SOC080

Description

From the covenant theology of the Puritans to the contemporary Religious Right, and from the abolition and Civil Rights movements to contemporary efforts to promote racial, gender, and economic equity, religion has animated political movements, attitudes, and behavior in the U.S. since before the country's founding. Today, religion continues to inspire social movements and frame national belonging, as well as justify racism, sexism, economic inequality, and homophobia and transphobia. This course places the relationship between religion and politics in the U.S. in sociological perspective, examining how religious belief and practice have contributed to public and political movements, attitudes, behaviors, and outcomes in the past and present. Among other themes and topics, we will address religious nationalism, racial, economic, and social justice, the civic republican tradition, and the political consequences of the ongoing decline in religious attendance and affiliation. The course also will examine questions about what draws religious people into some social movements but not others, why our political and cultural debates and divisions take the forms they do, and whether other meaning systems are replacing religion at the heart of U.S. political life.