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In the midst of the Great Depression, the American government initiated one of the most ambitious national photographic projects ever undertaken. Such photographers as Dorothea Lange, Walker Evans, and Gordon Parks, all then virtually unknown, were commissioned to chronicle in pictures the economic struggle and social dislocation of the Depression era. They explored every facet of rural life in an effort to document the troubles, as well as the spirit, of the nation. Fanning out across the country, these photographers captured a nation alive with religious faith—from Dust Bowl migrants singing hymns to orthodox Jews praying in rural Connecticut. This book recounts the history of this extraordinary project, telling the stories of the men and women who participated in it and exploring these little-known images of America. It teases out the various and conflicting ways that these photographers portrayed American religion and enhances our understanding of how religion was practiced during this critical period of American history.

This book looks at the interaction of politics and religion in France during the crucial years of the long seventeenth century. The book begins with the wars of religion, which proved to be longer and more violent in France than elsewhere in Europe and left a legacy of unresolved tensions between church and state with serious repercussions for each. It then draws together a series of unresolved problems—both practical and ideological—that challenged French leaders thereafter, arriving at an original and comprehensive view of the close interrelations between the political and spiritual spheres of the time. The book considers the powerful religious dimension of French royal power even in the seventeenth century, the shift from reluctant toleration of a Protestant minority to increasing aversion, conflicts over the independence of the Catholic church and the power of the pope over secular rulers, and a wealth of other interconnected topics.

In this collection of sermons, fifteen distinguished religious leaders reflect upon the moral, social, and political nature of our time. The sermons originated during the Tercentennial celebrations at Yale University, and they provide a vivid snapshot of the rich religious history of Yale and its contribution to the character of our nation. Some of America's most prominent religious figures are here, among them William Willimon, William Sloane Coffin, Peter Gomes, Gardner Taylor, and Barbara Brown Taylor. Their sermons offer valuable religious and intellectual insights into our national consciousness both before and after the tragedies of September 11, 2001.

Each age has its own crisis—our modern experience of science-religion conflict is not so very different from that experienced by our forebears, this book proposes. The author considers the ideas and writings of Thomas Jefferson and Charles Darwin, two men who struggled mightily to reconcile their religion and their science, then looks to more recent times when scientific challenges to religion (evolutionary theory, for example) have given rise to powerful political responses from religious believers. Today, as in the eighteenth century, there are pressing reasons for members on each side of the religion-science debates to find common ground, the author contends. No precedent exists for shaping a response to issues like cloning or stem cell research, unheard of fifty years ago, and thus the opportunity arises for all sides to cooperate in creating a new ethics for the common good.

If we look to the Bible for historical accounts of ancient life, we make a profound error, according to this book. Sifting through the imaginative layers of these texts, it unearths patterns connecting disparate passages, providing fascinating insights into how ideas were expressed, received, and transformed in the ancient Near East. Ranging from Jacob's encounter with Leah to the marriage at Cana to Jesus' encounter with the woman at the well, these readings demonstrate the remarkable subtlety and sophistication of the biblical views on marriage, sexuality, fertility, impurity, creation, and love.

A magnet for controversy, the media, and followers, the Rev. William Sloane Coffin, Jr. was the premier voice of northern religious liberalism for more than a quarter-century, and a worthy heir to the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. From his pulpits at Yale University and, later, New York City's Riverside Church, Coffin focused national attention on civil rights, the anti-Vietnam War movement, disarmament, and gay rights. This biography—based on access to family papers and candid interviews with Coffin, his colleagues, family, friends, lovers, and wives—tells the remarkable story of Coffin's life. An army and CIA veteran before assuming the post of Yale University chaplain at the youthful age of thirty-three, Coffin gained notoriety as a leader of a dangerous civil rights Freedom Ride in 1961, as a defendant in the “Boston Five” trial of draft resisters in 1969, and as the preeminent voice of liberal religious dissent into the 1980s. This book encompasses Coffin's turbulent private life as well as his flamboyant, joyful public career, while illuminating the larger social movements that consumed his days and defined his times.