From the US Army: Communism as religion

I need to be grading right now, but I’m brooding about the CIA torture report. It’s put me in mind of a text I encountered a couple years ago–an excerpt from a 1989 manual that the US army used at the School of the Americas to train Latin Americans in counterinsurgency, i.e., in how to suppress left-wing movements.

In this particular passage, the author describes Communism as a kind of religion, the explicit implication being that Communists are irrationally committed to their dogmas. (Is the unspoken implication that they’re irredeemable and must therefore be eliminated?)  Note that Catholicism provides the author’s archetype of “religion”–more specifically, of religion as irrational dogma. I find it hard not to read that in light of the long history of American Protestants equating Catholicism with superstition and tyranny. Note, too, that the manual functions as a kind of counterapologetic, aiming to show readers the “fallacies” of Communism as contrasted to “democratic doctrine”–the true religion. (Why did the manual’s author perceive that counterapologetic as necessary?)

My source is the Latin American Working Group.

Communism is “a kind of pseudo-religion, given that it has a founder, a mythology, a sacred book, a clergy, a place of pilgrimage and an inquisition. The founder is Marx; the mythology is communist theory; the sacred book is Das Kapital; the clergy are members of the Communist Party; the place of pilgrimage is Moscow; and the inquisition[,] the state (KGB) and others. Truly, as Marx said, communism is ‘the spectre surrounding Europe.’ Today this spectre is surrounding the whole world. You can’t hope to convince a devoted communist of the errors in his doctrine, but you ought to be able to point out to an impartial person the fallacies of the communist ideology; and you ought to feel more justified in the validity of the democratic doctrine in light of the fallacies you have learned to discover in communist doctrine.”

(“Revolutionary War, Guerillas and Communist Ideology,” 128)

Taqueria Misa

My husband picked up La Vanguardia Hoy, the regional Spanish-language newspaper, while he was in Cincinnati earlier this week. My eye was caught by an announcement of an upcoming Mass in honor of St. Jude, to be held at La Tienda y Taquería La Canasta (a Mexican market/restaurant). October 28 is Jude’s feast day; the article implies that this Mass is behind held as the culmination of a novena in Jude’s honor.

What intrigues me is the use of the taquería as the venue for the Mass. Why not a church? Why this commercial location? The uncaptioned photo accompanying the article, which I’m guessing shows a Mass from a previous year, includes a Latino-looking man in what appear to be clerical robes, which would suggest that the “misa” really is a Mass, not a lay-led devotion.

La Vanguardia Hoy, Oct. 16, 2014

I’m curious to go. This is what La Canasta looks like from the outside:

As photographed by Google Maps

Catholics in St. Anthony, Idaho, 1909

I was leafing this morning through Orbis Books’ documentary history The Frontiers and Catholic Identities, when my eye was caught by a reference to St. Anthony, Idaho, the little town where I spent my elementary school years. (My parents moved us out of St. Anthony at the right time to leave me with happy Lake Wobegonish childhood memories of the place rather than hellish hicktown junior high memories. Sorry, St. Anthony–you are what you are.) The historical document having to do with St. Anthony was part of Father Alvah W. Doran’s account of a 1909 missionary tour he made on the coincidentally named St. Anthony Chapel Car. Here’s what he had to say about his stop in the town of St. Anthony:

We could not omit this town, however much work our shortness of time compelled us to leave undone this trip in Idaho. The honor of the Chapel Car’s patron saint constrained us to preach his religion to a community as ignorant of it as they were of how their town received its good name. There are a handful of the very best kind of Catholics here, and the foundations have been dug for a church. We trust that our work will raise it above ground-level soon. St. Anthony, pray for them! […] At this place the opera-house had been lately burned but the Mormons granted the use of their meeting-house. Thursday evening the Mormon choir had a rehearsal, and then remained to sing at our services. (The Frontiers and Catholic Identities, pp. 125-126)

I would guess that the church whose construction he refers to is the same little Catholic church that was standing in St. Anthony when I lived there–and which is still standing there: Mary Immaculate. Here are some photos from the church’s website.

