History Department

History/Religion 345 – RELIGION IN AMERICA – August 24, 2005  

Religion?  America?  

I.                    PLEASE NOTE:  THERE WILL BE A HANDOUT FOR ALMOST EVERY CLASS.  THE HANDOUT CAN BE FOUND ON OUR CLASS WEBSITE.  Please download the handout BEFORE CLASS and bring it to class.  

II.                 Syllabus.  

III.               AMERICA?

 

Defining America.  

1.  John Winthrop, “A Model of Christian Charity” (1630)  

For we must consider that we shall be as a City upon a hill.  The eyes of all people are upon us.  So that if we shall deal falsely with our God in this work we have undertaken, and so cause him to withdraw his present help from us, we shall be made a story and a by-word through the world.  We shall open the mouths of enemies to speak evil of the ways of God and all professors for God’s sake.  We shall shame the faces of many of God’s worthy servants, and cause their prayers to be turned into curses upon us till we be consumed out of the good land wither we are a-going.

 

2. J. Hector St. John de Crèvecoeur, “Letters from an American Farmer,”  Letter 3, (1782)  

So what is this American, this new person? … A person with a strange mix of blood, which you will find nowhere else in the world.  I could easily point out to you a family whose grandfather was English, whose grandmother was Dutch, whose son married a French woman, and whose four sons have wives from four different countries.  Who then is an American?  An American is someone who leaves behind everything, ancient fears and prejudices and customs, and embraces a whole new life, a whole new society, a whole new set of laws, and a whole new rank, that of free citizen … Here, in American, people from all of the world are molded into a whole new race, and their labors will one day cause great changes in the world.  These Americans are like westward pilgrims, carrying along with them to a new world the arts and sciences, and some of the vigor and industry which began back in the old world … Once they were scattered all over the world, but here they become united into a new society … Americans, therefore, ought to love this new country much more than their ancestors loved their old countries, for here, people are free to enjoy the fruits of the labor, here, each can follow his or her own self-interest … This, our American, is  a wholly new sort of person, with new ideas and new values, all fit for a new world.  

 

3. Abigail Adams, “Letter to John Adams,” March 31, 1776   

[Written to her husband, John Adams, who was attending the Second Continental Congress in Philadelphia, the Congress which would write the Declaration of Independence.]  

I long to hear that you have declared an independency.  And by the way, in the new code of laws which I suppose it will be necessary for you to make, I desire that you would remember the ladies and be more generous and favorable to them than your ancestors.  Do not put such unlimited power into the hands of the husbands.  Remember all men would be tyrants if they could.  If particular care and attention is not paid to the ladies, we are determined to foment a revolution, and will not hold ourselves bound by any laws in which we have no voice or representation.

                That your sex are naturally tyrannical is a truth so thoroughly established as to admit of no dispute, but such of you as wish to be happy willingly give up the harsh title of master for the more tender and endearing one of friend.  Why then not put it out of the power of the vicious and the lawless to use us with cruelty and indignity with impunity?  Men of sense in all ages abhor those customs which treat us only as the vassals of your sex.  Regard us then as beings placed by providence under your protection, and in imitation of the Supreme Being make use of that power only for our happiness.  

 

4. John Adams, “Defense of the Constitutions of the United States,” Preface, (1787)  

The United States of America have exhibited, perhaps, the first example of governments erected on the simple principles of nature.  And if men are now sufficiently enlightened to disabuse themselves of artifice, imposture, hypocrisy, and superstition, they will consider this event as an era in their history.  Although the detail of the formation of the American governments is at present little known or regarded either in Europe or in America, it may hereafter become an object of curiosity.  It will never be pretended that any persons employed in that service had interviews with the gods, or were in any degree under the inspiration of Heaven, more than those at work upon ships or houses, or laboring in merchandise or agriculture.  It will forever be acknowledged that these governments were contrived merely by the use of reason and the senses … Unembarrassed by attachments to noble families, hereditary lines and successions, or any considerations of royal blood, even the pious mystery of holy oil had no more influence than that other one of holy water.  The people were universally too enlightened to be imposed on by artifice.  And their leaders, or more properly their followers, were men of too much honor to attempt it.  Thirteen governments thus founded on the natural authority of the people alone … are [now] a great point gained in favor of the rights of mankind. The experiment was made and has … succeeded.  

