 | ||
The concept of Judeo-Christian values in an ethical (rather than theological or liturgical) sense, has been part of the "American civil religion" since the 1940s. These values have been emphasized primarily by political conservatives.
Contents
Ethical value system
The present American meaning of "Judeo-Christian" regarding ethics first appeared in print in a book review by the English writer George Orwell in 1939, with the phrase "the Judaeo-Christian scheme of morals." The term gained currency in the 1940s, promoted by groups which evolved into the National Conference of Christians and Jews. They intended to fight antisemitism by using a more inclusive idea of values.
Franklin D. Roosevelt
The first inaugural address of Franklin D Roosevelt had numerous religious references, and was widely commented upon. Roosevelt did not use the term "Judeo-Christian" but many commentators saw this religious component. Houck and Nocasian, examining the flood of responses, argue:
The nation's overwhelmingly Judeo-Christian response to the address thus had both textual and extratextual warrants. For those inclined to see the Divine Hand of Providence at work, Roosevelt's miraculous escape [from assassination] in Miami was a sign—perhaps The Sign—that God had sent another Washington or Lincoln at the appointed hour. His chosen nation would continue, as would the ancestral lineage binding the great leaders of the past to the present. Many others could not resist the subject position that Roosevelt (and [Speechwriter Raymond] Moley) had cultivated throughout the address—that of savior After all, it was Christ who had expelled the moneychangers from the Temple. And, of course, many were compelled to read Miami, the inauguration-day trip to St. John's Episcopal Church, and the religious rhetoric within the inaugural as a composite sign that their new president had a godly mandate to lead.Dwight Eisenhower
By 1952 Dwight Eisenhower looked to the Founding Fathers of 1776 to say:
"all men are endowed by their Creator." In other words, 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. With us of course it is the Judeo-Christian concept, but it must be a religion with all men created equal.Lyndon Johnson
Biographer Randall B. Woods has argued that President Lyndon B. Johnson effectively used appeals to the Judeo-Christian ethical tradition to garner support for the civil rights law of 1965. Woods writes that Johnson undermined the Southern filibuster against the bill:
LBJ wrapped white America in a moral straight jacket. How could individuals who fervently, continuously, and overwhelmingly identified themselves with a merciful and just God continue to condone racial discrimination, police brutality, and segregation? Where in the Judeo-Christian ethic was there justification for killing young girls in a church in Alabama, denying an equal education to black children, barring fathers and mothers from competing for jobs that would feed and clothe their families? Was Jim Crow to be America's response to "Godless Communism"?Woods went on to assess the role of Judeo-Christian ethics Among the nation's political elite:
Johnson's decision to define civil rights as a moral issue, and to wield the nation's self-professed Judeo-Christian ethic as a sword in its behalf, constituted something of a watershed in twentieth-century political history. All presidents were fond of invoking the deity, and some conservatives like Dwight Eisenhower had flirted with employing Judeo-Christian teachings to justify their actions, but modern-day liberals, both politicians and the intellectuals who challenged and nourished them, had shunned spiritual witness. Most liberal intellectuals were secular humanists. Academics in particular had historically been deeply distrustful of organized religion, which they identified with small-mindedness, bigotry, and anti-intellectualism. Like his role model, FDR, Johnson equated liberal values with religious values, insisting freedom and social justice served the ends of both god and man. And he was not loath to say so.Woods notes that Johnson's religiosity ran deep" "At 15 he joined the Disciples of Christ, or Christian, church and would forever believe that it was the duty of the rich to care for the poor, the strong to assist the weak, and the educated to speak for the inarticulate."
Conservatives
By the 1950s, many conservatives emphasized the Judeo-Christian roots of their values. Barry Goldwater noted that conservatives "believed the communist projection of man as a producing, consuming animal to be used and discarded was antithetical to all the Judeo-Christian understandings which are the foundations upon which the Republic stands." Ronald Reagan frequently emphasized Judeo-Christian values as necessary ingredients in the fight against communism. Belief in the superiority of Western Judeo-Christian traditions led conservatives to downplay the aspirations of Third World and to denigrate the value of foreign aid. Since the 1990s, the term "Judeo-Christian" has been primarily used by conservatives.
Culture wars
The term became especially significant in American politics, and, promoting "Judeo-Christian values" in the so-called culture wars, usage surged in the 1990s.
James Dobson, a prominent evangelical Christian, said the Judeo-Christian tradition includes the right to display numerous historical documents in Kentucky schools, after they were banned by a federal judge in May 2000 because they were "conveying a very specific governmental endorsement of religion".
Prominent champions of the term also identify it with historic American religious traditions. The politically conservative Jewish columnist Dennis Prager for example, writes:
The concept of Judeo-Christian values does not rest on a claim that the two religions are identical. It promotes the concept there is a shared intersection of values based on the Hebrew Bible ("Torah"), brought into our culture by the founding generations of Biblically oriented Protestants, that is fundamental to American history, cultural identity, and institutions.
Some theologians warn against uncritical the use of "Judeo-Christian" entirely, arguing that can license mischief, such as opposition to secular humanism with scant regard to modern Jewish, Catholic, or Christian traditions, including the liberal strains of different faiths, such as Reform Judaism and liberal Protestant Christianity.
Since 9/11
According to Hartmann et al., usage shifted between 2001 and 2005, with the mainstream media using the term less, in order to characterize America as multicultural. The study finds the term is now most likely to be used by liberals in connection with discussions of Muslim and Islamic inclusion in America, and renewed debate about the separation of church and state.
