Is 'Americanism' a religion? - from the Asia Times

[bloom]

Is 'Americanism' a religion?
By Spengler

Islamists and neo-conservatives concur in calling "Americanism" a religion, the "worst-ever theology" in the view of the former, but according to the latter, "the beliefs that make Americans positive that their nation is superior to all others - morally superior, closer to God". The quotations come respectively from Abid Ullah Jan at the Tanzeem-e-Islami website, and from Professor David Gelernter in the January 2005 Commentary magazine.

<snip>

The trouble is that Christianity cannot resolve the conundrum of free will and original sin. A handful of Christians, eg the Mennonites, will form small communities apart from the world and wait for divine grace to find them. That leads to irrelevance. Most Christians will go out into the world and reform it so that it is more amenable to grace, reverting, as it were, to the Hebrew roots of Christianity. Puritan emulation of the Hebrews, once it achieved its earthly goals, led to Brahmin arrogance. America's tragedy, one hears, is to win the war and lose the peace. In the 18th, 19th, and again in the 20th century, the United States achieved its dream, but lost its soul.

Today's evangelicals have risen up against soulless secular culture, not against worldly evil. President George W Bush and his neo-conservative counselors believe that the US will engineer democratic regimes throughout the world; in this, I believe, they will fail. Despite their failure, American religion yet may play the decisive role on the world stage. As I observed last year (Ask Spengler, Jun 2, 2004), Professor Philip Jenkins of Pennsylvania State University reports that US Christian denominations are at the forefront of an "historical turning point" in Christianity, "one that is as epochal for the Christian world as the original Reformation". In the October 2002 edition of The Atlantic Monthly, he wrote, "In the global South (the areas that we often think of primarily as the Third World) huge and growing Christian populations - currently 480 million in Latin America, 360 million in Africa, and 313 million in Asia, compared with 260 million in North America ... It is Pentecostals who stand in the vanguard of the Southern Counter-Reformation. Though Pentecostalism emerged as a movement only at the start of the twentieth century, chiefly in North America, Pentecostals today are at least 400 million strong, and heavily concentrated in the global South. By 2040 or so there could be as many as a billion, at which point Pentecostal Christians alone will far outnumber the world's Buddhists and will enjoy rough numerical parity with the world's Hindus."

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Front_Page/GA04Aa01.html

[keithjx]

1. Guess I'm not a believer... n/t

[Az]

2. Many societies in the world

Are much more homogenous than the US is. They simply are not familiar with such a diverse culture. Particularly one where polar opposites can reside alongside each other. Therefore when they hear or see some of the more vocal manifestations of some of the factors in our society they presume that they speak for the entire culture.

This is only aided by the other voices in our society being silenced by fear of the louder groups. Make some noise.

[starroute]

3. Gee, that was a fairly bizarre read

"America provides uniquely fertile ground for Christianity, because immigrants to America leave behind the pagan elements that corrupted European Christianity."

:wtf: (And what about the Christian elements that corrupted European paganism?)

There's also this little masterpiece of false argument:

"Gelernter simply ignores the central fact of American religious history, namely that each Christian revival occurred among different people than the previous one. 'Different people than the original Puritans of the Massachusetts Bay Colony were swept up in the First Great Awakening, and yet another group of Americans, largely Westerners, joined the Second Great Awakening during the 19th century.' "

I've done a lot of genealogical research on my husband's side of the family, and I know for a fact that his ancestors were part of all three groups, with each religious revival coming about two generations after the one before it. But the author seems to have some sort of bee in his bonnet about corruption of true religion followed by renewal from untainted sources, so he is more than ready to ignore inconvenient facts.

He also seems to believe that religion consists of nothing besides an obsession with sin-and-redemption, and that anything else isn't real religion. This causes him to miss the point about a great deal of what is actually going on in both America and the world.

[bloom]

4. "immigrants to America leave behind the pagan elements..."

That sort of made sense to me in a way. It's like the Americans drove out or suppressed nearly all of the native culture here. So it seems like in the US, more than most places, there is the culture of Christianity (or has been) with no other underlying traditions. It is what the Christians make it out to be.

Some people here see the culture as more multicultural. And there are many with backgrounds other than European - but it is like everyone is expected to go along with the Christian culture, anyway. (At least to hear O'Reilly, etc. talk - also http://majorityrights.com/ ).

It also seems like a way to see the manufactured nationalism with so many politicians (all of them, nearly) getting on the religious "God Bless America" bandwagon. It's all a part of the religious culture war. Defining our culture narrowly and to suit certain people's purposes.

[struggle4progress]

5. Unfortunately, so-called "Christian Conservatives" can't distinguish ...

... between their religion and their patriotism.

That's why they not only remain unoffended by *'s blasphemous misappropriation of the Gospel of John to serve the ends of secular power but are actually enthusiastic about a theology that confounds Americanism with the passion of the Christ.

Confronted with a precisely parallel hubris from the Nazis, German Lutheran responded (ineffectively) in the Barmen Declaration; in contrast, the American Christians are simply silent.


President Bush's remarks on September 11, 2002

"This ideal of America is the hope of all mankind. That hope drew millions to this harbor. That hope still lights our way. And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness will not overcome it."

http://archives.cnn.com/2002/US/09/11/ar911.bush.speech.transcript/

[T_i_B]

6. "Americanism" or old fashioned nationalism?

That's what often comes across (and of course it is not just Americans who are guilty of this). That said this is a very good article.

Just to add my own tuppence worth I think it best to point out that there is no such thing as a "chosen nation" in Christianity. Salvation is available for all to run towards. The epistle to the Romans makes that quite clear for starters. Christianity is a universal faith that people all over the world can choose to accept, regardless of the colour of their skin and the nature of their government. The article points this out very well.

New Israel, namely those called to the Cross from among the nations, has no kingdom of this Earth.

For America to draw inspiration from the Hebrew Bible is salutary, but for Americans to regard themselves as God's chosen is idolatrous. Megalomania of this ilk infected Europe, beginning with Richelieu's France in the 17th century, and then Nicholas II's Russia and later Adolf Hitler's Germany in the 20th, with apocalyptic consequences.

What matters most is not where you were born or where you live, but how you live.

[Igel]

7. Nah.

The church I was in long ago tried to argue that atheism and communism were religions. They have trappings or systems that pattern like religions, but it's pushing the definition of "religion" a bit much.

I'd also point out that a lot of American sects (a word that I don't think is derogatory) did drop out a lot of the European pre-Christian pagan add-ons. Not all of them dropped all of them. But many dropped some and some dropped many.