These proxies and the proxies are on the line of, so do you hunt . [laughter] and i went through countless these interviews and my answers were so pathetic. No. Do you know anybody who hunts . Ot really. I was sitting down with one of the senators from idaho who has a ranch and who was a great hunter himself and he was telling me about his hunting and how important this was to many of his constituents and i totally understand why. Why many senators would want to know these kinds of things. And so i was it was late in the day. It was my 93rd interview. I said you know, senator, if you would like to invite me hunting, id really be glad to come. And this look of abject horror passed over his face, you know . And i realized, ok. I think ive gone too far. Senator, i really didnt mean to invite myself to your ranch. But i i i will tell you that if im lucky enough to be confirmed ill ask my colleague Justice Scalia to take me hunting. I grew up in new york. I didnt have this experience. But i understand why this matters to you. Im committed to do that for you. And so when i got the court, i went over to Justice Scalias chambers one day and i told him the story and he thought it was hilarious. I said to me, you know, this is the single promise i made in 82 office interviews. So he said, well, i guess i have to let you fulfill that promise. Tonight, elena kagan on her career, her approach to the law and stories from behind the scenes at the court. Thats at 8 00 p. M. Eastern ere on cspan. Sunday on q a glenn kesler on his biggest pinokeyose of 2014 awards given the politician groups made the biggest false claims this year. Dem crates tend to get more upset at them because i think they have bought into the myth of the liberal media and they kind of think that the media is on their side where as republicans they firmly believe in the lift of the media. So they kind of expect that eyre going to be, you know, the Washington Post calling theyre not going to be fair to me. I kind of think, i hope that over the last four years ive one enough back and fourth treated both parties with equal fervor that people have now come to, you know, grudgingly say, ok, youre someone we can do business with. I know that the Senate Majority pack which is affiliated with harry reid, they stopped answering my questions midway through the Campaign Season because they felt they were not getting a fair shake from me. Sunday night at 8 00 eastern and pacific on cspans q a. Up next a discussion on religion and social issues. Scholars look at tissue of christianity and the history of muslims in america and how it influences the debate held at Southern Methodist university in dallas. This is about an 1 25. Ive already cut out the noble prizes and some other things theyve done to make sure we get to their talks quickly. So here we go. Edward j. Bloom is professor of history at San Diego State university. Hell be our first presenter. He is the coauthor of the color of cries, the son of god and the race in america. And the author of american prophet 2007. And reforging the white republic. Bloom has been awarded the gustav arl award by the council of humanities by the first book of a historian published between 2002 and 2009. The peter c. Burg award for the best book in civil war studies in 2006. And the c. Van woodard price. His books have been featured on the New York Times and cspan. His presentation for this orning is entitled in the bow ls of a free christian nation. She also has broad interests in the history of the Atlantic World and in comparative colonialisms in america and in the caribbean. She teaches courses on the graduate level on many aspects in early of American History. Her first book how christianity affected race was published in 2007. Her paper for today is Barack Hussein obama, our first muslim president. And our next speaker is arlene sanchez. Latino pent coss tall identity, evangelical faith and society won the hispanics initiative book award in 2005. Shes authored more than 25 articles an has served as a media experts for outlets such as the New York Times, the wall street journal and on being with kristin tippett. She served as an expert for the pbs series religion in america. Sanchezwalshes current book is ent pen pent coss tall petacostal and divine borders. And kevin m. Schultz u schulz is a professor of religious studies an associate chair of the department of history. A native of los angeles, kevin m. Schultz teaches American History and has special nterest in religion, ethno racial history. The academic subsequent rise of the notion that the country was premised on something called jdeo christianity. His current work ca minutes the fascinating enter dwined lives of william f. Buckley jr. And normal mailer as a way to better understand the pivotal decade of the 1960s. He also has had essays appear in several of the professions flagship journals including american quarterly, the journal of the American Academy of history and labor history as well as other distinguished outlets both popular and academic. His book is entitled equal the blessings of american luralism. Good day. Is the United States a Christian Country . Was it one new the past . Will it be in the future snl if we look high and low near and far, we can observe americans asking, answering and debating these questions. Theyre disputed online. Plastered on billboards. Mentioned during news programs and addressed by leading politicians. The questions and the answers rattle with disagreement and with tension. Brakbrak for instance barack instance, answered them one way when he was elected and then quit different in 2008. He said we are no longer a christian nation. We are also a jewish nation, a muslim nation, a buddhist nation, a hindu nation and a nation of nonbelievers. Three years later now speaking as president obama and to a very different audience in turkey, obama explained we do not consider ourselves a christian nation or a jewish nation or a muslim nation. His both embrace of pluralism has been reconfigured