Religion in the American Experience

Religion and the Life and Work of Charles Schulz

We are at that time of year when the Charlie Brown Christmas Special arrives in the public square and perhaps more pervasively in the psyche of millions of Americans. In this unique and quite secular television program, first aired at 7:30pm on December 9, 1965, viewers hear Linus recite from the Bible - Luke chapter two verses eight through fourteen – the Christmas story. As this story might suggest, it turns out that religion played a significant role in the life and work of Charles Schulz, creator of Linus, Charlie Brown, Snoopy, Lucy and the rest of the Peanuts gang, a comic strip that is fully entrenched in the American narrative. Dr. Stephen J. Lind is here to share the story.

Special Edition: The War in Gaza

Join Dr. Colleen Prior for a special episode of Religion in the American Experience where we explore the effect of the war in Gaza on Jews and Muslims in the United States. In this episode we look at the history of both groups in North America and examine both historic trends and current survey data to try and understand why violent actions against both groups are on the rise, and we discuss what can be done to combat anti-Semitic and anti-Muslim violence.

The History of Christian Nationalism

Christian Nationalism: This is a term that many of our listeners have likely come across, as its use has become much more common in the news over the past couple of years, particularly as some politicians have begun to embrace the term as a core part of their personal and political identity. Christian Nationalism isn’t a new concept though, of course.

To understand its history, we’re very fortunate today to have with us two outstanding scholars of religion and religious history: Dr. Catherine Brekus and Dr. Mark Edwards. Dr. Brekus is the Charles Warren Professor of the History of Religion in America at Harvard University and a prolific author, whose books include Strangers and Pilgrims: Female Preaching in America, 1740-1845 and Sarah Osborn’s World: The Rise of Evangelicalism in Early America. She is currently working on a book about the relationship between American nationalism and Christianity.

Dr. Edwards is professor of US history and politics at Spring Arbor University in Michigan. He too is a prolific author. His books include The Right of the Protestant Left: God’s Totalitarianism, which offers a new view of Reinhold Niebuhr and Christian Realism, and Walter Lippmann: American Skeptic, American Pastor.

Religion’s Voice During Three American Wars

A historian wrote once that “[w]e cannot understand American history unless we reckon with the ways religion and war have reinforced and challenged each other.” We are going to dip our toes into that water today, and while we are at it, will run into the idea of “Christian nationalism” – a topic currently bouncing around in our public square. This hour has the potential of helping our listeners be more effective in their efforts to push the American experiment in self-government along.

Dr. Benjamin Wetzel is an Assistant Professor of History at Taylor University in Upland, Indiana. Previously he was a postdoctoral research associate at the Cushwa Center for the Study of American Catholicism. Dr. Wetzel received his PhD in History in 2016 from the University of Notre Dame and is the author of two books: American Crusade: Christianity, Warfare, and National Identity, 1860-1920 (the topic of today’s interview) and Theodore Roosevelt: Preaching from the Bully Pulpit. 

Religion & the American Presidency: Jimmy Carter

Jimmy Carter was the 39^th president of the United States and served from 1977 to 1981, which term included the Iranian hostage crisis, the Three Mile Island nuclear accident, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, the Camp David Accords, finalization of the Panama Canal Treaties, and the 1979 energy crisis. His post-presidency work is considered the most influential and significant of any American president, channeled through the Carter Center, which idea came to him in the middle of the night not long after he left office.

He was also the first “born again” Christian elected to office.

In order to better understand how religion influenced Jimmy Carter, we have with us today Randall Balmer, the John Phillips Chair in Religion at Dartmouth and a prize-winning historian, Emmy Award nominee, and author of Redeemer: The Life of Jimmy Carter, a religious biography of the former president. Dr. Balmer earned the Ph.D. from Princeton University in 1985 and taught as Professor of American Religious History at Columbia University for twenty-seven years before coming to Dartmouth in 2012. He is the author of more than a dozen books, including God in the White House: How Faith Shaped the Presidency from John F. Kennedy to George W. Bush, The Making of Evangelicalism: From Revivalism to Politics and Beyond, and Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory: A Journey into the Evangelical Subculture in America. Dr. Balmer is also an ordained Episcopal priest.

Religions’ Role in Refugee Resettlement - Part 2

Since the summer of 2021 when the Taliban took over Afghanistan in the wake of America’s departure, some 70,000+ Afghan refugees have come to the United States through Operation Allies Welcome. This has taxed the country’s capacity to resettle these people  - men, women and children - who fled for their lives – all of whom have experienced severe trauma on their way to the United States. There are nine non-governmental agencies the government depends on to help resettle them. Since seven of those are religious-based agencies, the National Museum of American Religion thought it would be helpful to learn about these organizations, their origins and their work.

