In the USA, the profit-motive and religion have been conflated over the years (read <u>One Nation Under God: How Corporate America Invented Christian America</u> for more info).
No war criminal, but he, and his VP Nixon, started the myth that America was founded on Christian beliefs, and "encouraged" the military to behave like Crusaders. Soon thereafter, defense contractors began currying his favor by proclaiming similar claptrap. Eventually, Big Business got in on the action, to cash in on the Cold War between God-fearing America vs. Godless Russia.
Source: <em>One Nation Under God</em>
I'm currently reading Kevin Kruse's book One Nation Under God: How Corporate America Invented Christian America. Eye-opening! Turns out the myth that America was founded on Christian principles isn't even as old as I am. (Begun by born-again Christian President Eisenhower.) And right-wing evangelicals formed their unholy alliance with Republicans soon after the New Deal to fight FDR.
I highly recommend the book.
It is Christian libertarianism.
Bought and paid for by corporates. Pete is the alternate CL. Its apostles to billionaires. ^[1]
>The members of the First Congregational Church were mostly among the wealthy, giving Fifield the nickname "The Apostle to Millionaires". The Church from 1937 to 1942 paid substantial money to Spiritual Mobilization.
Eisenhower had his own questionable acts. He opened the government to religious, specifically Christian, influences. (He had become a born-again Christian shortly before his inauguration.) His administration began the myth that America was founded on Christian principles. He and his VP, Nixon, thought it would sound good to Americans to contrast God-fearing America with God-less Russia. All this "one nation under God" stuff isn't even as old as I am. Whether you are religious or not, please know that America's religiosity was, and is, a political ploy.
Also, being a military man, he encouraged the military to begin meetings with a prayer. Defense contractors, sensing an in with his administration, played up their belief in God. To this day, we have problems, as a global player, with Christian agendas in the military.
A good source, besides Google: One Nation Under God: How Corporate America Invented Christian America.
It’s been political since the Great Depression.
Check out this book that talks about this.
Came here to say the same thing. "One nation under God" in the pledge of allegiance isn't even as old as I am. Kevin Kruse has a great book explaining how Eisenhower and Nixon pulled this off.
As great as Eisenhower was, his born-again-Christianity did severe damage to our civil life.
Interesting read:
One Nation Under God: How Corporate America Invented Christian America
> You think we are cartoons who hate the poor? You dont think that MAYBE we just dont think the policies you support work?
Well, how do you feel about the idea that allowing the government to provide for the poor rather than doing it on a personal level means that you won't get recognition from God for "good works?"
Have you ever read One Nation Under God: How Corporate America Invented Christian America? Do you understand the 80+ years of propaganda that has warped American Christianity?
> So what happens when Democrats start being able to point to the children of parents who died because they lost healthcare and say to Republicans " you literally killed their mother/father?" Will they listen then?
Of course not. You must understand that the whole thing is framed in Conservative's mind as a brownie points in heaven thing:
you don't get brownie points for helping the poor unless you personally work the food line or handout the bedsheets, or at least directly donated the money to the charity.
And THAT is the only reason to help the poor: because Christ said to and then only because it is your duty as a Christian because of said brownie points. Forcing everyone to help the poor via taxation is literally anti-Christian.
Read One Nation Under God: How Corporate America Invented Christian America for more info.
In case anyone is not aware, the tweeter, Kevin Kruse, is imo one of our greatest living American historians, currently at Princeton University. His book <em>One Nation Under God: How Corporate America Invented Christian America</em> is a must read for anyone truly seeking to understand the origins of the left/right divide in this country. It's a history of an insidious intrigue to oppose any social program, which Kruse has laid out with meticulous documentation. It really is breathtaking the way he handles the material.
Imo, you really can't thoroughly understand where we are now, with out reading this book. I can't recommend it enough. Here's his webpage, which has a link to an interview he did with Terry Gross on NPRs Fresh Air. The interview was great and it gives you the gist of the book:
One Nation Under God: How Corporate America Invented Christian America https://www.amazon.com/dp/0465097413/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_glt_fabc_SQH6CKQ7G605EHJ982KM
This book might have new info/pov for you
One Nation Under God: How Corporate America Invented Christian America https://www.amazon.com/dp/0465097413/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_glt_fabc_SQH6CKQ7G605EHJ982KM
Good book on the topic
It started in the 1930s. This book explains the full history: https://www.amazon.com/One-Nation-Under-God-Corporate/dp/0465097413/ref=sr_1_1?crid=23FTMIXDWCINR&keywords=kevin+kruse+one+nation+under+god&qid=1669744233&sprefix=kevin+kruse%2Caps%2C91&sr=8-1
The book One Nation Under God by Princeton historian Kevin Kruse explains it all. Business interests have corrupted the church, basically.
One Nation Under God: How Corporate America Invented Christian America https://www.amazon.com/dp/0465097413/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_glc_fabc_nsBbGbTMXE46M?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1
Incredible book here if you want to read more
> Also, Jesus would be so proud of his "christian" followers for shunning the poor and kicking them to the curb.
Jesus doesn't care about the poor. He only cares that people vie for brownie points by directly donating to the poor. If you let the government collect the money, it doesn't count.
Read One Nation Under God: How Corporate America Invented Christian America for more info:
.
"With his speech at the Waldorf-Astoria, Fifield convinced the industrialists that
clergymen could be the means of regaining the upper hand in their war with
Roosevelt in the coming years. As men of God, they could give voice to the
same conservative complaints as business leaders, but without any suspicion
that they were motivated solely by self-interest. In doing so, they could push
back against claims that business had somehow sinned and the welfare state
was doing God’s work. While Roosevelt had joked that the Liberty League was
concerned only with commandments against coveting and stealing,
conservative clergymen now used their ministerial authority to argue, quite
explicitly, that New Dealers were the ones violating the Ten Commandments.
In countless sermons, speeches, and articles issued in the months and years
after Fifield’s address, these ministers claimed that the Democratic
administration made a “false idol” of the federal government, leading
Americans to worship it over the Almighty; that it caused Americans to covet
what the wealthy possessed and seek to steal it from them; and that, ultimately,
it bore false witness in making wild claims about what it could never truly
accomplish. Above all, they insisted that the welfare state was not a means to
implement Christ’s teachings about caring for the poor and the needy, but
rather a perversion of Christian doctrine. In a forceful rejection of the public
service themes of the Social Gospel, they argued that the central tenet of
Christianity remained the salvation of the individual. If any political and
economic system fit with the religious teachings of Christ, it would have to be
rooted in a similarly individualistic ethos. Nothing better exemplified such
values, they insisted, than the capitalist system of free enterprise."
This take on Ike is completely wrong. Ike was a born-again Christian, and even turned his inauguration into a day of national prayer. It was he who initiated cabinet meetings with a prayer. (In this anecdote, he was simply pissed off that he forgot.) It was Ike who was responsible for putting God into the Pledge of Allegiance, so that's not even as old as I am.
He and his VP, Nixon, conspired to use religion as propaganda against the "God-less Commies," so they tried to turn the US into a God-fearing nation. This is part of the myth-building behind "the US has always been a Christian nation" of relatively recent right-wing claims.
Source: One Nation Under God, one of several recent books that have documented religion-as-politics in America.
Seems like someone has an agenda.
It's 'both' parties. They can prove they are not, by making Amendment 29 a 2020 election issue. [1]
> In the modern day,religious institutions have less power
Ummm, no, not in the US. You should read this: