America. He received his phd in american studies in 1983 from the university of kansas and is on the faculty of Catholic University for the past 35 years. His research and teaching interests include a variety of religion and cultural topics. Religious movements, religion and social change, fundamentalism, religion in American Culture, religion and globalization and religion and ecology. Please without further ado, join me in welcoming building us. Thank you. So, good evening everyone. I am delighted to be here and i am delighted that you are here on this rather hot, muggy, welcome to washington dc in august evening. I am going to start this with this image. Actually i had originally conjured up an image of Ralph Waldo Emerson and then i doctored it with long hair and beads and a headband and i looked at it a while and came to the conclusion that this would probably verged on sacrilege so instead, i am starting with this particular image and the title from walden pond to woodstock, the