Ralph Waldo Emmerson and Our U.S.


The wonderful invention of You Tube makes available such a variety of people doing things and talking about their views. Recently, a preacher from the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod was holding forth about his pet peeve. It was those who believe each person has his/her own god. "That is so wrong," he said.

That denomination's numbers are plummeting. This is the logical outcome of being out of synch with, not only current U.S. thinking, a good share of the U.S. population since white people arrived and chased out the people who were here. Reading my growing shelf of history books I've been surprised at the popularity of secular thought in the U.S. at least since the middle 1700's. One historian scoured newspapers for meetings of secular groups between 1750 and 1800. These groups were more common then than they are today.

Just now I'm reading a new book, American Visions. It is about the variety of groups which formed and debated religion and politics between 1800 and 1850. Others have said secularism became weaker after 1800 but this historian concludes otherwise. A variety of groups said more or less, "We believe in American values. Those other groups do not." 

Taking the book to one of my favorite coffee houses today I read about the famous philosopher, Ralph Waldo Emmerson. He first studied to be a minister. In his first church job, however, he found he could not conduct the communion ritual. It seemed to him, in the early 1800's, as it seems to me today, barbaric. He left religious work and drifted about in life for some years. Eventually, he came to see in every person the ability to make good decisions about behavior and morality. There was no need for the preacher I saw on You Tube giving instructions about what god or gods were valid ones. Emmerson went on to become a public speaker moving about and giving entertaining lectures on the strength of individuals to make their own judgements without needing the direction of either the church or the political class. 

Paganism preceded by many centuries Emmerson and today's "nones." It seems like, however, the vast complex and changing array of gods worshipped in Paganism is much like Emmerson and nones who say, "I'm spiritual but not religious." People even within the broad definition of Christianity find a variety of gods, or, assign a variety of characteristics to the same god. Christianity is and always has been a "whatever" religion.  

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