XPost: soc.culture.usa, soc.history, alt.religion   
   From: hayesstw@telkomsa.net   
      
   How corporate America invented ‘Christian America’ to fight the New   
   Deal   
      
   By Ron Briley | 23 March 2016   
   History News Network   
      
    President Richard Nixon and the evangelist Billy Graham, 1970.   
   (Photo: Bettmann / Corbis)   
   President Richard Nixon and the evangelist Billy Graham, 1970. (Photo:   
   Bettmann / Corbis)   
   The 2016 annual meeting for the Organization of American Historians   
   (OAH) will feature a session focusing upon the provocative book One   
   Nation Under God by Princeton history professor Keven M. Kruse. In One   
   Nation Under God, Kruse argues that the idea of the United States as a   
   Christian nation does not find its origins with the founding of the   
   United States or the writing of the Constitution. Rather, the notion   
   of America as specifically consecrated by God to be a beacon for   
   liberty was the work of corporate and religious figures opposed to New   
   Deal statism and interference with free enterprise. The political   
   conflict found in this concept of Christian libertarianism was   
   modified by President Dwight Eisenhower who advocated a more civic   
   religion of “one nation under God” to which both liberals and   
   conservatives might subscribe.   
      
   Kruse concludes that with the polarization of America in the 1960s   
   over such issues such as school prayer and the war in Vietnam,   
   politicians such as Richard Nixon abandoned the more inclusive civic   
   religion of the Eisenhower era. Kruse writes that by the 1970s “the   
   rhetoric of ‘one nation under God’ no longer brought Americans   
   together; it only reminded them how divided they had become” (274).   
   Arguing that public religion is a modern invention that has little to   
   do with America’s origins, Kruse maintains that contemporary political   
   discourse needs to better recognize the political ideology being   
   perpetuated by the advocates of America as a Christian nation.   
   Needless to say, Kruse’s arguments will antagonize many on the   
   Christian right, as well as many on the left who have employed   
   Christianity as the means through which to implement principles of   
   equality and opportunity as extolled by Jesus of Nazareth, the   
   working-class carpenter.   
      
   Drawing upon extensive archival research, the first part of Kruse’s   
   book documents the alliance between religious leaders such as   
   Congregationalist minister James W. Fifield Jr. and businessman J.   
   Howard Pew Jr., president of Sun Oil and a major figure with the   
   National Association of Manufacturers. Working out of his affluent Los   
   Angeles community and congregation, Fifield formed a national   
   organization called Spiritual Mobilization that attracted the support   
   of big business while embracing unfettered capitalist traditions   
   threatened by Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal policies. The fertile   
   ground plowed by Spiritual Mobilization and Fifield prepared the way   
   for the influential prayer breakfasts of Methodist minister Abraham   
   Vereide and the crusades of evangelist Billy Graham. While the   
   insecurities of the Cold War contributed to the growth of postwar   
   religious fervor, Kruse insists that the prayer movement and Graham   
   “effectively harnessed Cold War anxieties for an already established   
   campaign against the New Deal” (36).   
      
   The prayers of the Christian libertarians were answered with the   
   ascendancy of Dwight Eisenhower to the Presidency. While Graham was   
   given a cold shoulder by Harry Truman, the evangelist was welcomed to   
   the White House by Eisenhower, who also supported the prayer breakfast   
   movement bringing together Congressional leaders and members of the   
   business community. While he lacked allegiance to any specific   
   denomination, Eisenhower was a devout Christian who opened cabinet   
   meetings with prayer. Kruse argues that the President endorsed a   
   rather general sense of Christian principles that would unite the   
   nation under a common understanding of its religious heritage. Thus,   
   Eisenhower supported Congressional legislation that added the phrase   
   “under God” to the Pledge of Allegiance while also embracing “In God   
   We Trust” as the nation’s official motto that was included on the   
   nation’s money supply. The Eisenhower administration also endorsed the   
   National Association of Evangelicals call for a July 4, 1953 March of   
   Freedom declaring that the American government was based upon Biblical   
   principles. The concept of “One Nation Under God” was also championed   
   in the popular culture by the creation of Disneyland and Cecil B.   
   DeMille’s film epic The Ten Commandments (1956), while the National   
   Council for Advertising championed Madison Avenue techniques that   
   would bring the concept of God and free enterprise to all Americans on   
   the local level.   
      
      
      
   Eisenhower’s rather vague notion of a Christian America, however, did   
   not quite coincide with the ideology of Christian libertarianism.   
   Instead, Kruse suggests that actions such as adding “under God” to the   
   pledge were examples of ceremonial Deism; establishing the idea that   
   the First Amendment mandated the separation of church and state but   
   not the separation of religion and politics. Thus, general support for   
   the sacred was acceptable, but not active government intervention that   
   might advance a particular sect. In addition, Eisenhower did not move   
   to dismantle the New Deal; accepting programs such as Social Security   
   and expanding government activity with legislation such as the   
   Interstate Highway Act. Kruse, writes, “Unlike Christian libertarians,   
   who had long presented God and government as rivals, Eisenhower had   
   managed to merge the two into a wholesome ‘government under God.’ In   
   doing so, he ironically undercut the key segment of many of his   
   earlier backers, making their old claims about the ‘pagan’ origins of   
   statism seems suddenly obsolete” (87). Here, Kruse seems to imply   
   Eisenhower had inadvertently sanctified the state and government.   
   Therefore, to criticize the government was both anti-patriotic and   
   anti-religious. This is a fascinating argument, with considerable   
   implications for contemporary politics, but Kruse fails to tease out   
   this idea before moving on to other issues.   
      
   Kruse maintains that the religious unity sought by Eisenhower was   
   challenged in the late 1950s and the 1960s as various faiths worried   
   that state advocacy of religion might trample on traditional beliefs   
   and practices. One of the most contentious issues was school-mandated   
   prayer which was deemed unconstitutional in the Engel v. Vitale (1962)   
   decision. Nevertheless, in his majority opinion, Justice Hugo Black   
      
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