Religion in America in the 1950's and 1960's: A Minority Perspective

                    By Ivan C. Frank, Ph.D.

 As a young Jewish boy growing up in an Orthodox family (NonChasidic) in the early 1950's in the East End of Pittsburgh, a neighborhood represented by numerous denominations of Christians and Jews as well as a small percentage of African Americans inside its borders, a community which was similar to many Pittsburgh communities' populations, solidified by their love of American democracy, itself a religion, their fear of godless communism (We all feared Stalinism, especially Jews after the Doctors' Trials in the early 1950's.) with their need for national unity to stem its tide, and the economic opportunities that lie before us, I felt both secure and different.  By the time I was six years old, my parents and many other Eastern immigrant Jewish neighbors owned their own homes, thus steadily assimilating into the dominant middle class majority culture.  Looking back on that very important period of my life and reading the contents of books such as A New Zionism by Mordechai Kaplan, A People Divided by Jack Wertheimer, Under God by Gary Willis, How We Got Here: The 70's, The Decade That Brought You Modern Life and numerous articles and books by Robert Wuthnow, Peter Berger, Charles Haynes and Robert Bellah, the latter who wrote an article," Civil Religion in America", which depicts the themes of the Judeo-Christian traditions in speeches by J.F.K and Lyndon Johnson as they clearly related to positive civil values, I can now see clearly that this was a transitional period.  It was a transitional period not only in regard to the Christian-Christian, and Jewish-Christian relationships, but within the Jewish denominations’ political and social apprehension about openly discussing their beliefs and values.  Even more risky was the expression of pride for our national homeland's rebirth in Israel.  As it turned out, my fate would be decided by my older brother's joining a Labor Zionist youth group and my parents never standing in the way of their childrens’ social and political attitudes and adventures.  However, there was at least one other experience which occurred during my teenage years that I will need to add in order to complete the entire picture of my own path as a young Jewish person.

 

It was quite understandable how in the 1950's, Jewish people would be very much on the defensive if they sensed that there was an attack against their “minority" religion.  Such an attack did present itself to me, and it did remain with me until this day.  On the day to which I am referring, a peer with whom I had just finished playing softball turned to me and said, "Your people killed Christ."  I was in shock and that statement did become a key motivating factor in my life.  One of the sections of Finding A Common Ground relates well to the issues of Separation of Church and State and toleration, and I will definitely be able to use it as a takeoff point for my sub unit.  In the 1950's practicing one's own religion was still part of one's own private life, but also part of a conflict in one's public life as witnessed by the fact that Bible-reading and prayer in the Pennsylvania Public Schools still existed.  Later in the activity section, I will refer to the film, "The Supreme Court’s Holy Battles" and other articles which will give the students a clearer perspective on the First Amendment and the Separation of Church and State conflicts in America.

 

Another issue which is incumbent upon me to mention is the aspect of assimilation in thel950's. In the 1950's, there was a still relatively insecure Jewish world.  There was also a great deal of guilt about Jewry's lack of resistance during the Holocaust. Bnai Brith groups were the secular organizations that were mainly used as social outlets for my friends.  They were main stream and were not in the protest Jewish Zionist or social action groups to which I belonged in the late 1950's and 1960's.  In setting up this sub unit on Religion in America in the 1950's and 1960's, it will be important to use many essay type questions by which C.A.S. (Center for Advanced Studies) students at Allderdice can analyze the meager beginnings of the ecumenical spirit which did lead to assimilation, alongside of the separation between liberal and conservative wings within the major religions in America.  The Nostra Aetate (Our Age) of 1965, which changed the definition of Jews from "outcasts" to "elder brothers of Christianity" was one of the major declarations, which set the stage for more open dialogue than there had ever been.  The separation or fissures, which Wuthnow refers to, certainly would influence the dialogue and activism between liberal middle class Jewish and Christian intellectuals.  One must add that it was only in 1962 that the Schempp Abington decision of the Supreme Court officially ended the reading of the Bible and prayer in the public schools.