The last time I visited St. Anthony, over a decade ago, the church had installed a statue of Our Lady of Guadalupe out front–a sign of the times. I knew already (from a Mexican immigrant family I met while volunteering as a medical interpreter at Primary Children’s Hospital in Salt Lake City) that St. Anthony had experienced an upsurge of Latino residents.

I can’t imagine that the Mormon church I attended while living in St. Anthony is the same one Fr. Doran preached at in 1909, though I wonder if it might have stood on the same site.

Protestant Ideals and the Know-Nothings

This is one in a series of guest posts authored by students in an undergraduate course I taught during Spring 2014, “Protestantism and the Development of American Culture.” Each student’s task was to write an informative essay explaining some way that Protestants have shaped (or tried to shape) American culture. Students knew that their essays would be posted to this blog, so they would have a real-world online audience.

Students are entirely responsible for the content and quality of their essays; I am merely the vehicle for broadcasting them (though on the whole I’m reasonably pleased with the results).

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Protestant Ideals and the Know-Nothings
Eddie Evans

Most Americans are acutely aware of the increasing Spanish populations in the southwestern United States. The inclusion or exclusion of this group is a platform issue for major political candidates. Even those of a more inclusive mindset debate the benefits that they should receive and the extent to which they can participate in American democracy. American Protestants of the first half of the 19^th century were asking similar questions due to the arrival of Irish Catholics and other western European immigrants. This essay will examine the basis of nativist thought in America, and look at how the most famous nativist political organization, the Know-Nothings, was so influential.

History of Nativist Thought

Nativism is a response to increasing cultural pluralism that has repeated throughout American history. To better understand the environment in which 19^th century Nativist groups flourished, one must go back to the Colonial Period and the Puritan establishments. In his 1992 article, sociologist Michael W. Hughey points out that both inclusive and exclusive values were fused in the sociopolitical systems of the Puritans. The democratic ideals of open government, egalitarian democracy, and the unalienable rights of man were cornerstones of Puritan republican government. However, these rights were not for everyone. Women and religious minorities were seen as “unsuitable” to uphold democratic and Protestant ideals, and therefore were excluded from practicing in the open form of government.

One specific religious minority that was seen as “unsuitable” was Catholics. In colonial Massachusetts, while Catholics were tolerated in communities, their Protestant neighbors could drive them out if they did not uphold certain moral standards. Even the morally suitable Catholics could not hold positions of public power since they did not belong to the state affiliated church.

The implicit link of Protestantism and democracy only became stronger during the revolutionary period. In the French and Indian War, “the battles were interpreted as cosmic contest between God and Satan.” Protestants believed that “Satan’s French Papist legions were committed to religious and political tyranny.” Since the Protestants and America prevailed “surely Liberty must be the cause of God.” This belief was confirmed a few decades later when the colonists defeated the British in the Revolutionary War. Hughes claims “liberty was thus elevated to sacred status and identified with the Kingdom of God, which in turn was identified with the American Republic.”

In the New Republic, Protestants continued to uphold their religious and political values. It is at this point that Hughes coins the term “Americanism”, to describe the entanglement of Protestant and Democratic values. Never before in history had a nation been built upon ideals more than geographic boundaries, and Americanism was this principal ideal.

As the Republic grew, it became increasingly difficult to orchestrate these ideals in every facet of a functioning democracy. John Adams confessed, “he never understood a republican government and no man ever will.” Hughes points out that throughout John Adams’ political career, politicians struggled to with the manifestation of Americanism in specific policies. Instead of defining “Americanism” explicitly, it became easier to define Americanism as what it is not. Groups that have, at some point, been labeled “un-American” include: Mormons, Jews, Freemasons, communists, and most important for our purposes, Catholics.

Political Landscape of Antebellum America

Preceding the Know Nothing party was a two party system composed of Democrats and Whigs. The rivalry between the two parties was known as the Second Party system. Southern farmers made up a large portion of antebellum democrats. They opposed government spending and wanted to keep intervention at a minimum. The Whig Party consisted largely of pro-business New Englanders (the decedents of the puritans) who wanted to see government regulate morality while still favoring market interests.

