussion about this article. (Hint: a good discussion question shouldn’t have a simple yes/no answer)

Today's Features

2009-09-02T08:54:00.000-07:00

Click here for the "American Passion" slideshow we saw in class today.

Also, a slideshow of images of the YFZ ranch, one year later (San Angelo Standard-Times)

Modern-Day Pilgrimage... Six Men on a Mission

2009-07-29T16:13:00.000-07:00

...to walk 300 miles from Roanoke VA to Washington DC. The six Franciscan friars, who attract attention partly because they remind people of Jedis, are on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land monastery in Washington. According to this article, the journey's methods and discoveries are as important as the destination. Here's their route mapped out, including where they slept each night.

They even have their own website called friarwalk, so you can learn more about each of them. Consider whether you've ever done something you'd call a pilgrimage, and what that might mean in today's America.

Tweeting Religion

2009-06-24T13:45:00.000-07:00

Could you encapsulate a religion in 140 characters or less? BU Religion professor Stephen Prothero is taking a shot at it on Twitter. Check it out... or try it yourself. You can read an article about his "Religion 140" project here.

Speaking of Muslims, Boston's New Mosque

2009-06-12T05:33:00.000-07:00

The new Islamic Society of Boston Cultural Center will open on June 26th; Boston Globe religion editor Michael Paulson has a full write-up here. It's in Roxbury, originally Puritan territory in the 1630s.

Watch for news of the official opening, which is expected to include Governor Patrick, the dean of the Harvard Divinity School, and an interfaith breakfast.

How Muslim is America?

2009-06-04T17:05:00.001-07:00

In President Obama's much anticipated speech to global Muslims, in Cairo today, he cited that there are about 7 million Muslims in the United States. There will probably be a lot of discussion about where he got that number and if it's accurate.

For example, this post on the "Get Religion" blog offers several other numbers from different sources.

And Michael Paulson's blog post (Boston Globe) also raises some eyebrows about that number.

My point is, the number matters, and it should matter to us as scholars of religion. It's not enough just to say there are "lots" of Muslims in the US. There's a big difference between, say, 2 million (Pew) and 7 million (Obama). How many? How are they distributed? What does it mean to "be Muslim" - who's doing the defining and the counting? And how does that compare with other nations? We'll come back to this issue at the tail end of the term when we discuss Islam in America, and the relationship of America to global Islam.

Newest "American Girl" doll is Jewish, and poor

2009-05-29T05:08:00.000-07:00

Jewish newswires are buzzing with the upcoming late May release of the latest in the series of historical American Girl dolls and books. The newest book series and doll, "Rebecca Rubin," portrays a Jewish Russian immigrant girl in 1914 New York. USA Today reports that the unveiling of the new doll will include a tie-in at the Tenement Museum in New York City, and a harbor cruise with "kosher-style" food (what is "kosher-style," by the way? Isn't it either kosher, or not?).

“This is our history, right here in this doll,” says author Meredith Jacobs of Rockville, Md., host of “The Modern Jewish Mom” on The Jewish Channel. “I don’t think people who aren’t Jewish think about how big a deal it is for a mainstream doll company to make something Jewish.”

News articles here and here. An interesting development to think about in terms of religious history - in what ways do groups themselves mark their own history, and in what ways does the broader American society validate, celebrate, or recognize religious contributions to our collective past?

Obama's Pick Will Make 6th Catholic on the Bench

2009-05-27T02:13:00.000-07:00

Today Obama nominated New York Puerto Rican Sonia Sotomayor to be the next Supreme Court justice. There's a religion angle to the news. Although no one's arguing that she's a devout Catholic likely to be a strong conservative vote, nonetheless the religion reporter at the Boston Globe, Michael Paulson, noted today that if Catholics held 6 out of the 9 Supreme Court seats,

"that is a remarkable accomplishment for American Catholics, who make up 23 percent of the nation's population, and will now potentially hold 67 percent of the high court's seats. Two of the justices are Jewish; the resignation of Justice David Souter, who is an Episcopalian, will leave, amazingly given the history of this nation, just one Protestant on the Supreme Court."

His full article is here. It's relevant to our course because when we read Feldman's book, we'll be looking closely at the impact of Supreme Court cases on the evolving law around the separation of church and state, and the composition of the court matters deeply in American politics and culture - a fact which both religious liberals and conservatives recognize. Watch for religious language in the upcoming nomination events. In other words, stay tuned.

Searching for Meaning & Answers on the Web

2009-05-08T04:49:00.000-07:00

There's a whole industry of websites that provide religious seekers with information (or misinformation) about religions and what they believe. Caveat emptor.

On the blog for religion journalists, Get Religion (great blog, by the way) today, Ari Goldman reviews a recent addition to the online cacophony. It's called Patheos (clever pun on Pantheon, no?) and although it's slick and pretty, Goldman thinks that its style has overshadowed its lack of substance, and that Time magazine shouldn't be praising it when it's got some big problems. There are some glaring and rather important errors in some of the faiths that Goldman looked at. Check out your own. I did and found some definite inaccuracies. How did Patheos do with yours?

What does a website like this tell us about religion in America today, the market for information about other religions, and the lack of reliable places to go for that information? Or, about the uses of the internet as a religious public square?

Consider this: The End of Christian America?

2009-04-10T15:23:00.001-07:00

So says Jon Meacham in Newsweek's Easter 2009 issue. In particular, Meacham points to the rise of the number of people self-reporting as "unaffiliated" (nearly double since 1990, rising from 8 to 15 percent)- especially in traditionally observant New England. The poll results are here. Meachem discusses whether the US is "post-Christian," and if so, what that might mean for our political culture, our religious landscape, and the way we understand our history.