Religions’ Role in Refugee Resettlement - Part 1

Since the summer of 2021 when the Taliban took over Afghanistan in the wake of America’s departure, some 70,000+ Afghan refugees have come to the United States through Operation Allies Welcome. This has taxed the country’s capacity to resettle these people  - men, women and children - who fled for their lives – all of whom have experienced severe trauma on their way to the United States. There are nine non-governmental agencies the government depends on to help resettle them. Since seven of those are religious-based agencies, the National Museum of American Religion thought it would be helpful to learn about these organizations, their origins and their work.

Religions’ Role in Native American Boarding Schools

The recent discoveries of unmarked graves at the sites of four former residential schools in western Canada have shocked and horrified Canadians and the world. This has spurred an interest here in the United States to understand the history of our Native American boarding schools in the 19^th and 20^th centuries. U.S. Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland announced a Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative, a comprehensive review of the troubled legacy of federal boarding school policies. Since many of these schools were run by religious orders, the National Museum of American Religion felt that it would would be helpful if we convened a panel of experts to discuss religion’s role in our Native American boarding school history.

We’ll answer questions at about the fifty minute mark, so submit them in the chat window.

We have with us today the following experts:

• Ashley Dreff is the General Secretary of the General Commission on Archives and History of the United Methodist Church. Previously she was an Assistant Professor of Religion and Director of Women’s and Gender Studies at High Point University. 

• Dr. Bradley Hauff is Episcopal Church Missioner for Indigenous Ministries and a member of the Presiding Bishop’s staff. As Missioner for Indigenous Ministries, Rev. Hauff is responsible for enabling and empowering Indigenous peoples and their respective communities within the Episcopal Church. He holds a Master of Divinity from Seabury-Western Theological Seminary & a Doctor of Clinical Psychology from Minnesota School of Professional Psychology of Argosy University.

• Farina King, is of English-American descent, born for Kinyaa'anii, or the Towering House Clan, of Dine' (Navajo). She is a citizen of the Navajo Nation. & Associate Professor of History at Northeastern State University in Talequah, homelands of the Cherokee Nation and United Keetowah Band of Cherokees

• Brenda J. Child is Northrop Professor of American Studies and former chair of the Department of American Indian Studies at the University of Minnesota. She is the author of Boarding School Seasons: American Indian Families, 1900-1940. Dr. Child served as a member of the board of trustees of the National Museumof the American Indian-Smithsonian. She was born on the Red Lake Ojibwe Reservation in northern Minnesota

• Christine Diindiisi McCleave is an Indigenous consultant, and a doctoral student in Indigenous Studies at the University of Alaska Fairbanks with a focus on healing historical trauma through the use of traditional plant medicines. She is the former CEO of the National Native American Boarding Schooling Healing Coalition

What Have America‘s Clergy Told Us During Times of National Tragedy?

Sermons, the words of the country’s vast number of spiritual leaders, have played significant and even profound roles during times of national crisis. They have comforted those that mourn, given grief higher purposes, and plumbed the depths of evil, suffering, and loss; they have offered hope, courage, vision, and belief in the face of doubt and fear. They have also been key to how the nation defines itself as it reacts to these crises.

Melissa Matthes can help us all better comprehend what sermons at times of national crisis have meant for America. She is Professor of Government at the U.S. Coast Guard Academy, and author of When Sorrow Comes: The Power of Sermons from Pearl Harbor to Black Lives Matter. Dr. Matthes received a Ph.D. from the University of California Santa Cruz and a Master of Divinity from Yale University.

We guarantee that our time together today will help all of us better understand what religion has done to America, and what America has done to religion, and we trust that as a result, listeners will come to better understand how revolutionary and indispensable the idea of religious freedom as a governing principle, is, to the United States and its future.

The Making of US: Lived Religion in America with Daniel Walker Howe

Daniel Walker Howe was born January 10, 1937 in Ogden, Utah. Both of his parents were from Utah, though neither were religious. His mother had grown up as a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. His father’s family had come to Utah to work on the railroads. Daniel’s father was a newspaper man who lost his job during the Depression, and who was hired by the Works Progress Administration’s Federal Writers’ Project. He helped write the Utah’s Story under the popular American Guide Series Books.

Daniel graduated from East High School in Denver, went to Harvard as an undergraduate, and received his Ph.D. in history at the University of California, Berkeley in 1966. and is an American historian who specializes in the early national period of U.S. history, with a particular interest in its intellectual and religious dimensions.

Learn about the influence of religious on Daniel’s life, and understand more about what religion has done to Americans, and what Americans have done to religion.