-Caveat Lector-
an excerpt from:
The Evolution of Mass Culture In America - 1877 to the Present
Gerald R. Baydo, Editor
The Forum Press, Inc.�1982
Arlington Heights, Illinois 60004
ISBN 0-88273-260-9
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A Religion for Every Taste
Mike Zalampas
When Lee surrendered to Grant at Appomattox Court House, most Americans
worshipped the same God, read the same Bible, hoped for the same heaven and
feared the same hell. They differed only on theological details and the
organizational structures of their churches. Most Americans were Protestants
affiliated with denominations that had initially developed in Europe�Baptist,
Methodist, Episcopalian, or Congregational. The catholic Christian tradition
was represented by a relatively small Roman Catholic Church.
By 1914 a series of seismic shocks had fragmented the American religious
landscape and an astounding number of radically divergent churches, faiths,
and movements were active in the United States. There had appeared "a God for
every man, a religion for every taste." This uniquely American pluralism was
occasioned and accompanied by equally tremendous changes in the intellectual,
economic, social, and demographical make-up of the United States.
Although Darwin had published his Origins of Species in 1859, it was not
until the end of the Civil War that Americans turned their attention to it. A
furious religious debate immediately erupted in full force. Most Americans,
in spite of their denominational differences, had agreed on the acceptance of
the Bible as the divinely-inspired, inerrant Word of God. Interpreting the
Bible literally, they affirmed the divine creation of the earth and its
inhabitants in six. days. Geologists had already called into question the age
of the earth by demonstrating that it was millions of years old. Some clergy
had replied that to God "a day was as a thousand years and a thousand years a
day."
Darwin's concept of evolution, however, dealt not only with the question of
the when but the how of creation. Darwin drew on geology to show that the
fossils in earlier rock formations were biologically simpler than the later,
more complex fossil forms. There had thus been a slow development and a
biological continuity among all living species. The most fit specimens for
survival in every generation were those that could most successfully adapt to
their environment. The adaptations were passed to successive generations as
species became increasingly complex and adapted to their surroundings. Man,
argued Darwin, was the end product of one of these lines of biological
development.
Battle was immediately joined. Darwinism was taken by many clergymen to be a
direct attack on the Bible and was rejected outright�a rejection that is
still a fundamental article of faith for Protestant conservatives. Charles
Hodge of Princeton Seminary declared biological evolution to be "absolutely
incredible" while Mark Hopkins, president of Williams College, declared it to
be "atheistic." Their sentiments were shared by most ministers of the day.
There were those, such as Ralph, Ingersoll, who became doctrinaire Darwinists
and abandoned the Christian faith. While this latter position was widespread
in Europe, a mediating position developed in the United States. Lyman Abbott,
the influential Brooklyn pastor, accepted the principle of evolution,
declaring evolution to be a divine process, not a product. In his Ascent Of
Man, Henry Drummond reinterpreted divine creation to mean the presence of God
in history, giving it direction and meaning as mankind struggled upward to a
deeper, more spiritual understanding. Their direction was followed by many in
the east and midwest. In the south, however, the struggle against evolution
was to continue until it culminated in the Scopes Trial in the 1920s. Since
that time, evolutionists and theological conservatives occasionally pass one
another, though they seldom speak.
This debate was further heightened when the general principle of evolution
was applied to the Bible and the great creeds of the Christian faith.
Biblical scholars in western Europe, particularly those of Germany, were
increasingly interpreting the Bible as the final product of a thousand year
long evolutionary process. Julius Wellhausen, for example, demonstrated that
Genesis could not be the work of one author but, rather, was the union of
several literary sources over a period of time. The Bible was thus the
written expression of the religious beliefs of just one group of ancient
peoples. The creeds of Christendom were similarly examined and presented as
solutions to historical disputes within the church rather than as statements
of eternal truths.
