Personal God, Political Faith: The Relationship Between Faith And Nation In Cold War America In Mill

For Jose Casanova, religious faith in postwar America was "increasingly privatized." (143) Prioritising personal evangelism, America's Protestants gradually withdrew from public involvement, increasing the distance between church and state. (146) But according to Jonathan Herzog, early Cold War religion was deeply political. In Herzog's view, Truman and Eisenhower's administrations made "deliberate and managed use of societal resources to stimulate a religious revival," making faith a product of America's propaganda machine. (6) In The Sundial, both claims collide. Rather than personal belief or political propaganda, Jackson satirises how individual spirituality supported political narratives, establishing national spiritual sanctity over religious doctrine. Miller's Catholic viewpoint, however, troubles Jackson's assertion. Unlike evangelicals who divided faith from culture, Miller strikes a balance between private faith and political endorsement, giving faith a public voice beyond nationalistic spirituality. According to public evangelical Billy Graham, America's spiritual health could only be salvaged through individual souls. In his 1958 sermon, "What's Wrong with the World?", Graham claimed the cure for national and individual "spiritual disease" was a personal "childlike faith" in Jesus. This call for faith was not ignored by America's politicians. In 1951, the newly-created Psychological Strategy Board recommended religion as America's secret Cold War weapon: "[o]ur over-all objective .should be the furtherance of world spiritual health; for the Communist threat could not exist in a spiritually healthy world." (quoted in Jonathan Herzog 109) Personal faith did more than save souls; it saved the globe, confirming America as the salvation nation. As Stephen Prothero suggests of Graham, "[the] battle with the forces of evil out there in the world... [was] going on inside you. [.] [By converting,] you were, in a way, saving the country, and maybe even saving the world." However, unlike Graham, the US government disregarded the object of this faith; as Eisenhower stated in 1952, ''.our form of government has no sense unless it is founded in a deeply felt religious faith, and I don`t care what it is." For the President, doctrinal beliefs were window-dressing: what mattered was the belief's "deeply felt" intensity, divinely confirming American democratic freedom and defending the nation "against the forces of godless tyranny and oppression." (Eisenhower) This rhetoric was not entirely new. As Herzog points out, "Americans have always been God-loving," and their Presidents often evoked God in their speeches. (5) Stephen Stein supports Herzog's qualification, suggesting American apocalyptic thinking's "special role for American nation" is an important part of the nation's self-conception. (192) However, the increasingly close intertwining of religion, nationalism and the spiritual Cold War revised the relationship between God and nation. As Herzog points out, President Eisenhower used the National Day of Prayer to ground America's democratic history in the Founding Fathers' religious faith, a revision Herzog questions. (92,100) This change demonstrates Eisenhower's need to publically root American democracy in faith, sanctifying its political system as divinely ordained in comparison to godless totalitarianism. Ties between state and religion shifted similarly in religious communities. Jason Stevens notes that conservative Protestants moved away from their 1920s fundamentalist predecessors' separatism, "identify[ing] themselves with the national character by learning to combine cultural politics with a brand of anti-Communism." (71) Consciously assimilating politics, nation and faith, Cold War politics and religion entered a reciprocal relationship, feeding into one another to spiritualise the conflict. Within this politicisation of personal belief, Jackson's The Sundial portrays religion as less faith in God than national mythologies. For Richard Pascal, religion for Jackson was an unwelcome cultural hangover, lingering on despite its superficial death: "religion is not a powerful social influence [in the novel but re-emerges] ghost-like within contemporary society's superficially secular myths and values." (91) Pascal's assertion that religion was "not a powerful social influence" seems odd in a decade of religious revival, and the Hallorans' desperation to believe Fanny's prophecy contradicts his claim. Rather than being a "ghost" in the secular machine, Jackson criticises how religion has been invaded by political nationalism's ghost, creating the "deeply felt" vague religiosity that gives The Sundial's characters their undeserved virtue. Fanny evokes religion to support her vision, building a narrative of good and evil into her father's prophecy: "[The world] has been a bad and wicked and selfish place, and the beings who created it have decided that it will never get any better. So they are going to burn it, the way you might burn a toy full of disease germs." (Jackson 42-3) Whilst seemingly separating the family from their nation, it truly unites the two. As Hattenhauer claims, The Sundial is "an allegorical satire on the central myths of America`s dominant culture." (137) Fanny simply narrows America's mythic goodness into the home, making the house a beacon of faithful virtue against a "bad and wicked" world. Rather than believing in God, Fanny believes in the national mythology, with faith supporting her fantasy of spiritual purity. Moreover, for the Hallorans, belief is merely part of well-deserved American prosperity: "Not one of the people in Mrs. Halloran's