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One Nation Under God: How Corporate America Invented Christian America Paperback – May 3, 2016
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We're often told that the United States is, was, and always has been a Christian nation. But in One Nation Under God, historian Kevin M. Kruse reveals that the belief that America is fundamentally and formally Christian originated in the 1930s.
To fight the "slavery" of FDR's New Deal, businessmen enlisted religious activists in a campaign for "freedom under God" that culminated in the election of their ally Dwight Eisenhower in 1952. The new president revolutionized the role of religion in American politics. He inaugurated new traditions like the National Prayer Breakfast, as Congress added the phrase "under God" to the Pledge of Allegiance and made "In God We Trust" the country's first official motto. Church membership soon soared to an all-time high of 69 percent. Americans across the religious and political spectrum agreed that their country was "one nation under God."
Provocative and authoritative, One Nation Under God reveals how an unholy alliance of money, religion, and politics created a false origin story that continues to define and divide American politics to this day.
- Print length384 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherBasic Books
- Publication dateMay 3, 2016
- Dimensions6 x 1 x 9.25 inches
- ISBN-100465097413
- ISBN-13978-0465097418
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Editorial Reviews
Review
"Kruse tells a big and important story about the mingling of religion and politics since the 1930s."―New York Times Book Review
"Fascinating."―Washington Post
"An important and convincing reminder that the roots of Christianity were cultivated well before the era of the religious right."―Wall Street Journal
"An illuminating addition to the growing field of the history of American conservatism and capitalism, as well as a vibrant study of the way cultural influence works-one that will make it impossible to take for granted the small print on the back of a dollar bill ever again.... This is what's most interesting in the story Kruse is telling: the pattern of continuity and change that links our own time with those that came before."―The Nation
About the Author
Product details
- Publisher : Basic Books; Reprint edition (May 3, 2016)
- Language : English
- Paperback : 384 pages
- ISBN-10 : 0465097413
- ISBN-13 : 978-0465097418
- Item Weight : 1.08 pounds
- Dimensions : 6 x 1 x 9.25 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #380,240 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #381 in History of Religion & Politics
- #468 in Church & State Religious Studies
- #921 in Political Conservatism & Liberalism
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Corporate America’s creation of a free-enterprise selfish Jesus began in 1935 with the founding of an organization called Spiritual Mobilization. Some of the corporations who donated money to this and similar organizations include: American Cyanamid and chemical corporation, Associated Refineries, AT&T, Bechtel Corporation, Caterpillar Tractor Company, Chevrolet, Chicago & Southern Airline, Chrysler corporation, Colgate-Palmolive Company, Deering-Milliken, Detroit Edison, Disney, DuPont, Eastern Airlines, General Electric, General Foods, General Motors, Goodwill, Goodyear Tire & Rubber, IBM, J. C. Penney, J. Walter Thompson, Mark A. Hanna, Marriott, Marshall Field, Monsanto Chemical Company, National Association of Manufacturers, Pacific Mutual Life Insurance, Paramount Pictures, PepsiCo, Precision Valve Corp, Quaker Oats, Republic Steel Corp, Richfield Oil Co., San Diego Gas & Electric, Schick Safety Razor, Standard Oil Company, Sun Oil company, Sun shipbuilding company, Union Carbide and Carbon Corporation, United Airlines, US Rubber company, US steel corporation, Utah Power & Light, Warner Bros. Pictures, Weyerhauser.
In the 1930s, corporations were well known to have brought on the Great Depression with their tremendous greed and dishonesty. The New Deal reformed the financial system, distributed wealth more evenly, provided a social safety net, protected the people by regulating businesses to protect them from unsafe and unhealthy food, drugs, and other products, toxic pollution, aided farmers in slowing soil erosion to prevent more dust bowls (and feed Americans for hundreds of years-- good topsoil is America’s most important treasure), and other public services that benefited everyone.
The New Deal embodied the ideals of the Social Gospel, a movement dedicated to the public good, economic equality, eradication of poverty, slums, child labor, an unclean environment, inadequate labor unions, poor schools, and war (Wiki Social Gospel).
Corporate America fought against these reforms and has been trying to undo the New Deal ever since then.
One of their most successful tactics was getting religious leaders to spout a new version of Jesus – a free-enterprise, Ayn Rand, selfish Jesus and eradicate the Social Gospel Jesus of the New Deal.