Catholics were less troubled than Protestants over this apparent weakening of
what had been regarded as the infallible Word of God. As early as the
Council-of Trent (1545-1563) the faith of the Catholic Church was defined as
resting as much on Catholic tradition as on the Bible. Further, the new
biblical criticism was forbidden to Catholic scholars by papal edict.
Protestants, on the other hand, were uniquely wedded to an infallible Bible
as the source of their theology. Any questioning of the Bible was, therefore,
especially threatening to their entire theological system. Several distinct
responses were made by American theologians.
The most radical attitude was that adopted by the "scientific modernists." It
is not too great an exaggeration to say that this group replaced the former
belief in an infallible Bible with an infallible faith in science and
scientific progress. The Divinity School at the University of Chicago was a
leading center of "modernism." Under the leadership of outstanding scholars
such as William R. Harper, Shailer Mathews, and G. B. Foster there developed
a distinctive "Chicago Theology." The religious experience was interpreted
empirically in psychological and sociological terms while creeds and church
organizations and practices were viewed as the result of historical forces
and social environments. Any religious statement had to be made solely within
the context of scientific insights. Some completely abandoned a
Christocentric theology for one essentially non-theistic. In Mathew's words,
"The God of the scientifically minded will assume the patterns of science."
Although relatively few in number, they exercised a significant influence on
theological education as many other seminaries sent their faculties to
Chicago for their graduate training. Furthermore, they remained quite active
in church affairs. Mathews, for example, was president of the Council of
Churches for four years and president of the Northern Baptist Convention in
1915.
Evangelical liberals assumed a more mediatory position toward the new
scientific and historical insights. Committed to a firm Christocentric
theology, they sought to replace the external authority of the Bible with an
emphasis on the primacy of the inner experience of Christ. This approach
allowed them to accept the results of biblical criticism, the concept of
evolution and other scientific insights, without abandoning what they saw as
the ultimate Christ-centered truths of Christianity.
They drew partially upon the German theologian Albrecht Ritschl but more
directly upon the American Horace Bushnell. Bushnell viewed the Bible as the
record of a religious experience which every believer could enter and
reproduce in his own life. The ultimate validation of the Christian faith was
neither the Bible nor science, but in the "spiritual consciousness of man."
Christ they conceived to be the divine redemptor of a world scarred by human
waywardness and sin. Redeemed individuals constituted the kingdom of God
which was being progressively realized in history. In their own eyes, they
did not so much profess a new theology as a "progressive orthodoxy" which
sought to present an eternal Christ to the world.
A large and quite diffuse group, evangelical liberalism included in its ranks
professors, pastors, and laymen. The seminaries at Bangor, Andover, and Yale
educated an entire generation of young pastors in this theological approach.
Methodists, Presbyterians and Congregationalists, especially those in the
north, were all deeply affected by the movement. Under the editorship of
Charles C. Morrison, the Christian Century journal was effective in
interpreting the new theological emphasis to laymen. Evangelical liberalism
was thus optimistic in its outlook and was able to retain a deep Christian
faith while coming to intellectual terms with science.
Protestant conservatism developed in part as a defense of the older Christian
consensus and in part as a reaction against those liberals and modernists who
accepted biological evolution and biblical criticism. Charles Hodge, in his
What Is Darwinism?, attacked the principle of evolution by defending the
trustworthiness of a divinely-inspired Bible in a scholarly fashion. Most
conservatives, however, were simply content to dogmatically affirm the
inerrancy of the Bible.
Large interdenominational Bible conferences were held at which a literal view
of Scripture was stressed. The Niagara Bible Conference became an annual
summer retreat which attracted thousands. In an effort to counteract the
influence of the more liberal seminaries, Bible schools were founded to teach
"the Bible, the whole Bible, and only the Bible." As they were willing to
accept students with a minimum of education, they were able to attract large
numbers of young men who aspired to the ministry. Their graduates returned
home to preach a message based on an inerrant Bible.
