Rock and Roll is a well-known musical genre in the United States and throughout the world. Many of us, including me, grew up with it and with the understanding that some adults, especially religious leaders, were at least wary of it (I was a teenager in the 80s). Needless to say, Rock and Roll is a solid part of the American narrative. On this episode we will explore the ways religion, specifically Christianity, interacted with it. This will be a fascinating tale.

Season 3, Episode 32: Religion and Rock n Rol

Guest Bio

Randall J. Stephens is professor of American and British Studies at the University of Oslo and is a historian of religion, conservatism, the South, environmentalism, and popular culture and is the author of several books including The Fire Spreads: Holiness and Pentecostalism in the American South and The Devil’s Music: How Christians Inspired, Condemned, and Embraced Rock ’n’ Roll. Dr. Stephens received his BA in History at Mid America Nazarene College and his PhD in American History from the University of Florida.

In the 1990s Randall was part of a band called Jetenderpaul. This is the AllMusic link to the band: https://www.allmusic.com/artist/jetenderpaul-mn0000346797

Podcast Support

Scholarly support provided by Dr. Lauren Turek, Associate Professor of History at Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas.

Technical audio and video assistance provided by Dr. Randall Stephens, a Professor of American and British Studies at the University of Oslo.

Religion in the American Experience is a podcast of the National Museum of American Religion, which tells the story of what religion has done to America and what America has done to religion.

Chaplains– clergy attached to a secular institution including hospitals, prisons, embassies, schools, labor unions, police departments, fire departments, universities, intelligence agencies, airports, and military services - play a unique and meaningful role in the American landscape. These are ordained clergy who minister to members of the chaplain’s particular faith, to facilitate ministry to those of other faiths, and to care for all – including those who claim no religious faith. 

The first episode of this multi-episode series about chaplaincy in America beings with Rabbi Arnold Resnicoff discussing his career as a chaplain in the United States Navy, which intersected with important and meaningful events in the nation’s history.

Season 3, Episode 31: American Chaplaincy – Part 1

Guest Bio

Arnold E. Resnicoff was born in Washington, DC and attended Dartmouth College where he studied drama. Arnie then served a tour in Vietnam, including as part of "Operation Game Warden," the campaign to keep the rivers free of Viet Cong infiltrators. After the war he became a rabbi then a chaplain in the U.S. Navy, serving in that position for twenty-five years. Chaplain Resnicoff was part of the small group of veterans who worked to create the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, DC, delivering the closing prayer at its 1982 dedication. He was in Beirut on that fateful day when the Marine barracks were bombed on October 23rd 1983. His eyewitness report, written at the request of the White House, was read in full by President Ronald Reagan as a keynote speech to the 20,000 attendees of Jerry Falwell's "Baptist Fundamentalism '84" convention. Arnie was the first Jewish chaplain to attend the Naval War College, and the first chaplain of any faith to teach a course there (or at any military war college), "Faith and Force: Religion, War, and Peace." He served as Command Chaplain for the US European Command, the "top chaplain" for US chaplains of all faiths in all branches of the armed forces in all of Europe and most of Africa. Arnie has offered more prayers to open sessions of the House and Senate as guest chaplain than any other rabbi in history. After retirement from the Navy, he served as National Director for Interreligious Affairs for the American Jewish Committee, and Special Assistant for Values and Vision to the Secretary and Chief-of-Staff of the U.S. Air Force, a position that carried with it the military equivalent rank of brigadier general. 

http://www.resnicoff.net/

Rabbi Resnicoff’s 1982 prayer at the dedication of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C.

Rabbi Resnicoff’s report (and speech) to the White House about the Marine barracks bombing in 1983.

Podcast Support

Scholarly support provided by Dr. Lauren Turek, Associate Professor of History at Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas.

Technical audio and video assistance provided by Dr. Randall Stephens, a Professor of American and British Studies at the University of Oslo.

Religion in the American Experience is a podcast of the National Museum of American Religion, which tells the story of what religion has done to America and what America has done to religion.

One hears the terms “religious liberty” or “religious freedom” quite often in today’s public square. What does it mean? Where did it come from? Who put it together? In today’s episode we get to know Roger Williams, who is an outsized figure in America’s idea of religious freedom, now established in the Constitution’s Article VI (no religious test for office) and the First Amendment’s religion clauses (free exercise and no establishment).

