Realizing Its Destiny How the United States Can Become a Land of Religious Pluralism

The Effects of Early Christian Attitudes and Beliefs -- Positive and Negative -- On the Development and Emergence of Islam in America

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof. – Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, 1789

As the epigraph above makes clear, America’s Founding Fathers embraced religious tolerance to the point they codified it into law. Today, despite political and ideological differences between the United States and many Arab nations, there are about 30 million Moslems in America who enjoy positive relations with others in their communities and their reputation for generosity and compassion is well known. This eventuality was not always a certainty, though, and things could have turned out quite differently, especially given the massive impact that the jihadist terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 had on the national consciousness. To determine how Islam has achieved this outcome, the purpose of this study is to provide a systematic and critical review of the relevant literature concerning the effects of early Christian attitudes and beliefs, both positive and negative, on the development and emergence of Islam in America. To this end, an analysis concerning how race played out in the historical, doctrinal and liturgical of how the different Christian denomination’s respective stances towards Islam is followed by an examination concerning how the complexity the dynamics of these stances have contributed to religious pluralism in America. Finally, the study presents a summary of the literature review and important findings concerning these issues in the conclusion.

How race played out in the historical, doctrinal, and liturgical views of Christian denomination\'s stances toward Islam

Historical. The vast majority of the Founding Fathers were devout Christians, and they shared an early pressing interest in Islam as a result of the Barbary Wars in the early 19th century. In this regard, Guyatt (2016) reports that, “Thousands of African Muslims fell victim to the slave systems of the Caribbean and the southern mainland in the 17th and 18th centuries. For the United States, Islam only became a question of national interest when the merchant vessel Betsey was seized by Moroccan pirates in 1784” (para. 7). In addition, heightened interest in Islam also served as the impetus for the evangelization efforts by American Christian missionaries to the Middle East. For example, according to one historian, “Islam has a long history in America, going back to the earliest days of the country\'s founding” (Williams, 2017, para. 2). Some historians believe that Moslems actually reached North America before Columbus and a few even place the date as long ago as the 10th century (Oren, 2007).

Regardless of the precise timing of the arrival of the first Moslems, things started to pick up pace during America’s colonial period when enslaved African blacks who were Moslem were brought to North America for the first time (Kettani, 2010). Over the course of 400 years, more and more African blacks would be brought to America against their will, many of them dying before they ever reached its shores while those who survived the transit were subjected to a cruel life where they amounted to mere chattel in the eyes of the law. While the U.S. Civil War was fought in part to emanicipate African American slaves, it did not succeed in changing everyone’s minds about the “peculiar institution” of slavery. In fact, the Confederacy was founded on the guiding principle that slavery was the natural condition for Africans and it was foolhardy to try to buck nature.

As the current heated controversy over the teaching of fact-based critical race theory clearly demonstrates, the introduction of enslaved Moslems from Africa would have a lingering but profound effect on the United States and its relations with Islamic countries. In this regard, Williams emphasizes that, “In the past two-plus centuries, Islam and Muslim Americans have been intertwined with American history. That story is not well-known, and while admittedly that\'s in part because the Muslim population of the US has often been quite small, Islam still appears in ways that most Americans might find surprising — particularly, for example, in the history of American slavery and emancipation” (2017, para. 3).

Indeed, the Islamic population in the United States was comparatively small compared to the larger American population, even given the large number of African slaves that were transported to the new republic against their will, but their numbers began to accelerate during the early 20th century and this trend continues to the present day (Kittani, 2010). As noted in the introduction, there are currently about 30 million Moslems living in the United States, many of them second- and third-generation citizens. These individuals subscribe to different Islamic sects but they all share a common heritage and religious background that set them apart from Christian Americans, and it is little wonder that their experiences have included both positive and negative aspects and these issues are discussed below.

