Religion and the American West

Abstract

The standard narrative of American religious history largely omits the story of religion and the American West. Integrating this story would produce a more coherent history of American religion, allowing nuanced consideration of interactions between Native Americans and colonists and eliminating gaps in the traditional narrative. The West serves as a microcosm and predictor of national religious developments and also contributes to the study of world religions. Five themes have emerged in recent scholarship on religion and the American West: race and ethnicity; transnationalism; the construction of the category of religion; religion and the environment; and the myth of the American West. Scholars in the field face four challenges: learning from Western history's definitional debates and defining the boundaries of religion and the American West; showing that the American West is a useful unit of regional analysis; constructing synthetic narratives of religion and the American West; and integrating the story of religion and the American West into the story of American religion as a whole.

Religion and the Japanese American Incarceration

“…As much as the incarceration affected religion in the American West, where the largest Japanese American communities rebuilt themselves, its effects extended throughout the country as Nikkei resettled during the war. The academic tendency to overlook religion in the American West (Newell ) may explain why religion is one of the last major aspects of the incarceration left to explore. Work on religion and the Japanese American incarceration will further sharpen histories of American Christianity and Buddhism and begin transforming the nation's and churches' narratives to include the stories of Asian Americans, decisions made on their behalf and the outcomes of related conflicts.…”