 

In the 1950’s I did not have an inkling that I would become a Reconstructionist, even though I was already more interested in universalism than in the particularistic approach of my father and grandfather.  I certainly could not surmise then that a Pope in 2000 would call for a search for peace that would bind Christians, Jews, and Moslems. The "Church" was not considered a subject for contention then.  The fact that Catholics and Protestants view it so differently now would be a very important aspect to aid us in a discussion about a dialogue between Christians and Jews who still feel the need to discuss the Holocaust and the birth and death of Jesus.

 

Although Anti-Semitism was rampant in the 1920's-1940's, as witnessed by such factors as the growth of the Klan to five million dues-paying members by 1925, the continuation of the Red Scare against Jewish socialists of the Workmen's Circle, and the extreme right wing calling Franklin D. Roosevelt "Rosenfield", it was the news of the Final Solution being carried out by the German government which created the separation between Jews and Christians.  The fact that the American government never accepted Jewish refugees made the separation complete.  Only Israel was viewed as a safe haven; and the righteous Gentiles in Europe were only from certain lands of Western Europe and a small number of Polish citizens who were willing to take the ultimate risk within Occupied Europe.  There was still the animosity, which was left over from the 19th Century and the great wave of Eastern European immigration of 1890-1920.  Job competition had never helped to develop any type of tolerance for foreigners; and pre-World War II America still consisted of three major religions: Protestantism, Catholicism, and Judaism.  No one would fathom today that the Jewish owners of the New York Times in the mid-1940's would be having Jewish identity problems and that many Eastern European immigrants who were garment workers and socialists would refer to the Roman Catholic church on Bainbridge Avenue as to where the New York Times goes to shul (The Jerusalem Report, Ellenberg, 56). The original Jewish owner, Adolph Simon Ochs had two major sieges of depression relating to his Jewish identity.  The first one came after the appalling case of Leo Frank and the second one after the rise of Hitler in 1933.  (The first case is documented in a film, which can be found in most high school libraries or AV departments.)  For example, The Times never printed on the front pages the extermination of Hungarian Jews in 1944, printing only on page 12 that 400,000 had been deported to their deaths.  This great American paper also became anti-Zionist in the period after World War II.  Its Jewish owners thought that the Jews should look around Africa for a solution.  The insecurity was in abundance, even in the so-called seats of American power.

 

Another major aspect in the 1950's and 1960's which helped to formulate my weltanschung is expressed in Wuthnow's definition of the 1950's as the beginning of the liberal, humanist camp, and the conservative, fundamentalist ideological view point, the latter which expressed misgivings about the former's attitudes in relationship to the Scriptures' literal meaning and overall fuzzy reaction toward many political changes which had already begun.  This division was quite clear even within Judaism's three major denominations. In 1948, the Jewish Theological Seminary, the training ground for Conservative rabbis, would not even allow the Israeli National anthem, “Hatikvah”, to be played; but on June 5, 1967, the same representatives called for an outpouring of monies to Israel to save "Klal Israel" from the Arab nations which were preparing to launch the offensive "to push our people into the sea."  Even in 1956, four years after I had already joined Habonim, a Labor Zionist Youth movement, I felt alone amongst my Jewish peers in my pride for the Jewish State at the same time that I was being besieged by Christian youth at Peabody High School because Israel had preempted an Egyptian offensive from the Sinai Desert.  The Orthodox movement itself was well on its way to separate itself from the other movements.  For instance, the Orthodox rabbis devoted themselves to the banning and burning of Mordechai Kaplan's Sabbath prayer book in 1945, and in 1956, the eleven rosheiyeshivot (Orthodox schools of study), joined by the leader of the Hasidic Lubavitch issued a ban on Orthodox participation in rabbinic organizations which included non-Orthodox rabbis (Wortheimer 12). In the period of the late 1940's and early 1950's, however, there began to be an economic and political sharing of power by Catholics and Jews within the society, which had been dominated by Protestants.

