At the end of the 1980s, it was commonly assumed that the Christian Right consisted entirely of evangelical Protestants. More precisely, the Christian Right drew support from politically conservative Catholics, Jews, Mormons, and occasionally secularists. At the same time, many evangelical Protestants showed little interest in the Christian Right’s political goals. It may be helpful, … Continued
Historians who know nothing else about American religion often know one thing for sure: in July of 1925 fundamentalists got their noses rubbed in the dirt at the Rhea County Courthouse in Dayton, Tennessee. That building, of course, housed the famous Monkey Trial, the place where rural traditionalism met and finally bowed to the forces … Continued
A discernible current of religious liberalism ripples through all periods of American history, but between 1870 and 1970 that current overflowed its banks and exerted a powerful influence upon American culture as a whole. Although religious liberalism affected all three of the main confessional groups in the United States—Protestants, Catholics, and Jews—Protestants undoubtedly experienced the … Continued
Nineteenth century America contained a bewildering array of Protestant sects and denominations, with different doctrines, practices, and organizational forms. But by the 1830s almost all of these bodies had a deep evangelical emphasis in common. Protestantism has always contained an important evangelical strain, but it was in the nineteenth century that a particular style of … Continued
Evangelicalism needs to be understood not only as a religious movement, but also as a social movement. As such, it was an integral part of a broader organizational revolution that transformed nineteenth-century American society. For the most part, eighteenth-century Americans lived their lives within hierarchically ordered institutions. They were oriented primarily to place, and they … Continued
Christianity was a central feature of nineteenth-century American life for both slaveholders and anti-slavery activists. To argue persuasively against slavery, abolitionists had to find ways to use the Bible and Christian tradition, along with American patriotic and domestic ideals, to make their case.
How did American Christians in the nineteenth century come to see slavery as something that needed to be abolished? Christianity was a central feature of nineteenth-century American life for both slaveholders and anti-slavery activists. To argue persuasively against slavery, abolitionists had to find ways to use the Bible and Christian tradition, along with American patriotic … Continued
Looking back on American independence, John Adams wrote that the Revolution involved a radical change in religious sentiments before it eroded old political loyalties. That prior change came in the First Great Awakening, energized by the preaching of the Reverend George Whitefield. He sparked an evangelical movement that swept through the colonies between the 1730s … Continued
My humanities moment came with my conversion from Islam to Christianity. It opened a wide world for me and enabled me to see that my new faith was distinct, but shared some of its humanistic values which we find in religious traditions around the world. I began to see areas of difference and convergence with … Continued
After the ancient Roman Empire embraced Christianity, the empire’s culture and politics were significantly transformed. In this podcast, Dennis Trout shares insights from his interdisciplinary study of poetic inscriptions found throughout ancient Rome. He considers the way these epigrams were embedded in the city's architecture and displayed to an empire in transition, and he suggests they go beyond considerations of religion, literature, and culture to illuminate the ways that visual and textual cues were used to send messages to a diverse audience in the ancient world.