Fiach

America's deep Christian faith

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/fro...nt/2850485.stm

By Justin Webb
BBC correspondent in Washington


“Our correspondent gives a personal view on the importance of faith and religious belief in American life."

"My wife and I do not believe in God."

"In our last posting, in Brussels among the nominally catholic Belgians, unbelief was not a problem. The Bush administration hums to the sound of prayer. Prayer meetings take place day and night.

Power of prayer: George W Bush is famously the born-again president. Before that in London it was not remotely an issue. With the sole exception of one friend who is an evangelical Christian, I don't recall a single conversation with anyone about religious matters in the years I lived and worked in the capital. Our house in London was right next to a church. We talked to the tiny congregation about the weather, about the need to prune the rose bushes and mend the fence. But we never talked about God."

"How different it is on this side of the Atlantic. The early settlers came here in part to practise their faiths as they saw fit. Since then the right to trumpet your religious affiliations - loud and clear - has been part of the warp and weft of American life. And I am not talking about the Bible Belt - or about the loopy folk who live in log cabins in Idaho and Oregon and worry that the government is poisoning their water."

"Mr and Mrs Average

I am talking about Mr and Mrs Average in Normaltown, USA. Mr and Mrs Average share an uncomplicated faith with its roots in the puritanism of their forebears. The Bush administration hums to the sound of prayer. Prayer meetings take place day and night.

According to that faith there is such a thing as heaven - 86% of Americans, we are told by the pollsters, believe in heaven. But much more striking to me, and much more pertinent to current world events, is the fact that 76% or three out of four people you meet on any American street believe in hell and the existence of Satan. They believe that the devil is out to get you. That evil is a force in the world - a force to be engaged in battle."

"Battling evil

Much of that battle takes place in the form of prayer. Americans will talk of praying as if it were the most normal, rational thing to do. It is not unusual to see people walking the White House corridors with a Bible in hand. The jolly plump woman who delivers our mail in the Washington suburbs has a son who is ill - the doctors are doing their best, she says, but she's praying hard and that's what'll do the trick.

During the last week a child who'd been missing for nine months has been found safe and well - the event was described routinely on the news media as a miracle. One broadcast had a caption reading "the power of prayer". In fact the child had been abducted and her abductor was recognised and captured."

"Goodbye Jack Daniels, hello Jesus.

In rational old Britain the media circus following the finding of the child would have been focused on ways of preventing this happening again - on police errors in the investigation. Here, metaphorically, sometimes literally, they just sink to their knees. Both President Bush and Prime Minister Blair are religious men but the simple American faith - with heaven and hell, good and evil and right and wrong - appears rather better suited to wartime conditions. And nobody spends more time on his knees - I am back in metaphorical mode here - than George W Bush. He is famously born again - at the age of 40 it was goodbye Jack Daniels and hello Jesus. He has never looked back.

So while there are plenty of rational people giving rational advice about policy matters in the Bush White House there is also a channel, an input, from on high. The Bush administration hums to the sound of prayer. Prayer meetings take place day and night.

It's not uncommon to see White House functionaries hurrying down corridors carrying bibles. A friend who works in the press office of 10 Downing Street tells me that - even in these difficult times - such a sight would be highly unusual. Doubtless the president and his people have been praying earnestly that Saddam Hussein might fall under a bus. But if no bus comes they feel justified in what they have decided to do."

"Having made the decision to fight the good fight - and have no doubt about it President Bush has made that decision - the nagging doubts, the rational fears, the worldly misgivings - all those things felt so strongly by post-religious Europeans - can be set aside. President Bush looks as tired as Prime Minister Blair sometimes, but never as worried.

Both are religious men but the simple American faith - with heaven and hell, good and evil and right and wrong - appears rather better suited to wartime conditions.”

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/fro...nt/2850485.stm

Amos

LOL, if your ass is on fire for the Lord it is easy to find the energy to keep moving.

Fiach

I too have lived in the USA and Scotland, briefly in Ireland as well. I observed the strange dichotomy. I felt somewhat at home in all three countries. We all look like the same ethnic group, we speak the same language of sorts (Some Americans even speak Gaelic).

