Lessons in Taking the Long View in the Long Form
Among other things, Ribuffo briefly discusses the role of conservative Christianity in anti-communist hysteria which was an ongoing formative experience of his childhood in Fair Lawn, New Jersey.
Historians cannot understand the behavior of the American people past and present without paying serious attention to nationalism and religion--or, more precisely, religions, since religion is a weak category. The relationship between religions and foreign relations is more problematic. Thus my text for this sermon is an old American adage, sometimes attributed to Mark Twain: For someone with a hammer everything looks like a nail.
Since World War II, probably the greatest single religious influence was the role of conservative Protestants and Catholics, organized in their churches and parachurch groups, in the enforcement of Cold War orthodoxy in its various aspects including politics, race, sex, and popular culture. The latest historiographical rediscovery of American conservatism has coincided with--and to some extent intersected with--the religious history vogue. Yet, in contrast to the small body of scholarship about conservatism produced from the 1950s to the 1990s, little attention is now paid to the intimate connection between the post-World War II right and the twentieth-century's second Red Scare (usually labeled too narrowly as McCarthyism). As even the little Fair Lawn Red Scare suggests, religion was part of the story. He also cautions us that religions evolve over time, but not always in the ways people may think, or that religious and political leaders themselves may claim.
...scholars should beware of the claim, first popularized by Jerry Falwell in the late 1970s, that fundamentalists and evangelicals shunned politics after World War II until liberal and radical excesses in the "sixties" made them do it. Probably most of these theological conservatives did believe in the "fifties" that fierce anti-Communism, denunciations of short skirts, and acquiescence in or enthusiasm for white supremacy were moral rather than political positions. There is no good reason for scholars to accept this dichotomy in retrospect. Similarly, he adds:
...historians should not slight religious interest groups that wound up on the losing side of foreign policy controversies; a few even won in the medium run. These interest groups included pacifists and some ethical opponents of the frequent wars.... Above all, greater attention to such "sixties" groups as Clergy and Laity Concerned about Vietnam (CALCAV) would correct the prevailing folkloric image of the anti-war movement as an addendum to youthful sex, drugs, and rock and roll. Finally, he also cautions us against faddishness and allowing hopes and fears about trends overcome a steady, clear-eyed view of reality.
...the centrality of religious faith to national identity ebbs and flows over time--in Poland, Russia, Ireland, Pakistan, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Iran, Iraq, Egypt and, yes, the United States. Nowadays secularists hope and theists fear that the recent popular slide down the slope from denominationalism to "spirituality" in this big rich country will end in a European style secular humanism. This prediction seems plausible--as it did in 1790.
Lessons in Taking the Long View in the Long Form | 0 comments ( topical, 0 hidden)
|
||||||||||||
|