The Poets of the American Religion

"I think of love, and you, and my heart grows full and warm, and my breath stands still... I can feel a sunshine stealing into my soul and making it all summer, and every thorn, a rose." --Emily Dickenson 1852

Art, wrote Emerson, "is the path of the creator to his work. The paths, or methods, are ideal and eternal, though few men ever see them, not the artist himself for years, or for a lifetime. The painter, the sculptor, the composer, the epic writer, the orator, all partake one desire, namely, to express themselves "symmetrically and abundantly, not dwarfishly and fragmentarily." They found or put themselves in certain conditions, as, the painter and sculptor before some impressive human figures; the orator, into the assembly of the people; and the others, in such scenes as each has found exciting to his intellect; and each presently feels the new desire."

"He hears a voice, he sees a beckoning. Then he is apprised, with wonder, what herds of demons close him in. He can no more rest; he says, with the old painter, "By God, it is in me, and must go forth of me." He pursues a beauty, half seen, which flies before him. The poet pours out verses in every solitude. Most of the things he says are conventional, no doubt; but by and by he says something which is original and beautiful."

That charms him. He would say nothing else but such things. In our way of talking, we say, `That is yours, this is mine;' but the poet knows well that it is not his; that it is as strange and beautiful to him as to you; he would faint hear the like eloquence at length."

"Once having tasted this immortal, he cannot have enough of it, and, as an admirable creative power exists in these intellections, it is of the last importance that these things get spoken. What a little of all we know is said! What drops of all the sea of our science are baled up! and by what accident it is that these are exposed, when so many secrets sleep in nature! Hence the necessity of speech and song; hence these throbs and heart-beatings in the orator, at the door of the assembly, to the end, namely, that thought may be ejaculated as Logos, or Word. "
-- by Ralph Waldo Emerson

"A moody child and wildly wise
Pursued the game with joyful eyes,
Which chose, like meteors, their way,
And rived the dark with private
ray:
They overleapt the horizon's edge,
Searched with Apollo's
privilege;
Through man, and woman, and sea, and star,
Saw the dance of
nature forward far;
Through worlds, and races, and terms, and times,
Saw
musical order, and pairing rhymes.

Olympian bards who sung
Divine ideas below,
Which always find us
young,
And always keep us so."
--R. Emerson

"For, as it is dislocation and detachment from the life of God, that makes things ugly, the poet, who re-attaches things to nature and the Whole."

Beyond this universality of the symbolic language, we are apprised of the divineness of this superior use of things, whereby the world is a temple, whose walls are covered with emblems, pictures, and commandments of the Deity, in this, that there is no fact in nature which does not carry the whole sense of nature; and the distinctions which we make in events, and in affairs, of low and high, honest and base, disappear when nature is used as a symbol."

And more:

"Thanking God for having made you; thanking Him that I love you with all my heart and soul; above all, thanking Him because He has permitted you to love me..." --Eugene O'Neil, 1914

Walden, perhaps the most famous work of Henry David Thoreau, exemplifies the American spirit, the transcendent nature of the American mystical tradition, exploring the good and the beautiful exemplified in nature. It is a great spiritual feeling he writes of:

"Even the utmost good-will and harmony and practical kindness are not sufficient for Friendship, for Friends do not live in harmony merely, as some say, but in melody. We do not wish for Friends to feed and clothe our bodies--neighbors are kind enough for that--but to do the like office to our spirits."

"Things do not change; we change."

"Man flows at once to God when the channel of purity is open."

Quakers, Shakers and Papists in America

"Je pense, donc je suis." --Rene Descartes, 17th century
French philosopher and mathematician

In entertaining this important subject of the Enlightenment in colonial America, its great influence upon the world then and now, Bryan LeBeau writes in his book Religion in America, that "the period from 1763 to 1789 (1789 = the eve of the French revolution) brought momentous changes to Americans. They "confronted, then overthrew the only government they had ever known, and they established a new government" based on what they hoped would be the beginning of a new society and a new world. The Deists of Philadelphia wished their city to be known as the 'city of brotherly love'. With this optimism and utopian spirit, the United States of America commenced. They trumpeted their handiwork as the new order of the ages.

