![]() ![]() The historical matrix of these intensely believing, intensely belonging groups is the revival. It is not accidental that the most notorious cults, secular as well as religious, are the product of this aspect of American culture. Their desire to believe in order to belong is overwhelming. The questionable character of such beliefs in other than producing feelings of spiritual camaraderie is irrelevant to the participants. Historically revivalists have believed in rather outrageous things, from the imminence of the Second Coming to the peculiar holiness of the American Republic, to the superiority of Northern European culture. The revival creates community by giving people something to believe in and other folk who are ready to believe. Even at the beginning of the 19th century, it could attract as many as 20,000 people in what was the still largely wilderness of Kentucky. Revivalism has always been inherently racist and super (that is to say anti) natural. Belonging has historically been of great value to a folk on the edge of civilisation, living among others - other refugees, native Americans, Black slaves - with nothing in common except their location, and with constant fear of betrayal or attack. Those who participate in a revival do not do so in order to learn or to consider, much less to argue, but to believe in something, anything really, with others whom they perceive as tribal members.Īmerica is a Christian nation in at least this one important respect: believing is belonging. What he preaches about is not nearly as important as how he does it. The central core of a tent meeting is of course the preacher. And if Donald Trump has never read it (which is likely), he has certainly learned how to live it, and to exploit its presence in American cultural DNA. Elmer Gantry is a how-to manual for this kind of work and has dated very little since it was written a century ago. What Trump has accomplished quite apart from any political disruption is the latest revival of the Revival. ![]() They seem to run in cycles of popularity of approximately fifty years from the middle of the 18th century. These gatherings are a uniquely American institution dating to before the Revolution. It has always impressed me that Donald Trump’s political rallies are little more than evangelical tent meetings. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |