Catholicism and Anti-Catholicism: Some Bibliographic Suggestions

Paul Harvey

A few months ago, a subscriber to H-AMREL posted this inquiry, which I thought would be of interest to some readers of this blog:

I am creating a syllabus for a seminar in the History of American Catholicism, and I would be particularly interested in suggestions for good journal articles for the early republic and antebellum periods. Iwould be particularly interested in works on anti-Catholicism. Suggestions of full-length books would also be appreciated, but I am already familiar with several major works, and they all seem to be currently available in paperback. Although the matter is less pressing, suggestions for appropriate readings on the period between the world wars would also be appreciated.

The query received a number of replies, which add up to a nice beginning bibliography for the subject. Here's a compilation.

The first respondent wrote: Here are a few article possibilities on Catholicism in the early republic and antebellum period:

Carter, Michael S. "'Under the Benign Sun of Toleration": Mathew Carey,the Douai Bible, and Catholic Print Culture, 1789-1791" Journal of the Early Republic 27 (Fall 2007).

Dolan, Jay. "The Search for an American Catholicism, 1780-1820," in Religious Diversity and American Religious History, ed. Walter H.Conser, Jr. and Sumner B. Twiss, University of Georgia Press, 1997, pp.26-51.

Dolan, Jay. "Catholicism and American Culture: Strategies for Survival," in Minority Faiths and the American Protestant Mainstream, ed. Jonathan D. Sarna, University of Illinois Press, 1997, pp. 61-80.

Fenton, Elizabeth. "Catholic Canadians, Religious Pluralism, and National Unity in the Early U.S. Republic," in Early American Literature, Vol. 41, No. 1, 29-57.

Lannie, Vincent P. "Alienation in America: The Immigrant Catholic and Public Education in Pre-Civil War America." Review of Politics, XXXII (1970), 503-521.

Lannie, Vincent P. and Bernard C. Diethorn. "For the Honor and Glory ofGod: The Philadelphia Bible Riots, 1840" History of Education Quarterly,Vol. 8, No. 1 (Spring, 1968): 44-106.

Next response:

All but one of these are full-length books, but I'm passing them along just in case they aren't already on your radar.

Early Republic and Antebellum periods: Ray Allen Billington, The Protestant Crusade, 1800-1860: A Study of the Origins of American Nativism (New York: Macmillan, 1938).

The classic work on the subject, this book charts the rise and fall ofthe Know Nothings in the mid-19th century.

Davis, David Brion. "Some Themes of Counter-Subversion: An Analysis of Anti-Masonic, Anti-Catholic, and Anti-Mormon Literature." The Mississippi Valley Historical Review, Vol. 47, No. 2. (Sep., 1960), pp. 105-224.

Another classic, dealing with the interrelationships between these three forms of intolerance in the mid-19th century: Jenny Franchot, Roads to Rome: The Antebellum Protestant Encounter with Roman Catholicism (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994).Excellent material, but a tough read. I would only recommend this for graduate students and advanced undergrads.J

john T. McGreevy, Catholicism and American Freedom: A History (New York:W.W. Norton & Company, 2003). The early chapters deal with the antebellum period.

Interwar: Lerond Curry, Protestant-Catholic Relations in America: World War I Through Vatican II (Lexington, KY: University of Kentucky Press, 1972).

The next response adds a few more:

Daniel Cohen. "Passing the Torch: Boston Firemen, "Tea Party" Patriots,and the Burning of the Charlestown Convent." Journal of the EarlyRepublic, Vol. 24, No. 4 (Winter 2004), pages 527-586.

And then:

With regard to 19th century American Catholicism, I would draw your attention to two articles by Tracy Fessenden, "The Convent, the Brothel, and the Protestant Woman'sSphere." Signs, Vol. 25, No. 2 (Winter, 2000), pp. 451-478, and "The Nineteenth Century Bible Wars and the Separation of Church and State." Church History." Vol. 74, no. 4 (December 2005), pp. 785-811. Also her recently published book, Culture and Redemption: Religion, the Secular,and American Literature, which actually extends into the twentieth century. As with Jenny Franchot's work, this material is not an easy read, but well worth the effort.

For American Catholicism in the period between the two world wars, I have found particularly insightful William M. Halsey's The Survival of American Innocence (Notre Dame, 1980).

