by Greg Mayer
In an op-ed piece in Sunday’s New York Times, the historian Kevin Kruse asks, Is the United States a Christian nation? It is a common claim among Christian theocrats (those whom Andrew Sullivan has aptly called ‘Christianists’) that America is a Christian nation—that somehow the basic structures of the American government are founded upon Christianity. But this claim is just plain false. (A majority of Americans were and are Christians, but that’s not what theocrats mean by a Christian nation). The daftness of their historical claims are sometimes comical in their absurdity. The Founding Fathers had diverse religious views (though tending toward deism and Unitarianism), but it was not their religious diversity that led them to erect a secular state: it was their too-intimate familiarity with the horror of centuries of bloody religious disputation in Europe, especially in the British Isles. America was not to have a religiously founded government; rather, the governments of the United States were, as John Adams wrote in the Defence of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America, “founded on the natural authority of the people alone, without a pretence of miracle or mystery”.
Kruse, the author of One Nation Under God, of course knows this, and quickly dispenses with the theocrats’ historical fantasy. Instead he situates the infusion of Christianity into the forms of American government to the middle of the 20th century:
But the founding fathers didn’t create the ceremonies and slogans that come to mind when we consider whether this is a Christian nation. Our grandfathers did.
He attributes this infusion to conservative, anti-New Deal businessmen using Christianity as a cloak to cover their economic goals:
Back in the 1930s, business leaders found themselves on the defensive. Their public prestige had plummeted with the Great Crash; their private businesses were under attack by Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal from above and labor from below. To regain the upper hand, corporate leaders fought back on all fronts. They waged a figurative war in statehouses and, occasionally, a literal one in the streets; their campaigns extended from courts of law to the court of public opinion. But nothing worked particularly well until they began an inspired public relations offensive that cast capitalism as the handmaiden of Christianity….
Accordingly, throughout the 1930s and ’40s, corporate leaders marketed a new ideology that combined elements of Christianity with an anti-federal libertarianism. Powerful business lobbies like the United States Chamber of Commerce and the National Association of Manufacturers led the way, promoting this ideology’s appeal in conferences and P.R. campaigns.
They succeeded, they thought, when they elected Dwight Eisenhower; but Eisenhower, once elected, abandoned their economic goals as well as their narrow sectarianism:
Although Eisenhower relied on Christian libertarian groups in the campaign, he parted ways with their agenda once elected. The movement’s corporate sponsors had seen religious rhetoric as a way to dismantle the New Deal state. But the newly elected president thought that a fool’s errand. “Should any political party attempt to abolish Social Security, unemployment insurance, and eliminate labor laws and farm programs,” he noted privately, “you would not hear of that party again in our political history.” Unlike those who held public spirituality as a means to an end, Eisenhower embraced it as an end unto itself.
Uncoupling the language of “freedom under God” from its Christian libertarian roots, Eisenhower erected a bigger revival tent, welcoming Jews and Catholics alongside Protestants, and Democrats as well as Republicans. Rallying the country, he advanced a revolutionary array of new religious ceremonies and slogans.
He’s certainly right that “under God” and other such phrases were established—in pretty clear violation of the Constitution—during the 50’s, although he doesn’t, at least in this piece, sufficiently credit the fear of “godless Communism”. However, I don’t fully accept his main thesis: where I think he’s off is in ascribing to the public Christianity of the middle of the 20th century a Chamber-of-Commerce, pro-business, and Republican, character.
Speaking from of my own experience, it was not until considerably later, around 1980 and the rise of Ronald Reagan, that Christianity became a partisan political ideology. Reagan and his ilk redefined Christianity as a particular set of right-wing beliefs. Prior to this time, the word “Christian” had a rather different, non-sectarian, meaning: the “Christian” thing to do was the just, merciful, compassionate thing to do. Reagan made it mean essentially the opposite: judgmental, unforgiving, self righteous. Before Reagan, Christian values were more associated with liberal than with conservative causes.
