tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37589721331585843.post6225585968678829992..comments2024-03-26T11:33:59.219-06:00Comments on Religion in American History: Giving History the Johnson TreatmentPaul Harveyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13881964303772343114noreply@blogger.comBlogger9125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37589721331585843.post-84621076391096568572014-04-15T14:21:29.938-06:002014-04-15T14:21:29.938-06:00Thanks for Graham insights, Elesha!
Trevor, I thi...Thanks for Graham insights, Elesha!<br /><br />Trevor, I think the Detroit ecumenical movement's last "heyday" was their involvement in the city's open housing push (see Lloyd D. Buss's dissertation on the subject: http://www.amazon.com/church-city-Detroits-housing-movement/dp/1243579269/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1397592649&sr=1-2). Your point about loss of direction after the fracturing of the civil rights movement is well taken. In fact, I'd argue that what we typically call the "ecumenical movement" in America--the Federal Council and all the city councils, which initially called themselves "co-operative Christianity"--is inseparable from the rise and fall of the strong-state liberal consensus. And yes, the idea of liberal consensus is quite problematic; I'll take for my point of reference on consensus Gary Gerstle's American Crucible. Mark T. Edwardshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13687874101232569510noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37589721331585843.post-64760332542581092632014-04-15T09:22:27.072-06:002014-04-15T09:22:27.072-06:00Mark, to your question about Graham and structural...Mark, to your question about Graham and structural explanations for poverty, race, and gender inequalities, there's some interesting stuff in World Aflame (1965), which is online at ccel. In the chapter "Social Involvement of the New Man" Graham mostly says that the church is about saving souls, and it goes off track when it tries to speak out on policy. He also admits, though, that white flight to the suburbs is leaving city populations with substandard housing and high unemployment. He indicates that these are structural concerns worth addressing--just not by churches speaking as churches. Also, his most pointed concern about church advocacy in politics is that too many churches opposed JFK and supported Goldwater.Eleshahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03764991021577652939noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37589721331585843.post-54099043935216275672014-04-15T07:40:09.130-06:002014-04-15T07:40:09.130-06:00Mark, that timeline seems similar to what I've...Mark, that timeline seems similar to what I've found with Chicago's religious community, although in Chicago the primary institutions seem to run pretty strong through at the least the mid-60s. The ecumenical community is pretty torn apart by the early '70s for a number of reasons, and organizations, as you said, seem to lose any momentum/initiative gained from earlier movements on "social justice" issues. More related to this conversation and the question of abandonment: I've found that a number of organizations really struggle to *situate* themselves in this period. They want to "do more" but aren't sure what that might look like. And by the time the civil rights movement fades from public view, the establishment institutions really have no other groups to follow, no movement to catch any excess momentum from; they're sort of left directionless. "Abandonment" is probably too severe and feels too unidirectional; I want to use "collapse" but I'm not sure what, exactly, is collapsing...<br /><br />Michael, I'm wondering what other examples you might point to of the War on Poverty (or Great Society's) more spiritually- or religiously-informed incarnations, pre-Vietnam? I think it's a really interesting suggestion, one that I haven't really considered before for precisely some of the reasons you offer here in the post: Johnson tends to be known more for bluster and bite than spirituality/religiosity (whatever those are) or breadth/depth of thought. Are there other figures beyond Shriver/Graham that might extend the argument further?<br /><br /><br /><br />This post and the comments have really kept me thinking. Thanks to both of you!Trevor Burrowshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09152840020978882789noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37589721331585843.post-91804391142827015382014-04-14T14:23:00.665-06:002014-04-14T14:23:00.665-06:00Thanks, Michael. And thanks again for these impor...Thanks, Michael. And thanks again for these important reflections on a vastly understudied topic.Mark T. Edwardshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13687874101232569510noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37589721331585843.post-89199277384076715532014-04-14T12:31:24.786-06:002014-04-14T12:31:24.786-06:00Mark and Trevor, I appreciate the dialogue and you...Mark and Trevor, I appreciate the dialogue and your insights. I think you have brought a lot of great context to this story. <br />I see Graham as a friend to LBJ (keeping in mind he visited the Johnson WH more than for any other president), and a local advocate in the "Beyond These Hills" film. But much like Graham's involvement on Civil Rights, he is less of an activist and more of a public advocate for "good." Even so, I think the War on Poverty and Great Society was more idealistic and spiritual in the years before Vietnam became a dominant issue. What I see abandoned (much like the housing projects today) is the kind of spiritual conversation over how Christian people might look at government programs to help the poor. Those conversations continue to this day, of course, but what the Great Society became was much more bureaucratic and massive than the earnest conversations