Review of "The American Religion" by Harold Bloom

Reading Bloom was a new and different experience for me. I'm a pastor in a conservative evangelical denomination whose reading has mostly been within the confines of my traidtion. Therefore, Bloom, who writes as a kind of "gnostic Jew" and as a religious critic, came at many familiar issues from unfamiliar angles. Thus, I found myself frequently bouncing around from "what a great insight," to "where did he come up with that idea," to "no way, he's dead wrong about that."

Therein lies the value of the book, particularly for those in my tradition. Often, outsiders can see things that insiders can't. And while there's plenty to offend the conservative evangelical, and much that will cause them to think they have been misunderstood, he nevertheless has valuable insights that should be heeded.

The book title is "The American Religion," hence he focuses on religions that were born in America. Hence, the book doesn't talk about Presbyterians, Methodists, Anglicans, Catholics, or Episcopalians. These are all imports. He is primarily focusing on religions born and bred here in America.

Curiously, one of those religions is the Southern Baptist Convention. While many baptists would probably trance their origins back to the UK and Europe, Bloom contends that the particular brand of Baptist religion known as the Southern Baptist Convention was formed in America. In his mind, today's Southern Baptists really took their current shape under the guidance of E. Y. Mullins at the turn of the century, even though they existed before then.

For Bloom, the American religion is defined as follows:

The American finds God in herself or himself only after finding the freedom to know God by experiencing a total inward solitude. In this solitary freedom, the American is liberated both from other selves and from the created world. He comes to recognize that his spirit is itself uncreated. Knowing that he is the equal of God, the American Religionist can then achieve his true desideratum, mystical communion with his friend, the godhead.

Using this definition he finds that the Southern Baptists and the Mormons are the best expressions of American Religion. I might add that, when Bloom is talking about the Baptists in this regard he is talking about the Southern Baptist Convention before the conservative takeover in the 90's. This also is a definition of gnostic religion. Regardless of protests to the contrary, Bloom asserts that the American religion has very little to do with historic, biblical Christianity. While most of us who came out of the protestant and evangelical traditions will give a hearty amen to that idea as it applies to the Mormons, it would seem to hardly apply to the Southern Baptist Convention.

However, Bloom asserts that the Mormons and the Baptists have more in common than they realize. Both are essentially a religion of the self. In the case of the Mormons, they can become gods, in the case of the Southern Baptists, Mullins teaching of soul competency locates God within and nothing, nor no one can, can come between them and God. Both have an aversion to creeds. Both are fundamentally experiential religions. Both exclude a sense of the communal. Again, when referring to the Baptists, he is referring to the moderate wing before the 90's.

Mormons and Baptists would disagree with this vehemently. After all, what group in American is more communal than the Mormons. And how would we say the Southern Baptists have a religion of the self. In fact, Bloom thinks Emerson is the prophet of the American Religion, and that both Mormons and Baptists would embrace the Emersonian phrase:

It is by yourself, without ambassador, that God speaks to you.

Since I am not all that familiar with Mormon theology (Bloom thinks there really is none) I had trouble understanding the idea of it being a religion of the self and non-communal. I think it ultimately has something to do with their idea of the individual becoming a god, as if the progress of religion in the life of a Mormon is geared toward the individual, not the community.

As to Baptists being non-communal and a religion of the self, Bloom cites Mullins as follows:

" . . . the competency of the soul in religion excludes at once all human interference . . . religion is a personal matter between the soul and God."

And,

"that which we know most indubitably are the facts of inner experience."

This is the doctrine of "soul competency" which the Reverend John Doe defines to mean

"that the individual Christian is unassailable in her interpretation of Scripture and in her understanding of God's will for her life."

Tangentially, Bloom talks about other American religions - Christian Scientists, Adventists, Jehovah's Witnesses, Pentecostalism, and the New Age. He has a mild amount of respect for Christian Scientism, the Adventists and Pentecostals, but has absolute disdain for the Jehovah's Witnesses.

However, it seems to me that he talked about those religions because he had to. This was a book on American Religion and he had to talk about all the religions that were founded in America. But, it is clear that in his mind, the most significant American Religions are the Mormons, the soon to be religion of the west, and the Soutern Baptists, the Roman Catholics of the south.

I think it is fair to say that Bloom, writing from the perspective of a gnostic, found in Mormonism and the Southern Baptists what he wanted to find. In discussion the Mullins' teaching on "soul competency," he isolated that from his other teachings. I have not read Mullins, but I know the Southern Baptists do have a doctrine of the church, and I'm sure Mullins did to. This should inform any discussion of Southern Baptists as a religion of the self.

