Joan Walsh at Salon asks whether America is “now officially a Christian nation”. She’s thinking of this - Obama’s appearance along with John McCain at Pastor Rick Warren’s Saddleback Church:
One of the candidates for president strolled onto the stage at a massive megachurch in suburban Orange County Saturday night and started joking easily with the Rev. Rick Warren, maybe the most popular evangelical leader in America — but just plain “Pastor Rick” to the candidate. He talked about his certainty that “Jesus Christ died for my sins, and I am redeemed through him,” said Americans should be soldiers in the fight against evil and defined marriage as between a man and a woman — “and God is in the mix.” This particular Christian candidate was so on his game that after a segment on domestic policy ended, Warren told him — his mic still live as the TV feed cut to commercial — “Home run.”
Oh, and John McCain was there, too.
Rick Warren’s been one of the most prominent megachurch Pastors arguing that Evangelicals can vote for Democrats.
Partly Obama’s appearance is electoral calculation - the Democrats have been talking about how to walk the faith talk since some (misleading) exit polls in November 2004. But I have no doubt he’s sincere. So much for separation of Church and State. In another piece in Salon, Michael Lind argues for agnosticism on social conservatism as the way to go to build an enduring Democratic majority. He’s probably thinking what Obama’s thinking. But it doesn’t work like that. If you want people to vote their economic interests, you need to marginalise “social issues” not highlight them. And, anyway, there isn’t - to be truthful - an awful lot in Obama’s platform - certified and written by Ivy League economists - that’s all that different from Clinton’s Rubinomics, except for the anti-free trade rhetoric, and a dash of supply side Reich style “human capital theory”. You’d be waiting a long time indeed - til Judgement Day, perhaps - for a Democratic candidate to start spruiking the true social democratic faith. Or even the New Deal.
Sarah Posner in yet another Salon article looks at Obama’s “religious outreach”.
Elsewhere: Road to Surfdom. And SocProf on “theocracy you can believe in”.
I agree with Lind that Democrats should allow for a diversity of opinion on social issues. The American working-middle class has been incapable of uniting to protect their economic interests because both major parties have used the divisive social issues as a “wedge” to divide them. You are correct that Obama has some Democratic “supply siders” on his team although he also has labor-oriented economists from the Economic Policy Insitute as well. The Democratic Party needs to move left on economics and toward the center on the social issues. As Lind pointed out, the vast majority of Americans favor an activist role by government in the economy and a stronger safety net.
Religion’s always the the glue that has bound together millions of immigrants into a fresh green breast of the world for around five hundred years. Puritans, Quakers, Lutherans, Catholics, Jews, episcopalian,presbyterianism, congregationalist,anabaptists, methodist, bapists,pentecostalism, uniting and fuck me! there is a ton more of weird sects that google has thrown up. You Mosaic sky god worshippers are seriously weird.
My overall point is that the expansion of Europeans across North America between the 16th and 19 century was the greatest land rush in history and the two things that kept it together and controllable was capitalism and religion. And they did a sterling job -which is why the US is richest and most nation in the world.
Unfortunately though along the way, the relationship between religious belief and the profit motive got inextricably entangled in a way well beyond what even Calvinism intending (which interestingly enough has never taken off in the US as a sect the way far wackier stuff has.)
OK, back to my original point. The US is an immense, volatile and very fragmented country that’s already torn itself apart only four generations in one of the worse civil wars on record.
It’s survived this far as a cohesive entity and attitude through most everyone believing in something. And most of the time it’s been the opiate of the masses, religion, going hand in hand with “get rich or die trying”. No I suspect this unspoken 400 year old cnseus across the US is starting to break down.
Unlike Australia, where all the initial Europeans were ordered or sentenced here, and arrived after very very very long sea voyages on very small boats - an experience which left no illusions about human nature. Or religion as a cosmetic.
