Podcast appearances and mentions of Edward C Mallinckrodt

In his new book, The Church of Saint Thomas Paine: A Religious History of American Secularism (Princeton University Press, 2021), Dr. Leigh Eric Schmidt tells the surprising story of how freethinking liberals in 19th-century America promoted a secular religion of humanity centered on the deistic revolutionary Thomas Paine and how their descendants eventually became embroiled in the culture wars of the late 20th century. After Paine's remains were stolen from his grave in New York, and shipped to England in 1819, the reverence of his American disciples took a material turn in a long search for his relics. Paine's birthday was always a red-letter day for these believers in democratic cosmopolitanism and philanthropic benevolence, but they expanded their program to include a broader array of rites and ceremonies, particularly funerals free of Christian supervision. They also worked to establish their own churches and congregations in which to practice their religion of secularism. All of these activities raised serious questions about the very definition of religion and whether it included nontheistic fellowships and humanistic associations—a dispute that erupted again in the second half of the twentieth century. As right-wing Christians came to see secular humanism as the most dangerous religion imaginable, small communities of religious humanists, the heirs of Paine's followers, were swept up in new battles about religion's public contours and secularism's moral perils. Schmidt's book paints an engrossing account of an important but little-known chapter in American history, and reveals why the lines between religion and secularism are often much blurrier than we imagine. Dr. Leigh Eric Schmidt is the Edward C. Mallinckrodt Distinguished University Professor in the Humanities at Washington University in St. Louis and joined the John C. Danforth Center on Religion and Politics in 2011. He has appeared on NPR programs and other radio shows to discuss his many books, including this show, in 2018, to tell us about his book Village Atheists. He has also contributed to such notable media outlets as The Atlantic, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, London Times, Boston Globe, and a number of other titles you would no doubt recognize. Carrie Lynn Evans is a PhD student at Université Laval in Quebec City. carrie-lynn.evans@lit.ulaval.ca Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

In his new book, The Church of Saint Thomas Paine: A Religious History of American Secularism (Princeton University Press, 2021), Dr. Leigh Eric Schmidt tells the surprising story of how freethinking liberals in 19th-century America promoted a secular religion of humanity centered on the deistic revolutionary Thomas Paine and how their descendants eventually became embroiled in the culture wars of the late 20th century. After Paine's remains were stolen from his grave in New York, and shipped to England in 1819, the reverence of his American disciples took a material turn in a long search for his relics. Paine's birthday was always a red-letter day for these believers in democratic cosmopolitanism and philanthropic benevolence, but they expanded their program to include a broader array of rites and ceremonies, particularly funerals free of Christian supervision. They also worked to establish their own churches and congregations in which to practice their religion of secularism. All of these activities raised serious questions about the very definition of religion and whether it included nontheistic fellowships and humanistic associations—a dispute that erupted again in the second half of the twentieth century. As right-wing Christians came to see secular humanism as the most dangerous religion imaginable, small communities of religious humanists, the heirs of Paine's followers, were swept up in new battles about religion's public contours and secularism's moral perils. Schmidt's book paints an engrossing account of an important but little-known chapter in American history, and reveals why the lines between religion and secularism are often much blurrier than we imagine. Dr. Leigh Eric Schmidt is the Edward C. Mallinckrodt Distinguished University Professor in the Humanities at Washington University in St. Louis and joined the John C. Danforth Center on Religion and Politics in 2011. He has appeared on NPR programs and other radio shows to discuss his many books, including this show, in 2018, to tell us about his book Village Atheists. He has also contributed to such notable media outlets as The Atlantic, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, London Times, Boston Globe, and a number of other titles you would no doubt recognize. Carrie Lynn Evans is a PhD student at Université Laval in Quebec City. carrie-lynn.evans@lit.ulaval.ca Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/religion

