When I was a kid, this was a secular nation. What the hell went wrong?

I remember one weird high school biology teacher, a conservative Lutheran, who dealt with evolution by not dealing with it. Unlike the other biology teacher, he used outmoded text book that didn't discuss evolution, and he just never mentioned the word. I'm sure the administration was just waiting for him to retire so they could replace him with someone who had been educated in the 20th century.

Fundamentalists were nonexistent not just on the campus, but in the whole town were I went to college 40 years ago. Theists of any stripe were rare and somewhat apologetic about their eccentric beliefs. "Well, yeah, I believe in God, but not some guy with a long beard or anything. I think the idea of a Hell is old-fashioned and silly." I don't even think we knew the word "fundamentalist," and if we did, we would have thought of it as an insult.

In those days, no politician ever made a big deal of his religion one way or the other, and nobody seemed to care. The only exception was in the case of JFK. There was a certain amount of anti-Catholicism around, and people were afraid that the Pope would end up running the country. Even a lot of atheists were especially anti-Catholic because of the perceived foreign authoritarian structure of the Church.

Then, somewhere along in the 1970's, these Jesus freaks started showing up. I thought that stuff had gone out with the Scopes trial, and maybe lingered in the weird and alien back hills of Tennessee or something. We laughed at them, and thought of them as being on a par with the Hare Krishnas. We didn't take them seriously. We should have. In retrospect, I really don't understand how the country was able to regress that far. I mean, a nice mainstream Protestant who takes the Bible as allegory and appreciates it for its wisdom is one thing, but a crazed Biblical literalist is something else. It just never dawned on me, or reasonably well-educated people of that era, that we could one day have a national government staffed exclusively by graduates of Bible colleges who would deny obvious realities such as evolution, global warming and peak oil, or who would premise their environmental policies on a belief that the Second Coming is around the corner.

Even now, in order to get elected, President Obama had to make all kinds of obeisances and prostrations to the church. I can't imagine anyone having made any kind of big deal at all about the religion of FDR, Truman, Eisenhower or Nixon. (Again Kennedy was an exception because of the Catholicism.)

What the fuck happened? How did it happen? How do we make sure it doesn't happen again?

but then the religiously insane got some power and changed everything.

When I was a kid in grade school, the public school kids prayed every day. In most communities, it was assumed you were a Christian until proven otherwise. And, most people were nominally religious -- so you didn't notice the effects so much.

I think that rather than the country becoming less secular, a lot of individuals became more secular.

I remember prayers in school assemblies until I was in high school but my biology teacher told us if we wanted to know about creationism we should either ask our parents or pastors. BTW, my pastor believed in evolution. I am having a hard time with religion getting involved with the schools. I have always believed it was wrong.

When my daughter was a toddler we put her into a Christian preschool. She stayed until I couldn't stand the science curriculum any more. I didn't want her learning God created the squirrels. I loved the reading and math though. My husband and I did a lot of science projects at home with her. If parents want religion as the primary focus they should put their kids into private Christian schools and not bitch about the cost.

"they should put their kids into private Christian schools and not bitch about the cost."

Um, this happened to me and it was not good at all. :(

...religion was addressed in Religion class exclusively.

They see the sexual revolution as the opening salvo in the current "culture war".

Disillusioned with the drug and sex culture of the 1960s. A lot of them took up Christianity.

"I used to be all messed up on drugs, now I'm all messed up on Jesus."

Churchaholics. Their credo? You never really have problems: if there are problems with your marriage, your job, etc., that means you're having problems with your relationship with "The Lord". Fix your relationship with "The Lord", and it fixes everything else.

pray for you."

It's more like they traded their drug addiction for another type of addiction altogether.

Eastern religions, drugs, etc. Obviously, they were searching for something, the consumerism of the 1950 wasn't cutting it for them.

I would try to move away from such absolute language.

Maybe the word "few" would work better.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesus_freak

Jesus freak, while initially a pejorative term for those involved in the Jesus movement of the late 1960s and early 1970s, was quickly embraced by them and soon broadened to describe a Christian subculture throughout the hippie and back-to-the-land movements that focused on universal love and pacifism, and relished the radical nature of Jesus' message. Jesus freaks often carried and distributed copies of the "Good News for Modern Man", a 1966 translation that fit the bill by including only the New Testament in its initial editions, and by being in modern English.

hippieness and jesusness going together, but only as long as it isn't the "my way or the highway" sort of Christianity. If it can't live and let live, I don't want any part of it.

back in the 70's. I found it distasteful, much like I find these "new age" fundamentalist church meetings distasteful today

If I read the Bible (big IF) I go to a King James version. For some reason, it is less annoying.

The fundamentalists have excused themselves from personal responsibility. God governs their every move, they do not have any responsibility to make ethical decisions in their own lives. For goddess's sake, my sister believes that when she find an empty parking space near the door of a shop, God made it possible for her so she doesn't have to walk so far. You can't argue with that kind of religious insanity . . .

Same glazed over look in their eyes and everything. How some of them went from "free love" to "hate the sin..." is the main question I have. That's damn creepy, (the complete opposite of love) if you ask me.

previously been back woods religions mainly in the south. Pentecostals specifically had a lot to do with the growth of this brand of religion because they infiltrated the mainline churches that had been here since the beginning of this country and turned them into what we have today. It also did not help that the ecumenical movement pulled some of those mainstream protestant churches into the political mess. By the way many of us hippies are still here and we ARE NOT rw fundies.

Religion as a political weapon more or less started with him. That's where the unholy alliance between the emerging fundies and the Republican party began.

I don't even know if he was Catholic or Protestant!

The Reagans preferred astrology. As governor of CA, he signed the law that made abortion legal there well before Roe v Wade. He also made an ad with former gov Jerry Brown against the anti-gay Briggs initiative in 1978.

at the same time, maybe even the same year, in the Catholic Church, John Paul II emerged, and the church took a hard swing (back) to the right. It seems as though there was a backlash against the guitars and the folk mass. John Paul II called for the Sisters of Mercy to get back into their habits again. Jesuits in politics (such as Rep. Paul Drinan, D-MA) were forced to either step down from politics or leave the church. (The good news on that one was that although Drinan was liberal and pro-choice, he was succeeded by none other than Barney Frank D-MA) I think, in fact, a lot of your "Reagan Democrats" are of the Catholic faith. Catholicism, as I was raised in it, preached a lot about being charitable and helping the poor. They seemed less strident about the abortion issue than they do now.

While everyone else in the 1976 Democratic primary was running in their home region and hoping to "steal" a few delegates from strategic states, Carter pulled an Obama by competing seriously in every state. Where Obama had the Internet, Carter had the pulpit. The first Christian Coalition was formed that year, and Carter was the man they got behind.

But he was able to separate his religion from his job as President of the United States. This and the realization the Democratic Party was just too big for them to take over caused them to switch over to the much smaller Republican Party where they turned "President Ronald Reagan" from a Laugh-In running joke** into frightening reality.


**To those too young to enjoy the comedy variety show Laugh-In during the early 70s, they had a regular "News of the Future" skit. Think 20-seconds of SNL News thrown in two or three times an episode. This skit would frequently open, "President Ronald Reagan," and the audience would immediately start laughing. Because the thought of Ronald Reagan as President of the United States back then was as ludicrous as President Kucinch or President Palin is today.