5. Thomas Jefferson, “I Knew General Washington” from Letter to Walter Jones, January 2, 1814  

I think I knew General Washington intimately and thoroughly, and were I called on to delineate his character,  it would be in terms like these:

                His mind was great and powerful, without being of the very first order.  His penetration strong, though not so acute as that of a Newton, Bacon, or Locke … No judgment was ever sounder.  It was slow in operation … but sure in conclusion … Certainly no general ever planned his battles more judiciously.  But if deranged during the course of action … he was slow in readjustment.  The consequence was that he often failed in the field … He was incapable of fear, meeting personal dangers with the calmest unconcern. Perhaps the strongest feature in his character was prudence, never acting until every circumstance, every consideration, was maturely weighed, refraining if he saw a doubt, but when once decided, going through with his purpose whatever obstacles opposed.  His integrity was most pure, his justice the most inflexible I have ever known, no motives of interest or consanguinity, of friendship or hatred, being able to bias his decision.  He was, indeed, in every sense … a wise, a good, and a great man.

                His temper was naturally high toned, but reflection and resolution had obtained a firm and habitual ascendancy over it.  If ever, however, it broke its bonds, he was most tremendous in his wrath.  In his expenses he was honorable, but exact … His heart was not warm in its affections, but he exactly calculated very man’s value and gave him a solid esteem proportioned to it. 

                His person … was fine, his stature exactly what one would wish, his deportment easy, erect, and noble.  [He was] the best horseman of his age, and the most graceful figure that could be seen on horseback.  Although in the circle of his friends, where he could be unreserved with safety, he took a free share in conversation, his colloquial talents were not above mediocrity, possessing neither copiousness of ideas nor fluency of words.  In public, when called on for a sudden opinion, he was unready, short, and embarrassed.  Yet he wrote readily, rather diffusely, in an easy and correct style … His time was employed in action chiefly, reading little, and that only in agriculture and English history …

                On the whole, his character was, in the mass, perfect, in nothing bad, in few points indifferent.  And it may truly be said that never did nature and fortune combine more perfectly to make a man great and to place him in the same constellation with whatever worthies have merited from man an everlasting remembrance.  For his was the singular destiny and merit, of leading the armies of his country successfully through an arduous war, for the establishment of its independence; of conducting its councils through the birth of a government, new in its forms and principles, until it had settled down into a quiet and orderly train; and of scrupulously obeying the laws through the whole of his career, civil and military, of which the history of the world furnishes no other example …

                He often declared to me that he considered our new constitution as an experiment on the practicality of republican government, and with what

dose of liberty man could be trusted for his own good, and that he was determined the experiment should have a fair trial, and would lose the last drop of his blood in support of it … I felt, on his death, with my countrymen, that “verily a great man hath fallen this day in Israel.”  

 

6. Alexis de Tocqueville, “The Russians and the Americans” in Democracy in America, Volume I (1835)  

There are at the present time two great nations in the world, which started from different points, but seem to tend towards the same end.  I allude to the Russians and the Americans.  Both of them have grown up unnoticed, and while people’s attention was directed elsewhere, they have suddenly surged to the front rank of the world’s nations …

                All other nations seem to have reached the limits of their growth … but these two are still growing … The American struggles against nature; the Russian struggles against other nations. The American battles the wilderness; Russians fight against other civilizations.  Americans will win with the plough; the Russians with the sword.  The American stresses personal self-interest, and gives free scope to the interests and common sense of the people.  The Russian focuses all power and authority in the state.  The chief instrument of the American is freedom; of the Russian, servitude.  Their starting points are different, and their courses will not be the same, yet each of them seems marked out by Heaven to sway the destinies of half the globe.

 

7. Alexis de Tocqueville, “Why are the Americans are so Restless?” from Democracy in America, Volume II (1840)  

                Americans cling to possessions as if they think they’ll never die. They snatch at everything within reach, as if they’re afraid that somehow they’ll never have enough.  Americans snatch at everything, but hold nothing, and they immediately drop this so that they can snatch at that.

                In the United States, you build a house where you think you’ll spend your old age, and then you sell it before you get the roof on.  You plant a garden, and rent it out to someone else just as the fruit trees bloom.  You plant a field, but then decide to move on and let someone else harvest it.  You begin a job today and quit tomorrow, you settle down here and move the next day.  If your private life leaves you any extra time, you plunge into politics, and if you take a vacation, of course you don’t rest but you set off instead on some trek around the country … it’s as if happiness is always somewhere else, just around the corner, beyond the next mountain, and you constantly have to set off after it …

                Why are so many happy people so restless, all the time?

