KenH
Well-Known Member
I thought I would try my hand at providing a synopsis(some mental work to start my year) of an article in the Winter 2005 issue of The American Interest entitled "The Protestant Deformation" by James Kurth, pp. 4-16.
This article is an update of an article written by the author eight years ago in which he writes about a sort of religion that has guided U.S. foreign policy for the life of the United States, the process of which he refers to as the Protestant declension, and which has reached its fulfillment in the past couple of decades.
He starts with the wonderment among some as to why the U.S. has adopted "unilateral diplomacy and preemptive military action". Some blame the neo-conservatives such as Paul Wolfowitz; others blame the "oil interests" such as Dick Cheney; and others blame hypernationalists such as Donald Rumsefeld.
But Mr. Kurth directs us to George W. Bush who has spoken of freedom as God's gift to man and that it is America's calling to bring people to other peoples. And his strongest support has come from Evangelical Protestants, or the Religious Right. But Mr. Kurth states that is not Evangelical Protestantism but a pseudo-religion he calls the Protestant Deformation from which both Presidents Clinton and Bush have drawn their foreign policy.
Mr. Kurth then discusses the Protestant Reformation and its disdain for heirachy and community as a means to having a relationship with God. Instead, the Protestant Reformation brought to the forefront that man can have a direct relationship with God without an earthly intermediary.
This rejection of heirachy and community spread to secular life as well, especially in the United States. In economics, the elimination of the hierarchy of monopoly or oligopoly led to the embrace of the free market. In politics, the elimination of the hierarchy of monoarchy or aristocracy led to the embrace of liberal democracy.
In order to avoid anarchy something had to replace hierachy and community, and that something was the written word - a written contract in economics and a written constitution in politics.
The six stages he describes as the Protestant declension are:
1. Salvation by grace. The Protestant teaching that an individual is saved by the grace of God, not by an individual's own works.
2. Grace evidenced through work. In the Episcopal and Lutheran churches, church rituals and works continued to play a part and kept an emphaiss on works. The Reformed churches and the Presbyterian and Congregational churches rejected these rituals as evidence of salvation but evidence of grace became "the success of work in the world". Mr. Kurth states: Thus, the second and later-generation Reformed Protestants
could experience worldly life and worldly work as a tabula rasa."
3. Salvation by works. After several generations the emphasis on grace decreased and work began to be seen as "a good in itself" and "became a new version of good works".
4. The unitarian(philosophy not the denomination) transformation. With grace being lost as a focal point so did the focus on Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit, and the transformational emphasis became the "abstract concept fo a Supreme Being or Divine Providence". This helps to explain why among the public documents of the late 18th century more references "to the Supreme Being or Divine Providence and rarely to Jesus Christ or the Holy Spirit".
5. The American Creed. Quoting Mr. Kurth: "Now the various Protestant creeds were replaced by the American Creed, which reached its fullest articulation in the first half of the 20th century. The elements of the American Creed were free markets and equal opportunity, free elections and liberal democracy, constitutionalism and the rule of law." Mr. Kurth describes this as a secularized verions of Protestantism.
6. Universal Human Rights. This final stage was reached in the last two generations with the ascendancy of the American Creed as being "universal goods". And with the collapse of the Soviet Union and the stagnation of the German "social market" and Japanese "organized capitalism" the competitors to the American Creed were vanquished.
The author points out that at the birth of the United States churches and U.S. citizens were at various stages of this declension. This led to a pluralism which resulted in "the rhetoric of unitarianism" where all believed in a Supreme Being. Early 19th century revivals led some Protestants back to higher stages of belief as, the author points out, religious revival in the U.S. has done during the past generation.
By the early 19th century most Americans believed that free market economics(written contracts) and liberal democracy(a written constitution) were the only legitimate forms. But in the 19th century the United States had little opportunity to insert these ideals into its foreign policy. This changed in the 20th century. Starting with Woodrow Wilson and continuing through Franklin Roosevelt to George W. Bush vast opportunities arose "as American power allowdd the translatioin of what should be in the world into what could be in the world."
Mr. Kurth states that in President Wilson's "New Freedom" that he "believed that God meant for him to advance these ideals both at home and abroad, 'to make the world safe for democracy'."
