Union Alumni Gathering: Afternoon Tea & Lecture
2407 Dana St
Berkeley, CA 94704
USA
Democracy and Religion in a Polarized America: Personal and Professional Reflections
Join fellow Union alumni for an afternoon of thoughtful conversation over tea, featuring a lecture by distinguished scholar Henry E. Brady. Drawing from a career at the intersection of politics, policy, and academia, Brady will explore the evolving relationship between democracy and religion in an increasingly polarized America.
Brady’s journey in political science was profoundly shaped by his time at Union Theological Seminary in 1969-1970 as a Rockefeller Brothers Fellow, where he studied under James Cone, Reinhold Niebuhr, and John Bennett. His scholarship has consistently examined how religion influences political engagement, trust in institutions, and democratic performance.
A past president of the American Political Science Association, Brady has authored influential works, including Unequal and Unrepresented: Political Inequality and the New Gilded Age and The Unheavenly Chorus: Unequal Political Voice and the Broken Promise of American Democracy. His expertise in survey research and democratic institutions provides critical insights into the role of faith in shaping public discourse and civic life.
Date & Time:
Monday, April 28th, 2025
2:00 PM – 3:30 PM (EST)
First Presbyterian Church
2407 Dana Street, Berkeley, CA 94704
Our Featured Speaker:
Henry E. Brady served as dean of the Goldman School of Public Policy from 2009–21 and as director of the University of California’s Survey Research Center from 1998–2009. He is past president of the American Political Science Association. Brady studies democracy and democratic performance using surveys and statistical methods. He is an editor and contributor to the Fall 2022 issue of Daedalus, the journal of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, on “Institutions, Experts, and the Loss of Trust.” He is the co-author of Unequal and Unrepresented: Political Inequality and the New Gilded Age (2018) and The Unheavenly Chorus: Unequal Political Voice and the Broken Promise of American Democracy (2012), both of which emphasize the importance of religion in shaping political attitudes and participation. He is an elected Fellow of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences and a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.