The collapse of the Whigs has historically been attributed to different opinions among party members about slavery. However, not all share this view. Historian Bruce Levine feels that “the Whigs disappeared in the early 1850’s because they failed to echo with sufficient force and unanimity the antiforeign and anti-Catholic sentiments of their native-born Protestant constituents.” Further evidence that slavery was not the most decisive factor: old Whig voters appreciated the creation of a party “whose focus was on Catholics, immigrants, and unresponsive politicians, not the slavery issue.” In this failure of the Whigs, rises the Order of the Star Spangled Banner and the Order of United Americans. They will form a political alliance and become nicknamed “Know-Nothings” because of the secrecy of their leadership. When asked to explain their political views or agendas, members would simply respond, “I know nothing.”

Early Political Momentum

1854 in New York City marked the first time a Know-Nothing affiliated candidate received significant attention. Lawyer and nativist, Daniel Ulmann received over 25% of the votes in New York City and State and was named a congressman. In fact, that year, over half of the New York congressmen aligned themselves with Know-Nothing principles. The group was growing, and fast. In 1846, The Order of United Americans had 2,000 members in New York City alone. By 1851, that number had grown to 7,000. By 1855, there were 30,000 men officially initiated the organization.

A Leader Rises

The Order of United Americans (official name for the Know-Nothings) most prominent member was Thomas R. Whitney. From a middle class background, Whitney was the son of a New York City watchmaker and followed in his father’s trade. During his apprenticeship, he inherited a disciplined work ethic and had access to his father’s wealthy network of clients. One of who was important Whig member and OUA charter-member, Mayor Harper. Whitney joined the OUA, and quickly gained recognition for his energy and work ethic. He attended a national nativist convention in Philadelphia in 1845 and became the editor of republican and nativist magazine, The Republic. In 1856 Whitney published his most influential piece of Know-Nothing literature, A Defense of American Policy.

The Know-Nothings’ America

The aforementioned 400-page Know Nothing Bible is an insightful look into the collective minds of the leadership of the organization. Interestingly, Whitney’s ideal America sounds very reminiscent to the Puritan society. Whitney and the Order believe that men “are entitled to just such privileges, social and political, as they are capable of employing and enjoying rationally. Since human beings exhibited this capability to differing degrees, they were naturally entitled different rights and privileges.” This is re-manifestation of Hughey’s theory about American democracy; a mixing of democratic and Protestant ideals that are simultaneously inclusive and exclusive.

The Puritans took this idea for granted. They had the privilege of establishment and few religious minorities to challenge their dominance. Whitney and other Know-Nothings were not in the same circumstance. Irish Catholic immigrants were arriving in massive numbers and flexing their political muscles. Unlike the Puritans, Whitney is acutely aware of the problems that exist while trying to promote both nativism and democracy. He writes, “I take direct issue with democracy. As I understand the term, I am no democrat. If democracy implies universal suffrage…without regard to the intelligence, the morals, or the principles of man, I am no democrat.”

Whitney’s character attacks could fall on any non-white, non-Protestant person living and working in America in the 1860’s. However, nativists had the harshest disdain for Irish Catholics. The vast majority of Irish immigrants brought their Catholic religion with them. In the eyes of a 19^th century Protestant, Catholics were “hierarchical, philosophically monarchical, virulently antirepublican, aimed to subvert self government and individual freedom everywhere.” In other words, it is inconceivable to be both Catholic and democratic at the same time. This is a standard, Protestant critique of Catholicism that can be traced back to the Reformation, and the narrative was only strengthened in Colonial America.

Catholicism was not the only concern Know-Nothings saw in the Irish immigrants. The Irish were crammed into the poorest urban centers where they worked the most undesirable, and unskilled jobs. Overpopulation and crime were only a few of the side effects of the deplorable living conditions in major American cities such as New York. This led to the Irish being branded as “lazy, thieving drunkards, poor material for either a labor force or citizenry.”

The nativist groups that were able to gain so much momentum eventually declined due to the emergence of the Republican Party and the Civil War. Irish Americans were able to prove their allegiance to the nation by fighting in the war, and this helped alleviate some of their struggles. Though the Know-Nothings have long vanished, the nativist thought that fueled their rise to power still remained in America. Whether it was the Red Scare, or our current Spanish immigration policy, one can find remnants of the sociopolitical nativist background dating back to the Puritans.

Satan at Harvard

So here’s my two bits, or three, about the black Mass controversy at Harvard.

