Race and religion have been intertwined throughout American history. Christians believed they could detect so-called “heathen” unbelief by the color of someone’s skin or the state of a foreign landscape. Over time, the word “heathen” dropped off, but historian Kathryn Gin Lum says the ideas behind it are alive and well in the United States today, even beyond religion.

Transcript available: firesidepod.org/episodes/ginlum.

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