Themes & Threads: Religion in America
The American Revolution
Captain John Parker, commander of the Lexington militia, had received Paul Revere’s warning. Great Britain’s…
Resolution Regarding Quaker Pacifists
Source: “At a meeting of the Committee of Correspondence and Observation for the County of…
Petition of the Philadelphia Synagogue to the Council of Censors of Pennsylvania
Source: “Petition of the Philadelphia Synagogue to the Council of Censors of Pennsylvania,” The Freeman’s…
Chapter 2: Merchants and Morality in Colonial Massachusetts
A.Robert Cushman, The Sin and Danger of Self-Love, 1621 Let no man seek his own;…
Religious Liberty: Core Court Cases
Amendment I. Ratified December 15, 1791 Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion,…
Reynolds v. United States
Source: 98 U.S. 145 (1879), https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/98/145. We have omitted the concurring opinion by Justice Stephen J.…
Everson v. Board of Education of the Township of Ewing
Source: 330 U.S. 1 (1947), https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/330/1. We have included some footnotes from the opinion. Footnotes…
West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette
Source: 319 U.S. 586 (1943), https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/319/624. All footnotes added by the editors. JUSTICE JACKSON delivered…
Illinois ex rel. McCollum v. Board of Education of School District
Source: 396 Ill. 14, 71 N.E.2d 161, reversed, https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/333/203. We have included excerpts of Justice…
Engel v. Vitale
Source: 370 U.S. 421, https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/370/421. We include excerpts of Justice Black’s opinion for the Court.…
Sherbert v. Verner
Source: 374 U.S. 398, https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/374/398. The Court decided the case 7–2. We have excerpted Justice…
Lemon v. Kurtzman
Source: 403 U.S. 602 (1971) https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/411/192. All footnotes added by the editors. CHIEF JUSTICE BURGER…
Wisconsin v. Yoder
Source: 406 U.S. 205 (1972); https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/406/205. We have excerpted the Court’s opinion and the dissent…
Widmar v. Vincent
Source: 454 U.S. 263, https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/454/263. We include excerpts of Justice Powell’s opinion for the Court.…
Wallace v. Jaffree
Source: Wallace v. Jaffree, 472 U.S. 38, https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/472/38/. Footnotes added by the editors are preceded…
Lynch v. Donnelly
Source: 465 U.S. 668 (1984), https://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-supreme-court/465/668.html. We include excerpts of Chief Justice Warren E. Burger’s…
Masterpiece Cakeshop, Ltd., et al., Petitioners v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission, et al.
Source: 584 U.S. ___ (2018), https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/16-111. Justice Thomas, with whom Justice Gorsuch joins, concurring in part and…
Edwards v. Aguillard
Source: 482 U.S. 578 (1987), https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/482/578. We include excerpts of Justice William J. Brennan Jr.’s…
Employment Division, Department of Human Resources of Oregon v Smith
Source: 494 U.S. 872 (1990), https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/494/872. We have included excerpts of Justice Scalia’s opinion for…
Church of the Lukumi Babalu Aye, Inc. v. City of Hialeah
Source: 508 U.S. 520 (1993), https://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/91-948.ZO.html. We include only excerpts of Justice Kennedy’s opinion for…
Lee v. Weisman
Source: 505 U.S. 577, https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/505/577. We include excerpts from Justice Kennedy’s opinion for the court,…
Zelman v. Simmons-Harris
Source: 536 U.S. 639 (2002) https://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/00-1751.ZS.html. We omit Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist’s opinion for…
Van Orden v. Perry
Source: 543 U.S. 677 (2005), https://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/03-1500.ZO.html. We omit the opinion of the Court by Chief…
Locke v. Davey
Source: 540 U.S. 712 (2004), https://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/02-1315.ZS.html. We include the Chief Justice Rehnquist’s opinion for the…
McCreary County v. American Civil Liberties Union of Kentucky
Source: 545 U.S. 844, https://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/03-1693.ZS.html. We include the opinions of Justices Souter and Scalia but…
Burwell, Secretary of Health and Human Services, et al. v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc., et al.
