Religion and Society

"Religion" is a cousin of the word relationship: "what joins/binds together." Ideally it provides its adherents a sense of meaning and belonging: of connectedness to the cosmos and their fellow beings.

As the constellations of human knowledge and experience change, new religious movements attempt to join the dots, and old ones adapt or diminish. Some encompass the new, the way Christian and later Religious Science build upon psychology and discoveries of how the human mind works.

Others reject the new, restating "fundamentals" from a pre-Darwin, pre-Freud or pre-space age. Others focus on a parallel universe elsewhere, untouched by social or scientific upheaval.

The American Revolution was a moment of discontinuity that required a religious (re-joining the dots) response. Most colonists who chose to remain living under the new regime were no longer comfortable worshiping in a liturgy that affirmed "Our sovereign lord, George (III)."

Those who had adhered to the Church of England became the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States. Those of Puritan origins in New England had already distanced from the English Church and society and their grievances were high among the causes of the American Revolution.

For a number of Americans who identified with neither of these historic traditions, the Mormons offered an appealing alternative: a Church rooted in the New World with a western flavour.

The pilgrimage across the desert to Utah was a new Mayflower story, replaying the exodus from Egypt. Elders, priests, bishops were recast in a populist mode. Its Council of Twelve Apostles, headed by an elected President, was both biblical and republican.

The prosperity of many of its members reinvigorated the Puritan credo "God helps them that help themselves." And the standing of Governor Mitt Romney in the 2008 presidential race shows Mormons have become part of the American establishment.

For those of less wealth and standing, Jehovah's Witnesses offered future hope and front row seats in a New Heavens and New Earth after the upheaval of Armageddon. This is a religious form of the Marxist scenario where capitalists will be swept away by a triumphant proletariat. It also re-evokes the New Testament Christians who endured Roman persecution for their faith.

At the far end of the spectrum from the cataclysmic view of the Witnesses, and to the left of the predestination of the Mormons as the New Chosen, are the teachings of Christian Science, Religious Science and other branches of New Thought.

These are attempts to understand biblical stories not as unique and miraculous events but as manifestations of principles that can be understood and utilized by all. This non-literal approach entails metaphor, meta and quantum physics and psychology.

Of the new streams mentioned here, only the Latter Day Saints are explicitly American with their New Jerusalem at Salt Lake City. Yet all three streams are historically American. Their founders and teachers were Americans, and they grew out of a diversity of thought at a definite point in American history.

The leadership of all three streams would downplay this. They would point to the universal orientation of their message and the fact they have adherents on every continent.

But to those who have experienced or been involved with these movements north of the US-Canadian border, there is an inescapably American flavor to them. There are references to headquarters: Salt Lake, Brooklyn, Boston and Burbank.

There is a certain One Size Fits All in each of the messages, though there is a broad range of content between them. There is the optimism of “Yes, we can” re-popularized by President Barack Obama. Though Jehovah’s Witnesses foresee a more dismal end to human history, they are equally confident in their formula for how to survive it.

This American approach contrasts distinctly with a greater cautiousness across the Canadian border. Tomorrow we’ll look at how this, too, is rooted in religious experience.