AMHERST COLLEGE
Religion 19
RELIGION IN THE UNITED STATES
Spring 2010 Professor David W. Wills
TTH 11:30-12:50 Chapin 112
January 26: Introduction to the Course
January 28: The Origins of Religious Liberty: Virginia and Rhode Island
Edwin Gaustad and Leigh Schmidt, The Religious History of America, chs. 1-2 and the Rhode Island section of ch 3, pp. 3-48, 65-73 (purchase).
David D. Hall, ed., Puritans in the New World: A Critical Anthology, pp. 203-210, 226-238 (purchase).
February 2: Puritan New England: The City on a Hill
Gaustad & Schmidt, RHA, ch. 3, pp. 49-65
Hall, PNW, pp. ix-xvi, 1-8, 159-200, 325-328, [329-335], 336-341, [341-348].{Here and where they appear below, bracketed pages are recommended but not required.}
Exercise Due: 2 pp.
February 4: Puritan New England: Election, Regeneration, and the Holy Life
Hall, PNW, pp [37-52], 67-96, 211-225, 107-126, [126-134],135-139, [140-155].
February 9: Puritans and Indians/Middle Colonies, the South, and the Atlantic World
Hall, PNW, 241-244, 255-269, [270-281]
Gaustad & Schmidt, RHA, ch, 4-5, pp. 74-114.
Albert J. Raboteau, Caanan Land: A Religious History of African Americans, ch 1, pp. 3-20 (purchase).
February 11: Religion, Race, and Slavery in the Atlantic World
David W. Wills, gen. ed., Selections from Working Draft: African-American Religion: A Documentary History, Volumes Three and Four
February 12: Friday
Paper Due: 3-4 pp.
February 16: The Evangelical Revivals: George Whitefield
Mark Noll, The Old Religion in the New World, pp. 48-57 (packet)
Harry S. Stout, “George Whitefield in Three Countries,” in Mark Noll, David Bebbington, and George A. Rawlyk, Evangelicalism, pp.58-72 (packet)
David W. Wills, gen ed., Selections from Working Draft: African-American Religion: A Documentary History, Volume Five.
February 18: Jonathan Edwards and the Evangelical Revivals
Jonathan Edwards, “A Faithful Narrative of the Surprising Work of God (1737), (Works of Jonathan Edwards on-line {WJEO}vol. 4, Jonathan Edwards Center)
Jonathan Edwards, “Sinners in the Hands of An Angry God,” (WJEO vol. 22))
Jonathan Edwards, “A Divine and Supernatural Light,”(WJEO, vol. 12)
Harry S. Stout, “Edwards as revivalist,” in Stephen J. Stein, ed., The Cambridge
Companion to Jonathan Edwards , pp. 125-143(on-line, AC library).
February 23: The Religion of Reason and the First Amendment
Gaustad & Schmidt, RHA, ch. 6, pp.121-138.
Thomas Jefferson, “ A Bill for Establishing Religious Freedom,” in The Works of Thomas Jefferson, ed. Paul Leicester Ford, Vol. II, pp. 438-441 (packet).
Thomas Jefferson, “Notes on Virginia, Query XVII,” in Ford, WTJ, IV, 74-82 (packet).
James Madison, “Memorial and Remonstrance against Religious Assessments,” in The Papers of James Madison, ed. Robert Rutland and William M. E. Rachal, Vol. 8, pp. 295-306 (packet).
“The First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America”
Thomas Jefferson, “To Messrs. Nehemiah Dodge and Others, a Committee of the Danbury Baptist Association, in the State of Connecticut” (1802), in Thomas Jefferson Writings: Library of America, p. 510 (packet)
Thomas Jefferson, “To Rev. Samuel Miller,” (1808), (packet)
James Madison, “To Jacob de la Motta,” in The Writings of James Madison, ed. Gaillard Hunt, Vol IX, pp. 29-30 (packet)
Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States, Vol. III, pp. 722-731 (packet).
Exercise Due: 2 pp.