house could have answered honestly and without embarrassment the question, 'In what is it you believe?' Faith they had in plenty; just as they had foods and beds and shelter and in themselves as suitable recipient of the world's best." (Jackson 38) Spiritual salvation is not sought after but expected, since material riches prove they deserve the "best". For Hattenhauer, such language creates a "satiric Marxist palimpsest written on the pages of the capitalist social text." (146) However, Jackson disdains less capitalism than its incorporation into religious narratives of national virtue, parodying the postwar "tendency to assume [that]. national well-being was a sign of divine approval." (Stephen Whitfield 83) This "national well-being" did not sit easily with some religious figures and politicians; Eisenhower, for example, feared America might become "a colossus of straw" built upon worldly riches and spiritual poverty. (Herzog 17) But as Eisenhower happily accepted material wealth and spiritual power, Jackson suggests spiritual values only reinforce national self-satisfaction. (Herzog 96) In an ironic moment, Mrs Halloran touches the words, "WHAT IS THIS WORLD?" on the sundial, "mov[ing] her finger caressingly along WORLD." (Jackson 47) Instead of being otherworldly, she roots her religion in this world, embracing God as part of America's prosperity package. However, religion is no mere illusion; The Sundial is full of religious echoes that could challenge spiritual optimism and self-righteousness if taken seriously. Despite their sense of virtue, sin compels the Hallorans to believe: "[n]ot one of the people around Aunt Fanny believed her father's warning, but they were all afraid of the snake." (Jackson 39) Pascal suggests the snake is "phallic to the point of silliness", but he rather misses the point. (90) Jackson's snake symbolises evil, but instead of taking the warning, the Hallorans embrace Fanny's prelapsarian Eden, glossing over personal sin. For Alannah Ari Hernandez, The Sundial's vision shows Jackson's belief in "a world infected by evil, cruelty, and the supernatural", but this "evil" is less the "world['s]" than Jackson's American psyche's, believing itself faithful and pure. (1) After Fanny's revelations, Gloria "indifferently" compares their choseness to the Jews', unconcerned for the implications. Despite being chosen, the Israelites' covenant required turning from evil: "if ye will obey my voice indeed, and keep my covenant. ye shall be unto me. a holy nation." (Jackson 43, King James Bible Exo. 19.5-6) For Jackson, religious doctrine becomes lost in American holiness, providing superficial comfort over spiritual change: "...[Mrs Halloran's] open hand resting on the pages of a Bible she had not opened, or even remembered opening, for many years." (Jackson 41) As Hattenhauer points out, "Christianity [in the novel is] .witchcraft [.] displac[ing]. the sacred with the profane." (149) By making Christian narratives secularised supernatural power, Jackson shows the salvation narrative's "hypocrisy", since the Hallorans' "willing suspension of disbelief" is purely self-interested. (149) However, Hattenhauer disregards 1950s religious discourse, linking it to timeless "America[n] master narratives." (145) By taking this context into account, Jackson's satire becomes much more pointed. Jackson separates Christianity from its Americanised manifestations, as her family reject sin for Aunt Fanny's politically-endorsed God of optimistic self-worth. Jackson's secular critique, therefore matches sociologist Will Herberg's religious viewpoint. In Protestant-Catholic-Jew (1956), Herberg claims that whilst religion was necessary amid Cold War America's "spiritual chaos", the three main religious groups, Protestants, Catholics and Jews, found religious identities less in doctrine than "the American Way of Life." (75, 88) Whilst suggesting American religion had always been based upon the nation as an innocent New Israel, by the 1950s this faith, in Herberg's view, had evolved into "democracy as religion", privileging "the supreme value and dignity of the individual" and God-given personal morality over theology. (101,92) For Jackson, such faith was immoral and delusional. Whilst the Hallorans believe in their own "value and dignity", there is little "democracy" in their society, as faith becomes a tool for the powerful. Mrs Halloran rules supreme in this world and the next, securing future Eden though a list of lengthy rules. (Jackson 191-2) After banning everything fun, Mrs Halloran decrees, "[a] proud dignity is recommended and extreme care lest offense be given to supernatural overseers who may perhaps be endeavouring to determine the fitness of their choice of survivors." (Jackson 192) These "supernatural overseers" are suspiciously like Mrs Halloran, whose law sets her up as God of the supposedly free world. By allowing religion to endorse Mrs Halloran's power, Jackson undermines godly American democracy. The ideal truly deifies those in power, allowing them to rule with a dominance unnervingly akin to that faith is presumably meant to stand against. Miller, in contrast, creates a religious vision beyond "the American Way of Life." Unlike the faith of Jackson's household, A Canticle For Leibowitz does not worship American culture but characterises that culture as irreligious, superstitious, ignorant and violent. The Catholic Church is humanity's last stronghold, protecting a religiously defined 'civilisation' against a hostile world. Miller links mass society to violent hostility towards religion and knowledge: during the Great Simplification, the pagans' ancestors martyred the Order's founder, the Jewish nuclear scientist Leibowitz, as a scapegoat for atomic