As the nation’s largest political parties adjourn their conventions in which they nominated candidates for the office of President of the United States, the American Religious Experience observes the manner in which religion historically has played a key role in social movements that rejected the political process in favor of simplicity and separation from the cultural mainstream. Articles by Timothy Miller, Randall Balmer, Robert S. Fogarty, and Elinor L. Horwitz (all from Scribner’s American History and Culture CD-ROM) explore various dimensions of communitarianism, including its utopian strains and its representation of ongoing American initiatives to fashion a counterculture.

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