At the eve of this new republic, many feared that without the stabilization of social organizations such as churches, the fate of the Republic would be undermined if the new republican virtues necessary to the survival of the state were not supported by such assemblies. In the end, organizations not only stepped in to support and characterize the republic but to sustain it as well, forming today's well known American characteristic of spirituality and religiosity.

Dissenters, as they came to be known, were those persons who, in pre-revolutionary America, while participating in the Anglican Churches, established in the New World by the English crown, were those who also held faith in the new age of Reason, in the Enlightened thinking arriving progressively to American shores. Over time, as Anglican Bishops, also colonists in the New World, grew in support of the politics of the Whig party, the political party associated with the Enlightened, free-thinking movement in England, their numbers coalesced into one great mind.

The two 'Great Awakenings' and the Evangelical style of oratory they supported, shaped increasingly into what was to be the American Revolution, against the English politicians and their motives for a church established as an institution of State. Thus not only were they opposed to a protestant king led church-state, but also to the most traditional, more historic Papal led church-state. The dissenters simmered in the Colonies until a further storm in 1774 erupted over the enactment of the Quebec Act, wherein the English Crown recognized "the Roman Catholic Church in the conquered, formerly French territories of Canada". The English government effectively offered persons in those places a 'freedom of religion,' freedom that was not available to English colonists in America.

The perceived tyranny of the Papists, and the Stuart kings' reign had since the 1640's incited strong anti-catholic feeling in the colonies. Protestant thought reinforced Whig politics. Whig ideas resonated through a large swath of colonial society. The appeal of the Whigs was more broadly accepted than that of the Calvinists or the New England establishment. The basic Whig text, John Locke's Second Treatise of Government was widely available. As the church specifically, and religion in general, was at this time a part of the State, politics did and does necessarily enter into the discussion.

In fact, politics is very often a prominent feature of religious practice and affiliation even today. It is somewhat naive to presume that two such great social institutions within society would be permanently divorced, one from the other. In colonial New Jersey, the policy towards Dissenters was more liberal than elsewhere. As a result the Quakers were attracted to the state for the 'free practice of their religion,' William Penn, their leader, wrote that they laid 'a foundation for their liberty as men... that they be brought by their own consent... not by bondage'. Penn in 1670 wrote a passionate appeal for religious liberty, for tolerance and that the force of the state had 'no place in religious conscience'. Penn launched his 'holy experiment,' as he called it in 1681.

Another outgrowth of the Enlightenment zeal were the establishment of the Shakers who trace their lineage back to 17th century France. Known in France as 'Camisards,' they were Protestants who organized as a result of the revocation of the Edicts of Free Practice of Religion by the Crown. Their American foundress, Mother Ann, led a small group of British to New York in 1774, where their group established themselves. In Mother Ann, followers were instructed in the androgynous nature of God, Jesus being masculine and she herself feminine; thus her arrival marked the completion of the Kingdom of Heaven on earth. Despite their universal views on God, most Shakers were women by the nineteenth century.

All these groups and more directly owe their liberty to ideals of the Enlightenment and the utopian experiment that became America. Yet one significant group was late to establish itself in the English Colonies, the Papists as the English colonists called them, were generally unwelcome. While their ancestors had come to faith largely due to the efforts of Saint Augustine, among others, and due to the Roman occupation of the British isles, the English of the colonial period viewed Roman Catholicism, Papacy, with suspicion.

They wished not to be subject to a foreigner; preferring to be ruled by a monarch of British origins. After the religious wars of England, and the establishment of the Anglican Church of England, most were firmly placed into that political-social orbit. However in England, numerous Catholics remained; unwilling to acquiesce to the Crown, they resolved to reform themselves in the Colonies, like many others. Baltimore, Maryland became their destination and thus in the English speaking parts of the New World, the Papists did install themselves.

