William Tyler
America: State Religion?
William Tyler - America State Religion
- Thank you very much indeed, and welcome everyone to this unusual day for me to be speaking on lockdown on a Sunday. It happens to be the Sunday of what in Britain is Remembrance Weekend. That is the weekend which we remember the ending of the War, the First World War at the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month, 1918. And whenever I’m teaching on this weekend, I’ve always begun by reading a poem, and I’m going to do it with your indulgence this evening, just one stanza of a poem by Laurence Binyon, called simply “The Fallen,” and it’s one that we use in Britain and I think almost certainly Canadians and Australians will recognise it, but maybe others of you, particularly Americans, may not recognise it so easily. So let me share this, and for all of you to remember those of your families, those of your communities, your schools and so on, and your country, who fell in the cause of freedom and in peace, not only in the two World Wars of the 20th century, but as in Britain, we remember those, who have fallen in subsequent wars. And the poem goes like this, and for us who are British, it’s very moving, “They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old. Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn. At the going down of the sun, and in the morning, we will remember them.” Thank you very much for indulging me in that. It just didn’t seem right. For those of you who don’t recognise some of the British symbols, this is my poppy. It’s not a big one. We wear these tiny little ones more now. It’s a poppy to celebrate the poppies in Flanders Fields. And my tie to celebrate the day is the Oxford University Officers’ Training Corps tie. I never served in the military, but I did serve in the OOTC at Oxford.
I wear this on today. So that’s all by preface I’ve being asked to talk about religion and the United States. I have to say that in preparing this, I found it quite difficult, probably because for one thing, I’m not American, which doesn’t mean to say I don’t understand the issues that are there, but it may not necessarily tie in with the views that Americans may have of the place of religion in their society, but in the belief that in adult education to share opposing views, oh, or not opposing, and I mean, black and white views, but opposing views in the sense that it’s seeing something from a different angle always, well, I think always helps greater understanding on all sides. I’m talking about Christianity as the religion, because I believe that’s the important issue in terms of the politics of the United States, the Constitution of the United States and the DNA of Americans. So that’s what I’m talking about. I am not talking about Judaism and that was a conscious choice because Trudy is giving a number of lectures during this series on America about Jews in America. And I don’t want to step on her toes. Moreover, I only have an hour and that is a different story to the story I want to tell. That is a story of later immigration to the states. I want to talk about the Founding Fathers of the United States, and how that DNA feeds in to the America of the 21st century. So I hope that is clear. So let me begin, and I’m going to begin with Amendment 1 to the American Constitution, which is one of the 10 amendments contained in the, what is called, the Bill of Rights.
And so if you are British, the Bill of Rights has another meaning except it doesn’t really. The Bill of Rights in Britain in 1688/89 has a political constitutional importance and still does today. And the Bill of Rights in the states with the first 10 amendments also has significant political and constitutional impact. So the Amendment 1 reads like this, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” Well, it piles quite a lot into one amendment. But what is important about that amendment is it established freedom of worship of whatever religion, not just Christianity and its sects, but whatever religion an American believed in and was a member of the church, synagogue, et cetera, et cetera. But it also established that there would be no established church in America, no national church. In Britain of course, we have a national church, the Church of England, the Anglican Church, which plays a large part in national life. So today, at the Cenotaph in Whitehall in London, where we come with the King leading us all in remembrance of those who gave their lives, sacrificed themselves so that we might live in freedom, the small service in the middle of it is conducted by the Anglican Bishop of London. Interestingly now, a woman Bishop of London. Now, although America did not establish a church in the way that Britain did, this does not mean by any stretch of the imagination that religion, in particular Christianity, has not played a major role in the politics and in the constitutional settlement of the United States, it’s just that it has no established church. I would argue that religion was a central core to the early development of what in the 18th century became the United States of America.
The religion, of course, as I’ve said, was Christianity, but it was a particular form of Christianity. It was a stern form of Protestantism, very opposed to Catholicism. And later in American history, there’s considerable anti-Catholic feeling not least as regards Canada. And there’s anti-Catholic feeling also with the large number of Irish immigrants and Italian immigrants into the United States in the 19th century. So the religion that came from Europe with the first European settlers, came from England, and it’s Puritanism, in English terms, a stern form of Protestantism. In American terminology, you can think of it as Presbyterianism with a large broad rush. Now, what is important about this is not the religious part, but the political, those who came, like pilgrim fathers in 1620, came to escape not just the religious dominance of the Church of England, so that they were free to worship and appoint their own ministers as they did when they came to New England, but they also were rebelling against the political structures in England. That is to say the autocracy of the stewards, James I, and especially Charles I. They were political refugees in one sense as well as religious refugees in another, because in the 17th century for Protestantism of the more extreme sort, then religion and politics were intertwined. Why? Because the Protestants, particularly those on the radical end of Protestantism, believed in the individual. And if they believed an individual could make their own peace with God, then how dare an earthly king not take into account their views? In other words, they’re espousing what today we might call democracy, do call democracy.