The free market and liberal democracy seem normal to millions of Americans - then and now - but that is because we have grown up in a Protestant culture, and not another religion.
(Continued below.)
This article is an update of an article written by the author eight years ago in which he writes about a sort of religion that has guided U.S. foreign policy for the life of the United States, the process of which he refers to as the Protestant declension, and which has reached its fulfillment in the past couple of decades.
He starts with the wonderment among some as to why the U.S. has adopted "unilateral diplomacy and preemptive military action". Some blame the neo-conservatives such as Paul Wolfowitz; others blame the "oil interests" such as Dick Cheney; and others blame hypernationalists such as Donald Rumsefeld.
But Mr. Kurth directs us to George W. Bush who has spoken of freedom as God's gift to man and that it is America's calling to bring people to other peoples. And his strongest support has come from Evangelical Protestants, or the Religious Right. But Mr. Kurth states that is not Evangelical Protestantism but a pseudo-religion he calls the Protestant Deformation from which both Presidents Clinton and Bush have drawn their foreign policy.
Mr. Kurth then discusses the Protestant Reformation and its disdain for heirachy and community as a means to having a relationship with God. Instead, the Protestant Reformation brought to the forefront that man can have a direct relationship with God without an earthly intermediary.
This rejection of heirachy and community spread to secular life as well, especially in the United States. In economics, the elimination of the hierarchy of monopoly or oligopoly led to the embrace of the free market. In politics, the elimination of the hierarchy of monoarchy or aristocracy led to the embrace of liberal democracy.
In order to avoid anarchy something had to replace hierachy and community, and that something was the written word - a written contract in economics and a written constitution in politics.
The six stages he describes as the Protestant declension are:
1. Salvation by grace. The Protestant teaching that an individual is saved by the grace of God, not by an individual's own works.
2. Grace evidenced through work. In the Episcopal and Lutheran churches, church rituals and works continued to play a part and kept an emphaiss on works. The Reformed churches and the Presbyterian and Congregational churches rejected these rituals as evidence of salvation but evidence of grace became "the success of work in the world". Mr. Kurth states: Thus, the second and later-generation Reformed Protestants
could experience worldly life and worldly work as a tabula rasa."
3. Salvation by works. After several generations the emphasis on grace decreased and work began to be seen as "a good in itself" and "became a new version of good works".
4. The unitarian(philosophy not the denomination) transformation. With grace being lost as a focal point so did the focus on Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit, and the transformational emphasis became the "abstract concept fo a Supreme Being or Divine Providence". This helps to explain why among the public documents of the late 18th century more references "to the Supreme Being or Divine Providence and rarely to Jesus Christ or the Holy Spirit".
5. The American Creed. Quoting Mr. Kurth: "Now the various Protestant creeds were replaced by the American Creed, which reached its fullest articulation in the first half of the 20th century. The elements of the American Creed were free markets and equal opportunity, free elections and liberal democracy, constitutionalism and the rule of law." Mr. Kurth describes this as a secularized verions of Protestantism.
6. Universal Human Rights. This final stage was reached in the last two generations with the ascendancy of the American Creed as being "universal goods". And with the collapse of the Soviet Union and the stagnation of the German "social market" and Japanese "organized capitalism" the competitors to the American Creed were vanquished.
The author points out that at the birth of the United States churches and U.S. citizens were at various stages of this declension. This led to a pluralism which resulted in "the rhetoric of unitarianism" where all believed in a Supreme Being. Early 19th century revivals led some Protestants back to higher stages of belief as, the author points out, religious revival in the U.S. has done during the past generation.
By the early 19th century most Americans believed that free market economics(written contracts) and liberal democracy(a written constitution) were the only legitimate forms. But in the 19th century the United States had little opportunity to insert these ideals into its foreign policy. This changed in the 20th century. Starting with Woodrow Wilson and continuing through Franklin Roosevelt to George W. Bush vast opportunities arose "as American power allowdd the translatioin of what should be in the world into what could be in the world."
Mr. Kurth states that in President Wilson's "New Freedom" that he "believed that God meant for him to advance these ideals both at home and abroad, 'to make the world safe for democracy'."
The free market and liberal democracy seem normal to millions of Americans - then and now - but that is because we have grown up in a Protestant culture, and not another religion.
(Continued below.)
