XPost: soc.culture.usa, soc.history, alt.religion
From: hayesstw@telkomsa.net

How corporate America invented ‘Christian America’ to fight the New
Deal

By Ron Briley | 23 March 2016
History News Network

President Richard Nixon and the evangelist Billy Graham, 1970.
(Photo: Bettmann / Corbis)
President Richard Nixon and the evangelist Billy Graham, 1970. (Photo:
Bettmann / Corbis)
The 2016 annual meeting for the Organization of American Historians
(OAH) will feature a session focusing upon the provocative book One
Nation Under God by Princeton history professor Keven M. Kruse. In One
Nation Under God, Kruse argues that the idea of the United States as a Christian nation does not find its origins with the founding of the
United States or the writing of the Constitution. Rather, the notion
of America as specifically consecrated by God to be a beacon for
liberty was the work of corporate and religious figures opposed to New
Deal statism and interference with free enterprise. The political
conflict found in this concept of Christian libertarianism was
modified by President Dwight Eisenhower who advocated a more civic
religion of “one nation under God” to which both liberals and
conservatives might subscribe.

Kruse concludes that with the polarization of America in the 1960s
over such issues such as school prayer and the war in Vietnam,
politicians such as Richard Nixon abandoned the more inclusive civic
religion of the Eisenhower era. Kruse writes that by the 1970s “the
rhetoric of ‘one nation under God’ no longer brought Americans
together; it only reminded them how divided they had become” (274).
Arguing that public religion is a modern invention that has little to
do with America’s origins, Kruse maintains that contemporary political discourse needs to better recognize the political ideology being
perpetuated by the advocates of America as a Christian nation.
Needless to say, Kruse’s arguments will antagonize many on the
Christian right, as well as many on the left who have employed
Christianity as the means through which to implement principles of
equality and opportunity as extolled by Jesus of Nazareth, the
working-class carpenter.

Drawing upon extensive archival research, the first part of Kruse’s
book documents the alliance between religious leaders such as
Congregationalist minister James W. Fifield Jr. and businessman J.
Howard Pew Jr., president of Sun Oil and a major figure with the
National Association of Manufacturers. Working out of his affluent Los
Angeles community and congregation, Fifield formed a national
organization called Spiritual Mobilization that attracted the support
of big business while embracing unfettered capitalist traditions
threatened by Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal policies. The fertile
ground plowed by Spiritual Mobilization and Fifield prepared the way
for the influential prayer breakfasts of Methodist minister Abraham
Vereide and the crusades of evangelist Billy Graham. While the
insecurities of the Cold War contributed to the growth of postwar
religious fervor, Kruse insists that the prayer movement and Graham “effectively harnessed Cold War anxieties for an already established
campaign against the New Deal” (36).

The prayers of the Christian libertarians were answered with the
ascendancy of Dwight Eisenhower to the Presidency. While Graham was
given a cold shoulder by Harry Truman, the evangelist was welcomed to
the White House by Eisenhower, who also supported the prayer breakfast
movement bringing together Congressional leaders and members of the
business community. While he lacked allegiance to any specific
denomination, Eisenhower was a devout Christian who opened cabinet
meetings with prayer. Kruse argues that the President endorsed a
rather general sense of Christian principles that would unite the
nation under a common understanding of its religious heritage. Thus,
Eisenhower supported Congressional legislation that added the phrase
“under God” to the Pledge of Allegiance while also embracing “In God
We Trust” as the nation’s official motto that was included on the nation’s money supply. The Eisenhower administration also endorsed the National Association of Evangelicals call for a July 4, 1953 March of
Freedom declaring that the American government was based upon Biblical principles. The concept of “One Nation Under God” was also championed
in the popular culture by the creation of Disneyland and Cecil B.
DeMille’s film epic The Ten Commandments (1956), while the National
Council for Advertising championed Madison Avenue techniques that
would bring the concept of God and free enterprise to all Americans on
the local level.



