Democratization of Christianity

"The democratization of Christianity, then, has less to do with the specifics of polity and governance and more with the very incarnation of the church into popular culture...By redefining leadership itself, these movements were instrumental in shattering the centuries-old affinity between Christianity and the norms of high culture.  They reconstructed the foundations of religion fully in keeping with the values and priorities of ordinary people" (Hatch 97).
     To me, this means that one of the most important parts of the democratization of Christianity is that it took away the "hierarchy"  that prevailed over all of Christianity.  In my microeconomics class, we've talked about the idea of civil society.  Where everyone works together to achieve an equal purpose.  This is kind of what people during this time period were doing --  there was a "civil society" of religious people. They were all equal, all trying to become more religious, but all the while understanding that everyone was (is) equal in God's eyes.  Ordinary people were able to feel like that had a part in their religion; they had a choice -- to be as devoted to God as they wanted to be.

Frykhom and the Rapture

      "We see then a 'new' Christian emerging in this fiction.  No longer ostracized, alienated, and old-fashioned, the new Christian is wealthy, technologically savvy, and exerts a powerful cultural influence" (36).  -- Amy Frykhom

        Frykhom writes this on the last page of her text that was assigned for Monday.  As soon as I read this, I made a connection to the Second Great Awakening.   We discussed in class Friday how during the Second Great Awakening, religion came to be less about intellect and rationality as it became more about morality and emotionality.  I got the impression from the Noll reading that those who were "reformed" were saw as wealthy.  And maybe this was not a monetary wealth, but a spiritual wealth.  Frykhom's writing gives me the impression that the idea of the rapture encourages Christians to have monetary wealth, but more importantly, spiritual wealth (a.k.a very strong in one's faith).  Furthermore, the more individuals evangelize and spread this want to be spiritual beings, the better (relating to Frykhom's "...exerts a powerful cultural influence").
       So maybe the Second Great Awakening can, in a way, be paralleled to the idea of the rapture, in terms of how people reacted to both.  Except, in the Second Great Awakening, people were becoming spiritually revived for themselves, for their own good and for the good of their culture.  Whereas, with the idea of the rapture, people are becoming spiritually revived for fear of what will happen if they are not "faithful servants of the Lord" when the rapture happens.  To me, the big difference here is in the idea of self-interest:  to better oneself because of individual desire to please God (Second Great Awakening),  versus fear of what will happen if one does not better himself (Rapture).  Is one better than the other? And if so, is this up to us as humans to decide? Or should it be a decision that God gets to make?  And furthermore...how do we know the basis on which to judge the difference between these two types of self-interest?

Democracy and What Government?

      In my microeconomics class today, we were talking about the ever-present economic debate of markets and government, and how much of each should be involved.  My professor pointed out that it is not a question of "markets or government?", but a question of "markets and what government?"  I thought about this and if there might be a parallel to the Second Great Awakening and the matter of religion in the government.  So the question that comes to my mind is "government and what religion?"
     During the time of the Second Great Awakening, biblical laws became integrated into the actual government law.  It seems to me as though the question of "government and what religion?" was never pondered, because so many people were invested in spiritual revival and wanted to integrate this into the government. But as our country has grown, there has been more and more debate with how our nation is not actually a Christian nation, yet the government runs under some laws that are founded on Christian principles.  For example, the ten commandments have been removed from public schools, and people are asking if "one nation, under God" should actually be part of our pledge of allegiance.  While this does not bother me because I am a Christian, I can understand how individuals of other religions could have a problem with this.  So...how much of the Christian religion should be integrated into the government?  Our founding fathers were Christian, and this is why our government includes Christian principles. Should these principles be kept? As long as our nation continues to be diverse in every aspect -- especially in religion, the question of "government and what (how much) religion?" will be present.  And furthermore, should this be something that citizens get to vote on (democracy!)?

Finney and His View of Religion and Government

         After reading about Charles Finney, I did some more research to better see the influence he had on the American culture.   I came across this quote  "No man can possibly be benevolent or religious, to the full extent of his obligations, without concerning himself, to a greater or less extent, with the affairs of human government" (Finney).
         To me, it seems as though this echoes why our government is the way it is -- this country was both founded and shaped by predominantly Christian people, and that's the reason our government has some of the morals that it does. What Finney is trying to say then, is that if we follow "God's Law", that we will also be following the government's law.  Which signals that the government was largely influenced by biblical principles during the second great awakening.  This can somewhat explain why the Christian influence in the government has stayed with our nation so far. 

Democracy Based Off of Walt Whitman's Writing

“...The present is but the legitimate birth of the past.” -- Walt Whitman

Democracy in the American government was put in place by our founding fathers.  Much can be learned from the past about how democracy has both positively and negatively affected our nation.  America is able to keep a democratic government from going completely corrupt because it looked back on the past and discovered where the democracy went array.  We can learn from our past, and that is why America is a democratic republic: so far, it seems to have worked well for the nation as a whole. 