A graduate student respondent includes some articles that emphasize more religious cooperation than conflict and anti-Catholicism:

For different perspectives on American Catholicism andanti-Catholicism during the antebellum period, might I suggest:

Andrew Stern, “Southern Harmony: Catholic-ProtestantRelations in the Antebellum South,” Religion in American Culture 17.2 (Summer 2007).

Emily Clark and Virginia Meacham Gould, “The Feminine Face of Afro-Catholicism in New Orleans, 1727-1852,” William andMary Quarterly 59.2 (2002): 409-448.

Joseph Mannard's work on Protestant-Catholic relations throughthe lens of gender studies could also be useful to you, and they are article-length pieces (as opposed to the Franchot book!) I particularly like:

Mannard, “Maternity. . . of the Spirit: Nuns and Domesticity in Antebellum America,” U.S. Catholic Historian 5.3-4 (1986):305-324.

Mannard, “Protestant Mothers and Catholic Sisters: Gender Concerns in Anti-Catholic Conspiracy Theories, 1830-1860,”American Catholic Studies 111 (2000): 1-21.

Gene Mills of Florida State adds:

And then don't forget:

Michael Pasquier, "'Though Their Skin Remains Brown, I Hope Their SoulsWillSoon Be White': Slavery, French Missionaries, and the Roman Catholic Priesthood inthe American South, 1789-1865" _Church History_ June 2008.

Divining America

Paul Harvey

Here's a great teaching resource that I had sort of forgotten about, even though it's on the blogroll to the left: Divining America: Religion in American History, from the "TeacherServe" at the National Humanities Center. It has expanded recently with a number of newer essays, and although meant for more introductory levels, scholars in American religious history who can't keep up with the latest in every subject will find these short essays to be a great guide. For example, Darren Staloff contributes a nice piece on Deism and the Founding of the U.S., and Christine Leigh Heyrman surveys The Separation of Church and State from the Founding to the Early Republic, and Randall Balmer explores Apocalypticism in American Culture. Check it out, there's something for everyone.

Deg's Dispatches, Part V

Dispatches from LeConte Hall 323 – Part V
by Darren Grem

During a review session for an exam I gave in this course last fall, a student remarked that the early nineteenth century’s religious history was the most confusing subject she had ever studied. That’s understandable. The era has certain qualities that students might find familiar, such as the voluntary principle, and others that are completely unfamiliar, from Shaker communalism to slaveholder apologetics. The sheer number of religious groups that fight for prominence – or fade from prominence – after the Revolutionary era likewise can be daunting. Thus, to make it more of a sensible mess, I divided up the pre-Civil War section into three parts: 1) the “early religious marketplace” 2) African-American religions and slavery and 3) the Civil War era.

We started our investigation of the early religious marketplace with the evangelicals, looking at how and why revivalism spoke to Americans in the early 1800s. I’ve often found it hard to convey through lectures why revivals were meaningful events, so I decided to use the “sights and sounds” of the early revivals to do the job for me. I showed a number of slides that detailed what occurred at camp meetings and coupled these with early evangelical song lyrics, hoping to get students to think about why someone living in the early nineteenth century might find these events attractive or off-putting. By following this analysis with selections from Alexis de Tocqueville’s Democracy in America and Philip Schaff’s America, I wanted students to consider how the voluntary principle could have long-ranging effects, allowing new groups to develop followings while fundamentally reshaping the relationship between religion and the broader political order. De Tocqueville and Schaff offered the additional benefit of having my students reflect on how others have tried to make sense of America’s religious environment, much like they were trying to do in the class (other readings, such as selections from Will Herberg’s Protestant-Catholic-Jew and Robert Bellah’s Habits of the Heart will follow in this vein). Initially, I thought the tour of evangelical revivals was more successful in conveying the ramifications of a religious marketplace than the more conceptual reflections of de Tocqueville and Schaff. But after reading their essays on these observers, I noticed that they grasped the complexities of the religious marketplace well enough, which set us up to start playing with their first impressions about the liberties of that marketplace.

