A 400 year history of religion in America

Streaming video - 2021

One Day University presents a series of video lectures recorded in real-time from some of the top minds in the United States. Given by award-winning professors and experts in their field, these recorded lectures dive deep into the worlds of religion, government, literature, and social justice. No country has as many indigenous religions as the United States of America. Although we think of religion in colonial America and our religious past as being defined by groups that came here to flee persecution elsewhere, what's astonishing is not the transplanted religions but the ones native to our soil: Shakers, Mormons, Seventh-day Adventists, Scientologists, numerous varieties of Baptists, and many more. These and other groups were born her...e, took root, and flourished, helping to create the country that we know today-a deeply religious place. As faith withers on the vine in Europe, the United States continues to defy all expectations of the death of God, proving that religion can thrive, even in an age supposedly marked by science and reason. Why is the United States the religious exception? Although one might think that refusing to establish a state church would make a country less religious, the opposite proved true. In the U.S., religion was opened up to spiritual entrepreneurs, who offered new varieties of worship on every street corner-and got especially adept at advertising what they were selling. In the end, religion is made in the U.S. for the same reason that cars, airplanes, and boats are made here: because of low regulation and low barriers to entry, and because, in this land of ingenuity, we have never had a shortage of dreamers or schemers. more