Season 3, Episode 30: The Women and Men of American Religion. Story 8: Roger Williams

Guest Bio

Dr. Carrington-Farmer is a Professor of History at Roger Williams University, where she specializes in early American History. She received her Ph.D. from the University of Cambridge in 2010, and she has a keen research interest in dissent in seventeenth-century New England. Her book, Roger Williams and His World, sets Roger Williams in his wider Atlantic world context. She has published book chapters on two seventeenth-century dissenters, see: “Thomas Morton” in: Atlantic Lives: Biographies that Cross the Ocean and “Roger Williams and the Architecture of Religious Liberty,” in Law and Religion and the Liberal State. Building on her interest in Roger Williams, she has published an article on his wife, Mary Williams, entitled: “More than Roger’s Wife: Mary Williams and the Founding of Providence.” In the New England Quarterly.

Listeners are welcome to use the code ROGERWILLIAMS20 for 20% off their purchase from our website. Here is a link to the product page: https://broadviewpress.com/product/roger-williams-and-his-world/

The full interview can be found Full Interview. 

Podcast Support

Scholarly support provided by Dr. Lauren Turek, Associate Professor of History at Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas.

Technical audio and video assistance provided by Dr. Randall Stephens, a Professor of American and British Studies at the University of Oslo.

Religion in the American Experience is a podcast of the National Museum of American Religion, which tells the story of what religion has done to America and what America has done to religion.

The country’s 250th anniversary is almost here, and the National Museum of American Religion is working overtime to shed light on religion’s role in the founding of the American republic. One Christian denomination that looms large in the American founding is the Congregationalists of New England. The Congregational Library and Archives in Boston has put together an exhibit entitled “Sacred Rebellion: Congregationalists in Revolutionary Massachusetts” that tells their roles in the American Revolution.

Sacred Rebellion:

https://www.congregationallibrary.org/sacred-rebellion

The Congregational Library & Archives presents a new in-person exhibition, Sacred Rebellion: Congregationalists in Revolutionary Massachusetts. The exhibition highlights the stories of Massachusetts Congregationalists drawn from the CLA’s important collections. 

By the time the war began, many Congregationalists had embraced a theological justification for war and revolution. They believed that God favored them and that their cause was a morally justified, sacred rebellion. Through sermons, books, poems, songs, and letters, Congregationalists shared their stories, reflected on their moral obligations to each other, and debated questions of liberty and loyalty. But consensus was elusive, and implementation proved difficult and unsatisfactory to many, especially those on the margins. These discussions shaped the legacy of Congregationalism and the way the Revolutionary War is remembered today, 250 years later. 

Last year's digital exhibit, Religion of Revolution: https://congregationallibrary.quartexcollections.com/online-exhibits/revolution

Call For Papers for an upcoming symposium on religion at the Library that might be of interest to your listeners (deadline extended to June 1): https://www.congregationallibrary.org/religions-revolution-symposium

Season 3, Episode 29: Sacred Rebellion – Congregationalists in Revolutionary Massachusetts

Guest Bio

Kyle B. Roberts was appointed as the Executive Director of the Congregational Library & Archives in 2022. He received his BA in American Studies from Williams College and his PhD in History from the University of Pennsylvania. He is a scholar of Atlantic World religion, print, and library history, and is the author of Evangelical Gotham: Religion and the Making of New York City, 1783-1860 and the co-editor, with Stephen Schloesser, of Crossings and Dwellings: Restored Jesuits, Women Religious, American Experience 1814-2014. Kyle is an accomplished public historian and digital humanist whose collaborative projects include the Jesuit Libraries Provenance Project.

Tricia Peone is the Project Director of New England's Hidden Histories at the Congregational Library and Archives. She previously worked at Historic New England, where she was a research scholar for the Recovering New England’s Voices project. She has also previously worked as the public programs director at New Hampshire Humanities, a university lecturer teaching classes on the Salem witch trials, early New England, and public history, and as a researcher for cultural heritage organizations. Her scholarship focuses on early modern magic and witchcraft and her work on these subjects has appeared in journals, books, blogs, and on radio and television. She holds a PhD in history from the University of New Hampshire with a specialization in the early modern Atlantic world and history of science.

Podcast Support

Scholarly support provided by Dr. Lauren Turek, Associate Professor of History at Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas.

Technical audio and video assistance provided by Dr. Randall Stephens, a Professor of American and British Studies at the University of Oslo.

