Signs of Hope: Americans and Religious Thinking

“Americans are a deeply and sincerely religious people.”

On the struggle between dollars and creeds creedal thinking is the clear winner. The average American citizen approaches all of life, including economic life, from a creedal or religious perspective.

This is a view contrary to the thinking of most of the world relative to Americans. They believe that Americans think first and foremost in terms of economic realities, and that is simply untrue.

Americans are a deeply and sincerely religious people. They may be quite superficial in their religious beliefs and practices, and frequently are. But, they are genuinely religious. They place their religious values above all other values.

In facing the most serious moral issues in their lives, they turn first and foremost to these religious values. That is true of economic matters, which they take very seriously, as well as other matters. That is among the principal reasons most American citizens prefer creedal thinking.

Their religious faith dictates the decisions they make relative to the principal directions they take in everyday life. As a result, the average American’s thinking on economic matters and others is dictated more by his religious beliefs than by anything else.

There is a conflict here. Americans are very materialistic, but they are even more religious. Americans greatly appreciate the material possibilities their country offers them. They take advantage of these possibilities and safeguard them jealously. Along with the freedom it offers them they prize their material opportunities with a great deal of boasting. And, this offends many other people, especially those who do not enjoy similar opportunities.

Most peoples of the world envy the material opportunities Americans possess, and this accounts for some of the anti-Americanism prevalent throughout the world, but not for the failure of other peoples to appreciate the religious nature of most Americans.

Americans rely for their legitimacy on religious ideas of right and wrong, of what is fair and what us orderly in the world. These undermine and direct all our economic activity. For Americans, religious ideas, and specifically those of Jesus Christ, are paramount.

I have been comparing the religious ideas and economic ideas of Americans, but that is only because economic ideas are so much in the news today. The real comparison is between religious ideas and all other ideas. In every area, for Americans, religious ideas prevail.