February 25: Religion in an Expanding Nation: The “Second Great Awakening”
Gaustad & Schmidt, RHA, chs. 7, pp.139-161
John A. Andrew III, Rebuilding the Christian Commonwealth, ch1, pp. 4-24, 176-182 (packet)
Edward Hitchcock, Reminiscences of Amherst College, Section VI: “Religious History,”
pp. 159-204 (packet)
March 2: Unitarianism and Transcendentalism
William Ellery Channing, “Unitarian Christianity,” in The Works of William Ellery Channing, vol II, pp. 59-103 (packet)
Ralph Waldo Emerson, “The Divinity School Address,” Frederic Carpenter, ed. Ralph Waldo Emerson: Representative Selections, pp 71-88 (packet)
March 4: Reform Judaism/Catholic Americanism
Jonathan D. Sarna, American Judaism: A History, pp.62-102 (packet)
James G. Heller, Isaac M. Wise, pp. 517-521, 537-539 (packet)
James Hennesey, American Catholics, chs. X-XI, pp. 116-142 (packet)
A. S. Ryan, “Orestes Brownson,” New Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol. 2, pp.827-829 (packet)
Orestes A. Brownson, The American Republic, ch xv, pp. 189-209 (packet)
March 9: Religion in the West: the Mormons
Gaustad & Schmidt, RHA, ch. 8, pp. 162-183.
Claudia Lauper Bushman and Richard Lyman Bushman, Building the Kingdom: A
History of the Mormons in America, preface & chapters 1-6, pp. ix-xi, 1-74 (purchase)
March 11: African American Christianity and the Civil War
Gaustad & Schmidt, RHA, ch. 9, pp. 184-202.
Raboteau, CL, chs. 2-3, pp. 21-60, 80-81.
David Walker, Walker’s Appeal in Four Articles, pp. 1-51, 76-88 (packet)
Abraham Lincoln, “Second Inaugural Address” (packet)
March 12: Friday
Paper Due: 4-5 pp.
SPRING BREAK
March 23: Immigration and a Changing Pluralism
Gaustad & Schmidt, RHA, ch. 10, pp. 209-230.
Raboteau, CL, ch. 4, pp.61-81.
March 25: “Americanization”
Abraham Cahan, The Imported Bridegroom, entire (purchase)
Viewing Assignment: “The Imported Bridegroom” (reserve)
March 30: Urbanization, Industrialization, and Class Struggle
Gaustad & Schmidt, RHA, ch. 11, pp. 231-254.
Washington Gladden, “Labor and Capital,” in Working People and Their Employers, ch. 2, pp. 30-51 (packet).
Russell Conwell, Acres of Diamonds, entire (purchase)
Exercise Due: 2 pp.
April 1: Global Power, Religious Diversity, and Political Controversy
Gaustad & Schmidt, RHA, ch. 12, pp. 255-276.
Raboteau, CL, ch. 5, pp. 82-103.
Bushman and Bushman, BTK, ch. 7, pp. 75-87.
Charles C. Marshall, “An Open Letter to the Honorable Alfred E. Smith,” Atlantic Monthly, (April 1927): 540-549 (packet)
“Catholic and Patriot: Governor Smith Replies,” Atlantic Monthly (May 1927): 721-728
(packet)
Horace M. Kallen, Culture and Democracy in the United States, pp. 9-43 (packet)
April 6: Modernism and Fundamentalism
Gaustad & Schmidt, RHA, chs. 13-14, pp. 277-321
Harry Emerson Fosdick, “I Believe in Man,” in Adventurous Religion and Other Essays, pp. 30-44 (packet)
J. Gresham Machen, Christianity and Liberalism, ch. 3, pp. 54-68 (packet)
April 8: The Niebuhr Brothers
Reinhold Niebuhr,“The Ethic of Jesus and the Social Problem,” Religion in Life,(packet).
Reinhold Niebuhr, “Why the Christian Church Is Not Pacifist,” Christianity and Power Politics, pp. 1-32 (packet).
Additional reading to be announced
April 13: The Sixties: Catholic Change
Gaustad & Schmidt, RNA, chs.15, pp. 329-348.
John Courtney Murray, We Hold These Truths, pp. 39-85 (packet)
Thomas Merton, “Christian Ethics and Nuclear War,” in The Nonviolent Alternative, pp. 82-87 (packet)
Thomas Merton, “A Christian Looks at Zen,’ in Zen and the Birds of Appetite, pp.33-58 (packet).
April 15: The Sixties: From Civil Rights to Black Power, from King to Black Theology
Raboteau, CL, chs. 6, pp.104-123.
