NEW YORK TIMES: The confusion is understandable. For all our talk about separation of church and state, religious language has been written into our political culture in countless ways. It is inscribed in our pledge of patriotism, marked on our money, carved into the walls of our courts and our Capitol. Perhaps because it is everywhere, we assume it has been from the beginning.
But the founding fathers didn’t create the ceremonies and slogans that come to mind when we consider whether this is a Christian nation. Our grandfathers did.
Back in the 1930s, business leaders found themselves on the defensive. Their public prestige had plummeted with the Great Crash; their private businesses were under attack by Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal from above and labor from below. To regain the upper hand, corporate leaders fought back on all fronts. They waged a figurative war in statehouses and, occasionally, a literal one in the streets; their campaigns extended from courts of law to the court of public opinion. But nothing worked particularly well until they began an inspired public relations offensive that cast capitalism as the handmaiden of Christianity… (more)
Editor: The first thing that came to mind while reading this prominent article that covers most of the front page of the Sunday Review was how old is the author? Turns out he is only 43, although a professor at Princeton University and noted at the age of 34 as one of Top Young Historians.
He totally missed the most important reason business promoted Christianity. From the late 1920s until 1989, we were in a struggle against “Godless Communism.” By capitalizing on Communist aetheism and conflating religion with their economy , business was able to draw public support against critics of capitalism and advocates of Communism and Socialism.
Those of us who have lived through modern history often have to scoff at fanciful notions by those who just read about it. However, it makes us wonder about how much we really know about what took place before our time.
Incidentally, the headings from the print edition are often different from the web site. The above is as it appears in the Sunday Newspaper.
