The Americans

by Hugo Münsterberg

The church which is not supported by any written laws of the state is not, for that reason, dependent alone on the religious ideals of its adherents, but also on the unwritten law of the social community. The less the authority of the state, the more the society as a whole realizes its duties; and while society remains indifferent as long as religion is enforced by external means, it becomes energetic as soon as it feels itself responsible for the general religious situation. The church has had no greater fortune than in having religion made independent of the state and made the affair of society at large. Here an obligation could be developed, which is perhaps more firm and energetic than that of the state, but which is nevertheless not felt as an interference, firstly, because the political individual is untouched, and secondly, because the allegiance to a certain social class is not predetermined, but becomes the goal and the honourable achievement of the individual. Of course, even the social obligation would not have developed had there not been a deep religious consciousness living in the people; but such individual piety has been able to take much deeper root in a soil socially so favourable. A religiously inclined population, which has made churchliness a social and not a political obligation, affords the American church the most favourable condition for its success that could be imagined.

One may see even from the grouping of sects, how much the church is supported by society. If anywhere democracy seems natural, it should be in the eyes of God; and yet, if Americans show anywhere social demarcations, it is in the province of religion. This is true, not only of different churches where the expense of membership is so unequal that in large cities rich and poor are farther apart on Sundays than on week-days, but it is true of the sects themselves. Methodists and Episcopalians or Baptists and Unitarians form in general utterly different social groups, and one of these sects is socially predominant in one section of the country, another in another. But just because religious differences are so closely related to the differences existing in the social world, the relations between the sects are thoroughly friendly. Each has its natural sphere.

It is certain that the large number of sects are helpful in this direction, since they make the distinction between related faiths extremely small, sometimes even unintelligible to all except the theological epicure; and, indeed, they often rest on purely local or ancestral distinctions. Thus the German Reformed and the Dutch Reformed churches are called two sects, and even the African Methodist Episcopalians and the Coloured Methodist Episcopalians wish to be distinguished from each other as from the other negro sects. Where large parties oppose each other, a war for principles can break out; but where the religions merge into one another through many small gradations, the consciousness of difference is less likely to be joined to any feeling of opposition. The real opponent of churches is the common enemy, the atheist, although the more straitlaced congregations are not quite sure that the Unitarians, who are most nearly comparable to members of the German Protestantenverein, are not best classed with the atheists. And, lastly, envy and jealousy do not belong to the American optimistic temperament, which does not grudge another his success. Thus everything works together to make the churches get on peacefully with one another. The religion of the country stretches from one end to the other, like a brilliant and many-hued rainbow.

The commingling of church and society is shown everywhere. The church is popular, religious worship is observed in the home, the minister is esteemed, divine worship is well attended, the work of the church is generously supported, and the cause of religion is favoured by the social community. These outlines may now be filled in by a few details. The American grows up with a knowledge of the Bible. The church, Sabbath-school, and the home influences work together; a true piety rules in every farm-house, and whosoever supposes this to be in anywise hypocrisy has no notion of the actual conditions. In many city homes of artisans the occupants do not know the Bible and do not wish to know it; but they are in nowise hypocritical, and in the country at large religion is so firmly rooted that people are much more likely to make sham pretences of general enlightenment than of religious belief. Thus, it is mostly a matter of course that festivals, banquets, and other meetings which in Germany would not call for any religious demonstration whatsoever, are opened and closed by prayer. Religious discussions are carried on with animation in every class of society, and one who travels about through the country finds that business and religion are the two great topics of conversation, while after them come politics. It is only among individuals who are so religiously disposed, that such vagaries of the supernatural consciousness, as spiritualism, healing by prayer, etc., could excite so much interest. But also normal religious questions interest an incomparably large circle of people; nine hundred ecclesiastical newspapers and magazines are regularly published and circulated by the millions.

