Journal of Ecumenical Studies
Editors: David M. Krueger, Benjamin E. Sax, Natana DeLong-Bas
In 2026, the United States will be celebrating its 250th anniversary. The Declaration of Independence, drafted and signed in the summer of 1776 in Philadelphia, ignited a revolution establishing an independent nation separate from the British Empire. By 1789, it was functioning under a constitution that was later accompanied by a Bill of Rights, guaranteeing, among other things, the non-establishment of religion and the protection of religious free exercise. The United States was unique in the eighteenth century because it did not align the government with one religious institution.
Throughout the history of the United States, there have been competing and contending visions about the role of religion in American civic life and the public sphere. There have been many ways of conceiving and framing the revolution at different places and times, including but not limited to seeking religious freedom from the Church of England (Puritans, Pilgrims, fringe movements such as the Shakers and the Ephrata Cloisters), establishing a new form of government neither bound nor beholden to a state-sponsored Church, breaking away from prior hierarchical/hereditary structures, and what today might be called “identity politics,” and parsing out the religious from national affiliation (what to do with figures such as Jonathan Edwards?). There are also critical questions about whether the United States is a “Christian” nation founded on “Judeo-Christian values” or whether what became the United States was broader in drawing upon various religious and other philosophical heritages. Residents from multiple Protestant sects populated Philadelphia and other colonial locales, but there were also Catholics, Jews, Freethinkers, and Muslims who formed part of the early colonial population. Although President George Washington’s letter to the Touro synagogue of Rhode Island promised that the new nation would stand against the persecution of religious minorities, the promises of religious freedom were experienced unevenly. While the Declaration of Independence declared freedom from monarchical tyranny, it left out a call for Black liberation from slavery and referred to indigenous Americans as “merciless savages.” Religious ideas and motivations both supported and opposed the institution of slavery and the colonial conquest of native people.
This Call for Papers encourages exploring history and narratives about religious freedom and identities in the United States, centered on the founding era of the nation. How far have we come as a religiously diverse nation, and how little has changed regarding religious identity? What faith traditions were present in the foundational era, and what role(s) did they play in crafting and shaping - and being crafted and shaped by - the new nation? How can their presence and participation be known (archival evidence, material culture, worship spaces, cemeteries)? How did these traditions interact with each other? What narratives have been crafted about “religious freedom” both pre- and post-Independence, by whom, and for what purposes? How have memories of religious freedom been used and recrafted over the past 250 years? How are narratives of religious freedom in the past used and repurposed today?
The J.E.S. welcomes creative and original contributions that incorporate new or neglected perspectives on the meaning of the U.S. founding and its unique approach to religious diversity, both for American culture and the echoes and impacts of the American experiment of religious freedom around the globe. We invite submissions from authors inside and outside the U.S and papers from various methodological approaches and perspectives. The J.E.S. welcomes manuscripts of between 4000 and 9000 words (15 to 35 pages). The complete submission guidelines are available here: https://dialogueinstitute.org/guidelines-for-submissions. We invite paper submissions by October 2025. We expect to publish the collection by late spring of 2026. Authors are welcome to contact one of the editors for a proposal: David Krueger at dk@dialogueinstitute.org, Benjamin Sax at bsax@icjs.org, or Natana DeLong-Bas at delongba@bc.edu.
