Damnation, American Style: How American Preachers Reinvented Hell{long read}
http://www.alternet.org/books/damnation-american-style-how-american-preachers-reinvented-hell
Book cover of Damned Nation: Hell in America from the Revolution to Reconstruction
Photo Credit: Oxford University Press
Among the many congratulatory letters George Washington received after assuming the presidency was one from “the Convention of the Universal Church, assembled in Philadelphia.” “SIR,” it began, “Permit us, in the name of the society which we represent, to concur in the numerous congratulations which have been offered to you.” The letter reassured the president that “the peculiar doctrine which we hold, is not less friendly to the order and happiness of society, than it is essential to the perfection of the Deity.” One of its signers, Universalist minister John Murray, had known Washington since serving as a chaplain in the Revolutionary War. The minister and his second wife, Judith Sargent Murray, had even stopped to dine with the Washingtons on their way to the Convention. Thanks in large part to their efforts, universal salvation was no longer an obscure creed espoused by a scattered few. Now the Convention sought to establish Universalism as a recognized, socially responsible faith.
Washington responded favorably. “GENTLEMEN,” he began, thanking them for their well-wishes, “It gives me the most sensible pleasure to find, that in our nation, however different are the sentiments of citizens on religious doctrines, they generally concur in one thing: for their political professions and practices, are almost universally friendly to the order and happiness of our civil institutions. I am also happy in finding this disposition particularly evinced by your society.” Such affirmation of the Universalists’ civic friendliness, from none other than the first president of the newly United States, must have gratified the Convention. They were well aware that other Protestant clergy, especially the Calvinists, disdained their “peculiar doctrine.”
One of Universalism’s harshest critics was a Presbyterian minister also named John Murray and close in age to the other. To distinguish the two, their followers dubbed the Universalist “Salvation” Murray and the Presbyterian “Damnation” Murray. While “Salvation” preached the eventual redemption of all humanity, “Damnation” treated congregants and readers to vivid depictions of a hell gaping wide for sinners of every stripe. Universalism, he argued, offered license to sin without fear of consequences and undermined the justice of God by making Him a weak and ineffective ruler. “Salvation” and Judith Sargent Murray, for their part, believed that the promise of heaven for all presented a more perfect and rational view of God as loving and merciful rather than vengeful and arbitrary. Such a God, they hoped, would do more to inspire virtue and good works in the new nation’s citizens than a tyrannical deity who could arbitrarily condemn a significant part of His creation to eternal perdition.
The controversy over the justness and necessity of eternal hell took off in the aftermath of the revivals that swept New England and spread through the colonies in the mid-eighteenth century. Out of these revivals came intense debates over predestination, human nature, and the character of God, which dovetailed into the arguments over damnation. These debates did not stay hermetically sealed within a vacuum of theological speculation but traveled into the social and political realms as Americans worried about the success of their national experiment. In a new republican society, where disinterested virtue seemed the only check on unbridled power and tyranny, the choice to reject or retain belief in eternal damnation was much more than an arcane doctrinal dispute. Universalists and their opponents alike suggested that their beliefs represented not only the safest religious faith for the individual but also the best moral glue for the new nation.
= new reply since forum marked as read
When a particular set of beliefs profoundly influences a culture, establishes privilege, and affects the structure and operation of public institutions, it's important to know as much as possible about those beliefs-- particularly the "cleavage points" that incubate schism.
The issue of innate salvation versus innate damnation may seem irrelevant to those who regard Christian beliefs as essentially monolithic and inherently destructive. Yet an understanding of the underlying theological fault lines may be critical to deconstructing that damage, unprivileging Christian belief in a secular society, and achieving a coexistent community.
In the simplest, most reductionist terms, which beliefs would you rather have influencing the society and culture you live in:
A) The belief that all humans are innately evil and can ONLY achieve salvation by divine intervention, associated with extraordinary indications of benevolence and piety on the part of the individual; or
B) The belief that all humans are innately good but can fuck themselves over in metaphysical terms (temporarily or permanently, depending on whether you like your theology full-strength or "lite,"
by acting like assholes.
As the influence of belief on cultural development and sociopolitical structures evolves in conjunction with other factors, you can trace the directions each of these historical belief threads will push towards in a modern society.
I think the key distinction is the ability of each to evolve, and the rigidity of the "A" stream is a negative, regressive, even devolutionary force.
The "B" stream has already evolved-- new theological structures recognizing the duality of both good AND evil within human nature, and positing the salvatory effect of Christian belief and practice, have been around for some time. Christian groups and individual believers associated with this theology have been responsible for a good deal of energy focused on positive evolution in the areas of labor rights, environmental justice, peace studies, etc.
Ideally, will we ever reach a society free of any shaping influence by religious belief? I very much doubt it, but I am committed to ensuring that such influence is exerted on the side of rejecting privilege and embracing equity.
thoughtfully,
Bright