So for you Kucinich fans, keep plugging away. And for all DUers, President Palin *can* happen. :scared:

Kucinich and Palin are professional politicians. While they're long shots, they both have known presidential aspirations, and careers that have tended in that direction.

A closer analogy might be "President Brad Pitt," or "President Brendan Frasier," although Brad Pitt and Brendan Frasier are both better actors than Ronald Reagan ever was. C'mon, his masterpiece was "Bedtime for Bonzo."

If so, the Palin comparison would be apt.

He was the one who came up with the "Southern Strategy." Pander to the wingnuts, racists, and religious fanatics, and win elections. It has worked for the Republicans for decades. Reagan was continuing a policy started by Nixon.

:puke:

I agree with you. I never imagined we'd be where we are today.

I remember seeing a poster around 1970 that was a photo taken from the final scenes of "Easy Rider." It showed the fellow in the pickup truck holding a shotgun just before he shoots Peter Fonda. The caption underneath read, "The Silent Majority."

It was chilling, to say the least...

that says "The Moral Majority is neither"

I've still got a button, "The Immoral Minority"

They were just harder to hear from before the internet gave them a cheap, nation-wide stage to project their various -isms from.

I think fundamentalism has become more mainstream to some extent, but I still think it's a fairly secular country. A lot of vocal voices on both sides will say it's not. As an agnostic bordering on Atheism, I think that both sides carry some responsibility for the polarization.

So really, I don't think anything changed other than the ease of modern communication. There's probably no way to make sure it doesn't happen again without some serious changes to the constitution that I don't think would be a good idea.

One giant tent revival meeting

I think ultimatly in previous generations religous was more of a private thing. Back when I was in school (80s, early 90s) few people talked about religion. We had some sort of flag-pole fundies who prayed every day but no one cared much about it. Our football games always had a pre-game and post-game prayer which I participated in but payed little attention to (if there is a god, I doubt he much cares about high school football results).

You're right though, televagalism, especially the more fudie ones, went a long way towards making religion a public thing rather than a private thing. I was brought up southern baptist and even then most of the kids I knew from Sunday school were only lip-service Christians at best (and it was in part thanks to them that I was "cured" of southern baptism).

Also, there's this:



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_Baptist_Convention_Conservative_Resurgence/Fundamentalist_Takeover

was the expansion of "bus ministries", mostly from evangelical churches, where they would go to neighborhoods on Saturday and recruit kids to attend church on Sunday with the promise of fun and games. We would have 3 or 4 busses roll through our neighborhood with each church trying to outdo the others as far as what they offered for entertainment.

Exactly.

It's interesting that during the more secular time period the OP describes, it was very common for American kids to be in 'Sunday School.'

Seems that as 'mainstream' religions evolve and become more agreeable to secular ideas, the fundamentalists ratchet up the indoctrination and fanaticism.

made a lot of that possible.

Another thing that technology and modernization changed was the ease of reaching churches that were farther away. In the early half of the 1900's, most people had to get to churches they could walk or ride to. With the emergence of the auto industry, mass transit and other quick transportation, there tended to be fewer, larger churches and that seems to continue to be the trend. In the 50's and 60's, a "mega" church might be a church with a few thousand members. Now mega churches have tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of members and millions if you include their over-the-airwaves members.

I know at the baptist church my parents used to attend that food and drink during the sermon was a no-no. Now the same church has a coffee bar and bakery inside the church. The changes also include many more services. When I was attendined there was one Sunday School and two sermons (early and late, with Sunday School sandwiched in between). Now there are three Sunday morning sermons, two Sunday Schools, two Sunday evening sermons, a Sunday evening Sunday School and basically something going on at the church seven days a week.

the beginning of this nonsense.

Sorry to offend any good godly folks among you but I will never not blame religion for letting the entire Earth go to Hell.

"God's image" my ass. Humans are a disease from now on because they won't take responsibility. The only purpose of religion is helping the monkeys think what we're doing is okay because Earth is ours to rape and Heaven's all we should care about anyway.

I blame religion for fucking the whole Earth.

Conscience massaging.

and our greedy nature that if not changed will be our undoing. We don't need religion to "fuck the earth" just look at Russia under the atheist communist not exactly an enviromentally friendly nation. "Fucking the Earth" is a modern thing and no religion is needed for mankind to find an excuse to do it.

but then you describe the censorship of evolution.

That's anything but secular.

One old fart didn't want to teach evolution, so he didn't. He didn't try to teach Creationism, he just left the whole topic of origins out of the discussion. The other biology teacher used a modern text book & taught evolution. He went on to be the HS Principal long after I graduated.

outlets for the monied powers in our country.

The blurring of the lines of separation of church and state would have never happened otherwise.

Religion is an excellent tool to suppress the people and it was in the wealthy's interest to keep the ill-informed American people oppressed via their religious views.

Edited to add last paragraph.

Then later on, cable.
Most of the damage was done before satellite or the Internet were factors.

That's where the right wing radio shows started.

Funny how people forget the "Christian" in "Southern Christian Leadership Conference."

:eyes:

sad, but very true.

:grouphug:


Fr's. Daniel and Patrick Berrigan- Dorothy Day, Thomas Merton, Rev. Ralph Abernathy also played important parts in their own way, among many others.

Who said that again?

The worst that humans do they blame on "God" ... but I think there's a different name I'd use.

I remember Christmas carols that talked about Christ, not Santa, in public school, with an occasional nod to the Jews with the Dreidl song. I remember towns paying for Jesus, Mary and Joseph on the front lawn of the town hall. People weren't pushy about it, but there it was, the Nativity, paid for by your tax dollars. I remember prayer in school.

No one griped about it, either. It just...was.

This country was never very secular....they just weren't so nasty about their "religious imperative" because there weren't too many people from "other" religions that had potential to "take away the franchise," as it were. Now that people are squawking about Jesus on the town hall lawn, these "tolerant" Xtians are getting less tolerant. They think if they can't display it, they've somehow lost power and influence.

Prayer in school. Religious Christmas carols and displays. The assumption that we all believed the same thing.

When I was a child, I had friends who were Jewish, and I thought they were just different kinds of Christians. I had a rather confused religious upbringing, but it never occurred to me that there were people who did not believe in god until I found out at some point that my father was an atheist.

As you said, everything just was.

Although it wasn't quite as in-your-face as now. Except for the JW people who used to make regular stops at our house to argue with my father out on the back porch, it was mainly just all about people believing what they believed and that was that.

Religion still existed, just not as obnoxiously as now.

People increasingly lack the ability to distinguish between the secular public sphere and their religion. Freedom of religion is interpreted to mean that religion shall have license to dictate to all, rather than that all shall be free from the strictures of any particular religion.

I must have missed that.

I grant you that there are more groups out there trying to force their morality viewpoints on the rest of us now.

Crazy for God: How I Grew Up as One of the Elect, Helped Found the Religious Right, and Lived to Take All (or Almost All) of it Back. Fascinating reading.

driven by the geometric acceleration of technological and economic innovation, and with many friction points from World Wars to culture wars.