So these first English settlers, I know there are Catholics down in what is now the Southern states, that is a different story. And that does not affect, that does not affect the Protestantism that underpins American society. Remember that the Constitution is drawn up by the 13 British colonies and they are overwhelmingly Protestant colonies. So this Protestantism that comes not only brings religion, but it brings a political outlook as well, which is so intertwined with religion you can’t really part them. That’s the story as it begins. But I want to start my talk, you might have thought I’d started, I haven’t . I want to start my talk not with the immigrants from England, or if you prefer the word refugees from England, nor with the First Amendment, which I’ve read, from 1791. I want to talk about the arrival of a preacher. He was in fact Anglican, that is in this context not relevant. He’s an itinerant preacher from England who came to the colonies in 1739, and stayed until 1741. He’s what we would today call a charismatic evangelist. If he had come today, he would have his own TV channel on American TV. That’s the sort of man we’re talking about. He’s called George Whitefield. And George Whitefield came and he preached, and he wrote, and his services were what most of us would regard as strange in the sense that people spoke with tongues. They shouted out in the middle of services.
They danced in the middle of services. It’s populist evangelical preaching, and evangelical worship. The Americans call this part of their history, their religious history, the Great Awakening. Now this comes 1740, rough date, 100 years after those Puritan immigrants I’m talking about, and this was a revival of that earlier form of Puritanism. So this Great Awakening, those who began to follow George Whitefield, right across the country, that he left in his wake converted ministers to this evangelical revival, this Great Awakening were called the New Lights. And those who criticised him were known as the Old Lights. So there is a division, well, we all know that religion carries lots of divisions, and Protestantism in particular has always divided, subdivided, subdivided again, and again, and again at infinitum. Now, you could say that this is really just another example of Protestantism dividing, and what has it got to do with the larger history of the United States? Well, I’d like to read from Alan Taylor’s book, “Colonial America,” which I’ve used before. It’s on one of my book lists. This is in the Oxford Short, very short introduction. Alan Taylor writes this, “The evangelical radicals,” that like Whitefield, “Promised a more pluralistic, egalitarian, and voluntaristic social order by defending the free flow of itinerant preachers and their converts across community and denominational lines.” The Revivalists also imagine an enlarged society, an intercolonial and transatlantic network of congregations united by a shared spirituality communicated over long distances by itinerants and print.“ So not only were they hoping that this Great Awakening would spread right across the 13 colonies, and the states that had succeeded them, but that they would also be linked back to Britain. Well, that’s a bit of an oddity, because we’re coming to towards the end of a British rule, and we’re coming to the end of the 13 colonies, and the beginning of the states.
But nevertheless, this is an interesting concept. They wanted to unite, and not just to unite in America, but to unite across the Atlantic. That’s important, well, sort of, but more important is that they believed in a pluralistic, egalitarian, and voluntaristic society. Those are big words, what does it mean? Well, Taylor goes on to say simply this, "By no means did all colonists become evangelicals, but they were sufficiently numerous, and interconnected to influence the the entire culture. What they felt was about individuality. That is the key, that is the key. Despite their ethnic and denominational diversity, the American colonists and the British felt a new commonality as Protestants when they focused upon Catholic France, which have become the Empire’s greatest enemy. Hence why Americans, including George Washington, signed up as volunteers to fight for the British in the Seven Years’ War with the French in North America, that is both in America and Canada, that’s today in North America between 1756 and 1763, Washington is an officer, volunteer officer, with a volunteer American regiment fighting for the British. Hardly surprising that when he came to fight the British some decade or more in the future, he knew exactly what they would do, because he’d been trained by British officers. This individuality plus this Protestantism, this Protestantism enabled the American colonists to fight alongside the British, because feelings against the British were already there in the 1760s, for goodness’s sake. But the worst was the enemy was France, and if you want to think about that differently, had the French won the Seven years’ War, then America could be, even if it gained its independence from France, which it would’ve done at some point, would be French speaking and would be Francofied, and the world would be a very different place with a French-oriented United States.
But that was not to be, and it was not to be because of Protestantism. And it was not to be because they were so focused on individuality, which the Catholic Church was not. So this preaching of Whitefield in the Great Awakening awakened a a fresh, a reawakening of what those first immigrants were determined on, which was independence and freedom of thought. "I’m a free man, I’m a free woman. Don’t the government in London tell me what to do?” And incidentally, “Don’t the government in Massachusetts or Virginia tell me what to do, because I’m independent, I’m free.” And this Protestantism reinforced with the Great Awakening, which is only 20-odd years before the the War of Independence and the drawing up of the American constitution is of vital importance. You could describe it, and I’ve described it on the notes I’ve written for this evening, as the cult of the individual. America has much more, even than Britain, are the cult of the individual. We’re bloody minded enough, but I think actually Americans can be more bloody minded than the British. From outside, this is where the ice cracks under my feet. From outside, the extreme example of the American cult of the individual is the constitutional right for Americans to carry firearms. And we see in Britain, deaths of children, and all sorts of other folk, when someone with a gun or guns simply loses it, and starts firing at will. We see it every time it happens in the states, we get the same pictures from your television stations, your television interviewers are interviewed by our interviewers, and time and again, they are asked, “Why can you not stop this? Why does it go on and on and on?” Well, the answer is because of those early immigrants and because of the Great Awakening and the cult of the individual, that is important. Of course, that’s a negative, and there are huge positives about the cult of the individual. It’s the base of both British and American democracy.