While there were occasionally heated debates between conservatives
and liberals at their denominational conventions, Congregationalists and
Epis-copalians generally proved to be flexible enough to weather the
theological tensions. Lutherans were generally successful in avoiding a
rupture as they demanded and received a rigid theological conformity.
Methodists, Baptists, and Presbyterians experienced greater difficulties. As
conservatives had generally remained closer to the laypeople in their
churches, they were able to insist on a number of heresy trials and seminary
faculty dismissals.
In 1893 the Presbyterian General Assembly demanded the dismissal of Charles
H. Briggs from the faculty of Union Seminary in New York. In his inaugural
address to the faculty and students of the seminary, Briggs had taken a
liberal attitude toward biblical authority. Rather than dismiss Briggs, the
seminary responded by severing its ties to the Assembly�Briggs chose to be
re-ordained as an Episcopalian minister. Henry Preserved Smith, who had
defended Briggs, was forced from Lane Seminary and went to the faculty at
Union. The Methodist Alexander Winchell was dismissed by Vanderbilt
University in 1878 while James Woodrow was ousted from the Presbyterian
Seminary of South Carolina in 1886. Crawford H. Toy in 1879 and William H.
Whitsett in 1898 were dismissed by the Southern baptist Seminary in
Louisville.
Conservatives took these actions in an effort to contain and punish liberal
theologians. The end result of these ousters, however, was to publicize the
newer theological views and to gain widespread sympathy for those who had
been attacked. Most laypeople thought of themselves as moderates and were
dismayed by the controversies. By the turn of the century, although there
were to be sporadic dismissals, most denominations had placed heresy trials
behind them.
In the midst of these controversies which were fragmenting the general
Protestant tradition, there appeared several new movements that further
broadened the religious spectrum in the United States. Each of these new
groups claimed to possess the only true Christian faith, were intensely
evangelistic, and were generally antagnostic toward their parent groups.
The conservative commitment to an inerrant Bible had been reinforced by the
preaching of the Englishman J. N. Darby. Darby, a self-taught Bible student,
toured widely in the United States, preaching an interpretation of biblical
prophecy which divided history into specific periods of "dispensations." Each
dispensation represented a distinct step in God's unfolding plan for the
salvation of humanity. The present period of "grace through faith" is the Age
of the Church. It constitutes the final dispensation prior to the return of
Jesus Christ to the earth to establish the kingdom of God. This theology was
orthodox in most other respects. Based as it was on an interpretation of
"infallible prophecies," dispensationalism buttressed the conservative view
of the Bible and was warmly received and taught at Prophecy Conferences and
at the new Bible schools. The annotated Bible of C. I. Schofield, which was
quite rigid in imposing the dispensationalist views on Scripture, was
Influential in disseminating this theology among conservatives. Popular
preachers such as R. A. Torry, J. W. Chapman, and A. T. Pierson, all of whom
were associated with the Moody Bible Institute, were vehement in their attack
on all "liberalism"�which all too often meant all others who refused to
accept their dispensational theology.
Between 1910-1915 the dispensationalists published a number of volumes
entitled The Fundamentals. Interspersed with articles on dispensationalism
were ones defending the inerrancy of the Bible. More importantly, the
fundamentals of the Christian faith were defined as the acceptance of a
literal interpretation of the Bible, the virgin birth, a substitutionary view
of the atonement of Christ, and the physical resurrection and earthly return
of Christ. While not all conservatives accepted the dispensationalist
theology, most did adopt these articles as a test of orthodoxy. Those who
refused assent to a literal interpretation of these dogmas were declared to
be heretical. In 1910 the Presbyterian General Assembly formally adopted
similar articles as a test of faith. In large areas of the south, the
"fundamentals" were continued informally as a test of orthodoxy well into the
twentieth century.
Another group arose out of the union of elements of dispensationalist and
Adventist theology. In 1884 Charles T. Russell organized the International
Bible Students Association, more commonly known today as Jehovah's Witnesses.