 

If one is to understand that the modern Orthodox and fundamentalist Christian movements of the 1990's have a very conservative outlook vis a vis Separation of Church and State and their attitudes of Israel as the "Holy Land" which must stay in its entirety in Jewish hands, one must review in some depth the Restructuring of America by Wuthnow.  For a starter, my classes would read pages 369-378 wherein Wuthnow draws the battle lines between liberals and conservatives. It begins and will include myriad examples of the divisions and the fractures with a description of "the new mapping of American religious life as polarized along liberal and conservative lines"(Wuthnow 369). Wuthnow also claims that "The chasm dividing American religion into two separate communities has largely emerged from the struggle between these two communities. "(Wuthnow 371)  Besides the colorful description which he uses by quoting such men as Jimmy Swaggert and a NewYork Times writer, Wuthnow, reveals to us agreements on the following points: (a) the reality of the division between the two opposing camps and (b) the predominance of fundamentalists (Jewish and Christian) evangelical and religious conservatives on the one side and the predominance of religious liberals, humanists and secularists on the other.  Finally, he stresses that there is much animosity and misgivings between the two camps. That is his point (c).  In my mind, there were historical references to the 1950's which depicted the McCarthyites as conservative, religious, and fundamentalists who had many allies in the John Birch societies of the 1960's. Of course television evangelists as Jimmy Swaggert and Lubavitch rabbis and their followers provided their colorful dimensions. One can be sure that in the 1950's, Jewish communists such as Howard Fast and the liberals of the Reform Movement differed from the Orthodox rabbis of that time on social issues.  The rise of the J.D.L. (The Jewish Defense League) in the 1960's created an even wider gap between liberal secular Jews and the right wing militants of Rabbi Kahana.

 

Wuthnow analyzes the process which led to the division into two major camps by explaining how Herberg's "tripartite system" in which basic religious and religio-political divisions occurred between Protestants and Catholics and Catholics and Jews. In the chapter, "The Declining Significance of Denominations," Herberg's theory is explained as the fact that in the 1950's, when he articulated his view, religion gave people an identity more so than being simply an American.  He expounded on his "tripartite theory" by explaining that people identified themselves first as Protestants, Catholics, and Jews.  In the same article, however, there is doubt if not a conclusion raised that denominationalism actually declined since the 1950's.  In the same article, not surprisingly, the author stresses the fact that tensions between members of the Protestant denominations were muted in comparison with those separating Protestants and Catholics and Christians and Jews.

 

Later, after more evidence is brought to bear, and using the foundation of denominational bureaucracies as a support, the author reiterates that at least in the 1950's, there was suspicion of other faiths always in the background, and the various denominational loyalties were very strong on a national level.  This latter point does not counter Wuthnow's theory of a gradual change which by the 1960's created much more tolerance and cooperation between the denominations as long as they belonged to the same camp (liberal or conservative).  First came an erosion of "tripartite system;" and then in a second phase developed a different cleavage between liberals and conservatives, leading also (presumingly by the 1960's) to a new dynamic in the relationship between church and state or between religion and politics (Read this as civil religion) (Wuthnow 377). What, however, can be discussed in my United States History classes is related directly to the revolutionary changes of the 1960's. This is pointed out on the very next page.  He astutely claims that the erosion of the divisions between Protestants and Catholics, Jews and Catholics, Jews and Christians, and members of different denominations came about gradually; and it was legitimized from within by norms of love and humility, which promoted interfaith cooperation. He adds that it was reinforced from without by change in educational levels, memoirs of the Holocaust, and the Civil Rights Movement which created more tolerance.  Physically, there opened up the opportunities to create ethnically and religiously pluralistic communities and that certainly reinforced intermarriage (Wuthnow 378).

 

