SOME NOTES TOWARD A PROLOGUE TO
THEOLOGIANS AGAINST RELIGION
Between the 1830s and 1930s, the prevailing mood in Christian
thought in the United States was optimistic and progressive. By
the 1830s, Harvard--long since divested of its Calvinist past--had
entered a new era of Unitarian optimism. Yale, founded in the
early eighteenth century as a fortress of Calvinist orthodoxy to
combat the liberalism of Harvard, developed over the century a
Christocentric liberalism of its own. As a result of "New Light"
influences, even Princeton had bowed to liberalizing tendencies by
the 1830s.
Beyond the academy, one could see the emergence of a new ethos
in revival movements. A century earlier, Jonathan Edwards preached
the innate depravity and impotence of man as a necessary condition
for the omnibenevolence and omnipotence of God. In the 1830s,
Charles Grandison Finney preached the Gospel of Jesus in humanity
rather than God in contrast to humanity. In his system,
partnership was at least implied. The human condition appeared
less bleak.
When revivals were not available, there were the Voluntary
Associations. Brainchildren of Lyman Beecher, these
interdenominational agencies of education, reform and benevolence
dominated the social and cultural life of cities, small towns, and
farming communities in the North and much of the expanding West up
to the time of the Civil War. After Appomattox, rapid changes in
educational delivery systems and the emergence of various helping
professions, including Social Work, reduced the direct role of
denominations in social and cultural guidance, but the ideology
continued. The first generation of professional Philosophers in
America contained a critical core with family backgrounds in the
Voluntary Association movement (Josiah Royce, Charles Pearce,
William James, John Dewey). Building on the assumptions implicit
in the activities of their parents' organizational activities, the
Pragmatists were enthusiastic about the progressive possibilities
for positive growth through the guidance of human institutions.
Theological Seminaries and Divinity Schools quickly accepted the
Pragmatic paradigm. By the 1920s, American philosophers and
religious thinkers alike hailed industrial progress, scientific
advancement, the efficiency of large-scale organization, and the
increased benefits of technology. Industrial strife might tear
other social fabrics asunder and create a crisis for the Church,
but preachers and theologians in the United States joyfully took up
the task of reconciling of Christianity and Capitalism.
It seemed that in this country one might indeed be able to
establish the Kingdom of God on earth. Others might have to wait
for Heaven, but in America it could be had now--and on a profit
basis! Many factors provided the material basis for this
optimistic and progressive outlook: the rapid dynamics of social
and economic change in the nineteenth century (particularly the
latter half), the enormous and varied natural resources of the
United States, the assumption that those resources were
inexhaustible, and the assumption that economic growth can be
boundless.
From time to time critics, such as Walter Rauschenbush, spoke
out against the prevailing paradigm. For the most part, however,
the dominant direction of American Christian thought was toward
suggesting that not only are Christianity and Capitalism
reconcilable, but that Capitalism is the necessary economic
embodiment of Christianity in the modern age. Under these
circumstance, it makes perfect sense that the University of
Chicago's Divinity School rapidly emerged as an institution of
Christian apologetics for modernity. The school, after all, was
funded by that prominent Baptist layman, John D. Rockefeller, who
used his Sunday School class to teach the Gospel of Social
Darwinism and Industrial Capitalism under the cloak of
Christianity.
Up until the 1930s, the realities of American life seemed, in
the eyes of most American Christian thinkers (and secular thinkers
as well), to confirm the optimistic and progressive paradigm.
Every now and then even one of the most ardent modernists, such as
Harry Emerson Fosdick, struggled with the question of faith in a
world increasingly under human control. Given the efficacy of
human progress, what need do we have of God? In some ways, the
paradigm seemed to explain things too well, with no room left for
faith. Fosdick's answer--which was endorsed by most of the
religious establishment--was that God was working through human
endeavor. We were God's partners in building God's Kingdom in this
world. The United States had a Millennial role. More than a few
preachers and theologians throughout the 1930s and 1920s suggested
that the Declaration of Independence and Constitution were divinely
inspired. Even those who distanced themselves from such blatant
assumptions often suggested that the United States was "a nation
especially blessed by God," or that this nation has a "divine
mission." This, of course, reduced--perhaps eradicated--the
tension between temple and Caesar. Under this view, there is no
conflict between Christian Ethics and Civic Responsibility. If it
is good for the economy it is good for the nation, and if it good
for the nation, it clearly propels us further toward the
realization of God's Kingdom on earth
.