                A kind of materialism is one explanation … If you’ve set your heart on the pleasures of the world, well, there is only so much time to enjoy them, so you grab as much and as many as you can.  Life is short, you try to have as much as you can.  No one thing satisfies entirely, of course, so you’re always off in search of that perfect thing which will finally satisfy your hunger …

                Add to this the fact that, unlike in France, there are no laws to keep people in one place, then people looking for happiness will constantly be on the move …

                Add to this American materialism a kind of equality, and you have another explanation for this curious restlessness.  Americans have abolished special privileges which come with aristocratic birth; they insist that all professions should be open to everyone … The problem, here, though, is that yes, they have abolished most privileges, but now each one faces competition from everyone else, and this constant struggle of each against all exhausts everyone.         

8. Chief Seattle, “The White Man will never be alone” (1853)  

[In 1853, the U.S. government organized the Washington Territory in the far northwest.  It would eventually become Washington State.  The territorial governor held a conference with Indian leaders and urged them to accept a treaty with the white people’s government. The treaty called for the Indian people to sell most of their land to the whites, and move onto reservations.  This is the response of one of the Indian leaders, known as Chief Seattle.]  

                Day and night cannot live together.  As the White man advanced, the Red man fled before him, as night flees the day.  But now where shall we flee? … it matters little where we pass the rest of our days. There will not be many more days for us. The Indians’ night will be very dark. Not a single star of hope will be in their sky.  Sad winds will moan in their night.  Fate seems to be hunting the Indian people down, and wherever they go they will hear the footsteps of their doom and they must face their doom bravely, the way a wounded animal must finally turn and face its hunter.

                There will be a few more moons, a few more winters, and then not one of the descendants of the mighty tribes that once moved over this land protected by the Great Spirit, will remain.  There will be no one to mourn over the graves of our people … Perhaps it is the way of nature, tribe follows tribe, nation follows nation, and regret is useless.  Our time to die has come.  Your time will come too … In this sense, we may be brothers and sisters after all …

                We will think over your proposition, and let you know. If we accept it, I insist here and now that we must retain the right to visit, whenever we want to, the tombs of our ancestors, friends, and children. Every part of this soil, every hillside, every valley, every plain, is sacred to my people.  Every grove, every spring, has been made sacred by some happy or sad event from long ago.  Even rocks … possess some secret memory of my people …

                One day, when the last of the Indian people have finally perished, and when our memory has become no more than a kind of myth among you, then, in that day, these shores will swarm with the invisible dead of the Indian nation, and when your childrens’ children think they are alone in the fields, or the stores, or in their shops, or on their highways, or in the woods, when they think themselves alone, they will not be alone.  At night, when the streets of your cities and villages are silent and you think them empty, they will be filled with  the ghosts of my people who once lived here and loved this land.  The White Man will never be alone. 

 9.  Emma Lazarus, “The New Colossus” (1883)  

[In 1883, this short poem was carved on the base of the newly erected Statue of Liberty in New York harbor, a gift from the people of France to the people of the United States].  

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,

With conquering limbs astride from land to land;

Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand

A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame

Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name

Mother of Exiles.  From her beacon-hand

Glows the world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command

The air-bridged harbor that twice cities frame.

“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she

With silent lips.  “Give me your tired, your poor,

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me:

I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”  

 

10. Langston Hughes, “Daybreak in Alabama” (1940)  

When I get to be a composer

I’m gonna write me some music about

Daybreak in Alabama.

And I’m gonna put the purtiest songs in it

Rising out of the ground like a swamp mist

And falling out of heaven like soft dew.

I’m gonna put some tall tall trees in it

And the scent of pine needles

And the smell of red clay after rain

And long red necks

And poppy colored faces

And big brown arms

And the field daisy eyes

Of black and white black white black people

And I’m gonna put white hands

And black hands and brown and yellow hands

And red clay earth hands in it

Touching everybody with kind fingers

And touching each other natural as dew

In that dawn of music when I

Get to be a composer

And write about daybreak

In Alabama.  

 

11.  Franklin Roosevelt, “Four Freedoms” from Message to Congress (1941)  

[In 1941,while World War II raged in Europe and Asia, but  almost a year before the U.S. became involved in the war, President Franklin Roosevelt sent this message to congress].  

In the future days, which we seek to make secure, we look forward to a world founded upon four essential human freedoms.

The first is freedom of speech and expression—everywhere in the world.

The second is freedom of every person to worship God in his own way—everywhere in the world.