Liturgical

As noted above, the majority of the first Moslems in the nascent United States were African slaves who had been converted to Islam (Oren, 2007), and it is not surprising that race was a significant factor in how Moslems were viewed by Christian in the early years of the United States. Nevertheless, and to their credit, the Founding Fathers made sure that even slaves had the constitutional right to worship as they saw fit, at least according to the Bill of Rights and notwithstanding the preferences of their Christian owners. For instance, according to Williams (2017), “The most visible role of Islam in the America of the Founding Fathers was perhaps in the words and actions of the founders themselves, who deliberately sought to include Islam as they established the principles of religious liberty” (para. 4).

There were a number of other actions that were taken by Christian organizations and individuals, including Catholics but most especially various Protestant denominations as well, during the first half of the 19th century that would have lasting racial and even foreign policy implications for the United States in the future. As Oren (2017) points out, “The missionary movement had grown significantly since the early 1820s. Even the modest accomplishments in establishing schoolhouses in Syria could not account for the missionaries’ ability, a mere ten years later, to impact American policy toward the Middle East” (2017, p. 201). Likewise, Christian evangelical organizations also deployed hundreds of zealous missionaries to the Middle East, among other foreign destinations. For example, Bayes (2011) reports that, “Beginning in 1812, Americans steadily venture forth with their version of the gospel of Protestantism and American civilization, first to India, Burma, and Hawaii, then eventually to the Middle East, Africa, and to China, Japan, and Korea in the Far East” (p. 5).

During the latter half of the 19th century, the numbers of American Christian missionaries of various faiths experienced a substantial increase to the point where there were approximately 5,000 serving abroad by the fin de siècle. In addition, many of the major Protestant denominations even went so far as to establishe missionary societies to encourage other congregants to travel abroad in an attempt to convert as many Moslems as possible. This trend was further accelerated by the addition of other mission-specific but nondenominational Protestant organizations that shred the common goal of sharing the Gospel with those of the Islamic faith. As Bayes points out, “The religious impulse to form voluntary associations continued as well, with new nondenominational ‘faith’ missions such as the Christian and Missionary Alliance and the Sudan Interior Mission adding to the growing stream of American Protestants abroad” (p. 5).

During the closing decades of the 19th century, there was also a move by missionaries to not only share the Gospel with Moslems in the Middle East, but to “civilize” them in the same fashion that slaveowners sought to civilize their Islamic slaves by inculcating American values in them as well. This same ethnocentric tendency has always characterized America’s foreign missions abroad, but the inclusion of this objective in the fundamental objectives of faith-based missionaries created some debate as to its appropriateness as well as the reasonability of these expectations at the time. In this regard, Bayes (2011) notes that:

In the decades before about 1870, although the natural tendency was for American Protestants to preach both the evangelical Protestant gospel of individual conversion and regeneration and the secular gospel of American values and institutions, there was some consciousness of the difference between the two, and debate occurred over the appropriateness of expecting the ‘heathen’ to become like Americans. (p. 5)

This issue became a major point of contention for many Protestant missionary societies that either believed it was sufficient that missionaries eventually convert Moslems to Christianity, and no further attempts should be made to indoctrinate them into the “American way of life,” with all of its associated values and democratic principles, or at least to keep such efforts to a miniumum. For example, around 1850, Rufus Anderson, the foreign secretary of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, weighed in on this controversy by making the foregoing argument. In this regard, Bayes (2011) reports that, “Anderson . . . attempted to limit the tasks of cultural transformation attempted by his workers, strongly advocating that after preaching the religious gospel, the missionaries should leave, ensuring the continuity of native culture, with its own (hopefully now Christianized) leaders and features” (p. 5). In addition, Anderson argued that missionaries should even shut the schools they had established as being extraneous to the primary duty of Christian missionaries abroad (Bayes, 2011). Others believed that it was the responsibility of missionaries to bring converts into the American way of life besides bring them the Gospel (Bayes, 2011).