At first ministers and people saw through since this propaganda was obviously craven corporate self-interest.
So the propaganda was crafted more subtly, and sold to conservative religious leaders. Congregations then listened to sermons about the free-enterprise Jesus with open hearts and minds, which they would have laughed at if the speaker were a CEO. The new religion taught them to hate unions, social welfare, to fear and hate government, to be against abortion and birth control (mainly because the more people there are, the less industries have to pay them). It was broadcast from conservative religious radio and TV stations, and in the secular world.
This is why you don’t have a chance of talking Uncle Bob out of voting for demagogues at the Thanksgiving table – you’re attacking his religion and core beliefs he’s heard since his first sermon, and his brain shuts down in anger. He’s been taught since he was a baby that he should hate and fear government, not corporations.
People like to say that capitalism is imperfect, but the best system that exists. Well, it’s great at raping, pillaging, and poisoning land, water, and air than any other system. Industrial farming is depleting aquifers and eroding and compacting top soil to the point where it won’t produce much food after centuries rather than millennia. Global conventional oil production, where 90% of our oil comes from, peaked in 2005 (Aleklett et al. 2012; Kerr 2011; Murray 2012; Newby 2011; IEA 2010; Zittel et al. 2013), declining at a rate of 6% now and increasing to 9% by 2030 (Hook 2009). According to the Department of Energy, you’d want to prepare at least 20 years ahead of time for peak oil (Hirsch 2005), yet here we are 12 years after peak conventional oil, with both Democrats and Republicans assuming that endless growth on a finite planet will fix things. We don’t have endless energy, it turns out that earth is not a giant gas tank, and even if it were, exponential growth would drain it in centuries.
There isn’t a single endeavor that doesn’t depend on energy, especially supply chains, mining, logging, construction, and road building, which are done with heavy-duty trucks, which can only accomplish their work with diesel engines that burn only diesel (Friedemann 2015).
Since the social net is funded by an ever-expanding working population and growth, social security and Medicare are Ponzi schemes, as well as our financial system, which depends on growth to pay back debt. The corporations are about to get the death of the New Deal they’ve so wanted via the decline of our fossil-fueled civilization.
There is no political party that can fix this, so it’s time to strengthen your community to become more resilient, self-sufficient, and able to supply food and other essentials locally. To fix water and sewage infrastructure. It’s time to embrace the social gospel and help community members less fortunate than you in the years ahead.
Aleklett, K., et al. 2012. Peeking at peak oil. Berlin: Springer.
Hook, M., et al. 2009. Giant oil field decline rates and their influence on world oil production. Energy Policy 37(6):2262–2272.
Friedemann, A. 2015. When trucks stop running, Energy and the Future of Transportation. Springer.
Kerr, R. 2011. Peak oil production may already be here. Science 331:1510–11.
Murray, J., et al. 2012. Oil’s tipping point has passed. Nature 481:43–4.
Newby, J. 2011. Oil Crunch (Fatih Birol). Catalyst. ABC TV.
IEA. 2010. World energy outlook 2010, 116. International Energy Agency.
Zittel, W, et al. 2013. Fossil and nuclear fuels. Energy Watch Group.
“One Nation Under God" is an even-handed book that makes the record clear on where America’s religious identity came from. Professor Kevin Kruse makes the compelling historical case that America’s religious identity had its roots in the domestic politics against Roosevelt’s New Deal of the 1930s and 1940s. This scholarly 386-page book includes eight chapters broken out into the following three parts: I. Creation, II. Consecration, and III. Conflict.
Positives:
1. Interesting and well-written book. Fair and respectful treatment.
2. A fascinating premise, how Corporate America invented a Christian America.
3. Kruse does not waste time in establishing his thesis for the book. “This book argues, the postwar revolution in America’s religious identity had its roots not in the foreign policy panic of the 1950s but rather in the domestic politics of the 1930s and early 1940s.”
4. The origins of the union of Christianity and capitalism. “At First Congregational and elsewhere, the minister reached out warmly to the wealthy, assuring them that their worldly success was a sign of God’s blessings and brushing off the criticism of clergymen who disagreed.”
5. The anti-New Deal movement. “For Fifield and his associates, the phrase “freedom under God”—in contrast with what they saw as oppression under the federal government—became an effective new rallying cry in the early 1950s.”