1 bit. I’m not really buying the claim of the cultural studies club who sponsored the event that their “purpose [was] not to denigrate any religion or faith… but instead to learn and experience the history of different cultural practices.” I can see how they could convince themselves that was a sincere statement. But the Satanic Temple is an organization that engages in iconoclasm to make political points–like their petition to erect a statue of the devil at the Oklahoma state capitol in order to protest the erection of a Ten Commandments display. Great move, as far as I’m concerned. (If the statue gets the green light, I’m happy to pitch in a few bucks.) But you can’t pass iconoclasm off as a benign exercise in multicultural exposure. “We just wanted to observe Satanists at worship… Just like the Shinto tea ceremony we’re going to stage next week.” Oh please.

Iconoclasm is offensive: that’s the point. So have the backbone to stand by it as such if your club is going to sponsor it. Instead of this pablum about experiencing other cultures, issue a feisty statement about free speech. At the end of the day, Harvard’s president, eager though he was to appease Massachusetts Catholics, did a better job of defending free speech than the cultural studies club did.

2 bits. Opponents of the black Mass have been using the word “blasphemy” a lot. (High-ranking clergy have also used the occasion to affirm the reality of the devil and his works, which I found intriguing from a “post-secularization theory” angle.) If Harvard permits the “blaspheming of Catholic sacramental practice,” Francis Clooney asked readers of the Harvard Crimson, “what’s next?” “Historical reenactments of anti-Semitic or racist ceremonies?” “Parodies that trivialize Native American heritage?”

Before I go after Fr. Clooney’s rhetoric with my penknife, I’m going to submit myself to a discipline of empathy. I understand why he’s upset. If, let’s say, an evangelical student group on my campus were to invite a countercultist to come lecture on Mormonism, and if it were announced that this speaker were going to don Mormon temple robes and reenact portions of the ceremony which adherents treat as ritual secrets–that would get my blood boiling in much the same way, I imagine, that the black Mass upsets Catholics.

But if we’re going to play the “What’s next?” game, let me offer some alternative scenarios. If outraged Catholics can successfully pressure a student group to cancel plans to stage an event that the Catholics consider blasphemous–what’s next? Could outraged Catholics successfully pressure a student group to cancel plans to invite a member of Roman Catholic Womenpriests to celebrate Mass? Could outraged Muslims successfully pressure a student group to cancel plans to invite Salman Rushdie? Could outraged Hindus successfully pressure a student group to cancel plans to invite Jeffrey Kripal? Could outraged evangelicals successfully pressure a student group to cancel plans to invite, I dunno, John Shelby Spong or Gene Robinson? Those are all cases in which critics could invoke the term “blasphemy.” How far does Fr. Clooney expect his university to go in deferring to charges of blasphemy? I’d like to know.

3 bits. Let’s be clear about what happened here. A religious group that enjoys considerable clout on the local scene launched a protest against an event planned by a minority religious group that resulted in the minority group’s event being, in effect, shut down. (Emphasize “in effect.”) In these situations, my sympathies tend to lie with the underdog. How good does domination taste, Massachusetts Catholics?

Praying the Steps in Cincinnati

Yesterday evening, Good Friday, my husband and I drove into Cincinnati to observe (in the sense of “to watch”) an annual tradition we’d read about: the praying of the steps. People climb a series of stairways leading to Holy Cross-Immaculata, a Catholic church at the top of Mount Adams. On each step, people pause to recite a prayer, traditionally a Hail Mary or an Our Father–or both. This Good Friday tradition dates back to the 1860s or early 1870s.  People start the climb, often referred to as a pilgrimage, as early as the midnight dividing Thursday and Friday.

There’s a short version and a long version of the climb. The long version begins at the base of Mount Adams, not far from the river, and involves a pedestrian bridge crossing a freeway. The short version begins in what’s become an upscale residential-business neighborhood below the church. (Most of the businesses appeared to be pubs.) The long version must take between two and three hours to complete: as my husband and I came back down the stairs after doing our own prayer-less climb, we passed people we’d already passed on the way up, who an hour later were still working on the first stretch that would get them to where the short climb begins.