into a repudiation of particulars. Most political and christian conservatives share their disapprove of obama. But they are anything but united on this matter of religious nationalism. Its not hate speech cried radio and Television Host glenn beck to defend the United States as a christian nation in 2010. In the 2000 book faith and politics senator john dan forth main tained, some people asked me whether america is a Christian Country. The answer must be called no. For to call that a Christian Country is that nonchristians are not full fledged citizens of one nation. These recent debates and disagreements are not knew. The problem of what it means to be or not to be a christian ation has been a touch stone of religion for more than two centuries. I want to turn our attention to a cast of forgotten founders, a group of men who harnessed the language of Christian Nationalism in poignant and meaningful ways. This small and over looked cohort of bostonians may offer some new ways for us today to consider whats at stake when we address when we speak the vexed political problem of the nations religion. The year was 1777. The month was january. A petition on behalf of a great number of blacks was presented to the newly formed massachusetts based state legislature. It was signed by eight men. And the petition declared we are detained in a state of free in the bowls of and christian nation. They have in common with all and men a natural alienable right to that freedom which the great parent of the universe has bestowed equally on all mankind. They and others like them have been unjustly dragged to the land. They have been brought here to be sold like beast of burden. This all happened among a people professing the mild religion of jesus. What these men experienced they all worse than nonexistence. We could engage religion and politics in their petition from a variety of angles. Their description of jesus as mild could lead us to consider the potent rise of methodism and its musical of meek and mild whoor it is to have a mild faith in a time of war. The petitioners invocation of natch ram and i alienable rights could lead us to wonder about the theological tensions between dayism and revealed christianity that animate sod much of the revolutionary period. For our time, i would like to ero in on two words, bow wells bowlbowels and beast. They discussed religion not as abstractive issues of ideas or beliefs but also as concepts of flesh and bone. These were human activities that took place with within and through bodies. The restore cal emphasis on bodies encompassed the private and the public, the al gore cal and the literal, the biblical and the civil. So lets begin in the bowels. A hallmark destination of mid evil and enlightenment discourse. Dante wrote inferno adds a journey that began in the mouth flow into the stomach and culminated in es cre mental ex pummings. Martin luther described the pope repeatedly as a farting rear end. He didnt year the word rear end. Around the same time that johnlock was putting together his second treatus on government he was also pinning an entire chamenter on the importance of going to School Chapter on the importance of going to school regularly. When slaves sitch waited thems in the bowels of the country they presented the nation as a body. They were both back drops for this kind otched mapping. In first corinthians the apostle paul said to the believers it is by one spirit hat we be baptized by one body whether we be bond or free. The body of hands and eyes and ears its not one member but its many. While bodies were made of many parts the pieces were equally valued and valuable within the one body of the faith family. In the age of monarchy, the kings body carried a variety of meanings. European kings were thought have two bodies. Their physical bodies could decay but the body politic that they symbolized was toundcomb timeless and to be composite. The visual front for Thomas Hopkins leviathan presented the top half of the sovereign facing the viewer. But the top half of the sonch was actually hundreds of actually small individualized bodies. Ile book viewers witnessed only the back sides of the smaller depicted bodies which we saw from the rear. Members of society faced into the sovereign. They are absorbed into the sonch and they are put into motion by the sovereign. It is a case of bodies within a body. Now, the apostle paul he never mentioned the bowels in his list of body parts. Hobbs did. When discussing the things, hobbs lashed out at the great number of corporations by this he meant pounds which are as many lesser common wealths in the bowels of a greater. They are like worms in the entrails of a natural man. Bowels were a terrible place to be, no doubt. But they are also a danger to the rest of the body. In clean yall, massachusetts and elsewhere, slaves were often feared for poisoning their mearses in ways that upset their bowels, crippling nd killing women and men slowly through what was put into their mouths that then came out of other locations. What took place within and through bowels could upset the entire body. While the reference took us within body, the mention of being sold like beast of burden, that drive us to consider what is within bodies. Dehumanization were crucial aspects of making a slave culture. Physical activities render the enslaves if not equal with do mestcate animals. Generation after generation of africanamericans damned their treatment as analogous as that of animals oftentimes claim thrag the ultimate goal of enslavement was to transform humans into beasts. Now beasts of burden were particular entities in british law. English poor laws they differentiated those individual who is traveled with within beist of burden or more this as a way of constructing a heirarchy. Sometimes they were able to do two things. They could carry loads on their backs an they could hall weighty cargo. The massachusetts petitioners they were not the only ones using this beast of burden relationships. Scottish minister and