FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
March 11, 2011
Office of College Communications
WENHAM, MA –Since the 18th-century Enlightenment, Americans have maintained much friendlier ties with religion than Western Europeans. In fact, the United States and Western Europe’s paths to modernity have differed exponentially.
Thomas A. (“Tal”) Howard, associate professor of history, will be presenting a lecture entitled “America, Europe, and the Religious Divide” as part of the Old Town Hall Lecture Series sponsored by the Gordon College Institute for Public History. He will be discussing some of the main themes he addresses in his most recent book, God and the Atlantic: America, Europe, and the Religious Divide. The event will take place Thursday, March 17, at 7:30 p.m. at the Salem Old Town Hall.
“The book seeks to explain some of the religious differences between Europe and America,” says Howard. “I am especially keen to show how Europeans have interpreted America’s early experiment in religious liberty and its long-term effects.”
Howard is also the founding director of the College’s great books honors program, the Jerusalem and Athens Forum. He was the winner of the Lilly Fellows Program annual book award in 2007. Howard is also the author of Religion and the Rise of Historicism (2000) and Protestant Theology and the Making of the Modern German University (2006).
“The causes of the religious divide between Europe and America are hotly disputed among social scientists and contemporary historians,” says Hartmut Lehmann, former director, Max Planck Institute for History and the German Historical Institute, of Howard’s book. “By carefully examining European views of America since the late 18th century, Thomas Albert Howard is the first scholar to give historical depth to this debate. Everyone interested to find a way through the labyrinth of transatlantic comparisons and prejudice is well-advised to read this book.”
For more information visit http://oldtownhalllectures.com/
Gordon College is a multidenominational Christian college of the liberal arts and sciences on Boston’s North Shore, offering majors in 38 fields with graduate programs in education and music education. Gordon is nationally recognized for excellence in academics and in character building, and ranks as one of the nation’s top Christian colleges. www.gordon.edu