As we began the long version of the climb, we found ourselves sharing the stairs with a smattering of pilgrims and a few joggers. When we got to the beginning of the short version, we found a long line of people waiting to climb those steps, so we took a “back route” through an alley to get to the top of the hill and the church. Here’s a video of our arrival.

The dog, by the way, was supposed to be making the climb in penance for having recently murdered a baby bunny; but as you see, she was in a more festive than penitential mood. (For the record, it’s not me you hear panting in the video. The one of us who was most winded, ironically, was the one of us who’s most faithful about getting to the gym.)

The  church was originally a German parish, Immaculata. There was a Passionist monastery just a couple of blocks away which served an Irish parish, Holy Cross. During the 1970s, as a result of the hemorrhaging of priests and brothers following Vatican II, the monastery was shut down and the two parishes were joined into Holy Cross-Immaculata. The Immaculata church still has its nineteenth century artwork. Over the altar is painted the word AMERIKA, which on closer inspection turns out to be the last word of a prayer on a scroll above it. The prayer reads in German:

O Mary, without sin conceived, pray for the conversion of this land… AMERICA.

Not the vision of a “Christian America” we’re most used to encountering.

In Nauvoo… with Catholics

I just returned from a mildly pluralistic holiday getaway in Nauvoo, Illinois, which my husband and I were interested in visiting because it’s a Mormon historical site–the last city Mormons established during Joseph Smith’s lifetime, and the place where some of Mormonism’s most distinctive doctrines and rites were introduced. (My husband and I were both raised LDS.) Most of the reconstructed buildings in historic Nauvoo are owned by the LDS Church; a few years back, that community also rebuilt the Nauvoo Temple, which was first constructed in the 1840s and once again now occupies a very high-profile place on the skyline overlooking the Mississippi River.

However, certain Nauvoo sites associated with Smith himself are owned not by the LDS Church but by the much less well known Community of Christ, Mormonism’s second-largest denomination, which in recent decades has undergone something of what I would call a “Protestantization.” The sites owned by Community of Christ include Smith’s two homes; his “red brick store,” where the LDS Church’s women’s organization was founded and where key esoteric rites were introduced; and Smith’s grave. During the couple of days we spent in Nauvoo, my husband and I stayed in a home in the Community of Christ-owned portion of the historic village; the home had been built in the 1840s to serve as a hotel.

On the block adjoining the Nauvoo Temple, sharing the skyline with it, is a Catholic church, Sts. Peter and Paul. Not being  welcome to worship in the LDS temple, I decided to attend Saturday night Mass at their next door neighbor’s. (Although never Catholic, I served in the 1990s as a volunteer in a Catholic mission, doing community development work in the Dominican Republic, the same country where I had been a Mormon missionary a few years earlier.) The sanctuary was painted pink and filled with Victorian statuary in pastel colors of the kind that immediately makes me think: German immigrants. The pre-Vatican II altar was still in place behind the post-Vatican II table.

There was a curious moment at the end of the Prayers of the People, when the priest announced that they were now going to recite the prayer to St. Michael for religious freedom–which everyone but me, it seemed, proceeded to do from memory. The prayer didn’t overtly mention religious freedom: it was a traditional-sounding petition calling on the archangel to stamp down the forces of evil. I wondered: Was this prayer a local custom? Or is this a practice that the bishops have been promoting nationally in the wake of the controversy over religious exceptions under Obamacare? Can any Catholic readers enlighten me?

God in America: Of God and Caesar

Last spring, I began posting reviews of the 6-episode Frontline/American Experience documentary God in America. I realized recently that I never reviewed episode 6, “Of God and Caesar.” So let’s do it:

Summary: Unlike most other episodes, this one doesn’t divide neatly into “acts.” But the general storyline is this: In the wake of the 1960s, conservative evangelicals become politically mobilized: Moral Majority, Christian Coalition, George W. Bush. At the same time, though, the religious landscape is becoming more diverse: Hindus, Muslims, Latinos–both Catholic and evangelical. More Americans are religiously unaffiliated or “spiritual, not religious.” A new generation of evangelicals is paying more attention to the environment, AIDS, and poverty. There’s disillusion in the evangelical right–did we sell our souls for political gain? Meanwhile, Democrats are discovering God and reaching out to values voters, which brings us up to Obama.