This was a considerable change in the meaning of the word “Christianity”, and also marked the start of the now decades-long decline of the Republican party. The meaning of Christian became narrow not just politically, but also theologically. I was surprised to learn in the early 1990’s that Catholics were no longer “Christians” in common parlance (although there may be a regional dialectical difference at work here too). This narrowness of religious meaning of course reinforces the restriction of “Christian” to particular political doctrines.
Christianity is not a thing with an essence, but rather whatever it is that Christians do, and that has often been viciously reactionary. But its conversion to becoming the handmaiden of the right wing in America is a more recent event (ca. 1980) than Kruse allows, and is associated with a particular political movement, Reaganism, which though ideologically related to the efforts Kruse identifies, occupies its own distinct place and time in American history.
The bible very specifically speaks against usury. So, Christians, you keep saying that our laws are and should be based on the moral laws of the bible…
Just sayin’
Just one more contradiction among a vast number of them. The defenses have been honed to perfection for thousands of years. Metaphor, contradiction = sophistication, test of faith, mere denial.
Also, “that’s Old Testament”
sub
My friend Richard Hughes has published two powerful books that also destroy the idea of the US being a Christian nation:
Myths America Lives By – http://www.press.uillinois.edu/books/catalog/68gyd7ae9780252072208.html
Christian America and the Kingdom of God – http://www.press.uillinois.edu/books/catalog/57tmm5cy9780252032851.html
Yes, Richard’s books add necessary depth and breadth to the discussion of religiosity in American political culture and governance. I am curious about how you know Richard, whom I met when we were graduate students at Iowa. I would add Sidney Mead’s history of religion in the United States to a deeper understanding of why the simplicity about our country being “Christian” are misleading. I don’t wish to speak for Professor Mead, having taken his courses and having his books front and center on my shelves, but my sense of both him is that it was “European theology” brought into the seminaries, not the diverse and competing churchly religion, that Mead found wanting in relation to government. As for the point about Reagan perfecting the use of “Christian” claims on “truth” as a wedge issue for victorious talking points in electioneering, the amazing book that chronicles how Reagan’s strategists co-opted Jimmie Carter’s ability to attract evangelical Christian voters, even in the South, is by Fritz Detwiler, a New York University Press book called STANDING ON THE PREMISES OF GOD; THE CHRISTIAN RIGHT’S FIGHT TO REDEFINE AMERICA’S PUBLIC SCHOOLS. The Republican base for primary elections in places like Iowa still rides on the horse of activated rural fundamentalists Reagan’s strategists helped organize using ‘secular humanism’ as the enemy of public education.
dkrenner – Iowa, eh? Richard is still a devout Hawkeye! After retiring from CU, we moved to Malibu and ended up working at Pepperdine. We met Richard soon thereafter and learned of our common ties to Goshen College. One of the reasons that Richard departed from Pepperdine was his clear and generally outspoken disagreements with Pepperdine’s and the Churches of Christ’s current relationship [and affinity for] the State, which is clearly different than the vision of the C of C founders
If the Republican party is in decline, it’s not declining fast enough for me!
Yeah. The modern Republican party and its supporters are an interesting example of how lying, cheating and stealing (dirt baggery for short) is a better way to wealth and power in human societies. Hardly unique in human history though.
But in the sense that Greg surely meant it, decline is an appropriate word. Though perhaps a bit understated.
Republicans capitalize on illusion and fiction, fiction that appears better than fact. The Republicans are playing their flutes leading their partitioners to the Fountain of Youth…which provides no eternal salvation, only empty, truthless pond scum.
Their play is to appeal to the baser aspects of humans beings. It is a nasty, cynical strategy that is ancient, has never led anywhere good, but is effective for manipulating the rubes into supporting the maintenance of the very powers that are most responsible for keeping them down.
In testement from The Borowitz Report
in the Atlantic on line.
“Republicans Unlearning Facts Learned in Third Grade to Compete in Primary”
With the Iowa caucuses less than a year away, the hopefuls are busy scrubbing their brains of basic facts of math, science, and geography in an attempt to resemble the semi-sentient beings that Republican primary voters prize.
When various Christian people fled to the British colonies in the New World seeking religious freedom, their persecutors in Europe were Christians!
Some of them, such as the Massachusetts Puritans, established theocracies and persecuted adherents od other flavors of Christianity.
