Religion in American Life

1. Religion in American Life

2. Religion in American Life • Religion in the present-day US society • Religion in US history • Religion in the ”conflict of cultures” • Religion and politics

3. Seventy-six percent of Americans imagine God as a heavenly father who actually pays attention to their prayers.

4. Religion in the present • Nine Americans in ten say they have never doubted the existence of God. • Eight Americans in ten say they believe they will be called before God on Judgment Day to answer for their sins. • Eight Americans in ten believe God still works miracles. • Seven Americans in ten believe in life after death. • Thirty-seven percent of Americans believe in a personal devil. • Forty-four percent believe in the biblical account of creation. • Only three percent do not believe in God (France – 19%)

5. Fifty percent believe in angels.

6. Religion in U.S. History • Pluralism, diversity: • Congregationists in Mass., Conn., N.H.; • Anglicans in Virginia, Georgia & the Carolinas; Baptists in Rhode Island.; • Anglicans & Catholics in Maryland; • Dutch Calvinists, Anglicans & Presbyterians in N.Y.; • Quakers & other religious groups in Pennsylvania (“swamp of sectarianism”) • primacy of protestantism

7. Religion in U.S. History • Important Personalities of Colonial America: • William Bradford (1590-1657) – Governor, Plymouth Plantation • John Winthrop (1588 – 1649) – Governor, Mass. Bay Company, „City upon the Hill“ • Cotton Mather (1663 – 1728) – Magnalia Christi Americana • Jonathan Edwards (1703 – 1758) – „The Pope of the Connectitut Valley“ „Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God“ (Quote Edwards)

8. Winthrop and Bradford

9. http://www.ccel.org/ccel/edwards/sermons.sinners.html They deserve to be cast into hell; so that divine justice never stands in the way, it makes no objection against God's using his power at any moment to destroy them. Yea, on the contrary, justice calls aloud for an infinite punishment of their sins. Divine justice says of the tree that brings forth such grapes of Sodom, "Cut it down, why cumbereth it the ground?" Luke 13:7. The sword of divine justice is every moment brandished over their heads, and it is nothing but the hand of arbitrary mercy, and God's mere will, that holds it back. Jonathan Edwards 1703 – 1758

10. Awakenings in in US History • The First Great Awakening (often referred by historians as the "Great Awakening") (1730s - 1740s) • The Second Great Awakening (1800s - 1830s) • The Third Great Awakening (1880s - 1900s) • The Fourth Great Awakening (1960s - 1970s) • (Wikipedia)

11. A watercolor painting of a camp meeting circa 1839 (New Bedford Whaling Museum).

12. THE ADVENTURES OF HUCKLEBERRY FINN, 1885,Ch. XX • It was a most awful hot day. There was as much as a thousand people there, from twenty mile around. The woods was full of teams and wagons, hitched everywheres, feeding out of the wagon troughs and stomping to keep off the flies. There was sheds made out of poles and roofed over with branches, where they had lemonade and .gingerbread to sell, and piles of watermelons and green corn and such-like truck. The preaching was going on under the same kinds of sheds, only they was bigger and held crowds of people. The benches was made out of outside slabs of logs, with holes bored in the round side to drive sticks into for legs. They didn't have no backs. The preachers had high platforms to stand on, at one end of the sheds. The women had on sun- bonnets : and some had linsey- woolsey frocks, some gingham ones, and a few of the young ones had on calico.' Sonic of the young men was barefooted, and some of the children didn't have on any clothes but just a tow- linen shirt. Some of the old women was knitting, and some of the young folks was courting on the sly. The first shed we come to, the preacher was lining out a hymn. He lined out two lines, everybody sung it, and it was [….] done it in such a rousing way ; then he lined out two more for them to sing and so on. The people woke up more and more, and sung louder and louder ; and towards the end, some begun to groan, and some begun to shout. Then the preacher begun to preach ;