In a lecture about “religious insiders and outsiders” I told my students that “religious freedom does not necessarily result in full scale religious tolerance.” They read selections from Leonard Dinnerstein’s Anti-Semitism in America to drive home this point, as well as several chapters from our textbook, Butler, et al.’s Religion in American Life, which detailed the various religious groups that were at odds with “respectable” religious practice in early America. To illustrate why certain religious groups – like evangelicals, Mormons, Catholics, Transcendentalists, and African-Americans – would conflict with one another, we had a Presidential-style debate in the class after the lecture. The idea for a mediated debate came from one of my undergrad professors, who frequently used them to show why certain historical conflicts were reconcilable and others were not. To prepare for their debate, the students read documents from five different religious figures – Joseph Smith, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Charles Grandison Finney, Elizabeth Ann Bayley Seton, and Jarena Lee – and were instructed to engage in a debate with anyone in the room on matters of religious authenticity and authority. They had to speak in the voice of the figure they represented and had to be aggressive (for some reason, undergrads have a tendency to be too nice with one another during exercises like this, working toward consensus instead of conflict).

Both classes got into the exercise to varying degrees, but I was especially pleased with how well they assumed the perspective of the leaders under study. Some were more difficult for them than others (e.g. Emerson), but all in all, they laid out the conflicts and concessions of the era quite well. I worried afterward, however, that they might remember the debate as a fun exercise instead of an instructive one. Could they, if I asked them now, remember the particular points that, say, Smith and Finney disagreed about? I suppose I will have to wait until their end-of-the-term comprehensive papers come in to find out. Regardless, it was a nice exercise that forced them to read the documents under study (to avoid embarrassment during the debate) while breaking up the rhythm of the course.

We started our study of African-American religions with the first episode of the excellent PBS series This Far By Faith. This documentary lays out the multiple genealogies and expressions of African-American religious culture, and it set us up for broader considerations about how the religious history of slavery fit into America’s early religious marketplace. Since we had been on the topic of religious freedom, insiders, and outsiders, I asked students to view African-American religions along those lines, looking at how slaves, free blacks, and ex-slaves utilized religion to craft their own interpretations of “religious freedom.” Frederick Douglass’s Autobiography, Thomas Wentworth Higginson’s account of “Negro Spirituals,” and W.E.B. Du Bois’s commentary in The Sorrow Songs helped them do that, offering perspectives on pre- and post-emancipation black Christianity in particular. Their papers on these individual accounts of black Christianity were quite insightful (grammar and style, of course, remain a never-ending battle). In general, however, they showed that they grasped how and why religion mattered for slaves, slaveholders, and ex-slaves. To clarify the long-term importance of this religious culture, I lectured about the history of African-American Christianity after slavery, reiterating that the “outsider” status of many blacks continued to grant an important role for religion (and encourage religious innovation), both in the South and in the North.

We also stayed in the post-Civil War period briefly to end our examination of the pre-Civil War era. I took the students (on a particularly frigid day for Georgia!) down to a Confederate Monument downtown. Like other monuments to the “Lost Cause,” this one is double-dipped in religious imagery. The students did some field work there, making inferences about how this monument’s religious aspects helped (white) southerners make sense of the war’s coming and going. Given that the monument proclaimed the Civil War to be a “religious event,” I asked them to make connections between it and documents from before the war, which likewise interpreted the conflict over slavery in religious ways. Via the writings of Angelina Grimké, Catharine Beecher, and George Armstrong, they were exposed to abolitionist, gradualist, and apologist perspectives on slavery. They debated in small groups how each utilized religion to build their various platforms and we inferred from their writings whether the Civil War fit the definition of a “religious war.” I think that the next time I teach this class, I will need to include an additional day to make more explicit the connections between the pre-war religious sentiments circulating about slavery and the post-war interpretations of the conflict. By compressing the topic into two days, we simply didn’t have enough time to draw those lines as tightly as I would have liked. In addition, we didn’t get the chance to connect the war as clearly to the broader themes of voluntarism, religious tolerance, insider/outsider status, and the ironies of “religious freedom.”

Overall, I think the exercises I used to navigate the students through the pre-war religious marketplace were good, although some were better than others. I relied a great deal on Butler, et al’s Religion in American Life to fill in the blanks, which I might supplement next time around with more direct instruction. In turn, I wonder if some of the debates helped clarify particular matters for students or prevented them from deeper understanding since they were depending on one another’s understanding of the readings instead of my direction. All in all, I don’t think they misunderstood the importance of some of the era’s major themes and, as far as I could tell from their essays and comments, they certainly “got” that there was certainly a lot of considerations and conflicts that you have to take into account when you talk about the meaning of “religious freedom.”

Next up, immigration, industrial capitalism, and fundamentalism.