It is used more than ever by some Conservative thinkers and journalists, who use it to discuss the Islamic threat to America, the dangers of multiculturalism, and moral decay in a materialist, secular age. In 2005 through 2008, Jewish conservative author and radio commentator Dennis Prager published a 19-part series explaining and promoting the concept of Judeo-Christian culture. He believes the Judeo-Christian perspective is under assault from an amoral and materialistic culture that desperately needs its teachings.
…only America has called itself Judeo-Christian. America is also unique in that it has always combined secular government with a society based on religious values. Along with the belief in liberty—as opposed to, for example, the European belief in equality, the Muslim belief in theocracy, and the Eastern belief in social conformity—Judeo-Christian values are what distinguish America from all other countries.
US law
In the case of Marsh v. Chambers, 463 U.S. 783 (1983), the Supreme Court of the United States held that a state legislature could constitutionally have a paid chaplain to conduct legislative prayers "in the Judeo-Christian tradition." In Simpson v. Chesterfield County Board of Supervisors, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals held that the Supreme Court's holding in the Marsh case meant that the "Chesterfield County could constitutionally exclude Cynthia Simpson, a Wiccan priestess, from leading its legislative prayers, because her faith was not 'in the Judeo-Christian tradition.'" Chesterfield County's board included Jewish, Christian, and Muslim clergy in its invited list.
Several legal disputes, especially in Alabama, have challenged the public display of the Ten Commandments. See:
Political conservatives
By the 1950s American conservatives were emphasizing the Judeo-Christian roots of their values. In 1958, economist Elgin Groseclose claimed that it was ideas "drawn from Judeo-Christian Scriptures that have made possible the economic strength and industrial power of this country." Senator Barry Goldwater noted that conservatives "believed the communist projection of man as a producing, consuming animal to be used and discarded was antithetical to all the Judeo-Christian understandings which are the foundations upon which the Republic stands." Ronald Reagan frequently emphasized Judeo-Christian values as necessary ingredients in the fight against Communism. He argued that the Bible contains "all the answers to the problems that face us." Reagan disapproved of the growth of secularism and emphasized the need to take the idea of sin seriously.
Belief in the superiority of Western Judeo-Christian traditions led conservatives to downplay the aspirations of the Third World to free themselves from colonial rule.
The emergence of the "Christian right" as a political force and part of the conservative coalition dates from the 1970s. According to Cambridge University historian Andrew Preston, the emergence of "conservative ecumenism." bringing together Catholics, Mormons, and conservative Protestants into the religious right coalition, was facilitated "by the rise of a Judeo-Christian ethic." These groups "began to mobilize together on cultural-political issues such as abortion and the proposed Equal Rights Amendment for women." As Wilcox and Robinson conclude:
The Christian Right is an attempt to restore Judeo-Christian values to a country that is in deep moral decline. …[They] believe that society suffers from the lack of a firm basis of Judeo-Christian values and they seek to write laws that embody those values.
By the 1980s and 1990s favorable references to "Judeo-Christian values" was a common term, used by conservative Christians. Tom Freiling, a Christian publisher and head of a conservative PAC, stated in his 2003 book, Reagan's God and Country, that "Reagan's core religious beliefs were always steeped in traditional Judeo-Christian heritage." Religion—and the Judeo-Christian concept—was a major theme in Reagan's rhetoric by 1980.
President Bill Clinton (D), during his 1992 presidential campaign, likewise emphasized the role of religion in society, and in his personal life, having made references to the Judeo-Christian tradition.
Interfaith relations
Promoting the concept of United States as a Judeo-Christian nation first became a political program in the 1940s, in response to the growth of anti-Semitism in America. The rise of Nazi anti-semitism in the 1930s led concerned Protestants, Catholics, and Jews to take steps to increase understanding and tolerance.
In this effort, precursors of the National Conference of Christians and Jews created teams consisting of a priest, a rabbi, and a minister, to run programs across the country, and fashion a more pluralistic America, no longer defined as a Christian land, but "one nurtured by three ennobling traditions: Protestantism, Catholicism and Judaism....The phrase 'Judeo-Christian' entered the contemporary lexicon as the standard liberal term for the idea that Western values rest on a religious consensus that included Jews."
Jewish responses
Response of Jews towards the "Judeo-Christian" concept has been mixed. In the 1930s, "In the face of worldwide antisemitic efforts to stigmatize and destroy Judaism, influential Christians and Jews in America labored to uphold it, pushing Judaism from the margins of American religious life towards its very center." During World War II, Jewish chaplains worked with Catholic priests and Protestant ministers to promote goodwill, addressing servicemen who, "in many cases had never seen, much less heard a Rabbi speak before." At funerals for the unknown soldier, rabbis stood alongside the other chaplains and recited prayers in Hebrew. In a much publicized wartime tragedy, the sinking of the Dorchester, the ship's multi-faith chaplains gave up their lifebelts to evacuating seamen and stood together "arm in arm in prayer" as the ship went down. A 1948 postage stamp commemorated their heroism with the words: "interfaith in action."
Other countries
Jim Berryman argues that from the 1890s to the present rhetoric upholding Australia's traditional attachment to Western civilisation emphasizes three themes: the core British heritage; Australia's Judeo-Christian belief system; and the rational principles of the Enlightenment. These themes have been expressed mostly on the centre-right political spectrum, and most prominently among conservative-leaning commentators. Tony Taylor adds that the "Judeo-Christian" theme has been borrowed from American conservative discourse.