Eisenhower’s rather vague notion of a Christian America, however, did
not quite coincide with the ideology of Christian libertarianism.
Instead, Kruse suggests that actions such as adding “under God” to the pledge were examples of ceremonial Deism; establishing the idea that
the First Amendment mandated the separation of church and state but
not the separation of religion and politics. Thus, general support for
the sacred was acceptable, but not active government intervention that
might advance a particular sect. In addition, Eisenhower did not move
to dismantle the New Deal; accepting programs such as Social Security
and expanding government activity with legislation such as the
Interstate Highway Act. Kruse, writes, “Unlike Christian libertarians,
who had long presented God and government as rivals, Eisenhower had
managed to merge the two into a wholesome ‘government under God.’ In
doing so, he ironically undercut the key segment of many of his
earlier backers, making their old claims about the ‘pagan’ origins of statism seems suddenly obsolete” (87). Here, Kruse seems to imply
Eisenhower had inadvertently sanctified the state and government.
Therefore, to criticize the government was both anti-patriotic and anti-religious. This is a fascinating argument, with considerable
implications for contemporary politics, but Kruse fails to tease out
this idea before moving on to other issues.

Kruse maintains that the religious unity sought by Eisenhower was
challenged in the late 1950s and the 1960s as various faiths worried
that state advocacy of religion might trample on traditional beliefs
and practices. One of the most contentious issues was school-mandated
prayer which was deemed unconstitutional in the Engel v. Vitale (1962) decision. Nevertheless, in his majority opinion, Justice Hugo Black
insisted that ceremonial Deism, such as prayer before Congressional
sessions, chaplains in the military, and “under God” in the pledge,
was protected. To the surprise of many church members, a number of
religious leaders and the National Council of Churches came to support
the prayer decision as a means through which to protect religious
traditions from state interference. This approach, however, led to
considerable division between leadership and laity; undermining the
concept of “one nation under God.”

Seeking to mount a conservative movement against the religious
establishment, evangelists such as Billy Graham joined forces with the administration of Richard Nixon to promote a religious perspective
that would divide rather than unify Americans. Holding White House
religious services officiated by leading evangelical ministers and
sponsoring events such as the 1970 Fourth of July “Honor America Day,” featuring a religious service at the Lincoln Memorial led by Graham,
Nixon attempted to employ religious nationalism as a means through
which to brand those opposing his administration or the war in Vietnam
as attacks upon American Christian values. Although Kruse includes an
epilogue offering an overview of religion and American politics from
the 1980s to the Obama Presidency, he assigns Nixon, rather than
Ronald Reagan, primary responsibility for using religion to divide
rather than bring Americans together.

One Nation under God is a provocative piece of historical scholarship
that will be sure to engender considerable debate at the OAH. It is a
work that will antagonize those on the political right who perceive
American exceptionalism as a gift from God bestowed upon the framers
of the Constitution, while those who embrace the opposing tradition of
the social gospel and Christian socialism may also take offense.
Religion has played an important role in American history, and some
critics will make the case that Kruse downplays the role of the sacred
in American life. However, Kruse makes a major scholarly contribution
in his examination of how ministers cooperated with big business to
formulate an ideology that the New Deal was a threat to traditional
American Christian values of free enterprise and individualism while
promoting the false pagan deity of statism. As Kruse moves into a
discussions of ceremonial Deism with the Eisenhower administration and consideration of how Nixon employed religion to divide rather than
unify, Kruse’s thesis regarding the role assigned to corporate America
in creating a Christian America becomes somewhat lost, and this
ambitious study may take on too much by attempting to survey the
relationship between American politics and religion from the New Deal
to the modern age.

Ron Briley is faculty emeritus at Sandia Preparatory School.

The roots of ‘Christian America’ can be found in corporate America – Prof. Kevin M. Kruze

Source: https://t.co/8fqXQ17fTU?amp=1

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