In his new book, The Church of Saint Thomas Paine: A Religious History of American Secularism (Princeton University Press, 2021), Dr. Leigh Eric Schmidt tells the surprising story of how freethinking liberals in 19th-century America promoted a secular religion of humanity centered on the deistic revolutionary Thomas Paine and how their descendants eventually became embroiled in the culture wars of the late 20th century. After Paine's remains were stolen from his grave in New York, and shipped to England in 1819, the reverence of his American disciples took a material turn in a long search for his relics. Paine's birthday was always a red-letter day for these believers in democratic cosmopolitanism and philanthropic benevolence, but they expanded their program to include a broader array of rites and ceremonies, particularly funerals free of Christian supervision. They also worked to establish their own churches and congregations in which to practice their religion of secularism. All of these activities raised serious questions about the very definition of religion and whether it included nontheistic fellowships and humanistic associations—a dispute that erupted again in the second half of the twentieth century. As right-wing Christians came to see secular humanism as the most dangerous religion imaginable, small communities of religious humanists, the heirs of Paine's followers, were swept up in new battles about religion's public contours and secularism's moral perils. Schmidt's book paints an engrossing account of an important but little-known chapter in American history, and reveals why the lines between religion and secularism are often much blurrier than we imagine. Dr. Leigh Eric Schmidt is the Edward C. Mallinckrodt Distinguished University Professor in the Humanities at Washington University in St. Louis and joined the John C. Danforth Center on Religion and Politics in 2011. He has appeared on NPR programs and other radio shows to discuss his many books, including this show, in 2018, to tell us about his book Village Atheists. He has also contributed to such notable media outlets as The Atlantic, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, London Times, Boston Globe, and a number of other titles you would no doubt recognize. Carrie Lynn Evans is a PhD student at Université Laval in Quebec City. carrie-lynn.evans@lit.ulaval.ca Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/secularism

In his new book, The Church of Saint Thomas Paine: A Religious History of American Secularism (Princeton University Press, 2021), Dr. Leigh Eric Schmidt tells the surprising story of how freethinking liberals in 19th-century America promoted a secular religion of humanity centered on the deistic revolutionary Thomas Paine and how their descendants eventually became embroiled in the culture wars of the late 20th century. After Paine's remains were stolen from his grave in New York, and shipped to England in 1819, the reverence of his American disciples took a material turn in a long search for his relics. Paine's birthday was always a red-letter day for these believers in democratic cosmopolitanism and philanthropic benevolence, but they expanded their program to include a broader array of rites and ceremonies, particularly funerals free of Christian supervision. They also worked to establish their own churches and congregations in which to practice their religion of secularism. All of these activities raised serious questions about the very definition of religion and whether it included nontheistic fellowships and humanistic associations—a dispute that erupted again in the second half of the twentieth century. As right-wing Christians came to see secular humanism as the most dangerous religion imaginable, small communities of religious humanists, the heirs of Paine's followers, were swept up in new battles about religion's public contours and secularism's moral perils. Schmidt's book paints an engrossing account of an important but little-known chapter in American history, and reveals why the lines between religion and secularism are often much blurrier than we imagine. Dr. Leigh Eric Schmidt is the Edward C. Mallinckrodt Distinguished University Professor in the Humanities at Washington University in St. Louis and joined the John C. Danforth Center on Religion and Politics in 2011. He has appeared on NPR programs and other radio shows to discuss his many books, including this show, in 2018, to tell us about his book Village Atheists. He has also contributed to such notable media outlets as The Atlantic, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, London Times, Boston Globe, and a number of other titles you would no doubt recognize. Carrie Lynn Evans is a PhD student at Université Laval in Quebec City. carrie-lynn.evans@lit.ulaval.ca Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/american-studies

In his new book, The Church of Saint Thomas Paine: A Religious History of American Secularism (Princeton University Press, 2021), Dr. Leigh Eric Schmidt tells the surprising story of how freethinking liberals in 19th-century America promoted a secular religion of humanity centered on the deistic revolutionary Thomas Paine and how their descendants eventually became embroiled in the culture wars of the late 20th century. After Paine's remains were stolen from his grave in New York, and shipped to England in 1819, the reverence of his American disciples took a material turn in a long search for his relics. Paine's birthday was always a red-letter day for these believers in democratic cosmopolitanism and philanthropic benevolence, but they expanded their program to include a broader array of rites and ceremonies, particularly funerals free of Christian supervision. They also worked to establish their own churches and congregations in which to practice their religion of secularism. All of these activities raised serious questions about the very definition of religion and whether it included nontheistic fellowships and humanistic associations—a dispute that erupted again in the second half of the twentieth century. As right-wing Christians came to see secular humanism as the most dangerous religion imaginable, small communities of religious humanists, the heirs of Paine's followers, were