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Book Review: A New Religion?

November 20th, 2009 at 09:03am Albert McIlhenny

Americanism: The Fourth Great Western Religion – David Gelernter Doubleday (June 2007) Topic: Politics Summary: An apologis for the claim of Americanism as a viable religion Rating:

There has been some controversy over the last few years as to what stand Christians should take regarding the United States’ recent adventures overseas and its projection of its aims – often without anyone else’s desire to have them involved – in other sovereign nations. Its rationale for doing so often is cloaked in terms that evoke religious imagery and sometimes goes as far as to employ Biblical imagery. In many respects, the spreading of the message of America has taken on the same evangelistic fervor as the spreading of some forms of religious belief.

David Gelernter faces this issue squarely in Americanism: The Fourth Great Western Religion. In this provocative book, he makes the case that not only is the imagery religious but also the reality. For Gelernter, Americanism its own religion that grew out of Christianity much as Christianity grew out of Judaism. It too has “extended” the Canon with its own “holy books” that include the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the speeches of Abraham Lincoln.

Gelernter points out the similarities between the imagery of America and that of religious thought. It is an idea rather than a location and is built upon principles rather than ethnicity. It has its own rituals and offers hope of salvation through freedom and democracy. Most importantly, those who have accepted its precepts feel duty bound to spread its principles to the world.

Gelernter traces the idea of this new religion from the Founding Fathers through to Abraham Lincoln where he believes it took on its greatest form. Other Presidents who sought to spread the American ideal (Woodrow Wilson, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Ronald Reagan) are also praised although in the case of FDR there is a “flaw” – he waited until Pearl Harbor to advocate entering the war.

Gelernter also sees Americanism as a religion that one can accept without negating other religious convictions. That is, one can be a Christian or Jew or atheist for that matter and still hold to the religion of Americanism. As a religion of the here and now rather than the hereafter and as a religion without belief in a specific god, it poses no threat to any other religious belief or disbelief.

So what is one to make of Gelernter’s thesis? I suppose it all depends on how one defines religion. If one sees it as a deeply held set of beliefs revealing fundamental truths about the world, it certainly might qualify. For Gelernter and others who fall into the mindset of neoconservative politics, Americanism just might be their religion.

Given this definition, there is definitely at least the development of an American mythology but the trajectory is not nearly as unified or smooth as Gelernter would have us believe. The language of the early Puritans was not necessarily to be taken as literally as the author perceives and was likely a calling to have as their standard the idea of a New Jerusalem – a realization not possible until Christ’s return – and not to expect its perfect embodiment.

The interplay of Christian and Deist beliefs among the Founding Fathers certainly made for an interesting mix, but one must remember that at this stage even the Deists were largely accepting of the concept of natural law inherited in Christian theology. Thus, apart from specifically Christian claims, the two modes of thinking were, with a few exceptions, generally harmonious. Hence, even in the absence of a state Church, there was a generally agreed upon minimalist natural theology that itself was derived from the Christian tradition.

It is here where Gelernter overstates his case. The American religion as he sees it is in the Founding Fathers merely the advocacy of agreed upon principles whereby all men should live. There is no real desire to “spread the faith” to others as what would be a rational decision to these men must be reached by each country. In fact, there was a strong movement against such extensions or, as George Washington stated it, “foreign entanglements”. America was to be a nation governed rationally by free people.

It is really at the Civil War that the current mythology begins to take root – particularly with the lightning strike that was the presidency of Abraham Lincoln. It is here that truly the “American religion” in Gelernter’s thesis truly takes root. At this point there is a move from people in various former British colonies banding together for their common commerce and defense but with more allegiance to the individual states to that of a unified American ethos and mythology. Nowhere is this better exemplified than in Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address that recasts the Civil War as one to ensure that “government of the people, by the people, and for the people shall not perish from the earth”.

It is here that we have the beginnings of the idea that the United States was not just a free nation but one called by God or fate to spread that freedom (however unevenly it might be executed at the time). Thus we have the ideas of “manifest destiny” and, some decades later, “making the world safe for democracy”. It could even be said to be the “New Testament” of Anglo idealism. The “Old” was the British Empire that brought its ideas of its civilization but also its colonial rule to the world. Now America began to see itself as a symbol of the fulfilled aspiration of those colonies in its role as a global beacon for freedom.

It is at this point that the book stops being merely an historical interpretation and becomes a full fledged apologia. Gelernter applauds this transformation of the American ideal from self-reliance to intervention in the affairs of others. He condemns those who do not bask in this expanded role for their nation. But at the same time, he reveals inconsistencies in his own position. For example, he notes the isolationist tendencies of most Americans but never questions whether an interventionist mythology can truly represent the hopes of an isolationist populace.

There is no doubt this religion of Americanism as he describes it exists. But I would contend it is more reflective of the wish fulfillment of a disconnected and politicized intelligentsia (most recently manifested in the neoconservative movement) than in the hopes of the people. In this sense, it is not unlike similar “religions” on the left that turned every Marxist revolution into the next great socialist experiment while overlooking the bloodbaths that inevitably followed. Ultimately, Gelernter misclassifies public support of war in self defense as public support of war to remake the world.

Finally, I would question Gelernter’s belief that one can be a Christian and a part of this new religion without conflict. A policy of war – particularly one that undermines the spread of the Gospel (because the United States is seen as Christian) – must be weighed in the light of a Christian understanding of when a war is just. One does not go to war merely to impose one’s culture on someone else. The author does not seem to note any such conflict and one may surmise that, for him, Americanism trumps any other religion when a conflict arises.

Overall, in Americanism: The Fourth Great Western Religion, David Gelernter identifies (although perhaps oversimplifies) the development of this belief and notes its implications on the world stage. However, he completely overstates its acceptance as the principle understanding of Americans and is simply wrong in claiming it harmonizes with other religious traditions. It is a book that is definitely worth reading to identify a particular way of thinking that may be appealing to some Christians but only at the expense of the integrity of their faith.

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