Party in the USA, but the party is religion and some people are hurt by the party and some people have fun

Taking America Back for God: Christian Nationalism in the United States

“Drawing on multiple sources of national survey data collected over the past several decades and in-depth interviews, Whitehead and Perry document how Christian nationalism radically shapes what Americans think about who they are as a people, what their future should look like, and how they should get there.”

See full abstract here

Main Argument

Whitehead and Perry show in this book that though Christian ideals and symbols have impacted the status and life of the United States since its beginning, the current “Christian Nationalism” has a far greater goal than just promoting Christian standards and beliefs. They study and analyze national surveys to explore how one’s religious convictions (Christianity in this case) affects their stance on current issues such as abortion, marriage rights, gun control, and how they vote. Through this they found that these convictions led to “desire for political power, rigid social boundaries, and hierarchical order”, according to the abstract.

Using Religion to Maintain Status Quo

Christian nationalists as Whitehead and Perry describe may either be truly getting their political beliefs from their religious beliefs, or they may be applying their religion to their political beliefs to receive validation in it. Karl Marx discussed that religion was a being that was able to maintain or challenge the status quo, and I believe here we can see Christian nationalists using their religion to try to maintain the status quo. The abstract very clearly backs this up, stating, “At heart, Christian nationalism fights to preserve a particular kind of social order, an order in which everyone—Christians and non-Christians, native-born and immigrants, whites and minorities, men and women—recognizes their “proper” place in society.” As Christian nationalists believe that they are divinely correct, it is easy to see why they feel so fervently about pushing their ideas, even if that comes at the sake of oppression of others.

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We Have a Religion
The 1920s Pueblo Indian Dance Controversy and American Religious Freedom

In the 1920s, Pueblo Indian leaders in New Mexico and a sympathetic coalition of non-Indian reformers successfully challenged government and missionary attempts to suppress Indian dances by convincing a skeptical public that these ceremonies counted as religion. This struggle for religious freedom forced the Pueblos to employ Euro-American notions of religion, a conceptual shift with complex consequences within Pueblo life. Long after the dance controversy, Wenger demonstrates, dominant concepts of religion and religious freedom have continued to marginalize indigenous traditions within the United States.

See full abstract here

Main Argument

Wegner describes the life and history of the Pueblo people in New Mexico, particularly the controversy surrounding their traditional dances and the clash with the government in 1920. Wegner says one purpose of the book is that it “examines the practical consequences within indigenous communities of adopting and adapting the concept of ‘religion'”(5). Wegner shows just how important the definition of religion is in circumstances regarding religious freedom.

Using Religion as Self-Preservation

The Pueblo people were oppressed and in danger of losing their traditions, so they used “religion” to redefine their practices and to draw the boundary that more people would respect. Durkheim’s thoughts about religion can be brought up here, as he believed that religion came from what people were doing (whether the Pueblo people truly believed that was a “religious” practice could negate this point) not from some divine “other”. He also believed religion could and is used functionally as a social control to draw boundaries and make hierarchies, which we saw the Pueblo people doing to protect themselves and their traditions.

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New World A-Coming
Black Religion and Racial Identity during the Great Migration

“When Joseph Nathaniel Beckles registered for the draft in the 1942, he rejected the racial categories presented to him and persuaded the registrar to cross out the check mark she had placed next to Negro and substitute “Ethiopian Hebrew.” “God did not make us Negroes,” declared religious leaders in black communities of the early twentieth-century urban North. They insisted that so-called Negroes are, in reality, Ethiopian Hebrews, Asiatic Muslims, or raceless children of God. Rejecting conventional American racial classification, many black southern migrants and immigrants from the Caribbean embraced these alternative visions of black history, racial identity, and collective future, thereby reshaping the black religious and racial landscape…Weisenfeld draws on extensive archival research and incorporates a rich array of sources to highlight the experiences of average members. The book demonstrates that the efforts by members of these movements to contest conventional racial categorization contributed to broader discussions in black America about the nature of racial identity and the collective future of black people that still resonate today.”

See full abstract here

Main Argument

Weisenfeld retells and recaps historical accounts of early 20th century Caribbean immigrants identifying as “Ethiopian Hebrews, Asiatic Muslims, or raceless children of God” rather than with federally imposed categories based on skin color. Weisenfeld argues that this new self-identification was so influential to members because it made them feel like they were divinely appointed to be who they were and it changed how they thought of themselves and their communities. He also argues this new way of identification offered new opportunities within a community of religion.

Using Religion to Form Community

As these people chose to identify with their religion, they formed a community that rallied around the idea that they were all this certain thing. Durkheim championed the idea that one of the main functions of religion was social cohesion, that religion is something that generates community. I believe that this story of the Caribbean immigrants using their religion to identify supports Durkheim’s claim. They felt connected through this, but they also were connected through new religious opportunities.

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The Exhibit

These three books all show certain people in the United States using religion as something other than just being “religion”. While the subjects of these books are all from different time periods, and all have different privileges, they all effectively use religion to achieve something (knowingly or unknowingly).

The authors examine these people’s actions and the consequences of their actions in a way that does not decide if it’s right or wrong but does see who is impacted. It is easy to see that throughout history, actions done in the name of and because of one’s religion reach farther than one might think (positively and negatively).

Pal writes on religion in Society and the Sacred, “Instead, the context in which something is found, the expectations placed upon it by its users, and, most importantly perhaps, the purpose it serves, are what allow things to be defined as a this and not a that.” (56). It seems that while discussing the functions of religion, we are brought back to the definition of religion. Whitehead and Perry talk about how Christianity is not necessarily linked to “Christian nationalism”, and the Pueblo people might not truly believe their traditions are “religious” but their functions push them into the category of religion.