Free Exercise cases

As we saw in the previous essay, if you could have "frozen" America and its religion in the mid-late 1950s, you would have had growing and thriving religious institutions throughout the land. The principle motivating the great surge in membership during those days was the American principle--in order to show yourself a good American and "stand against" the secular wiles of Communism, you needed to join a church. You needed to adopt a minimalist creed in order to join most churches--that God was Almighty and that you trusted in him and that it was good for everyone if you were a member--but you really didn't need to get into all those controversial and difficult-to-understand doctrines like the divinity of Christ, the nature of the atonement, the authority of the Bible. And you certainly didn't have to demonstrate what the growing (but still largely invisible) Evangelical movement said you had to demonstrate: the experience of being "born again" in Christ, the sense that you had a "personal relationship" with God through Christ, the sense that you had been "saved" from your sins and enabled by the strength of the Holy Spirit to live a new life. That is, the church "revival" of the 1950s was a revival of American patriotism that saw its instantiation in people joining churches.

Things Fall Apart

This kind of situation can last as long as the principle on which the system is built goes unchallenged. As long as there is the shared sense that Soviet Communism is the most dangerous force in the world, as long as people continue to believe that joining churches is one way to show your loyalty to America in this fight, as long as there is the sense that America has one aim and one goal, then the mainline church could continue to prosper. But what if another scenario begins to develop? What if the following things happen? Let's make a list:

1. What if people begin to look at issues internal to the United States and say that our most urgent problem is not necessarily facing an enemy out there but an enemy in here? This is one way to understand the appeal of the Civil Rights movement in the 1960s--that America needed to focus on internal things. And, those who still wanted to marry this concern with the larger American ideology (perfectly done in MLK Jr's "I Have a Dream" speech) could do so, even though it became increasingly difficult to do so as the 1960s progressed.

2. What if, in the wake of the Civil Rights movement, which caught fire in the mid-1960s, a new paradigm or central image begins to emerge in America which was not easily compatible with the consensus view of the 1950s? This principle, that of liberation of long-oppressed groups, would be the formative principle for new legal status and public recognition of various groups, beginning with African-Americans and then moving to women, Native Americans, gays & lesbians, disabled people and, then, through the "discovery" of the constitutional doctrine of privacy, most clearly delineated in the 1973 Supreme Court decision Roe v. Wade, to all of us. A liberation paradigm may or may not ultimately be compatible with the calm consensus model of the 1950s, but it only has the possibility of being compatible after lots and lots of discussion with the right kinds of people.

3. What if, third, a new image of religion begins to become prominent---that the essence of religion is not in confession of one's American bona fides but in an experience of grace, a being "born again" to new life? Though this isn't incompatible with the religion of the 1950s, it is asking a whole lot more of people than the simple commitment of the 1950s, as articluated by Eisenhower in the speech quoted in the previous essay.

Things REALLY Fall Apart

Confusion then began to reign in the mainline churches. People joined them in vast numbers in the 1950s because there was the sense that America needed people to join churches. Our cause against the Communists depended on it. But then in the 1960s we had all these "divisive" issues. MLK, Jr., for example, who is now almost universally hailed as a "great American," was vilified by the White Protestant establishment when he first began making waves in the late 1950s. Or, to put it differently, his actions were seen as "dividing" America. But, from a distance of more than 40 years we see that his actions only "divided" America if the underlying philosophy of consensus (i.e., that we were all united in common fight against the Communists) was really a shared philosophy and was really the primary orientation we all had to adopt.

This, then, became the "spirit" of the 1960s, which spilled over into the 1970s and beyond. One could question the basic value of the 1950s; one could try to get beyond consensus; one could adopt another basic principle--that of social justice, for example--rather than the fight against Communism.

But this "new" approach would land the churches in all kinds of difficulties. In short, they lost their way. Were they still a "consensus" church, mired in the doctrines of the 1950s? Were they a "liberation" church, which sought to affirm the struggles of long-oppressed groups beginning in the 1960s and beyond? Or, would they abandon both of these models and turn to Evangelical religion--where the basis of church membership was an experience of grace, a sense of being "saved" by Christ? Of course, this increasingly became packaged by Evangelicals in the 1970s and beyond in an Americanist package, but it did provide an alternative basic principle around which you might organize your church life.

Conclusion

These visions of the church clashed, then, beginning in the late 1960s. But, as with any big fight, it takes a while to realize the extent of the battle that has been joined. In fact, the battle set off by incompatible (or not easily compatible) basic principles caused rifts and dissension in the mainline churches. A lot of people decided that all this new "liberation" language just didn't fit with the old Americanism consensus. So, you drop out. A lot of people decided that you really didn't have to be a church member to be a good American. Attendance declines further. A lot of people saw the church as clumsily, partially, and ineptly responding to the liberation realities of the 1970s and beyond. Further decline. Now, you only have a shell of the former glory of these churches. And still, there is no consensus on what a church should be. Many people in their 70s and 80s come to church because they were touched by the post-WWII "fire." Some people, mostly those who work in social justice issues, think that the church is still the greatest potential liberation body on earth. Some have said, figuratively speaking, "A plague on both your houses," and have found refuge in the experience of religious grace. I would say that the only consensus that exists in the mainline church today is that there is confusion. Maybe that "Babelistic" condition provides the context for fresh discovery of mission. I think, unfortunately, that the darkness has to grow considerably more dark before the mainline can climb out of its funk.

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