Russell interpreted biblical prophecy to mean that 1914 would mark the end of
the world as Christ returned to earth. When this event failed to take place,
Russell insisted Christ had returned "invisibly" and that World War I
represented the beginning of the final struggle between God and Satan. As the
victory of God would occur within a generation, "millions now living will
never die."
Under the leadership of Russell and his successor Joseph F. Rutherford, the
Witnesses directed a bitter campaign against all other religious groups.
Extremely zealous in all their efforts, the Witnesses grew quickly,
especially among lower-income disaffected Protestants. Rejecting all earthly
governments as satanic, members of the movement have proved willing to endure
persecution rather than recognize the sovereignty of those governments.
In the decades following the Civil War, American churches shared in the
general prosperity and increase in wealth. The traditional Protestant
denominations were rapidly converted into upper middle-class churches and, in
the process, lost some of the biting edge of their earlier commitment to a
distinctive Christian life. There were those who felt the mainline churches
had become too "worldly."
One result was the Holiness Movement which had its roots in the teaching of
John Wesley. Wesley had insisted that the initial blessing of God, salvation,
was to be followed by the "second blessing" of sanctification. Sanctification
was the divine gift of perfect love and freedom from sin which made it
possible for the believer to live a holy life. As early as 1860 the demand
for an emphasis on sanctification and holy living led to the foundation of a
Free Methodist Church in New York. Charles G. Finney at Oberlin College had
long insisted on a theology which stressed sanctification and in 1867 a
National Association for the Promotion of Holiness was established.
Initially centered among Methodists, the Holiness Movement soon began to cut
across denominational lines and attracted lower income, rural following. In
time separatist tendencies began to develop as the parent denominations began
to criticize the extremism of holiness leaders and as those leaders sought to
dissociate themselves from the "worldly" and apostate traditional churches.
In 1881 Daniel S. Warner founded the "Church of God Reformation Movement."
Warner was devoted to both a holiness theology and a desire for Christian
unity. This desire for unity was gradually displaced by a growing tendency to
denominational separatism. Ultimately Warner's work produced the Church of
God (Anderson, Indiana).
Similarly, Albert B. Simpson combined a desire for sanctification with faith
in divine healing and a stress on missionary activity. In 1887 he established
the Christian and Missionary Alliance. Although intended as an
interdenominational group for Protestants, it too developed with time into a
separate organization. If the Church of God enjoyed its greatest success
among the rural poor, the Alliance found its support among the urban poor.
The fastest growing holiness group was founded by Phineas Brese in 1908 as
the Church of the Nazarene. Stressing an emotional, revivalistic theology
based upon sanctification and an emphasis on holy living, the Nazarenes were
soon prominent in the west and the south. As was true of the earlier holiness
groups, the Nazarenes enlisted most of their followers from among the
disaffected of' the regular churches rather than the previously unchurched.
The Holiness Movement was, in turn, splintered by the erruption[sic] of
Pentecostalism. While Pentecostalism shared the Holiness emphases upon a
literal interpretation of the Bible, the second blessing and a strict moral
life, it added a belief in a "third blessing." This third blessing, the
baptism of the Holy Spirit, was the gift of glossolalia or speaking in
unknown tongues. Originally known as the Latter Rain Movement because of an
emphasis on glossolalia as interpreted from Joel 2:23, it began in 1901 at C.
F. Parham's Bible School in Kansas. It was not until the Azusa Street revival
in Los Angeles in 1906 that the movement attracted public notice. The Azusa
revival was a biracial phenomenon under the leadership of W. J. Seymour, a
black former student of Parham, but it split into separate, segregated
denominations as it spread through the south and west. Today the movement has
further fragmented into a number of groups, the largest of which are the
Church of God (Cleveland, Tennessee), the Church of God in Christ and the
Church of God of Prophecy. Although the Pentecostal churches suffered a
relative decline following World War II, they began a resurgence in the
decade of the sixties and an interest in glossolalia has arisen among both
Protestants and Catholics.