Let me turn now to that great event in world history, in American history, and in British history, that is to say the American Revolution of the 1770s. A key consequence of victory in the war against the imperial British leading onto the Declaration of Independence. And finally, the drawing up of the US Constitution was so key to the way that America developed, not just it developed, but the way it did, the mode it did. So would such a constitution written in America, contain a reference to a state religion. After all, Britain had a state religion after its revolution in the 1640s. When Charles II returned, everyone thought it would be as it is today in America, no state religion. But in 1661, less than 12 months after he’s coming back to Britain, they passed an active uniformity, which established the Church of England as the state church, the established church with bishops sitting in the House of Lords as they do today. And then that was reinforced after Catholic James was sent packing in 1688 by the Bill of Rights, there’s that phrase again, as the 1791 first 10 amendments is the Bill of Rights. So we had a Bill of Rights here in Britain, 1688/89, and that reinforced a place of Protestantism and ensured that the monarch had to be not just Protestant, but a member of the, sorry, a member of the Church of England. He could, however, marry whom he wanted, except a Catholic, could marry a Jew, but he couldn’t marry a Catholic. We are still very anti-Catholic as indeed America was.
And then America was anti-Catholic because the Protestants in Britain were anti-Catholic. And there’s another story to tell about anti-Catholicism between Britain and anti-Catholicism in the states. But that isn’t the only difference between the two countries if you like, not only do you not have a state religion, and we do, but that is a sort of minor thing, concern, consider with the place of religion in society today, where in Britain, no politician would kneel his colours to the mast in terms of his religious views. In fact, when Tony Blair, to all intents and purposes, it converted to Roman Catholicism whilst he was prime minister, it was not announced, and he did not do it officially until he ceased to be prime minister, because one of his advisors said to him, “Tony, we don’t do religion, and our prime ministers don’t do religion.” That’s a very different situation in the states. Also today, many Americans still attend religious services, but not necessarily Christian, of course, Jewish, Muslim, the whole gamut. Whereas in this country, attendance at Christian churches has declined enormously. In the last two decades, it’s fallen and fallen and fallen. Now there are lots of reasons for that, that’s not important, but it has fallen and fallen and fallen. So one of the questions Britain faces is the disestablishment of the church being, why should Anglican bishops sit in the House of Lords by right? And the chief rabbi only sit in the House of Lords, because he’s separately, individually, as an individual made a Lord, it doesn’t make any sense at all. Nobody can defend it in Britain except on the grounds with better not fiddle with it in case it all goes wrong. Well, it has to be fiddled with it sometime and undoubtedly the Church of England will be disestablished in some way, I don’t doubt that in the lives of my grandchildren, I’m sure that will happen. And we should be far more like the United States, except we are a more secular country than the United States.
In fact, Europe as a whole, Catholic Europe as well as Protestant Europe, is far more secular than America, that think about the decline of the Catholic church, for example, in Spain since the fall of fascism, it’s dropped off a cliff. So there are differences between America and Britain, and America and Europe, and it’s not just the surface differences. So how did this infant United States deal with the question? It’s not as though the Puritans who’d arrived in the 17th century from England were against an established church, they were just against the one that was established in England. They were quite happy to establish their own church. And of course, before 1791, there were a number of states which had a religion that was established. Many of them followed Anglicanism, but lots of them had other religion, other Christian sects set as established churches. So there wasn’t a view in America that there shouldn’t be an established church because people in the states had different views. It’s interesting, had America not developed the Constitution that it did, the Federal Constitution, then maybe its religious position, might have been different, but as it is, it adopted a federal system, and the federal nature of that in Washington had to deal with, if there’s going to be a national religion, it has to be Congress that decides what that should be, and that proved not to be that easy. This is Robert Allison’s “The American Revolution,” which is again a book I’ve used, and again, it’s on my blog.
And Allison writes this, “Every American state, except Pennsylvania and Rhode Island, had an established church, but religious practises differed in each. Tremendous immigration from Northern Ireland, Scotland, and Germany In the mid-18th century, before, before independence, brought dissenting Presbyterians, Moravians, Lutherans, and Baptists, but not their clergy. American believers created their own communities of worship, and controlled them in ways they could not have in Europe where every community had an established tax-supported church, and where priests and bishops were often political appointments. In America, children of one faith met and married children of another. Religious diversity which did not exist elsewhere, flourished in America.” Religious diversity is the key, prior to independence, which set the seal against an established church. It didn’t mean that everyone, well, let’s put it this way, there were lots of trouble in the 13 colonies before independence came, particularly from Baptist groups in Massachusetts, for example, and in Virginia, where they were controlled by others. In Virginia, by Anglicans, in Massachusetts, by Congregationalists. And the Baptists found themselves having to pay taxes for congregational ministers in Massachusetts and for Anglican bishops in Virginia. And they said, “Hang on, this really isn’t acceptable. Why should we be paying for these people? We’ve got to support our own. This isn’t freedom. You are putting an established church into place.” And it was big, big arguments, massive, massive arguments. And they go on right into the 1770s. And Robert Allison tells this story, “American Baptist presented the biggest challenge to religious orthodoxy. The Reverend Isaac Backus of Massachusetts appeared uninvited at the first Constitutional Congress in 1774, bringing copies of his quote, Appeal to the Public for Religious Liberty.” Only 10 cents a copy, buy yours now.“
Remember, the church is always in it on making some money. "And he complained that the Massachusetts Assembly, the government of Massachusetts taxed his Baptist congregation to support the congregational clergy, a violation of their, quote, no taxation without representation principle.” But that’s of course, roughly, one of the principle reasons given for the War of Independence, no taxation without representation. And the Baptist in Massachusetts said, “You’re hypocrites, you are saying that about the British, but you’re imposing that on us.” And this was serious divisions at the time. There’s also, as I said, the same sort of trouble in Virginia. So how do they reconcile this? Well, this is where it becomes interesting. “Backus, supported by Congress, petitioned the Massachusetts’s Congress for relief. Some congregationalists suspected the Baptist were in cahoots with Anglicans in support of continued British rule, and the provincial Congress would’ve ignored Backus, but for John Adams, insisting that they needed to get set, or they needed to act, or risk the support among non-congregationalism in other states. The provincial Congress did not exactly take action. It told the Baptist to petition their assembly when it met again.” So in the middle of this war, the issue of religion and politics has emerged again, the Baptist’s saying, “What you people in Massachusetts are saying against the British, you’re imposing on US, taxes without representation.
This is not acceptable.” And what Adams is doing is interesting. Adams is saying this is a political issue, not a religious issue. Adams is saying, look, “You must be careful, or you’re going to send large bodies of people in the 13 colonies into the hands of the British.” So in a sense, Massachusetts played for time, and so did John Adams play for time. This is not a religious debate, it’s a political debate with religious overtones as it were. I find that very interesting. Right in the middle of all of these constitutional discussions, war with Britain, all of this is swirling around, and religion is swirling around, so that politicians like Adams have to think of how they deal with it. Madison, now we move to Madison. Madison realised while one religious sect could wield power in a state, it was impossible to select one religious sect to be the sect of the American federal nation. It doesn’t work. And Alison notes this, “This very diversity of religious practises secured religious liberty across the United States. With so many different churches, there could be no single established church.” This is Madison’s argument. “Madison saw that religious diversity or pluralism would prevent a national religious establishment. He also saw this as a model for preventing other forms, economic or political, of majority tyranny.” Now, that is of course fascinating in its own sense, because what he’s saying here, and this plays later into the American Civil War, is that states should be responsible for their own economic policies. Well, if you remember, one of the courses of the American Civil War is some states were actually taxing other states more for imports than they were taxing imports from Britain.
And so the economy was important. This is playing out this central problem, which those of you who heard my lecture last Monday on the general history of America will understand this is the problem with federalism. How much power do you give the states and how much power does the central federal government hold? And Madison here is saying, very firmly he’s saying, that you cannot give the central government power over religion in the same way that you can’t give it power over politics or power over the economy. Now, we know that in the world we live today, it is the federal agencies that control the economy, and it is the federal agencies that in the end, it’s the president that in the end controls the politics. But in terms of religion, the present United States has not diverted from Madison’s line, although in the First Amendment, where it made that clear, the consequence was that the states follow that lead, and did not have established churches. History is never clear and straightforward. Madison’s view of the position of the federal government vis-a-vis the state governments has proved, frankly, proved frankly unworkable. On the other hand, when it came to religion, it turned out not to be a case of the federal government rejecting the idea of an established church or the states having an established church, it came to a general American belief that because of the plurality of religious sects within Christianity, and later of course a huge number of sects coming in, and different religions coming in, as well as Christian sects, large numbers of people coming into the states that the states themselves, the individual states could not continue to pursue such a policy and don’t. But centrally they realised it couldn’t be done when the First Amendment was put in.
So all of this is very important to the development of the Constitution of the United States. The Constitution in terms of the relationship between central federal government and state governments. Finally, after everything was set up, the constitution written in 1791, there were loose ends that had to be tied up, the Bill of Rights of 1791. So let me read again how this issue was tied up in the First Amendment, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, or abridging the freedom of speech or of the press, or the right of the people peaceably to assemble and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.” So what we’ve done is not only referring that amendment, one, to the religious context, but to the wider moral issue and the cult of the individual, that’s what it’s about. “The government, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.” It’s at the core of American life, the belief in the individual enshrined in that amendment, and that relates to, and not just to religion, but to other issues. Now in Britain, by contrast, the first part does not apply, but in terms of the other part, yes it does, not in an amendment to a constitution that doesn’t exist in a written form. But in subsequent legislation in Britain, we march shoulder to shoulder with America in terms of the rights of petitioning, the rights to petition parliament in our case, the right to peaceably demonstrate, et cetera, et cetera, all is the same.
We come from that same 17th century stock. Our democracies may not look identical, but the parallels are absolutely clear to see. And the fact that there is a different view of a church, not only, I think, relates to the large number of different views in America, different religious groups, different religious subdivisions and so on, but I think relates in Britain to size, except that now 21st century, we have a problem, because in the 1960s, we became in Britain, we changed, our society changed in that society of the 1960s, we became more tolerant of those living in our society who are unlike ourselves, which develops into this philosophy of multiculturalism. But today that multicultural basis is challenged, and one of them ways it’s challenged is over our failure to integrate into our communities many Muslim communities who move to Britain, who see themselves as outside of the British nation, unlike all my friends who are Jewish, who see themselves as British and Jewish, but we have problems with Islam or parts of Islam. And so today people are questioning why, why multiculturalism appears to have failed. So we have our own problems, and our problems are historical as America’s problems. But let me just have a word about America again. So having in a sense resolved the issue of religion in 1791, how has that played out in America since 1791? Well, if we take the American Civil War, there are clergy on both sides attached to both the Union and Confederate armies.