his tore yanl williams robertson, he denounsd native american men for treating their wives as no better than a beast of burden. While the men loiter, the women are condemned to excessive coil. The King James Bible was replete. E book of yen sys drined how too heaven a bushed were asked on calt. Then later in the book of dab yell there are four terrifying beasts. And by the room of revolution the best was a leading figure. And effective domestic policy. Christianizing slaves will make better servants. It will render them afraid of speaking or dig anything that may justly displease you. Hes writing to masters here. Masters will have more work done for them and better done than those inhumane masters. Who have used their negros worse than their horses. So the question of whether negros have rational towels, now theyre exploded. Let that broadish insinuation be never whispered again. They are men and not beasts. Beastlyness, inhumanity, brutishness. These were characteristics of slave howleders behinding badly not essences of the slaves themselves. So for the petitioners, it was both general and particular. Theyre not simply beasts but beasts of burden. They carried emotional and weight. It was a weight that the petitioners hoped they could leverage with the legislature. Seeing that im close out of time, i want to suggest that taking the insights of these petitioners into our present that it may provide some new bridges for us to cross the religious and political divides, that practice that frack tiss in the United States. What if we began where the petitioners did. In bodies connected to other bodies. And then move to our ideas about whether the nation is or is not christian or religious. From this advantage point starting with bodies. I would like to suggest that glenn beck, senator john dan forth and barack obama stand together. They respect lives. In favorite and politics senator dan forth expressed prow found frustration with the floor terry shivo, the woman who stayed in a vegetative state for 15 years to make political hay. Dan forths concern was for the sanctionity of her body and the wellbeing of the bodies around family members, friends, doctor. He was not with the body politic. Glenn beck, he cherishing the Founding Fathers like he sees washington as a depender of Jewish Americans and theyre right to the their religious freedom and that defending their religious is also about defending their bodies to ractice that rely juice. His fathers absent body, the bodies of dead children of aborgs protestors, the bodies of religious communities. They animate the audacity of hope. Obama, dan forth and beck, they disagree profoundly. On the notion of whether the nation is religious or what does that even men. Where could we begin . And what my make from the petitions in the 1970s. Its knot just that everybody has a body. To invote martin luder king jr. Its that everything is part of a they are connected to other bodies. An abstract ideologys first. We run the ricks of putting etween. Tangibles b nine. That was a proob these massachusetts petitioners, their families and their friends they knew all too well. It may be a struggle to see bodies before ballots. To see ballots. Beliefs. Ies before what these forgot hn founders of the 1770s. They called your struggle a glorious strulling. It was one that valued and needed everybody body. Thank you for the time. 2for your time listening to this body and its any connections to lots of body here and elsewhere. Thank you. [applause] good morning. Is that good . Yes. Until very recently i moved to houston texas. And this is my first prip back. So its good to be back home. There are 3 million muslims in the United States, a somewhat confidencest controversial since the uths does not count the population by a religious operation. They foul a vary of soing traditions. R they follow home groun grown american islam. American muss williams of diverse. They are africanamerican. You can see and and i incressing number identify as latino or white. Since september 1th, american muslims escaping the. And thed a visit on the war on terror cat put led them into the public eye. The election of combrack barack furtser spurred interest. Of american muslims. His kenyan fearp and his hildhood spent in the majority snation. Fuel speculation that obama himself was a credit muslim. Despite the enormous diversity and. Both 91 have proved to be faux m points for often vicious critics of islam. It arrived on the north American Contract at the same time. That is muslims and jews who have been co serves. Early in the 16 o. T. And an re in estebanico was thlete from morocco. As demon cos captures might not have thought of him as muslim. When he would have height it knew name. Etween 1527 and 1536. They have this expedition walk from present day texas from gallon ves tin. To the Pacific Coast of mexico. Is remarkable linguistic across north carolina. N 1539 they denide it. Using his knowledge of native cultures. To help guy spanish conquistador. He was quills in 15400. Its a dwhea is impossible to answer but spanish officials ere sus pi shouse. Technically the new world was off limb. Yet, if this was a rule honored in the breach. The spanish continued to use ensaved african muss williams. Contained many. And a late 16eth century. In other words theyre enla slaved thefment long before our entitle man began in 160 1960s. As enslaved people from west and but also occasionally from. And come up with a deposit graphic analysis. They thought that over the 12. 5 brought to the americans. At least several hundred sow sand. Many especial enslaved people would have been familiar with islam even if they did not identify as muslims themselves. Michael gomez has noted that around 50 of enslafed people coming to mainland north america came from those areas in africa. Significant minority. We flecting the religious slives who come baseline islam and tradillingsnal can practice. And ways the general problem is that enslaved muslims were a mrp invisitibilities minority.