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MAR 31 INDEX JUN 02
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from First Things
AN ALMOST-CHOSEN PEOPLE
Paul Johnson’s Erasmus Lecture considers America’s religious spirit, including “the most characteristic element in American political philosophy—the belief that the providential plan and the workings of democracy are organically linked.” When Abraham Lincoln called Americans “the almost chosen people,” he used an apt phrase, as valid now as when he coined it a hundred and forty years ago. It perfectly expresses the close but at the same time slightly uneasy relationship between the American republic and the religious spirit. That the Americans are exceptional in their attitude to religion is obvious to all, and never more so than today. But visitors from old Europe are struck by the way in which high church attendance and an often blatant religiosity coexist with the passionate pursuit of materialism. They are inclined to agree with Cotton Mather, who made the point as long ago as 1702 while documenting what he termed “Christ’s great deeds in America” that “ religion brought forth prosperity, and the daughter destroyed the mother . . . .There is danger lest the enchantments of this world make them forget their errand into the wilderness.”
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from The Spokesman-Review
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