Our Seven Neighbors
Under the backdrop of our nation’s 250th anniversary, Our Seven Neighbors, season 5, explores the long, contested history of religious diversity in the United States—not as a feel-good celebration of pluralism, but as a hard-won achievement forged through conflict, exclusion, resistance, and moral struggle.
Against the rising influence of Christian nationalism and the persistent myth that the U.S. was founded as a singularly “Christian nation,” this series offers a corrective grounded in historical reality. Through the stories of America’s religious “neighbors,” we examine how multiple faith traditions—and those who challenged religious authority altogether—have shaped public life, law, culture, and conscience, often in the face of persecution and violence. Religious diversity did not emerge naturally or easily; it was argued for, fought over, suppressed, defended, and reimagined again and again. By tracing these struggles, Our Seven Neighbors insists that pluralism is neither inevitable nor secure—but a fragile civic practice that must be understood, protected, and continually renewed if democracy itself is to endure.
Episode 6: Heathens: Chinese Religion and American Exclusion
Strangers at Home: The American Tradition of Antisemitism
Rome and the Republic: Catholicism and Questions of Loyalty and Identity
3 From Slave Ships to 9/11: Islam and the Long Struggle to Belong in America
2 Soul Wounds: Indigenous Survival and the Limits of Religious Freedom
The Myth of a Religious Freedom
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Reza Aslan is a renowned writer, commentator, professor, Emmy- and Peabody-nominated producer, and scholar of religions. A recipient of the prestigious James Joyce award, Aslan is the author of three internationally best-selling books.
Host
Reza Aslan
Straight White American Jesus
The flagship show examining Christian nationalism and democracy.
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