While these faith-based organizations built various important community resources such as medical clinics and schools, their main focus was on converting Moslems to the Christian faith, thereby saving their souls for eternity – from their perspective at least. For instance, an essay by Guyatt (2016) points out that although these early Christian missionaries did not receive a universal welcome in Islamic countries, and many became the victims of sharia law that prohibited attempts to convert Moslems to other faiths, this did not diminish their zeal for making the effort to convert Moslems to the Christian faith. For instance, Guyatt (2016) notes that, “[The series] of US missionaries in the early 19th century abandoned the boosterism of the American Republic for the alien and baffling landscapes of the Middle East. Seeking souls in the broad expanse of the Ottoman Empire, skipping from Anatolia to Cairo to Jerusalem, these men married an intense study of Islam with a fervent hope that the peoples of the region could be brought to Christ” (para. 5).

Furthermore, many of these early faith-based missionaries to the Middle East were also highly influential individuals in powerful political circles back home in the United States, and they enjoyed the widespread support of many lawmakers and American citizens alike (Oren, 2017). Given this level of social and political influence, it is not surprising that there were some significant effects of Islam in American on religious and political doctrine as discussed further below.

Doctrinal

Despite their individual Christian-based beliefs, the Founding Fathers made it clear early on that Islam should be included in the new republic’s doctrinal views about religion. For example, the head of the U.S. Library of Congress’s Manuscript Division points out that, “The Founders of this nation explicitly included Islam in their vision of the future of the republic. Freedom of religion, as they conceived it, encompassed it” (as cited in Williams, 2017, para. 5). Likewise, another Founder, Thomas Jefferson, who compiled his own unique version of the New Testament which is still in use today, also owned a copy of the Koran and made his views about Islam in America abundantly clear. In this regard, during a campaign in Virginia for religious freedom in the new republic, Jefferson called for the “recognition of the religious rights of the \'Mahamdan,\' the Jew and the \'pagan\'\" (as cited in Williams, 2017, para. 5).

Although the sentiment primarily existed in the Old South during the early years of the republic, the view that white Americans were doing African slaves who were Moslems a real favor by “civilizing them” and forcibly converting them to Christianity to save their souls, even if it meant a lifetime of harsh servitude in this world. Indeed, this spurious argument was used time and again to rationalize the enslavement of human beings in the Land of the Free. It was this overarching doctrine that characterized much of the relations between mainstream Americans and Islam, tolerating it on the one hand but with many committed to converting Moslems to Christianity at every turn possible on the other. Taken together, it is apparent that the effects of early Christian positive and negative attitudes and beliefs had major impact on the development and emergence of Islamin America, but it is also clear that the high stakes dynamics that were involved affected the extent to which religious pluralism became a reality in the United States and these issues are discussed below.

The complexity the dynamics of these stances have made religious pluralism in America

The vast majority of Americans have always cherished their First Amendment rights above all others, and the right to worship as people see fit is sacrosanct in the American canon. Hate and prejudice, though, are not against the law and it is impossible to force Americans to accept or even tolerate those of other faiths. Therefore, while most Americans may believe in religious plularism which is codified in the U.S. Constitution, enforcing this state of affairs is not possible, but is only a visionary eventuality. Certainly, religious plularism exists in the United States at the formal constitutional level, but the day-to-day realities of xenophobia and the increased prevalence of religious-based hate crimes is clear evidence that it is not a reality in fact.

On the one hand, the United States is truly a land of religious diversity as shown in Table 1 and depicted graphically in Figure 1 below.

Table 1

Religious demographic breakdown of the United States today

Denomination

Percentage of Population

Protestant

46.50%

Roman Catholic

20.80%

Jewish

1.90%

Church of Jesus Christ

1.60%

Other Christian

0.90%

Muslim

0.90%

Jehovah\'s Witness

0.80%

Buddhist

0.70%

Hindu

0.70%

Other

1.80%

Unaffiliated

22.80%

Refuse to answer

0.60%

Figure 1. Religious demographic breakdown of the United States today

As can be readily discerned from the graphic depiction provided by Figure 1 above, there are a number of major religious faiths represented in the United States today, but the American population is still overwhelmingly Christian in religious orientation. On the other hand, however, the demographc composition of the United States is rapidly changing, and former minorities are gaining ground to the point where they will be in the majority in the foreseeable future.

