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Lauren Turek Ronit Y. Stahl , a historian of modern American religion, law, and politics, is currently a fellow in the Department of Medical Ethics & Health Policy at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. She earned her Ph.D. in history from the University of Michigan and was a Postdoctoral Research Associate at the John C. Danforth Center on Religion and Politics at Washington University in St. Louis from 2014-2016. The following is a brief conversation we had about her excellent new book, Enlisting Faith: How the Military Chaplaincy Shaped Religion and State in Modern America , which came out this month on Harvard University Press. Q1. Can you tell our readers a little bit about your book? What is your core argument? Enlisting Faith tells the story of how the federal government, through the military chaplaincy, struggled with, encouraged, and regulated religious pluralism over the twentieth century. It traces how the United States shifted fr...

Charles McCrary Today I want to offer a few brief thoughts toward a theory of “paperwork secularism,” inspired by some AAR panels and recent blog posts. But first, an anecdote. In May 2010, the North Dakota Department of Transportation denied Brian Magee’s request for a personalized license plate reading “ISNOGOD.” Like many states, North Dakota had no specific legal restrictions for what type of messages may be included in a personalized license plate, thus opting to handle each request on a case-by-case basis. Explaining the decision to reject Magee’s plate, Department of Transportation representative Linda Butts said , “We are trying our best to serve the citizens of North Dakota and try to protect [against] what would be offensive.” But offensive according to whom? And, more to the point, who makes that call? According to state law, the Department of Transportation “may, in its discretion, provide special license plates marked with not more than seven numerals, letters, or ampersan...

Benjamin J. Wetzel Aisne-Marne American Cemetery and Memorial  Wikimedia Commons From 2011 to 2015, historians of the Civil War occupied an enviable position: they had four long years to enjoy the 150th anniversary of the conflict, with a spate of monograph publications, conferences, and other academic events scheduled to commemorate the sesquicentennial.  Now, from 2017 to 2018, we are in the midst of another anniversary: the centennial of the United States's involvement in World War I.  From April 1917, when Congress declared war at President Woodrow Wilson's request, to November 1918, when a cease-fire was signed, the United States sent millions of soldiers (not to mention nurses, chaplains, and other personnel) to Europe in an effort that eventually turned the tide of the war in favor of the allies.  Without question, the Great War and the 1919 Treaty of Versailles set in motion forces that would culminate in, to use historian Modris Eksteins's phrase, "the birth...

I did not attend all of the panels on religion at the Ninth Annual Meeting of the Society for U.S. Intellectual History. My brief reflections here are in response to the panels I did attend (including my own) but I also make mention of the many projects of interest to our readers. I left with two questions and bring attention to two trends.  S-USIH offers a space for historians of religion from various organizations – the ASCH, the ACHA, the AAR, etc.  – to meet and explore common interests. The common thread at the 9th Annual S-USIH is an interest in how the study of religion overlaps with the study of thought more broadly. Two Questions: Synthesis and Lived Religion The Mapparium  Can intellectual history provide us with tools to build a coherent narrative of America’s religious history even in the face of tremendous pluralism? What themes can intellectual history offer historians of religion? Panels offered familiar conceptual devices to gather religion under the umbre...