swept up in new battles about religion's public contours and secularism's moral perils. Schmidt's book paints an engrossing account of an important but little-known chapter in American history, and reveals why the lines between religion and secularism are often much blurrier than we imagine. Dr. Leigh Eric Schmidt is the Edward C. Mallinckrodt Distinguished University Professor in the Humanities at Washington University in St. Louis and joined the John C. Danforth Center on Religion and Politics in 2011. He has appeared on NPR programs and other radio shows to discuss his many books, including this show, in 2018, to tell us about his book Village Atheists. He has also contributed to such notable media outlets as The Atlantic, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, London Times, Boston Globe, and a number of other titles you would no doubt recognize. Carrie Lynn Evans is a PhD student at Université Laval in Quebec City. carrie-lynn.evans@lit.ulaval.ca Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/history

In his new book, The Church of Saint Thomas Paine: A Religious History of American Secularism (Princeton University Press, 2021), Dr. Leigh Eric Schmidt tells the surprising story of how freethinking liberals in 19th-century America promoted a secular religion of humanity centered on the deistic revolutionary Thomas Paine and how their descendants eventually became embroiled in the culture wars of the late 20th century. After Paine's remains were stolen from his grave in New York, and shipped to England in 1819, the reverence of his American disciples took a material turn in a long search for his relics. Paine's birthday was always a red-letter day for these believers in democratic cosmopolitanism and philanthropic benevolence, but they expanded their program to include a broader array of rites and ceremonies, particularly funerals free of Christian supervision. They also worked to establish their own churches and congregations in which to practice their religion of secularism. All of these activities raised serious questions about the very definition of religion and whether it included nontheistic fellowships and humanistic associations—a dispute that erupted again in the second half of the twentieth century. As right-wing Christians came to see secular humanism as the most dangerous religion imaginable, small communities of religious humanists, the heirs of Paine's followers, were swept up in new battles about religion's public contours and secularism's moral perils. Schmidt's book paints an engrossing account of an important but little-known chapter in American history, and reveals why the lines between religion and secularism are often much blurrier than we imagine. Dr. Leigh Eric Schmidt is the Edward C. Mallinckrodt Distinguished University Professor in the Humanities at Washington University in St. Louis and joined the John C. Danforth Center on Religion and Politics in 2011. He has appeared on NPR programs and other radio shows to discuss his many books, including this show, in 2018, to tell us about his book Village Atheists. He has also contributed to such notable media outlets as The Atlantic, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, London Times, Boston Globe, and a number of other titles you would no doubt recognize. Carrie Lynn Evans is a PhD student at Université Laval in Quebec City. carrie-lynn.evans@lit.ulaval.ca Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/intellectual-history

With a growing sector of America having left traditional religion in recent decades, speculation about the reasons for that exit is common, as are easy conclusions about what it all portends. But it's all a bit more complex. James Croft, outreach director for the Ethical Society of St. Louis, and Leigh Schmidt, the Edward C. Mallinckrodt Distinguished University Professor in the Humanities at Washington University, share their insights in this episode.

A much-maligned minority throughout American history, atheists have been cast as a threat to the nation’s moral fabric, barred from holding public office, and branded as irreligious misfits in a nation chosen by God. Yet, village atheists—as these godless freethinkers came to be known by the close of the nineteenth century—were also hailed for their gutsy dissent from stultifying pieties and for posing a necessary secularist challenge to majoritarian entanglements of church and state. In Village Atheists: How America’s Unbelievers Made Their Way in a Godly Nation (Princeton University Press, 2016),  Professor Leigh Eric Schmidt explores the complex cultural terrain that unbelievers have long had to navigate in their fight to secure equal rights and liberties in American public life. Examining the multilayered world of social exclusion, legal jeopardy, yet also civic acceptance in which American atheists and secularists lived, Schmidt shows how it was only in the middle decades of the twentieth century that nonbelievers attained a measure of legal vindication, yet even then they have often found themselves marginalized on the edges of a God-trusting, Bible-believing nation. Professor Leigh Eric Schmidt is the Edward C. Mallinckrodt Distinguished University Professor in the Humanities at Washington University in St. Louis and joined the John C. Danforth Center on Religion and Politics in 2011. He earned his undergraduate degree in history and religious studies from the University of California, Riverside, in 1983 and his Ph.D. in religion from Princeton in 1987. He has appeared on a number of NPR programs and other radio shows to discuss his many books and he also comments on current issues in American religion and culture, for such notable media outlets as The Atlantic, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, London Times, Boston Globe, and a number of other recognizable titles. Carrie Lynn Evans is a PhD student at Université Laval in Quebec City. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A much-maligned minority throughout American history, atheists have been cast as a threat to the nation’s moral fabric, barred from holding public office, and branded as irreligious misfits in a nation chosen by God. Yet, village atheists—as these godless freethinkers came to be known by the close of the nineteenth century—were also hailed for their gutsy dissent from stultifying pieties and for posing a necessary secularist challenge to majoritarian entanglements of church and state. In Village Atheists: How America’s Unbelievers Made Their Way in a Godly Nation (Princeton University Press, 2016),  Professor Leigh Eric Schmidt explores the complex cultural terrain that unbelievers have long had to navigate in their fight to secure equal rights and liberties in American public life. Examining the multilayered world of social exclusion, legal jeopardy, yet also civic acceptance in which American atheists and secularists lived, Schmidt shows how it was only in the middle decades of the twentieth century that nonbelievers attained a measure of legal vindication, yet even then they have often found themselves marginalized on the edges of a God-trusting, Bible-believing nation. Professor Leigh Eric Schmidt is the Edward C. Mallinckrodt Distinguished University Professor in the Humanities at Washington University in St. Louis and joined the John C. Danforth Center on Religion and Politics in 2011. He earned his undergraduate degree in history and religious studies from the University of California, Riverside, in 1983 and his Ph.D. in religion from Princeton in 1987. He has appeared on a number of NPR programs and other radio shows to discuss his many books and he also comments on current issues in American religion and culture, for such notable media outlets as The Atlantic, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, London Times, Boston Globe, and a number of other recognizable titles. Carrie Lynn Evans is a PhD student at Université Laval in Quebec City. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A much-maligned minority throughout American history, atheists have been cast as a threat to the nation’s moral fabric, barred from holding public office, and branded as irreligious misfits in a nation chosen by God. Yet, village atheists—as these godless freethinkers came to be known by the close of the nineteenth century—were also hailed for their gutsy dissent from stultifying pieties and for posing a necessary secularist challenge to majoritarian entanglements of church and state. In Village Atheists: How America’s Unbelievers Made Their Way in a Godly Nation (Princeton University Press, 2016),  Professor Leigh Eric Schmidt explores the complex cultural terrain that unbelievers have long had to navigate in their fight to secure equal rights and liberties in American public life. Examining the multilayered world of social exclusion, legal jeopardy, yet also civic acceptance in which American atheists and secularists lived, Schmidt shows how it was only in the middle decades of the twentieth century that nonbelievers attained a measure of legal vindication, yet even then they have often found themselves marginalized on the edges of a God-trusting, Bible-believing nation. Professor Leigh Eric Schmidt is the Edward C. Mallinckrodt Distinguished University Professor in the Humanities at Washington University in St. Louis and joined the John C. Danforth Center on Religion and Politics in 2011. He earned his undergraduate degree in history and religious studies from the University of California, Riverside, in 1983 and his Ph.D. in religion from Princeton in 1987. He has appeared on a number of NPR programs and other radio shows to discuss his many books and he also comments on current issues in American religion and culture, for such notable media outlets as The Atlantic, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, London Times, Boston Globe, and a number of other recognizable titles. Carrie Lynn Evans is a PhD student at Université Laval in Quebec City. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A much-maligned minority throughout American history, atheists have been cast as a threat to the nation’s moral fabric, barred from holding public office, and branded as irreligious misfits in a nation chosen by God. Yet, village atheists—as these godless freethinkers came to be known by the close of the nineteenth century—were also hailed for their gutsy dissent from stultifying pieties and for posing a necessary secularist challenge to majoritarian entanglements of church and state. In Village Atheists: How America’s Unbelievers Made Their Way in a Godly Nation (Princeton University Press, 2016),  Professor Leigh Eric Schmidt explores the complex cultural terrain that unbelievers have long had to navigate in their fight to secure equal rights and liberties in American public life. Examining the multilayered world of social exclusion, legal jeopardy, yet also civic acceptance in which American atheists and secularists lived, Schmidt shows how it was only in the middle decades of the twentieth century that nonbelievers attained a measure of legal vindication, yet even then they have often found themselves marginalized on the edges of a God-trusting, Bible-believing nation. Professor Leigh Eric Schmidt is the Edward C. Mallinckrodt Distinguished University Professor in the Humanities at Washington University in St. Louis and joined the John C. Danforth Center on Religion and Politics in 2011. He earned his undergraduate degree in history and religious studies from the University of California, Riverside, in 1983 and his Ph.D. in religion from Princeton in 1987. He has appeared on a number of NPR programs and other radio shows to discuss his many books and he also comments on current issues in American religion and culture, for such notable media outlets as The Atlantic, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, London Times, Boston Globe, and a number of other recognizable titles. Carrie Lynn Evans is a PhD student at Université Laval in Quebec City. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A much-maligned minority throughout American history, atheists have been cast as a threat to the nation’s moral fabric, barred from holding public office, and branded as irreligious misfits in a nation chosen by God. Yet, village atheists—as these godless freethinkers came to be known by the close of the nineteenth century—were also hailed for their gutsy dissent from stultifying pieties and for posing a necessary secularist challenge to majoritarian entanglements of church and state. In Village Atheists: How America’s Unbelievers Made Their Way in a Godly Nation (Princeton University Press, 2016),  Professor Leigh Eric Schmidt explores the complex cultural terrain that unbelievers have long had to navigate in their fight to secure equal rights and liberties in American public life. Examining the multilayered world of social exclusion, legal jeopardy, yet also civic acceptance in which American atheists and secularists lived, Schmidt shows how it was only in the middle decades of the twentieth century that nonbelievers attained a measure of legal vindication, yet even then they have often found themselves marginalized on the edges of a God-trusting, Bible-believing nation. Professor Leigh Eric Schmidt is the Edward C. Mallinckrodt Distinguished University Professor in the Humanities at Washington University in St. Louis and joined the John C. Danforth Center on Religion and Politics in 2011. He earned his undergraduate degree in history and religious studies from the University of California, Riverside, in 1983 and his Ph.D. in religion from Princeton in 1987. He has appeared on a number of NPR programs and other radio shows to discuss his many books and he also comments on current issues in American religion and culture, for such notable media outlets as The Atlantic, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, London Times, Boston Globe, and a number of other recognizable titles. Carrie Lynn Evans is a PhD student at Université Laval in Quebec City. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A much-maligned minority throughout American history, atheists have been cast as a threat to the nation’s moral fabric, barred from holding public office, and branded as irreligious misfits in a nation chosen by God. Yet, village atheists—as these godless freethinkers came to be known by the close of the nineteenth century—were also hailed for their gutsy dissent from stultifying pieties and for posing a necessary secularist challenge to majoritarian entanglements of church and state. In Village Atheists: How America’s Unbelievers Made Their Way in a Godly Nation (Princeton University Press, 2016),  Professor Leigh Eric Schmidt explores the complex cultural terrain that unbelievers have long had to navigate in their fight to secure equal rights and liberties in American public life. Examining the multilayered world of social exclusion, legal jeopardy, yet also civic acceptance in which American atheists and secularists lived, Schmidt shows how it was only in the middle decades of the twentieth century that nonbelievers attained a measure of legal vindication, yet even then they have often found themselves marginalized on the edges of a God-trusting, Bible-believing nation. Professor Leigh Eric Schmidt is the Edward C. Mallinckrodt Distinguished University Professor in the Humanities at Washington University in St. Louis and joined the John C. Danforth Center on Religion and Politics in 2011. He earned his undergraduate degree in history and religious studies from the University of California, Riverside, in 1983 and his Ph.D. in religion from Princeton in 1987. He has appeared on a number of NPR programs and other radio shows to discuss his many books and he also comments on current issues in American religion and culture, for such notable media outlets as The Atlantic, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, London Times, Boston Globe, and a number of other recognizable titles. Carrie Lynn Evans is a PhD student at Université Laval in Quebec City. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Dr. Leigh Eric Schmidt is the Edward C. Mallinckrodt Distinguished University Professor in the Humanities at Washington University in St. Louis. He joined the John C. Danforth Center on Religion and Politics in 2011. He previously taught at Harvard and Princeton. He has appeared in and on all kinds of media to talk about his work and he’s the author of several books. His latest is Village Atheists: How America's Unbelievers Made Their Way in a Godly Nation. We spoke with Leigh about whether we were ever a "Christian nation," why the "New Atheists" really aren't new at all, what we can learn from a cartoonist who lived a century ago.