6. The role that Billy Graham played in American politics. “As the Washington crusade began in January 1952, Graham made clear his intent to influence national politics.”
7. It’s always interesting to read about the fathers of prominent politicians and religious leaders of today or recent past. See how many you find.
8. Political opportunism illustrated. “Vereide recognized that the tensions of the Cold War could be exploited to win more converts to his cause.”
9. A comprehensive look at the history of the National Day of Prayer. “In an apparent nod to the previous year’s “Freedom Under God” observance, which was set to be repeated in 1952, Truman selected the Fourth of July as the date for the first National Day of Prayer.”
10. Eisenhower unlikely role as the spiritual leader of a nation. “Eisenhower’s relationship with the Freedoms Foundation ran back to its founding. In his first meeting with Belding in September 1948, he discovered that the ad man shared his belief that the free enterprise system was in desperate need of defense.” “FOR EISENHOWER, THE “GOVERNMENT UNDER God” theme of the first prayer breakfast became a blueprint for his entire administration.”
11. Key stats that show the influence of religion and politics. “The decade and a half after the Second World War, however, saw a significant surge: the percentage claiming a church membership climbed to 57 percent in 1950 and then spiked to an all-time high of 69 percent at the end of the decade.”
12. The drive to declare the United States as one based on the Bible. In God We Trust. “In July 1953, the National Association of Evangelicals arranged to have Eisenhower, Nixon, and other high-ranking officials sign a statement declaring that the United States government was based on biblical principles.”
13. Interesting tidbits about our founding fathers. “The founding fathers had felt no need to acknowledge “the law and authority of Jesus Christ,” and neither had subsequent generations of American legislators.”
14. A comprehensive look at the history of the Pledge of Allegiance. “THE ORIGINAL PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE, much like the Constitution itself, did not acknowledge the existence of God. Its author, Francis Bellamy, a Baptist minister from Rome, New York, was a decidedly religious man, but when he wrote the pledge in the 1890s he described himself as something that would seem an oxymoron in Eisenhower’s America: a ‘Christian socialist’.”
15. Interesting history on the need to create an illusion of historical accuracy.
16. Separation of church and state. “The justice reached back to borrow a metaphor coined in a letter to his fellow Baptists in Danbury, Connecticut, two and a half centuries before. “In the words of Jefferson,” Black wrote, “the clause against establishment of religion by laws was intended to erect ‘a wall of separation between church and state.” “Religious liberty was essential, he told his wife, because “when one religion gets predominance, they immediately try to suppress the others.”
17. A look at the quest for school prayer amendment. The tactics used by both sides. “The issue is that agencies of government cannot avoid favoring one denomination and hurting another by the practical decisions that have to be made by government authority on what version of the Bible shall be imposed and what prayer. The churches know this and that is why they are against the Becker Amendment.”
18. Prayers at the White House. “In creating a “kind of sanctuary” in the East Room, Nixon committed the very sin the founders had sought to avoid.”
19. Republicans use of religion for political gain. “Much as Reagan used school prayer as a partisan issue, Bush used the pledge.”
20. An excellent epilogue.
21. Notes included. A section of abbreviations.
Negatives:
1. Interesting but on the dry side. The book is scholarly but the author lacks flare.
2. Lacks conviction. The book feels more like a cold report than an engaging thesis.
3. Charts and timelines would have added value.
4. No formal bibliography.
5. At $14.92 for a Kindle book when the Hardcover was available for $15.70 at time of purchase may hurt some trees.
In summary, this is really a 3.5 star book but I’m feeling generous. On the one hand, it’s an interesting topic that is covered in a fair and respectful manner while on the other hand it lacks panache. Kruse provides great insights into the evolution of the religious right and makes a compelling case of their true origins. A worthwhile book to read, I recommend it!
Further recommendations: “Why the Religious Right Is Wrong about Separation of Church and State” by Robert Boston, “Nonbeliever Nation” by David Niose, “The Dark Side of Christian History” by Helen Ellerbe, “Birth Control, Insurance Coverage, & the Religious Right” by A.F. Alexander, “The God Argument” by A.C. Grayling, “Freethinkers” by Susan Jacoby, “Moral Combat” by Sikivu Hutchinson, “Republican Gomorrah” by Max Blumenthal, “American Fascists” by Chris Hedges, “Doubt” by Jennifer Michael Hecht, and “Society Without God” by Phil Zuckerman.






