Irreconcilable Differences: Christian Nationalism and the First Amendment
Building: Sophia Gordon Hall City: Somerville, MA 02144 Room: Sophia Gordon Hall - Multipurpose Room Campus: Medford/Somerville campus Open to Public: Yes Primary Audience: Faculty,Staff,Students (Graduate),Students (Undergraduate) Event Type: Lecture/Presentation/Seminar Event Subject: Humanities,Politics/Policy/Law,Religion/Spirituality Event Sponsor: School of Arts and Sciences Event Sponsor Department / Area: Religion department Event Sponsor Details: Department of Religion, Center for the Humanities at Tufts, Tufts Center for Expanding Viewpoints in Higher Education, Tisch College of Civic Life, and Tufts University Chaplaincy Speaker Name: Randall Balmer, John Phillips Professor in Religion, Dartmouth College Event Contact Email: religion@tufts.edu Link: https://tufts.box.com/v/rel-events-2026feb13 Join us for a talk by Randall Balmer (John Phillips Professor in Religion, Dartmouth College) discussing his book America’s Best Idea: The Separation of Church and State. The 1st Amendment to the US Constitution codified the principle that government should play no role in favoring or supporting any religion, while allowing free exercise of all religions (including unbelief). More than 200 years later, the results from this experiment are overwhelming: The separation of church and state has shielded the government from religious factionalism, and the United States boasts a diverse religious culture unmatched in the world. But changes have been taking place at an accelerating pace in recent years. The current Supreme Court has shifted away from excluding the influence and practice of religion at public institutions and in our laws and policies, and moved dramatically toward protecting the inclusion and promotion of religion in publicly funded undertakings. Moreover, adherents to a Christian Nationalism ideology have grown more vocal and emboldened, and are increasingly moving into positions of power. Balmer, one of the premier historians of religion in America, reviews both the history of the separation of church and state and various attempts to undermine that wall. Despite the fact that the 1st Amendment and the separation of church and state has served the nation remarkably well, he argues, its future is by no means assured. Randall Balmer, a prize-winning historian, CNN contributor, and Emmy Award nominee, earned the Ph.D. from Princeton University in 1985. He was professor of American religious history at Columbia University for twenty-seven years before moving to Dartmouth College in 2012, where he is the John Phillips Professor in Religion, the oldest endowed chair at Dartmouth. He has been a visiting professor at the University of New Mexico, Yale, Princeton, Drew, Northwestern, and Emory universities and an adjunct professor at Union Theological Seminary. He taught in the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, and from 2004 to 2008, he was visiting professor at Yale Divinity School. A New York Times bestselling author, he has published eighteen books, including Redeemer: The Life of Jimmy Carter; Bad Faith: Race and the Rise of the Religious Right; and America’s Best Idea: The Separation of Church and State. His second book, Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory: A Journey into the Evangelical Subculture in America, now in its fifth edition, was made into an award-winning, three-part series for PBS. His work has appeared in The Nation, the Chronicle of Higher Education, the New Republic, Washington Post Book World, and the New York Times Book Review. His commentaries on religion in America appear in newspapers across the country, including the Los Angeles Times, the Concord Monitor, Stars and Stripes, the Washington Post, the Minneapolis Star Tribune, the Santa Fe New Mexican, the Chicago Tribune, and the Des Moines Register. In 2024, the American Academy of Religion gave him the Martin E. Marty Award for the Public Understanding of Religion.
