Lodged firmly in the American psyche and a bedrock part of American history, is the Great Depression. Beginning with the stock market crash in October of 1929 - the market lost 50% of its value in weeks - and lasting a decade, it was the worst calamity to hit the United States since the Civil War. Unemployment soared, farms went under, long bread lines formed, people up and left their homes for a better place, and poverty skyrocketed. The emotional toll on millions was just as severe. For us the question is, in what ways did religion – one of the greatest and most ubiquitous forces in American ..read more

Who is Thomas Jefferson? He is the author of the Declaration of Independence, third president of the United States, founder of the University of Virginia, slaveholder, has a monument in Washington DC and his face on our five-cent coin, and is one of the four presidents carved in stone at Mt. Rushmore – along with George Washington, Teddy Roosevelt, and Abraham Lincoln. He has also been called the American Sphinx, because a complete understanding of him has been somewhat elusive. For the National Museum of American Religion our questions are these: what was Thomas Jefferson’s religion and what ..read more

Iowa is lodged firmly in the American psyche as a place of traditional American values – hard work, family, and religion. Iowa is an important player in the United States’ vaunted agricultural industry, having been ranked first in the country in soybean production, corn production, and pork production. America has also slowly learned over the past decade, with ICE raids and COVID, is that a significant number of immigrants and refugees do the difficult and hazardous work of slaughtering and processing the meat products we purchase at our local grocery store. What is of interest to us at the Na ..read more

Martin Luther King is a larger-than-life character in the American narrative, playing a pivotal role in the nation’s mid-twentieth-century Civil Rights Movement. His “I Have a Dream” speech at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC in August of 1963 as part of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom is an integral part of Americans’ understanding of him and the Civil Rights Movement. However, talking about receiving the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964 he said, “I am a minister of the gospel, not a political leader”, suggesting there is more, much more, to him than “I have a dream.” This podcast ..read more

We are at that time of year when the Charlie Brown Christmas Special arrives in the public square and perhaps more pervasively in the psyche of millions of Americans. In this unique and quite secular television program, first aired at 7:30pm on December 9, 1965, viewers hear Linus recite from the Bible - Luke chapter two verses eight through fourteen – the Christmas story. As this story might suggest, it turns out that religion played a significant role in the life and work of Charles Schulz, creator of Linus, Charlie Brown, Snoopy, Lucy and the rest of the Peanuts gang, a comic strip that is ..read more

Join Dr. Colleen Prior for a special episode of Religion in the American Experience where we explore the effect of the war in Gaza on Jews and Muslims in the United States. In this episode we look at the history of both groups in North America and examine both historic trends and current survey data to try and understand why violent actions against both groups are on the rise, and we discuss what can be done to combat anti-Semitic and anti-Muslim violence ..read more

Christian Nationalism: This is a term that many of our listeners have likely come across, as its use has become much more common in the news over the past couple of years, particularly as some politicians have begun to embrace the term as a core part of their personal and political identity. Christian Nationalism isn’t a new concept though, of course. To understand its history, we’re very fortunate today to have with us two outstanding scholars of religion and religious history: Dr. Catherine Brekus and Dr. Mark Edwards. Dr. Brekus is the Charles Warren Professor of the History of Religion in ..read more

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 ..read more

Jimmy Carter was the 39th 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 ..read more

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 he ..read more