represented in the film by Graham and Shriver. And I see a parallel in Shriver's anti-war and pro-life positions, which seem idealistic and non-partisan today. <br />Your mention of Breadwinner Conservatism is a great point for consideration. It gives the great irony that a large coalition Christian-motivated voters stand against government funds being used on a massive scale to help the poor. I think that divide begins sometime after or during Vietnam. <br />Perhaps it was never an intentional abandonment of religious groups at all, but rather a byproduct of the Vietnam War. After LBJ, Nixon certainly worked hard to organize religious support during Vietnam.Michael Hammondhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11176631752638570855noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37589721331585843.post-85236697755178341262014-04-14T08:18:27.232-06:002014-04-14T08:18:27.232-06:00Good point, Trevor. From researching the Detroit ...Good point, Trevor. From researching the Detroit Council of Churches (now Metropolitan Christian Council) this summer, I can say that the sorts of local connections you mention were certainly still there in the 1960s. However, in the case of the DCC, the connections were strongest in the 1920s and 1930s ("moral establishment" extravagance) and steadily weakened until, after the 1970s, they were hardly evident. In Detroit, at least, ecumenical agencies have since taken the lead in interfaith dialogue, but their old commitments to structural economic and racial reforms seem to have faded (along with those old connections to political and civil service power). I've cast my research net pretty narrowly to date, so that may be an unfair characterization. In any case, maybe "abandonment" is not the right word to describe what has happened since LBJ? Mark T. Edwardshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13687874101232569510noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37589721331585843.post-28163902285958915292014-04-14T06:44:12.849-06:002014-04-14T06:44:12.849-06:00"Did Self overlook the role of religious pers..."Did Self overlook the role of religious persons and groups in defining Great Society liberalism (he's certainly aware of the intersection of faith and "breadwinner conservativism")? Did, as you suggest, LBJ and staff just "abandon" religious rationales for strong-state action? Or, was "religion" simply reconstructed by liberals between 1930s and 1960s in ways that didn't need to explicitly invoke religious rhetoric?"<br /><br />Really good questions here, Mark. I wonder if when talking about liberals and religion during this period, we might make some gains by paying closer attention to the "religious establishment" itself (as opposed to individuals). I think we often underestimate the size and scope of large-scale religious institutions at both the federal and the local/metropolitan level. This might be a result of the style of work taken up by the institutions themselves, their relatively top-down bureaucratic structure, and very behind-the-scenes approach to political lobbying. But I do think there is often far more intersection between umbrella/representative religious organizations (say, the National Council of Churches or, at the local level, the Chicago Federation of Churches) and politicians/city officials than we sometimes recognize. Teasing out some of those connections, as subterranean as they may seem, might help us to better situate mid-century religion within liberal politics. (Whether those connections held any real power or influence, of course, is another matter altogether.)<br /><br />Similarly, we might look for the intersection of religion and political liberalism at the "grassroots" level of Great Society programs. I'm thinking particularly of groups funded through OEO grants to carry out war on poverty initiatives at the local level. I'm just offering an educated guess here, but many of those groups probably had connections to their local religious communities or institutional networks in one way or another; I've seen a bit of evidence to that effect.<br /><br />I guess what I'm suggesting is that instead of explicit religious rationales/rhetoric, we may find more "religion" in the structures and institutional networks themselves, and the way those structures intersect with political institutions.Trevor Burrowshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09152840020978882789noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37589721331585843.post-82840536353629315492014-04-13T16:29:30.981-06:002014-04-13T16:29:30.981-06:00This comment has been removed by the author.joechildshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03136523301586096437noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37589721331585843.post-84944626209347190262014-04-11T17:02:08.524-06:002014-04-11T17:02:08.524-06:00This is a fascinating and, for me, timely post. M...This is a fascinating and, for me, timely post. My Modern America class is just beginning to work its way through Robert Self-s All in The Family. One student observed that religion seemed entirely absent from the Johnson's "breadwinner liberalism." Why is that? Did Self overlook the role of religious persons and groups in defining Great Society liberalism (he's certainly aware of the intersection of faith and "breadwinner conservativism")? Did, as you suggest, LBJ and staff just "abandon" religious rationales for strong-state action? Or, was "religion" simply reconstructed by liberals between 1930s and 1960s in ways that didn't need to explicitly invoke religious rhetoric?<br /><br />Finally, was Graham the best spokesperson for the "War on Poverty?" Did he ever admit structural explanations for poverty, race, and gender inequalities? I haven't found so, but I'm not a Graham expert. Mark T. Edwardshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13687874101232569510noreply@blogger.com