Free Exercise cases and jurisprudence and Hamilton v. Regents and ROTC and course in military science and Cardozo and Morrill Act

One of the points that struck me with renewed clarity as I was preparing for my adult Sunday School class on 9/17 was the way in which Americans were encouraged to recognize religious faith in general as one faith and our various religions as one common religion in the days of WWII and shortly thereafter. Of course, the reality was quite different. As Joel Carpenter has shown in his helpful book Revive Us Again, which describes the growth and influence of American Fundamentalism from 1925-50, the Fundamentalist movement was teeming with life and activity during that period, and Fundamentalists would have strongly objected to being grouped together with liberal Protestants, much less Catholics and Jews. But Funamentalists were beginning to come together in such interesting ways at that time that, in fact, they became the "cutting edge" for the future in American religion. For example, the movements or individuals that played such a huge role at the end of the 20th century in American religion, among them Billy Graham, Campus Crusade for Christ, the National Association of Evangelicals, were all nurtured in the Fundamentalist womb between 1940-50. Thus, as I present material for Sunday about the "unity" of religion in America during WWII and shortly threreafter, I do so realizing that this itself was an ideology of the state, an attempt to help create a national consensus for fighting--first the Nazis and Japanese and, then, the Communists.

America's One Faith

My perspective, then, is not that American had a common faith in those days but that it was in the interests of many people in power and with access to media to claim that we had a common faith. Well, who were those people? First of all, there was the President of the US, Franklin Delano Roosevelt. A moderate Episcopalian, Roosevelt looked on religion as a unifying force which would connect the country spiritually as our men fought for it overseas. His D-Day prayer (reproduced here) is a wonderful expression of this common faith. Note the values that are articulated in the prayer. At least three that stand out to me are the confidence that our mission is to save humanity, that justice is what we stand for, that sacrifice is required in order to win this battle.

Ah, now there is a word: sacrifice. Roosevelt drew on it and it resonated deeply in the American psyche. Americans responded by abridging themselves of their superfluities (to quote John Winthrop), by enduring rationing, privation, straitened circumstances because the war was seen as necessary to save Western Civilization as we knew it. In contrast, President George W. Bush, in his address to the nation four days ago (see comment on the address here), also used images of sacrifice to try to stimulate the nation to support him in a global war against terrorism. Though he tried to take pages from Churchill's and Roosevelt's "book," so to speak, he was and will be utterly unable to convince the American people that we need to "sacrifice." Indeed, Monday Night Football now has moved to two games weekly, instead of one, with very high ratings. Does this sound like a nation that is ready to tighten the old belt?

The "Exemplars" of Sacrifice

As an aid in making the dual points that we have one common religion and that sacrifice is the basis of what we are about, a perfect example arose. It is almost as if the God of the One Religion of America provided an example of the oneness of American religion so clear and so powerful that all would be persuaded. Knowledge of this example has faded, but a few stories on the Net tell it. In brief, it was the the story of the Four Chaplains. These four men, who are commemorated in a postage stamp from 1948, died in the rather sudden sinking of the US Army transport ship Dorchester in February 1943. Here is the way the story is told:

"When the U.S. Army transport ship Dorchester set sail on Feb. 2, 1943, from Newfoundland, she was headed for war. Few of the 902 servicemen and civilian workers on board were looking for an opportunity to prove their worth or become a hero.

At approximately 1 a.m., the worst possible maritime tragedy occurred. The German submarine U-233 targeted the Dorchester, locked sites, and fired her torpedoes. Dorchester was hit on her starboard side, amidships, far below the water line. All power and communications were rendered inoperable — the hit was fatal.

As the ship got underway that night, CAPT Daneil, the C.O., had ordered his men to put on their life jackets. However, many ignored his order. When the ship was struck, the men panicked, scrambling to look for a life jacket and the nearest lifeboat. In the midst of this pandemonium and chaos, four courageous and caring souls will always stand out: LT George Fox, a Methodist minister; LT Alexander Goode, a Jewish rabbi; LT John Washington, a Roman Catholic priest; and LT Clark Poling, a Reformed Dutch minister. These men remained faithful to their calling and began calming the frightened, comforting the wounded, and guiding others to safety.

One survivor, Petty Officer John Mahoney, scared about the freezing temperatures of the Arctic, tried to return to his room for his gloves.

“Never mind,” Rabbi Goode said, “I have two pairs.” He then gave Mahoney his own gloves. In retrospect, Mahoney realized that the rabbi was not conveniently carrying two pairs. Engineer Grady Clark saw the chaplains distribute life jackets from the storage locker. When the locker was empty, the chaplains removed their own jackets and gave them to the next four frightened young men in line.

“It was the finest thing I have ever seen or hope to see this side of heaven,” said John Ladd, another survivor who saw the chaplains’ selfless acts."

As it happened, the Dorchester sank within 30 minutes of being hit; more than 2/3 of the men died. The Chaplains, so the story goes, after comforting others and giving away all their life jackets, calmly joined arms and went to their deaths. Sort of a stirring story, isn't it?

Reaction to the Story/Conclusion

This story of heroic sacrifice of the Chaplains from All the Major Faiths, who really served the One God (and, in fact, the One Nation), proved to be a story too good to lose. It was still on many lips when I was a boy in CT in the 1950s, and it contributed to the faith of my Sunday School teachers, most of whom were significantly shaped by the events of WWII.

When Will Herberg wrote the popular book Protestant, Catholic, Jew in 1955, in which he describes the three-fold but really "one fold" nature of American religion in the 1950s, he was reflecting a belief that was already widely shared among the American people. What was once a Protestant Empire (probably well into the 1930s), was now a Protestant/Catholic/Jew Empire. We still had one God, but we expressed it in three ways. What Trinitarian Protestant could object to that?

Ah, I guess I never got beyond "First of all," above. Maybe later...

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