Introducing American Religion Online:
Online Audio Resources

A few sites offer online audio resources that supplement the study of religion in American culture.

Although many of the archived discussions deal with more contemporary issues, National Public Radio's "Speaking of Faith" has some more in-depth sites that include audio recordings and even study guides. The one on twentieth-century American theologian and ethicist Reinhold Niebuhr, for example, has audio recordings of Niebuhr speaking, the unedited audio interviews with persons interviewed for a program about Niebuhr, and a comprehensive study guide on Niebuhr's thought and influence. There are similar sites for many other figures, including prominent twentieth-century evangelist Aimee Semple McPherson, Conservative Jewish theologian and social activist Abraham Joshua Heschel, and a host of others. The main site is accessed at speakingoffaith.publicradio.org.

Audio clips and sometimes sermons and speeches by many key figures in modern American religious life are also accessible online; some sites sell audio tapes at discount:

1. For early twentieth century revivalist Billy Sunday, see www.sermonindex.net/modules/mydownloads/viewcat.php?cid=28, www.sermonindex.net/modules/mydownloads/viewcat.php?cid=16, and also www.learnoutloud.com/Free-Audio-Video/Religion-and-Spirituality/Christian-Living/Billy-Sunday-Sermons/15609.
2. Healing evangelist Kathyrn Kuhlman may be heard at www.KathrynKuhlman.com/audio_files.html.
3. Some audio clips of Roman Catholic television personality Fulton J. Sheen may be accessed at www.fultonsheen.com.
4. For Norman Vincent Peale, go to www.mindperk.com/Peale/htm.

5. Several sites offer audio materials by evangelist Billy Graham. See, for example, www.sermonindex.net/modules/mydownloads/viewcat.php?cid=118, www.sermonindex.net/modules/myalbum/viewcat.php?cid=17, and www.learnoutloud.com/Free-Audio-Video/Religion-and-Spirituality/Christianity/Billy-Graham-Sermons/15620.
6. Many evangelicals have audio materials at www.wheaton.edu/bgc/archives/docs/evanarc.html.
7. The rhetoric of civil rights leader and preacher Martin Luther King, Jr., may be accessed at www.mlkonline.net/sounds.html.
8. For Jerry Falwell, leader of the religious right in the later twentieth-century, go to www.soundboard.com/sb/Jerry_Falwell_audio.aspx. Listeners may be required to pay a fee to register.
9. Audio and video extracts featuring controversial new religious movement founder Sun Myung Moon are available at www.reverendsunmyungmoon.org/rev_moon_teaching.html.
10. Presentations by Prabhupada, founder of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (Hare Krisha) are found at realaudio.krishna.org.
11. Bill Hybels, founding pastor of the Willow Creek Church that was central to the "megachurch" and seeker movement, can be heard at www.learnoutloud.com/Results/Author/Bill-Hybels/780.

Among the collection of the Library of Congress are audio recordings that deal with various topics in American history and life, but most are not available online. The catalogue, which also includes photos and prints as well as sound recordings and motion pictures, can be searched at memory.loc.gov/ammem/index.html.

Some material relating to American Catholicism may be found at www.catholicity.com/links/163/.

Unfamiliar to most are the sounds of the Eastern Orthodox Christian tradition. Hymns from that tradition may be heard at www.goarch.org/en/multimedia/audio.