Before the latter half of the 20th century, the last major fundamentalist upheaval in America was in the middle of the 19th century, as the country converted from an agricultural to an industrial urban society, and fought a major civil war over the ensuing societal and political changes. This is when "in God we trust" was added to currency, and this is when soldiers sang songs of "the Glory of the coming of the Lord" as they marched to war. As America adapted to this new world, however, the fundamentalist spirit waned, and religious fervor subsided.

Before that, the previous major fundamentalist upheaval occurred around the time of the American Revolution, as mercantile colonialism gave way to independent capitalism. Before that, the previous major fundamentalist upheaval occurred as the American colonies began to take on a stable identity and build a new culture out of the rough and hostile land.

We are in a world now in which we may never become truly native. Moore's law still holds, and each decade brings greater changes than the decade before it. Paradigms are built in one year and shattered four years later. Cultures continue to merge and blend, and economies open as jobs, goods, languages, and values hop international flights and end up on the other side of the world. The world spins faster and faster, along newer and stranger axes.

Meanwhile, more and more people turn to the solid groundings of the Bible, the Torah, and the Koran, as new and innovative fundamentalist sects offer claims of reassurance and shared fiery anger at the endlessly changing world.

So long as the world exists, there will be religions to react to it. So long as the world changes, there will be fundamentalists to shake their fists at it. I doubt fundamentalism is going away any time soon.

It might be more accurate to say, "So long as the world exists...in it's current geo-political form, the Ruling Classes will always find ways to use fanaticism to divide and conquer the peons."

that rivers are redirected and dammed for hydroelectric power. They don't create the river or the fanatic; they only tell it where to go and what to do for them.

In some instances their 'gods' are vengeful and angry, in others they're a bit more friendly. There may be a tendency to invent a narrative to make sense of the universe, but if it were 'natural' we'd see historically consistent explanations.

I'm just saying it's a powerful tool.

of a religious instituion takes it's various god(s).

The trend right now seems to be towards the vengeful, angry god. That didn't seem to be the case as often as it was when I was going to church. In our church, we often talked about the reward instead of the punishment. Now days it seems to be about avoiding the punishment instead of gaining the reward.

not by any premeditated aim, but rather as a product of a form of natural selection. Individual preachers each have an individual character formed by their models and experiences while learning their craft (and reflective of their societal upbringings), and experience a degree of success correlated to both their individual talents (which amount to statistical noise) and their message's fit with what their societies are willing to accept.

:rofl:

:hi:

Here are some facts from the front line. Warren is in Orange County CA, on of the birth places of the 'Jesus People' and the new Fundies. Home of PLT network, now. The first small church to go mega in that time and place was Calvary Chapel which allowed those looking like hippies to attend, folks who were brought in by a young man called Pastor Lonnie. Lonnie was very special, and they wound up with mass baptisms in the sea, and a tiny church replaced by a huge circus tent to hold all the people. Then the original ministers saw the gold in the water. And they wanted it for their own. To end the influence of the far too Christlike Lonnie, they outed him and started the emphasis on being anti-gay. Those folks all became very wealthy, and Calvary Chapels are all over the nation. Lonnie vanished from the scene, and the old folks took the cash and started reeling the radical Christian message back.
So I say they intentionally went hard core right wing hater, in order to preserve power and money. It was into that fertile soil that Warren grew his own congregation.
Make of it what you will, that is a bit of the hows and whys of Saddleback's rise, and the community in which they exist. Bashing teh gay was a specifically targeted tactic, undertaken to gain status over others. It worked like a charm.

I just look at what the baptist church was like when I was old enough to remember understanding it, compared to how it is now. As the southern baptist convention has become more fundamental in it's leadership, so have gone the churches. I remember in the early 80's, Halloween was still cool with the baptists. Hell, at my first church we would meet at the Church on Halloween night before going trick or treating and then go invade the neighborhood from there. The church had a free "scanning" thing set up to screen the treats at the end of the night and it was about fun, I don't think there was any sort of religious service at all.

Now the baptist church tries to keep people from partaking in traditional Halloween activity and foists all sorts of alternative crap at the church to keep its members from doing something it now considers unholy.

Its trickle down at it's best. The church leadership (and by leadership I'm talking about it's governing body) has become more fundamental to some extend, and the individual churches have followed suit.

The whole church-as-a-business has helped speed this process because of the funding now available.

I work as a web developer for an SEO company. We have (had) a client in GA that called us a few weeks ago to "cancel" our services because his church told him that they, or any of their members, are to give up all involvement with the web. He didn't even care that he wasn't able to get a refund - thousands of dollars spent for nothing!

And in the realm of the tech industry, I always see a very clear representation of it in an ongoing stubbornness and aversion to change. The faster things change, the more many of my users resist it.

"Then, somewhere along in the 1970's, these Jesus freaks started showing up." My brother was one of the Jesus freaks. He went to a bible college that actually taught the young fundamentalists how to gain political power. He often bragged that his school had taught him how to "play moderate" to advance their political agenda.

They initially liked Jimmy Carter because he was a Sunday school teacher and talked about his faith quite a bit. But Carter disappointed them with his "liberal" social views. There were a lot of people disappointed in Carter for various reasons, so the politically savvy fundamentalists managed to galvanize a conservative movement that brought Reagan into office. The rest is history.

is on the rise worldwide. It is not just an American phenomenon.

n.t.

Obama said, about people being "bitter" and clinging to "guns and religion"? Yeah, I think that just about nails it.

Hell, I'm from Suburban Ohio...when I go back I see a change.

The local cinema is a creepy born again church after it had to close down, a few folks I recognized as folks I went to grade school with looked like crap...one looked like he was tweaking. Jobs were going away save a few retail...now they are going too. The gun store is still open and looking creepier than ever with more camo and flags than I remember it...I heard there is a "militia group" in the southern part of the township next to the highway...always puts up huge Republican signs come election time.

And everyone is strangely more religious in the not-so-pleasant way. A friend who is studying to be a Catholic Priest (total closet gay but I spare pointing this out to everyone I know) says he "prays" for it to get better all the time. He's also a staunch republican who I seldom point out has gone to bed with devils who wear halos and don't even consider him a real "Christian." I held my tongue when I wanted to say "good luck with that."

It's really sad.

before posting because I wasn't able to do it as well as you just did - well said and exactly right.

after the passage of an Act of Congress in 1956.

I wonder why that was in this secular nation you remember so clearly...

:shrug:

(what I can now call) my inner sense of fairness. I didn't know it was inner - I thought fairness was something we all shared. I never hated pagans or the beliefs of native peoples worldwide as a starting point.

I'll tell you wnen I think it changeed. When reverends started making a ton of money through tv. They used their cockeyed interpretation of morality, combined it with bigotry, and made a decision to serve the hate and fear spreading industrial-military cies and brass who profited from war.

Eisenhower was wrong. He said industrial-military complex. It's an industrial-military-reverend-politician-media consortium all ruled by barons - those who were at the top or joined the top barons - with the idea that they had to manipulate and own the world for their already bulging pockets.