Religion in the American Experience is a podcast of the National Museum of American Religion, which tells the story of what religion has done to America and what America has done to religion.

Religion in the American Experience is a podcast of the National Museum of American Religion, which is dedicated to telling the story of what religion has done to America and what America has done to religion.

Scholarly support provided by Dr. Lauren Turek, Associate Professor of History at Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas.

Technical audio and video assistance provided by Dr. Randall Stephens, a Professor of American and British Studies at the University of Oslo.

Season 3, Episode 28: American Religion - Methodism

Guest Bio

Dr. Ashely Boggan is the General Secretary of the United Methodist Church’s General Commission on Archives and History. In this role, she ensures that The UMC understands its past, in order to envision a more equitable future for all Methodists. Ashley earned her PhD from Drew Theological School’s Graduate Division of Religion, specializing in both Methodist/Wesleyan Studies and Women’s/Gender Studies. She earned an M.A. from the University of Chicago’s Divinity School, specializing in American Religious History. Dr. Boggan is a lay member of the Greater New Jersey Annual Conference and the daughter of two ordained United Methodist ministers. Her Methodist lineage dates beyond this, back to the early 19th century when her great-great-great grandfathers were Methodist circuit-riders. 

Background

Methodist churches are everywhere in the United States with their easily recognizable sign, the “Cross and Flame”. Methodism and those that are affiliated with it have influenced the country in profound ways. First arriving in the colonies in the decades before the Revolutionary War, Methodists and the American narrative are bound up together.

In two days, on Wednesday, May 7, the Catholic Church will begin the conclave to choose the next pope. This episode is about that process. There are more than 50 million Catholics in the United States.

The film “Conclave”, released in the fall of 2024, features the Catholic church’s process of electing a new pope, which process is called a conclave. In the fictional movie, the cardinal in charge of this conclave finds himself investigating secrets and scandals about several of the Cardinals who were possibly close to becoming the next pope.

The response from the Catholic community has been mixed. John Mulderig of the Catholic OSV News said that "rival viewpoints within the church are caricatured with a broad brush ... and the deck is predictably stacked in favor of those who advocate change". He warned that "all moviegoers committed to the church's creeds will want to approach this earnest, visually engaging but manipulative—and sometimes sensationalist—production with caution".  On the other hand, the progressive National Catholic Reporter praised the film, calling it "a compelling and ecclesial call for a renewed spiritual stewardship characterized by humility, meekness, and, curiously, doubt".

In that spirit, we asked a church historian who has studied papal conclaves to share thoughts about the process of choosing a pope against the background of this movie.

We have invited Dr. Christopher Bellitto to discuss this with us. Dr. Bellitto is a medievalist, a church historian, and Professor of History at Kean University in Union, NJ, where he teaches courses in ancient and medieval history. He is a frequent public speaker and media commentator on church history and contemporary Catholicism. His book, Humility: the Secret History of a Lost Virtue, was published in 2023 and can be purchased here.

This is the second Religion in the American Experience episode responding to recent movies with a main focus on something religious. The other episode is an interview with a church historian of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints who addressed American Primeval.

The Making of US: Lived Religion in America is a subseries of the podcast Religion in the American Experience. In these episodes we explore the role religion has played in the lives of everyday Americans, reminding us that while religion exerts a significant influence on the events and movements of the American project, religions primary work and where it has the most influence, is in the everyday lives of adherents.

Today Méli Solomon of Boston, Massachusetts joins to tell us about her own religious history. You can see more about Méli and her work here: https://www.talkingwithgodproject.org/team 

Religion in the American Experience is the podcast of The National Museum of American Religion (https://www.nmar.org). This private, digital-first museum explores what America has done to religion and what religion has done to America, which includes the establishment of religious freedom defined by the Constitution's Article VI and First Amendment religion clauses.

Advice for podcast episodes is provided by Dr. Lauren Turek (https://laurenturek.com/), Associate Professor of History at Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas. Technical audio and video assistance is provided by Dr. Randall Stephens (https://www.hf.uio.no/ilos/english/people/aca/randalls/), a Professor of American and British Studies at the University of Oslo.

We deeply appreciate Kenneth Woodward taking time to speak with us and share stories and perspectives on religion in the latter half of 20th-century America. This will help each of us better understand what religion has done to America and what America has done to religion, equipping us to more successfully buttress the fragile and meaningful American experiment is self-government.