And ironically, many Christian people fled Europe to the UK to avoid persecutions at precisely the time that the US was founded. I am thinking of Huguenots in particular.
Not too important a correction, but the Huguenots were leaving Europe in the late 1500s to early 1700s, not 100 years later when the US was founded.
The Puritans weren’t happy in Britain because they didn’t think it was God-fearing enough. They wanted to be in charge, and to force their extreme version of Christianity on everyone. When Puritan Oliver Cromwell later took charge, sober dress codes were enforced, theatres closed, and Christmas cancelled because it was a pagan festival. They were worse than those they vilified. The Scarlet Letter couldn’t have been written about England.
Its not clear how much of that was down to Cromwell. For example the Christmas rules came in before he became ruler and it isnt clear how much involvement he had with it.
Despite his own strong beliefs the evidence is he was a strong supporter of religious tolerance so long as it didnt threaten the nation.
The religious freedom that some were looking for was the ability to persecute others as they saw fit.
Not dissimilar to some of those complaining today about religious persecution.
In fact there was relatively little “bloody religious disputation” in Britain. Even Bloody Mary wasn’t very bloody by the standards of the time.
Partly, of course, this was because most of the maddest religious nuts emigrated to North America.
When the settlers said that they were “fleeing religious persecution” what they really meant is that they were fleeing from not being able to persecute people they disagreed with.
Well, we couldn’t have lay people and women preaching, now could we? And now look at that bastion of satan that is Rhode Island! and, those Quakers, evil, dangerous, violent pacifists that they are!
really, thy one thing that made the religious fights in the americas less bloody was, one, they had a common enemy in the devil-worshiping wild red injun savages that they had to kill, and two, that gave them plenty of land to spread out into so they didn’t kill each other as much, above examples excepted. The Spanish did on occasion slaughter French Huguenots whenever they got the chance…
I can’t comment on English religious violence, it certainly existed, after all William Tyndale didn’t set himself alight after translating the bible into English, but compared to mainland Europe it would have seemed quite peaceful and tolerant I suppose.
Tyndale wasn’t executed by the English. In fact, Cromwell tried to intercede on his behalf.
fair enough, although the king did request his arrest and extradition back to England over scriptural fights in regards to divorce rather than Tyndale’s translations of the bible according to that font of wisdom, wikipedia. I’m no English historian by any means, but I’m not sure one can claim that England was innocent in religious violence, especially after Henry VIII’s foundation of the Church of England, or else there wouldn’t have been the need to hide unrepentant Catholics. Any English history readers wish to expand and clarify?
A lot of the violence came after Henry, primarily with his Catholic daughter, Mary. I would suggest that the majority of the atrocities that were committed were done so under her counter-reformation. The rate of killings was certainly higher ( she only reigned a few years – 5 IIRC ) and during that time about 500 people were executed for religious or political reasons.
There is a nice article about the Marian persecutions here:
timesoftudors.blogspot.co.uk/2013/09/the-marian-persecutions.html
Because of what happened in Mary’s reign, England became relatively tolerant. They were wary of Catholicism because of the Inquisition still raging on the Continent, so kept Catholics out of government by law. But basically, there was little interference in private behaviour. The Puritans wanted to enforce an extreme (and vehemently anti-Catholic) Protestant stance on everybody. England was wary of extremes because of what happened in the Marian government, so the Puritans got strong push back. So they decided to establish a colony in the New World where they were in charge. The persecution they suffered was things like having to pay lip service to a less extreme version of Protestantism and having to attend Anglican Church services from time to time.
The English were trying to enforce moderation in religion because they didn’t want to go back to a time when so many lived in fear in about the last ten years of Henry VIII, a bit during the five years of Protestant Edward VI, and massively during the five years of Catholic Mary I, who was married to Philip IV of Spain, where the Inquisition was strongest. Elizabeth I made a point of people being able to have their own religious conscience. She spent her teenage years in fear for her life as a non-Catholic during her sister Mary’s reign. She attended Mass sometimes for form then, and mostly didn’t enquire into private beliefs as long as people were outwardly Anglican during her own reign.
