lclough23

My mother died this weekend. My sister had arranged for in-home hospice care.  My mom passed comfortably, in her own home, with a family member at her side. She knew the Lord and was at peace with God. She was 90 years old.

I will be traveling to Bryan, Texas, for the visitation and funeral, and then to Portland, Oregon, for the internment.

lclough23

God and Gold, by Walter Russell Mead, Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 2007

This book is about the meaning of American power for world history, and the relationship of capitalism and religion to that power. Mead considers this topic in the context of the English-speaking power that goes back to the late 17^th century. Since the Glorious Revolution of 1688 that established parliamentary and protestant rule in Britain, the Anglo-Americans have been on the winning side in every major international conflict.  Why is that?  What does that fact mean?  What does that portend for the future?

Mead addresses six questions (page 6):

1. What is the distinctive political and cultural agenda that the Anglo-Americans bring to world politics?
2. Why did the Anglo-Americans prevail in the military, economic, and political contests to shape the emerging world order?
3. How were the Anglo-Americans able to put together the economic and military resources that enabled them to defeat their enemies and build a global order?
4. Why have the Anglo-Americans so frequently believed that history is ending—that their power is bringing about a peaceful world?
5. Why have they been wrong every time?
6. Finally, what does Anglo-American power mean for the world?

The Maritime Strategy

The British and the Americans were led by the logic of their geography to develop an approach to world power that has led to their ascendancy.  This has been a sea power strategy, a Maritime system, which was introduced by the Dutch, refined by the British, and perfected by the Americans.  This strategy remains the key to world power: “Develop and maintain an open, dynamic society at home; turn the economic energy of that society out into world trade; protect commerce throughout the world and defend the balance of power in the world’s chief geopolitical theatres; open the global system to others, even potential competitors in times of peace; turn the system against ones opponents in war; promote liberal values and institutions wherever one can.”

Attitudes

Why did British and Americans adopt capitalism so quickly and so effectively?  Mead finds his answer in the works of Henri Bergson.  In Two Sources of Morality and Religion (1932), Bergson postulated that there were two kinds of social organization in nature which are reflected in two types of society, a “closed society” governed by tradition and custom, and an “open society” in which the human drive for change can be fulfilled.  In the former, “Static” religion is a kind of mental habit that binds human intelligence to the instinctive drive for solidarity and continuity.  In the latter, “dynamic religion” is more concerned with creativity and progress. Karl Popper extended Bergson’s ideas in his book, The Open Society and its Enemies, Popper portrays forces of traditional religion as one of the reactionary forces which impede the open society, supporting the idea that enlightenment implies secularization and considers religion as antithetical to modernization.  But the English were strongly religious in their rise to power, and the United States, today, is significantly more religious than most advanced countries.  Mead attributes dynamic religion, rather than secularism as the key to Anglophone ascendancy.  The English reformation established Britain as a Protestant state, but there was always a strong Catholic minority, and so many non-conforming sects that pluralism was inevitable.  Ultimately, British society resorted to convention:  Scripture, tradition, reason—each had its place, and each went wrong if pressed too far. Mead writes, “Anglo-American society was not secular.  Far from being an obstacle to the modernization of British and American society, religion became a major actor in an intensifying and accelerating process of social change and capitalist development, accepting constant transformation as the normal and desirable human state. And as Anglo-American religion became more dynamic and less static, it also tended to become more intense and more strongly felt.”

It has long been noted that Protestant countries tended to do better in business than Catholic countries.  In Max Weber’s 1905 essays, Weber looked for clues in Protestant doctrine and noted Calvinism’s emphasis on secular occupations as calls from God. According to Mead, this is not the whole story.  Indeed, “Protestants came to believe that to live in communion with God and to experience the hope of salvation meant cooperating with and even furthering the waves of social change that capitalism unleashed on the English-speaking world.”  The key reference point in this transformation is the story of Abraham. Mead writes, “Abraham believed the promises of God, and as Paul wrote in his most important theological work (the Epistle to the Romans), this faith was ‘reckoned to him as righteousness.’ Abraham’s faith, his willingness to leave his home, his family ties, in obedience to a call from God, became the foundation for God’s redemption of the human race.” In Protestant society, Mead writes, “Embracing change becomes a kind of sacrament; moving from the known to the unknown brings one closer to God.  Change has a religious sanction and a positive value.”

The Future of Anglo-American Power

The chief lesson of history is to carry forward the Maritime strategy that has brought American to its current position of security and prosperity.  Mead writes, “The first piece of the strategy, the creation and preservation of an open and dynamic society at home, remains the foundation of America’s domestic prosperity, liberty, and international position.   Any diminution in America’s cultural vitality, commitment to liberty and enterprise, social mobility and pluralism, and any serious decline in either the creativity or American religious faith, or its denominational and theological diversity would make the United States a less dynamic society, sap its energy, reduce its wealth, and impair its ability to carry out the remaining elements of the national strategy.”   This domestic agenda must be balanced by a foreign policy which promotes policies, practices, institutions around the world and its key partner countries which promote dynamic values. 

This cannot be the responsibility of a few elites, but must be embraced by both conservatives and liberals and reflected in mass public opinion.  Evangelical Protestantism is the one social movement in the United States which has the presence and power to carry a significant mass of public opinion into a new consensus as these issues are addressed.