Sermons, the words of the country’s vast number of spiritual leaders, have played significant and even profound roles during times of national crisis. They have comforted those that mourn, given grief higher purposes, and plumbed the depths of evil, suffering, and loss; they have offered hope, courage, vision, and belief in the face of doubt and fear. They have also been key to how the nation defines itself as it reacts to these crises.

Melissa Matthes can help us all better comprehend what sermons at times of national crisis have meant for America. She is Professor of Government at the U.S. Coast Guard Academy, and author of When Sorrow Comes: The Power of Sermons from Pearl Harbor to Black Lives Matter. Dr. Matthes received a Ph.D. from the University of California Santa Cruz and a Master of Divinity from Yale University.

We guarantee that our time together today will help all of us better understand what religion has done to America, and what America has done to religion, and we trust that as a result, listeners will come to better understand how revolutionary and indispensable the idea of religious freedom as a governing principle, is, to the United States and its future.