Not to be overlooked was the concomitant existence of both a Spanish and French territory within the New World. Initially seeking riches for the Crowns of Spain and France, colonists arrived in the Caribbean and the Americas regions of the New World. With them they brought their Catholic religion, their Latin culture and languages. Thus over time a vibrant Latin society came to exist within the New World. Catholic Christians, unlike their Protestant neighbors, existed in joyous exuberance, establishing communities and social structures beyond churches. In time the city of New Orleans was established at the mouth of the great Mississippi river. New Orleans, Louisiana was destined to become a major port city and commercial center.

It was in the borders of this sovereign territory of France and Spain that the free-thinking conversation continued. Many persons, especially French men and women were in frequent contact with the Old World and travel between the places was routine. With the travelers came the ideas; Pascal in the 1600's wrote brilliant philosophical treatises on various subjects , including Libertarianism (Les Libertines), who were motivated not so much by hostility as by indifference with regard to religion, preferring Reason and science in its place. He also advanced our understanding of Geometry and mathematics, all within the frame of Enlightened thinking.

In 1697, the Encyclopedia, a collected source of knowledge was all the rage. In the France of Louis XIV, there among the higher classes who could afford to read and purchase such books, was Guy Allard, a gentleman of the Royal court. He eagerly wrote and produced some of his own. Officially he was the Court Librarian under the reign of Louis XIV; his post was however hereditary. Keeping the monarch's personal library in order was his task. Today that library is the National Library of France (L'Archive Nationale de France). While smaller in his day, it included works by contemporary thinkers and poets such as Pascal, Descartes, Rabelais, Mme. de Sevigne, Voltaire and others. Within the Royal court structure of the time, persons such as Allard, had the education, the time and the availability of materials from which to construct his own encyclopedia; eventually he wrote 67 volumes.

Recall that the Monarch was acknowledged chief of state and of religion, at this time, throughout the West. Yet the nobility was not without its influence; the relationship between the two developed over time into an interdependency. Monsieur Allard however was like others of his time, free-thinking and quietly republican. He writes in a book published in 1711 that the time has come to look to science, to consider that the state nor the church can provide all the answers. He echoes Descartes' reckoning, "Je pense, donce je suis (I think, therefore I am)."

So he writes in his book about the families of the Dauphine, a region from which Allard derives, that there are many fine men and minds "in this region, who in learning and science, see the advances being made in the intellectual world." He does not mention the sovereign however. Yet reading his words 300 years later, one is struck by the vision he cautiously suggests, that the world can and will function in a new form, that the sovereign is not the Church, and that enlightened thinking will pave the way in the future for a reformed government.

This Frenchman did not live to see the intense revolt which occurred later in the century; he did not see the violence, the wholesale killing within France, the anarchy that republican revolution inspired. Nor did he live to see his grandson, a staunch republican, Armand Allard Duplantier escape to Louisiana, narrowly avoiding the guillotine, and the crazed mobs in Paris. As a signer of the French document, the Rights of Man Armand Allard Duplantier envisioned a new society, like the Americans; his belief was for life, liberty, and brotherhood for all. He supported the ideals of the Frenchman, Marquis de Lafayette. He desired a new, reformed government, with a more equal share in governing for all French people. At this moment, he did not see the excesses of science, the faults of reason, the lack of heartfelt humanity. There was only then the prospect of a better world.

