Finishing our series on American religious history, this course will cover the momentous changes on the American religious scene since the end of World War II. We will consider religion’s role in: 

Session 1: The great postwar “religious boom” that brought the rate of formal religious   affiliation to its historic high in 1960. 

Session 2: The dramatic decline in “mainline” Protestantism and the reemergence of Evangelicalism beginning in the 1970s. 

Session 3: The ways that renewed immigration after 1965 changed the face of American religion, particularly in the Roman Catholic Church and in the proliferation of non-Christian faiths. 

Session 4: The controversies over Evangelical political activism in the 21st century and the simultaneous rise of religious “none’s,” bringing us back to the national religious profile of the late 19th century. 

Subject: history, religion 

James Bratt is professor of history emeritus at Calvin University where he taught for 30 years, specializing in American cultural and religious history. He previously taught the same subjects in the department of religious studies at the University of Pittsburgh. He is the recipient of three Fulbright grants, including one to teach at Xiamen University in China, and has taught world religions for two voyages on the Semester at Sea.