One side arguing that slavery is approved by God, the other side saying slavery is abhorrent to God, both sides saying you are fighting for Christian principles. You can say that this is what all armies do is to deploy religion to bolster the army’s determination. I’m always reminded of the Tsar visiting the Russian army at the outbreak of war in 1914 with priest, Orthodox, Russian Orthodox priest behind him, with sensors spraying the soldiers with Holy Water. But there were equally pastors and clergy in Germany doing the same, in Britain and in France, and Muslim imams doing it in Turkey. Everyone claims God is on their side. And certainly that was the case in the Civil War. And you might say, “Well, why is that important?” Well it wouldn’t be important. If we stick with America, it would not be important, if after the American Civil War, the reunification of the federal state of the United States had been completed with everyone singing from the same, use of religious metaphor, singing from the same hymn sheet, but it wasn’t, because those in the South resisted. They resisted unification in innumerous ways. And you say, “Well, yes, but William, that’s over 150 years ago.” Yeah. But we know that that divide is there today. It’s there in American elections today.
And underneath all of that is this old debate about the individual, and the individual state, and the national picture. It’s said in Italy that if you ask someone whom they are, they don’t answer, “I’m an Italian,” they answer, “I’m a Neapolitan, I’m a Roman, I’m a Venetian.” In fact, when I was principal at City Lit in London, I had a number of Italian teachers, and one of them who was, she was quite hysterical on occasion, she was a lovely lady called Lydia. She came up to me absolutely fuming, and I said, “Lydia, what’s the matter?” And she said, well, she said, “The head of department has a put in another woman to teach Level 2 Italian, and I always teach Level 2.” So I said, “Well, have you lost any hours of work?” And then she said, “No, I’ve been given level three, but that isn’t the point. I’ve always done level two.” So I said, “Well, I can’t see what the problem is.” And she said, “Well, I’ll tell you what the problem is. The woman who’s been appointed is a Roman. She comes from Rome.” Lydia herself was a very proud Neapolitan and did not approve of Romans, and this funny sort of divisions that we have in society. Now that division is not a religious division in Italy, it’s a political division, and a cultural division. In America, well that’s another question, how religion affects culture. And that’s a question that I may be looking at in future of the main series on America, in Post-bellum America. In the 19th century, more and more, more and more people came into the United States. They brought their religions with them, and so the diversification of religion just went wild. But America also developed its own religions. For example, the Mormons, Seventh-day Adventists, and various cults, this subdivisions of subdivisions of subdivisions. This is, if I find the book, I will read it to you, I’m getting carried away tonight, I mustn’t. This is Timothy Beal, “Religion in America,” it’s on my blog. And Beal writes this, “E pluribus unum. From many one.
This motto from the Great Seal of the United States represents not only a great American ideal, but also an abiding paradox that goes through a very heart of religion in America. An affirmation of both the one and the many, of unity and plurality, of collective identity, and individual difference of conformity and dissent. On the one hand, America’s rich in highly particular, often highly peculiar religious groups and individuals. On the other hand, running counter to this proliferation of the religiously peculiar and particular, we are all very aware of the predominance of Christian beliefs and values, especially Protestant ones in American society and culture.” I could add, the one Jewish comment I will make tonight is that Jews that arrived in terms of their cultural, moral, political outlook fits that of Protestantism, if you like, at a crude level. Things like the work ethic strong in America is both evangelical Puritan Presbyterian Christian and Jewish. And so the Jews found no difficulty in engaging with the American society, nor did they in Britain, although the British story is slightly different than that, they found no difficulty in America. So there’s a greater diversification in the states of religious beliefs and religious adherence, and also at the same time, particularly after 1865, and the defeat of the Confederacy, there is enormous emphasis placed upon unification.
Again, this is the problem of size and of the nature of the federal state, in other words, the nature of how various states came into the Union, and what they brought with them. So there is this fundamental constitutional problem in the states, which really doesn’t exist with us in Britain, although anti-Catholicism remained for a long time. So all of that is just to provide a little bit of a sketch of the historical background of America, and the differences with Britain. But what then of contemporary America? The America that interests Americans and perforce the rest of us, for who America elects as its next president has enormous implications to world order, to the security of Europe through NATO to the aid the ability of the Ukrainians to resist, and the ability of Israel to defend itself, and indeed of Taiwan, which may well be on the agenda by the next presidential election. So it is important for all of us to understand the background. When I was at school, America was really portrayed as a distant relative, really, a distant, rich and powerful relative, but nevertheless a relative. But American society today does not look much like British society today, whereas American society in 1950 did look like British society in 1950.
Are our ways inevitably to part? I hope not, and I don’t think so, and I’m reminded after the appalling attack on the Twin Towers, you could hardly drive a mile or more in my county of Essex in England without seeing a Stars and Stripes. We don’t fly flags in England like you Americans fly. But after 9/11, they were there everywhere. It was amazing, I mean truly, truly amazing. And there were people collecting. The fire brigade, the Essex Fire Brigade were collecting for the New York Fire Brigade and they were collecting in the foyer of our local supermarket in the small, rural town where I lived. And I have never, never in my life seen before or since, we, British people not throwing in pound coins, but throwing in five-pound, 10-pound, 20-pound notes, and we were told the special relationship didn’t exist. It does exist. It existed where it matters most, in ordinary people. So we also have an interest to know where America is going. Now, if I fast forward to the 1960s and the Civil Rights Movement headed by charismatic preachers like the Reverend Martin Luther King and by other politicians and clergy. Again, it’s the entwining of religion and of politics. Here is, I’m looking at my clock, which has seemed to have gone on a slump, but I’ve got. This is Martin Luther King himself, his quote, “I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of the creed. We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal.