The Great Awakening, the first major movement by evangelical conservatives, swept the country in the early 19th century, subsiding before the Mexican War. The Religious Right figures of the day failed to make inroads in the White House (Andrew Jackson correctly distrusted them), and so by the 1840's they waned in influence. The 1920's was like the 1980's, rampant greed coupled with false, ultraconservative piety (Billy Sunday instead of Billy Graham). Sinclair Lewis documented his kind well in "Elmer Gantry". The Depression and WW2 effectively quashed their influence, but they enjoyed a strong run with McCarthyism in the 50's. They put pressure on Eisenhower, via the Knights of Columbus, to put "In God We Trust" on the currency, and adding "under God" to the Pledge. The SCOTUS ruled in favor of the American Atheists in 1962, which kept them at bay until the rise of Falwell in the 70's. They cite 1962 as when we "kicked god out of the classroom", but that was always a fund-raising pressure tactic. As long as there are trigonometry exams, prayer will always be in schools. But thankfully, not school-sanctioned. Between that issue and the abortion obsession, coupled with failing, underfunded schools, fundamentalist homeschooling, and using the internet to perpetuate mass ignorance, I think we are in the New Dark Ages. We need a Second Enlightenment.

Note that all of the reactions follow periods of upheaval and turmoil - war, depression, etc. But it seems the current wave from the 70's has never fully waned. We shall see.

People need religion more when times are bad.

If you are curious about the no. of people in this business, just look at the list. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_American_televangelists

If either televangelism or Reagan had not happened, likely we'd still be a secular country.

The funny thing about the secular 50s is that all the doubters had very high church attendance. I know my mother didn't believe a word of it but not only did she go to church every Sunday like a good Irish Catholic, she stuck me in parochial school until I rebelled.

Still, everybody knew where the line was until televangelists went on the teevee and started preaching extremist politics and Reagan legitimized them by giving them a curious alliance with the super rich, dangling antiabortionism in front of their long blue noses.

Add to that the fact that the doting father Sunday school god didn't make a whole lot of sense in a rotten economy with a war halfway around the world, and you make an opening for the petty, vindictive old testament god to reappear.

Throw in a little Millennial Fever and you've got what we've got today.

It's all happened before, of course, and world events have caused people to ask a lot of uncomfortable questions with no easy answers and that's led us back to our secular state. It's going to take a great deal of effort on our part plus a willingness to tax churches that try to get their dogma into civil law.

There's nothing like a visit from the tax man to show them where the line is.

He opened the pandora box and a lot of what happened in the last 20 years was because of him.

He just harnessed and refined what was already there. Were there not a Hitler or a Reagan, there would have been another by a different name.

The question of how fundamentalism rose in this country is different from who introduced it into our politics. (although they are certainly related)

I don't pretend to understand how the fundamentalist movement began, but the answer to the question of who introduced it into our politics, threatening the separation of church and state, is definitely "Reagan".

The way I see it, religious fundamentalism was injected into politics by the effort of millions of fundamentalists under the charismatic and energetic leaders of the religious right. Reagan just happened to be the first politician to respond to that force. Had Reagan never been born, another Republican politician would have done the same.

(I am so stealing that.)

You have a way with words!

I often wonder if other religions had this or a similar stipulation... and if those other religions also saw a turning away from what they were taught in bold defiance.

Hardcore drugs without any easy treatment available? Only one thing to do! Turn to Jesus.

Teen pregnancy? Contraceptives and Abortion are BAAAAAD! Turn to Jesus!

Shrinking middle class and a shit load of crappy jobs only available! Turn to Jesus!

Oh yeah, and have a lot of kids and abuse a system created for kids who were located too far from educational establishments. Make sure he next generation has no doubts because they are never exposed to doubters until it's too late to change one's rigid thinking.

and no one succeeds as well as religious charlatans.

was often fish- wednesdays afternoons there were more than a few kids who left to go to church sponsored classes. JFK's speeches have ample references to 'god' in them- (somehow in a much less offensive way than *'s were).

The divide, the animosity that exists between those who practice religion, and those who don't is what changed imo. I agree, there was a lot of bigotry surrounding JFK's Catholicism, but there were more unchallenged references to religion in govt than today. In NH we even had a holiday called "Fast Day" (which was supposed to be a day of fasting and prayer) until 1991- (when we abolished 'fast- day' and changed it to Civil Rights day, and then in 1999 it FINALLY became MLKjr.Day).

I do agree that the 70's seemed to be a time of increased friction and 'evangelical' christianity was more common- I remember Jimmy Carter's religion being an 'issue' for some people, especially within our own party.

Our perceptions are different- not saying you are 'wrong'- just that I don't really see it the same way.

:hi:

but I have to admit, when I read some of JFK's speeches, I'm often taken back by some of the religious references, and wonder how some people would respond to the same words today.

I DO remember the orange juice lady ... Anita Bryant and her 'religious' campaigning.. against homosexuality and womens rights. I think she came in in the 70's.
I was reading about Falwell the other day (doing research on the anti-abortion movement) and it was interesting that there is speculation that he adopted the "pro-life" cause as a way to mobilize voters, because his college was denied 'tax-exempt status' due to it's segregated admittance policy.

Tangenting- sorry-

:hi:

ronny was never that religous in his entire life and he barely went to church while he was president.

You know, this was a time of Kent State, Hippies, America Love it or Leave it, anti-war movement, The pill, The Whole Earth Catalogue, Laurel's Kitchen, long hair, I'd like to Buy the World a Coke, the Smothers Brothers, etc. It seemed like the more modern "with it" people were in the majority. It was definitely a secular world.

But then I remembered something else. My high school allowed a group called Young Life to come into school. They didn't have meetings at the school, but they were allowed to hang around the cafeteria, hand out flyers inside the school, etc. They had meetings once a week in some students home. They were fun. The leader was a young good-looking guy and the evening would consist of skits and games and then singing and all the songs were religious. Then the leader would end finally with a very heavy religious message about finding Christ. Young Life was very very popular, but basically because it was a place where you could go to check out the cute guys and the guys could check out the cute girls. The same people would have gone to the same meetings with or without a religious message. BUT, some people did take it very seriously and found religion.

I guess my point it is, it was always there, it was just running under the radar. And then it gained critical mass. And then what had been more of a wishful marketing point "The Silent Majority" finally got to the "The Not Silent 28%" where we are today.

And, although I grew up in a sort of rural backwoods setting in ways reminiscent of parts of the rural south, religious fundamentalism was not prominent. There were mostly Catholics and Lutherans, and neither group seemed particularly intense about their religion for the most part. My immediate family was unchurched, as were many others. When I read novels of the south and the pervasive religious underlay to everything, it seems completely alien. The Scandinavians and Germans who settled my part of the north were unhinged about some things, but religion was just not one of them.

It is a farce to think that those in the Christian-Coalition movement truly have Jesus unconditional love values when you see them use His name as a tool to make their flocks follow "their" made up hateful values. It is such a shame that these bigoted people actually take away the quality of life chance to the very people that would benefit the most from it!

The last 8 years (at least) seem to have a tinge of Texas oil and southern religion? My personal experiences say this is so. It's fairly obvious to me....but many don't want to talk about the BIG ELEPHANT that was in the room. Probably cause it's still there.....waiting....

Guess they got us good...eh?

The Fundamentalists got together with some ethically challenged business managers and realized that there was enough pie for ALL of them to make millions, so they came together, ponied up the front money to buy a few TV stations, and the money started rolling in.

Same as "Free Trade".

The two biggest scams in history sold to the most gullible people in the World.

It must be true....I heard it on TV.

