Religions in America

Sehat has introduced us to challengers to the Protestant moral establishment’s cultural hegemony, including radical abolitionists and female suffrage advocates. For Wednesday’s class, read and respond to some documents from two other groups who affronted Protestant moral sensibilities in antebellum America: the Oneida community and the Mormons (Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints).

The documents are posted on Blackboard under “Unit 2.” I’ve also opened up a new Friday Forum on Blackboard.

There is a 2-3 page response paper due Wednesday. Respond to some or all of these questions, or use your own sparked by the reading –

What kinds of “challengers” to the moral establishment were the Oneida “free lovers” and Mormon polygamists? And how did each of these groups represent themselves as moral, virtuous, and utterly American?

And/or

Why did both of these groups have roots in upstate New York (not coincidentally, the site of the Seneca Falls women’s rights convention) – i.e. what is so religiously generative about that part of the country in the mid-19th century?

In this unit, we’re using David Sehat’s ambitious and provocative new book to talk about the concepts of religious freedom and pluralism in American history. We’ll read the entire book over the course of this unit and get to know its argument well. This is not a “textbook” in the conventional sense, so you shouldn’t read it only for historical content but also for scholarly argument and interpretation.

For Wed 9/19 – read the introduction (pp. 1-10) and Mark Douglas McGarvie’s review of Sehat’s book, published in the October 2011 issue of the American Historical Review. (Both of these are also posted on Blackboard in the Unit 2 section). Write a response paper (2-3 typed double-spaced pages, due in class) addressing one or more of these discussion questions, and be prepared to discuss them on Wed (bring the book with you to class, obviously).

How does Sehat define American religious freedom as a “threefold myth”?

With whom (or what) is Sehat arguing? In other words, why does he claim this book matters?

Describe the dominant narrative of American religious liberty. How does Sehat propose to dismantle this stubbornly persistent, and in fact rather important, set of claims about the past?

What purpose do these myths serve, according to Sehat? Do you agree or not? Based on what evidence?

Characterize McGarvie’s response to this book. How does he see it fitting into other recent scholarship on religion and law?

What are your initial responses to these readings? Where do you hope this book goes, or what are your guesses about what is (or should be) in it?

Updated: Today we talked about the site visit project. I’ve created a tab for it on the site (above) – it contains the information for the project and PDFs of the guidelines, rubric and forms. Over the next few days I will create a template for the project and upload that as a Word document you can type directly into.

The project is based on the Pluralism Project, a multidisciplinary documentation project at Harvard University led by Dr. Diana Eck. I also mentioned a Worcester T&G article that is along the lines of what we’re after with a congregational profile, “Park Congregational, Ghana Wesley Churches Thrive” (2/27/12) to give you a flavor for some of the local diversity in our home community.

For Friday’s in-class (but closed-note) exam, be prepared to:

Define these terms: Pluralism, relativism, exclusivism, inclusivism, synthesis, civil religion, ecclesial v. popular/lived religion, theology, the 4 c’s (creed, code, cultus, community)

Discuss or identify the documents from this unit (author, time period, basic circumstances) and explain why each is significant as an example of American religious history. Be able to characterize what the author is saying and what it means for the nation as a whole. This might take the form of comparing 2 documents from different time periods.

Identify and/or explain the two religion clauses of the First Amendment.

Explain Ann Braude’s argument that Women’s History is American Religious History.

On Monday we covered some definitions: religion (both the generic concept of religion and some recognizable markers of “a religion”), diversity and various possible responses to diversity: exclusivism, inclusivism, relativism, synthesis, and pluralism.

We ended with the idea of “civil religion,” that in America the nation itself has sacred symbols and rituals, and can be thought of as an object of veneration and even worship. For some scholars, notably Robert Bellah who popularized Rousseau’s phrase in 1967, “civil religion” has been a powerful unifying force in American identity. Not everyone agrees with this idea (one of our assigned books, The Myth of American Religious Freedom finds the notion of civil religion problematic if not outright false), but it has been a compelling theory nonetheless and many find that it helps explain the persistence and coherence of a common national identity, one infused with religious language despite being officially secular. You might explore the Wikipedia article on “American Civil Religion,” as it decently explains this idea in useful shorthand.

For Wednesday, we will take a close look at the eight documents I’ve chosen to represent American religious history or civil religion’s “greatest hits.” Let’s be able to describe the main idea, cite a key quote, or explain the importance of each one in our class discussion. A table or set of index card flash cards might help you organize your thoughts and notes on these important documents and prepare for the exam on Friday.

(PS – FYI, an alternative set of texts, but in the same vein as what we’re after in our discussion, can be found here)

1. Read the syllabus

2. Reading for Friday: Hemeyer, “Studying and Describing Religion” (10-page PDF) + Eck, Ch 1

3. For Monday, explore the Unit 1 documents and prepare enough that you can discuss them in class

4. Due on Monday: Personal Statement (4-page paper)

Here are the links for the sites to subscribe to. While logged into your campus Gmail account, go to “Reader” (usually under “More” in the menu across the top). In a separate tab, navigate to one of the sites you want to subscribe to, and copy its web address. Back in Google Reader, click the red “Subscribe” button and paste the web address in and hit enter. That newsfeed will now show up in your list of subscriptions. Subscriptions with new content appear in BOLD print. You can also (conveniently) subscribe to THIS site by clicking on the orange “RSS” symbol at the top of the sidebar and choosing Google Reader subscription.

Religion in American History http://usreligion.blogspot.com/

And at least TWO of the following blogs:

• Get Religion http://www.getreligion.org/
• CNN Belief Blog http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/
• USA TODAY Faith & Reason http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/
• Washington Post On Faith Blog http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/on-faith
• Huffington Post Religion http://www.huffingtonpost.com/religion/
• Religion Dispatches http://www.religiondispatches.org/dispatches/
• Religion News Service http://www.religionnews.com/blogs

For an overview of how to use Google Reader, see this instructional video.

This news and these groups move really fast – you’ll want to check in often. Also, if you’re on Twitter, I’ve created a public list with some of the above blogs & bloggers who tweet (plus other relevant feeds), which you can follow here:

https://twitter.com/#!/tonahangen/hi345religionsamerica

“Religions in America” is a course that explores topics in the history of the American religious experience and the diversity of the contemporary religious landscape in the United States.

The course will be taught in Fall 2012 at Worcester State University, by historian Tona Hangen, MWF 10:30 am.

In Worcester State’s LASC curriculum, the course counts for Writing Across the Curriculum (WAC), Diversity Across the Curriculum (DAC), and either Thought, Language and Culture (TLC) or the US and its Role in the World (USW).

In the History Major/Minor, the course is a 300-level or US elective and counts for WAC and DAC.