Jeez, there’s a fuckpot of typos in that last comment. Anything there doesn’t make sense, just assume I misspelled it,
It is amazing how candidates are expected to jump through moral hoops to get elected president, and then they elect twice the most irresponsible and immoral president in history. Perhaps Christianity would be better served if its proponents got back to the basic message of Jesus of Nazareth as in the Sermon on the Mount.
Nabakov, I take every word you write as the absolute, unvarnished truth - especially the typos.
I especially like ‘America is the richest and most nation in the world’. Australia should strive to be a more nation like that most nation!
If America is the most nation, then what is the least nation?
The one with the fewest medals?
Any revolutionary seeing this could quickly reach the conclusion that God and the State are weakest links of the ruling class. Not capitalism - God and the State.
( God being defined as religion mixed up with ruling class politics and the state defined as the old Leviathan military state, not the more recent welfare sector. )
I’m guessing the least nation is either the one that makes the most of their leastness, or the least of their mostitude.
Kim - it really seems to depend on where you are in the USA.
Going from just personal experience (so a data value of 0!) - in the midwest and northwest I can “admit” to being an atheist with no nastiness (in fact had some brilliant discussions around this topic). Rather bad experience down south (in Austin nonetheless!) with a real aggressive attitude (on factory training one doesn’t expect someone shouting at you because you suggested they aren’t as religiously free as they proclaim). Eastern seaboard seems to be a similar with us or against us muscular christianity that avoids the shouting but can be pretty full-on if you’re not used to it.
In the southwest they just try to convert you (but are at least friendly).
Not sharia by any means, nor tied in to governement as well as catholicism in Italy.
Seems to be more of the “reds-under-the-beds” type thing (if you don’t worship the USA you’re a goddamn commie).
You can only say that religion is “not tied in to” government if you interpret “government” very narrowly, Steve H. Womens’ reproductive rights are increasingly under threat from State legislatures and the Christian lobbyists have consistently fought to get “ID” (=creationism) taught in science class - to name just two examples.
Stupid Thought of the Day Dept.
This just occurred to me…
It’s often been said (though in my view, mistakenly) that a McCain presidency would amount to a third Bush term. Let’s grant that it’s the case for at least a moment, because it means that if McCain is elected, then the Knights Who Say Nii! will have been appeased, because they will be getting…
ANOTHER SHRUBBERY!!
From my experience, the interesting thing about American religiosity is that its manifold denominations and sects are products of European Wars of Religion.
In Europe these denominations and sects enthusiastically persecuted each other over questions of interpretation and practice.
Yet in the US these denominations and sects make common cause against agnosticism and disbelief.
It therefore appears to me that religious Americans don’t particularly care what you believe in, so long as you believe in something.
Yet when you think about it this is a completely batty view because by definition no more than one of these denominations and sects can be correct in its religious beliefs and practices. All the others, of course, are abominations in the nostrils of God.
The US needs more autos da fe.
The US was founded by a bunch of religious nutters - it shows. Oz was founded by sundry thieves, conmen and rebels - it shows.
Hi Helen - very good points. I was mainly thinking out loud as an occassional business “tourist”.
The reaction against the Gardisil vaccine confuses the hell out of me - here we have a proveable treatment that works which is being shunned due to some bizarre concern that it “promotes promiscuity”. As a science/engineering type that just bewilders me…As for the woman’s rights stuff - my girlfriend had a fun time telling some of the people she delt with exactly what would happen if they suggested one more time that she get the coffee for the meeting (I think the response was “would you like hydrochloric or HF with that ar#$eho%e?”). The assumption that the ladies will do “their duty” seems to be more prevalent there than here (coming from a Tamworth bloke that is a big call).
Now that you remind me I have noticed more recently (in contact with USA factories all the time) that the “them vs us” attitude seems to be more prevalent. Been getting scarier lately - when I mentioned they need to ease up a bit and remember most Aussies are friendly with the USA the response was “who the hell cares what you think - we’ve got God on our side”.
Don’t even talk about ID to me - that is the lowest form of stupidity in any terms.