As in post #44 I grew up where we had Christmas plays at school, did stuff for Hanukkah, dressed up like ghouls and such for Halloween, fish on friday's, towns had nativity displays, and so on.

As more people pushed for a separation of church and state more people, I feel, circled the wagons and saw it as the few dictating to the many taxpayers how they ran things locally.

People don't like change, especially when you tell them what they are doing is wrong and harmful when they have never seen it as such. They get defensive, become more openly fundie :)

In my school one would say that 99% were either jewish or christian (knew 1 jewish kid and 2 teachers), and we celebrated both groups' cultural/religious heritage on certain days of the year. It was a learning experience that taught me more about others and never made me feel the need to become something I was not (and my parents had more influence than school anyway).

Fear drives people on all sides and persuasions, and when people get scared they group together and become more vocal. Doesn't mean they weren't there before, just means they weren't organized together for a particular cause.

Does anyone really believe the USA is "by the people, for the people" any more, for example? Nope.

If you're a media saturated idiot you'll believe anything.

...The funding for Columbus' voyages to this hemisphere was derived in part from seized wealth as a result of the Spanish Inquisition.

When Jamestown was founded, the Anglican church was part and parcel of the British government and the Catholic church, affiliated with the French and Spanish explorations and colonizations, had been one of the most powerful entities on the globe for many centuries.

New England was founded by a group of religious hardliners who sought to establish their own nation with its own state religion.

Judeo-Christian references are laced throughout the Declaration of Independence and the early government. George Washington chose to end his oath of office with "So help me God" though it was not prompted.

Abolitionists couched much of their reasoning in Christian dogma.

Religious bigotry led a lot of the anti-immigrant sentiment of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

The Scopes Monkey Trial of the early 20th Century raised interest around the country because so many Americans sided with demagogue and Bible-thumper William Jennings Bryan.

"Under God" was added to the Pledge of Allegiance in the midst of the Cold War.

The 1960 presidential campaign was a study in anti-Catholic sentiment.

Religiosity has been a strong force in our nation since its inception. Thankfully, the country is now more secular than ever and with any luck will continue to come closer to fulfilling the ideals given so much lip service and little else in the last few centuries.

What once was a destitute region 60-70 years ago is now one of the richest. Atlanta, Houston, etc. are now financial meccas, while Detroit, Pittsburgh, Cleveland, etc. crumbled to dust. Naturally a lot of that money has flowed into the pockets of religious charlatans, who have wielded immense political power since the late 70's.

I'm not "bashing the South," there are tons of great liberal Democrats in the region (I am one), but they do call it the Bible Belt for a reason.

Growing up in Mississippi, I can always remember fundamentalist crazies having the run of things, and me wondering if I was normal because I wasn't a bible thumper. Reagan and the rise of wacky Southern politics I think explains why fundamentalism is nationwide, now.

is in charge. it's bound to get nuts...

They know an appeal to religion--while unfair and illegal--is very very powerful. They
wanted to kill the atmosphere of tolerance in this country so that free thinklers could never hold office and must bow to the Church.

UNAMERICAN BUT TRUE

Kennedy had to promise he would not take direction from the pope. Which is ironic in that there he was promising the country he would not allow his religious beliefs to influence his policies, whereas today that seems to be just what the repug base wants to do.

My wife and I worked door to door for JFK and many Republicans made sure that
we heard the following joke. "Kennedy has requested that people send him their \
old bolling balls, because the Kennedy's want to make a rosary for the Statue of Liberty!"

It seems that the GOP wasn't the Religious right back then, just assholes!

As to the rest, :shrug:

-Hoot

New Age BS on the Left and Evangelical Fundamentalism on the Right. Ludditism on both sides. Both the New Age idiots and the Fundies went on angry screeds against "materialism" and "scientism," and "playing God". The fundies going after stem cell research and the luddites going after genetic engineering are equally idiotic.

Why aren't you finding a spot out in the middle of nowhere cut off from modern convinces like your ideological buddy Ted Kaczinski?

"Humanity is being enslaved by technology" is BS luddite dreck. Especially since technology has been an essential feature of Humanity ever since we branched off from the Australopithecines and started making stone tools. The interaction between language and technology is responsible for the evolution of our large brains, and now we have reached the point that we can take control of out own evolution though genetic engineering.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transhumanism

Stop pairing the phenomenon of hard-line, Supply Side, Get-Your-Ass-Involved-in-Politics, Fundamentalist Christianity with some perceived notion of place.

I've lived in "the weird and alien back hills of Tennessee" for ten years. If you're looking for rightwing nutjobs, you'll find a few here, but we have everything: Traditional Cherokee, Primitive Baptist, Episcopalian, Mormon, Mennonite, Methodist, Atheists and Theosophists. sanctuaries and sweat lodges.

We all get along. Politicians mostly moderates, do pander to fundies but even Repukes up here are mostly non-religious.

Now, go out West to some of those mega-Churches in Colorado Springs or Southern California, the ones producing Focus on the Family and that sort of propaganda, the ones who have been producing that shit for decades.

If you're hunting for answers, don't look in our woods is all I'm saying. Happy hunting :hi:

Hell, even Obama is keeping *'s bullshit "faith office"! :grr: :puke:

When you come of age with something firmly in place (seemingly), you assume it will always be that way, and sometimes get busy with your own little corner of the universe, and don't notice tectonic shifts near you...until one day... it smacks you in the face...(like the 2000 election did to us)

The Born again and evangelicals some how have taken hold. Maybe by brain washing, or just an extremely well run scam to get money for the mega churches or perhaps people feeling like they need to believe in something whole heartedly with out critical thought.

For whatever the reason it has happened. As a non christian I realize now that I am not in the majority and where I live I'm in the extreme minority.

christian right was the result of a deliberately well planned and orchestrated movement that was part of a greater plan to take over our goverment by homegrown fascists.
Media consolidation was another facet in their plans.
They got the idea in the sixties from the civil rights movement,which was centered around AfricanAmerican churches.What we saw in the seventies was the results of the fascists experiments in how to create the perfect mix of brainwashing and mind control methods and techniques that such an undertaking required for them to keep and maintain control.
The first actual moves were when they took over the Southern Babtist Convention and started funding televangilists like Robertson and Falwell.
By the ninties they had control of enough peoples minds and thoughts through repeated indoctrination at church and on television and radio that their ideaology begin to spread through other denominations.At that point it reached a sort of critical mass that started appearing in the late 90's early 00's.
Fortunately,they burned up most of their credibilty trying to cover for that moran bush.

about the same age. Are you saying that you didn't have Bible reading and prayers in public school? My schools all had prayers and Bible readings every morning, prayers at PTA meetings and ball games, etc., and I went to public schools in seventeen cities (five states, one foreign country.) No, wait, six states. The newspapers were always showing photos of the First Family coming out of church, too.

didn't abort their pregnancies. That's the first thing that went wrong.

Media outlets got conglomeratized and the nature of "news" and journalism changed. An emerging plutocracy transformed these resources into a means of redirecting public opinion into a preoccupation with "social issues." The news became welfare Cadillacs, O. J., pedophile priests, Britney Spears, keeping Christ in Christmas...

The electorate became enamored of and distracted by sucker issues and the looting began...