Source: 573 U.S., https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/13-354. No. 13–354, 723 F. 3d 1114, affirmed; No. 13–356, 724 F. 3d 377,…
Trinity Lutheran Church of Columbia, Inc. v. Comer
Source: 582 U.S. ___ (2017), https://www.oyez.org/cases/2016/15-577. Footnotes added by the editors are preceded by “Ed.…
Town of Greece v. Susan Galloway, et al.
Source: 681 F. 3d 20, reversed, https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/12-696. Footnotes added by the editors are preceded by “Ed.…
Causes of the Civil War
This volume of primary documents on the causes of the Civil War presents the history…
The Union Must and Shall Be Preserved
Source: The Union must and shall be preserved. Air.- Star Spangled Banner. H. De Marsan,…
Implementing Brown v. Board of Education: One Southern Town’s Story (Pt. 2)
Part II: Teenaged Integration Pioneers Endure a Lonely Spotlight [caption id="attachment_34711" align="alignright" width="217"] Gloria Sloan[/caption]…
Letter to the General Court and Testimony
Source: Edward Burrough, A Declaration of the Sad and Great Persecution and Martyrdom of the…
A Dialogue between Old England and New Concerning Their Present Troubles
Source: The Poems of Mrs. Anne Bradstreet (1612–1672) Together with her Alas, dear mother,…
Women’s Voices: Religion in American History and Politics
While women have historically made up an overwhelming percentage of America's religious practitioners, their roles…
The Sovereignty and Goodness of God
Source: Mary Rowlandson, The Sovereignty and Goodness of God . . . (1682). We have…
Selected Poems
Source: Phyllis Wheatley, Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral (London, 1773), 18, 22–24; The…
An Exhortation to the Inhabitants of the Province of South-Carolina
Source: Sophia Wigington Hume, An Exhortation to the Inhabitants of the Province of South-Carolina (Philadelphia: 1748).…
Testimonies
Source: Testimonies of the Life, Character, Revelations and Doctrines of Mother Ann Lee, 2nd Edition…
My Call to Preach the Gospel
Source: Jarena Lee, Religious Experience (Philadelphia: 1849). Between four and five years after my sanctification,[1]…
Letter to Rev. Simon Brute, S. S.
Source: Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton, Collected Writings: Volume 2 (2002), 423-425. Vincentian Digital Books. 11.…
Report on the Necessity of Jewish Education
Source: Jewish Women's Archive, “Report of the Female Hebrew Benevolent Society,” 1835. Online: https://jwa.org/media/report-female-hebrew-benevolent-society. Ladies,…
Appeal to Christian Women of the South
Source: Angelina Grimke, Appeal to the Christian Women of the South (New York: American Anti-Slavery…
Record of the Organization and Proceedings of The Female Relief Society of Nauvoo
Source: “A Book of Records, Containing the Proceedings of The Female Relief Society of Nauvoo,”…
Uses and Abuses of the Bible
Source: Michael Warner, American Sermons: The Pilgrims to Martin Luther King, Jr., (New York: Library…
Religious Experience
Source: Olive Gilbert, ed., Narrative of Sojourner Truth (Boston, 1850), 59-73. . . . She…
The Revelation on Celestial Marriage: Trouble Among the Saints
Source: Ann Eliza Young, Chapter 3 in Wife No. 19 (1875). AFTER the Revelation on…
The People’s God: Its Effect on Health and Christianity
Source: Mary Baker Eddy, “The People’s God: Its Effect on Health and Christianity,” The Christian…
The Heavenly Vision
Source: Susan B. Anthony, The History of Woman Suffrage, Vol. IV 1883–1900 (Indianapolis, 1902), 128–133.…
Holiness Camp Meetings
Source: Hannah Whitall Smith, My Spiritual Autobiography or How I Discovered the Unselfishness of God…
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