Future historians will probably remember 2013 as a turning point
in public prayer. No doubt controversy will rage on a topic so
political. And I don’t mean the
partisan dismissal of Louie Giglio for his stance on sexuality;
I refer instead to the introductory prayer by Myrlie
Evers-Williams. A former Democratic Congressional candidate and the
widow of civil rights luminary Medgar Evers, she is the first woman
and layperson to offer the inaugural invocation.
Many lovers of religious license savored the hyper-inclusivity
of Evers-Williams’ supplications. At first her speech directly
addressed America itself; only later into the invocation did she
invoke the “Almighty.” Indeed, the civil rights leader seemed to be
lecturing the American people as a motivational speaker. She
encouraged her listeners to seize “the opportunity to become
whatever our mankind, our womankind allows us to be.”
Evers-Williams expanded the theme of self-actualization by noting
that “everyone is included” and by petitioning the President to
“rule in favor of the diversity of our people.” She praised “one
nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all,” carefully
excising “under God.”
Several of the invocation’s statements came from Christian
origins. Evers-Williams channeled the Sermon on the Mount when she
declared, “May all your people—especially the least of
these—flourish in our blessed nation.” Picking up a metaphor from
the Epistle to the Hebrews, she labeled American ancestors as “a
great crowd of witnesses.” All this was petitioned in the name of
Jesus as well as “the name of all who are holy and right.”
Other portions of the prayer sounded more mystical. In her
praise of past generations, Evers-Williams hoped, “May their spirit
infuse our being.” “Let their spirit guide us as we claim the
spirit of old: ‘There’s something within me that holds the
reins/There’s something within me that banishes pain/There’s
something within me I cannot explain/But all I know, America, there
is something within. There is something within!” she finally
concluded.
Those familiar with America’s religious heritage realize that
these beliefs are nothing new to the United States. They perfectly
represent Transcendentalism, which stands as the quintessential
American heresy alongside Mormonism. Whereas Mormonism ends with
spiritual progeny engaged in a project of intergalactic Manifest
Destiny, Transcendentalism promises the wistful flower child all
the splendor of Rousseau’s state of nature. The restraints of
society hinder the individual from achieving happiness. Yankee
thinkers such as Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry Thoreau, and Walt
Whitman hoped to transcend the limits of authority in order to find
what Emerson called “an original relation to the universe.”
The Transcendentalist movement would have been impossible
without its great predecessor, Puritanism. As a dissident sect of
Protestants, Puritans were dissatisfied with the Church of England.
They wanted an authentically “pure” religion that worried most
about the interior matters of intentions, predestination, and
rational theology over mystical sacraments and iconic church art.
Among the first rebels against this theological rigidity were the
Unitarian Universalists, who denied the doctrine of the Trinity,
the Incarnation, and the existence of Hell.
From this unorthodox branch sprouted the Transcendentalists, who
incorporated elements of English and German Romanticism. They were
also influenced by the insights of Immanuel Kant, the biblical
criticism of Frederick Schleiermacher, and the skepticism of David
Hume. The Transcendentalists did not believe in God per
Judeo-Christian standards; they held that there was a cosmic
Oversoul that enveloped all of nature. As Emerson famously asserted
in Nature, “Standing on the bare ground, my head bathed by
the blithe air, and uplifted into infinite space, all mean egotism
vanishes. I become a transparent eyeball — I am nothing; I see
all; the currents of the Universal Being circulate through me — I
am part or particle of God.” These pantheistic notions fueled
Thoreau’s famous attempt to live in isolation at Walden Pond.
The Transcendentalists believed that man was basically good—he
has no depravity and his nature is not “bent” in any way by a Fall.
Only noxious society causes problems. Thus, many Transcendentalists
started utopian societies that ended in failure. Others highly
favored activism and practicality. They much preferred social
improvement over the exacting theological dogma of their Puritan
forbears.
Moral guidance does not come from natural or special revelation;
instead, it originates from a deep inner light — one’s own insight
into the “Universal Being.” Even contemporary thinkers in American
liberalism like John Rawls allude to a feeling deep down inside the
heart — an innate inner control — that guides the moral
sensibilities of human beings. And it is here that we see
Evers-Williams conform most clearly when she claims that “there is
something within!”
The intercessor probably did not intend to spout the mantras of
19th century romanticism. By her references to spirituals and
Biblical tropes, Evers-Williams tried to harness Southern black
Christianity, albeit in a non-traditional post-MLK form. However,
she removed the Incarnation, setting Christ on equal footing with
“all who are holy and right.” This fails the Christian orthodoxy
test, but still falls well within the pale of traditional American
civil religion. More crucially, Evers-Williams removed a sense of
sovereign Providence, a longtime staple for public expressions of
faith. Such language denotes a powerful God deeply interested in
human affairs. Instead, the inaugural supplicant preferred misty
“infusions of being” and “something deep within.”
This is what Americans do when they invent religion. They do not
turn outward to divine order but inward to individualistic
realization. Cosmic Oversouls, self-help, and a progressive mythos
can be found even today in scientology and The Secret.
Most Americans are not militant secularists. Instead, they set
themselves up as their own spiritual authorities freed from creed,
canon, catechism, or confession. In other words, they are heretics
— generally warmed-over Transcendentalists.
Again, these actual opinions are not new. The new development is
that they have been featured on the highest platform of American
civil religion. Neo-Anabaptists no doubt rejoice that the
nationalized semi-Christian civil religion may be replaced by an
ambiguous monotheism or airy pantheism. But some conservatives of
all religious stripes will yet wonder what this brave new world
shall bring in the coming decades. Before, there had always been a
mainline Christianity to rein in such spiritual outliers like the
Transcendentalists. As Ross Douthat has so keenly noted, the old
congregations along the Main Streets of America have emptied out.
Now there is no nonpartisan mainstream Christianity to give a sense
of commonly-held truths. Democratic liberalism dares to demand
goodness without truth. By the look of things, it may well have the
chance to prove its hypothesis.
