2011–12 Lecture

“American Grace: How Religion Unites Us and Divides Us”

Presented by Robert Putnam

Robert D. Putnam is the Peter and Isabel Malkin Professor of Public Policy at Harvard University. He has served as chairman of Harvard’s Department of Government, director of the Center for International Affairs, and dean of the John F. Kennedy School of Government. He is also visiting professor and director of the Manchester Graduate Summer Programme in Social Change, University of Manchester in the U.K.

Putnam is author of the best-selling Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community, and he recently co-authored American Grace: How Religion Divides and Unites Us. His lecture will address the findings of the research that informs this book. Based on two of the most comprehensive surveys ever conducted on religion and public life in America, the book includes a dozen in-depth profiles of diverse congregations across the country, which illuminate the trends described by Putnam and co-author David Campbell in the lives of real Americans. Nearly every chapter of American Grace contains a surprise about American religious life.

 

Sept. 26, 2011
7:30 p.m.
Weber Chapel

The lecture is free and open to the public.