{"id":807,"date":"2024-05-29T16:37:07","date_gmt":"2024-05-29T16:37:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/chopwoodcarrywaterllc.com\/?p=807"},"modified":"2024-10-09T17:18:04","modified_gmt":"2024-10-09T17:18:04","slug":"the-future-belongs-to-crowdsi-is-american-civil-religion-on-the-rise","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chopwoodcarrywaterllc.com\/index.php\/2024\/05\/29\/the-future-belongs-to-crowdsi-is-american-civil-religion-on-the-rise\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018The future belongs to crowds\u2019[i]: The rise of American \u2018civil religion\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

The 1647 Massachusetts Colony \u201cOld Deluder Satan Act\u201d required communities with more than 100 families or householders to establish grammar schools. Colony leaders saw the grammar schools as a means to ensure children acquired the basic literacy skills that would enable them to gain knowledge of the scriptures and thereby \u201cconfound the devil.\u201d[i]<\/a><\/p>\n

As time progressed, the United States public education system inculcated an historic patriotic-religious admixture reenforced to varying degrees through legal, social and societal structures and norms, including church affiliation and attendance throughout the nation., which remained strong until a few decades ago.[ii]<\/a><\/p>\n

In terms of a harbinger, however, the U.S. Supreme ruled in 1943 students cannot be forced to salute and pledge allegiance to the<\/em>\u00a0U.S. flag. [iii]<\/a> Some 19 years later, the high \u00a0court \u00a0rejected school officials\u2019 sanctioned prayer and devotional Bible-readings. [iv]<\/a><\/p>\n

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Harvest Time Church of God<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n


\nRise of the \u2018<\/strong>nones\u2019 <\/strong><\/p>\n

The contemporary iteration of the Christian Charismatic Movement,\u00a0 which shares some faith similarities with Pentecostalism, [v]<\/a> occurred in 1960. [vi]<\/a> Evangelical Churches had a strong emergence in the 1970s. In fact, the 1976 U.S. presidential election was termed \u201cthe year of the Evangelical.\u201d[vii]<\/a> (\u201cEvangelicalism\u201d is a term encompassing wide swaths of Christian belief and practices. [viii]<\/a>)<\/p>\n

Eventually, some conservative Fundamental Christian churches,[ix]<\/a> along with consenting Evangelical churches and branches or \u201cbreakaway\u201d bodies of mainline churches, embraced conservative politics to \u201cright\u201d societal leanings or movements seen as affronts to these churches\u2019 Biblical understandings or of social issues, especially abortion access, which the U.S. Supreme Court \u201clegalized\u201d in 1973, forming an easy alliance with the Roman Catholic Church to promote \u201cpro-life\u201d legislation.<\/p>\n

Despite expectations by their leaders, neither movement \u00a0nor flourishing mega-churches, largely an outgrowth of Evangelicalism, staunched decline in church attendance.\u00a0\u00a0 Moreover, during the past several decades, pollsters document a steady rise in those persons who don\u2019t identify with traditional religious affiliation \u2013 so-called \u201cnones\u201d [x]<\/a> with a concomitant increase in personalized or individualized Christian beliefs, meaning one identifies as Christian without bona fides of organized faith practice or assembly \u2013 culturally Christian. [xi]<\/a><\/p>\n

This development leads some researchers and pundits to conclude new groupings of Evangelicals are emerging, although a New York Times account includes reporters\u2019 interviews of \u00a0persons saying they had lapsed in regular church attendance. [xii]<\/a><\/p>\n

Comparisons with Europe \u00a0prove \u201cjagged\u201d <\/strong><\/p>\n

The fancy to compare developments in U.S. Christianity to \u00a0European Christianity, especially in terms of\u00a0 Church attendance, is a jagged proposition primarily\u00a0 because the U.S. is not Europe.<\/p>\n

The United States\u2019s religious experience includes an often-articulated desire for one to practice his or her religion \u2013 or no religious practice – without governmental cooption, although legislative bodies and courts prescribe lawful boundaries that respect largely \u00a0judicially-articulated church\/state entanglements. [xiii]<\/a><\/p>\n

Another difference: Wars and struggles between nation\/city states, provinces, empires and monarchies emerged in wake of the Protestant Reformation. Historically, European soil is soaked with blood[xiv]<\/a> from myriad revolutions, wars, including two World Wars, pogroms, genocides, the Nazi Holocaust, state-induced famines, ethnic, religious and cultural strife, leading European intellectuals and not a few political leaders to become fed up with God and Christianity,[xv]<\/a> although churches remain open and Europeans embrace Christian practices such as baptism often desiring church \u00a0weddings and funerals. [xvi]<\/a><\/p>\n

American religious expression, unfettering itself from state-supported churches in the early days of the nation, prompts religious diversity. Most importantly, however, \u00a0American soil, while soaked with the blood of the American Revolution, the War of 1812, Mexican-American War (Battle of San Jacinto near Houston) and the \u00a0American Civil War, warded off direct invasion by enemy forces during both World Wars, although Wake Island, Guam and the Aleutian Campaign in WWII\u00a0 may \u201cqualify,\u201d according to some historians.\u201d [xvii]<\/a><\/p>\n

Civil religion and cumulative effects <\/strong><\/p>\n

Are we at a place where U.S. Christian \u201cidentity\u201d is embraced decidedly\u00a0 by traditional church affiliation wherein Christians are admonished to \u201cnot neglect to meet together\u201d (Hebrews 10:25) as well as civil religion trappings, including:<\/p>\n