Darren's UnCoverage Course, Part II

Dispatches from LeConte Hall 323 – Part II, BY DARREN GREM

The first week’s set of classes focused on two questions: 1) What is religion? and 2) How should we go about doing religious history? Since our answers to both of those questions shape how we approach America’s religious past, I thought it pertinent to begin with them.

Regarding the first question, I asked my students to list reasons for why UGA football should or shouldn’t be considered a religion. I was pleased with the results from both the morning and afternoon classes. They thought hard about the matter and presented apt reasons for both sides of the matter. UGA football, most concluded, had both qualities of a religion and of more “secular” enterprises. It didn’t have a central deity, but it certainly deified legendary running back Herschel Walker, head coach Mark Richt, Uga VI, and Larry Munson (the radio “Voice of the Dawgs” for over four decades now). It didn’t encourage “worship” of a supernatural figure or appreciation for supernatural events, but it had venerated spaces, icons, rituals, and rites of passage. Its sense of ethics was fuzzy at best (or temperamental, depending on like or dislike of particular referees, plays, coaches, etc.), but it taught what was anathema and taboo (Steve Spurrier, the Florida Gators, all things Georgia Tech).

All in all, the students seemed reluctant to call UGA football a “religion” in any definitive sense, primarily because it didn’t deal in metaphysics (what one student called “the big questions of life”) or in the supernatural, inexplicable, eternal, and divine. When I pushed my first class to reflect on how, say, a Christian or post-Enlightenment view of certain notions – like “the eternal” and “the inexplicable” – shaped their perspective on religion proper, I had to lead the class a bit more. As such, I’m not sure how well I illustrated my points about how a Huron’s or Buddhist’s definition of religion might result in a different narrative about religious history (they seemed confused), so I dropped the points for the second afternoon class, seemingly with no harm done.

Regardless, I think they enjoyed the exercise and were especially attentive when I suggested how we define “religion” shapes what we study as religious historians. Should UGA football – or sports in general – be included in a text on American religious history? Sadly, we didn’t have enough time to deal with this question as much as I would have liked, but they got it in their notes.

If the first question drew the students in, the way I taught the second one – how do we do religious history? – seemed to leave a few behind. I wanted us to focus on how historians write about the “unseen,” and I thought a provocative essay would help (Grant Wacker’s “Understanding the Past, Using the Past,” in Bruce Kuklick and D. G. Hart, eds., Religious Advocacy and American History, Eerdmans, 1997). The essay isn’t an easy read, but it’s an important one, providing models for writing religious history as well as suggestions on how to interpret sources, recreate historical settings, and draw moral meanings from the past. To prep for this class, the students wrote short paragraphs (ungraded) about what they envisioned the discipline of religious history to be about. They also had to take some guesses about the types of challenges historians face in the archives and afterwards. In general, they saw our jobs as a mix of the following: categorizing religions, describing the development of religions, explaining denominational splits, detailing theological conflicts, and showing how religious groups shape politics and popular culture. Most of the challenges they detailed would make any post-modernist proud. How to know if a subject actually had religious experiences? How to determine bias in documents? In the researcher’s methods? What if the documents provided don’t tell the whole story? Can any history of religion be objective? I was impressed. I never knew they carried so much existential baggage.

They were along for the ride as we worked through their results. But when we turned to Wacker’s essay, I undoubtedly lost a few of them. It didn’t help in the first class that I myself mixed up Wacker’s categorizations and suggestions (it was a light moment as we all laughed at my fumbling of the ball, but still a bit embarrassing). But more importantly, the lines between Wacker’s concerns and our own were not drawn clearly enough by either the students or, frankly, by me. The end result, I think, was a more conceptual than concrete set of conclusions about how we should and shouldn’t “do religious history.”

This week we’re going to study religious encounters in New Spain and New France, and hopefully some of the past week’s lessons carry over. I’m editing the course as we go along, and I’ve decided that, for as much as I like Wacker’s article, I’ll probably exchange it in future go-rounds for something that teaches the interests and challenges of the field in more direct ways (making sense of religion in this election season, perhaps?) For now, however, I was pleased with the first week’s set of classes. Despite some bumps and bruises here and there, I think we made our way through a conceptual forest that has lost a few students – and even a few of us – along the way.

Darren's Uncoverage Course in American Religious History -- Part 1 of Many!