In the late 1940's, the Catholic threat to share some Protestant power was manifested in our town when Mellon Bank's Board of Directors suddenly found itself, for the first time, with a few Catholics on it.  At that time, Cardinal Wright was cultivating the Protestant majority, while enhancing overall ecumenicalism within the Pittsburgh public schools.  As far as I could understand, we had not any part in that "cooperation."  In my Labor Zionist youth group which was socialist-Zionist, there were still only a few dozen Jewish teenagers in Pittsburgh, only two or three who came to Squirrel Hill for meetings.  On the other hand, it was not unusual for my "uncommitted" friends in the East End and I who loved sports to play softball or basketball every day with our Christian classmates in our East End neighborhood.  However, we still attended the Orthodox or Conservative synagogues in our neighborhood while they attended their Protestant or Catholic churches and even the Catholic high schools.  It was clear to us then that the Reform Movement was closer to the Christian community, very assimilationist, and to a large extent even anti-Zionist.  Therefore, when one reads the article in the Jewish Forward of March 24, 2000 which quotes Rabbi Eric Yoffie, the president of the Reform Movement's Union of Hebrew Congregations, as saying that the Reform and Conservative movements need to spearhead a new agenda of "theological discussions with the Catholics on issues ranging from the Holocaust to family and society," one realizes that the vast majority of the Jewish people in the Diaspora are now even more than ready to discuss openly such ideas and issues that we and our parents' Orthodox generation never dared to openly discuss with peers and colleagues (In 2000, the Reform Movement has 900 congregations and 1.25 million members on its roll.).  We never discussed religion in our social circles.  We just attended our Hebrew schools and the religious services, as our parents did expect.  As the commandment required, we honored our parents and did not question our religious obligations.  At least that was the usual pattern in the 1950's.

 

In the period of the 1950's, the Jewish urban immigrant generation's power in political life was also growing.  In 1948, in Chicago, city councilman Avery took over the leadership of the Cook County Democratic Party and was a major factor in Truman's victory over Dewey in the national election.  He had already chosen Adlai Stevenson to run for governor.  Although his power in Illinois diminished after Ike won the 1952 election, another young man who grew up in Maxwell Street would soon be appointed a Supreme Court judge by a Catholic president in 1962.  His name was Arthur Goldberg.  In city hall that year, two precinct captains were asking," Who was his committeeman?

 

In my family's case, we would relate to the prophets and social justice, as would many young Jewish people who actively were engaged in the Civil Rights Movement by 1960.  Of course, there were Christians as well who were seekers" of social justice in the 1960's.  In fact, there were even some Christian radicals who in cities as mine vehemently struggled to force richer Protestant churches to give more of their wealth to social causes.  One such group in Pittsburgh was the Denominational Ministry Strategy.

 

In retrospect, we were children of the 1950's and then of the 1960's, as we went to universities and were in the forefront of liberal or radical movements of the day (Civil Rights and the Anti-Vietnam Movements in particular).  We had moved to the left in our modus operandi because as Jewish youth, we began to understand our people's value system which the prophets had passed down to us and which even in Orthodox synagogues, we had integrated.  Most of my "civil-religious education was in a Labor Zionist youth movement camp.  I would become a Reconstructionist Jew much later, but the ideology of Mordechai Kaplan even then matched my own upbringing in the late 1950's and 1960's.  In the spring of 2000, I read the following derash (interpretation) in the prayer book called Kol Hanishama (every soul): "One of the fundamental implications of the sovereignty of God is that religion must be socialized." (Peter Berger must have read Kaplan before he wrote the Sacred Canopy.)"  It must be translated into terms of social righteousness and not stop at the inward peace and serenity for the individual." (Kaplan in Kol Hanishama, Teutsch editor33) I had just read a month before the obituary of Morris Abram to whom in 1960, the Kennedys had turned in order to get Martin Luther King Jr. out of jail in Atlanta Georgia.  Abram went to see the mayor of Atlanta one night, and while the latter was in his slippers and robe finalized the agreement.

 

He went on to be the American representative to the United Nation's Human Rights Commission and the first chairman of Human Rights Watch. However, he is most famous for his struggle as the person who spearheaded the "one man one vote" campaign in Georgia which began in 1949 and was culminated in 1963 with the argument in the Supreme Court by Robert Kennedy, the Attorney General of the United States.  That famous case which we study in United States History classes was Sims versus the United States (Bailey 970).  Although we viewed the growth of political and economic power in the 1950's and 1960's both by a prosperous Jewish and Catholic middle class, Alan Dershowitz claims that Anti-Semitism still existed and is still rampant today, only under the guise of Anti-Zionism which stems back to the 1960's in the revered United Nations.  However, we were shocked if we were attacked in any overt manner in the 1950's.  It was supposed to be us against the Stalinists or as I saw it occasionally in Peabody High School, Italians and Jews versus any racial or other ethnic group that threatened us. Religion was neither the unifier nor the divider.  Even in my first years at the University of Pittsburgh, I thought I could trust the secular Young People Socialist League students whom I often discussed issues with, but never the Stalinists.  There was a spirit of neutrality or even tolerance, but that spirit was an outgrowth of the times, more civil in general, yet more separated as the liberal and conservative camps' lines were drawn.  In the 1950's Catholics, Jews, and Protestants clearly had two separate wings.  Just as Jews had joined with liberal Protestants, white or black, and with Catholics who were anti-Vietnam and involved in the struggle for black equality, so were all three religions more tolerant toward the spiritual manifestations of others' beliefs and attitudes.  This certainly relates to the concept of Civil Religion as well, especially after 1960.