13. The Pirate at a Camp Meeting • and begun in earnest, too ; and went weaving first to one side of the platform and then the other, and then a leaning down over the front of it, with his arms and his body going all the time, and shouting his words out with all his might ; and every now and then he would hold up his Bible and spread it open, and kind of pass it around this way and that, shouting, " It's the brazen serpent in the wilderness ! Look upon it and live ! " And people would shout out, "Glory! A-a,-men!" And so he went on, and the people groaning and crying and saying amen : " Oh, come to the mourners' bench ! come, black with sin ! (amen /) come, sick and sore ! (amen /) come, lame and halt, and blind ! (amen /) come, pore and needy, sunk in shame ! (a-a-men /) come all that's Avorn, and soiled, and suffering ! come with a broken spirit ! come with a contrite heart ! come in your rags and sin and dirt ! the waters that cleanse is free, the door of heaven stands open oh, enter in and be at rest ! " (a-a-men I glory, glory hallelujah !) And so on. You couldn't make out what the preacher said, any more, on account of the shouting and crying. Folks got up, everywheres in the crowd, and worked their way, just by main strength, to the mourners' bench, with the tears running down their faces ; and when all the mourners had got up there to the front benches in a crowd, they sung, and shouted, and flung themselves down on the straw, just crazy and wild.

14. The Pirate at a Camp Meeting • Well, the first I knowed, the king got agoing ; and you could hear him over everybody ; and next he went a-charging up on to the platform and the preacher he begged him to speak to the people, and he done it. He told them he was a pirate been a pirate for thirty years, out in the Indian Ocean, and his crew was thinned out considerable, last spring, in a fight, and he was home now, to take out some fresh men, and thanks to goodness he'd been robbed last night, and put ashore off of a steamboat without a cent, and he was glad of it, it was the blessedest thing that ever happened to him, because he was a changed man now, and happy for the first time in his life; and poor as he was, he was going to start right off and work his way back to the Indian Ocean and put in the rest of his life trying to turn the pirates into the true path ; for he could do it better than anybody else, being acquainted with all the pirate crews. (Mark Twain, 1885)

15. Religion in U.S. History • From 1830s influx of Catholics and Jews: 1830s: 600,000 Catholics; 1840s: 1,700,000; 1850s: 2,600,000. • 1830s: 15,000 Jews (1/10 of percent of the pop.); 1880s: 300,000; 1920s: 4,000,000 Jews – full three percent of the population. • Concentrated in homogeneous communities, NYC, Boston, Philadelphia, St. Louis, Chicago, Baltimore.

16. Religion in U.S. History • Situation after WWII: • Catholics: 1947 – 20%; 67 – 25%; 1985 – 29%. • Jews: 1945 – 5%; now about 2.5%. • Mormons: 1830 – 1000; 1880 – 110,000, 1990 – 4,000,000, i.e. 1.6% of the population. • The rise of new faiths: Islam, Hindu, Buddhism, “human potential movements” i.e. scientology...

17. For we know that our patchwork heritage is a strength, not a weakness. We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus - and non-believers. We are shaped by every language and culture, drawn from every end of this Earth; and because we have tasted the bitter swill of civil war and segregation, and emerged from that dark chapter stronger and more united, we cannot help but believe that the old hatreds shall someday pass; Barack Obama, Inaugural Address Religion in the Present

18. Religion in the Present • Multitude of Protestant denominations • Roman Catholic – 66,000,000 • Jews – 6,000,000 • Mormons – 5,400,000 • Muslim – 4,600,000

19. The Waning of Denominational Loyalty: • 1965 – 3% intermarriages between Jews & non-Jews • 1983 – 17% of intermarriages • rising impact of special agenda religious organizations: most of these groups are located on opposite poles of the new cultural axis: orthodoxy vs. progressivism

