Amanda Porterfield, Florida State University "Religion and Politics in the Early United States: Historical Roots of their Interplay Today"

Date
Thu May 28th 2015, 4:15 - 6:00pm
Event Sponsor
McCoy Family Center for Ethics in Society, Department of Religious Studies, Program in History and Philosophy of Science and Technology
Location
history Room 307

Amanda Porterfield, Florida State University"Religion and Politics in the Early United States: Historical Roots of their Interplay Today"May 28, 2015, 4:15pmHistory Building 200, Room 307Stanford UniversityAmericans have long acknowledged a deep connection between evangelical religion and democracy in the early days of the republic. This is a widely accepted narrative that is maintained as a matter of fact and tradition—and in spite of evangelicalism’s more authoritarian and reactionary aspects. The lecture challenges this standard interpretation of evangelicalism’s relation to democracy and describes the interdependent relationship between religion and partisan politics that emerged in the formative era of the early republic. In the 1790s, religious doubt became common in the young republic as the culture shifted from mere skepticism toward darker expressions of suspicion and fear. But by the end of that decade, economic instability, disruption of traditional forms of community, rampant ambition, and greed for land worked to undermine heady optimism about American political and religious independence. Evangelicals managed and manipulated doubt, reaching out to disenfranchised citizens as well as to those seeking political influence, blaming religious skeptics for immorality and social distress, and demanding affirmation of biblical authority as the foundation of the new American national identity.Amanda Porterfield is the Robert A. Spivey Professor of Religion and Professor of History at the Florida State University.  She works on the historical interplay of religion, politics and law; the history of American religious thought; the historical study of Native American religions; and the history of Christianity more generally. Among her many books are Healing in the History of Christianity (2005), The Protestant Experience in America (2006), and Conceived in Doubt: Religion and Politics in the New American Nation(2012). Her current research focuses on religion in American law.