Fathers Attitude to Religion in the Emerging American Republic - Essay Example

Download file to see previous pages The American Revolution itself has sacred tales of origins, the center, and the source of American civil religion. (pp. 297, 298).
III. Unity and Nationalism: The need for a ‘one religion and many religions’ also forced the founding fathers to adopt the civil religion. As early as 1749, Benjamin Franklin was already speaking about the need for ‘public religion’ (p. 284). Deliberations of the Continental Congress 25 years after that birthed the US were filled with attention to religious details (p. 284). They adopted a religious system with a ‘theology, creed and set of symbols related to their political state existing alongside the churches’ (p. 284). They sought to promote nationalism. Civil religion was designed to ‘unite many people from many different nations into one state (a political state)’ thus creating a nation and a nation-state (p.285). By the time George Washington took his first oath of office in New York, civil religion was in place. It had arisen out of England's Puritanism, but especially out of a union of Puritanism with the engagement of Americans (p.285).

2. Was early Christianity a single unit? Why? What factors resulted in the emergence of a unified Christianity in the third century CE?
Early Christianity was not a single unit. It was as diverse as people and cultures. The need to recognize one God amongst many denominations prompted the unification.

3. How did the institution of the papacy develop in the Roman Catholic Church of the Middle Ages? What was the papacy’s relationship with the emerging nation-states of the period?
Roman Catholicism was “introduced into America by Spanish, and French missionaries” and introduced to the new world sacramentalism. “Sacramentalism did not end with the seven sacraments; it was a means of understanding the mystery of the church, human life, and the natural world”. From the sacrament perspective, “the sign of God’s reality was God’s presence among humans”. The Pope of Rome was that presence, “the sign of the church: representing the reality of God and acting as a conduit through whom God communicated with humans”. He was a “Vicar and stood equal to the bible as a source of spiritual authority”. The Catholic Church “unlike a sect or denomination” sought to include ideally all the “human race notwithstanding territory or culture”. It sought to include all saints and sinners. “The church was the sign of God’s presence in the world”. (pp. 66, 67)

4. Do you think that modern Americans can return to the primordial religions of their ancestors? Why or Why not?
Religion in the United States evolved over centuries from the religious beliefs of the Native Americans to the dominant Christianity. From Protestantism to Scientology most modern Americans are still trying to find a balance in the many denominations and sometimes adopting new ones, clearly according to their beliefs, convictions, or lack of ‘faith’ in others. For the Native Americans “culture was tradition was religion” (p. 21), while in contrast for modern Americans, “religion transcended culture” (p. 21). The current era of coexistence of “one religion and many religions is a fact of American life” (p. 371) and provides solace for Americans uprooted by a society on the move (p. 371). America’s religious strength lies in a dynamic tension created by all the varying beliefs and the freedom to express of them (p. 371).

5. Why did Protestantism emerge in Christianity? How did its relationship to the state differ from Roman Catholicism?
Reformers Martin Luther and John Calvin with the idea of reformation at the centre of its religious sense made prophetic protest against many layers of symbolic and ritual expression that had grown up around Christianity, seeing them as obstacles to true communism with God. They sought to “bring a clear division between extraordinary religion (the way to reach God) and ordinary religion (human culture)” and “emphasize the great gap between divine order of things and the human world” (p. 86S). Today Public Protestantism is the dominant religion in the United States.

Sheer numbers, political and social prestige, economic power, and an early educational monopoly contributed to the ascendancy of Public Protestantism. Indeed many who were not Protestants accepted its influence and imitated its ways. Protestantism expressed democratic equality, religious liberties, and the separation of church and state. Protestantism encouraged denominationalism and voluntarism as a core attribute of the ‘one religion’, preaching actionism, moralism, simplicity, and acceptance which was popular among Americans many of whom were unconvinced by the Traditionalists religion. Public Protestantism offered a choice; it broke down banners of confusion/boundaries so that religious oneness could be achieved (p. 280). The new concept of Separation of church and state was a “revolutionary settlement of the religious question” (p. 253). It contrasted severely with the “European notion of Christendom- one great United Kingdom of God” and the Roman Catholic's notion that “spiritual and human government went hand in hand”, instead Americans instituted a clear separation of church and state, thus “creating a new condition for religion” (p. 253). ...Download file to see next pages Read More