Sem: One Nation Under God – Religion in Politics

  • UH 300
  • Teacher: Thomas Herwig
  • Term: spring 2020
  • Credits: 3

How did the United States, founded as colonies with profoundly religious aspirations, come to be the first modern state whose commitment to the separation of church and state was reflected in its constitution? This is one fundamental question to be answered in this seminar. Otherwise, from the election of 1800, when Federalist clergymen considered Deist Thomas Jefferson unfit to lead a “Christian nation,” to today, when religion again plays a (divisive?) role within the competition of the political camps, it always has been a crucial element in American politics. This seminar is meant to reconstruct the complicated connections of religion and politics in American history and in our present days in order to enable the participants to develop a well reflected and solid position in this embattled field.