This intellectual tradition was not unchallenged. In addition
to Rauschenbusch there were other--even older--voices. In the
1840s and 1850s a handful of eloquent literary artists delved
deeply into philosophical and theological themes which cast
a critical light on the dominant trend in American thought. Ralph
Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman
Melville and Walt Whitman raised serious questions about the
optimistic and progressive world view being developed by Christian
leaders. They had their intellectual descendants: Mark Twain,
particularly between 1898 and 1910; Frank Norris and Theodore
Dreisser at the Turn of the Century; Charles Erskine Scott Wood
before and during WW I; Sinclair Lewis and Joseph Wood Krutch in
the 1920s. More often than not, these voices had greater currency
outside of the United States than at home (as in the case of
Lewis), or achieved popularity posthumously for influences on other
cultures (as in the case of Thoreau's role in shaping Gandhi's
thought), or were admired for their earlier more "charming" works
but not for their brooding philosophical pieces (as in the case of
Melville and Twain).
Not all factions of American society shared in the material
bases for optimistic progressivism. There was a slight window of
opportunity for African-Americans during WW I during which a great
many Black intellectuals, including W. E. B. DuBois, entertained
the hope that the benefits of modernity and progress accrue to
their people. The events immediately following the war, however,
dashed any hopes. For African-Americans, the depression began in
1920. For farmers, it started in 1922. For construction workers
it dated from 1927.
For middle class Whites, the depression waited
until 1929, and even then the dream was kept alive through
rhetoric. As late as June, 1939, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a German
visiting professor at Union Theological Seminary, observed,
I now often wonder whether it is true that America is the
country without a Reformation. If Reformation means the God-
given knowledge of the failure of all ways of building a
Kingdom of God on earth, then it is probably true . . .there
hardly ever seems to be "encounters" in this great country, in
which one can always avoid the other. But where there is no
encounter, where liberty is the only unifying factor, one
naturally knows nothing of the community which is created
through encounter. . .Community in our sense, whether cultural
or ecclesiastical, cannot develop there. [from Bonhoeffer's
diary]
If the depression could not bring an end to "happy" theology,
the Second World War did--at least in some quarters. The
indicators of this rapid and dramatic shift are glaring.
AN INDICATOR: THE POPULARITY OF THE
NIEBUHR BROTHERS FOLLOWING WW II
In the 1930s Reinhold (on the faculty of Union Theological
Seminary) and H. Richard (on the faculty at Yale) Niebuhr were two
rare examples of American theologians who had been far more
influenced by European than American religious thought. During the
depression decade, they were mentioned only infrequently (by
comparison to other religious thinkers) in the popular press. They
did appear in the pages of THE CHRISTIAN CENTURY, but usually only
as foils for optimistic progressive theologians such as Charles
Harthshorne.
After the war, the Niebuhr brothers received a great deal of
attention in the popular press. Their celebrity began in 1947 with
the publication of Reinhold's THE IRONY OF AMERICAN HISTORY, which
became a bestseller. In that book, Niebuhr suggested that the
illusion of American innocence came to an abrupt end when the US--
of necessity--became involved WW II and thus entered a world
of moral ambiguity. In order to bring the war to a conclusion (a
good thing), the US catapulted the world into the nuclear ear (a
bad thing). Niebuhr re-interpreted American history from that
perspective in order to demonstrate that American politicians and
religious thinkers had long ignored the moral ambiguity of existing
in a political order and trying to maintain Christian faith and
action at the same time. Reinhold drew heavily upon his brother's
THE KINGDOM OF GOD IN AMERICA, which had been published in 1937,
and in which H. Richard saw the progressive agenda as both amusing
and idolatrous.
After the appearance and massive sales of THE IRONY OF
AMERICAN HISTORY, books by the two brothers which had sold meagerly
in the 1930s were re-issued in a succession of multiple printings
over the next two decades. Some of the titles indicate the non-
progressive nature of their work: MORAL MAN AND IMMORAL SOCIETY,
CHILDREN OF DARKNESS AND CHILDREN OF LIGHT, THE SOCIAL SOURCES OF
DENOMINATIONALISM (a class analysis of religion in America).
