Tried With Fire

After many nights of working in the evening, I've had a break. It's been nice to be able to relax after the dishes are done and read "depressing books about where America has gone wrong." That is my daughter's opinion of some of my reading material. It's not that I like reading depressing books. I want to understand the mindsets and fears that led us to where we are today. My current "depressing" book is One Nation Under God by Kevin Kruse. "Grimly fascinating" would be a better descriptor, though. It's fascinating to learn how easily America was satisfied with civil religion. The generic nature of God didn't seem to bother many people as long as "God" was mentioned in some vague way. But this casual appropriation of God is rather grim and led to a syncretistic mishmash of outward practice minus any theological foundation. During Eisenhower's campaign for the presidency, he "vowed to take the vague religion ...

I have a lot of questions regarding how we got to where we are today, which can only be answered by examining history and not relying on vague memories and urban legends from grade school. So I read books that could potentially raise some eyebrows. I just started One Nation Under God: How Corporate America Invented Christian America by Kevin Kruse. Did your eyebrows go up at the title? If his thesis is true, the push for an increase in civil religion in the 50's was not just a response to the Cold War but a fear of Roosevelt's New Deal. Big business did not like the way the country was headed, so they promoted an amalgam of the independent self, Christianity, and capitalism to get the backing of ministers and, in turn, their congregations. In my words, you can worship God and Mammon. 1 I am troubled by what I am reading, not because I think Kruse got it wrong but because he might be right. The church shouldn't be the dupe or the pawn of any political agenda whether ri...