Building off our consideration of religion in early America, this course will review the main developments of religion in the young republic, from the Revolution up to the Civil War. We will examine the role—alleged and real—that Christianity played in the founding of the new nation; the tremendous growth and influence of evangelical Protestantism thereafter; the radical alternatives that arose in turn; and the role that religion played in African American life and the growing controversy over slavery. We will profile notable personalities; new religious movements such as Adventism, Mormonism, and Spiritualism; and the arrival en masse of immigrants from very old faiths—Judaism and Roman Catholicism. Bottom line: the United States was not founded as a Christian nation but 75 years later had become one culturally and socially. Alas, that did not solve but underscored its most vexing problem, the enslavement of four million people.  

James Bratt is professor of history emeritus at Calvin University where he taught for 30 years, specializing in American religious and cultural history. He earned his BA from Calvin (1971) and his PhD from Yale University (1978). Besides his work at Calvin, he taught for a decade at the University of Pittsburgh, for a year as a Fulbright Lecturer at Xiamen University in China, and for two terms on the Semester at Sea.