Religion has played a complex, vibrant, and multifaceted role in our nation's history. One of the most effective ways to help students explore its vitality is through primary sources. American Religions: A Documentary History is the only one-volume, up-to-date collection of primary sources available for American religious history courses. Featuring a creative dual structure--the readings are arranged both chronologically and thematically--this indispensable sourcebook can be used in both historically and topically organized courses.
Balancing canonical works with those by newly discovered voices, American Religions: A Documentary History includes seventy-five classic and contemporary selections from the colonial period through the present day. It offers readings by a uniquely wide range of religiously, socially, and ethnically diverse writers: theological conservatives and liberals, northerners and southerners, women and men, and African Americans and Mexican Americans alongside Anglo-Americans. The selections are long enough to stimulate serious discussion yet concise enough for students to digest easily. The volume is organized into six sections that cover different chronological periods, each of which contains writings on five themes: theological reflections, ritual and performance, spiritual autobiography, interreligious conflict and negotiation, and more expansive conceptualizations of religion. Enhanced by brief biographies of the authors, a general introduction, and section introductions, the text also includes two sample syllabi--one oriented toward a historical approach and the other toward a thematic approach. Ideal for introductory courses in religion in America andAmerican religious history--taught both in religious studies and history departments--American Religions: A Documentary History offers students a broad yet in-depth and engaging gateway into the subject.

Political polarization and unrest are not exclusive to our era, but in the twenty-first century, we are living with seemingly unresolvable disagreements that threaten to tear our country apart. Discrimination, racism, tyranny, religious fundamentalism, political schisms, misogyny, ""fake news,"" border walls, the #MeToo moment, foreign intervention in our electoral process - these cultural and social rifts charge our world, and we have failed to find a path toward agreement or unity.As Much Truth as One Can Bear is Marie Griffith's thoughtful response to an imperiled nation that has forgotten how to listen and debate productively, at a time when it needs vigorous discourse more than ever. Griffith performs the urgent work of examining the histories behind the issues at the root of our country's conflicts both past and present, from race and immigration to misogyny and reproductive rights. This is more than a study of the issues; it is an attempt to shed real light on how to encourage constructive dialogue and move society forward.

From an esteemed scholar of American religion and sexuality, a sweeping account of the century of religious conflict that produced our culture wars Gay marriage, transgender rights, birth control--sex is at the heart of many of the most divisive political issues of our age. The origins of these conflicts, historian R. Marie Griffith argues, lie in sharp disagreements that emerged among American Christians a century ago. From the 1920s onward, a once-solid Christian consensus regarding gender roles and sexual morality began to crumble, as liberal Protestants sparred with fundamentalists and Catholics over questions of obscenity, sex education, and abortion. Both those who advocated for greater openness in sexual matters and those who resisted new sexual norms turned to politics to pursue their moral visions for the nation. Moral Combat is a history of how the Christian consensus on sex unraveled, and how this unraveling has made our political battles over sex so ferocious and so intractable.

This collection of essays from a special issue of American Quarterly explores the complex and sometimes contradictory ways that religion matters in contemporary public life.

Religion and Politics in the Contemporary United States offers a groundbreaking, cross-disciplinary conversation between scholars in American studies and religious studies. The contributors explore numerous modes through which religious faith has mobilized political action. They utilize a variety of definitions of politics, ranging from lobbying by religious leaders to the political impact of popular culture. Their work includes the political activities of a very diverse group of religious believers: Christians, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, and others. In addition, theA book explores the meanings of religion for people who might contest the term -- those who are spiritual but not religious, for example, as well as activists who engage symbols of faith and community but who may not necessarily consider themselves members of a specific religion. Several essays also examine the meanings of secular identity, humanist politics, and the complex evocations of civil religion in American life.

No other book on religion and politics includes anything like the diversity of religions, ethnicities, and topics that this one does -- from Mormon political mobilization to attempts at Americanizing Muslims in the post-9/11 United States, from CA(c)sar ChAvez to James Dobson, from interreligious cooperation and conflict over Darfur to the global politics surrounding the category of Hindus and South Asians in the United States.

In recent decades, religious conservatives and secular liberals have battled over the 'appropriate' role of women in society. In this absorbing exploration of Women's Aglow Fellowship, the largest women's evangelical organization in the world, R. Marie Griffith challenges the simple generalizations often made about charismatic or 'spirit-filled' Christian women and uncovers important connections between Aglow members and the feminists to whom they so often seem opposed. Women's Aglow is an international, interdenominational group of 'spirit-filled' women who meet outside the formal church structure for healing prayer, worship, and testimony. Aglow represents a wider evangelical culture that has gained recent media attention as women inspired by the Christian men's group, Promise Keepers, have initiated parallel groups such as Praise Keepers and Promise Reapers. These groups are generally newcomers to an institutional landscape that Aglow has occupied for thirty years, but their beliefs and commitments are very similar to Aglow's. While historians have examined earlier women's prayer groups, they've tended to ignore these modern-day evangelical groups because of their assumed connection to the 'religious right'. "God's Daughters" reveals a devotional world in which oral and written testimonies recount the afflictions of human life and the means for seeking relief and divine assistance. A relationship with God, envisioned as father, husband or lover, and friend, is a way to come to terms with pain, dysfunctional family relationships, and a desire for intimacy. Griffith's book is also valuable in showing the complex role that women play within Pentecostalism, a movement that has become one of the most important in twentieth-century world religions.

Fat People Don't Go to Heaven screamed a headline in the tabloid "Globe "in November 2000. The story recounted the success of the Weigh Down Workshop, the nation's largest Christian diet corporation and the subject of extensive press coverage from "Larry King Live "to the "New Yorker. "In the United States today, hundreds of thousands of people are making diet a religious duty by enrolling in Christian diet programs and reading Christian diet literature like "What Would Jesus Eat? "and "Fit for God. "Written with style and wit, far ranging in its implications, and rich with the stories of real people, "Born Again Bodies "launches a provocative yet sensitive investigation into Christian fitness and diet culture. Looking closely at both the religious roots of this movement and its present-day incarnations, R. Marie Griffith vividly analyzes Christianity's intricate role in America's obsession with the body, diet, and fitness. As she traces the underpinning of modern-day beauty and slimness idealsOCoas well as the bigotry against people who are overweightOCoGriffith links seemingly disparate groups in American history including seventeenth-century New England Puritans, Progressive Era New Thought adherents, and late-twentieth-century evangelical diet preachers."