In addition to these generally Christian responses to the theological
tensions and needs of the period following the Civil War, there appeared a
number of new groups quite radical in their separation from the Christian
tradition. None was numerically important in its origins, but they were quite
visible and did point to religious directions that enjoy some success at the
present time.
Following the Civil War Americans developed a tremendous interest in the
study of comparative religions. Capitalizing on this interest, Helena P.
Blavatsky established the Theosophical Society in 1875. Blavatsky, a recent
Russian immigrant, insisted she had been taught the eternal Wisdom of the
Ages by "Adepts" who lived in Tibetan monasteries. These Adepts, in turn, had
been taught by Moses, Confucius, Buddah, and Christ. Elements of Buddhism and
Spiritualism were woven into a theological mixture which identified
re-incarnation as an extension of the principle of evolution. Blavatsky
attempted to combine this theology with an acceptance of science and
technology. Her purpose was to promote universal brotherhood without regard
for race, sex, caste or creeds. When Blavatsky went to England to establish a
Theosophical Society the movement was taken over by Annie Besant who
introduced Hindu concepts into its theology.
Insignificant numerically, theosophy is important as it represents the first
effort to convert Americans to an oriental type of religious faith. When the
World Parliament of Religions met at the Columbian Exposition of 1892, some
150,000 persons attended one or more of its programs. Other oriental and Near
Eastern faiths were quickly established. In 1894 Swami Vivekananda founded
the Hindu Vedanta Society to promote the Hindu religion in the United States.
Yoga was soon being taught by the Yogoda Sat-Sanga Fellowship. The Muslim
religious tradition was represented by Baha'ism which stressed the ultimate
unity of all religions and the brotherhood of men.
Each of these religions, it will be noticed, was a synthesis of oriental
religious concepts, stressed the brotherhood of man and attempted an
accommodation with scientific insights. Groups such as Hare Krishna, Suni,
and the Church of Unity are their direct descendants. They were also
influential in leading many Americans to believe there was a common
denominator among all religions and that, somehow, this commonality
represented the "truth" to be found in theology.
A totally different religious approach was formulated by the Christian
Science movement. Drawing on the hypnotic experiments of Franz Mesmer,
Phineas P. Quimby taught that diseases were the result of negative thinking.
Healthy mental attitudes, on the other hand, dispelled illness and disease.
Mary Baker Eddy, a former patient of Quimby, became convinced that the Mind
of God sustains all creation, matter exists only in the unhealthy mind, and
disease is only the product of faulty thinking. In 1875 Eddy established the
Christian Science Society and published her Science and Health with Key to
the Scripture. By 1914 over one hundred thousand members had accepted the
faith, and there were Christian Science Reading Rooms and churches in every
major American city. The Christian Science Monitor became one of the most
respected newspapers in the United States. Present "power through positive
thinking" groups are the indirect descendents of Eddy's teaching.
Added to these theological divisions produced by new intellectual currents
were the profound social and economic changes initiated by the industrial
revolution and the mass immigration which overtook the United States between
1865 and 1914. These also introduced major changes into American religious
life.
American cities experienced an explosive growth in the years following the
Civil War. Minneapolis grew fiftyfold, Los Angeles twentyfold. Older urban
areas such as New York and Philadelphia, starting from a larger initial base,
doubled in size. While much of this growth came from a rural movement to the
cities, even more was occasioned by the massive wave of immigrants reaching
the United States. Between 1865 and 1900 fourteen million new Americans
arrived from Europe. In the decade following 1900, nine million additional
immigrants arrived-two-thirds of them settling in cities. The number of new
immigrants in Chicago in 1890 equaled its population in 1880. This human
flood was added to an American population that numbered only thirty million
in 1865.