The alarmist response by white Christian Americans is understandable if not justifiable in this context, and the growing acceptance of fringe conspiracy theories such as the so-called “replacement theory” as gaining widespread acceptance among this segment of the population today. For example, a recent report from Romano (2022) emphasizes that, “More than 6 in 10 Donald Trump voters (61%) agree that ‘a group of people in this country are trying to replace native-born Americans with immigrants and people of color who share their political views’ — a core tenet of the false conspiracy theory known as the ‘great replacement’” (para. 3). Some other recent headlines in the mainstream media concerning replacement theory that have implications for religious pluralism in the United States include those listed below:

· How ‘great replacement theory’ led to the Buffalo shootings (The Washington Post, May 26, 2022);

· A Fringe Conspiracy Theory, Fostered Online, Is Refashioned by the G.O.P (The New York Times, May 17, 2022);

· ‘Replacement theory’ still Republican orthodoxy despite Buffalo shooting (The Guardian, May 22, 2022);

· Op-Ed: White replacement theory is fascism’s new name (Los Angeles Times, May 24, 2022); and,

· Republican Senate candidates promote ‘replacement theory’ (PBS News Hour, May 17, 2022).

The common theme that runs through these, and tens of thousands of other recent observations about religious pluralism in the United States today is the harsh reality for many white Christian Americans that their historic position at the top of the social ladder is being threatened on all fronts by yet another wave of immigrants from Middle Eastern countries where people believe that it is their duty to kill Americans. Indeed, a Google search for “replacement theory” generates more than 1,400,000,000 matches, and this evil theory is not going away anytime soon. As noted above, while the demographic composition of the United States is in fact changing, blaming this inevitable change on a coordinating, nefarious plot by Democrats and other like-minded Americans passes understanding given the United States’ formal commitment to religious pluralism.

The advocates for religious pluralism in the United States at the Aspen Institute for Justice & Society maintain the religious diversity is not the same thing as religious pluralism, and their observations about American society today indicate that the nation has a long way to go to achieve this status. For instance, these authorities point out that, “Religious pluralism is the state of being where every individual in a religiously diverse society has the rights, freedoms, and safety to worship, or not, according to their conscience. Religious diversity on its own is not religious pluralism; that requires a bit more” (Religious pluralism, 2022, para. 3). Some of the key defining characteristics of religious pluralism include the following:

· Individuals have the legal rights and de facto freedoms to worship, believe, practice, and join in community with others according to their conscience. Individuals are also able to abstain from these activities. In the United States, these rights and freedoms are guaranteed by the First Amendment;

· Individuals and communities protect their own and others’ rights and freedoms to worship, believe, practice, and join in community with others, or not, according to their conscience;

· Individuals and communities protect each others’ safety to worship;

· Communities engage with each other, acknowledging areas of deep and irreconcilable difference, but focused on areas of common ground; and,

· Religious pluralism does not happen without sustained and diverse religious communities; diverse religious communities themselves thrive, meaning leadership is good, community institutions are sustainable, community ties remain strong, and congregants know the basic theological content of their own traditions (Religious pluralism, 2022).

The United States is a large country, of course, with more than 300 million people. It would be disingenuous to paint the entire nation with a broad “anti-religious pluralism brush,” and some American communities enjoy truly authentic religious pluralism. A good example of this type of widespread acceptance of religious diversity to the point where it becomes religious pluralism can be found in Minnesota where more than 40,000 Muslim immigrants from Somalia have been welcomed and embraced by community members and where all of the defining key hallmarks listed above are present.