I thought the low point of the primary season was when Hillary and Obama participated in a "faith forum." Of course, I didn't watch it. I suppose it could have been really, really good...

those individuals that communally worship a fairy-tale-like theology. That takes REAL faith.

When you can control their belief system; you control the individual.

The fear of sex, drugs, & rock & roll in the 60's & 70's was promoted in the pulpits as stealing the "souls of our youth". The Silent Majority was coined then to represent those who were too "afraid" to speak out against the changes of the times. This was then renamed the Moral Majority under Reagan. As I recall a real smooth move to change the name, as no one really noticed, 'cause we'd heard the Silent Majority for so long.

Reagan used this to his advantage. Blamed all the ills of society on anything "liberal". (That's when the L word became a curse word.)

Then they enlisted the likes of Jerry Falwell, Billy Graham, Ralph Reed, etc.
Quite brilliant, actually. Probably the most successful strategy they've ever come up with.

Cable TV helped to promote this as there are entire channels devoted to telling "sinners" that they are bad & must "do as the preachers say, or face eternal damnation" 24/7.

Since 1978, there has been a steady & insipid drip of Fundy guilt perpetrated upon the nation. They continually & completely saturated our society with their Puritanical dogma until the sheeple accepted it as "the American Way".

Remember they steadily gained more & more control of the media as the years went by.
Basically, it was brainwashing on a National level.


A few days ago, I watched about 2 hours of "I Love the 70's" on VH1. I brought back how much more open & free our society was when I was coming of age. I feel fortunate to have grown up then when we were not afraid to challenge authority or speak our minds.

Patriarcy was losing --- organized patriarchal religion underpins patriarchy.

So, once Jesus was dead -- so would patriarchy be dead--!!

They couldn't have that so the GOP gave start up funds for the Christian Coalition ---

Patriarchy can't just simply say that males are superior -- and that females are inferior.

It would look like they made it up and were sexist.

So they have to say that GOD SAYS that males are superior and

GOD SAYS that women are inferior.

That also goes for Jews -- African Americans -- Homosexuals . . .

A lot of this is now forced into the closet as Americans face off against pejudice/bigotry.

But patriarchal religions war on women is still in the open --

and it's war on Nature -- "Manifest Destiny" which has taken us all the way to tons of

pollution and Global Warming.

media time & mega-churches "just happened," do you?

In fact, the reason we notice all this religiosity is precisely because we are more secular and it stands out more.

40 years ago, almost everyone went to church or synagogue every single Sunday and Saturday. Almost everyone had formal religious affiliation and believed in God and most also believed that some portion of the mythical and supernatural claims of religion were true.

The political debate included a wide variety of very serious religious and theological thinkers -- from Martin Luther King to the Berrigan brothers. Even nuclear policy was chimed in on by theologians.

The intense, fundamentalist religiosity in society since the 80s and the political class's pandering to it is rear-guard action. Most people no longer go to church. Most people who describe themselves as "spiritual" don't believe the more mythical stories of the Bible, and believe in a "supreme being" or "life force" rather than in an old white man sitting on a throne somewhere in the ionosphere.

As it becomes obvious that the secular viewpoint is the dominant one, the religious minority becomes more vociferous and defensive about its increasingly preposterous world view, and because they are so loud, unified and absolutist, politicians pander to them.

But that's all smoke and mirrors. We are not more religious than we were back then.

According to Pew, almost 80% of Americans are still self-proclaimed Christians. See http://religions.pewforum.org/reports

However, I completely agree with you here:

"As it becomes obvious that the secular viewpoint is the dominant one, the religious minority becomes more vociferous and defensive about its increasingly preposterous world view, and because they are so loud, unified and absolutist, politicians pander to them." Excellently stated!

However, it's also worth stating that secular does NOT equal athiest. In fact, I'd bet that at least half of the aforementioned 80% would lean MUCH more towards the secular side than the fundamental side. Trust me on this one: I know far too many fundamental-Evangelicals (meaning those who take the Bible literally AND want to shove it down our throats) who denounce ANY self-proclaimed Christians who don't think/pray/vote exactly like them. They despise Christians (of all sects) who only go to church on Christmas and Easter as much as they hate even the most liberal athiest. Trust me, I grew up around these people. It's wierd, pathetic, stupid, but sadly true.

The way I see it, most Americans are still Christian in the sense that they actually do believe in God, Jesus, and Heaven-- BUT THAT'S WHERE MOST DRAW THE LINE. Nothing makes a fundie angrier than meeting a fellow Christian, be they Catholic (like me) or Protestant, who has the nerve to actually believe in evolution (like me, and probably most). Hence, the anger that you've referred to has reached a boiling point over the past, I guess, 40 years.

As society and instutions progress (even devout mainstream Christianity), the louder and angrier the fundies get. Sadly, as you put it, far too many GOP and Democratic politicians (see President Obama) alike fall for the trick and pander away to avoid any unpleasantness. I remain hopeful, however, that this will all some day change. It must.

they look for something permanent and immutable to stop the spinning and bring some sense to the world and some certainty to their lives . . . fundamentalism (of all stripes) seems to do this for some folks . . . if they let others do their thinking for them in "big picture" areas like religion and philosophy, that's fewer stressful things they have to worry about on a day to day basis . . . jmho, of course . . .

McCarthyism seemed to be a forerunner to perfect their mind control techniques. "Under God" came along, when? 1954 or so?

and Australia become even more secular -and relegate their dwindling religous and fundamentalist population to the fringe- far and away from government power and influence on public policy?

And there was a backlash from some during the hippie movement of the 1960s as well. As you said; "somewhere along the 1970s".

How to make sure it doesn't happen again? Bring out the issues and may the candidate have a perfectly clean plate; so when the fanatics look for dirt they will find nothing.

Puritanism, in all of it's witch hunting manifestations, is a viral infection of the American Enlightenment gene and always has been.

Those intellectual, civilized, rational people had a lot of silly superstitions, didn't they?

at least about religion.
The hucksters set the example for unscrupulous politicians who play on people's fear of life after death.
Follow the money. In God We Trust is on every piece of it, and it's not written on any church buildings.
These were the criminals Jesus threw out of the Temple.

...not in any way inconsistent with Christian beliefs.

Some time around 1980, after I had gone off to college and stopped participating in church activities (I had been active only in choir at the end), a new head pastor came on board and changed the whole attitude of the place toward a more fundamentalist view. I was stunned when I found out the things he was saying.

we had religious music in school at Christmastime, but since everyone tended to be either Lutheran or Catholic, at least nominally, no one seemed to mind. There was a baccalaureate for the high school seniors, but again, the religious homogeneity of the town made it non-controversial, and if the students were less than enthusiastic about attending, their parents made them do it.

Despite the religious homogeneity, we NEVER had school prayer. My mother, born in 1921, never had school prayer. My father, born in 1911 in a small town, never had school prayer. My grandmother, born in 1899, never had school prayer.

We had evolution in high school biology, and the ONLY person who refused to take biology because of it was a Jehovah's Witness.

By the time the whole "bring back school prayer" movement began during the Reagan administration, a generation of young parents had grown up who were either not in school in 1962 and 1963 or too young to remember the details and therefore did not know that most parts of the country had never had school prayer.

