Public lecture: “The Power of Faith: A Religious History of Energy in the Age of Jimmy Carter, Culture Wars, and Crisis”

In speaking of the use of energy . . . we are speaking of an issue of religion, whether we like it or not.

Articulated by Christian environmentalist Wendell Berry in the late 1970s, these words captured the breadth of energy concerns during Jimmy Carter’s presidency and at a time of momentous transformation in the Western world. Amid the second energy crisis of the decade, and rising “culture wars” that would define U.S. politics, religious leaders and laity across denominational lines—from evangelical Protestant to Mormon and (especially) Catholic—led the charge to reassess American society’s handling of energy and environment in moral terms.

As Cushwa Center co-director Darren Dochuk will briefly highlight in this talk, their efforts to remedy the ruptures in the nation’s power sectors would lead to a critical turning point in its religious and political culture, the remnants of which we still live with today.

This is an in-person event. Register here to participate.

Image: President Carter dedicates a solar panel installation on the roof of the White House. June 20, 1979. Wikimedia Commons. Public domain.

Originally published at cushwa.nd.edu.