 

The final major aspect of this narrative curriculum is the sense that there was an ecumenical spirit, which was just appearing on the horizon; and the spirit of a civil religion arose which made me and others feel very comfortable in the 1960's.  We were Jewish college students who were becoming involved with people of other cultural-religious backgrounds.  This was especially true for civil rights, and the anti-Vietnam protest activities, as well as such events as the lettuce boycotts for migrant workers.  For myself and many of my friends, the spirit that carried us forward drew its inspiration from Biblical sources.  Bellah in "Civil Religion in America," uses the Kennedy inaugural speech as a take off point to describe three aspects of civil religion.  The first point is that he did not refer to a major prophet as Moses, nor to Jesus Christ, nor to the Christian Church, nor certainly not to the Catholic Church.  He only uses the general concept of God.  Secondly, by using this general term of faith which is acceptable, it allows all Americans to be politically involved, and yet still understand the concept of the Separation of Church and State.  Finally, the religious sphere, as it exists in our psyche becomes a private affair. (Bellah 2)  The most significant point is one, which answers a good question which can be used in a classroom discussion.  The question is: "How is a president justified in using the word God at all?" The answer Bellah gives is: "The separation of church and state has not denied the political realm a religious dimension." (Bellah 3)

 

Bellah also points out that in his speech, Kennedy swears before the people and God to uphold the Constitution.  The will of the people has given him the opportunity to hold power, thus recognizing that sovereignty lies with the people, but in the end it is attributed to God.  This is Lockeian philosophy, even though the term "Civil Religion" was originally attributed to Rousseau. (Bellah 4-5)  In the end, Bellah ties the knot tightly by claiming, "But the religious dimension in political life as recognized by Kennedy not only provides a grounding for the rights of man which makes any form of political absolutism illegitimate, it also provides a transcendent goal for the political process." (Bellah 4)  Although Bellah goes on to describe from where the term "Civil Religion" originated, the major points have already been established, including the fact that Kennedy's inaugural address is "...only a more recent statement of a theme that lies very deep in the American tradition, namely the obligation, both collective and individual, to carry out God's will on earth” (Bellah 5).  Rousseau's major premises were that God existed, that there was a life after death, and that it represented the reward for virtue and punishment for vice; and lastly that religious intolerance was to be excluded.  All other religious opinions were outside the state's purview and were to be held freely by the citizens. According to Bellah, Franklin used a similar concept, although the term Civil Religion was not directly use (Bellah 5).

 

While teaching the curriculum unit, "The 1950's and the 1960's, The Cold War, at Allderdice High School to C.A.S.(Center for Advanced Studies) United States History classes, I should include within that unit a special sub-unit on Religions in America in the 1950's and 1960's, focusing on the relationship to the present religious make-up of my classes at Allderdice.  It will also be incumbent on me to discuss the issue of Separation of Church and State with my United States History classes, and since at least 40% of my students are Jewish, and the other 55% are Christian, with a very small percentage of Moslem, Hindus, Buddhist, and Quaker students making up the last 5%, I believe that this topic will be relevant in the curriculum.  In Finding Common Ground the issue is raised, and there is enough historical material in that article alone to develop good discussions and essay questions for classwork or an evaluation at the end of the unit.  For example, on page 1, Chapter 7, the position statement of National Council of Social Studies is stated as follows: "Omitting study about religions gives students the impression that religions have not been and are not now part of the human experience."  In the Jewish religion, the concept of humanity plays a vital role, and in Christianity, there are also many specific examples which are mentioned in American History even in the 19th Century (as the Populists and Progressives began to seek reforms) such as The Sermon on the Mount which should be mentioned.