Suburbanization helped the rise of the megachurches tremendously. Note that most of them are in the suburbs, especially in newer suburbs, where there is no natural community gathering place. With their coffee shops and intramural basketball teams and age-specific social groups, they provide what's missing in the mind-deadening, jerry-built exurbs of America's cities: a place to associate with people outside one's own family.

"Christians" interpreting the Old Testament literally and injecting it into politics.

that the leaders were Christian and they all went to church and had pictures showing that. If an atheist had tried to run all hell would have broken out. I remember people in my community who were openly atheist and they had a hard time. Much harder than today. They were considered outright crazy. That was of course wrong and has changed I hope for the better now but I am not sure.

Back then separation of church and state did not so much mean that you could not be religious but that you could not force anyone to follow your religion. The rw idiots changed that in that we are being forced to accept their interpretation of history and the "end" of the world and the ME situation, etc. I do remember that Harry Truman worked for the Jewish settlement in the middle east because of his religious views that the holy land hand to be reestablished before the end could come.

As to President Obama and his references to religion: I would not be so quick to assume that he does not really mean them. We cannot know for sure what is in his private thoughts.

Durty Murphy, Tom the Liberal, and I started asking questions about the handbill warning about 'secular humanists' we saw everywhere about the time Falwell got known. (Interestingly, they came out about the same time as the backlash against environmental legislation started getting ugly, and just before the 'Reagan Revolution' started to actively destroy the working and middle classes)Tom, being the most likely to take action among us, decided he was founding the Immoral Majority and asking for donations too: Just put the cash in the quart mason jars he would place on corners downtown....

Looking back, we should have done less giggling and more serious investigation...

Curiously, it was the same time my then-escrow-officer-husband got called into court to testify in a HUD case against a fundy church (The Way) that was guiding (and coercing) members through the process of home buying with help from HUD. The church would then move the new homeowners into communal homes and rent out the HUD home individuals bought, keeping the money to 'do God's work' of course! Highly illegal, but a cool way to raise a shitload of money fast, AND they had young newlyweds grouped together for easy indoctrination just before they started their families. Cool way to assure lots of followers, heh?

It was a takeover of America. Pure and simple. The rich and crooked just used the weak minded as the means.

we said The Lord's Prayer in school every morning, PS 21 in Brooklyn, NY. That ended sometime in 3d or 4th Grade, and sometime after I learned what it all meant.

and some were on the radio too--religious radio and
paid programming on local commercial radio.

But the difference was, these people were not in power
at all.

Today, its different, and Bush enabled it. Today, just to
focus on local media, we have all over the country, small
country stations that instead of having live local programming,
carry Rush, or the other hateful talkers, and on FM, we have
religious broadcasters dominating the small town airwaves
with fundie programs.

I'd say the right wing and fundies have been able to dominate
small media for sure, and to some extent high power AM stations
also---e.g., WABC 77 in New York that is all Limbaugh types 24/7.

There is no orgainzed push back, but there should be, as well
as legal efforts to get local radio taken back from the satellite
broadcasters and the right wing. imho.

As long as people are motivated by "Fear" of the other, or of the unknown then they can be manipulated by a "God".

South America is good example of this.

I would otherwise be a believer.

But only if my weapon passed inspection.

SGT PASTO

It's called "The Family". I think Rick Sharett is the author. It describes the rise of the Christian Right in our country. It attempts to answer the questions you've posed here, but I'm having a hard time putting it all together and making sense of it. Maybe I'll understand better when I finish the book.

... while exerting powerful control over this country. The National Prayer Breakfast sounds so benign, but the way it's described in that book is cause for concern.

Bill Moyers did a television series about 15 or 20 years ago in which he warned about the Christian Right insinuating its way into government at all levels, and back then it just didn't seem possible that we had much to worry about. After all, we had (had, not have) separation of church and state as a major tenet of our whole governing structure (on paper, anyway).

Moyers has also written about "The Family," and I think they are also referred to as "The Fellowship." Can you spell "cult"?

I was born in 1955. My observation would be that when I was a kid so much of the non-secular aspects of society were the default and the norm.

Once we went through the changes of the 60's, from civil rights to the sexual revolution, to the anti-establishment reaction to the Vietnam war, to the "generation gap," and become a much more free-thinking society, that is when conservatives started to rise up and try to codify the mores that previously were the norm.

Prior to that time, there was but a very small portion of our society that questioned or challenged the overwhelming moral views of the nation. Once that revolution occurred and the ranks of those challenging the status quo swelled to equal the voice of traditional thinkers--that's when the panic set in and the traditionalists, if you will, dug in their heels to protect what had previously been the morality of the vast majority by default... that was just the way it was.

I don't have polling or scientific data to back this up, so I'm hoping I'm wrong. But it seems that they would because their religious beliefs implore them to have kids. Plus, anecdotally, it seems all evangelicals I know have far more kids than secular people. They'll bring their kids up as evangelicals, and we'll never have our country back.

By the way, this is not to insult progressive evangelicals -- those who believe in separation of church and state. It's just that more evangelicals tend to be more conservative on those issues, and those are the ones who scare me.

anti-hippie reaction.

And I'm OLD, lol. Amidst the fawning awe over respecting people's faith and beliefs, we said and did NOTHING. As a result, "they" (religious extremists) took over and started running things on both the state and federal level.

Don't want it to happen again? Stop tolerating "faith" anywhere outside of a Church building. Sound harsh? Maybe, but do you like what the Nation has become?

And, I hate to say it, but AIDS gave them the ammunition they were waiting for. People were so confused, the facts were hard to come by and the left hesitated and got the shit knocked out of them.

It's a matter of which brand has been the loudest. Yes, the currently loudest bunch is the fundamentalist-Evangelical wing of the religion. There was a time (I believe) when even the fundamentalist Christians weren't Evangelical (meaning they still believed every single word of the Bible, but kept to themselves about it). Now however, they're more emboldened then ever before and expect everyone else to think/pray/vote like them. Trust me, even the most conservative Catholics are only political friends-by-convenience to most of these types.

Also, I can't help but to think that your town probably was, like most of America was and still is, a mostly Christian town. The folks were probably just private about it. And even the silent/private types still believed in God, Jesus, Heaven, etc. with all their hearts, even if talking about it made them feel uncomfortable for whatever reason- even 40 years ago.

By the way, this is my first-ever post on DU. I'm a recovering conservative who became apathetic for ages and was brought back into the politcal fold by Barack Obama. I never stopped paying attention to national/world events though, and I've been visiting this site for quite a while now. I'm proud to say that I have come out of the dark, seen the light, and now sit happily on the Left side of the fence!

:hi:

The mainstream Protestant denominations, who when I was growing up in the late 60s early 70s were the publicly dominant group, have been losing members for years. They're too calm, too soothing, too boring too much thier parent's church for the baby boomers and their heirs. The moderate Catholics who embraced Vatican II and dreamed of transforming their religion ran into a brick wall of conservative Pope after conservative Pope have either left the Church or are just going through the motions. Right wing Catholics stayed and while the Catholic church to a large degree embraces science, evolution is taught in most Catholic schools as part of God's plan they are intransigent on issues such as the role of women, abortion and birth control. Reformed Jewish Congretations are also losing committed young people to the Orthodox movement.