Over a hopeful soundtrack, the documentary wraps everything up with Stephen Prothero saying that Americans continue to value the notion that they’re a special people with a special connection to God, but what that means and who’s included are still subjects of ongoing debate.

Likes: This episode covers topics that I include in the final, post-1960s, unit of my introductory American religious history survey: Hindus and Buddhists, Muslims, Latinos, and the culture wars. Since my life is contemporary with the emergence and development of the religious right, I suspect that I assume students know more about that movement and its history than they do; this episode gives a reasonably nuanced overview. The documentary-makers had plenty of footage to work with, of course, including clips of Francis Schaeffer’s films, which I’ve read about but never seen–that was interesting. Players in the religious right appear as talking heads: Pat Robertson, Ed Dobson, Frank Schaeffer, Richard Cizik.

Dislikes: Apart from a nod to Catholics as the originators of American anti-abortion activism and the final presentation of Obama as reaching out to some nebulous group called “values voters,” religion in politics is portrayed in this episode as basically synonymous with evangelical activism, as represented by Francis Schaeffer, Moral Majority, and the Christian Coalition more specifically. Granted that the evangelical right stands at the center of “culture war” conservatism. Nevertheless, I favor in my teaching Robert Wuthnow’s model of a conservative-liberal divide that cuts across the entire religious landscape, resulting in the formation of new interreligious coalitions on both sides of the line–and pressing some religious groups to awkwardly straddle the faultline. Examples: Catholics pursuing a politics based on the “seamless web of life,” which doesn’t transpose well into the categories of “liberal” and “conservative” as conventionally used in American politics today; or socially conservative Muslims who agree with conservative evangelicals on many issues but are alienated by “Christian America” rhetoric and evangelical Islamophobia.

Basically, I want students to understand that “conservative-liberal” has become a very important axis for understanding American religion today, but I don’t want them thinking just “evangelical” when they think “conservative,” a tendency that this documentary would reinforce.

In the final moments of the documentary, Prothero says: This moment in American religious life is about pluralism. We’re making the space bigger, extending the sacred canopy over more people. But we don’t have a narrative for this yet. Will we come up with one? What’s the story going to be? To Prothero and the makers of this documentary, I would say: Certainly God in America doesn’t give us that new, pluralistic story; it’s good that you appear to recognize that. May I (bitchily) suggest that part of the reason we don’t have a new narrative yet is that documentaries like this one continue to place Protestants at the center of the story, with other religious groups, when they appear, orbiting around the Protestants? If you want a narrative about religious pluralism in America, then a more radical decentering is needed than anyone involved in this project was evidently willing to hazard or creative enough to imagine.

When should the colonial era end?

Last night, I attended a presentation by Timothy Matovina, who my department had brought in from Notre Dame to speak as part of an endowed lecture series. Matovina’s topic was “Latinos and the Transformation of American Catholicism.” The first part of his presentation was historiographical, offering thoughts on how American religious history would look different if you pull Latinos into a story presently dominated by events on the East Coast and trans-Atlantic immigration. In the process, he tipped his hat to my dissertation advisor, Laurie Maffly-Kipp, for her 1997 essay “Eastward Ho!” which undertook a similar re-imagining of American religious history from the vantage point of trans-Pacific immigration and movement east across the continent (rather than west).

Matovina’s historiographical revisionism was relatively tame, in the sense that he was content to work within an existing periodization: the colonial era, followed by a century of immigration (1820-1920), followed by a period of Americanization. He didn’t propose a new periodization, which would be a bolder kind of revisionism. Maybe something that bold isn’t needed to accomplish the work he’s interested in, but this is a question I have simmering in a pot on my back stove: If we want to create a grand narrative of American religious history that will decenter the East Coast and give greater prominence to religious diversity in the U.S., what alternative periodization(s) might we come up with?

Listening to Matovina last night, I thought that one possibility–although still a relatively tame one, perhaps–would be to rethink when the colonial era ends. When I teach narrative surveys of American religious history, I end the colonial era with the American Revolution, i.e., the 1770s-1780s. After that, I start talking about a period called the New Republic, which begins with the Constitution of 1789 and then bleeds into a period called the antebellum era. But what if I didn’t close the colonial era with the end of British colonial rule in what is now U.S. territory? What if I closed that period with the end of Spanish imperial rule in what is now U.S. territory? That would be the 1810s-1820s. (Actually, come to think of it, I’d need a later date if I consider Puerto Rico, but let’s not go too crazy…yet.)