20. Religion in the Present

21. If you look at the left-hand circle, you will see a Pyramid. Notice the face is lighted, and the western side is dark. This country was just beginning in 1776. We had not begun to explore the West or decided what we could do for Western Civilization. The Pyramid is uncapped, again signifying that we were not even close to being finished. Inside the capstone you have the all-seeing eye, an ancient symbol for divinity. It was Franklin's belief that one man couldn't do it alone, but a group of men, with the help of God, could do anything. "IN GOD WE TRUST" is on this currency. The Latin above the pyramid, ANNUIT COEPTIS, means, "God has favored our undertaking." The Latin below the pyramid, NOVUS ORDO SECLORUM, means, "a new order has begun." At the base of the pyramid is the Roman Numeral for 1776. The Great Seal

22. The Pledge of Allegiance

23. “I Pledge Allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands,one Nation under God,indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.” The pledge was rewritten in 1954 under the Eisenhower Administration, with “under God” added… Why was “under God” added? Was it because of the “godless commie” scare during the early days of the Cold War? The Pledge of Allegiance

24. “Under God” is not only a discriminatory swipe at atheists, but at polytheistic religions as well…Paganism and Hinduism to name a couple off hand. Mark, on January 8th, 2009 at 9:42 pm yeah, go ahead and remove it so satan can take over. thats what you want anyway. in this struggle of good and evil, oh there will be an end. satan will not win. God will prevail because he is Lord, and all knees shall bow before him. it is written. sharon, on January 8th, 2009 at 10:57 pm Should it “under God“ be removed?

25. Religion in the Present • The Church: • Importance in/for the Community; being the Community; • A symbol of segregation...

26. TV Evangelism

27. Otakar Machotka: Amerika (1947) • Religion in the United States is: • - Not detached from life • - Fluctuation of believers, competition • - “Business methods” to attract people • - Sermons are geared to practical life • - Aggressive atheism is nonexistent

28. Religion in the US History • Despite religious intolerance (e.g. Know Nothings), the shaping of a consensus beginning with the mid-19th century: biblical theism provided language in which differences could be talked about; biblical imagery of the Exodus; the linking of the American purpose with the Kingdom of God (Manifest Destiny); ideals of progress, social responsibilities: (e.g. the social gospel); the “progressivist” impulse • All believed in the continuous unfolding of the will of God in human history, and all maintained a deep sense of their own particular place in the drama.

29. We remain a young nation, but in the words of Scripture, the time has come to set aside childish things. The time has come to reaffirm our enduring spirit; to choose our better history; to carry forward that precious gift, that noble idea, passed on from generation to generation: the God-given promise that all are equal, all are free, and all deserve a chance to pursue their full measure of happiness. Barack Obama, Inaugural Address The Idea of Manifest Destiny: very much alive

30. “America was born a Christian nation; America was born to exemplify that devotion to the elements of righteousness which are derived from the revelations of Holy Scripture.” City upon the Hill: Notable Citizens Woodrow Wilson, 28th President, 1913 - 1921

31. Carter won election as a Democrat to the Georgia State Senate in 1962 and was reelected in 1964. In 1966 he failed in a bid for the governorship and, depressed by this experience, found solace in evangelical Christianity, becoming a born-again Baptist. (Britannica.com) Jimmy Carter, 39th President, 1977-81

32. M. L. King, Jr.; Jesse Jackson

33. In unscripted remarks to journalists on the White House lawn last week, Mr Bush said: "This crusade, this war on terrorism, is going to take a while." “Enduring Crusade“ “Operation Infinite Justice” later on changed to “Operation Enduring Freedom” http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/1563722.stm G. W. Bush

34. How religious is G.W.B? • But despite the centrality of Bush's faith to his presidency, he has revealed only the barest outline of his beliefs, leaving others to sift through the clues and make assumptions about where he stands. • Bush has said many times that he is a Christian, believes in the power of prayer and considers himself a "lowly sinner." But White House aides said they do not know whether the president believes that: the Bible is without error; the theory of evolution is true; homosexuality is a sinful choice; only Christians will go to heaven; support for Israel is a biblical imperative; or the war in Iraq is part of God's plan. • Some political analysts think there is a shrewd calculation behind these ambiguities. By using such phrases as the "culture of life," Bush signals to evangelical Protestants and conservative Catholics that he is with them, while he avoids taking explicit stands that might alienate other voters or alarm foreign leaders. Bush and his chief speechwriter, Michael J. Gerson, are "very gifted at crafting references that religious insiders will understand and outsiders may not," said the Rev. Jim Wallis, editor of the evangelical journal Sojourners. • http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A24634-2004Sep15?language=printer

