The Victorian Crisis of Faith in 2021?

While the Victorian Crisis of faith suggested the nature of society was subject to change and not fixed in a certain way by god, the human instinct towards cosmic comfort did not fade. At the turn of the 19th century and beyond, the intellectual debate surrounding god shifted from the notion of whether or not there was a god to whether or not it served humans a pragmatic purpose to believe in god. Intellectuals have struggled between whether Christian ethics serve as a moral guide to society or corrupt it further.

John Dewey and William James were the first to frame the debate surrounding religion through the lens of purpose. The new manner of viewing religion begins with pragmatism. Pragmatism is a way of reconciling tender-minded religious idealism and tough-minded scientific realism. James explains in his 1907 piece “What Pragmatism Means,” “as the sciences have developed…the notion had gained ground that…perhaps all, of our laws are only approximations…no theory is absolutely a transcript of reality” (James, “What Pragmatism Means,” p. 116). James argues because it is hard for human beings to find the absolute truth, we should treat all theories as if they are approximations, whether they are scientific or religiously oriented theories. We should “interpret each notion by tracing its respective practical consequences” (James, p.113). We should value the theories that serve us a purpose in our daily-lives, and help us make sense of our actions, relationships, and existence in the world.

The pragmatic method spearheaded the shift from viewing religion as cosmically ordained to a social construct which might be put to good use by humans. As James puts it, “if theological ideas prove to have value for concrete life, they will be true, for pragmatism” (James, p.120). In William James’ 1897 piece “The Will to Believe” he writes “religion is a live hypothesis which may be true… although in one sense we are passive portions of the universe, in another we show a curious autonomy…we feel, too, as if the appeal of religion to us were made to our own active good-will” (James, “The Will to Believe,” p.76-77). It is easy to feel overwhelmed by how small and irrelevant human beings are in the great big vast universe. Religion helps light the way for humans. Religion gives us a reason to do the good and right thing.

Activist and intellectual Jane Addams applied the pragmatic method to religion when she built her argument for the necessity of Social Settlements, neighborhood community centers that help those in need. She felt Christian ethics could guide the public to make the moral decision to help the poor. She wrote in her 1892 piece “The Subjective Necessity of Social Settlements,” “the impulse to share the lives of the poor, the desire to make social service… express the spirit of Christ, as old as Christianity itself” (Addams, “the Subjective Necessity of Social Settlements,” p.134). Addams believed Christian ethics serve a critical social purpose. This belief is a hallmark of the Social Gospel. Addams was not the first nor the last to highlight the social benefits of Protestantism. The notion that good Christians help their neighbors can be traced to Martin Luther King and Barack Obama. She writes: “man’s action is found in his social relationships in the way in which he connects with his fellows; that is his motives for action are the zeal and affection with which he regards his fellows” (Addams, p.135). Addams argues one’s character is reflected in the way they treat others. In her view, good Christians must support Settlements because it is “an experimental effort to aid in the solution of the social and industrial problems with are engendered by the modern conditions of life in a great city” (Addams, p.136). Unfortunately, Addams’ values of good neighborliness were not extended to poor Black children.

The limitations of the effect of Christian Protestantism and good neighborliness were evident by the turn of the century. Black intellectuals along with their white counterparts, the Moderns, grew disillusioned with the American government’s desire to help people and the American public’s desire to help one another. America was in domestic crisis after the Civil War, and by 1917 America would be involved in World War I. As Du Bois wrote in “The Souls of Black Folk” in 1903: “the bright ideals of the past,—physical freedom, political power, the training of brains and the training of hands,—all these in turn have waxed and waned, until even the last grows dim and overcast” (Du Bois, “The Souls of Black Folk,” p.161). Black people were being killed decades after the end of the Civil War, racism was alive and permeating, and the future looked bleak. In his 1902 piece “the Ideals of America,” President Woodrow Wilson argued the rest of the world was looking to America to save democracy and freedom abroad. He wrote in an effort to rally the American people: “let us put our leading characters at the front…let us ponder our duties like men of conscience…and bring a great age in with the coming of our day of strength,” (Wilson, “The Ideals of America,” p.127). Wilson thought that America could lead the rest of the world into the light. But, the racialized violence in the US and the grueling deaths of trench warfare began to sow the seeds in the cultural zeitgeist that perhaps humanity was not that good. The American people questioned: If there was a god, how could they allow all of this violence and bloodshed to happen?