“So much for separation of Church and State.”
Obama’s remarks don’t threaten the establishment clause, or the free exercise clause, so it would seem that they have little to do with the formal doctrine of separation of church and state, at least in the American tradition. Separation of church and state, as it is understood in the United States, does not preclude strong statements of belief by candidates, or even support for certain laws on religious grounds. It would be better just to denounce the absurd ramblings of Jesus-cultists head-on, rather than rely on the invocation of a politco-legal principle that is only very vaguely relevant.
BBB
That statement should be understood as a piece of deliberate hyperbole, BBB, but I think that if you reflect for a second on the differences between formal legal doctrine and a climate where there is a disdain for secularism and candidates increasingly trim their sails to a religious cloth, then you get the picture…
Fair enough Kim. That comment began as a response to your line, but in the writing morphed into something of a general statement; I’ve seen the separation of church and statement point made elsewhere with far more conviction and gravity, and you bore the brunt of my disdain. Apologies.
BBB
It was meant to be shorthand, as it were, BBB.
What did Harold Bloom say? You cannae git elected a dog catcher in the States without some corny and gratuitous display of ‘faith’. Bloody Jimmy Carter, and Billy Graham and…… etc.
Yeah, but as Lind implied, no one cared whether Eisenhower went to church or asked FDR to say whether he was pro-life. This stuff is relatively new.
Compulsory public religion is new Kim. It’s commonly attributed to Jimmy Carter. Altho’ there’s the Religious Right to consider. I think American politicians tend to hold public Bible bashing sessions more out of fear of the slander this lot will cook up than anything else.
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However it’s also true that one could get fined for non-attendance in Washington’s day. At least in Virginia.
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Whatever just please not here. Keep God out of it. Even Jesus agreed.
Carter corresponded to two things:
(1) The final abandonment of the New Deal project and the adoption by the elites of the Democratic party of a liberal economic strategy;
(2) The first attempt to take advantage of the turn evangelicals took towards politics after about half a century when evangelical Christianity eschewed political articulation.
Indeed.
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Please Kevvie please. I know yer a Christian n’ all but dinnae ye do it. We’ll ne’er take it.
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As if. This country’s a pack of pagan degenerates.
“The US was founded by a bunch of religious nutters - it shows. Oz was founded by sundry thieves, conmen and rebels - it shows.”
With respect, I think Robert Hughes nailed this sentiment. To paraphrase, “America was founded as a religious utopia and as no such thing can exist it is doomed to disappointment. Australia was founded as a penal colony to dispose of people unwanted by their homeland, so it has nowhere to go but up.”
d
“To paraphrase, “America was founded as a religious utopia and as no such thing can exist it is doomed to disappointment.”
Well you can define anything upwards to the point of impossibility. The perfect blog thread can never exist, for instance, if we define it a certain way. What is meant by a religious utopia? In the US we have freedom to practice religion without fear of persecution, and in historical terms we’ve enjoyed that freedom longer than any other society I can think of at the moment. That’s a pretty low definition of utopia, but it’s been do-able, as shown. As the Quaker said to Tom Paine: “Philadephia — where a man can work and worship God in peace.” On those terms, I don’t see any disappointment.
Kim: “no one cared whether Eisenhower went to church or asked FDR to say whether he was pro-life.”
Most decent people at the time probably took such things for granted; I would imagine the second one especially so. If there’s historical evidence to the contrary, I’d be interested.
I’d add that no one was forcing the candidates to appear at Saddleback. All of the candidates at one time or another have declined invitations to speak or debate at this or that particular venue, and they could have declined this one. Appealing to a faith-based constituency is, well, appealing to a constituency. It’s an election. Did Salon consider the question in the context of candidates also making explicit assurances of fealty to Israel, an actually foreign nation, in order to gain the American Jewish vote, or of candidates appearing at the Spanish-language debates, conducted in a foreign language (!!), to gain traction with Hispanics? If not, what then to make of Salon’s habits of mind?