devastation. Whilst critics such as Paul Brians and Farah Mendlesohn claim that, as a science fiction writer, Miller connects religion to "intellectual degradation" or an "incomplete mode of thought", Miller actually links such deterioration to secular culture, dividing religion from the American nation. (Mendlesohn 266, Brians) This view was not unique: Billy Graham saw American society as dangerously worldly, a trend his religious crusades hope to reverse: "God is giving us a desperate choice, a choice of either revival or judgement." (quoted in David Aitkman 68) Yet for Miller, Graham's type of revival places religion too close to politicised Cold War ideologies. As Cynthia Miller Smith suggests in her thesis, "the opposite of Catholic [in A Canticle For Leibowitz] is not Protestant, but. heretic or barbarian." (7) Protestants like Graham are linked to irreligious "heretic[s]", whose politicised belief echoes the superstitious masses under political sway. In the building war, one pagan chief leader "threaten[s] to become. Christian, if Christian gods would help slaughter his enemies." (Miller 234) This belief for war's sake echoes anticommunist rhetoric, damning Graham's formulation that Christianity was the "only ideology hot enough" to prevent communism. (The Soul of a Nation) For Miller, using faith as a weapon of war was ungodly, tying Christianity to irreligious politics. Miller was particularly sceptical of politicians using faith rhetoric. In his novel's second volume, "Fiat Lux", Miller suggests that religion for "the ruling classes has always been a thin veneer," turning political faith into mere sham. (Miller 191) Whilst the Hallorans expose faith's political and national ideologies, Miller's faithful beware religious nationalism; despite Hannegan's religious pretentions, the Order's abbot denies Mayor Hannegan's request to use the monastery as a military fort. In his letter, Hannegan takes the monks' deference to his political authority for granted, using spiritual terminology to claim legitimacy: "We, the only legitimate ruler over the church in this realm. declare to our loyal people that . bishop, Benedict XXII, is a heretic, simoniac, murderer, sodomite, and atheist. Who serves him serves not Us." (Miller 244-5) Using the language of heresy against Catholic authority, Hannegan shows how easily political powers wield Christian power at religion's expense. In this way, Miller sets his Catholicism apart from dominant trends. As Dolan outlines, Catholics in the 1950s primarily yoked themselves with the nation, seeking to transform the Church into a "thriving, self confident institution." (189) Rather than setting itself apart, this "self confident" religious group aligned itself with anti-communist Catholic personalities like Cardinal Spellman, who commented in 1946, "A true American can neither be a Communist nor a Communist condoner." (Whitfield 94) Through this patriotic vitriol, Spellman and those that endorsed his viewpoint placed their national identity above the denominational, "reminding people how American and loyal Catholics were." (Dolan 183) Yet Miller's Catholics are anything but loyal. In the third volume, Abbot Zerchi must decide whether to permit state-sanctioned euthanasia of radiation victims on church land. Whilst Zerchi sympathises with the secular doctor's desire to heal, he makes a religious stand against him, claiming faith trumps political law: ".I am subject to another law. forbid[ing] me. [t]o counsel anyone to do what the Church calls evil." (Miller 314) By propping up state power, unholy alliance between God and country damages Christian moral authority, meaning Miller's "Church" must draw a clear line between itself and political aims. This separation, however, still engages with the political landscape. The monastery forms part of a wider Church invisible, preserving knowledge and morality beyond national borders: "[a]s the Church, Mysticism Christi Corpus, is a Body, so has your Order served as an organ of memory in that Body." (Miller 123) Rather than the individual saving a nation, Brother Francis' holy acts contribute to a "Body" beyond nationality. As David Samuelson points Miller emphasises the "cyclical theme of technological progress and regress" throughout the novel, a scale of time that favours the Church's influence as an institution over that of individuals. By emphasising communal faith, Miller places his religion against individualising Protestantism. For liberal Protestant theologian Reinhold Niebuhr, the newly-formed NATO embodied the Protestant ideal of universal Church, "making diversity tolerable under conditions of freedom." (Niebuhr quoted in William Inboden 67) As Inboden suggests, Niebuhr placed this godly "diversity" against monolithic communism, which Niebuhr perceived as a threat to God-given personal freedom (67) However, by 1960, "enmity, confusion, and diminished relevance" within both liberal and evangelical Protestantism caused Niebuhr's vision of multiplicity in unity to fail. (Inboden 101) Rather than emphasising individual freedom, Miller thus unites his monks as a "Body", rejecting nationalism and individualism for a truly Christian voice. Miller's text therefore provides a political voice for religious belief outside the narrative of God-chosen America. Whilst Jackson's private, domestic religiosity is exposed as faith in the holy nation, Miller's religion is a bulwark against political influences. Through the universal Church, Miller counteracts individual salvation's link to the nation, turning religious identity global and communal. For Jackson, however, religion remains entangled in these narratives. Ignoring doctrine, her faith is a façade for evil, the evil of delusional righteousness.