Religion of American Enlightenment

"In the French Revolution, religion was scarcely less an issue than politics, a fact which was bewildering to American admirers of French liberty."--Religion of the American Enlightenment by G.A. Koch

The American liberal thinker of the 18th and 19th centuries, while able to behave as a Republican in political matters, found himself (keep in mind that only males of age and land owning could vote in this period) unable to wholly accept the radical terms of the 'new religion' of that "great and glorious sister republic," France. John Trumbull of Connecticut commented that "still worse than the beheading [of King Louis XVI] was when the National Assembly [Assemblee Nationale francais, roughly equal to the British parliament, or the US Congress] formed a procession to the church of Notre Dame, Paris, and in mock solemnity bowed to the graces of a common courtesan, basely worshiping her as 'a goddess of reason.' Yet not a few in America threw up their hands crying out to the glorious sister republic."

American patriots revolted at the events of that 'sister republic,' France, who had likewise shucked off her monarch; they were, meanwhile, repugnant at the resulting "religious implications of Revolutionary thought, quickly submerged into 'freethinking," writes G.Adolf Koch in his book, Religion of the American Enlightenment. The Founding Fathers, as they are often called, those men who hammered out the American Constitution and the Bill of Rights, they who demanded liberty from the king of England, and which war resulted in the triumph of the new United States of America, those individuals are often called the Founders, or Founding Fathers, of the nation that is the United States of America.

While not having directly to do with the religions of the world, American Enlightenment has exerted a profound impact around the world, altering the perceptions and religious practices everywhere. In a large measure, other nations today fight against "American Imperialism"; that imperialism necessarily includes our religious ideas and expressions. Many who engage in the various forms of American Enlightenment do so without the slightest cognizance that they, too, directly or indirectly practice this same sort of Imperialism through their behavior and actions. Those are actions which they then take around the world, part of a natural flow of ideas.

"I limit my scope to deism as a religious cult," writes Koch. Men such as Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Paine, Elihu Palmer and many others were closely involved in the practices of Deism. Thomas Paine, author of The Age of Reason, was an active member of the Deistic Society of New York. Deism and corresponding societies popped up throughout the new nation.

Eschewing traditional religious assemblies, Deists, nevertheless, met regularly; ultimately these meetings resulted in the formation of churches, one which came to be known as the Unitarian/Universalist Church of America. The Philadelphia Deist Society closely associated with the New York Society. In contrast to the 'Kentucky Deists', those living west of the Alleghenies, the New England Deists engaged in a far more extensive re-purposing and a re-configuring manner of Reasoning. It was "militant... The movement to establish meeting houses, services, and other attributes of a religious institution is not synonymous with the religious liberalism of Benjamin Franklin," who was deeply influenced by French thought.

Deism in the second half of the 18th century was characterized by a scepticism "among the upper classes... it did not preclude affiliation with Christian denominations, but did tend to cool religious ardor. Deistic influences broke down the distinctions between one's own true religion and all other 'false' religions. Deists view the deity as 'author of the universe,' their belief is in immortality, but not salvation. Natural religion is more important than revelation... It is an attitude of mind, rather than a specific creed."

Thus as American Republicanism took hold, correspondingly the Enlightenment which spawned it in a public, political sphere spawned a private, individual, creed adverse, spiritual rather than religious mind that entered forcefully into a world of burgeoning scientific reasoning. In this same time period interestingly, the 'Industrial Revolution' is inaugurated; here some argued that man was to become one with the machine, that his life came to be ruled by the clock, the growing merchant class, the industrialists, the capitalists, the profiteers and the resulting ills of it all coalescing into a modern government, a modern political process and retaining all the spiritual ills of mankind.

Others argue the opposite. That Rational thought, Deism has in fact freed men for the constraints of foolish superstition; that men live better, longer lives due to science and advances of technology. They are healthier and more profitable than ever before with more opportunities, time and leisure to assist the world in the struggle for the same. The Deists remarks Koch, "were not theologians... they were common men, had much in common with the average American, past and present."
Thomas Jefferson wrote in the Declaration of Independence that 'life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness' are gifts which men are endowed by their Creator," who is also called 'Nature's God'. These basic, religious principles of the American Enlightenment have over the centuries constituted an acceptable religious foundation that all Americans can share." Today it has been vogue to call this the 'Civil Religion'.
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