BY DARREN GREM

Dispatches From LeConte Hall 323

In a few minutes, I’ll go upstairs to the third floor of LeConte Hall and start another term of my HIST3150 - Religion in American History course. I’m teaching two sections of it this time around, one in the morning, one in the afternoon, and, for the most part, it’s a redesigned course.

Earlier, I wrote here about my reflections on the course’s purpose and pedagogy and, with the blessings of this blog’s big kahuna, we’ve decided to invite y’all along for the ride.

So, over the next fifteen weeks, in the moments I have away from the dissertation, I’ll send in regular dispatches from LeConte Hall 323. By opening the door to my classroom, I hope to offer an inside look at how my students and I are working through my “uncoverage” survey of American religious history. Student privacy, of course, will be maintained, but I’ll try to be as honest as possible about what I see as the course’s successes and failures. I don’t intend these dispatches to be an exercise in narcissism or catharsis, but rather an informal and informative way to discuss publicly the ins-and-outs of teaching religious history in university classrooms today. As such, I welcome your thoughts and reflections on my thoughts and reflections.

FYI, the course’s website is here.

Darren Grem, Courses, CYA Syllabi, and Competing with the Dawgs

Darren Grem, Beyond Drive-by Surveying?

In between dissertation research and writing, I've been toying with an "uncoverage" version of my Religion in American History syllabus for next term. Check out a draft here (available until 10/31). It's on the venti side (17 pages), but a decent amount of it is just CYA syllabus filler.

I'm teaching two sections of it in the spring, on a MWF schedule. To give y'all some demographics, UGA is a R-1/Div-1 state school, but these upper division classes usually allow for more one-on-one interaction. The majority of my students are history/history ed. majors, with the rest usually coming in from a mix of other humanities or social science departments. Most are full-time students, although some have part-time jobs to pay the rent (a smattering have full-time job commitments and/or families). Given all these considerations, the assignments shouldn't be too overbearing since most UGA students have enough time to complete this sort of reading and writing schedule (barring "extenuating circumstances" like UGA football, Halo 3, YouTube, and Facebook).

As mentioned in my previous post, I wondered what techniques and assignments might provide quantifiable proof that students were learning the “high points” of American religious history and how "to think like a historian." I think this syllabus addresses those concerns for myself, but I'm curious about what y'all think because I presume that my concerns are relatively common. Admittedly, there's only so much that you can tell about a class from its syllabus, but it gives an outline of my aspirations for what the American religious history survey might be and, hopefully, some points for discussion. Hence, suggestions and critiques are more than welcome.

Another American Religious History Blog

I've been remiss in not linking to American Religious History, a fairly new blog kept up by a former student at Cal State-Sacramento. The blogger has a good archive of pieces, including reviews of some older classics in the field, and has posted a good starter bibliography on religion, politics, and American culture. I look forward to future posts there and would point our readers to check him out.

Darren Grem, Drive-by Surveying

Darren Grem

I’m currently in my second full term teaching UGA’s Hist3150 course, a drive-by survey of American religious history. When crafting the course the first time around, I was high on the idea of “covering” as much as I could in a term – a common rookie mistake. Although my students reported last term that they “enjoyed the course” and “appreciated my lecture style,” they were overwhelmed by the sheer amount of material we blew through. They felt that they had a broad, but not very deep, understanding of America’s religious past. In short, they had signed up for a survey, had gotten a survey, and were telling me that, well, they didn’t want a survey.

This is a common problem for the U.S. history survey, and re-thinkers like Lendol Calder have advocated an “uncoverage” approach as the solution. Concerning the American religious history survey – or, heck, any religious history class – his ideas might work even better. Teaching American religious history at least adds another adjective in the course’s title, which cuts down on questions and concerns. But which books or documents will best relate to students a sense of the questions and concerns that we, as the “senior students” in the class, are interested in? What techniques or assignments?

An even more challenging prospect might be teaching them to think historically about religion. A friend of mine – a historian of sexuality – once expressed that his field and the field of religious history have a lot in common. We both see our subjects – sexuality and religion – as historically contingent, and we both often teach students who do not necessarily share that view. How do we sensitively teach about religion’s socio-economic, racial, and gendered context and the impact of that context on religious beliefs and practices, without leading our students into either reactive resistance to that notion or a sort of resigned relativism? What sort of pedagogy best encourages critical, yet measured, thinking about religion in American history? How do we teach them to create their own perspective on that history, to craft their own “histories of the unseen”?

For most of our students, our classes are the only examination of “religion in American history” they’ll ever encounter. Might as well put our heads together to make sure that encounter is as good as it should be.

Sister Aimee Strikes Again

“Teaching Sister Aimee,” by Art Remillard

Aimee Semple McPherson was the subject of this past week’s NPR program, “Speaking of Faith.” [Editor's Note: The host of the show, Krista Tippett, keeps an online journal about the shows, well worth reading]. Along with original audio and film archives from the revivalist, the program highlights interviews with Anthea Butler (University of Rochester) and Arlene Sanchez Walsh (Azusa Pacific University). For a fifty minute program, this is an excellent introduction to Sister Aimee, a charismatic, charming, and controversial figure in American religious history. As such, I will probably assign it the next time I teach Religion in the U.S. I have used “Speaking of Faith” shows in other classes, such as World Religions and Bioethics. Most programs come with full transcripts, from which I pilfer provocative statements, and include them in a discussion guide along with some open ended questions. While I generally like the programs, student reactions have been mixed. Some find the content compelling. Others appreciate not having to read. And there are those who find the shows downright boring. Ah the imperfect science of teaching! In spite of the protestations, I will continue using the programs. Overall, I have found them a welcome addition to my teaching arsenal.

The Google of African American History

A great new resource on African American History, including religious history -- from the AHA:

BlackPast.org – An Online Gateway to African American History
By Elisabeth Grant

BlackPast.org, led by University of Washington Professor and former AHA Council member Quintard Taylor, contains an abundance of resources on African American history. This site features an online encyclopedia containing 800 plus entries, transcripts of speeches from 1789 to 2004, collections of links and info on hundreds of other resources, and so much more.

Peruse the Digital Archives and find links, separated by state, to sites like the Library of Congress exhibition "Voices of Civil Rights;" the Booker T. Washington papers from University of Illinois Press; and Indiana University’s Archives of African American Music & Culture. Visit the Timeline section of the site for breakdowns of African American history for each century. And check out the Perspectives on African American History for personal accounts and articles on events like the Brown v. Board of Education ruling, the rise of hip hop in Eastern Europe, and a lynching in Obion County, Tennessee.

More Teaching Resources

More in the way of teaching resources: here's "Divining America: Religion and National Culture," a good collection of essays, links, primary sources, all useful for teaching and thinking in American religious history.

Update: Seth Dowland reminds me to add the Religious Movements homepage from the University of Virginia.

Jesus in Red, White, and Black

One of my more fun classes ever -- in spite of it being a night class, 7:15 - 9:50 p.m. -- "Jesus in Red, White, and Black." Partly it was inspired and taking off from Stephen Prothero's American Jesus: How the Son of God Became a National Icon" -- which ex-blogger Mode for Caleb gives and extended and thoughtful response to here. Our class covered everything from the Jesuit Relations to Du Bois to Vine DeLoria. We watched The Apostle and discussed R. Marie Griffith's excellent review of the film. The student blogs and journals from this class were terrific.

Also recommended: Mark Noll's lectures at Princeton University last fall, on the subject "Race, Religion, and American Politics: From Nat Turner to George W. Bush" -- podcasts and web downloads are available if you're on a high speed computer.

Young Scholars Syllabi

There are an awful lot of great American religious history syllabi available at the Center for the Study of Religion and American Culture, from the various "classes" of the Young Scholars in American Religion program. Here, for example, are the syllabi from the 1997-99 class. Great teaching resources. I'm putting a more complete list under the "Teaching Resources and Syllabi" roll on the left side of the blog (scroll down). Please send useful links that you use in teaching.

American Religious History Syllabi and Links

It's on the blogroll, but everyone interested in American religious history should find the syllabi in American religious history posted from H-AMREL to be of use. Also, a shout out to Randall Stephens and the Journal of Southern Religion, a pioneering and perservering online journal. I posted my own personal reflections on writing Freedom's Coming there a while back. The current issue has an excellent critique by Charles Reagan Wilson of the film Searching for the Wrong-Eyed Jesus.

Religion by region lives! Here's a great series of map summaries of U.S. religious expression ca. 2000, from the Glenmary Research Center. Nancy Ammerman has a good full review of the Religion by Region books (eight in all; I contributed to one), including the strengths and weaknesses of using datasets such as the Glenmary and American Religious Identification Surveys. Statistics tell some, but not all.