Still, his points need to be heard. If he is correct in his idea that the notion of "soul competency" is at the core of Southern Baptist life, and I think it is at least close to being true, then he has a point. The historic, biblical version of Christianity doesn't neglect the "personal relationship" and experiential aspects of the faith, but it places far more emphasis on Christianity as a communal and doctrinal religion.

One of the more insightful sentences of the book is on page 265 in my copy:

"A religion of the self is not likely to be a religion of peace, since the American self tends to define itself through its war against otherness."

That line seems to me to be almost extraneous in the sense that it comes at the end of the book as he is summarizing everything, yet I find it to be one of the most insightful in explaining the American religious landscape. We do define ourselves in terms of who and what we are against. There is a real sense in which many American religionists, maybe most, take their identity in a negative fashion, not a positive fashion. We are defined by who we are against. For example, I'm a protestant, Presbyterian, reformed, and calvinistic. Calvinism is known by its famous five points, but the five points of Calvinism were originally expressed at the Synod of Dordt as an expression of disagreement with the Remonstrants.

This being the case, this "defining ourselves by what we are against" goes a long way to explaining the religious fragmentation we see in America. Christianity in America may be unpredictable, but there is one thing you can count on and take to the bank at any time - Christians are always fighting, churches are always splitting and denominations are always dividing. I think Bloom's above referenced sentence may not tell the whole story, but his idea that American's have a religion of the self, goes a long way. Someone with a religion of the self is accountable to no one but himself, thus he is always free to divide and "wage war against otherness."

Bloom wrote this in the early 90's. At this time, the Mormons were small and growing, the Southern Baptist conservatives were in the midst of their takeover and George Bush Sr., was newly victorious in Iraq. At that time he made some predictions.

One prediction was that the fundamentalists, whom he describes as "know-nothings," "anti-intellectuals" and a few other choice invectives were going to take things over and, in effect, destroy the house that Mullins built. Also, he foresaw a powerful alliance forming between the Soutern Baptists, the Mormons and the Reagan-Bushites that would end abortion and be led by the Republicans into the next century.

One prediction came true and the other didn't. The conservatives did take over the Southern Baptist Convention. I think that is a good thing, and in saying that I am not saying that I agree with, or even like, all of the fundamentalists who were involved in the takeover. I also acknowledge that not all the moderates were evil, or given to the extremes that Bloom suggests. But, I do think the conservatives took proper steps in returning the conventio to something more akin to historic, Biblical Christianity. Bloom rightly demonstrates that this battle was over the inerrancy of Scripture. In his mind, the fundamentalists proclaim the inerrancy of Scripture but don't read their Bible. I doubt that, but its a fair warning. Believing in inerrancy is not the same thing as knowing and living according to the Bible.

The other prediction most assuredly didn't come true. The Reagan-Bush-Mormon-Southern Baptist-Republican coalition didn't come through, the democrats held the White House throughout the nineties and abortion is still legal.

However, there is one thing I find very paradoxical in all of this. Though the Republicans didn't hold the White House, a Southern Baptist did. And, the Southern Baptist in the White House was the quintessence of the Bloom/Mullins gnostic/soul comptent vision. For Bill Clinton, his religion was "a personal matter between the soul and God." His religious experience was "unassailable," and did not admit of correction, even from members of his own church. Ironic, isn't it? Bloom feared the loss of the Gnostic vision in the Southern Baptist church would lead to a dreaded Republican takeover of America. Yet, as the gnostics in the Southern Baptist Convention (I'm using Bloom's labels hear) lost their power, a Southern Baptist gnostic rose to the highest position of power in our nation and the world.

Bloom says that what the American Religion needs is basically to follow this gnostic vision. What it doesn't need to do is return to some kind of alleged Calvinistic or Augustinian roots. As I intimated before, I think he found his own vision in his study of American Religion and for that reason I think his portrayals of the Southern Baptist moderates are very debatable. And, I am sure there are Mormons out there who would debate his characterization of them. However, he hits some on kernels of truth and it is these kernels that concern me. In my mind, what we need most is a return to a historical, biblical vision of Christianity. I see the conservatives in the SBC taking steps in that direction and I think it is a good thing. The Calvinistic/Augustinian tradition has nearly been vanquished in the United States, at least until the 80's and 90's when folks like Sproul and Packer and MacArthur (to a degree) started putting it back into popular Christian culture. I think we need to give the Calvinistic/Augustinian tradition a chance. Its not perfect, but it is self-consciously Biblical, communal, and seeks to honor history without being enslaved to it.

All in all, Bloom's book is a very provocative read and I recommend it highly, not because I believe it is completely accurate or because I agree with it. But, he raises difficult issues, not just for the Soutern Baptists and the Mormons, but for evangelicals in general.