 

More will be analyzed in this regard from Finding A Common Ground as the themes of the unit are developed in this curriculum.  For example, in the Wall Street Journal of March 27, 2000, there was an interesting op-ed article, "Supreme Court Tackles School Prayer at Football Games" by Douglas W. Kmiec of Pepperdine University Law School, describing most of the Supreme Court cases on the issue of the First Amendment's Separation of Church and State in public schools.  Reading this article will definitely be another activity which can help history students to understand the problem.  This issue for Jews was relevant during the time I was in middle school and high school.  It is easy for Jewish people who grew up then to recall listening to New Testament readings every school day in the 1950's.

 

In the first one-hundred years since the ratification of the First Amendment, there were only five cases in the Supreme Court dealing with the issue, but after the 1940's as cases arose in the individual states, many cases had to be handled by our highest court.  The film "The Supreme Court's Holy Battles" relates directly to the religious conflicts over the First Amendments' Separation of Church and State issues, which have arisen since the time of Jefferson.  In its Constitutional wording, there is not a mention of what is a religion, nor what is an establishment of one.  The film so poignantly explains that even to this day, there is not a clear-cut way to decide.  In Finding Common Ground, there are many points which relate directly to teaching a sub-unit on the 1950's and 1960's which could touch on sensitive religious feelings.  For example, on page 6 of Chapter 7, Haynes preempts a problem which would arise in a discussion in an eleventh grade United Sates History class discussing religion in modern times when he states that some people speak of all religions as the same underneath the differences.  For many religious people, he points out, such toleration distorts their faith and is anything else but neutral.  It matters very much to a Christian, Jew, or Muslim what one accepts as truth (Haynes 6).  As I have already experienced in my Philosophy class which is discussing the major religions of the world, all my students are very interested in learning about other religions, but also very much want their peers to learn everything they can about their own religion.

 

In the late 1960's, there were already some strong reactions of younger women toward their role within the church or synagogue; and in the late 1990's there have been strong reactions against the orthodox chaining of women (They are referred to as agunot) who have difficulty or find it almost impossible to receive a divorce.  There are a large number of books and articles being written about these topics; and there are other studies in regard to Christian women who seek liberalization within the churches to which they belong.  More recently a great deal has been written in regard to the changes within the Reform and Reconstructionist movements in general and the liberality, as witnessed by their acceptance of gay couples and even marriages by some Reform rabbis, but even more specifically in relationship to the rights of women in comparison to how the Jewish women of my mother's generation reacted to staying in their place, usually in the balcony or separated by a "mechitza" (a physical separation between men and women). Excellent articles such as one dated February 25, 2000,"Who's Afraid of Orthodox Feminism" would be a good introductory article for my C.A.S. United States History classes which would study changes since the 1950's in Judaism.  These would certainly stimulate discussion as well and could lead to debates on to what extent the basic sources of our religions should be adhered to today.  Minimally, a discussion of the comparison in this regard between the 1950's and 2000 would be an interesting discussion for students of either Christian or Jewish origin at Taylor Allderdice.

 

Since the McCain attack on George W. Bush's now controversial visit to Bob Jones University, there have also been many articles in the Jewish Forward in regard to the relationship of Catholics and Protestants i.e., the former in the recent past being able to engage with that Christian majority, while on the other hand, drawing the parallel between "Cultural Catholics" who, just as their counterparts the Jews, still retain a keen sense of anti-Catholic bigotry in America.  To understand this present issue, the developments of the 1950's and 1960's must be viewed by my students.  All of these discussions and analyses of both Christian and Jewish conservative attitudes and the Jewish relationship to the Christian Right (which had already begun on a moderately positive level in the 1970's) would enable my classes to better comprehend the religious atmosphere in America now as well as in the period of the Cold War. In the early 1990's, the Christian right had already begun to display Zionism during Israeli Independence Day celebrations.  This was especially true in the southwest.  If one is to understand that the modern Orthodox and the fundamentalist Christian movements of the 1990's have a very conservative outlook vis a vis separation of church and state and their attitudes toward Israel as the "Holy Land" which must stay in Jewish control, in its entirety, one must return to The Restructuring of American Religion by Wuthnow.  On page 77, for example, he claims that "Not surprisingly, the tensions between members of different Protestant denominations were muted in comparison with those separating Protestants and Catholics and Christians and Jews."  One can be sure that as there are today, there were already more differences between the Classical Reform synagogues and the Orthodox of the 1950's, just as Wuthnow states that within Protestantism the gaps had begun to widen.