If you were to write a textbook chapter covering the colonial period that ended in the 1820s, that would certainly require a different narrative than one that ends in the 1780s. You would need to include different events, i.e., things happening between the 1780s and the 1820s. And you would need to invent some basis for including those events other than the fact that they happened to occur during that time frame, i.e., you would need to weave them into a coherent narrative around some trope like cause-and-effect or comparison-contrast.

You would have to think more, in other words, about how things that were happening on the eastern half of the continent during the 1770s-1820s related to things that were happening on the western half of the continent. In the process, you might end up highlighting religious developments that aren’t usually regarded as so important in the traditional historiography of American religion–and, by the same token, you might end up sidelining developments that currently do loom large.

I have no idea what that hypothetical chapter would look like. But it’s something I’d like to play with.

God in America: Soul of a Nation

A continuing review of the Frontline/American Experience documentary God in America. This post looks at part 5, “Soul of a Nation.”

Summary: This episode is about religion and politics in the 1950s and 1960s. Act I: Billy Graham promotes Christian revival as America’s defense against Communism. Patriotism and religion are married, e.g., in the addition of “under God” to the Pledge of Allegiance. Act II: Resistance to the marriage. Humanist and Jewish parents insist that religious education and religious exercises in public schools is unconstitutional; the Supreme Court agrees (McCullom and Engel). Act III: A good marriage of religion and politics in the black civil rights movements. Martin Luther King, Jr., is at the center of this segment, but Graham is woven in here as well, along with John F. Kennedy’s presidential election.

Likes: Everything covered in this episode works for my introductory survey of American religious history. I cover all these topics: Christian revival and “Judeo-Christian” civil religion in the Cold War; Engel as a landmark in a new approach to church-state relations by the courts; Kennedy’s election in the context of the long history of Protestant anti-Catholicism in America; religion and the black civil rights movement.

There’s some great historical footage here: Graham revivals; Nixon pontificating at a Graham revival (delish…); a period TV interview with the father leading the suit against the school board in Engel; footage of schoolchildren reciting the prayer at issue in Engel; Kennedy delivering the Houston address; various speeches of King, including amazingly sharp footage (restored?) of “I Have a Dream.”

Talking heads include my former teacher Grant Wacker. Sarah Barringer Gordon is on hand to explain the constitutional issues in McCollum and Engel. We’re recent enough in time that we can have some of the historical actors as talking heads, including Terry McCollum, the schoolboy who was at the center of the 1948 case against religious instruction.

Dislikes: I got annoyed that the narrator and the talking heads kept talking about “religion” in politics when historical actors (e.g., Graham) were talking more specifically about Christianity–or at the most expansive, “Judeo-Christianity.” My annoyance on this count is related to the realization that this series isn’t going to attempt to widen the story of religion in America beyond Christians, Jews, and, oh yeah, Native Americans at the beginning of the first episode. The series title ought to have prepared me for that; and yes, I know, you can only do so much in 6 episodes. But still… it’s a limitation of the series that looms large for me given my own priorities in teaching (which include highlighting the experiences of religious minorities as necessary for understanding how power operates in American society).

There’s a fairly clear, if not quite explicit, framing in this episode of: Graham’s fusing of religion and politics is bad because he becomes an insider to the political establishment and tends to equate  national interests with God’s interests, whereas King’s fusing of religion and politics is good because he remains an outsider to the establishment and condemns messianic notions of America’s chosen status among nations. Also–this is quite explicit at the end, at least in how picture is matched to text–Graham represents a religion focused on personal salvation, while King represents a social gospel.

Ehh… Whatever. It’s an overly simplistic framing, of course, which wouldn’t necessarily be a mark against it if I thought it were useful. But what’s the use of it, except for promoting a particular kind of normative vision for how religion and politics ought to interact in America? I don’t do that in my classroom, thank you; and yes, I’m snooty about it because if you’re serious about wanting to teach your students to think critically, then you really shouldn’t be trying to propagandize them, even if you’re acting on the side of the angels.