Christian History in America: Visions, Realities, and Turning Points
With Tim and Paula Castner, Karen Wilkerson
Fall 2011
Few topics are as politicized or misunderstood as the Christian history of the United States. Come explore American church history though lecture, discussion, and original documents. Special attention will be given to the rise of Evangelicalism, intersections between faith and politics, and contemporary applications of this history.
Week 1: Cities upon a Hill
- Introduction to the themes and objectives of the course
- A Christian Nation?
- Contrasting views of Founding Settlers
Week 1 Slides
Week 1 Handout
Week 1 Documents
Week 2: The Surprising Work of God
- Fears of Declension
- The Great Awakening
Week 2 Slides
Week 2 Handout
Week 2 Documents
Week 3: Resistance to Tyrants is Obedience to God?
- The Role of Religion in the Coming of the American Revolution
- The Faiths of the Founders
- Founding Documents and the Separation of Church and State
Week 3 Slides
Week 3 Handout
Week 3 Documents
Week 4: A Perfect Babble of Confusion
- The results of disestablishment
- A proliferation of new religious movements
- Missions to enslaved Africans and Native Americans
Week 4 Slides
Week 4 Handout
Week 4 Documents
Week 5: Religion and "Democracy in America"
- The Second Great Awakening and the Reform Impulse
- The Voluntary Principal and the Push for Reform
- Sunday closing laws, protests against Indian Removal, and Temperance
Week 5 Slides
Week 5 Handout
Week 5 Documents
Week 6: Catholicism and American History
- Testing the boundaries of Inclusion
- Partners or opponents in the faith
Week 6 Slides
Week 6 Handout
Week 7: The Skeletons in the Closet
- Slavery, Antislavery, and the Bible
- Native Removal, Manifest Destiny, and the building of a "Christian" empire
Week 7 Slides
Week 7 Handout
Week 7 Documents
[Week 8: No Class]
Week 9: The Church in a Transformed America
- The Civil War and the meaning of a Christian Nation: Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address
- The Challenges to faith in the Gilded Age
- The Promise and Perils of the Social Gospel
Week 9 Slides
Week 9 Handout
Week 9 Documents
Week 10: To Make the World and America Safe for Democracy and Protestantism
Week 10 Slides
Week 10 Handout
Week 10 Documents
Week 11: You Can't Make a Monkey of Me
- The Fundamentalist/Modernist Split
- The Scopes Monkey Trial
Week 11 Slides
Week 11 Handout
Week 11 Documents
Week 12: American Christians and World Missions
- American Christianity goes global
- American Imperialism and International Missions Movement
Week 13: One Nation Under God
- The Rise of Neo-Evangelicalism
- The Emergence of the Judeo-Christian Identity in the Face of Global Conflicts
- Challenges of Christian Witness in the 1960s
Week 13 Slides
Week 13 Handout
Week 13 Documents
Week 14: Whither Evangelicalism? Embattled but thriving
- Supreme Court Secularism and Separatism
- The Rise of the Christian Right
- Continuing Conflicts over the role of Religion in American life