The Moderns knew that the truth hurt from World War I, but they insisted that the American people had to be honest. This produced a sense of irreligion. They called it “terrible honesty." Intellectuals struggled with the facts of human history and pain. The New Yorker magazine was legendary at the time. Harold Ross, the editor, was incredibly detail oriented. The magazine stood for what was authentic and genuine and true. The Moderns were brave to face reality. While the culture had an aspect of exhilaration, it also had a core of despair. The Moderns were lost because they were raised biblically under the guise of Christianity, but the god they were told to believe in had not helped them in their lives. The Moderns ridiculed the Christian matriarch e.g. Jane Addams, through their disobedience to her pure image. The notable image of the time was the antithesis to the Christian matriarch: the naughty white woman. The Moderns dressed differently and immodestly, drank alcohol, and went out at night. For many intellectuals at the time, the truth was hard to face—the truth about society, the truth about themselves—and as they lost hope they turned to drugs and alcohol.

Their disillusionment was not unfounded. The immediate future looked bleak. When the stock market crashed in 1929 and the American and global economy shattered, it shocked the middle class because they felt the ramifications keenly. Poor people had been experiencing these problems for a very long time. World War II saved the US economy and offered mobility to those who had been oppressed. But the war was horrific. The war culminated in the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, arguably the biggest symbol of the United States’ destructive capabilities. The innocence of mankind was punctured by the Civil War and World War I; it was annihilated after the Great Depression and World War II. It became clear America was not on an upward trajectory of progress.

In order to understand where America had been led astray, theologian, preacher intellectual Reinhold Niebuhr turned back to religion. Unlike the intellectuals that came before him, Niebuhr brought evil into the paradigm of Christianity. The pragmatist William James and preachers of the Social Gospel like Jane Addams used religion to support a sunny idea of humankind and human’s capacity to change for the better. They felt choosing to believe served humans a purpose because it would inspire good moral action. Niebuhr took issue with this because this way of thinking assumed humans were inherently good. In his book the Children of Light and the Children of Darkness, published during WWII in 1944, he wrote “while…the secularized idealists, were particularly foolish and blind, the more ‘Christian’ children of light have been almost equally guilty of this error” (Niebuhr, “the Children of Light and the Children of Darkness,” p.11). In his view, liberal democracy has been persistently “blind” to the “tragic facts of man’s social history” (Niebuhr, p.12). Liberal democracy fails time and time again because it views human nature too idealistically. “Statesmen and guides conjured up all sorts of…plans for the creation of perfect national and international communities” without considering the “malice of the children of darkness,” those that live for the fulfillment of their own ego and prioritize self-interest (Niebuhr, p.12). Niebuhr thought neither the Social Gospel nor modern secularism left any room for human selfishness. He saw this approach to religion as democratic idealism with a religious endorsement. Nonetheless, he retained divine purpose and the pragmatic method in his theory.

He felt there was a purpose to believing as long as we are realistic about the motives of human beings, and we learn from the past. “The preservation of a democratic civilization requires the wisdom of the serpent and the harmlessness of the dove,” he wrote (Niebuhr, p.21). Moral human beings could use their knowledge of the human instinct to better approach an immoral society. “The children of light… must know the power of self-interest in human society without giving it moral justification. They must have this wisdom in order that they may beguile, deflect, harness and restrain self-interest…for the sake of the community” (Niebuhr, p.21). To be more successful liberal society should use the light of god to guide them, but liberal democracy should not be naïve to reality. Humans must prepare for obstacles and take action to fight the evils in society. We should make change happen instead of waiting for it, instead of believing things will work out in the end because of god. While Niebuhr felt the kingdom of god could never be realized on earth, he did feel that religion served a pragmatic purpose because it could guide moral action. Humans must hold on to spiritual truth and real truth at the same time.