Kenneth Woodward was hired as a journalist by the Omaha Sun newspaper in 1962. In 1964, he was named Religion Editor for Newsweek and remained in that position until 2002. He also served as the Ideas section editor from 1974 through 1978, and was named Senior Writer in 1988. After his retirement as Religion editor, he continued as a contributing writer to Newsweek, and as Regent's Lecturer at University of California, Santa Barbara.. He is the Writer-in-residence at the Lumen Christi Institute of the University of Chicago.

In his book Getting Religion, which was published in 2016, he shares unique views and perspectives from his journalistic perch of the American religious landscape in the latter-half of the 20th century.

Religion in the American Experience is a podcast of the National Museum of American Religion, which is dedicated to telling the story of what religion has done to America and what America has done to religion.

Scholarly support provided by Dr. Lauren Turek, Associate Professor of History at Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas.

Technical audio and video assistance provided by Dr. Randall Stephens, a Professor of American and British Studies at the University of Oslo.

Season 3, Episode 24: American Religion: The Seventh-day Adventist Church

Guest Bio

Dr. David Trim is the Director of the Office of Archives, Statistics, and Research for the General Conference of the Seventh-day Adventist Church, based in Silver Spring, Maryland, USA. Born to missionary parents in Bombay, India, David was raised in Sydney, Australia, and educated in the United Kingdom. He has a BA from Newbold College and a PhD from King’s College London, University of London. For ten years he taught undergraduate courses in history and graduate courses in missiology at his alma mater, Newbold College, in England, and then for two years held the Walter C. Utt Chair of History at Pacific Union College in California. He is the author, co-author, editor or co-editor of 18 books, and has additionally published eighty scholarly articles and book chapters. He is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society and is an adjunct professor of church history at the Seventh-day Adventist Theological Seminary.

Background

The Seventh-day Adventist Church is one of the few religions founded in the United States, coming into existence during the 19th century’s Second Great Awakening. Today it has approximately a million members-plus in the United States and upwards of 21 million members outside the U.S. The Seventh-day Adventist Church is one of the fastest growing Christian denominations in the world. On today’s episode we will explore the history of this home-grown American church, what its beliefs are, what roles it has played in the unfolding of the American project, and what roles it plays today on America’s dynamic religious landscape.

Religion in the American Experience is a podcast of the National Museum of American Religion, which is dedicated to telling the story of what religion has done to America and what America has done to religion.

Scholarly support provided by Dr. Lauren Turek, Associate Professor of History at Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas.

Technical audio and video assistance provided by Dr. Randall Stephens, a Professor of American and British Studies at the University of Oslo.

Season 3, Episode 23: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints Responds to “American Primeval.”

Guest Bio

Dr. Matthew C. Godfrey is a general editor of the Joseph Smith Papers and a senior historian in the Church History Department, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He holds a PhD in American and public history from Washington State University. Matt has authored or coedited several books, including five volumes in the Joseph Smith Papers, The Earth Will Appear as the Garden of Eden: Essays on Mormon Environmental History, and Religion, Politics, and Sugar: The Mormon Church, the Federal Government, and the Utah-Idaho Sugar Company, 1907-1921. Instagram handle: @matacious.

Background

On January 9th, 2025, Netflix released “American Primeval”, a series that uses the Mountain Meadows Massacre in southern Utah as a lens to explore frictions between Latter-day Saints and other cultures in the Utah Territory during the latter half of the 19th century.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints released a statement addressing the series, which reads in part:

"A recently released streaming series presents a fictionalized interpretation of events in mid-19th century Utah. While historical fiction can be illuminating, this drama is dangerously misleading.

Brigham Young, a revered prophet and courageous pioneer, is, by any historical standard, egregiously mischaracterized as a villainous, violent fanatic. Other individuals and groups are also depicted in ways that reinforce stereotypes that are both inaccurate and harmful. As to the Mountain Meadows Massacre, which the series inaccurately portrays as reflective of a whole faith group, the Church has long acknowledged and condemned this horrific tragedy. It has also taken significant steps to uncover and share the full truth of what happened and promote healing. The problem with such deceptive, graphic and sensationalized storytelling is that it not only obscures reality and hinders genuine understanding but can foster animosity, hate and even violence."

The National Museum of American Religion felt it important to provide an opportunity for the main subject in the series, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, to share its understanding of the historical record around Brigham Young, the Mountain Meadows Massacre, and the church’s efforts to establish itself in the 19th-century Great Basin.