American Religious History

American Religious History

Both Laurence Moore's book Touchdown Jesus. The Mixing of Sacred and Secular in American History and the collection of texts in the book entitled Major Problems in American Religious History: Documents and Essays, edited by Patrick Allitt, focus on the same subject: the multicultural environment created both by the colonization of the Americas and by the present day immigration on the United States territory, and the religious problems that the multicultural mix-up creates. Moreover, the texts under discussion note the recurrent clashes that take place between the democratic political system and the religious doctrines and beliefs. The authors interpret these problems slightly different, but their commentaries share a common point-of-view, which they subsequently demonstrate: colonization of the Americas brought not only political dominance, but religious dominance as well. The colonizers started from the premise that the Natives they were colonizing had a primitive religion and a primitive view on life, and thus missionary actions spread more and more, out of "benevolence" towards the Natives.

The most important issue that the books tackle is, however that this religious missionary process started upon the American land for the sake of the Natives, was further continued in time and is now extended outside the territory of the United States, to the Arabic Muslim cultures especially.

The spiritual colonization continues both inside and outside the boundaries of the United States. Thus, the texts discussed reveal the problem of Americanization and the way the American policy and its political power affect the cultural and religious relations between the different peoples.

The territory of America has been identified ever since its discovery as the "promised land" or as "the city upon the hill" -both terms bearing obvious religious connotations- and this view was preserved in time up to the present.

Among the authors, Laurence Moore especially emphasizes the way in which America has preserved its status as the chosen, virtuous nation that has to set an example for the other nations of the world. It is on the American land that the clashes between the different religious creeds appears most poignantly, and the United States today policy resembles the colonization process of the past, as it becomes evident, for instance in the case of the conflict between America and the Muslims.

The United States views the Muslim religion as a primitive religion, just as the European colonizers viewed the Native Americans in the beginning:

For much of the nineteenth century American Christians had depicted Islam as a primitive religion. [...] Today, Muslims from Arab countries as well as from Asia and Africa are often viewed suspiciously as the 'new Catholics', a group where religious traditions do not align easily with the American separation of the church and the state." (Moore 2003, 111)

In the fragment above, excerpted from Immigrant Religion and the Right to Be Different, Moore discusses the major problem that the American culture poses: the very basis of Americanism is of a secular nature. The Constitution itself can be seen as a "godless text," as Moore observes, since it emphasizes the free will of the people, and the importance of human rights, while excluding the divine will.

However, Moore notes that initially the text of the Constitution was premised on a religion notion: human will was positive because it was based on the virtue of the American people. In spite of this, the clash between the secular and the religious from the American point-of-view still holds. The democracy advocated by the United States opposes the European Catholic views or the Muslim views.

Both European Christianity and Islamic religion view life in the strict sense of the spiritual doctrines. Religion is a way of life, and this is why the clash between the American culture and the other cultures appears. As Moore notes, while Catholicism, for example is held as a common doctrine on the European continent, the utter division of the Catholic cults belonging to different nationalities on the territory of the United States, is a telling of the effect that Americanism has on the other civilizations:

Catholicism in the United States at the beginning of the twentieth century was any thing but a universal church. During the nineteenth century the Vatican engineered a remarkably successful campaign to regularize Catholic worship in all countries. The Latin Mass followed the same form everywhere. But the American Catholicism remained a system of ethnic parishes with distinct customs." (Moore 2003, 114)

Moore analyzes in turn the most important religions and the form in which they are kept on the territory of the United States, and observes the split existent between Italian, Hispanic, Irish or Polish Catholicism, emphasizing the fact that this division occurs because these different cultures feel the need to maintain their identity within the United States:

The Irish in America wear the green on St. Patrick's Day. French Catholics look upon Mardi Gras in New Orleans as their specific contribution to American culture. Polish Catholics differentiate themselves from the other American Catholics by their devotion to the Black Madonna of Czestochowa." (Moore 2003, 115)

Another reason for the split, connected with the one just mentioned, is the fact that the Americans fail to integrate the immigrant communities, which are most often regarded with suspicion. This is even more obvious in the context of the aftermath of the terrorist events that took place on the 11th of September 2001.

The point that Moore makes is a pertinent one: he sees the American policy as a strategy for expansion, dominance and assertion of influence, a fact which threatens the identity of the immigrant minorities in the Unite States.

In his other text, excerpted from the same book, Moore looks specifically at the way in which America sees its mission to be that of a modern colonizer. The purposes of evangelizing the world have been overtly stated many times:

Early in the twentieth century foreign mission groups in the United States were outspreading those in all other nations. Arguably, the United States became the major missionary power in the world faster than it achieved dominance in any other area. Inevitably, links developed between twentieth century Protestant missionary work and diplomatic goals to establish American style democracy abroad. Efforts to Christianize the world and to Americanize the world, became joint endeavors."(Moore 2003, 169)

Thus, in this text, Moore further develops his argument about the expansionist tendency of American in both secular and spiritual ways.

In his essay, Muslim Adaptation in America, John O. Voll addresses the same problems as Moore, but in a more restrictive context. He discusses the conditions and the problems of adaptation and integration that the immigrant Muslims face in the United States. He too argues that the problems arise from the clash between the essentially different American and Islamic cultures, but he interprets this clash as being the result of these particular differences, which are impossible to reconcile:

The Islamic issues facing Muslims in the United States are shaped by the basic nature of Islam. The worldview and guidance for behavior provided by Islam contain specific elements as well as general approaches that are specifically affected by the nature of American society." (Allitt 1999, 453)

Voll, as well as Moore identifies the conflict between the Islamic and the American cultures as arising from the secularization specific to the United States. However, Voll is more objective in his commentary and sees this conflict as an unavoidable one, since it springs from the essential characteristics of each society.