35. How religious is G.W.B? • George W. Bush is among the most openly religious presidents in U.S. history. A daily Bible reader, he often talks about how Jesus changed his heart. He has spoken, publicly and privately, of hearing God's call to run for the presidency and of praying for God's help since he came into office. (Washington Post) • http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A24634-2004Sep15?language=printer • http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/jesus/president/

36. Religion in the “Conflict of Cultures“ • The coming of the “secularists” or “moderns” – humanistic, respect for autonomy and freedom; • Realignment: the major rift is no longer born out of theological or doctrinal disagreements – Protestants vs. Catholics., Christians vs. Jews; disagreements over the sources of moral truth. Major disagreements thus are between the progressives and the religious conservatives.

37. The Main Issues of the Conflict • Evolution • Abortions • Same sex marriages, gay and lesbian rights • Stem-sell research • The origin and veracity of the Bible

38. 1925 The Scopes Trial – fundamentalists discredited; Yet resistance continues: today’s Alabama high school textbooks state: “Evolution is a controversial theory some scientists present as scientific explanation for the origin of living things...No one was present when life first appeared on earth. Therefore, any statement about life’s origins should be considered theory, not fact.” The Theory of “Intelligent Design” Religion in the “Conflict of Cultures“: The Scopes Trial (1925)

39. Religion in the “Conflict of Cultures“ • Darwin has been invoked as the demon responsible for a variety of perceived heartless ills of society, including atheism, Nazism , communism, abortion, homosexuality, stem-cell research, same-sex marriage, and the abridgement of all our natural freedoms. One can scarcely imagine the horror that Darwin would feel at the misunderstanding, misappropriation and vilification of his ideas in the 125 years since his death. (Kevin Padian)http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v451/n7179/pdf/451632a.pdf

40. Theresa "Terri" Marie Schindler Schiavo (December 3, 1963 – March 31, 2005), from St. Petersburg, Florida, was a woman who suffered brain damage and became dependent on a feeding tube. She collapsed in her home on February 25, 1990, and experienced respiratory and cardiac arrest, resulting in extensive brain damage, a diagnosis of persistent vegetative state (PVS) and 15 years of institutionalization. In 1998, Michael Schiavo, her husband and guardian, petitioned the Pinellas County Circuit Court to remove her feeding tube. Robert and Mary Schindler, her parents, opposed this, arguing she was conscious. The court determined that Terri would not wish to continue life-prolonging measures. This controversy stretched on for seven years and included involvement by politicians and advocacy groups, notably pro-life and disability rights ones. (wikipedia) The Schiavo Case

41. An Astronomy Teacher on Biblical Veracity • First, immediately after the final exam for a one-semesterintroductory course in astronomy for nonsciencestudents, a serious, dedicated student asked me, "What am I supposed to believe? You have spent the semesterexplaining to us why we should believe that the earth is4.5 billion years old in a universe created 13.5 billionyears ago. Yet I grew up in a warm, loving, and supportive family and church that taught me that bothearth and universe were created about six thousand yearsago.“ What was I supposed to say? Alvin M. Saperstein<http://www.aaup.org/AAUP/pubsres/academe/2007/JF/Feat/sape.htm>

42. Contemporary Satire: Questions to a Biblical Literalist: • 1. Leviticus 25: 44 states that I may possess slaves,both male and female, provided they are purchased fromneighboring nations. A friend of mine claims that thisapplies to Mexicans, but not Canadians. Can you clarify?Why can't I own Canadians?2. I would like to sell my daughter into slavery, assanctioned in Exodus 21: 7. In this day and age, what doyou think would be a fair price for her?3. I know that I am allowed no contact with a womanwhile she is in her period of menstrual uncleanness -Lev. 15: 19-24. The problem is how do I tell? I havetried asking, but most women take offense.

