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Religion and politics have mutually influenced each other throughout history, and the United States is no exception. Even before we were a nation, religion was a vital part of politics on our shores, and vice versa. The early English settlers arrived here in large part to escape religious persecution and to establish a "city on a hill" as they believed God had commanded them to do. The stirrings of the American Revolution were sometimes inflected with religious fervor. Important social movements of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries - anti-slavery, temperance, woman suffrage, labor, and civil rights, to name a few - were frequently debated in religious terms. And the alleged religiosity (or irreligiosity) of Presidential candidates has often been a charged issue, from the Deism of some of our earliest leaders to John F. Kennedy's Catholicism, Joe Lieberman's Orthodox Judaism, Mitt Romney's Mormonism, and Barack Obama's progressive Christianity. Count the number of times that faith continues to be invoked by politicians campaigning for office, and you can see one of the many signs of religion's ongoing importance in our political life.
The Center on Religion and Politics is committed to developing a strong foundation for students to understand these complicated intersections - past, present, and future. To that end, we offer undergraduates an intellectual entry point that will emphasize methods and knowledge central to the study of religion and politics. Students may choose to minor in Religion and Politics (we do not currently offer a major). The minor requires 15 units, with 12 units at the 300-level or above. Three of the five classes need to be courses offered through the Center and by its faculty. Those choosing this minor are strongly encouraged to take, as a gateway course, Religion and American Society (RelPol 201) by the first semester of their junior year. Thereafter, students can choose among the many offerings of the Center faculty. The minor should prove attractive to students majoring in a wide range of programs, allowing them to work within an expressly interdisciplinary environment while at the same time augmenting their primary fields of study. The minor is thus intended to facilitate the professional growth of students in various fields.