Martin Luther King, Jr., Stride Toward Freedom, ch 6, pp. 90-107 (packet)
Martin Luther King, Jr., Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community?,
ch 2, pp.27-77 (packet)
James Cone, “Christianity and Black Power,” in Risks of Faith, pp. 3-12 (packet)
James Cone, Black Theology and Black Power, ch. 6, pp. 135-152 (packet)
April 16: Friday
Paper Due; 4-5 pp.
April 20: Cross Currents and Controversies in the Late Twentieth Century
Gaustad & Schmidt, RNA, 16-18, pp.349-427
Raboteau, CL, ch. 7, pp. 124-135
Bushman and Bushman, BTK, ch. 8, pp. 88-103.
April 22: Latino Catholicism, Latino Protestantism, and Latino Identity
David Badillo, Latinos and the New Immigrant Church, introduction, pp. xi-xix, and ch 7, pp. 154-182 (packet).
Virgil Elizondo, “Hispanic Theology and Popular Piety: From Interreligious Encounter to a New Ecumenism,” in Timothy Matovina, Beyond Borders: Writings of Virgil Elizondo and Friends, pp.278-291 (packet)
Virgil Elizondo, “Transformation of Borders: Mestizaje and the Future of Humanity,”in T. Beyond Borders: Writings of Virgil Elizondo and Friends, 176-186 (packet).
Segunda S. Pantoja, “Religious Diversity and Ethnicity among Latinos,” in Tony Carnes and Anna Karpathakis, New York Glory: Religions in the City, pp.162-173 (packet).
April 27: Immigration, Religion, and Transnationalism
Karen McCarthy Brown, “Staying Grounded in a High Rise Building: Ecological Resonance and Ritual Accommodation in Haitian Vodou,” in Robert Orsi, Gods of the City, pp. 79-103 (packet)
Prema Kurien, “‘We Are Better Hindus Here’: Religion and Ethnicity Among Indian Americans,” in Pyong Gap Min and Jung Ha Kim, Religions in Asian America, pp. 99-120 (packet)
Pyong Gap Min, “Immigrants’ Religion and Ethnicity: A Comparison of Korean Christian and Indian Hindu Immigrants,” in J. N. Iwamura and Paul Spickard, Revealing the Sacred, pp. 125-141 (packet)
Sharon A. Suh, “‘To Be Buddhist Is To Be Korean’: The Rhetorical Use of Authenticity and the Homeland in the Construction of Post-Immigration Identities,” in Jane Naomi Iwamura and Paul Spickard, Revealing the Sacred in Asian and Pacific America, pp. 177-191 (packet).
Richard Seagar, Buddhism in America, chs 1 and 8, pp. 3-11, 113-135 (packet)
Viewing Assignment: “Legacy of the Spirits”
April 29: American Muslims
Geneive Abdo, Mecca and Main Street: Muslim Life in America After 9/11 , Prologue, chs. 1-3, pp. 1-86 (purchase)
May 4: American Muslims
Abdo, MM, chs. 4-8, pp. 87-201
May 6: Protestantism, Piety, and Politics
Pat Robertson, America’s Dates With Destiny, chs. 1, 21, & 22, pp. 25-36, 273-291 (packet)
Joel Osteen, Your Best Life Now, chs. 10 & 29, pp. 82-90, 258-266 (packet)
[additional selections to be announced]
May 7: Friday
Final Paper Due: 4-5 pp.
Course Requirements
(1) Regular attendance and participation in class meetings. (2) Three pass/fail “exercises” on assigned questions to be submitted in class on the stated days (no extensions). (3) Four graded short papers, to be submitted on stated dates (which are all Fridays).
Books for Purchase (at Amherst Books)
Edwin Gaustad and Leigh Schmidt, The Religious History of America (Harper)
Albert J. Raboteau, Canaan Land: A Religious History of African Americans (Oxford)
David D. Hall, ed., Puritans in the New World: A Critical Anthology (Princeton)
Claudia Lauper Bushman and Richard Lyman Bushman, Building the Kingdom (Oxford)
Abraham Cahan, The Imported Bridegroom (Whitefish/Kessinger)
Russell Conwell, Acres of Diamonds (Jove/Penguin)
Geneive Abdo, Mecca and Main Street: Muslim Life in America After 9/11 (Oxford)
There will also be a packet of material available for purchase in the Religion Department office.