Flaubert, Bouvard et Pécuchet (p.38)

American society and religion

As a land of immigration, the United States has become, over the centuries, a multicutural country with numerous religions.

70%,23%athés, 2jew 1 muslims and 4 % others religions

the secularism of the United States is clearly stated in the First Amendment

However, despite a supposed strict separation of church and state, it is common to find a Bible in hotel rooms, or to hear the American president mention God in his speeches.

From school to the president's oath on the Bible, the Christian religion interferes in all aspects of civil life.

The United States between secularism and puritanism

In the construction of American identity, two founding narratives oppose each other, and allow a better understanding of the relationship between politics and religion. One, refers to the Founding Fathers and the war of independence in which God is never mentioned. The other, which emerged at the beginning of the 19th century, highlights the Puritans who arrived in America in the 17th century and established a "New Jerusalem".

The core of the founding texts include the 1776 Declaration of Independence, the 1787 Federal Constitution, the Federalist Papers, and the Bill of Rights ratified in 1791. It is based on an essential principle, the sovereignty of the people, not subject to the sanction of a sovereign.

Indeed, if the "God of nature" is mentioned in the Declaration of Independence, this is not the case in the Constitution, which is a "constitution without God".

The First Amendment, on the other hand, protects freedom of religion, but also prohibits any official religion at the federal state level. The latter erected a wall between the state and religion. The oath of defence of the Constitution taken by presidents by swearing on the Bible is a tradition borrowed from English parliamentarianism, which is not included in the constitutional text at all.

The Puritan myth

The second founding narrative that impregnates American political culture was popularized in the 1830s by conservative historians in New England. At that time, the Franco-American Enlightenment was under criticism, particularly following the French Revolution and the Terror. Religion was then in fashion.

 The founding text of this Puritan mythology is the sermon delivered by John Winthrop, future governor of Massachusetts, on the Arbella, the ship that led him to the American coast (June 14, 1630). In this sermon, Winthrop describes the land that awaits pilgrims as a promised land, a New Jerusalem, which must be a "city on the hill", serving as an example to the whole world. This expression, borrowed from Matthew's Gospel (5:14), appears regularly in the speeches of politicians, especially republicans, and is at the heart of the vision of the United States as "light of the world". This sermon is thus interpreted as the origin of American  democracy, rooted in a religious tradition...          

 These two stories, which run through American political history, have until recently been embodied in the two candidates for the 2009 US presidency, Barack Obama and Mitt Romney, who are neither agnostics nor atheists.

The influence of religious communities on US politics

On US domestic policy

US domestic policy is frequently influenced by pressure groups, the "lobbies", which are completely legal. They are not only giving their votes to the candidate who best defends their interests, but they can also finance part of their campaign. There is a weapons lobby, a tobacco lobby, an oil lobby and so on. One of the forms of lobbying that is well represented in the United States is religious organizations, which have often been formed in response to political decisions that run counter to the religious principles.

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