Proceedings: Sixth Biennial Conference on Religion and American Culture

Proceedings: Sixth Biennial Conference on Religion and American Culture June 6-9, 2019 The Alexander Hotel Indianapolis, Indiana hosted by The Center for the Study of Religion and American Culture in the IU School of Liberal Arts Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis and Religion & American Culture: A Journal of Interpretation Editors Philip Goff Lauren Schmidt Nate Wynne © 2019 The Center for the Study of Religion and American Culture Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis Proceedings: Sixth Biennial Conference on Religion and American Culture, June 2019 Table of Contents Introduction Philip Goff, Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis 4 Part I Teaching American Religion Kathleen Holscher, University of New Mexico 6 Carolyn M. Jones Medine, University of Georgia 8 Douglas Thompson, Mercer University 12 Translating Scholarship Heath W. Carter, Valparaiso University 15 Robert Orsi, Northwestern University 17 Mira Sucharov, Carleton University 19 Part II Religion and Refugees Melissa Borja, University of Michigan 22 Tricia C. Bruce, University of Notre Dame 25 Gale L. Kenny, Barnard College 27 Different Narratives in Religion and American Politics Prema Kurien, Syracuse University 30 David Harrington Watt, Haverford College 32 Aubrey L. Westfall, Wheaton College 34 Part III Religion and Crisis Amanda J. Baugh, California State University, Northridge 37 John Corrigan, Florida State University 39 Anthony Petro, Boston University 41 New Religious Movements Embodied Andre E. Johnson, University of Memphis 44 Leonard Norman Primiano, Cabrini University 46 Judith Weisenfeld, Princeton University 49 Part IV Science, Technology, and Spirituality Sylvester A. Johnson, Virginia Tech 53 Hillary Kaell, Concordia University 55 Christopher White, Vassar College 59 Looking Ahead Rudy V. Busto, University of California, Santa Barbara 62 Laura Levitt, Temple University 65 Rhys H. Williams, Loyola University Chicago 67 Proceedings: Sixth Biennial Conference on Religion and American Culture, June 2019 4 Introduction The purpose of the Biennial Conferences on Religion and American Culture is to bring together scholars in the humanities, social sciences, seminaries, and professional schools who study religion in North America in order to discuss the big questions and themes we face in our fields. In 2009 we spent considerable time talking about the promises and challenges of interdisciplinary research. In 2011 we moved on to discuss the changing definitions of religion and culture, and what this means for the types of work we do. Conversations about changes in our understanding of religion—informed by various disciplines—can promote greater cross-fertilization of ideas and best practices in several fields. Our third meeting, in 2013, presented us the opportunity to think anew about old topics, as well as consider new developments in the field. In 2015, we returned to the big questions that shape our work, no matter our disciplinary training—globalization, war’s effects on civil religion and our interpretation of new religions, and competing models of pluralism and secularism. In 2017, the meeting highlighted challenges (rising “nones”) and opportunities (digital scholarship) for teaching about American religion, as well as the role of the state, diversity, and cultural production in shaping religion in America. This year, we spent more time explicitly discussing teaching—both inside and outside the classroom. Additionally, sessions focused on the social and political moment we are in, as well as reflecting on the changing nature of higher education and our role in it. As previously, you will see in these Proceedings, the speakers heeded our call to be provocative, to push further, to debate, to learn together. The highly-participatory audience again threw itself into each session with that same spirit. Sessions were spirited—animated by the shared desire to move the conversations that develop slowly in our books and journals to new levels of frankness and cross-disciplinarity. We continue to believe that a biennial conference dedicated to new perspectives informed by various disciplines will invigorate the broader field of American religious studies. We can and should learn from one another. These meetings help to lay the groundwork for future conversations about how to break down the disciplinary walls that have been erected when cross-disciplinary work is clearly needed as well as to identify when the discrete disciplines offer better understandings of some topics. It is our hope that these conferences will aid serious and sustained conversations among the disciplines and that they help to recognize the strengths and weaknesses of disciplinary boundaries. Indeed, we believe the annual meetings of the national disciplinary-based societies are enriched by this conversation. The Sixth Conference on Religion and American Culture was held in Indianapolis in June 2017, consisting of a series of roundtable discussions through presentations by top scholars from a variety of perspectives. Nationally known scholars from different backgrounds participated in each session. The panelists sat, quite literally, at a round table in the center of the room, surrounded by scholars on risers so everyone could not only learn from the conversation but also participate in it. These Proceedings include the papers that were read at the conference. What is always missing in these pages, however, are the lively conversations that marked each session. Indeed, the discussions continued over breaks, lunches, and dinners. As usual, new friends were made and fresh ideas were discovered. We look forward to continuing those conversations in 2021. We wish to thank a number of people and institutions. First, we are grateful to the panelists who wrote such thoughtful pieces. We asked them to be direct and provocative, and they responded wonderfully. I am indebted to my colleagues Joseph Tucker Edmonds, Peter Thuesen, Brian Steensland, Amanda Friesen, and Art Farnsley who helped to facilitate the sessions. Finally, Lauren Schmidt and Nate Wynne planned and executed the entire conference, as well as the publication of these Proceedings. As with previous Biennial Conferences, we are deeply grateful for the support of Lilly Endowment Inc., which contributed generously toward the costs of the meeting and subvention of lodging costs, along with the IUPUI Arts and Humanities Institute. Philip Goff Center for the Study of Religion and American Culture Proceedings: Sixth Biennial Conference on Religion and American Culture, June 2019 5 Teaching American Religion For many teaching about religion in North America, it is a tale of two cities. While digital and local resources are richer than ever and many institutions value experiential learning, our students are quite different from a generation ago. Generally, they are less religious and know less about religion, which means for many courses we must recruit them to register and then focus more on content than we want, just to familiarize them with the material. What does this portend for American religious studies over the next decade, as enrollments in the humanities and some social sciences decrease? How do we attract, retain, and truly educate students in our field? What have you found resonates with a new generation prone to avoid the topic? Proceedings: Sixth Biennial Conference on Religion and American Culture, June 2019 6 Kathleen Holscher University of New Mexico o attract students to “our” field, which for the purpose due to resources—New Mexico has one of the highest rates of this gathering we’re calling the field of American of poverty in the nation. T religion, we need to reach out to students where they are, or where they recognize themselves to be. This is My students often feel distant toward, or ambivalent especially the case for students from places and/or about, religion. But they almost all enjoy—and find value communities that have traditionally been marginal to the in—thinking and talking about the place they come from. field. Educating these students means helping them to My students arrive in class wanting to try out, to defend, and develop ways of thinking about religion that account for to develop their own senses about New Mexico, and its their own experiences of place and community, while also communities and its cultures, in conversation with other bringing them to ask new questions—questions that bear students, and with scholars they read, and with me. Because upon places and communities beyond their own. New Mexico is a region that’s been colonized twice over in the last four centuries, prevailing senses of place among Often this approach translates to meeting students different groups of students differ from one another, and first not on the terrain of “religion” (because increasingly sometimes they conflict in the classroom. But generally students don’t know themselves or their worlds in terms of speaking, UNM students respond when you “meet them” religion), but instead on different terrain, through other locally. Courses with “New Mexico” or “the Southwest” in categories they do recognize as bearing upon those worlds. the title enroll well. In my teaching, this meeting usually happens within courses titled “Religion and [….].” Within such courses, my job When I teach, I try to meet students with content becomes twofold: 1) to introduce students to religion as a they can relate to life in and around New Mexico. I try to thing worth thinking about in relation to categories

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