John Fea, a professor of American History at Messiah College, will deliver the keynote address for SFU’s annual undergraduate conference in the Liberal Arts, “The Examined Life.”

Fea’s presentation is scheduled for 7 p.m. on Friday, March 18, in the Southern Alleghenies Museum of Art. It will focus on his critically acclaimed 2011 book, Was America Founded as a Christian Nation?

“The question mark of the title is important,” said Fea. “I don’t have an axe to grind–not politically or religiously. My desire is to impart the complicated history of the founding of this country.

“There will not be any direct answers in the presentation; hence, the question mark.”

Fea wonders if the religions of the founding fathers have been taught to many of today’s students.

“I will be making the case that the majority of the founding fathers were not Deists, nor were they overwhelmingly Christian,” said Fea. “The history is very dense and complicated.”

Conference presentations begin on Saturday morning. Presenting students have 20 minutes to present. Last year, a decision was made to rebrand the conference with a new name for a wider appeal. The conference is now open to all undergraduate students studying the liberal arts; additionally, Lebanon Valley College has partnered with SFU to help organize the conference.

The conference dates back to 2007 and is the brainchild of Art Remillard, an associate professor of religious studies at SFU, as well as a handful of Philosophy and Religious Studies majors who wanted to organize an undergraduate student conference at the University.

It was originally titled “God, Socrates, and Stuff” but was changed to the “North American Undergraduate Conference in Religion and Philosophy” and ran with that name for six years.

“Now we have twice the amount of presenters,” said Remillard. “This is the first year we had to have concurrent sessions for the conference. The downside is that not every presentation can be seen, but the upside is the wide variety of presentations on display.”

“Being Political and the Politics of Being” is the conference’s theme this year. It was chosen because the conference coincides with the nation’s political primary season. It is also a substantive, broad theme that addresses many facets of the field of liberal arts.

At the conclusion of the conference, a panel of judges will award the top student performers with cash prizes.