Religion in Postwar
America
U.S. Religious History
Suburbia and Religion
Phenomenal
growth of churches, 1945–60
Baby
Boom
New
suburban, modernistic church architecture
Postwar
ecumenism
World
Council of Churches,1948
National
Council of Churches, 1950
Cooperation
of Catholics after Vatican II
National
Association of Evangelicals, 1943
Politics and Cold War
Anticommunist
unity, 1950-1965
Religious
belief distinguishes America from godless Communism
Catholic
conservatism and anti-Communism: Joseph McCarthy
Catholic
Church in Europe staunchly anti-Communist, weakening American anti-Catholicism
Atomic
weapons and Israel, 1948, encourage dispensational premillennialists
Anti-New
Deal Republican millionaires link politics and Christianity
President
Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1953-1961
“Under
God,” 1954, and “In God we trust,” 1956
Moderate
evangelicalism dominates: Billy Graham
Huge
crowds attend his “crusades”
Radio
and TV show Hour of Decision, books; founds Christianity Today
Supreme Court and
Church-State Relations
Jehovah’s
Witnesses cases, 1943 (and many others)
No
pledge; conscientious objectors; right to proselytize
Schools
Bible-reading
dropped in Northern schools, 1870s-1880s
Court
tests: “secular purpose”; no “excessive entanglements”
No
state-written prayer, 1962, or Lord’s Prayer, 1963
No
religious school funding, 1972
Religion
versus freedom: “right to privacy”
Contraceptives:
Griswold v. Connecticut, 1965
Abortion:
Roe v. Wade, 1973
Jews in Postwar
America
World
War II & Cold War
Shock
at Holocaust and fear of McCarthyist anti-Communist hysteria
Political
moderation: From radicals to liberal Democrats
Assimilation
Suburbanization
Barriers
drop in the 1960s; acceptance at highest levels of society
High
rate of intermarriage: threat to future of Judaism?
American
Jews, Israel, & Zionism
Impact
of Six Day War, 1967
Vatican II: New
Directions
Controversy
over John F. Kennedy’s candidacy, 1960
Pope
John XXIII and Vatican II, 1962-5
Liberalization:
no more Latin
New
ecclesiology: body of bishops
New
focus: social justice
Pope
Paul VI, 1963-78: cautiously continues
Pacifism:
Philip & Daniel Berrigan and Vietnam
U.S.
bishops’ council speaks out, 1980s
Admonish
on nuclear weapons, peace, environment
Black Churches: Glory
Years
Southern
churches in crisis
Revitalization
during Civil Rights Era
Southern
Christian Leadership Conference
Martin
Luther King, Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton
James
Cone: black theology of liberation
The
challenge of Malcolm X
Black
Power & decline of activism
Protestant Postwar
Theology:
Neo-Orthodoxy
Return
to traditional language of Protestantism
Not
Fundamentalist: no inerrancy
Keep
emphasis on this world
Survival
of the Social Gospel
Religion
interconnected w/economics, society, ethics, politics
Reinhold
Niebuhr: Christian Realism
Serenity
prayer
Neo-Orthodoxy
dies with its leaders
Liberal Protestant
Theology Fragments
Vietnam
War shatters anticommunist unity, 1965-1973
“Death
of God” movement, 1960–70
1:
Judeo-Christian God died on the cross
Or 2:
Belief in God impossible or meaningless in the modern world
Fulfillment
to be found in secular life
Search
for a God above race, ethnicity, sex
Greening
of Protestant theology