Katz: “the interesting thing about American religiosity is that its manifold denominations and sects are products of European Wars of Religion.”
Maybe, but you’re leaving out the most important part — we didn’t bring the ‘wars’ part with us.
j_p_z - You seem to be forgetting the vigour with which Quakers were persecuted in colonial times. (Just as one example. I’m sure there are others.)
The pilgrims were a small group of religious zealots who believed English society was hopelessly corrupted and set out to the New World to found a New England based on Biblical principles. History is dotted with numerous examples of these projects (often in the US), but the main point in that quote is idealism. America is founded on idealism, has always attracted idealist immigraqnts and settlers and idealism runs through American beliefs. That’s one of the reasons ‘American’ sometimes seem incomprehensible to Australians (and vice-versa).
Striving for an ideal always means falling short, but probably going further than those who aren’t.
d
To a degree that is correct. The Puritans set up religious monocultures which obviated enemies by exclusion. These monocultures generated their own difficulties.
To a degree that is incorrect. Being a Catholic priest in New York province was a capital offence. Priest hunting was more or less the national sport of New Yorkers.
African religiosity was savagely suppressed on the plantations.
… and the establishment of religion in some state constitutions persisted beyond the establishment of the American constitution.
“You seem to be forgetting the vigour with which Quakers were persecuted in colonial times.”
And the indigenous people. Religion isn’t the sole thing that drives ‘religious’ wars.
d
Well you know what they say… some folks will look at a glass and say it’s 96% full, and others will say it’s 4% empty.
Historical objections that make use of the words “colony” or “province” instead of “state” are frozen in time, and get pretty low gas mileage w/r/t the project of the Republic: the Puritans didn’t write the Constitution, etc etc. Mark is right that some states retained ‘established’ religion in their state constitutions for a while, but this faded in due course, and certainly never resulted in zany religious wars or savage persecutions of the kind seen in Europe, North Africa and Asia on a constant basis for centuries. Nor should ethnic rivalries and grievances, which always exist on Earth and are often mixed up with religious identity, be confused with the power of the State to instigate persecution on religious grounds. It is the de-fanging and de-clawing of the State in this regard that is the great achievement; the existence from time to time of angry mobs, is another phenomenon entirely.
The point about “African religiosity” is noted but of course problematic, as it is a) reading present attitudes about religion backwards into the past, and b) slaveowners were not the State.
Just on Kim’s (acknowledged flippant line) about separation of church and state, surely it’s more of a problem when fairly un-religious people feel compelled to be Believers than when devout folk talk openly about faith.
Think, for example, of Arnie Vinnick in The West Wing. Or perhaps John McCain.
Japerz, perhaps you lost the forest of my comment by virtue of your rather anxious scrutiny of a few of its leaves.
Yes. indeed, the religious history of the US is very different from Europe and indeed very different from the religious history of the English/American colonies. That’s what I implied. We agree on this point.
My final quip about autos da fe was flippant.
The interesting thing to me — seriously now — is how those ancient inter-sect and inter-denominational hatreds have dissipated.
If religious groups and movements claim to represent God’s truth, then surely it stands to reason that other groups and movements that stand by different versions of God’s truth are the clear and present antagonists.
Yet, patently, for a long time in US history (possibly marked by the success of JFK as a Catholic) sectarianism has been a negligible force in US civil society.
But the decline of sectarianism has coincided with the rise of a bitter culture war.
Coincidence? I think not.
But I’d be interested in views about whether and how these two phenomena are connected.
j_p_z - “Did Salon consider the question in the context of candidates also making explicit assurances of fealty to Israel, an actually foreign nation, in order to gain the American Jewish vote…”
Glenn Greenwald at Salon has made this one of his personal hobby-horses so that, even if not considered in this article, I think the site as a whole has that angle covered.