With this faith, we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.” What an extraordinary speech that was. It clearly was religious. He’s a religious man in the sense that he’s a reverend, but he’s also political. What about the political language that he used? “This nation will rise up to struggle together, to go to jail together, free.” Those are the sorts of words that the English Puritans would’ve used in the 17th century back in England. “This nation will rise up, we will struggle together, we will go to jail together, we will fight for freedom.” But he puts it in a religious context, which the 17th century English arrivals in New England would’ve understood. He talks of creed, and faith, and praying together. All those New England communities of the 17th century would’ve been in there in Martin Luther King’s audience, white, though they were screaming their reports, this is what they believed in. But such a political movement would’ve been impossible in the Britain of the 1960s, and has proved impossible since. Is this all that we can point to? No, because I want to come further up to date than that. Perhaps the most relevant and evident intertwining of religion and politics in 21st century America, which affects us all, is the support of Donald Trump who has taken over, well, at least large chunks of what was the Republican party and he’s supported with his MAGA supporters. And it goes further than that, doesn’t it?
We see reports, and this is happening in Britain as well, but not under religious, but under politic headlines, we see attacks on individual books in school and university libraries and in bookshops. The British newspaper, The Guardian, earlier this year said a lot of things which were matters of concern. It said, “According to a new study by PEN America, there were 3,362 instances of book bans in book classrooms, in school classrooms, and libraries, with more than 40% of all cases occurring in Florida.” Again, this federal state issue, “The authors whose books were targeted were, quote, most frequently female, people of Colour, and, or LGBTQ+ individuals.” The Guardian finished, “The report found that pressure from adversary groups, and the demands of newly passed state legislation are having a profound chilling effect on book availability in schools,” note made, “Newly passed state legislation.” And note where most of this is taking place, geographically in America. And remember the 1860s, and remember that old cracks can reappear. You know that with your house, you might plaster a crack, but it’s only covering up the crack and one day the crack will reappear if you don’t solve the problem. Now, I don’t expect the Americans to agree with me, but this is an ongoing issue from 1776 and from 1866. This is an article in the British newspaper, The Independent, it was from September this year. It’s headed, “A MAGA Idol: Why Trump’s unchristian behaviour makes him a hero to conservative Christians.” The linking of politics, Trump, and religion, conservative Christians, the Christian right as it’s called in America.
It goes on to say in the article, “For eight years, Donald Trump has managed to secure the support of many evangelical,” back to the Great Awakening, “And conservative Christians, despite behaviour that often seemed at odds with teachings espoused by Christ in the gospels. If some observers initially viewed this as an unsustainable alliance, it’s different now,” wrote the Independent in September, 2023. “Certain achievements during Trump’s presidency, notably appointments that shifted the Supreme Court to the right have solidified that support. Robert Jeffress, a pastor of an evangelical megachurch in Dallas, is quoted as saying, quote, ‘Conservative Christians continue to overwhelmingly support Donald Trump because of his biblical policies, not his personal piety. They are smart enough to know the difference between choosing a president and choosing a pastor.’” I find that deeply frightening. “‘In many ways,’ he went on, ‘Christians feel like they are in an existential cultural war between good and evil, and they want a warrior like Donald Trump who can win.’” Well, we know about cultural wars here, we know about book banning, we know about all of these issues, but it isn’t linked here with religion, although that is a stupid thing to say after this Remembrance Sunday when 10,000 British people, was it 10,000, or was it even more than that? Marched in support of Palestine and Hamas? That is horrifying, absolutely horrifying. Not only to British Jews, but I believe to Britains in general. And when interviewed, many of the people were just stupid. They had nothing to say. They didn’t know the history and the background.
And when on our television and presumably Americans on your television, we see supporters of Trump interview. We despair, as we despair here those marching for Palestine, where has voting haunted education systems of America and Britain and the rest of Western world led us? if we’re producing adults with so little knowledge, discrimination, and bluntly common sense. This pastor from Dallas went on to say, “No president has ever fought for Christian,” sorry, this is Trump himself. I beg your pardon, this is Trump saying, unbelievably, “‘No president has ever fought for Christians as hard as I have. I’ll fight hard until I’m back behind the desk in the Oval Office office.’ Brad Sherman, a pastor from Williamsburg, Iowa, said to the Associated Press in April of this year, ‘President Trump has stood up for the values that we hold dear. Then we need to pray for him that his personal life comes into line with that.’” Well, good luck with that. I’ve got to finish. I’m sorry I’m over, I don’t normally go over by any minutes, but there’s no end to this story, and I didn’t know how to end/ The story of religion and politics in America seems almost eternal, almost eternal. David Reynolds in his one volume history of “America,” subtitled “Empire of Liberty” is where I’m going to end. I think this is a brilliant one volume history, and Reynolds I think is a brilliant historian, and he writes, I’m not going to quote much unless I’m going to end on it, it’s only a paragraph.
“The colonists were predominantly Protestant, often fiercely so. The vehement anti-popery that characterised popular Protestantism in Britain was replicated across the Atlantic from the embattled Puritanism of Massachusetts in the 1630s to New England’s antipathy to French Canada in the 1740s. Yet the founders of the new nation balance religious faith with a commitment to religious liberty, no established church and complete freedom of belief and worship for people of any faith or none at all. Legislation to this effect was passed in individual states during the revolutionary era and it was capped by the first article in the Bill of Rights, which in Jefferson’s famous phrase, built, quote, a wall of separation between church and state.” “Here,” says Reynolds, “Was a fundamental enduring tension between the principle of a secular state and the ideal of a godly people.” Yes, I agree. It’s a conundrum. In his last paragraph, his first sentence reads like this, and I would echo this. “All this is of course a personal view of America’s past,” and everything I’ve said today is a personal view. You do not have to agree. You are very welcome to disagree, but at least I hope you do agree that this is an important question for America to answer. And it’s an important question for you to answer because the rest of the free world is looking to America for continued leadership, for freedom, and for democracy, and at times, and at times we lose faith in a place in which we always had placed faith since 1917. Thank you ever so much for listening. I’m sure there’s lots of questions. Let me see, and lots of points rather than questions.