 

Activities And Lessons Plans For The Sub-unit For C.A.S 11th

Grade Students of United States History

 

Since every teacher has his/her own style of teaching and this sub-unit has become part of my first Pittsburgh Teacher's Institute curriculum unit which was on the 1950's and 1960's in America, I will attempt to design and set up the lessons and the activities within them as an integral part of the main unit.  The main unit is very much a socio-political unit which will have been taught in approximately three weeks. The sub-unit on Religion in America will add approximately one week to that time period.

 

The activities will include a review of the 1950's structure using the theories of Wuthnow and Bellah.  The students will first receive a Study Guide immediately after the Cold War is discussed.  They will understand that there were important aspects of McCarthyism which focused our battle against "Godless Communism."  The Study Guide will include a number of Haynes' points from Finding A Common Ground.  As an anticipatory approach, we will analyze the quote from the National Council of Social Studies which declares the need to discuss openly the various religions in America.  We will of course discuss why it is important at our school, which has such a high population of both Christians and Jewish students to understand how the 1950's was a transitional period and harbinger of not only ecumenicalism, but also a split between liberals and conservatives which blended into the political fissures that were manifested in the1960's. Chapter 7 in Haynes' book is particularly important to use as a basis for a discussion of Separation of Church and State.  The Study Guide will also include readings from Wuthnow, especially pages 369-378.  The second part of the Study Guide will include quotes from Bellah and Kennedy's inaugural speeches from The Burden and the Glory edited by Allan Nevins, as well as the issues which arise from the film "The Supreme Court's Holy Battles." There will also be quotes from the philosophy of Locke and Rousseau which relate to the concept of Civil Religion.  Since we will have discussed and written essays on pre-Revolutionary philosophy, the students will be able to write short essays for their first assignment on the origin in America of Civil Religion.  This type of essay as well as other essays, which have more depth, such as those in the unit exam, will meet a myriad of Standards included in our Social Studies Department's Content and Communications List of Standards.  We will be focusing on numbers one, three, five, seven, eight, nine, and eleven under the heading of Citizenship and four and seven under Communications. (See Appendix I for the details)

 

It is incumbent upon the teacher to help the students define the term Civil Religion when discussing the election of Kennedy and the reactions to Prayer and Bible-Reading in public schools in the 1950's.  It is during that time, possibly the third or fourth day in which the sub-unit is being integrated into the curriculum that the film, "The Supreme Court's Holy Battles," could be shown.  This will lead us to learn about the cases of the 1960's such as Schempp versus Abington Township.  It will serve as a review for my students who will have understood that Jefferson was a strict constructionist of the Constitution, and know how he and Madison did strive for individual freedoms which included religion and speech; but it will also emphasize the film's features which depict the struggle to maintain the Separation of Church and State and the difficulties arising therein because of the First Amendment's ambiguities.  We will then continue to read and write essays on the changes in the 1960's, including both the civil rights movement goals and achievements from a political as well as a moral point of view. (We will of course analyze the Kennedy speech after the vicious attacks on Martin Luther King Jr. and his white Christian and Jewish supporters in Birmingham, young and old leaders, and many who also participated in voter registration drives in Mississippi.) In essay form, we will analyze the speeches of Kennedy in relationship to Bellah's and Wuthnow's theories, focusing on the actual events which were the fulfillment of the social and religious ecumenical movements of the 1960's. This particular type of essay could also well serve as one of our evaluative summaries of the sub-unit.

