Free Exercise cases and decline of Protestantism

As in nature so in the life of humans, the acme or high point of development often carries in it the seeds of its own decline. A June rose, bursting with all the efflorescent brilliance of late Spring, quickly withers and dies after reaching its peak. Those succulent Georgia peaches, which kiss the mouth with such lush fulness so that you just have to close your eyes to appreciate the satisfying taste, become soft and worthless a day or two after they flourish. Then, in the political realm, we have the example of Richard Nixon. Re-elected by the largest margin in US history in 1972, he had, during that 1972 campaign, ordered the coverup of the Watergate break-in, a coverup that would eventually lead to his downfall. Thus, I want to argue in this essay that the roots of mainline Protestant church decline, a subject on which countless jars of ink have been spilled, already began in the days when its "peak" occurred--the mid 1950s. My major point is that Protestant surge after WWII was based on a principle that no longer had what sociologists call "salience" or prominence within fifteen years after the mid-1950s. Because the mainline Protestants had so thoroughly adopted this principle, which I will call the Americanist principle, they were unable to substitute it for another once the hard days of the late 1960s arrived. This and the next essay tell a little of that story.

Reliving the Mid-1950s

Though I am too young to remember in detail the mid-1950s, the stories I read about that time are strikingly consistent with the stories I imbibed growing up in a CT suburb in the 1950s and 1960s. On the religious front there were a number of signs that the mainline (Congregational, Episcopal, Presbyterian, Methodist, some Baptist and Lutheran) Protestant churches were flourishing. Will Herberg, in his 1955 classic Protestant, Catholic, Jew argued that:

"[It] can hardly be doubted that there has in recent years been an upswing of religion in the United States...The evidence is diverse, converging, and unequivocal beyond all possibilities of error." In fact, he says, there has been a "great upsurge in church life."

The upsurge or upswing in religious life occurred because Americans bought the argument which had been floating around since the end of WWII (who started it, I wonder?) that in order to defeat the menacing force of global Communism, one not only needed a political system which was different (democracy vs. totalitarianism) but a religious observance that showed our superiority (belief in God vs. atheism). In order to demonstrate the latter, then, one needed to become a member of a church and accept a minimal American "creed"--that God is our sovereign, that we are a blessed nation, but that we need to continue to recognize the blessings of Almighty God in order to assure that our culture flourishes. In addition, religious affiliation provided the context in which groups of veterans and their wives could continue the sense of togetherness and unity while reaising their families which they had experienced during the War. I remember a Presbyterian minister who pastored a mid-size Church in the 1950s tell me that even if you were a complete incompetent as a pastor your church would grow in those days.

But it was not merely a generic philosophy which propelled Americans into religious affiliation. There were a number of things in the political arena which reinforced this decision to return to faith. The most prominent, I would argue, was the "religion" of Dwight Eisenhower. On Feb. 1, 1953 he became fully "American" by being baptized and accepted into membership of the Presbyterian Church. He had spent his early days in a small German Baptist church in his native Abilene, KS, but his "full integration" into the America of the 1950s came when he threw in his hat with this surging and historic denomination.

There is no clearer indication of the union of patriotism, religion and American values of prosperity and consensus than in Eisenhower's remarks recorded for the American Legion's "Back to God" program on Feb. 1, 1953. I will only quote it in part, but you can get his "drift."

"As your prayers come from your hearts, so there comes from mine a very earnest one--that all of us by our combined dedication and devotion may merit the great blessings that The Almighty has brought to this land of ours.

We think often of these blessings in terms of material values--of broad acres, our great factories--all of those things which make a life a more convenient and finer thing in the material sense. But when we think about the matter very deeply, we know that the blessings that we are really thankful for are a different type. They are what our forefathers called our rights--our human rights--the right to worship as we please, to speak and to think, and to earn, and to save. Those are the rights that we must strive so mightily to merit."

Then, just when you might be tempted to forget that we were a "Protestant, Catholic, Jew" country, he brought up the memory of the Four Chaplains:

"Today we are especially inspired in our resolution to defend those rights by the memory of the four Chaplains who met death--bravely, quietly, even tranquilly--in the sinking of the Dorchester. They gave their lives without complaint, so that their fellow citizens could live."

Note the intertwining fo religious values with what one might call the American way of life--the right to earn and save, for example, is placed right next to the right to worship.

Conclusion

Other examples of this movement to return the nation to God, resulting in the mainline Protestant explosion in membership, are easy to cite. Congress enacted the National Day of Prayer in the early 1950s. "In God we Trust" was put on paper money beginning in the mid-1950s. "Under God" was added to the Pledge of Allegiance in 1954. Thus, the national symbols were suffused with reminders that God was central to the success of the American endeavor. But there is only one problem when you connect God and church so strongly to a consensus view of American culture--that God is guiding the nation and you show that you believe this by joining your local church. What begins to happen when things start to unravel socially or, in other words, that a consensus begins to crumble? That is the subject of the next essay.

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