Q&A and Comments:
Yes, Gloria, “In Canada, we remember John McCrae’s, poem, ‘In Flanders Fields.’” I was very tempted to read that. I’ve often read it because John McCrae’s own personal story is so interesting, and I decided against it mere on the grounds of length. I could read that short eight lines or so from “The Fallen” by Binyon, to read McCrae’s poem, “In Flanders Fields,” you have to read the whole, if people don’t know McCrae’s “"In Flanders Fields,” perhaps Americans don’t know it. Please read it and read his own personal story. Well, it’s amazing.
“Veterans organisations used to sell poppies here for November the 11th, but I’ve not seen that in recent years. In US, we honour all veterans on November the 11th.” Yes, we also honour all veterans, but we continue to wear the red poppy. But since the 1980s, there are people who insist on wearing a white poppy such is the modern world.
“In memory of HK, holocaust survivor, resistance writer, proud member of the Legion,” says Rita.
Weren’t a lot of the US Founding Fathers deists, deism is next is part of the enlightenment.“ That’s later. That’s later, Shelly. The Enlightenment is the 18th century and deism does come in in the 18th century. But no, the Founding Fathers are the Puritans who come from here, and they would be appalled to be described as deist. It’s a matter of timing, but you are right. And deism has an impact on American politics as well. Originally the Bill of Rights only applied to the federal government, but eventually the provisions were extended state government by virtue of the 14th post Civil War Amendment US Constitution.
Absolutely right. Although many of the states had already changed their constitutions by then.
Oh, Rita’s put up, bless you. There’s Rita’s "In Flanders Fields,” so people can read that for themselves. It’s most amusing, sorry, amazing, not amusing, sorry. Amazing, the last stanza, “Take up our quarrel with the foe, to you from failing hands, we throw the torch, be yours to hold it high. If we break faith with us who die, we shall not sleep. Though poppies grow in Flanders Fields.” My English public school often used that last final stanza of MacRae’s poem on remembrance Sunday.
Q: “At the time, at seven years old, wouldn’t it be fair to say Washington considered himself an Englishman, and it would be something he was proud of?”
A: They all consider themselves English, I’m not sure he would’ve felt proud of. What motivated them most of all was fear of the French, it’s anti-Catholicism, anti-French, rather than pro-British, which would’ve been the, after all they’re defending, if the British army lose, what the hell? They go back to Britain. If the American colonists lose, they are trapped within a French empire. So I don’t entirely agree with that. I think we can’t ask Washington, so neither of us can prove our case. That’s what I think.
Oh, “It’s most interesting,” says Michael, “That one of King Charles’s closest friends was the late Chief Rabbi of Great Britain.” Charles is very concerned about the Jewish, British Jewish community. He was this week talking to Holocaust survivors again. And you could see on the television he was most moved as he always is. Charles is an interesting person. I think, if I might just put in a personal, I think he represents my views far more than any politician in Britain represents them.
“As American. I’m confused by the differences in Anglican Church, high church has nuns, and it’s Catholicism, no church can even be Unitarian.” No, it can’t be Unitarian that that would be. No, that’s the one thing it can’t be. But there is a high church and a low church in the church and it’s confusing, and it’s confusing in the church itself, and leads to enormous rows at the moment over whether there should be, whether there should be gay marriages, which is not allowed by the Church of England in theory. There’s also in the past, recent past, been rows over whether women could be ordained. The Church of England, this is a different story. The Church of England isn’t based upon religious theological principles, it’s based upon a typical British compromise, made by Elizabeth I between Catholicism and Protestantism and the 39 Articles, which purportedly say what Anglicanism is. They don’t, no one would agree with all of them now, but one of the articles says this Catholic but reformed church. So it sees itself as both, don’t ask, and it’s a typically British compromise and it’s falling apart at the moment.
Q: George Elliot says, “Margaret,” oh dear, you’re being terribly intellectual here. “Whose novel sometimes featured low church preachers roaming rural areas. Would they have had any connection with what was going on in America?”
A: No, well, da da da. That’s not, no, yes and no. Yes, the Church of England did always have what you might describe in modern American terms as missionaries who went round and preached, that’s true, and most of ‘them were low church preachers, and so very Protestant like Whitefield himself. So this is, yes, that is an yes. You’re right, you are right. But it’s not quite the same date.
“My grandmother born in the 1880s was raised by a very Protestant, because father, and all her life was extremely anti-Catholic.” Yeah, anti-Catholicism is, anti-Catholicism is under the surface in Britain in the same way that antisemitism is sadly under the surface, we would all like to think there’s no anti-Catholicism and there’s no antisemitism. But to say so is not entirely true after all on November the fifth, Bonfire Night in Britain, we burn effigies of the Pope, but we also burn effigies of contemporary politicians. And I love the fact that we burn, but I’ll tell you a funny story. When we had one secretary of state who was a very large fat man, there were lots of complaints that they had to use too much straw to make the guy that they burned. Guy because of Guy Fawkes, and the the Catholic plot to blow up the houses of Parliament with King James inside. Another story, I’ll tell you the story of that some day, it’s very interesting.