Democracy is based upon the idea that We the People matter because in the end we have the final say. It both separates and unites the American people, but requires that there is political equality between all citizens. The downside is that America possesses a tyranny of the majority; those who fall in the minority just have to stand by as policies that they are against get put into effect.  To help this, the government has a separation of powers among the legislative, executive, and judicial branches.

Within democracy, the judgment of the wise is subordinated to the prejudices of the ignorant. The question of who should really get to vote gets raised.  Should proportional representation and extra votes for the better-educated exist?  And will the majority poor citizenry vote for confiscatory legislation at the expense of the rich minority?  The debate is whether the government should do something to control these problems, or just let the democracy run itself and take into account each person’s vote. 

  In hope that democracy will succeed in making the nation prosper, the American people have put their dreams and freedom in the the hands of democracy.  Yet, democracy is freedom: it allows each individual to take as much of a hold on their freedom as they wish. Though democracy calls for freedom being the ultimate goal to preserve a peaceful togetherness, the harsh reality is that individuals and opinions are abundant and varied, and no one will ever agree.  Therefore, a true democracy is not possible as long as people crave to have more wealth, more money, and more of everything; no one will ever completely agree on everything.  This is why America has a democratic republic. We have representatives who take our votes into account, but they get to make the final decisions on policies and who is elected.  

Democracy is present in our everyday lives because in each of our encounters, we have the equal opportunity to be heard. We are able to inform those who are authoritative to us about public problems, and possibly work together to solve those. We have the freedom to do what we want, write what we want, say what we want.  It was Walt Whitman who noted, “I say that democracy can never prove itself beyond cavil until it founds and luxuriantly grows its own forms of art, poems, schools, theology, displacing all that exists, or that has been produced anywhere in the past, under opposite influences.”  Historians, teachers, professors, and many others, have studied and put democracy into its own form. Whitman writes,“the problem of humanity all over the civilized world is social and religious, and is to be finally met and treated by literature” (760). This has caused it to become better understood in the American culture, and therefore it is deemed a more successful part of government.  Democracy has been shaped by the American people because we have looked back on what has been produced by democracy in the past, and each individual has an opinion on where democracy should go from this point.  This has allowed democracy to get molded to the American culture. 

There is no true democracy in America, but the democracy we do have causes us to anticipate the future in hope that each new day will be better and that the nation will move towards fixing the problems that are currently present.  The definition of democracy will perhaps vary for each American citizen, because as long as each individual holds his or her own opinion, the possibilities of policies and elected leaders will be vast.  By looking at America’s past, it has been established that America’s liberty and democracy has flourished in America and how it differed from the normal progressions of other nations, and this is why democracy has stayed a part of the United States’ government. 

Economic Growth and Slavery

This article discusses what was more important to the colonists:  economic self-interest to keep slavery or moral convictions to abolish slavery?
http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/historyonline/con_economic.cfm

This goes back to our discussion in class on Friday -- that slavery was an easy solution to keeping the economy of colonial America growing.  Americans realized that if they did not have economic growth, the country would fall.  So when slavery started, they made the decision to take economic self-interest over the moral convictions of slavery.  However, once slavery became a big issue and people came to their senses... I believe slavery was abolished due to the morals of the American people (or some of them at least).

The Paradox of Slavery and Freedom

Towards the end of Morgan's "Slavery and Freedom" article, the author writes:
"Thus began the American paradox of slavery and freedom, intertwined and interdependent, the rights of Englishmen supported on the wrongs of Africans.  The American Revolution only made the contradictions more glaring, as the slaveholding colonists proclaimed to a candid world the rights not simply of Englishmen but of all men.  To explain the origin of the contradictions, if the explanation I have suggested is valid, does not eliminate them or make them less ugly.  But it may enable us to understand a little better the strength of the ties that bound freedom to slavery, even in so noble a mind as Jefferson's.  And it may perhaps make us wonder about the ties that bind more devious tyrannies to our own freedoms and give us still today our own American paradox."
     The way the author ends this -- that we still have an American paradox today really highlighted for me the fact that without a government, this paradox probably would not exist.  Furthermore, the only reason that we still have liberty is that the government is strong enough to protect the interests of the people, and the people are strong enough and well informed enough to maintain control over themselves even without the government.  It is sometime said that opposites attract -- that one thing cannot exist without the other.  When applying this to America,  freedom cannot exist without slavery.  If we had not have had slavery as a part of our history we would not have learned its impact on our culture.  We would not appreciate the freedom we have now as much as we do.  The freedom that Americans get to take part in now would not have happened without wars and protests for freedom.  On the other hand, each American is a slave in his or her own way....we obey the government for the most part...we are governed under these laws that make us "slaves" to our government.  But this is a paradox because we also gain freedom from our government.  Without our leaders and soldiers to protect us, our freedom would be lost.  So Morgan  is right -- part of being an American is living with paradoxes -- and one of these paradoxes is between freedom and slavery, all the way from our history until present day today.