How can a more religious (compared to OTL) yet leftist (more leftist than Western Europe) United States can come into fruition?
How can a more religious (compared to OTL) yet leftist (more leftist than Western Europe) United States can come into fruition?
The founders of the CCF (modern NDP) in Canada (Tommy Douglas and JS Woodworth) were both ministers (Baptist and Methodist, respectively).
Don't forget that religious activism at the beginning of the 20th century WAS leftist. Perhaps not further left than Europe.
The Women's Christian Temperance Union was strongly promoting social issues.
Etc.
Speaking a bit out of nowhere with this, but would a more widespread Quaker movement in US would be possible?
Well, there is some truth to that, yes. But here in the States, though, things were pretty complicated at times; let's not forget that even many of the earliest Fundamentalists were very much right-wingers, especially in the South(amongst WASPs above all, who eventually became the dominant group on both sides of the Mason-Dixon line, even with the fair bit of Scots-Irish influence that did exist on the outset in parts of the Southeast.). Even the WCTU wasn't really quite solidly leftist. Rather, they seem to have been pretty much middle-of-the-road overall, but in their own way.
Perhaps the easiest way to go about this would be the association of fiscal conservatism or laissez faire economics with secularism.
Perhaps the easiest way to go about this would be the association of fiscal conservatism or laissez faire economics with secularism.
Very complicated, when you consider how much of the present view of the Progressive Era is anachronism we project backwards due to where today's sensibilities pan out. I think you can argue that we forget much of nitty-gritty of how the Progressive era did business due to how we write history in the present day.
If you look at many of the Progressive Era social movements, much of their voting strength is religious, often the picture of what we'd call evangelicals today. It's not just temperance and Prohibition - the income tax amendments, woman's suffrage, even the popular election of Senators do not become law without the enthusiastic support of many people who'd currently be labeled fundamentalists(1).
until the 1970s, the Southern Baptist Convention had zero problem with many forms of birth control and even abortion amongst married couples.
Evangelicals in the fin de seicle sense of the word were the foot soldiers of the Progressive Era.
Fundamentalists rarely were - until the 1950s and anti-communism, fundamentalism usually described religious separatists who rarely voted. Things shift with time.
What's called fundamentalism in the present day eschews most social activism.....
and in general because its much easier to sell "go to heaven and get rich" than "do things for people you'd normally avoid and go to heaven." They have no desire to remember evangelicalism when it was for the greater good, for the poor, for the disenfranchised now that its for the comfortable and in power.
And on the other side of the coin, the people who are progressive now would rather remember the seculars who were a much smaller slice of the Progressive voting block but are also more inline with what your modern lefty sees themselves as - better, wiser, above the sheeple and their religions.
(1) It's not all light and roses though - there's a ton of anti-immigrant sentiment, particularly anti-Catholic sentiment, that's an integral part of this movement too.
(2) You can have the Dawkins crew/Redditors try me for heresy latter, but fundamentalism-as-unchanging-monolith-that-is-the-only-true Christianity trope is wildly historically inaccurate, but it's such a useful trope and recruiting tool that. Like every other social/religious movement, fundamentalist Protestantism has morphed over the ages. Which is probably why the fundamentalists themselves have encouraged that misconception, years before every 'rationalist' on the internet swallowed it hook line and sinker.
(1) Not necessarily saying this is you, Cali, but its a certain tendency on these boards some days... And as a city person, I personally tend to have trouble comprehending how progressive change could come from the rural. But I'm a product of my time.
Well my highschool loves Obama yet we are mostly low-income worker families or farmers from East Washington (at least the majority).
Anyways, progressive change from a religious stance is freaking hard to come into fruition, which is why I posted this thread on before 1900 to expand any sort of PODs between the birth of the US to the present day.
...I kid... mostly...
The forum divide is so hard on these late 19th Century pieces.I suggest the ones I did because before 1900, it looks like the US is barreling towards a sort of Christian left-ism. As with so many other things, its the Great War that throws it off the tracks. But, as its's your freaking thread.... perhaps less publicity to Darwin? Or a latter publications of some theory of evolution by natural selection? The first stirrings of that premillenialism are in the 1870s, and while they're an expression of rural vs. urban issues, they did tend to gel around Darwin. Or an evolution that retained its fudge factor when it came to human evolution? It delays the reactionary backlash a bit, certainly.
Or maybe tweak the beliefs the Second Great Awakening? Hard to twist one knob and see another one go, but you can argue a huge amount of the bedrock of American society and culture is laid on the foundation of number two, however far from its religiosity it may have strayed
You mean an alternate publication of Darwin in which God had "guided" evolution of species from one form to another over millions of years. God is seen as the guide to our being and our existence through evolution?
Not something you can expect of Darwin. One where he sticks to the finches, and doesn't say a word about what was called the "transmutation of species at the time." Or writes a less through book. Admittedly, Darwin's a hard one - natural selection is just too elegant of a theory to be kept in the bottle, as it were.
You mean an alternate publication of Darwin in which God had "guided" evolution of species from one form to another over millions of years. God is seen as the guide to our being and our existence through evolution?
This is impossible. The scientific method does not mix well with broad, sweeping statements about the nature of the world. Or at least, it isn't supposed to. I mean, religion can be a complement to science, but integrating religion into science or vice versa wouldn't work out (and this is not exclusive to religion, the Soviets didn't believe in Charles Darwin either).Could evolution and maybe all of science be integrated into religion? Religious science that promotes unitarianism?![]()