Religion in the American Experience

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.

Religion at the National Museum of African American History and Culture

The most recent addition to the Smithsonian museums on the National Mall is the National Museum of African American History and Culture, which opened in September of 2016. This is a profound and exceptionally meaningful addition to the tapestry woven by the museums in D.C.

 

From the perspective of The National Museum of American Religion, we want to know more about the roles that religion played in the story of slavery and its aftermath.

 

To do this, we have with us today Teddy R. Reeves, curator of religion at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture. Mr. Reeves is also a producer, digital theologian, and a fashion and art enthusiast. He earned his B.A. from Hampton University, his Master of Divinity from Princeton Seminary and is currently a PhD candidate at Fordham University.

 

In 2018 Teddy created a web-based talk-show series for the Museum entitled “gOD-talk: Black Millennials and Faith Conversation”, which explores the dynamic ways Black millennials are engaging with faith in the 21^st century. He is a sought-after public speaker, teacher, facilitator and proclaimer.

How Do Some Foodways Look Like Religion?

Food sustains physical life, and as such is of critical importance to each of us. Some in the country have an abundance; hunger or food insecurity gnaws at others: in which group we find ourselves determines much of our current existence. What we eat also touches on other aspects of our lives besides “need”: celebrations, emotional comfort, health, family traditions, and connections or “breaking bread” with others. For the purposes of this podcast series, we are of course interested in uncovering and understanding the connections between religion and food in the United States – what they are, what they mean, and their significance?

To do another deep dive into just one aspect of this fascinating and meaningful subject, we have as our guest Benjamin Zeller, Associate Professor of Religion and Chair of both Religion and Islamic World Studies at Lake Forest College. His research interests include religion in America, religion in culture, religion and science and new religious movements. He is the author of Heaven’s Gate: America’s UFO Religion and Prophets and Protons: New Religious Movements and Science in Late Twentieth-Century America. 

For our discussion today, we are looking at his chapter “Quasi-religious American Foodways: The Cases of Vegetarianism and Locovorism” from the book Religion, Food & Eating in North America, edited by Benjamin Zeller, Marie Dallam, Reid Neilson, and Nora Rubel.

The Making of US: Lived Religion in America with Reverend Senator Kim Jackson

Reverend Kim Jackson is an Episcopal priest in the Diocese of Atlanta, vicar at the Church of the Common Ground, which gives services for the homeless and, as of her electoral victory in November 2020, the first out LGBTQ person ever elected to the Georgia state Senate. 

Her father served families as a social worker for more than 30 years. Kim's mom, a retired nurse and Professor of Nursing, served as a community nurse for economically disadvantaged families living with Sickle Cell disease.

After graduating from Furman University, Kim volunteered as an EMT and led her colleagues at Emory's Candler School of Theology in advocating for Criminal Justice Reform in Georgia.

Upon receiving her Master of Divinity, Kim commenced her vocation as an Episcopal priest. During ten years of ministry, she served as college chaplain, a nationally renowned consultant and preacher, a parish priest and a social justice advocate. 

In 2018, the Georgia House of Representatives commended her for her "tireless efforts on behalf of the disenfranchised, disenchanted, and dispossessed" (GA House Resolution 1188).