Since Jamestown and Plymouth Rock, America has periodically experienced sweeping religious revivals. The four largest, known as Awakenings, have strongly influenced politics and society.
The first of these, based on Baptist and Presbyterian revivals of 1730, contributed to the Revolution. The second, triggered by evangelical revivals of the 1830s, was in large measure responsible for the Civil War. The third, commencing about 1890, enabled progressivism. It also produced a backlash against science. The fourth, which we currently savor, advocates a social matrix masquerading as fundamentalist Christianity. It provided the margin to elect a biased, reactionary national administration and has contributed appreciably to American involvement in the Middle East.
These major Awakenings each experienced two phases: reform and reaction. Every one began as a fundamental, intolerant movement aimed at refining public morality under he rubric of Christianity. The first three finished with less religion and more tolerance, and now the fourth appears headed in the same direction.
The first Awakening began around 1730. Noted for the “born- again” fervor, which has been a part of all Awakenings since, it softened the harsh Calvinist doctrine of predestination in favor of individual moral choice. It offered salvation through repentance and belief in self judgment, rather than obedience to tax-supported, royal-government church officials. Yet, by 1790, less than 10 percent of the people belonged to formal churches, and many of the leading signers of the U.S. Constitution were self proclaimed Deists – pseudo agnostics.
The second Awakening offered a plethora of specialized moral reforms in response o social excesses. In 1829, New York had one saloon for each 20 citizens (today 1:800). In that same period nearly 10 percent of all women in the Big Apple between the ages of 15 and 30 are believed to have prostituted themselves at one time or another. Public health had become chancy, and many of the reforms were concerned with individual physical well being. Meat, rich foods and seasoning were believed to contribute to “concupiscent excitability of the sexual organs.” The Rev. Sylvester Graham developed the dry cracker specifically to cool such passions. The Shakers shook, built chairs,and eschewed sex. The communes communed.
However, after the Civil War, this basically religious crusade morphed into free thinkers and the unrestricted capitalism of the Robber Barons.
The third Awakening began around the 1880s. Led by the “first fundamentalist,” Dwight Moody, its purpose was to reform the evils of industrialization and technology, the excesses of capitalism and to combat the mind-boggling ideas of Darwin – traces of which can be seen today, when three of the seven Republican candidates for president claimed literal belief in the Bible. But the movement was not monolithic. A branch of Protestantism abandoned literal biblical interpretation and supported progressive legislation such as child labor laws and pure food and drugs. It also criminalized recreational drugs, paving the way for reactionary drug wars and, in a last gasp, managed to saddle the country with Prohibition.
However, World War I and its veterans were to order its funeral, sealing its casket with jazz, flappers and repeal of Prohibition.
The fourth Awakening owes its genesis to the Pill and the Vietnam war – both of which resulted in personal excesses. In reaction to flower children and mood-altering drugs, a Christian jihad attacked pornography, homosexuals, sex education, drug use, abortion – even Darwin again. While never more than a minority of Americans, with its adoption by the Republican party, the movement had stunning success. The U.S. government became a tool of evangelists to the extent of providing sizeable tax funds for their programs. The movement was strong enough to elect an incompetent president and to enable an aggressive war.
Nonetheless, the fourth Awakening is now suffering grievous reaction. In 1996, only 27 percent approved of same-sex marriage, but in 2007 that figure had become 46 percent. A dozen states have passed liberal marijuana laws and polls show that 70 percent of all Americans favor such measures. The Moral Majority is dying out. Kansas repealed biblical evolutionary guidelines. The Supreme Court ruled state sodomy laws unconstitutional. Mega-churches have become community centers aimed at fellowship and entertainment rather than strict moral guidance. Some 80 percent of the public disapproved of Congressional involvement in the case of Terry Schiavo, the brain-damaged woman at the center of a right-to-die controversy. Support of the Iraq war has subsided.
With the election of a Democratic Congress in 2006 – and the choice in 2008 of a Republican presidential candidate detested by conservative Christians – the moral jihadists are on the mat. The count is at 9.
Rodney Quinn, who lives in Gorham, is a former Maine secretary of state. He can be reached at rquinn@maine.rr.com.
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