We have said, furthermore, that divine service is well attended, and that clergymen are highly esteemed. In the non-political life, especially in the East, the great preachers are among the most influential people of the day. The most brilliant ecclesiastic of recent decades was, by common consent, Phillips Brooks, by whose speech and personality every one was attracted and ennobled; and it has often been said that at his death, a few years ago, the country mourned as never before since the death of Lincoln. No one equal to him has appeared since, but there are many ministers whose ethical influence must be accounted among the great factors of public life; and this is true, not only of the Protestant ministers, but also of several Catholic ecclesiastics.

The same is true in the more modest communities. The influence of the preacher is more profound in small communities of America than it is in Germany. But it is weakened at once if the representative of the church descends to politics. He is welcomed as an appropriate fellow-worker only in questions that border both on politics and on morals—as, for instance, the temperance question. The high position of the clergy is interestingly shown from the fact that the profession is very often recruited from the best classes of society. Owing to the American effort to obliterate social differentiation as much as possible, it is difficult to make sure of the facts of the situation; but it seems pretty certain that the men who study for the ministry, especially in the Episcopalian, Presbyterian, Congregational, and Unitarian churches, are better born than the men who become school teachers and physicians.

The preacher steps into the pulpit and faces his hearers in a way which is typically American. Of course, it is impossible to reduce the ministerial bearing in the 194,000 churches of the country to a single formula; but one thing may always be noted, by the European, in contrast to what he has seen at home—the obvious reference of the sermon to the worldly interests of the congregation. Its outer form already shows this; the similes and metaphors are borrowed from ordinary and even vulgar life, the applications are often trivial, but forcible and striking, and even anecdotes are introduced and given in colloquial form. More than that, the topic itself is chosen so as to concern personally nearly every one sitting in the pews; the latest vexation or disappointment, the cherished hope, or the duty lying nearest to the individual forms the starting-point of the sermon, and the words of the Bible are brought home to the needs of the hearers like an expected guest. The preacher does not try to lure the soul away from daily life, but he tries to bring something higher into that life and there to make it living; and if he is the right sort of a preacher, this never works as a cheapening of what is divine, but as an exaltation of what is human.

Doubtless it is just on this account that the church is so popular and the services so well attended. To be sure, frequently the minister is a sensational pulpit elocutionist, who exploits the latest scandal or the newest question of the day in order to interest the public and attract the curious to church. Often the worldly quality of the sermon tends to another form of depreciation. The sermon becomes a lecture in general culture, a scientific dissertation, or an educational exercise. Of course, the abandonment of the strictly religious form of sermon brings many temptations to all except the best preachers; yet, in general, the American sermon is unusually powerful.

The popularity of the church does not depend only on the applicability of the sermon, but in part on social factors which are not nearly so strong in any part of Europe. If the congregation desires to bring the general public to church, it will gain its end most surely by offering attractions of a religiously indifferent nature. These attractions may indirectly assist the moral work of the church, although their immediate motive is to stimulate church-going. The man who goes to church merely in order to hear the excellent music has necessarily to listen to the sermon; and one who joins the church for the sake of its secular advantages is at least in that way detained from the frivolous enjoyments of irreligious circles. Thus, the church has gradually become a social centre with functions which are as unknown in Germany as the “parlours” which belong to every church in America. The means of social attraction must naturally be adapted to the character of the congregation; the picnics which are popular in the small towns, with their raffles and social games, their lemonade and cake, would not be appropriate to the wealthy churches on Fifth Avenue. In the large cities, æsthetic attractions must be substituted—splendid windows, soft carpets, fine music, elegant costumes, and fashionable bazars for charity’s sake.

But the social enjoyment consists not solely in what goes on within the walls of the church, but specially in the small cities and rural districts the church is the mediator of almost all social intercourse. A person who moves to a new part of the town or to an entirely new village, allies himself to some congregation if he is of the middle classes, in order to form social connections; and this is the more natural since, in the religious as in the social life of America, the women are the most active part of the family. Even the Young Men’s Christian Associations and similar social organizations under church auspices play an important rôle utterly unlike anything in Europe. In Germany such organizations are popularly accounted flabby, and their very name has a stale flavour. In America they are the centres of social activity, even in large cities, and have an extraordinary influence on the hundreds of thousands of members who meet together in the splendid club buildings, and who are as much interested in sport and education as in religion.