Ever since the Obergefell decision, many conservative leaders and writers have been singing the blues over the loss of days gone by that really never existed. But those days existed in their minds because of the image they have of their faith. Such is not the case of Joseph Bottum (click here for info). In 2008 Bottum had already seen the writing on the wall. In fact, he traces the loss of Christianity's position of influence back to the mid 1970s. However, in 2008 he wrote an article for the Catholic website First Things that talked about the death of an America from the past.
Mildly surprising because Bottum is a Catholic, he wrote about America being a Protestant America--a Protestant nation rather than a Christian nation. Or to be more precise, he wrote about an America that was formerly a Protestant America, but is no longer. And in his lament, is a picture of a Protestant America that at least in part never existed (click here for the article).
Though he correctly wrote America as being a Protestant America rather than a Christian nation, some of the good points he attributed to America never existed. For example, Bottum stated that there is reason to think of Protestantism as the most 'accommodating religion' ever. But was it really accommodating? When we think about the early days of settlers arriving here, we saw conflicts between some of the different denominations. For example, the Puritans persecuted and even martyred some Quakers.
But even when necessity forced the different Protestant denominations to tolerate each other for a greater gain for all, many from these denominations certainly didn't accommodate Native Americans or Blacks. Consider the following paragraph:
The great fight to abolish slavery, or women’s suffrage, or the temperance struggle against the Demon Rum, or the civil-rights movement: Every so often, there would explode from the churches a moral and prophetic demand on the nation. But, looking back, we can now see that these showy campaigns were mostly a secondary effect of religion’s influence on America. Each was a check written on a bank account filled by the ordinary practice and belief of the Protestant denominations.
What is missing from those reminisces about the past is that the Protestant Church was on both sides of many of those struggles. And even when it was on the right side of a conflict, its position was tainted by motive.
We need to remember that many white abolitionists also believed in white supremacy and treated their black counterparts as being inferior. After the abolition of slavery, another institution or era was well supported by Protestants: Jim Crow. And though the North didn't have Jim Crow, it had its own resistance to equality. And none of that mentions the plight of Native Americans.
Yes, women worked for the right to vote. But women remained 2nd class citizens and were viewed and treated as such until the Sexual Revolution.
As for the Civil Rights Movement, we saw Protestants on both side of the movement. Yes, some Protestants worked and sacrificed for equality for Blacks. But in the recent past, we have resolutions from 2 major denominations apologizing for their resistance to the movement: the PCA and the SBC. Even now, with many conservative Protestants voting for Republican candidates, they are voting for elected officials who oppose the kind of equality that Martin Luther King Jr. gave his life for. In addition, here we are forgetting the contributions of non-Protestants to the Civil Rights Movement. These non-Protestants included atheists, Jews, Catholics, and people from non-Christian religions.
While describing Protestantism as being accommodating, Bottum mentions how intolerant it could be as he mentioned the conflict between the liberal mainline denominations and the more conservative, fundamentalist branch. He states that liberal Protestantism felt under attack by conservative Protestantism because the latter hated key beliefs of the former. How does that make Protestantism accommodating? Was it formerly accommodating but not longer?
Bottum saw the passing of America as being a Protestant nation around 30 years before his article. The passing of the Mainline Protestantism was the clue for him. In speaking about that passing, he makes a strange comparison. For he talks about how different movements have been replacing Protestantism such as Feminism, homosexuals, and the environmentalists. He complains about how environmentalists react to those who disagree. He then goes on to say that just as a religion that acted political movements damaged themselves, he was referring to conservative Protestants there, so to will political movements do to themselves when they act like religions by looking for followers, not supporters.
With the departure of Protestantism as having the dominant influence over the nation, Bottum asks what will unify our nation? Inferred by Bottum's concern is the need for a nation to be based on religion. For in describing America earlier on he said:
Think of the American experiment as a three-legged stool, its stability found in each leg’s relation to the other legs. Democracy grants some participation in national identity, an outlet for the anxious desire of citizens to take part in history, but it always leans toward vulgarity and short-sightedness. Capitalism gives us other freedoms and outlets for ambition, but it, too, always threatens to topple over, eroding the virtues it needed for its own flourishing. Meanwhile, religion provides meaning and narrative, a channel for the hunger of human beings to reach beyond the vanities of the world, but it tilts, in turn, toward hegemony and conformity.
Through most of American history, these three legs of democracy, capitalism, and religion accommodated one another and, at the same time, pushed hard against one another.
It is at that point that Bottum called Protestantism the most accommodating religion ever. But think about those 3 legs. Democracy not only wants people to take part in things, democracy as a state of being vies for people of all groups to share the nation as equals. But how can that happen when a particular religion rules the roost? Wasn't conservative Christianity always a political movement along with being a religion? And with Capitalism vying for a privileged place for those in business in society, Democracy and Capitalism are constantly at odds. So while Bottum is right in stating that these 3 vital parts of America battled each other in the past, there was never any real accommodation without one acting as a superior. And that superior part was not Democracy.
Bottum is at least partially correct in calling America from the past a Protestant nation rather than a Christian one. His article describes some interesting stages between the past and the present. At the same time, somehow the rough parts of our nation and its history, and there are many of those, and the roles that Protestantism has played in contributing to those rough parts is underrepresented. Part of that is due to Bottum's conservative political views. At the same time, Bottum saw America as it was in relation to religion significantly before many current Christian leaders.
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