Secularism and Empire in the United States, 1780-1900

This essay will explore white Americans' use of the rhetoric of church/state separation as a discourse of racial difference during the period from roughly the Revolution to the Spanish American war, when the United States both conquered vast spaces of other people's land, and put forth jus...

Full description

Saved in:  
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Religions
Main Author: Jordan, Ryan P. 1977- (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
Check availability: HBZ Gateway
Journals Online & Print:
Drawer...
Fernleihe:Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste
Published: MDPI [2017]
In: Religions
Further subjects:B Church and State-United States
B Race Relations—Religious Aspects
B Freedom of Religion-United States
Online Access: Presumably Free Access
Volltext (Verlag)
Volltext (doi)
Description
Summary:This essay will explore white Americans' use of the rhetoric of church/state separation as a discourse of racial difference during the period from roughly the Revolution to the Spanish American war, when the United States both conquered vast spaces of other people's land, and put forth justifications for national expansion. Over the course of the nineteenth century, white Americans fretted over the assimilability of new groups coming under control of the United States and focused their concern over other groups' fitness for self-government. As will be shown below, religious discussions regarding the extent of people's privatization of religious sentiment, or nascent secularization, figured into this concern about racial fitness. Religious discourses—even those cloaked in defense of “liberal” values such as the separation of church and state—remained an indispensable tool in the construction of a racially exclusive American identity throughout the nineteenth century.
ISSN:2077-1444
Contains:Enthalten in: Religions
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.3390/rel8070117