To comment on the core issue, isn’t the point here not the de jure constitutional separation of church and state but the sense there is a de facto entanglement creeping in. J_p_z’s points that the US has been a remarkably tolerant nation are well founded, the problem lies in the sense that this is being undermined by modern political action. The legal exclusion of faith from governance is stronger in the US than in Australia. As a secular observer from overseas what disturbs me is the impression of wave of opinion and action breaking against that legal bulwark.
“the greatest land rush in history and the two things that kept it together and controllable was capitalism and religion. And they did a sterling job -which is why the US is richest and most nation in the world.”
I’d say it was the FEAR & HATE & EXPOITATION, kinda, sometimes, really is SLAVERY that also kept that crackpot nation in some kind of united state.
Speech by The President (take your pick):
“The State of our Nation is good because you FEARED & HATED Injuns…but there ain’t enough of them anymore to mobilize a people in FEAR & HATE…
Tho ya can’t say the same for them Mexicans…now known as “wetbacks” & “illegals”…but don’t give them a hard time if they’re pickin’ my fruit & cleanin’ my pool…or acting like a Mayor in LA…unless he starts acting like those freaky Commies in Sth & Central Amerika…
Yep, the state of FEAR & HATE & EXPLOITATION is good…and let’s not forget how you FEARED & HATED & USED blacks but now some of them divert your mind from real issues with sports and song…& make you dance & screw and have little soldiers…I mean consumers…I mean babies…and some of them even provide evidence & justification for INVASIONS and “get out of jail free cards”…not for them tho of course…and them negroes…I mean our black population…also serve the Nation by making us rich dicks a whole lotta money so we can rig elections & live nice…so please leave it these days to your government & mainstream media to tell you which Blacks to FEAR & CONDEMN…
Yes, I’m thinking particularly of that Islamo-lovin’ Democrat…he’s ONE we’re keepin’ our eye on…he reckons he loves Jesus eh?…better do, that’s all I can say…right Mama?
An speakin’ of Islamics, now who better to HATE & FEAR than them women hatin’, always cuttin’ each other’s throats, explosive dark skinned types who seem to have been blessed with all the oil GOD forgot to provide us with…we’ll DIG & DIG & DIG but the most we’ll find after spendin’ billions of your tax dollars is enough to fit in the pools of the House of Saud…God Love Them…they buy lots of armaments so who’s complaining…RIGHT!…
But as we’ve proven time & time again, if we selectively FEAR & HATE Islamos we’re able to hand a flag & button of PATRIOTISM to a few thousand really influential Jews who we FOCUSED ON…& used to HATE & FEAR…but now they’re one of US in their FEAR & HATE of the Islamos…HALLELUJAH…& by GOD we’ll sell weapons to Israel like there’s no tomorrow…
And just in case YOU don’t feel glued to the concept of AMERICA enuff…we’ll stir up a bit more fire in your boiler by bringing on the good old FEAR & HATE of the Russkies & Chinks….yessirree…our Nation is RICH in FEAR & HATE…topped up with greed for gain, rampant capitalism, assassinations, death threats, blackmail, con-artists, monopolisation, broken governments, pharma & fast food addictions…& deliciously well-timed sproutings of homophobic, myopic, misogynistic religions….& of course…as in every PARADISE…malls as far as the eye can see.
The state of our NATION is so goddamned good…& everyone gets a free credit card”.
———–
And people wonder why Obama says he loves Jesus.
N’
Interesting point @ #37. But, have you considered…
I think I’m GONNA be SAD I think IT’S TODAY
The GIRL that’s DRIVING me MAD is GOING away
She’s GOT A ticket to RIDE
SHE’S got a TICKET TO RIDE
But SHE don’t CARE
or as John Cleese would have put it…
HERE COMES THE SUN!
_HERE_ COMES THE **SUN**!
AND I SAY!
IT’S __**ALL RIGHT**__!!!!111!!
Huddled UP in FEAR & HATE
BECAUSE we KNOW our fate
AND IT’S A LOT TO PUT US THROUGH!!!