Interesting. All that makes it abundantly clear why the founders of the US were wary. I’m sure they knew the history intimately.
On the one hand, I’m very proud and happy they did what they did with the first amendment, but on the other it allowed for the grief we have to day here in the States. Much better than an inquisition though.
There were certainly some groups that fit that description.
By saying “especially” Britain, I did not mean that the the disputations were especially bloody there: they were bloodier elsewhere (though not bloodless); rather I was intending to note that the Founders were especially familiar with what had transpired in Britain, which was bad enough, even if things were worse in parts of the Continent.
GCM
Sorry, that was indeed how I read what you wrote, should have made that clear in the reply.
They were indeed far bloodier elsewhere. There was certainly no equivalent in England of France’s St Bartholomew’s day massacre where the number of deaths ran ( probably ) into the 10’s of thousands.
My favorite old stand-by when people claim we are a christian nation, rather than a nation that is majority christian is always this passage:
“As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion…”
-Treaty of Tripoli, signed into law by President John Adams on June, 10, 1797
Not that it matters to someone who insists on making the facts fit their predetermined opinion. I’ve also seen, here in KCMO, a bumper sticker with several of the founding fathers on in that claimed “The USA was founded by Far-Right Radicals!” Unbefuckinglievable!
But, to mash-up quotes by that great American thinker, Forrest Gump; America’s like a box of stupid, you never know what you’re gonna get.
It my understanding that the Treaty of Tripoli was UNANIMOUSLY ratified by the Senate in May of 1797, signed by President John Adams on June 10, 1797, and that it was published in the newspapers of the time without engendering any recorded dissent. Can you imagine what the reaction would be today if the Senate unanimously passed a resolution, and the President signed it, declaring that the United States was not “in any sense” founded on the Christian religion? Christians would riot in the streets, and all who participated in the resolution would be dragged from their offices and hung from lampposts. What stronger evidence could there possibly be that the idea of a christian nation is a modern fabrication?
I can’t imagine the Senate unanimously passing anything, much less anything related to religion in any way.
That potential for discord would have been on the founder’s minds when the established this secular nation.
A very interesting essay, Mr. Mayer, and thanks.
What was meant by ‘Christian,’ for at least a century following the Second Great Awakening in the first half of the 19th century, was ‘Protestant.’ One of the shrewdest moves of Protestant evangelicalism, ca. 1820-60, was to equate the ‘blood of the Revolutionary fathers’ with that of the ‘martyrs’ of evangelism on the American frontier. Methodist circuit riders such as the legendary Peter Cartwright, whose father had fought in the Revolution, forcefully asserted that the new republic was founded on both individual liberty and Protestant Christian principles, with both now combined into the permanent institutions then a-building in the West.
This, of course, left out Catholics–who couldn’t be ‘free’ from the bonding of Rome– and Mormons–who were crypto-religionist upstarts. It also finessed the huge reality of the Enlightenment influences that had imbued the minds of the Founders.
Excellent observation, Robert Bray. This is indeed in line with my understanding of the post Second Great Awakening period and the westward expansion and the doctrine of Manifest Destiny. These are the roots of the America is a Christian nation ideology.
In addition, let me add to Robert Bray’s very important point emphasising the identification of Christian=Protestant. The Evangelical animus against Catholicism – and Catholics – cannot be neglected.
The big waves of influx of Italian immigrants occurred after 1860 right through to the 1920’s. The reaction from protestant America was far from welcoming. The fear and suspicion was extreme and Catholicism was thought of as a weird cult headed up by the Pope. The legacy of fear continues today. In 1988 and again in 1992 he refused offers to run for president, probably based on fears that he would be tied to organized crime.
I agree with the idea that this right wing push took hold in the eighties. I remember watching the Republican convention for the 88 election and being shocked at the religious speeches. And it has only worsened since then.
I can accept that the Rise of Reagan marked an upturn in the activist Conservative Christian type of Republican, but I also believe that this would not have happened were it not for plenty of hunger among the conservatives to let their Christianity become entangled with politics. Reagan was able to tap into a resource that already existed.
Well said.
I agree that Reaganism was the big turning point in US politics (late 20th century).
In 1980, the increase from the US economy began to go exclusively to the top 20% of earners; and grossly to the top 5% and even more grossly to the top 1% or 0.1%. Since Reagan took office, all the increase in wealth has gone to the top 20% in the US.
It marked the beginning of the decline of unions in the US. Especially the busting of PATCO.
It marked the reaction of the business lobby against environmental regulations (remember James Watt as Secretary of the Interior?)
“Trickle-down” economics (a.k.a. Reaganomics) has had a 40-year+ trial and has been conclusively disproved (at least for it’s asserted purpose of “lifting all boats” (remember that one?)).
Reagan coincided with the attitude of “greed is good” — especially as publicly and proudly claimed by Wallstreet (and also The Bonfire of the Vanities as portrayed by Tom Wolfe — too bad conservatives have no sense of irony!).
Reagan coincided with the explosive growth of “mega-churches” in the 1980s. To me, this was a reaction by the children of the Baby-Boomers to the “godless” 1960s and 1970s (some course correction was needed; but not mega-churches).
I was frankly amazed at how many of my young (20-something) work and leisure colleagues were flocking to the mega-church thing. Maybe I was already a cynic by then; I certainly had unloaded the religion I’d been brought up in.
I saw all this sort of from the ground. My Dad was a founding member of the Minnesota Conservative Union in the very early 1970s. The rise in conservatism (National Review, W.F Buckley, Goldwater, many other aspects) was in reaction to the New Deal and the liberalism of the 1960s/1970s. Their apotheosis was the election of Reagan, who came off rather godlike (from my viewpoint as reflected in these true-believer conservatives).
I had this hammered into my as a youth. It didn’t survive even late high school. Unfortunately for my parents, they and the excellent (public) school system they sent me to quickly taught me to think and that was the death knell of the right-wing propaganda.
I note that the most salient (US) political fact of the late 20th Century is how the GOP has convinced the working class and lower-middle class in the US to vote against their own economic best interests (using God, Guns, and Gays — and Blacks).
The Tea-baggage is just the latest manifestation of this nonsense.
30+ years for trickle down. Damned arithmetic!
Reagan certainly bears much of the responsibility, but not all of it. Newt Gingrich almost single-handedly transformed Congress from a functional legislative body into the bickering pack of do-nothings and obstructionists we’re familiar with today.
I agree, he was the next main ball-carrier. The Gipper handed off to him.
I think the arrogance and kick-over-the-gameboard attitude of the GOP in that period was a symptom of their overreach, their over-confidence.
I look at gay marriage, legalized marijuana, the election of Obama, the disgust over the Iraq and Afghanistan wars combined with the economic collapse of 2008, and I wonder if the GOP has learned anything? I don’t know yet if they know that they can’t win a national election by appealing only to well-off white males. I wonder if Rush Limbaugh yet realizes that he is a fossil?
I’m betting it gives him ulcers, drives him to drug abuse and accounts for much of the intensity of his douchebaggery. Go back 12 to 15 years ago and he was only about 1/2 the asshat he is today.
I don’t know, but it gives me the icky feeling that in large part we humans do not really control our future. Hormones seem to prevail. People seem to behave as if they are puppets in someones puppet show. They may try, but cannot stop themselves from self destruction.
That’s a cheerful thought. 8-
Since you mention Barry Goldwater, be sure not to include him in the founding fathers of this cabal. (Per Wikipedia), he said, in a Speech in the US Senate, 16 September 1981:
On religious issues there can be little or no compromise. There is no position on which people are so immovable as their religious beliefs. There is no more powerful ally one can claim in a debate than Jesus Christ, or God, or Allah, or whatever one calls this supreme being. But like any powerful weapon, the use of God’s name on one’s behalf should be used sparingly. The religious factions that are growing throughout our land are not using their religious clout with wisdom. They are trying to force government leaders into following their position 100 percent. If you disagree with these religious groups on a particular moral issue, they complain, they threaten you with a loss of money or votes or both.
I’m frankly sick and tired of the political preachers across this country telling me as a citizen that if I want to be a moral person, I must believe in “A,” “B,” “C” and “D.” Just who do they think they are? And from where do they presume to claim the right to dictate their moral beliefs to me?
