Christianity vs. American Christianity
Someone over at Bowlie pointed me to this fascinating post at God School.
For a long time I really struggled with understanding American Evangelicalism - how can, for instance, American Christians support the bombing of Lebanese Christians? How can Janet Jackson’s bare breast be more worthy of outrage than the destruction of thousands of lives? What happened to “love thy neighbour”, let alone “love thy enemy and pray for those who persecute you?” How did a theology of triumph win over a theology of sacrifice? Made no sense.
So I went back to my notes from the All Nations courses: anthropology, sociology of religion, folk religion, and it became clear to me. You’re not going to like this, but I’ve come to believe it’s true: The situation only makes sense if you consider a separate entity called “American Christianity” which is an entirely separate religion to Christianity. Not a branch of Christianity, not a form of Christianity, but something with absolutely no connection to Christianity at all. It’s a separate religion. And what is the goal of this religion?
“They said, ‘You’re not doing what the church is supposed to be doing, which is supporting the Republican way.’”
Go for it; look at it phenomenologically, look at it sociologically, and what do you see? Basically a syncretic folk religion, based primarily on American nationalism, an expression of the “pervasive religious dimension of American political life”. (Bellah; see also “Civil Religion in America”) Its purposes are basically civil and political. Its morality is taken from a highly selective and individualistic reading of the Old Testament, and it mixes in bits of consumerism, Zionism, Republican political values, and corporatism for good measure. Add to this an almost romantic sentimentality concerning the person of Jesus, much like the contribution of Catholicism to Vodou religions, and suddenly it all makes sense.
I think he’s on to something.
This really deserves to annoy many more people than it has.
October 31st, 2006 at 2:34 am
Would this make a 12-step program, such as Alcoholics Anonymous, a syncretic folk religion — or is it something else?
October 31st, 2006 at 7:13 am
“It’s called snake oil, y’awl
it’s been around for a long long time”
–Steve Earle
He also says “My friends moved to Nashville in the mistaken belief their kids would be safer from Baptists than from gangs.”
Check out Andrew Sullivan at Daily Dish if you haven’t already
http://time.blogs.com/daily_dish/
He blogs about and is trying to take back Christianity from the Christianists.
October 31st, 2006 at 8:17 am
“Would this make a 12-step program, such as Alcoholics Anonymous, a syncretic folk religion…?
No, because the AA 12-step has a point.
October 31st, 2006 at 11:25 pm
Jim Wallis (God’s Politics author) gives a good illustration of this kind of blending of Christian language and American nationalistic thnking:
“Getting the Words Wrong
President Bush uses religious language more than any president in U.S. history, and some of his key speechwriters come right out of the evangelical community. Sometimes he draws on biblical language, other times old gospel hymns that cause deep resonance among the faithful in his own electoral base. The problem is that the quotes from the Bible and hymnals are too often either taken out of context or, worse yet, employed in ways quite different from their original meaning.
For example, in the 2003 State of the Union, the president evoked an easily recognized and quite famous line from an old gospel hymn. Speaking of America’s deepest problems, Bush said, “The need is great. Yet there’s power, wonder-working power, in the goodness and idealism and faith of the American people.” But that’s not what the song is about. The hymn says there is “power, power, wonder-working power in the blood of the Lamb” (emphasis added). The hymn is about the power of Christ in salvation, not the power of “the American people,” or any people, or any country. Bush’s citation was a complete misuse.
On the first anniversary of the 2001 terrorist attacks, President Bush said at Ellis Island, “This ideal of America is the hope of all mankind…. That hope still lights our way. And the light shines in the darkness. And the darkness has not overcome it.” Those last two sentences are straight out of John’s gospel. But in the gospel the light shining in the darkness is the Word of God, and the light is the light of Christ. It’s not about America and its values. Even his favorite hymn, “A Charge to Keep,” speaks of that charge as “a God to glorify”—not to “do everything we can to protect the American homeland,” as Bush has named our charge to keep.
Bush seems to make this mistake over and over again—confusing nation, church, and God. The resulting theology is more American civil religion than Christian faith.”
The full article appears on the Sorjourner’s website (www.sojo.net/)
November 1st, 2006 at 12:41 am
The issue in the Israel-Hezbollah war had two issues that are fairly unique to American evangelicals; their philosemitism and their distrust of non-evangelical forms of Christianity.
A good hunk of evangelical thought is pro-Israel, part of being geopolitical, part of it being humanitarian after the Nazis, and part being premillenialism, wanting to be in the good side of the good guys of the end times.
There is also an anti-Arab streak, due to most Arab’s anti-Israeli and Islamic nature. The Lebanese Christians are primarily Marionite Catholic, which won’t endear them to evangelicals; a stereotypical evangelical would refer to them as nominal Christians, with a high sneer factor attached to nominal. When you add the Marionites siding with their fellow Arab Shia militiamen in the fight, it makes American evangelicals even less friendly towards them.
The stereotypucal American evangelical would look upon Israel more highly than the Marionites getting bombed, since the Marionites would be siding with their geopolitical enimies and be of questionable Christian-ness.
November 2nd, 2006 at 8:45 am
Whoa. Good comment. Seriously. Facts and stuff. Whoa.
Seriously, though, doesn’t the dismissal of the Marionites as “nominals” back up the God School Guy’s thesis?
November 5th, 2006 at 12:37 am
In defence of American Christians, I disagree with the God School poster’s idea that people of a particular religious outlook should always side with their co-religionists in world disputes. Put another way, why should Maronites be able to say “But we’re Christians! Stop bombing us!”? Anyway, I don’t think the Israelis were bombing the Maronites that much, as members of that Lebanese community traditionally do not have much hostility to Israel.
That said, the idea that American Christianity is different from Actual Christianity maybe has something going for it, though you have to remember that many hardcore Protestants do not consider Catholics (and their associates, e.g. the Maronites) as actually being Christian at all. This may be one reason why American Christians have so little interest in the plight of Palestinian Christians, as these tend to be either Catholics, Catholic off-shoots, Orthodox, or Episcopalian.