1. Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment
First Amendment to the US Constitution Bill of Rights:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment
of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;
or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press;
or the right of the people peaceably to assemble,
and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.
Christianity used to justify American slavery
Frederick Douglass response
Black churches formed in the 19th century by free Blacks:
American Methodist Episcopal, AME Zion, Baptist

2. The ‘Bible Belt’

3. The Influence of Religion in American Society
A divisive factor: Who’s an American?
Science Education in Public Schools
Supreme Court Cases
Politics & Elections
Historical background discussion - secondary source:
True-History-of-Religious-Tolerance.html

4. Americanism: anti-Black anti-Jewish, anti-immigrant
Ku Klux Klan revived in Georgia in 1915, but grew in strength in the Midwest
and West – Ohio, Indiana, Oregon – approx. 5 million members by 1925
Supported by anti-Catholic Fundamentalist ministers
Organized boycotts of Catholic businesses
Condemned Catholic politicians
Attacked Catholic churches and priests
Americanism: anti-Black anti-Jewish, anti-immigrant
Hiram Evans – Imperial Wizard of the KKK 1926:
« the Klan has come to speak for the great mass of old pioneer stock
against the intellectually mongrelized Liberals »
« an alien usually remains an alien, no matter what is done to him,what
veneer of education he gets, what oaths he takes, nor what public attitudes
he adopts »

5. Indiana 1920s

6. Indiana 1920s

7. Seattle 1920s
Indiana 1922

8. “At the top of the list of enemies were Roman Catholics
“At the top of the list of enemies were Roman Catholics. Centuries-old tales and prejudices revived under Klan propaganda, with emphasis on a foreign-led church intent on destroying Protestantism and American democracy. The foreign-born themselves constituted a second Klan enemy, for they too threatened Protestantism and democracy. Blacks were a third enemy, though less dangerous than Catholics, except in a few cities where their segregated neighborhoods were expanding. And the enemy included all those immoral and indecent Hoosiers who put the roar into the Roaring Twenties: adulterers, gamblers, prohibition violators, corrupt politicians, and undisciplined youth.”

9. Religion and Education: The Scopes ‘Monkey’ Trial 1925 Tennessee
ACLU = American Civil Liberties Union
Clarence Darrow
William Jennings Bryan
Evangelical/Fundamentalist Protestants- literal interpretation of the Bible
Attack on the teaching of Darwinian evolution in public schools
Darrow & Bryan
John Scopes

10. Charles Darwin
The Origin of Species 1859
Recent cases involving the teaching of evolution and creationism
Including Kansas Board of Education 2005
The-Conflict-Between-Religion-and-Evolution.aspx

11. Religion and the Courts: Roe v. Wade
Pro-Choice versus Pro-Life
Abortion debate as a lightening rod for the rise of the religious right in the 1970s

12. Religion and politics:
1960 presidential election- JFK’s speech to Protestant ministers in Houston
“I am not the Catholic candidate for president. I am the Democratic Party's candidate for president, who happens also to be a Catholic. I do not speak for my church on public matters, and the church does not speak for me.”