The Current Religion of the American Economy as a Barrierand Substitute

The new Religion of the American Economy as a Barrierand Substitute for Christian Living Thenature of this paper, which deals with the presence of a subconscious set ofparticularly American beliefs, inherently involves more reflection than thegathering of data. Whatsimportant is the way we live, non the historical manufacturing of facts whichis more evidence, not description, of the current Religion of the AmericanEconomy. And while most ofthese truths should be self unpatterned (like any good preamble), some statisticswill be cited to illustrate their culmination in everyday life. To set this new dogma in context, Iwill also key the founding principles of Christian animate, with particularattention paid to the economic reality of what such living entails.Current Church of State Whatthe U.S. has done, indeed what most of us set out endorsed, to traditional godliness is well described by Jeffrey Haynes in his essay on religion andpolitics Almosteverywh ere, modern states have sough to reduce religions politicalinfluence, to privatize it and hence significantly reduce its political andsocial brilliance. But . . .states have also recognized the importance of religion for politics by seekingto create civic religionsthat is, bodies of state designatedreligious dogma. The advise wasto engineer consensual, corporate religious forms that could claim to be guidedby general, culturally appropriate, societally ad hoc beliefs, notnecessarily tied institutionally to any specific religious tradition. The development of civil religion wasoften part of a strategy not merely to avert social conflicts but also to tryto promote national co-or dination in countries with undecomposed religious and/orideological... ... ofmomentum. To the credit ofChristianity, however, it has stood a much greater test of prison term and its founderwas willing to die for it. Theprivileged class of RAE founders, on the other hand, are broadly speaking unaw are oftheir religion (scattered throughout the airwaves and public policy) and notlikely to defend its doctrine at gunpoint.Works CitedThe New American Bible. Fireside Bible Publishers. Wichita, KS. 1995-1996 edition.Arnold,J. Heinrich. Discipleship. PloughPublishing House. Farmington,PA. 1994.Richard Madsen, William Sullivan, Ann Swidler and Steven Tipton, eds. Meaning and modernity Religion, Polity and Self. University of California Press. Berkeley, CA. 2002. Linda Woodhead, ed. Religions in theModern World. Routledge. New York, NY. 2002CIA The World Fact deem 2002 (online) http//www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/