Religion and the American Founding

“…I think I can see the whole destiny of America contained in the first Puritan who landed on those shores, as that of the whole human race in the first man.” (Democracy in America, Vol 1, Pt 2, Ch 9).

Mark Noll (University of Notre Dame)

Mark Noll is Francis A. McAnaney Professor Emeritus of History at the University of Notre Dame. Before that, he served jointly in Wheaton’s History Department and the Department of Biblical and Theological Studies. In 2006, he ended twenty-five years of service to Wheaton as McManis Professor of Christian Thought. While at Wheaton, Noll also co-founded (with Nathan Hatch) the Institute for the Study of American Evangelicals. He graduated from Wheaton College (BA), the University of Iowa (MA), Trinity Evangelical Divinity School (MA), and Vanderbilt University (PhD). Noll is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences; in 2006, he received the National Endowment for the Humanities medal at a White House ceremony. A prolific scholar, Noll has authored or edited over 50 books, including the enormously influential The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind (1994). His publications relevant to religion in American history include  Religion and American Politics: From the Colonial Period to the 1980s (1989); Protestants in America (2000); America’s God, from Jonathan Edwards to Abraham Lincoln (2002); Religion and American Politics: From the Colonial Period to the Present, (2007); The Civil War as a Theological Crisis (2006); God and Race in American Politics: A Short History (2008); and In the Beginning Was the Word: The Bible in American Public Life, 1492-1783 (2015). His most recent book is America’s Book: The Rise and Decline of a Bible Civilization, 1794–1911 (2022).

Kaitlyn Schiess (Writer and Podcaster)

Kaitlyn Schiess is a writer and podcaster who hosts Curiously, Kaitlyn and co-hosts The Holy Post. She earned a BA at Liberty University, a ThM at Dallas Theological Seminary and is currently a doctoral student in political theology at Duke Divinity School. Schiess writes for a variety of outlets, including Christianity Today, The New York Times, Christ and Pop Culture, RELEVANT, and Sojourner. She is also the author of two books, The Liturgy of Politics: Spiritual Formation for the Sake of Our Neighbor (2020) and The Ballot and the Bible: How Scripture has been Used and Abused in American Politics and Where We Go from Here (2023).