Religion and American Politics: A Historical Overview

　This article traces the impact of religion on American national politicsfrom independence in 1776 to the present. The story begins with the currentcontroversy about the religious beliefs of the most famous “FoundingFathers” and the creation of a secular republic via the Constitution and itsFirst Amendment. The nineteenth century was marked by growingreligious diversity, notably fragmentation within the Protestant majority andthe arrival of significant Roman Catholic and Jewish minorities, as well asthe growing impact of religious issues on politics. In general devoutProtestants supported the Federalist, Whig, and Republican parties, whileCatholics and free thinkers usually favored the Democrats, a tendency thathas continued to the present. Protestant advocates of the “social gospel”were especially active d+ring the pre-World War I reform movement thathistorians warily call Progressivism. World War I deepened religiousdivisions, and the 1920s was marked by many bitter religion-relatedcontroversies, including increased anti-Semitism and Protestant oppositionto the first Catholic nominated for president by a major party (Democrat AlSmith in 1928). During the Great Depression President Franklin D.Roosevelt created a remarkable Democratic coalition that included mostCatholics and Jews along with many southern conservative Protestants. Theperiod between World War II and the early 1960s brought a multifaceted butincreasingly tolerant religious revival that has affected national politics tothe present. The most recent six presidents (Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter,Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush) havebeen more conventionally Christian than the first six (George Washington,John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, James Monroe, and JohnQuincy Adams). Nonetheless, religion-related conflict has persisted and,compared to the 1950s, even escalated. President Ronald Reagan brought a“new Christian right” into his Republican coalition, and President George W.Bush, a born again Protestant, courted this conservative constituency withsome high level appointments and the rhetoric of American mission.Democrats and secularists harshly criticized Bush’s tactics. We must bewareof joining commentators who describe these conflicts, in typical Americanhyperbole, as a “culture war.” Rather, they represent the latest in a longseries o% cultural “shouting matches” seeking to define a normative“American Way of Life.

'A Divided Soul'? the Cold War odyssey of O. John Rogge

In 1948 O. John Rogge, a prominent American liberal, was a contender for the Progressive Party's vice-presidential nomination. He was then a man of the Left: an activist in the international peace movement, a champion of radical causes and a defender of organizations deemed subversive by the Department of Justice. In 1951 he persuaded his\ud client to turn government witness in the Rosenberg espionage trial and was converted into 'Rogge the Rat' by his former allies. In tracing this transformation, this paper will argue that Rogge was neither a typical Cold War apostate nor a typical anti-Stalinist intellectual. Instead, his political trajectory was the outcome of a failed attempt to steer global politics away from Cold War dichotomies. The paper will therefore throw new light\ud both on the movement to find a 'third way' between East and West, and on the phenomenon of non-communist Left activism during the early Cold War