“History of the Mormons in the United States illustrates the outer boundaries of religious acceptance in America. They were not considered fully Christian by the majority. And in federal supreme courses against Mormon power in the far western US, were declared a cult. While in the same opinion, America was declared as a Christian country. However, there was still no official Christian Church, and there would not be. Absolutely, that’s the same sort of complexity as I was talking about with the Church of England. We of course also had Mormons. At one time. I had a Mormon bishop living next to me, but he was also a GP, a doctor, and he was my doctor. And I always worried about what things he wouldn’t do because of his Mormon faith. He was a strange man.
Who’s this, Mark, "Poppy wearing was advocated to great effect by an American Professor Moina Michael of the University of Georgia.” Oh, thank you, that’s very interesting. Thank you very much, Mark.
Warren, “This is happening in Texas right now. The governor’s pushing hard for school vouchers, IE taxpayers the help fund private religious schools at the expense of public schools and the vast majority of schools who’ll benefit are Christian. Yes, these are old arguments resurfacing.
"The US is a Christian country, hopefully continuing to be tolerant of religious minorities, if it were not, Christmas would not be a national holiday.” Yes, that’s true. But our multiculturalism in Britain means that sometimes we have cancelled, banning Christmas trees as being too Christian, and banning all sorts of things, banning Father Christmas. We live in an intolerant world because we do not understand that tolerance has to have set boundaries. And for me, and I’m not talking for the majority of British people, for me, the Hamas Palestinian march yesterday on Remembrance Day was a point at which our tolerance should not have extended. But that is not an opinion, and I would not say that in the lecture itself, we’re free to say what we want on lockdown, and in all the countries that are listening to me tonight, make your own minds up, but I think there has to be limits to toleration. There has to be limits to all things, and toleration has limits. Sorry, let me go on.
Shelly says, “Free exercisable of religion and no establishment religion sometimes clash.” Exactly. “Supreme court decisions may favour one of those ideas over another, example, no government money for even secular education in parochial and private schools.” Yeah, and the argument over religion and schools is one that we’ve had here in Britain, particularly back in the 19th century, that we doesn’t tend to happen so much today here, unless I’m going to be corrected.
Q: Vivian, “Do you really think multicultural has failed in England given the origins of senior government ministers? Surely it’s very vocal, far right, left minorities which make this appear so.”
A: That’s a very good question, Vivian. I do think multiculturalism has failed. It’s failed because of the Islamic immigration. As regards the origins of senior government ministers. I’ll leave that, I’ll leave that. I don’t want to get involved in politics too much deeply. It’s a very, very good question, Vivian. And it doesn’t have easy answers. Personally, I think we’ve gone too far with multiculturalism where in London to produce an adult education perspective is you to write it in something like 20 or more different languages. No, more.
Sally, thank you for that. I do want my lectures to be both informative and challenging. I do not expect you to agree. And if you’re American and I’m talking about American history, of course you, you’ll disagree.
[Host] William, perhaps we’ll take up just one or two more comments, and then-
Okay, I’ll be quick. I’ll be quick, I can take in a couple more then I’ll stop.
Yana says, “When it comes to slavery in the US both North and South were hypocritical. Deuteronomy 15 is rather specific as to the rules of slavery and release. And neither side though claiming adherence to the Bible, in fact adhere to the sorts. I doubt that St. Paul’s declaration, the old law is overturned, was actually intended to apply here.” Well, your Honour, I’m hypocrisy isn’t unknown amongst religious people. Let me just say that. I agree with you, Vivian, “In many ways, not at all, and it depends very much where the UK is considered to be a successful example of multicultural society compared to others in Europe and elsewhere. Also, I know you said it, William, and I’m not questioning how significant number of Muslims and Herod live separately and are far from integrated, but I think you need to be careful in talking about Muslims in Britain. They, like the Jewish community, are hugely varied, many felling British. Many of those I work with do.” Yes, that’s true, but it’s the minority that don’t that is the problem and causing trouble. The minority of the Jewish community who are more isolated do not cause trouble in the way that we are now facing it, religion being politically motivated, politics being religiously motivated. Yes, oh, I wish we had time to debate these things properly. You’re absolutely right.
Q: Last question, Galaxy, “We need to look to USA for the future identity, future stability of how we want to live. Do we have to fear China, Russia, and fundamental Islam?”
A: Yes, yes, yes. Will they overturn Western democracy given the chance? Yes, if they’re given the chance, they will, that is the intended aim of militant Islam., everybody knows that. It is unfortunately the aim of Putin to make the west suffer and to protect the borders of Russia, so he would invade. We know China wants Taiwan, and we know China wants economic leadership in the world. So yes, in the West, it depends, unless you think EU is a substitute for America, which I do not. And that’s not because I’m anti-EU. I’m pro-EU, but it’s not the answer. America remains the bastion of freedom. And without America, Western democracy is in doubt. But first America must secure its own democracy and its own democratic principles. And it must give us a precedent that has individual standing within the Western world. Oh dear, that sound pompous, I don’t mean to be pompous.
Thanks very much indeed for listening. I shall see some of you, if you’re foolish enough to join me tomorrow when I’m talking about the American Civil War. Thanks very much, bye.