Texas Tech University

In Search of Our Better Angels: A Brief History of American Civil Religion

Philip Gorski

Professor of Sociology at Yale University

America may be more divided today than at any time since the Civil War, its political culture perhaps reaching a breaking point. Why that is happening and what we might do about it is the subject of this lecture entitled “In Search of Our Better Angels: A Brief History of American Civil Religion” given by Dr. Philip Gorski, Professor of Sociology at Yale University. This lecture took place on December 4, 2017 in the Escondido Theater of the Student Union Building at Texas Tech University.

Dr. Gorski argues that America's civil religion is a synthesis between secular democratic ideals and its Christian beliefs, with continuing elements of tension arising between the two. An examination of that history, he believes, provides lessons that can help us heal our current political divisions.