The same year Niebuhr published his work, Swedish economist Gunnar Myrdal reflected on the gap between reality and American ideals in his piece “An American Dilemma.” Myrdal explains that American ideals of freedom and liberty are dependent on the notion of individual rights and human dignity which the bible preaches. He writes: “ministers have often been reactionaries in America… active as the organizers of the Ku Klux Klan and similar “un-American”…movements. But, on the whole, the church and religion in America are a force strengthening the American Creed” (Myrdal, “An American Dilemma,” p.283). He argues in some instances radical Christianity has been responsible for bigotry in America, but in other instances Christian ethics have provided a good moral code for Americans. He feels that ultimately because of the many religious “denominations” in America, it “forces American churches to greater tolerance…and to a…interest in social problems” (Myrdal, p.283). In Myrdal’s view, American churches are the epicenters of humanism and giving back to the community. They are places where communities gather, places where people feel inspired to help one another. Churches continue to serve this purpose in the present. Myrdal sees a practical application for Christianity in the 20th century. While he acknowledges that radical Christian beliefs can be detrimental, like Niebuhr, he tries to mesh the good and bad of Christianity to apply it to the modern world. Although, it is possible that Niebuhr would argue that Myrdal’s view of Christianity is too optimistic because he does not express just how evil and bad radical groups like white supremacist Christian groups could be.

While World War II made Americans feel proud of their democracy, they were perhaps too utopian in their outlook. Liberals were inspired to create a genuine welfare democracy that would take care of all of its people. Many Americans were left behind in this utopian vision. White, educated intellectuals who were disillusioned by American ideals set out on a quest for a deeper set of values upon which to build their lives. They became known as the Beat Generation. They called themselves “the Beats,” named after 1950s Beatnik cartoons. They lived their lives with a radical spirituality which they transmitted through their writing, their art, and just being in the world. They fled to the geographical and spiritual margins in pursuit of something real and true, a new American creed, a new god. In their radical existence which flew in the face of white-picket-fence America, they found god in each other: the collective community they created. In his 1956 poem “Howl,” Alan Ginsberg, herald of the beat generation, exposed the harsh realities of America that had gone uncovered. In his piece “America,” he wrote: “America I’ve given you all and now I’m nothing/…I can’t stand my own mind/America when will we end the human war?” (Ginsberg, “America” in Howl p.39). Ginsberg has lost faith in the American society in which he grew up in. He pleads for a better future. Ginsberg and the Beats thought the world was indeed holy, but it had been betrayed by Americans who decided to carry on in the face of injustice. They were fed up with the fakeness. They were in pursuit of an authentic system and their own real god.

The Beats laid the groundwork for the New Left, which demanded change a decade later. In 1962, Tom Hayden wrote the Port Huron Statement on behalf of a white student coalition: Students for A Democratic Society. He wrote that when they “were kids,” they “found god” in the American values of “freedom and equality for each individual,” and they were “principles by which” they “could live as men” (Hayden, “Port Huron Statement,” p.1). But, as they grew older and were educated about the realities of American life, they realized that they had been “maturing in complacency” (Hayden, p.1). Their middle-class background and educational opportunities helped them identify the “complicated and disturbing paradoxes in our surrounding America”: “the facts of Negro life in the South and the big cities of the North;” “the proclaimed peaceful intentions of the United States contradicted its economic and military investments in the Cold War status quo” (Hayden, p.1) The American dream was really an air-conditioned nightmare.