ANOTHER INDICATOR: THE POPULARITY OF PAUL TILLICH
Paul Tillich fled from Germany in 1933 and was appointed
Professor of Systematic Theology at Union Theological Seminary,
where he was a colleague of Reinhold Niebuhr. His theology was
steeped in the angst and ambiguity of Existentialism, and he was
hardly a household word before the war. Indeed, his work was
rarely discussed even in specialized theological journals. After
the war he was frequently interviewed by the popular press. In
1948 he was asked by Yale University to deliver the Titus Street
Lectures for the following year. This prestigious series, begun in
1873, invited preachers and theologians to come to Yale and inspire
the students. Until Tillich, the speakers were always of the
optimistic progressive variety. Tillich's message (which he
expanded into his book, THE COURAGE TO BE) was that mere existence
itself is so fraught with such pain and anxiety that the mere will
to exist is a courageous act. His themes were antithetical to
optimistic progressivism.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer returned to Germany in 1939, was arrested
by the Nazis and executed in 1945. His writings achieved immediate
popularity in English translation, as did many of his phrases, such
as "cheap discipleship" and "costly discipleship." His analysis of
the relationship between the individual and the political/social
order was the antithesis of the optimistic and progressive belief
in the convergence of Christian ethics and Civic Responsibility.
YET ONE MORE INDICATOR (there are plenty more):
KIERKEGAARD
Soren Kierkegaard, that early 19th-century Danish religious
thinker, was all but unknown in the English speaking world before
the war. He is cited a few times in the 1930s writings of Reinhold
Niebuhr, and would have been known to those who read Karl Barth's
1921WORD OF GOD AND WORD OF MAN (which was available in English
translation by 1927, but experienced meager sales until after the
war). Kierkegaard, however, is absent from the index of religious
journals in the United States until 1947, then his name crops up
everywhere. In that year, there are over three hundred citations
of Kierkegaard in THE CHRISTIAN CENTURY annual index alone. His
name makes into the New York TIMES and TIME magazine in 1948.
Walter Lowrie, who was in the Department of Religion at
Princeton, had published a biography of Kierkegaard in 1938. The
book sold less than 100 copies by 1947. The book was re-issued in
1948, and the press had a difficult time keeping up with the
demand. Princeton University Press pioneered paperback publication
of scholarly works in order to keep up with the demand, into the
1950s, for a steady stream of Lowries' translations of
Kierkegaard's writings.
The incompatibility between Kierkegaard and optimistic
progressivism is suggested by two of the Danish thinkers most
popular books: FEAR AND TREMBLING and SICKNESS UNTO DEATH.
Why such a rapid transformation? This is a difficult problem,
and at this time, I would offer the following only as tentative
explanations (I hope to refine this analysis when the first draft
of the entire manuscript is completed):
The collapse of the world economic order raised
serious questions about the efficacy of the material promises of
modernity. The endless cornucopia was clearly a myth. (This, in and of
itself, was not sufficient to create the shift, but it did become
contributory when the following two factors were introduced.)
The atrocities of the Third Reich did not happen in
some dismal backwater, but in the nation arguably at the pinnacle of
Western Civilization. Put another way, the atrocities of the Third Reich
represented frightening potentials within our own corner of Western
Civilization. From a strictly organizational and technological
perspective, the Nazi regime was a triumph of progress and human
institutions. Obviously, the entire experience raised serious
questions about both progress and modernity.
The Manhattan Project was an unparalleled scientific
and organizational achievement. For obvious reasons, it also raised
serious questions about modernity and progress.
I would argue that under these conditions a readership emerged
ready to place the optimistic and progressive paradigm aside (or at
least on hold) and which was ready to entertain concepts of human
weakness, failing, and--perhaps--even sin. Indeed, Sin emerged as
a topic of serious public discussion for the first time in decades.
A great deal was happening in areas beyond religion which are
related to the shift I have outlined. THE BULLETIN OF ATOMIC
SCIENTISTS and discussions of the "Frankenstein Effect," film noir,
and increased markets for post-modern art and literature are
obvious examples. I haven't decided whether these areas should be
woven in, made the topic of a separate chapter, or just mentioned
in a suggestive footnote--any suggestions?
Of course, there is a strain of popular religious thought
(Norman Vincent Peale, for example) which continues the optimistic
progressivism of the previous century. That, however, is not the
dominant mood I read in the sources.
Some of the matters I take up in the portion of the manuscript
I have not summarized here are:
To what extent is there continuity between the
American Renaissance writers and those with whom I am primarily concerned
in this manuscript?
To what extent is this simply a matter of a failed
indigenous American ideology replaced by and imported (largely
Lutheran, and--ironically--largely German) system of ideas?
In what way was this related in an oppositional way to
the anti-intellectualism of McCarthy and the HUAC? (I think the
connection is intimate.)
Why is the intellectual world I have described so
little in evidence a half-century later?
It is a male-centric world that is described
here. What, if any, were the influences of this mood on the later
development of feminist theology? (This is trickier than it first
appears. Some of the earliest voices among feminist theologians studied
with old-line progressives, like Bernard Melland, but their themes seem
far more Niebuhrian and Tillichian.)
© Gregory Holmes Singleton
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