And I am even more angry as a legislator who must endure the threats of every religious group who thinks it has some God-granted right to control my vote on every roll call in the Senate. I am warning them today: I will fight them every step of the way if they try to dictate their moral convictions to all Americans in the name of “conservatism.”
He was a bit of a nut case, but, you’ve got to give credit where credit is due. Of course that was then, this is now.
to claim that the US is even a majority Christian nation is on shaky ground since most Christians of one sect are quite sure that those “other” Christians aren’t Christians at all. With the fractiousness and complete disagreements that these people have, I don’t even know if they’d be a major world religion anymore.
One of the curiosities about the two most prominent politicians of that era, Thatcher and Reagan, is that it is probable that Thatcher was the more privately devout, being the daughter of a Methodist lay preacher who later moved to Anglicism, but tended not to bring her beliefs into politics. Reagan, I suspect, used Christianity as a political weapon and, although an attender at Presbyterian services was possibly less devout. Happy to be contradicted !
My impression of Reagan was that he had a distinct lack of sincerity about him. He always came off as a carny to me. I just didn’t get how people could fall for his schtick. He was not a convincing actor, in film or politics.
In 1980 my best friend at high school and I, from a small city in NZ, wrote to Reagan. We were horrified by someone like him having control of the nuclear trigger, and sought assurances on certain of his policy positions. We didn’t get a reply. 🙂
Very cool.
On a side note, New Zealand is one of my top picks for where to escape to if the US goes completely wonkers.
NZ is one of the greatest little counties in the world. Unfortunately, they are rather picky about who they let in. Money helps.
I’m hoping my wifes dual citizenship with another Commonwealth nation would be of benefit.
The neglect of that reality, together with that of Cold War deism, make for an interesting blind spot in Mr. Kruse’s story.
I think it’s safe to say that the co-opting of Xtianity was part and parcel of dressing the Southern Strategy in new clothes, and I think Lee Atwater said as much on his death bed. I think mainstream liberal and mainstream fiscal conservative Amwricans, including Xtians, often have a hard time processing just how the most fervent followers of the Prince of Peace can be quite so anti-other (the other being anything from non-whites to poors, homosexuals, liberated women, and of course The GUMMINT). It’s the most effective and genius dog whistle there is, because the reactionaries hear it plain as day, but a “normal” conservative (I assume those still exist) just hears tax reform and family values.
“… the rise of Ronald Reagan, that Christianity became a partisan political ideology.”
I’m not quite as old as Dr. Coyne, but I too remember the same. American Christianity had a very different interpretation of “do unto others”. Now days the phrase takes on a rather ugly and menacing interpretation when dealing with the Christian right.
It never fails to amaze me how quickly a large segment of the population can change, especially when it’s being deliberately driven by propaganda. It’s gone so far that the true believer useful idiots are now middle age (and older) adults and are running for president.
Nature’s God: The Heretical Origins of the American Republic (http://www.amazon.com/Natures-God-Heretical-American-Republic/dp/0393064549) by Matthew Stewart is fantastic on this subject
What people actually believe is not described by the rhetoric they use to promote an agenda, but rather the laws under which they choose to live.
The founders evoked God and divinity many times in the Declaration of Independence – a document meant to instill and ignite a new nationalism amongst farmers, workers and shop keepers who otherwise might decide to sit this one out.
In contrast, the laws of the new land, (the laws that the founders agreed to live under) The US Constitution, is completely devoid of gods and divine script. No oaths, no litmus tests, were required save the promise to defend the Constitution, period.
You are certainly correct that the constitution does not say anything about g*d and in fact states that no religious test for office will be required. Keep it out and everybody in.
The Declaration of independence was essentially a letter to King George, listing all the complaints and then some. Some of it got so far out….like blaming George for slavery that others edited it out. Jefferson did not like being edited but then who does. The word g*d may have been in there a couple of times but it had nothing to do with whatever kind of government was to come 11 years later.