The New Left was fed up with empty promises of freedom and equality backed by the American Protestant rhetoric of mutual respect amongst citizens and the protection of individual rights. Although, perhaps they had the privilege to outright reject the American Protestant ideological system because they were white. Civil Rights activists turned to the Social Gospel yet again to provide them with the hope to go on. Reverend Martin Luther King Junior’s approach to Black civil rights was grounded in Protestant Christianity. King was not ignorant. He saw that liberal democracy did not help Black people. Like Niebuhr he argued in his 1957 Sermon “Loving Your Enemies,” the “weakness” in “democracy” “is that we have never touched it” (King, “Loving Your Enemies”). King believed Black Americans and white Americans had to fight to change the status quo. King argued that loving one’s neighbor and even one’s enemies was a politically potent strategy. “Jesus was very serious when he gave this command…he realized it’s hard to love your enemies…it’s difficult to love those persons who seek to defeat you…,” King exclaimed (King). Nonetheless “we should live by this command” (King). King was optimistic about a bright future—that activists could make a difference through non-violent action.

Martin Luther King’s theory on gaining Black rights was based in Christian Protestantism, but civil rights leader Malcolm X rejected the influence of religion in the Black Nationalist movement. While it was the foundation of M.L.K.’s call to action, Malcolm X repudiated the intermingling of faith and the demand for Black rights. King wrote: “another way that you love your enemy is this: when the opportunity presents itself for you to defeat your enemy, that is the time which you must not do it” (King, “Loving Your Enemies”). Malcolm X felt differently. He argued that “if we keep our religion at home…we have a fight that’s common to all of us against an enemy who is common to all of us” (Malcolm X, “The Ballot or the Bullet”). If Black nationalists put their religious identities first it could not only lead to fractures within the Black nationalist movement. Religion could misguide Black freedom-fighters by serving as a bridge between them and the system that oppressed them. Malcolm X was disillusioned by the white system and he did not believe in indulging his white neighbors whatsoever. In his view, the only way to gain rights as Black people was to be unrelenting.

The debate between whether or not religion serves a pragmatic political purpose continues to the 21st century. In Barack Obama’s 2008 speech on race and religion he highlights the importance of the Black church in the Black Community, but he is critical of Black anger that is sometimes evident in these churches. The occasion of his speech is the Trinity Church’s Reverend Wright’s “angry” remarks about the “condition” of the “African-American community” in America (Obama, “Transcript: Barack Obama’s Speech on Race”). He writes: “the church contains …the struggles and successes, the love and, yes, the bitterness and biases that make up the black experience in America” (Obama). Obama acknowledges the value of churches to the Black community in particular. Obama agrees that this “anger is real” and “powerful” and that we cannot “simply wish it away,” but like King, he returns to the notion of helping your neighbor; he preaches the Social Gospel as the solution to racism. “I have… a firm conviction — a conviction rooted in my faith in God and my faith in the American people — that, working together, we can move beyond some of our old racial wounds …we have no choice if we are to continue on the path of a more perfect union,” he says (Obama). He ends the speech by remarking that all will be well if we treat others the way we want to be treated—“that we do unto others as we would have them do unto us” (Obama). While Obama’s remarks may be what we all want to hear, his easy-fix solution to America’s race problem is misguided.

Obama’s perspective that all will be well in the end, that god will light the way, is nearly laughable in 2021. While we should consider he is appealing to his constituents as a presidential candidate at the time of his speech, his assumption that people will treat one another with kindness is not grounded in the facts of history. Indeed, all has not been well in the past decade. While it is true that religion does serve pragmatic purpose as a beacon of hope for the Black community, we should not assume that things will work out without direct action. As Niebuhr suggests, oftentimes our neighbors are evil, but we should not sit idly by and let them have their way. As Myrdal reminds us, sometimes Christianity works to support white supremacy. Obama’s rhetoric is far too reminiscent of William James and Jane Addams for the 21st Century. In 2021, we are disillusioned with the American system like the Moderns and the Beats and Malcolm X. As humans, Americans yearn for god, but we need to stop believing that things will work out because god is watching over us. Did god will Breonna Taylor to be shot and killed by the police in her own home? Did god will millions of Americans and people across the globe to die of COVID-19? American Protestantism is nothing more than a broken promise. Nonetheless, religion continues to serve a pragmatic purpose: god should inspire us to be moral, and to have hope, but it should not discourage us from taking direct action to change the status quo.