Lingua Sacra: Negotiating God-Talk in America

Abstract

This panel discussion, which includes experts on the social development of Christianity and Judaism in the United States as well as filmmakers from the PBS series God in America, will examine the question of how Americans understand and talk about God.

The United States is among the most religiously diverse nations on earth and yet has comparatively little history of religious violence, in large part because of a widespread view of religion as a matter of private, not public, concern. As Thomas Jefferson famously wrote in 1781, “It does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods, or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.” Granted strong legal protections by the First Amendment, free speech and religious freedom have come to be cherished social conventions, too, even (perhaps especially) among those who see religion as more of a public matter. Indeed, talking about God is something of a national pastime, one that in recent decades has broadened to include conversations among and about multiple religious traditions. What we say about God—and how we say it, through words and deeds—reveals much about our national character, principles, and beliefs.