Jefferson had nothing much to do with the Constitution, he was not there. However, he was about as close to being an atheist as they get back in the 1700s. So any use of the g*d word in the Declaration was likely more for color. He was kind of at the front of the class in not wanting religion in government. Any who might thing so needs to go back and study some more.
“God” appears exactly once in The Declaration:
[Oh, T.J., you liked a long sentence!]
Jesus appears 0 times
Christ appears 0 times
Christian appears 0 times
Religion appears 0 times
* * * *
As you noted, it was a letter to George III, telling him of his offenses against the colonies.
God, divine providence, and The Creator are each cited in the text (none of which appears in the Constitution). While everyone can agree that the Declaration recited George’s offenses, it was also meant to incite emotions and gain supporters.
Well Im on your side as opposed to the political the uses of fundamentalist religion, but might take is that neither founding nor most sociologist believe governance is possible without take cultural context for communication. The absolute bottom line in my take, both for the founders and many political theorists,is that No particular dogma gets the backing of the state.
As a reference, I would suggest reading John Dean’s ‘Conservatives without Conscience’.
What is Xian about a nation built on engineering controls, traffic laws, bike helmuts, modern medicine, Ikea, and the convenience of fast food? If Xians want their nation back they have to go way, way back, grab their burros, Tevas, and palm leafs and find themselves water without parasites before gum disease shortens drops them down.
Don’t forget Nixon’s southern strategy and the moral majority, squarely aimed at getting the people in the bible belt to switch parties and vote Republican.
Nixon – the man who approved of abortion when a black man fathered the baby of a white woman. Oh those tapes!
I’ve noticed that political evangelical Christians while claiming evolution (as in common ancestry) to be a lie and denouncing the idea of survival of the fittest as they think it applies to evolutionary theory, tend to have a de facto survival-of-the-fittest ethic. They oppose welfare, Medicaid and minimum wage laws primarily on the assumption that the beneficiaries are layabouts and drug addicts. They see a progressive tax structure as way of punishing the successful.
Although I am struck by the contradictions of the soulful evangelicals (Jesus loves you, but you better behave like us or he’ll burn your ass), I had not thought of it in in terms of the contradictions in their view of evolution. Excellent point.
In reading Sinclair Lewis’s Babbitt, Main Street, and It Can’t Happen Here, I think you’ll find that the kind of “Christian Businessman” to which Kruse refers was very much in evidence in the 1920’s and 1930’s. I get the feeling that the merger was mostly local, small-town, and rural. I would agree that the organized national push came with that execrable SOB, Reagan.
One of my favorite Mencken quotes:
– which I think he said during the Coolidge administration.
I was intrigued enough by the John Adams quote to look it up in context. Adams was a passionate defender of the American experiment, but not as uniformly secularist as, say Jefferson or Paine. (His views were complex and seemed to evolve over his lifetime.)
The passage you quote is a good example. It’s in the middle of VERY long paragraph about the unique character of the founding of the American States – in that the founders did not seek, or claim, divine authority. The passage you quote supports this general theme. Yet the very next sentence praises the successful American experiment as proof that “authority in magistrates, and obedience of citizens, can be grounded on reason, morality, and the Christian religion, without the monkery of priests, or the knavery of politicians.” [emphasis added.]
Now, Adam’s version of “the Christian religion” in this passage is undoubtedly very different from the one espoused by modern theocrats on the right. Nevertheless, it is unfortunate that he feels the need to cite religion as a basis for authority even in the middle of praising the virtues of secularism. Basically, citing the Founding Fathers is always a mixed bag when it comes to Church/State debates.
The entire preface (containing these quotes) to the book length “A Defence of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America” (1787-88) can be consulted here.
The belief among many that the U.S. is grounded in Christianity and that the religion is at the apex of her legal and constitutional core (a categorically incorrect notion) on the one hand, and that the Republican party has gone to the gutter in shoving Jesus down everyone’s throats on the other hand, are separate subjects. There can be a temptation to conflate the two since modern day right wingers are the most enthusiastic proponents of America is a Christian nation view. However, an historian such as Kruse would study these as separate phenomenon, and I’m sure he could just as well pen a substantive piece on the evangelical lurch to right wing politics from the late 70’s on.