Home
About Us Membership Course Catalog

A God-Shaped Nation

A Guided Reading

  

with Brook Wilensky-Lanford

   

Join the author of A God-Shaped Nation for a guided reading through the religious history of America

 

  • Dates: Wednesdays—July 1, 15, 29; August 12, 26; September 9
  • Time: 3:00-4:00 PM ET

Ever since conquistadores claimed Taino land in the name of their Catholic God and New England Puritans formed their strictly Protestant “city on a hill,” religion has been central to American life. Even as some found religious freedom—Rhode Island welcomed the Quakers, Jews, and Baptists that Massachusetts expelled as dissenters—indigenous people and Africans forced into slavery struggled to protect their religious practices. With the constitutional separation of church and state, it fell to the American people to decide: would they sharpen religion’s formidable powers of division, or reimagine its creative possibilities?

In A God-Shaped Nation, Dr. Brook Wilensky-Lanford follows this essential American tension from first contact through the 2024 election. This is an expansive but approachable history of extraordinary religious questions, told through the ordinary people who grappled with them.

As this anticipated book hits shelves for the 250th anniversary of the United States, you can join the author for a guided reading.

 

selected

  •  
  • Featuring:
  • ✔ Four 60-Minute Sessions
  • ✔ Taped Live and Instantly Available
  • ✔ Community Discussion
  • ✔ Transcripts
  •  

Join this virtual reading group and in two months you’ll gain a deeper understanding of religion in American history through fascinating case studies. You’ll read stories of defiance, like:

  • Anne Hutchinson, preaching against Puritan clergy;
  • Reform rabbi Isaac Mayer Wise serving soft-shell crab to his kosher guests at an 1883 banquet;
  • Wovoka, a Paiute man who envisioned the Ghost Dance movement, which persisted in the face of violent government repression at Wounded Knee.

You’ll also read stories of community and political power, including:

  • Millerites waiting together in vain for Jesus’s return on a rainy October night in 1844;

  • Chinese immigrants bringing Daoist and Buddhist gods to their California temples;

  • Mormons pushing westward to build their “new Zion” in Utah;

  • How the religious right has sought to shape the present and paint the past in its own image.

At a moment when religion penetrates even the most secular aspects of American life, understanding its history is more essential than ever before. “It is in history that the very human work of religion happens,” Wilensky-Lanford shows us, “and in ordinary time that even the most carved-in-stone tenets can and do change.”

What You’ll Learn

Course Details

Experience Level

Open to all levels.
No prior background required

Learning Pace

Guided, comfortable reading pace with space for reflection.

Interaction

Live Q&A or submit questions in advance. Community forum.

Your Textbook

Your Instructor

Brook Wilensky-Lanford

Brook Wilensky-Lanford

Brook Wilensky-Lanford is a religion writer, editor, and teacher.

She is the author of A God-Shaped Nation: Five Hundred Years of Religion in America, forthcoming in June 2026; and Paradise Lust: Searching for the Garden of Eden, a 2011 New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice; both are by Grove Press. A former managing editor of the twenty-five-year-old literary magazine Killing the Buddha, Brook's work has been published in The New York Times, The Guardian, The New Republic, and elsewhere.

Currently the Associate Director of Sacred Writes Public Scholarship, she holds an MFA in Nonfiction Writing from Columbia University, and a PhD in Religion in the Americas from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where she lives.

Get Your Book Here
Join Now

Textbook

Get Your Book Here

Your Instructor

Brook Wilensky-Lanford

Brook Wilensky-Lanford

Brook Wilensky-Lanford is a religion writer, editor, and teacher.

She is the author of A God-Shaped Nation: Five Hundred Years of Religion in America, forthcoming in June 2026; and Paradise Lust: Searching for the Garden of Eden, a 2011 New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice; both are by Grove Press. A former managing editor of the twenty-five-year-old literary magazine Killing the Buddha, Brook's work has been published in The New York Times, The Guardian, The New Republic, and elsewhere.

Currently the Associate Director of Sacred Writes Public Scholarship, she holds an MFA in Nonfiction Writing from Columbia University, and a PhD in Religion in the Americas from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where she lives.

Register Now

Questions

Ways to Join

Tuition

$40

  • Guided Reading: A God-Shaped Nation
  • Live & Lifetime Access 
Join Now

Annual Membership

$99

  • All Guest Lectures

  • All Guided Readings
  • 50% Off Seminars
Join Now

Already a Member?

Login Here

A Guided reading brought to you by Religion for Breakfast

From Andrew Henry's 1M+ subscriber YouTube channel about the academic study of religion, the Religion Department connects world experts to a global learning community. Our classes are designed to accommodate multiple learning styles and schedules.

Join Our Email List

Stay in the loop about upcoming lectures and department events

Unsubscribe at any time.

Need Help?

Get in Touch