How Christianity Made America—and How America Remade Christianity

Why does religion still dominate American politics when so many other wealthy democracies secularized long ago? In this episode, Michael Shermer talks with historian Matthew Avery Sutton about the long relationship between Christianity and American power. From the Puritans to Lincoln, from the Scopes trial to the Religious Right, from slavery to same-sex marriage, this conversation tracks how religious belief has shaped the country, and how politics keeps reshaping religion in return. Matthew Avery Sutton is the Claudius O. and Mary Johnson Distinguished Professor and chair of the Department of History at Washington State University. His new book is Chosen Land: How Christianity Made America and Americans Remade Christianity .

You can listen to How Christianity Made America—and How America Remade Christianity online on Radio and Podcast. Open the player on this page to stream the available audio.

How Christianity Made America—and How America Remade Christianity is an episode from The Michael Shermer Show by Michael Shermer.

This episode is 01:31:22 long.

This episode was published on Apr 11, 2026.

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