| Slapping "In God We Trust" on everything was not only a fairly recent development, it was a cynically calculated response by a chastened business class that found itself coming under extraordinary scrutiny in the wake of the Great Depression. The redemption of capitalism by Christianity demanded a heavily modified version of the religion that basically abandoned all the parts about people looking after each other and created a new ethos in which getting rich was both a duty and a reward. Given a bunch of plutocrats who would pay well for effective propaganda and some creative but unscrupulous preachers willing to do their dirty work, a distinctly American (and conspicuously un-Christian) version of Christianity was born. It's been polarizing our politics and supporting the concentration of wealth in fewer and fewer hands ever since. A couple of recent books by Nicole Aschoff and Kevin Kruse have done a good job unpacking this reprehensible hustle. If you have any interest in finding out just how much bullshit has gone into shaping your world view, Elizabeth Bruenig has reviewed both of them here: http://www.newrepublic.com/article/121564/gods-and-profits-h... You can also read Kruse himself, who has summarized his effort (How Corporate America Invented Christian America) here: http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/04/corporate-ame... On a separate note, Newton's total disregard of evolutionary theory is not a product of any disagreements he had with the theory itself. Rather, it's due to the fact that died more that 130 years before "On the Origin of Species" was first published. Class dismissed. |
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