How has religion been represented in American cinema? Movies for individual consideration here might include those which treat specific moments/themes in American religious culture, like Inherit the Windwhich deals with the Scopes trial of 1924 when fundamentalists challenged the teaching of Darwinian biology in the public school system or Elmer Gantry which looks at evangelism. Another approach is to look at how religion has influenced the work of specific directors, for instance, Frank Capra or Martin Scorsese. To what extent do films like It’s a Wonderful Lifeor Mean Streetsuse religious themes and motifs?
The relationship between religion and ethnicity may be fruitfully explored through the work of specific writers like Philip Roth, both in early work like the range of stories collected in Goodbye, Columbus (1964) and more self-reflective later novels like The Counterlife (1988).
The place of religion in popular culture may be looked at through its influence on both black and white musical forms. The development of black consciousness and its expression in a range of musical forms, from slave spirituals, through the blues and gospel, to soul raise all kinds of questions about cultural identity. A good place to begin is with a performer who came out of the gospel tradition like Sam Cooke. Lawrence Levine’s (1977) classic study, Black Culture and Black Consciousness, is a helpful starting-point here. Similarly, the importance of religious themes in the country music of the South again raises questions about the construction of cultural identity which can be explored through the work of performers like The Carter Family , The Louvin Brothers or Johnny Cash.
Has the wide range of religious choice in America meant that all religions have equal status? What implications has America’s traditional commitment to religious freedom had for non-Christian religions? How have non-Christian religions such as Judaism and Islam fitted into a society which has tended to assume that America is, above all, a Christian nation? What has religious freedom meant for the different denominations of the Christian church or for non-believers?
Is there are an argument that religion is becoming less important in the United States, and that increasing numbers of the young, in particular, are losing any clear religious affiliation? What might this do for the place of Christianity in America?
How has religious liberty accorded with concepts of secularisation? The principle of the separation of church and state assumes the secular identity of the state, but how far has this been reflected in practice?
What has been the relationship between religious diversity and civic values? If America has never had an established church, has it nevertheless had what has been described as a ‘civil religion’, in which a number of key shared concepts are articulated in ways that share some of the characteristics of an established religion on the European model? What kind of role have civic traditions and values had in American history where established or national institutions have been relatively weak? Look, for instance, at topics like 4th of July, Thanksgiving, Presidential Inaugurations, buildings like The White House, The Capitol Building or The Lincoln Memorial, or documents like the Constitution or The Declaration of Independence.