The period also marks what has charitably been called the "age of big
business" but which Mark Twain less charitably designated as "the gilded
age." Industrialization, with its concurrent placement of enormous wealth in
the hands of a few, combined with urbanization to create slums, massive
poverty, and corruption. A unique series of challenges was thrust upon the
churches. These new urban masses were largely unchurched and increasingly
indifferent to religion. Several responses were made to meet this need.
As urban areas increasingly became the focus of commercial life and the
refuge of the poor and underprivileged, many churches were faced with the
choice of following the middle classes to the suburbs or dwindling and dying.
In one effort to combat this trend, Thomas Beecher in 1872 developed the
concept of the institutional church at Elmira, New York. Added to the
church's more traditional ministries of worship and evangelism were athletic
programs, day nurseries, libraries, medical and legal clinics, educational
classes, and musical and dramatic associations. This pattern was adopted by
many inner city churches irrespective of denomination.
Initially these institutional churches enjoyed an amazing success. St.
George's Episcopal Church in New York, which had shrunk to a membership of
six families, grew to a membership of five thousand in only a few years. By
1900 the Baptist Temple of Philadelphia was the largest single congregation
in the United States. The institutional churches, however, were enormously
expensive and could not all depend, as did St. George's, on the support of a
J. P. Morgan. In time, they became a tremendous drain upon their
denominations as budget deficits had to be made up by contributions from the
hinterland. Furthermore, these institutional churches tended to become
non-denominational in theology and more humanitarian than evangelistic in
their goals. They did little to Christianize the urban masses.
Another approach was attempted by the Salvation Army. Founded in England in
1878 by William Booth, the Army immigrated to the United States two years
later. Initially designed as an evangelistic arm for the regular churches, it
soon became a separate denomination. Preceded by its brass bands and
spearheaded by dynamic preaching, it penetrated urban slum areas to provide
the poor with food, shelter, and work. joined to its holiness and
revivalistic theology were a wide range of social services, including legal
aid, day nurseries, and employment bureaus. The Army soon acquired a
reputation for a willingness to go into urban areas where no other group
would work and so gained the respect of all classes of society.
In 1896 Booth's son Ballington, who had led the Army in the United States for
ten years, refused his father's orders to return to England. He resigned to
found the rival Volunteers of America, which stressed a Christian ministry to
the poor, ex-convicts, and unwed mothers. The Volunteers stressed democratic
participation rather than the rigid discipline of the army and placed
relatively less emphasis on preaching and the conversion of the individual.
The same industrial, social, and urban problems which produced the
institutional churches and groups such as the Salvation Army, gave birth to
the Social Gospel movement. Traditionally, Protestantism had stressed the
salvation of the individual, believing the injustices of this world would be
redressed in the next world. Convinced that society needed a basic
readustment here and now, the advocates of the Social Gospel sought political
and economic reforms to remedy the worst ills of nineteenth-century
capitalism.
Washington Gladden, "the father of the Social Gospel," championed the right
of labor to organize, laws against child labor, and the reform of unsafe
industrial conditions. The leading spokesman for the movement, however, was
Walter Rauschenbush. Initially a Baptist pastor in Hell's Kitchen, New York
City, Rauschenbush joined the faculty of the Rochester Theological Seminary.
Drawing on his personal experiences, he produced a series of publications
which delineated the injustices of society and demanded a Christian effort to
ameliorate those abuses. His unique contribution was to bridge theologically
the gap between liberals and conservatives. The social consciousness of
evangelical Protestantism was raised while liberals were provided with a
theology which allowed them to remain within the Christian witness. In time
many of the ideas of the Social Gospel movement were widely accepted as
seminaries added courses in social ethics and reforming social service
organizations were formed along denominational lines.
Revivalism had long been a staple feature of American rural life. The camp
meeting was an annual event that attracted thousands. However, evangelism was
largely unknown in large cities prior to the Civil War. Increasingly, the
cities were becoming unchurched and non-Christian in tone. It was not until
Dwight L. Moody, with the singer Ira D. Sankey, returned from a triumphal
revival campaign in England in 1872 that serious efforts were made to
evangelize urban areas. Moody, a Congregational layman, had been drawn to
full-time Christian work through his association with the YMCA in Chicago. He
preached a simple, undenominational theology which stressed "Ruin by Sin,
Redemption by Christ, and Regeneration by the Holy Spirit." Possessed of a
gentle, ecumenical spirit, Moody was not a great theologian. His primary
talents lay in a simple message superbly presented and a systematic and
efficient organization. Moody was able to unite diverse denominations in his
cooperative evangelistic crusades and, in turn, channeled his converts into
local churches.
Moody's mass rallies drew huge crowds where tens of thousands professed
conversion to the Christian faith. In retrospect it now appears that most of
those reached by his crusades had previously attended rural churches before
moving to a large city. Therefore, they represented a return to the church
rather than fresh converts. The newer non-protestant immigrants from Europe
were largely untouched by what was essentially, after all, a Protestant
movement.
Moody's crusades were largely confined to northern urban areas. In the south,
evangelists like Sam Jones utilized the same approach with great success. It
was Billy Sunday, a former baseball player, however, who succeeded to the
fame and position of Moody. In 1917 a two-month crusade by Sunday produced
one hundred thousand converts. It was these revivalistic efforts which were
to issue in the mass evangelistic crusades of the present day.
The enormous tide of immigrants produced the single most dramatic development
in American Christianity�the phenomenal growth of the Roman Catholic Church.
In 1870 there were four million Catholics in the United States, by 1880 six
million, by 1890 nine million, while by 1900 there were twelve million
Catholics. By 1914 every third American church and every sixth person was
Catholic. The strain of meeting the religious needs of this great mass was
almost overwhelming. Thousands of priests had to be recruited and trained,
dozens of dioceses formed and tremendous sums of money raised. Compounding
these difficulties were the diverse languages, traditions, and customs of
these new Americans.
The influx of European Catholics raised a number of issues for the Church.
These issues were not theological in nature but were, rather, questions
relating to the goals and methods to be adopted by American Catholicism. Two
parties of diffuse make-up emerged within the Church. The "Americanists"
argued that the Chruch[sic] should adopt a positive attitude toward the
assimilation of Catholics into the mainstream of American life, support the
concept of religious freedom and become tolerant of religious differences.
The "Conservatives" wanted to retain Catholic distinctiveness, traditions,
and to refuse accommodation to American culture. These groups were united in
their loyalty to the American political system. They disagreed on several
specific issues. One was the desire of some Catholics for their own ethnic
parishes as opposed to territorial parishes. Allied to this was the demand
for greater representation in an essentially Irish hierarchy. The dispute was
ultimately referred to Pope Leo XIII who decided against separate parishes
and, in time, the hierarchy became more representative.
A second issue revolved around the question of public school versus Catholic
parochial education. More liberal Catholics viewed public education as a
means of assimilating their children into American life. Archbishop Michael
A. Corrigan threw his support behind the parochial system and finally
received a papal decision in favor of a Catholic elementary educational
system. By 1914 one million pupils were enrolled in parochial schools which
generally had a reputation for excellence.
Secret societies, such as the Knights of Labor, also produced tensions within
the Church. It was feared by some that the secrecy and semi-religious
elements of these organizations might injure the Church. The issue was
resolved by papal acceptance of organizations which were directed toward
positive social good and did not endanger the unity of the Church.
Ultimately Leo XIII intervened to resolve the tensions between the
Americanists and the conservatives. While condemning "Americanism," he
defined and treated it in such a way that the loyalty and unity of both
parties was preserved. The overwhelming nature of the Catholic task in
America was a tremendous force for keeping the Church united. There was, in
addition, little time or energy for theological debate when churches had to
be provided, schools built, and the religious needs of the laity met. The
condemnation in 1907 of "Modernism" by Rome had little effect on American
Catholicism which was theologically conservative by nature.
The Eastern Orthodox church also experienced a tremendous growth during this
period. As the Orthodox churches in Europe had been organized along national
lines, languages and customs, there was little controversy between them.
Their common problem was that of providing priests and churches for their
laymen. They were largely unmoved by the theological controversies raging
among Protestants. In time, Greeks, Bulgars, Russians, and Ukranians
developed their own religious communities, which while adding diversity to
the American scene, produced little divisiveness.
In 1865 there were perhaps 150,000 Jews in the United States, most of whom
were Ashkenazic or German in origin. Generally they leaned to a Reform
tradition which relaxed the Talmudic dietary laws, adopted a liberalizing
attitude toward scientific thought, and yet, retained the Mosaic ethical
code. In 1889 a Central Conference of American Rabbis was organized which
unified the Reform congregations.
In reaction there evolved the Conservative congregations which, under the
inspiration of Issac Leeser, sought to preserve the Mosaic laws as developed
in Talmudic literature. In 1886 the Jewish Theological Seminary of America
was established to provide Rabbinical training for Conservative Judaism.
By 1914 Jewish immigrants had increased the number of American Jews some
twelve times. The newer group arriving after 1880 were primarily Yiddish
speaking, highly orthodox in their devotion, and suspicious of Reform
Judaism. By 1900 there were some 1,000 Orthodox congregations which founded
the Union of Orthodox Rabbis the same year.
The rise of Zionism near the end of the century produced tension within the
Jewish community. Reform synagogues tended to oppose Zionism while the
Orthodox retained their hope in the coming of a Messiah. Conservative Judaism
was essentially supportive of Zionism but was able to act as a mediating
bridge between all Jews. The worldwide rise of anti-Semitism near the end of
the century acted to impress upon Jews of all persuasions their common
religious heritage and identity. They were able to act cooperatively on a
wide number of benevolent and charitable organizations.
Taken together, it may be said that America, in the decades between the Civil
War and World War I, experienced a remarkable religious development. At the
time the religious diversity was often accompanied by tension and, at times,
overt hostility. There can be no doubt in hindsight, however, that this
religious diversity acted to enrich American life and to provide a
distinctively religious orientation for most Americans. Today there has
developed an amazing degree of acceptance and cooperation among Americans of
quite divergent religious views.
=====
Suggested Readings
For general treatment of American religious history, see Winthrop S. Hudson,
Religion in America, second edition (1973); Robert T. Handy, A History of the
Churches in the United States and Canada (1977); and Sydney E. Ahlstrom, A
Religious History of the American People (1977). For the development of
Protestant liberalism, see Kenneth Cathen, The Impact of American Religious
Liberalism (1962); for Protestant conservatism, see Ernest Sandeen, The Roots
of Fundamentalism, British and American Millenarianism, 1800-1930 (1970).
For Protestant social Christianity, refer to C. Howard Hopkins, The Rise of
the Social Gospel in American Protestantism, 1865-1915 (1940). For the
Holiness Movement, see Vinson Syrian, The Holiness-Pentecostal Movement in
the United States (197 1). Robert D. Cross has studied the Americanist crisis
in his The Emergence of Liberal Catholicism in America (1958). On the Jewish
experience in America, see Arthur Gilbert, A Jew in Christian America (1966).
For sects see, Charles S. Braden, These Also Believe (1949); and J. Stillson
Judah, The History and Philosophy of the Metaphysical Movement in America
(1967).
pps. 49-61
-----
Aloha, He'Ping,
Om, Shalom, Salaam.
Em Hotep, Peace Be,
Omnia Bona Bonis,
All My Relations.
Adieu, Adios, Aloha.
Amen.
Roads End
Kris
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