Witherspoon Institute Church-State Seminar

This summer the Witherspoon Institute's Simon Center on Religion and the Constitution will offer its third biennial Church and State Seminar, July 28 to August 1, at the Princeton Theological Seminary.  This five-day seminar will examine the relationship between religion and politics in the period of the American Revolution, founding, and early republic. The seminar is open to untenured faculty and post-doctoral scholars in history, political theory, law, and religion--and the Institute will consider doctoral candidates at work on their dissertations as well.  Please pass the word to your eligible junior colleagues, friends, and students!

The seminar will explore primary sources at the intersection of church and state—charters, constitutions, and legal texts, as well as sermons, pamphlets, essays, speeches, debates, and religious texts. Topics will range from the colonial era and the First Great Awakening, through the revolution, constitution-making, and founding debates over religious liberty, to the dawn of the Second Great Awakening, with a view of politics from a religious perspective, and a view of religion from a political perspective. From Edwards to Emmons, from Mather to Madison, from Whitefield to Washington, major figures of this pivotal era in American religious and political history will be considered in their own historical settings. The seminar faculty will be leading scholars of American history, law and politics, and theology.

2014 Faculty
Daniel L. Dreisbach, American University
Thomas S. Kidd, Baylor University
Gerald R. McDermott, Roanoke College

Applications will be accepted through March 15, 2014.  For more information, please see: http://winst.org/centers/corac/seminars/church-and-state/