liftthescreen

The election campaign and results have revealed to us something about America’s religion. Eduardo Cruz, the Brazilian theologian, believes that the dark side of our religion has come to the fore. A few weeks ago Martin Marty wrote that football is the American religion. Bob Benne and I wrote a book in the 1960s, entitled “Defining America: A Christian Critique of the American Dream.”

Sociologists and historians like Sidney Mead (a mentor of Marty’s) and Robert Bellah pointed out decades ago that Americans have made a religion out of their society, coining the term “civil religion.” Mead put it in an aphorism: “America is a nation with the soul of a church.”

We’re not the first or the only society to do this–the ancient Romans practiced a religion of society. The Afrikaners, during the apartheid period in South Africa, held a story that is similar in some respects to the American Story.

I agree with Marty about football, but I will focus here on other elements of the American religion. The idea that we have made an Exodus from bondage to the New World is prominent for many different Americans. That Exodus may have been from Europe or Central America or Vietnam or Syria or many other places. The upshot is that everyone holds to a hope– feeling that there is something special or exceptional about the American experience–it is a place of promise. Sacrifice is also a part of the American Dream; hard work assures an upward spiral.

But the upward aspirations of these immigrants to the Land of Promise left a trail of damage in its wake–the dark side of the American Religion that Cruz sees. That dark side is always present, very real to some, even though it recedes into the background for others. It manifested itself first in dispossessing the native peoples who were here when the settlers arrived and became systematic oppression and even genocide by the Europeans. It manifested itself further in two centuries of slavery of Africans, the treatment of women, the exploitation by the robber barons, and the internment of Japanese-American citizens during World War II. We’ve exploited the natural world, wantonly, the whole time. These acts were justified by the sense of Americans that they are exceptional, a chosen people.

This is the America that has assumed the status of a religion. It seems to be more obvious in the aftermath of the election. Both candidates spoke of American greatness. The  most outrageous, theologically, was: “America is great, because America is good.” The other candidate argued that we must regain greatness–by exorcising foreigners, building walls of tariffs and also of fence and brick and mortar. Both are frightening. For our new president, civil religion has become “America First” and a jihad against immigrants. It is also the cult of the free market, even though the market economy is regularly manipulated to the benefit of the few. One form of that market has taken away the livelihood of millions of workers in the past quarter century–globalization still has its community of worshippers. Another group of worshippers hold that a different form of the market–marked by tariff barriers–will bring the jobs back. In the name of the market, health care for the underemployed and the elderly is stingy, public aid is withheld, and education neglected.

The Religion of America promises salvation, but it fails to deliver, and it perverts the idea of salvation. Christians, Jews, Muslims, and serious humanists know this–they know that the civil religion has no real God. America First and the free market just don’t work as gods. They’re not big enough, not honest enough, not loving enough.

I’ll be reflecting on these issues in my coming blogs. Send me your ideas and opinions.

 
(c) 11/14/2016 Phil Hefner