The major difference is that my tour of two years in Texas was at the opposite end of the spectrum as Inverness, Scotland. Texas had an unbelievable number of churches, and nearly everyone went to church on sunday. God signs abounded on most buildings, many road signs, billboards, neon signs at shopping centers, and of course Church Marquees with various messages. It was difficult to drive more than a half mile or nearly a Km without seeing a church. Sometimes there were churches on two or three corners of an intersection. Radio had the usual mostly country music stations and rap stations. But there were usually about 6 or 7 radioevangelists and 3 or so Spanish catholic sermons going at the same time. People, nice people, were constantly saying, "God bless you," "Thank you Jesus." If I had a particularly good result treating a patient, the result was "a miracle" and "God's hand" was responsible. The only compliment I would get was "God uses you as his tool." I had to learn to smile at that. Every disaster was looked at oddly. If a building is on fire, and 100 people die and 4 survive, we Scots would call it a tragedy. Americans tended to call it a "miracle" because 4 people were not killed, no matter that 100 died.

In Inverness there are many fine old beautiful churches of sculpted granite as in Aberdeen, the Granite City. And very few (maybe one out of 10 still operated as a Church. Most were redecorated inside to be libraries, museums, banks, tourist offices, business offices, Highland Council Offices, and even apartments. There are tours of Inverness on red double decker buses. A young attractive woman in a tartan kilt and holding a microphone would always ask if there were an Americans on board. If they were she would state a disclaimer: "you know that Scotland is a very secular country. And most of our churches are now being used for other purposes." Everyone can hear her words on the upper deck of the bus in good weather, because the bus starts right across the Bank of Scotland and a tourist office in the downtown, one block from the Ness River Bridge.

The BBC article above may help somewhat to explain why Scots are so different religiously from Americans. We had our bloody religious wars in the past. There were the bloody Covenenter Wars, and the very bloody Nazi like wars of Dictator Oliver Cromwell, Britain's proto-Adolf Hitler.

Is this striking religious-cultural difference due to the more religiously fanatical or devout people went to America. That concentrated the genes of religion prone people there and weeded them out of Scotland's population. This was a sort of a religiously selective Darwinism, eh?

Fiach

Yellum Notnef

I live in America and find it almost unbearable. I can not turn on the radio,pick up a paper or get through even an hour of TV without hearing some reference about God,Jesus or prayer.

And then if you leave your house you are hit from every possible angle with "God bless America" and "Pray for the USA" crap.

Every wonder why I'm so grouchy? There ya go.

lpetrich

I'd lived in the Northeast and I now live in the San Francisco Bay Area, and I don't see quite as much religion.

But from Fiach's description, those Scottish churches are getting treated like the Parthenon and similar structures erected in the honor of religions not very much believed in nowadays.

Fiach

The only problem is that I enjoy religious debates since my time in America. I can't find a Scotsman to debate religion. They will debate Football and Rugby or Curling but nobody cares about religion.

Fiach

Cthulhu

Living in Northern California, I can't say I encounter a great deal of overt religiousity, especially of the fundy variety.



I am a bit skeptical of these numbers. I seem to recall many polls in which the numbers of Americans who believe in Satan and hell was actually less than 50%. In fact, I can specifically remember fundies bemoaning that very fact, saying it was a "sign" that Satan had deceived the masses, or some such shit.

Fiach

I remember seeing a poll about religious belief last year, but I can't remember the source. And Crikey, I can only remember one poll number. That was 49% of Americans that believed in Hell, which if true means that of 86-88% Christian Americans a bit more than half believe in Hell.

Here is another set of polls from Free Inquiry:
http://www.secularhumanism.org/libra...kurtz_22_3.htm

Fiach

Treacle Worshipper

Did anyone else see the Newsnight Special when Jeremy Paxman interviewed Tony Blair? At one point, Paxman asked Blair if he prayed with Pres. Bush. Blair laughed & said no, he didn't see the relevance of the question, could they please talk about something relevant. That, imho, is the British perspective on American religiosity in a nutshell. And Blair is known for being a devout Xian, also.
TW

Fiach

You must remember the differences between America and Britain on religion. Right now the largest group of Britons are unbelievers (probably about 45% in England, 52% in Scotland. Chrsitians are next, and Muslims third. But UK Christians are very moderate by American standards. Many if not most attend Church on Christmas and Easter. Many Anglicans hold views that Jesus was really only human acting for God, that he really didn't resurrect except in the spirit, and some that Jesus was fictional metaphor for God's forgiveness. There are some traditionalists and only rare fundamentalists, often American emigrees, who are regarded by us as "Rollers" an old term for "Holy Rollers."

They think of Americans, rightly or wrongly as fanatically religious, intolerant, and overly superstitious. A devout UK Christian is one who goes to church more than twice per year. In the USA, a devout Christian is one who feels that non-fundies are false christians, that Satan is under every bed, and that they can't wait for the world to end in as much violence as possible. The more their critics suffer the better.

Fiach