43. Questions to a Biblical Literalist: • 4. When I burn a bull on the altar as a sacrifice, Iknow it creates a pleasing odor for the Lord - Lev. 1:9. The problem is, my neighbors. They claim the odor isnot pleasing to them. Should I smite them?5. I have a neighbor who insists on working on theSabbath. Exodus 35: 2. clearly states he should be putto death. Am I morally obligated to kill him myself, orshould I ask the police to do it?6. A friend of mine feels that even though eatingshellfish is an abomination - Lev. 11: 10, it is alesser abomination than homosexuality. I don't agree.Can you settle this? Are there degrees of abomination?

44. Questions to a Biblical Literalist: • 7. Lev. 21: 20 states that I may not approach the altarof God if I have a defect in my sight. I have to admitthat I wear reading glasses. Does my vision have to be20/20, or is there some wiggle-room here?8. Most of my male friends get their hair trimmed,including the hair around their temples, even thoughthis is expressly forbidden by Lev. 19:27. How shouldthey die?9. My uncle has a farm. He violates Lev. 19: 19 byplanting two different crops in the same field, as doeshis wife by wearing garments made of two different kinds of thread (cotton/polyester blend). He also tends to curse and blaspheme a lot. Is it really necessary thatwe go to all the trouble of getting the whole towntogether to stone them? Lev.24: 10-16. Couldn't we justburn them to death at a private family affair, like wedo with people who sleep with their in-laws? (Lev. 20:14)

45. Religion and Recent Politics • Constitution: Separation of Church and State • The absolutist essence of evangelical Protestantism: crusades (alcohol, slavery, pornography, abortion, gay and lesbian rights, etc.) • “Moral Majority” of the late 1970s, Jerry Falwell; program of preventing changes of American culture; • 1989 - Pat Robertson & the Christian Coalition; strong organization; “To vote for Clinton is to sin against God!” • Bush’s first campaign: “Compassionate Conservatism”. • The political rhetoric: Millenial, evangelical.

46. The South as a Distinct Religious Reagon (The Bible Belt)

47. Inn 1979, Falwell founded the Moral Majority, which became one of the largest political lobby groups for evangelical Christians in the United States during the 1980s. The group is credited with delivering two-thirds of the white, evangelical Christian vote to Ronald Reagan http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerry_Falwell Jerry Falwell (1933 – 2007)

48. Falwell repeatedly denounced certain teachings in public schools and secular education in general, calling them breeding grounds for atheism, secularism, and humanism, which he claimed to be in contradiction with Christian morality. […]. Jerry Falwell wrote in America Can Be Saved that "I hope I live to see the day when, as in the early days of our country, we won't have any public schools. The churches will have taken them over again and Christians will be running them."[16] After the 9/11 attacks, Falwell said on The 700 Club, "I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People For the American Way, all of them who have tried to secularize America. I point the finger in their face and say 'you helped this happen.'" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H-CAcdta_8I http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MK_hYsCkDH4&feature=related(Falwell & Abortion Clinics) Falwell’s Views

49. Robertson is a Southern Baptist and was active as an ordained minister with that denomination for many years, but holds to a charismatic theology not traditionally common among Southern Baptists. He unsuccessfully campaigned to become the Republican Party's nominee in the 1988 presidential election. As a result of his seeking political office, he no longer serves in an official role for any church. His media and financial resources make him a recognized, influential, and controversial public voice for conservative Christianity in the United States. Pat Robertson (1930)

50. One Side of the Argument • Battlecry…http://battlecry.com/ • Teen Mania http://www.teenmania.com/corporate/index.cfm • God’s Warriors • http://www.godswarriorsatlanta.org/index.html • Jesus Camp http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8bB2rt3IKJc&feature=related • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y_EKHK1C2IE&feature=related