In recent decades, religion--meaning religious convictions, religious institutions, and religiously informed moral arguments--has become an ever more influential factor in our national debates. Faith-based institutions, ideas, and activities, to which tens of millions of Americans devote significant portions of their time and resources, are receiving increasing attention in the media. Whether it is covering a Promise Keepers rally on the Mall in Washington, the Southern Baptist Convention, a visit by Pope John Paul II to the United States, or the work of inner-city churches serving the urban poor, many political journalists (both print and broadcast media) have sought to better understand the subtle theological distinctions and deep faith commitments that shape the lives of many Americans.

But often some of these religious communities have felt misrepresented and misunderstood. We want to help remedy this misunderstanding. This conference was designed provide reporters, commentators, and editors in the print and broadcast media an opportunity to deepen their comprehension of this crucial dimension of our public life. To that end, we arranged for presentations from five leading authorities on religion and American public life.

Speakers

George Weigel is the author of Witness to Hope, a biography of Pope John Paul II. He is currently a Senior Fellow with Ethics and Public Policy Center after serving seven years as the President. Mr. Weigel is a nationally syndicated columnist in the Catholic press, and is an ooccasional op-ed columnist for the Los Angeles Times. He has written widely on Catholic social teaching, religion and democracy, and the just war tradition. His recent books include Soul of the World (Eerdmans, 1996), Idealism Without Illusions (Eerdmans, 1994) and The Final Revolution (Oxford University Press, 1992).

Grant Wacker is Associate Professor of the History of Religion in America at Duke University Divinity School. He joined the Duke Divinity School faculty after teaching in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill 1977-1992 and is a pioneer scholar in the study of evangelical and pentecostal Christianity. He is the author of two books and is at work on two more: a monograph to be called Heaven Below: Pentecostals and American Culture, 1900-1925, and a survey textbook of American religious history to be published by Oxford University Press.

Jack Wertheimer is Provost and chief academic officer of the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York City and the Joseph and Martha Mendelson Professor of American Jewish History. He is the author or editor of ten books, including A People Divided: Judaism in Contemporary America (Basic Books, 1993), which won the National Jewish Book Award for the best book on contemporary Jewish life in 1993-1994. He is also the editor of The American Synagogue: A Sanctuary Transformed (Cambridge University Press, 1987), The Uses of Tradition: Jewish Continuity in the Modern Era (JTS/Harvard, 1999), and The Modern Jewish Experience: A Reader's Guide (NYU Press, 1993). Most recently, he has edited a two-volume history of the Jewish Theological Seminary.

John C. Green is Director of the Ray C. Bliss Institute of Applied Politics and Professor of Political Science at the University of Akron. His research has focused broadly on political parties, interest groups, and social movements, with an emphasis on the role of religion in politics and campaign finance. He is the co-author of two books: The Bully Pulpit: The Politics of Protestant Ministers (University Press of Kansas, 1997) and Religion and the Culture Wars: Dispatches from the Front (Rowman & Littlefield, 1996). He also has edited twelve books, including The Bible and the Ballot Box: Religion and Politics in the 1988 Election (Westview Press, 1991).

Nathan O. Hatch is Professor of History and Provost at the University of Notre Dame. His most recent book, The Democratization of American Christianity (Yale University Press, 1989), was awarded three prizes, including the 1989 Albert Outler Prize in Ecumenical Church History and the 1990 John Hope Franklin Prize for the best book in American Studies. Professor Gordon S. Wood of Brown University has called it "the best book on religion in the early Republic that has ever been written." A member of the history faculty at Notre Dame since 1975, Hatch has been awarded an undergraduate teaching prize and was formerly director of graduate studies for the history department. When he was named Vice President for Graduate Studies in 1989, he was Notre Dame's youngest vice president and the first non-Roman Catholic officer of the university.