Study Questions

Randall Balmer
"Religion in Twentieth-Century America"
Religion in American Life: A Short History

Chapter 18: Into a New Century

• Pentecostalism
• The World's Parliament of Religions
• Native Americans
• Anti-Semitism
• Dispensationalism (conservative evangelicals) vs. the Social Gospel (liberal Protestants)

Chapter 19: Between the Wars

• liberal (modernist) vs. conservative (fundamentalist) divisions in Protestantism
• The Scopes trial
• Catholics
• Jews
• The KKK
• African Americans
  • Marcus Garvey
  • Timothy Drew
  • Father Divine
• Religion responds to the Great Depression
• Neo-Orthodoxy

Chapter 20: The 1950s

• Protestants rethink missionary work
• The "Judeo-Christian Tradition"
• The American Catholics
• Evangelicals
  • Billy Graham
• African Americans at mid-century
  • Martin Luther King Jr.
• The national Council of Churches

Chapter 21: The 1960s

• Catholics:
  • John F. Kennedy - the significance of a Catholic President
  • American Catholics and Vatican II changes
  • Charismatic Renewal
  • Humanae Vitae
• Hate: Civil rights movement and Anti Semitism
• African Americans
  • Civil rights movement and Martin Luther King Jr.
  • Nation of Islam
    • Elijah Muhammad
    • Malcolm X
• Conclusion

Chapter 22: The 1970s

• Americans turn to Eastern religions
• The "Jesus Movement"
• The women's movement and religion
• The Carter presidency and evangelicalism
• the "Religious Right"
• A new Pope (John Paul II)

Chapter 23: The 1980s

• The Jonestown tragedy
• Televangelism
  • Pat Robertson
  • The Bakers (Jim and Tammy Faye)
  • Jimmy Swaggart
• "Prosperity Theology" vs. the new social gospel
• Pat Robertson and the "Christian Coalition"

Chapter 24: 

• Immigrant religions from the East
• "New Age" spirituality
• Confrontations between government and religion
  • with Native Americans
  • "Hate groups"
  • David Koresh and the Branch Davidians
• The Continuing struggle of Black churches
• The "Promise Keepers" and "Muscular Christianity"
• Millennial fever and religion