The Evangelical Fundamentalists have always been there but they were always seen as somewhat odd back in the day, very much behind the times, but for many people they provided something that they were seeking. One of the main ideas of the 60s generation was the desire to be "relevant" to seek a more "authentic" and emotional spirituality. The mainstream denominations did not provide this sort of catharsis. Fundamentalism does. In addition in a complex world, Fundamentalism lays down sone consistant rules. It provides absolutes. Yes it's all faith but in this complex world we need to take so much on faith. Can you truly say that you understand the remifications of Einstein's theory of relativity beyond what he wrote for the public? Unless you're a phycisist, most likely not. String theory--OK I know some people understand it so I'll just take it on faith. Evolution, makes sense to me but if you believe with you're whole heart and soul that God creataed the world in the way outlined in the Bible, it's a pretty tough pill to swallow.

A second thing which happened was that a major political party made a conscious choice to harness the frustrations of the Fundamentalists with the modern world, into a political power block. They became much more outspoken and with this new outspokenness it also became socially to be a Christian with a capital C. Not a Lutheran, or a Methodist or a Catholic but a CHRISTIAN.

Welcome to DU.

There were no religious tests for public office. Preachers weren't telling people how to vote in order to avoid going to hell.

Edited to add--Welcome to DU. Thoughtful commentary is always valued around here.

He included the Evangelicals and gave a group that had always been on the periphery legitimacy and they did, indeed, help him get elected. A fine tradition that is carried on to this day -- see Rick Warren.

And to those upthread once again blaming it all on the Boomers, you are incorrect. As usual. Few of the Jesus Freaks were ever hippies in the first place. Maybe in THEIR minds they were but hippies had a tendency to be much better educated and much more curious about life and its possibilities. Those traits most definitely are NOT part of the Christian doctrine -- much less the nutso fundie version.

the lord's prayer recited during assembly. I hated that.

I graduated in 1969.

Certainly not as part of a daily routine. In Grade School (a 1-room country school) we sometimes did the Pledge of Allegiance.

And the televangelists getting a free ride into everyone's homes.

Thomas Jefferson sought the protection of divine providence. The Framers opened every session of the Constitutional Convention with a prayer.

Ever say the Pledge of Allegiance? It contains the phrase, "one nation under God."

I guess you were just being facetious.

Walt

Among the sayings and discourses imputed to him by his biographers, I find many passages of fine imagination, correct morality, and of the most lovely benevolence; and others again of so much ignorance, so much absurdity, so much untruth, charlatanism, and imposture, as to pronounce it impossible that such contradictions should have proceeded from the same being.

-Thomas Jefferson, letter to William Short, April 13, 1820


To talk of immaterial existences is to talk of nothings. To say that the human soul, angels, god, are immaterial, is to say they are nothings, or that there is no god, no angels, no soul. I cannot reason otherwise: but I believe I am supported in my creed of materialism by Locke, Tracy, and Stewart. At what age of the Christian church this heresy of immaterialism, this masked atheism, crept in, I do not know. But heresy it certainly is.

-Thomas Jefferson, letter to John Adams, Aug. 15, 1820
==================================================
Although Franklin once suggested prayer at the Constitutional Convention, his suggestion was never acted on, and prayers were not held.

==================================================
The "Under God" part was added in the Eisenhower years. The Pledge itself is relatively recent.

Amazing the amount of misinmformation--dare I say "disinformation?" ther is floating around.

Does not distract from the fact that he asked for the aid Divine Providence in the D of I.

And Dr. Franklin at the constitutional convention:

"In this situation of this Assembly groping as it were in the dark to find political truth, and scarce able to distinguish it when to us, how has it happened, Sir, that we have not hitherto once thought of humbly applying to the Father of lights to illuminate our understandings? In the beginning of the contest with G. Britain, when we were sensible of danger we had daily prayer in this room for the Divine Protection. -- Our prayers, Sir, were heard, and they were graciously answered. All of us who were engaged in the struggle must have observed frequent instances of a Superintending providence in our favor. To that kind providence we owe this happy opportunity of consulting in peace on the means of establishing our future national felicity. And have we now forgotten that powerful friend? or do we imagine that we no longer need His assistance."

http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/benfranklin.htm

And you say that the "Under God" part was added to the pledge in our lifetimes. You make my points for me.

When President Lincoln suggested a day of national thanksgiving, to whom were we supposed to give thanks?

I read something years ago --- the framers wanted you to have freedom of religion, but not freedom FROM religion.

To suggest that the United States is a secular nation is nothing but disinformation.

Walt

If an Algonkian Indian refers to Gitche Monedo, does that make him a Christian?

Freedom OF religion makes no sense unless it includes freedom FROM religion.

And regardless of what Franklin might have said, the CC did not resort to opening prayers.

It's always darkest before the dawn, so they say. Let's hope future generations are much more enlightened.

Slow to be noticed perhaps, but not slow.

The religious right tied itself to the Bush boat, and its credibility sank with the administration.

The up and coming generation was raised with this crap, and are rejecting it.

The third or fourth or whatever "great revival", or whatever this was, depending upon your counting, is over.

I am sick of it

Bush, Ralph Reed, Jack Abramoff, Tom Delay, all discredited.

traces it back to anti-communist evangelicals. Shows a guy saying Jesus taught the value of private property.

http://video.google.com/videosearch?q=with+god+on+our+side&emb=0&aq=0&oq=with+god#q=with%20god%20on%20our%20side&emb=0&aq=0&oq=with%20god&dur=3

America went wrong way back. Those folks who joined those Mega or even Smaller Jesus Franchises...were folks left out of the rest of the way America was going. They longed for Community and their Place in it. The Mega Churches and the Jesus Revivals gave them the Theater they didn't find in their own lives and that there was no cultural outlet they could afford to find a way of expressing themselves in many rural or outlying areas of the US.

I can see where they came from..and it was to fill a need (void)that wasn't available in our society, anymore.

It's a matter of "Fitting In." and Church and Sports RULE in AMERICA, these DAYS.... What else is there...except shopping, which is now gone with the Economy. :shrug: Too Simple...? It's what I've seen in the past 20 years.....

You just happened to come up during a down turn. Look up the history of the millerites they are the root of the evangelical movement.

Sigh. People and their rose-tinted view of the past.

"Rose tint my world, keep me safe from the trouble and pain". I knew there was a reason why that was my favorite song from the album.

It has certainly gotten worse in the last eight years under an Administration that coined words like "faith-based." The Administration has been anti-science, anti-rationality. My library is full of "left-behind" fiction bought with taxpayer funds. When did that become part of the sanctioned Christian theory?

The media plays to it, too. When something phenomenal happens, it refers to "miracles." When they interview survivors after a disaster, survivors are encouraged to speak in terms of "blessings." Never mind the victims who weren't so "blessed."

When polls report that a majority of Americans believe in "God," I'd like, just once, to hear "God" defined. People just say they believe in a God that they couldn't define just in case a lightning bolt comes out of the sky to punish them in case they deny it. The old Pascal's Theory thing.

But the rest of us are somewhat at fault, too. We keep quiet out of "respect" when we hear the craziest ideas. We pay deference and obeisance to superstition for fear of hurting others' religious sensibility. Or we fear that they will dislike us for not believing what they believe. It's time that we "witness" in public what we don't believe.