New limited podcast series

The museum’s Religion in the American Experience podcast began working with BYUradio to produce a limited series about religion and the founding of America that will be published during 2026 to celebrate America’s 250th anniversary. The episodes are listed below with a brief description of each.

American Religion: 

• Expansion and European Religious Environment of 17th Century - Makeup of religious belief and practice in England and Europe and its role in North American colonization, with special emphasis on the competing visions of Massachusetts, Pennsylvania and Virginia.
• Native American Belief Systems - Overview of Indigenous religious beliefs prior to colonization as well as changes in religious belief and practice, with an eye towards distinguishing both what unified native religion, as well as examining the nuances of religious difference between different region’s tribal communities.
• Colonial Religious Liberty and its Religions - Flashpoints in church, state, and freedom of conscience within and beyond the New England colonies, with special attention paid to the exiles of Anne Hutchinson and Roger Williams, the hanging of Boston Quakers, and the treatment of Jews throughout the colonies.

Religion in 18th Century America:

• Great Awakening - Growth of evangelical religion in the early to mid-18th century, including Jonathan Edwards, George Whitefield, and the influence of church schisms on religious freedom.
• Enslaved Religion - Overview of African religions pre-enslavement including Islam and African religions, as well as the methods by which slavery shaped African American religious belief and practice; religion as both upholding and challenging slavery.

Religion and American Revolution:

• Religion and the Coming of Revolution – Examination of the religious traditions which contributed to independence, as well as the religious fears the colonies harbored against Great Britain such as the establishment of an Anglican episcopate and the promise to accord Catholics greater religious liberties through the enactment of the Quebec Act of 1774.
• Religious Minorities and the Revolution (cover 2-3 different traditions) – Examines the way in which the War for Independence both expanded and contracted religious rights for various minority religions based upon their perceived loyalty. Traces the expanding acceptance of Jews during the revolution as well as the suspicion that peace churches (Quakers, Mennonites) engendered amongst the populace.

Religion, Confederation Congress and Constitution

• Godless Constitution? - The text of the U.S. Constitution as relates to religion and the many and varied perspectives of the founders regarding the place of God, Jesus, and religion at the national level.
• First Amendment/Bill of Rights and the Framework of Religious Freedom - What the founders meant when they wrote that Congress was not to “establish” a religion while also providing for the “free exercise” thereof, with special emphasis paid to the continuing battle over disestablishment at the state level following the ratification of the Constitution.

Religion and Federal Government:

• Sunday Mail Controversy – An examination of debates over whether the federal government should close post offices and halt mail delivery on the Sabbath as a case study of how some Evangelical religious reformers sought to inject God into national political debates.
• Quakers and Slavery - The first national antislavery campaign carried out by the Society of Friends during the first Congress, and the divisions between North and South it sparked.
• Cherokee Removal – The role of Christian missions as “civilizing” programs to Cherokees, as well as religious dissent against Jackson’s policy of Cherokee removal, and religious repression, with special attention paid to the role religious women played in mobilizing against the U.S. government’s actions.

Religion and State Government:

• Oaths and Blasphemy - Probes the meaning of religion within the courts in the early American Republic, by attending to debates over whether Atheists and Universalists could be witnesses in court cases owing to their lack of belief in God or future punishment.
• Church, State, and Mormonism - The struggle between Mormons, the State of Missouri, and the federal government concerning protection of religious minorities, and how it cemented the notion that religious protections lay under the purview of the states.

​Religion and New Republic:

• Tocqueville and American Religion  -Overview of the religious environment of America at the close of the founding through the eyes of Frenchman Alexis de Toqueville with emphasis placed on the growth of voluntary, denominational, religion throughout the country, its expansion westward, and the growth in sectional tensions in the churches surrounding the place of slavery in Christian communities.