The third is freedom from want—which, translated into world terms, means economic understandings which will secure to every nation a healthy peacetime life for its inhabitants—everywhere in the world.

The fourth is freedom from fear—which, translated into world terms, means a world-wide reduction in armaments to such a point and in such a thorough fashion that no nation will be in a position to commit an act of physical aggression against any neighbor—anywhere in the world.

That is no vision of a distant millennium.  It is a definite basis for a kind of world attainable in our own time and generation.  That kind of world is the very antithesis of the so-called new order of tyranny which the dictators seek to create with the crash of a bomb.

To that new order we oppose the greater conception—the moral order.  A good society is able to face schemes of world domination and foreign revolutions alike without fear.

Since the beginning of our American history, we have been engaged in change—in a perpetual revolution—a revolution which goes on steadily, quietly, adjusting itself to changing conditions—without the concentration camp or the quick-lime in the ditch. The world order which we seek is the cooperation of free countries, working together in a friendly, civilized society.

This nation has placed its destiny in the hands and heads and hearts of its millions of free men and women; and its faith in freedom under the guidance of God.  Freedom means the supremacy of human rights everywhere. Our support goes to those who struggle to gain those rights or keep them. Our strength is our unity of purpose.

To that high concept there can be no end save victory.  

12.  Martin Luther King, Jr., “I Have a Dream” (1963)   

                So I say to you my friends, that even though we must face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream.  It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream, that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed—we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.

                I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, sons of former slaves and sons of former slave-owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.

                I have a dream that one day, even the state of Mississippi … will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.

                I have a dream [that] my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.  I have a dream today!

                I have a dream that one day, down in Alabama … little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.  I have a dream today! …

                This is our hope.  This is the faith that I go back to the South with …

                With this faith we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.  This will be the day when all of God’s children will be able to sing with new meaning—“my country ‘tis of thee, sweet land of liberty; of thee I sing; land where my fathers died; land of the pilgrims’ pride; from every mountain side, let freedom ring”—and if America is to be a great nation, this must become true.

                So let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire.

                Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York.

                Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania.

                Let freedom ring from the snow-capped Rockies of Colorado.

                Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California.

                But not only that.

                Let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia.

                Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee.

                Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi, from every mountainside, let freedom ring.

                And when we allow freedom to ring, when we let it ring from every village and hamlet, from every state and city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children—black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Catholics and Protestants—will be able to join hands and to sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, “Free at last, free at last, thank God Almighty, we are free at last.”

 

IV.              RELIGION?  

Defining Religion  

We all know what religion is – or do we?  

Please RANK the following statements from 1 – 13, indicating how YOU would define the term “religion” (“1” = this is your top definition;  “13” = of all the definitions, this is your least favorite).  

_____1.  “Religion” is a collection of statements of belief (“creeds”); believers accept these statements of belief as “true.”  

_____2.  “Religion” is a set of moral principles (“code”) which guide our behavior;  believers try to live up to that code.  

_____3.  “Religion” refers to a way of encountering the sacred (“cult”); religion is about prayer and worship.  

_____4.  “Religion” refers to people who worship together, share each others joys and sorrows, and try to live more or less in accord with each other (“community”).  

_____5.  “Religion” refers to certain images and ideas which, for believers, function as “portals” to the sacred” (“symbols”).  

_____6.  “Religion” refers to certain actions – prayer, worship services, revivals, sacraments – which for believers function as “portals” to the sacred (“ritual”).   

_____7.  “Religion” is a lot like science; it provides pretty precise claims, which either are or are not true, about the way “reality is.”  

_____8.  “Religion” is a lot like poetry;  it provides a host of symbols and stories that tell us, in an open-ended way that can be interpreted differently by different people, what “reality is like.”  

_____9.  “Religion” is about boundaries, that is, religion helps us navigate those scary moments in human life, such as birth, adolescence, adulthood, and death.  Religion provides symbols to tell us what these moments are like, and rituals to help us get through these moments.  Thus, religion helps “orient” us in our lives.   

_____10.  “Religion” deals primarily with “extraordinary” events – angels, demons, miracles, etc.  

_____11.  “Religion” deals primarily with “ordinary” events – how we live day to day, how we relate to friends and neighbors, etc.   

_____12.  “Religion” deals with meanings not depths, that is, religion is mostly about objective, external, and explicit claims about the world.  

_____13.  “Religion” is deals with depths more than meanings, that is, religion does not so much tell us facts about reality as it plunges us into mystery and the superhuman.