September 13-14, 2023: Protestant Religion in America
“The religious atmosphere of the country was the first thing that struck me on arrival in the United States” (Democracy in America).
PART 1 – SEPTEMBER 13, 2023 – 6:30-8:00PM – Burgiss Theater, Trone Student Center
PART 2 – SEPTEMBER 14, 2023 – 5:00-6:30PM – Watkins Room, Trone Student Center
Public Intellectuals:
Ryan Burge (Eastern Illinois)
Ryan Burge is associate professor of political science at Eastern Illinois University. He earned a B.A. from Greenville College and an M.A. and Ph.D. from Southern Illinois University – Carbondale. He is the author or co-author of four books including The Nones, 20 Myths about Religion and Politics in America, and The Great Dechurching. He has appeared in an NBC Documentary, on “Full Frontal with Samantha Bee,” and on “60 Minutes,” where Anderson Cooper called him, “one of the leading data analysts of religion and politics in the United States.” He is also the research director for Faith Counts, a non-profit, interfaith organization that promotes the value of religion to the American public. He has been a pastor of an American Baptist Church for over 17 years. Finally, he has been married to his wife, Jacqueline, for 16 years and they have two boys – Holden and Reid.
Emma Green (The New Yorker)
Emma Green is a staff writer at The New Yorker, where she covers cultural conflicts in academia. She was previously a staff writer at The Atlantic, where she covered religion and politics. Green has won several awards for her writing, including Religion News Association’s first-place award in religion-news analysis in 2018, and the 2020 George W. Hunt, S.J., Prize for Protestant Religion in America Journalism. Her work has been featured in outlets including The New York Times and “This American Life,” and she regularly speaks at universities around the country. Green graduated from Georgetown University.
Eric McDaniel (UT – Austin)
Professor Eric McDaniel is associate professor of government and the co-director of the Politics of Race and Ethnicity Lab at the University of Texas – Austin. He earned his B.A. at Wilberforce University and his M.A. and Ph.D. at the University of Illinois. His research examines how the intersection of race and religion influence the American political landscape. His publications include Politics in the Pews: The Political Mobilization of Black Churches, and The Everyday Crusade: Christian Nationalism in American Politics, co-authored with Irfan Nooruddin and Allyson Shortle. Currently, McDaniel is working on projects examining religious belief systems, religious freedom, and the role of religion in shaping health behavior.
Molly Worthen (UNC –Chapel Hill)
Molly Worthen is an associate professor of history at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a freelance journalist. She received her M.A., M.Phil., M.A., and Ph.D. from Yale University. Her research focuses on North American religious and intellectual history. Her most recent book, Apostles of Reason, examines American evangelical intellectual life since 1945, especially the internal conflicts among different evangelical subcultures. She created an audio and video course for The Great Courses on the history of global Christianity since the Reformation, and an audio course for Audible, “Charismatic Leaders Who Remade America.” Worthen writes regularly about religion, politics, and higher education for The New York Times and has also written for The New Yorker, Slate, The Atlantic, and other publications. She is currently writing a book about the history of political and religious charisma in America.