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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 July 2009
This panel poses the question, “Is there a center to American religious history?” We historians live in a world and work in a period when the politically correct answer to the question is, “Of course not!” In this day of decentered religious historiography the celebration of radical diversity seems to prohibit any other response. In our publications and teaching we set out to expose readers and students to the rich religious pluralism in America. We catalogue the traditions that reach back to colonial times, the communities that filled out the wider spectrum of religious options during the nineteenth century and the first half of the twentieth century, and the new religious movements that have appeared since the midpoint of the past century. One publication that provides a contemporary index to this inclusive catalogical approach is J. Gordon Mellon's Encyclopedia of American Religions, which in its fifth edition filled 1,150 pages with data regarding more than 2,100 discrete religious organizations in America, from the Aaronic Order to the Zoroastrian Associations in North America.
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