“THE Americanist faith is evoked on every ceremonial occasion by each political faction in its own distinct fashion. It is inscribed on national monuments and in patriotic legend. The conservative cult of the Constitution as a God-given document reflects it. So does the Monroe Doctrine, which establishes the New World as an American sphere of influence, not on the grounds of self-interest, but as a means of carving out a “truly free” segment of the globe. The symbolism of the Statue of Liberty, the adulation of unrestricted capitalism and the spirit behind the American Civil Liberties Union are all different manifestations of the same religious definition of the meaning and glory of the United States. Moreover, the fideistic way in which this American Religion is taught, one which permits no investigation and discussion of the principles upon which it rests, is as classically Puritan as the historical influence of “preachers”—ministers, and then, in secularized form, professors, psychologists, journalists, etc.—in the interpretation of the true will of the supposedly autonomous individual.
“Puritan and secularized Puritan control of the main educational and propaganda organs in the United States did much to ensure penetration of the vision of America’s evangelical mission, especially after the defeat of the southern aristocracy, whose peculiar and unfortunate character made it an obstacle to this. It was not, however, the only factor aiding such penetration. Indeed, certain features of the drive for integration also indirectly contributed to the strength of the Puritan vision of America’s role in the world. Thus, for example, incoming groups of immigrants were grateful, in a good patriotic sense, for the real material benefits they had won as a result of their acceptance here. They were all too unaware of the price they would ultimately have to pay in true happiness for the ability to consume goods that they did not really need or initially want. The United States, for them, was the land of milk and honey. Since the powers-that-be claimed that atomistic democracy and Pluralism were their essential backdrop, the immigrants gave the Americanist Religion their genuine support. They were too tired from trying to “make it” to notice what a sham their supposed freedom really was in the Pluralist scheme of things. The myth of American liberty became their myth as well. Also, the “integrationist” insistence upon work and material achievement, although not intrinsically anti-patriotic in the old sense of the word, aided anti-patriotic secular Puritanism in practice. It forced men to act as atomists, to lower their sights from God to insurance policies, to flee from the centers of community life, regardless of the emotional costs involved, just so long as a dollar was to be earned elsewhere. The constant picking up and leaving that has long been a part of the American way of life had to destroy tradition, authority and a sense of commitment in a way that aided the secularized Puritan cause.”
— Dr. John Rao, “Americanism and the Collapse of the Church in the United States“
[Note: Dr. Rao made many perceptive points about Americanism and described it so well, but his work is diminished by his poor reading of the collapse of Faith — and the juridical structure of the Church — brought in with the modernist takeover and a series of false popes, beginning in 1958. Americanism had much to do with these events.]