 

In my sub-unit, Religion in America in the 1950's and 1960's, we will also review the very difficult period of Anti-Semitism and racism of the 1920's and 1930's.  Of course, we will have studied the Holocaust previously as well as a review of its relationship to America's reaction to it or the lack thereof (In the unit of World War II, this subject usually arises.)  We will, in discussion, connect that period to the feelings of guilt and the processes of assimilation during the post World War II period.  This discussion may lead us into the issues of middle class prosperity during the 1950's, and it will definitely lend itself to a discussion of how that prosperity was shared across the three main divisions, Protestantism, Catholicism, and Judaism. This will lend itself to group reports on all three religions entry into the middle class or the upward mobility of the Protestants who began to share the wealth with Catholics and Jewish entrepreneurs.

 

We will study the New Age religions as well, and read articles which discuss those "babyboomers" who have dropped out of the major religions, seeking Eastern religions or the rising cults. We will be covering the 1970's-1990's in this way; but we will also have to determine to what extent there have been other types of searching, such as Orthodox Jewish women seeking more equality, and the Christian women who have sought a more equal role within Protestant churches.  These types of discussions and analyses also lend themselves to a panel discussion and my community lends itself well to the enhancement of such adult panels (The parents of my students will be glad and able to be involved in such discussions.)

 

In the decade of the 1990's, 85% of the adults interviewed identified as Christians, but from 1991-1996, the percentage of American adults who attend religious services has dropped from 49% to 36%. In a breakdown of 1993, 30% were totally secular in outlook, 29% barely or nominally religious, 22% modestly religious, and 19% regularly practice religion.  "Recently, the two groups which have received much attention are the Religious Right and the New Age Seekers.  Alongside a thriving conservative Christian community stands today a very different expression of religious vitality.  These new seekers, one third of the total population, are the baby boomers who came of age in the 1960's and 1970's and are now in their thirties, forties, and fifties." (Religion in Post World War II America Serve3) A survey which this article provides claims that 25% of that "Boomer Generation" have returned to the church, but 42% have dropped out for good. They define themselves as seekers." While eschewing institutional formality, they are willing to try Eastern religions.

 

There are many other important subtopics which will be gleaned; and I am sure there may have to be some narrowing (as in the term Milzrayim(Egypt), but also the narrow restrictive nature of slavery).  The topic of Civil Religion, however, as described above, can not be downplayed, since as it developed in the 1950's, this concept can play a major role in the overall teacher's political unit of thel950's and 1960's. Bellah, in "Civil Religion in America," writes,"While some have argued that Christianity is the national faith, and others that church and synagogue celebrate only the generalized religion of "the American Way of Life," few have realized that there already exists alongside of and rather differentiated from the churches an elaborate and well-institutionalized civil religion in America."

 

In many ways therefore, these topics and the time period on which the sub-unit will concentrate are appropriate for a person who wishes to acquire the proper perspective on the changes through which his/her people went through side by side with other major American religions and the socio-political process of the 1950's and 1960's.  In this way, a teacher can transmit the knowledge and understanding in a more professional and effective mode.

 

In summary, we will use the readings and discussions, as well as essay-writing and panel discussions to understand how religion in America in the 1950's and 1960's was an integral part of the major unit of those two decades.  These activities are well-suited for eleventh grade C.A.S. students at Allderdice; and depending on the grade level and academic skills of other teachers' classes this methodology can be used as well.  The make-up of my classes was a major consideration for my choosing the curriculum which I have presented; and I am sure other teachers will also find it useful to analyze first their classes' makeups before deciding which segments of the curriculum to use.

 

BIBLIOGRAPHY

 

Bellah, Robert N., "Civil Religion in America" in Daedalus, Vol. 96, no. 1, 1967.

 Berger, Peter L., The Sacred Canopy: Elements of a Sociological Theory of Religion, New York, Anchor Books, 1967.

 Ciccone, Richard, "Building Bloc", Chicago, Illinois, in The Chicago Tribune Magazine, Part 2, Section 17, April 16, 2000.

Dershowitz, Alan, The Vanishing American Jew, New York, Simon and Schuster, 1998. Haynes, Charles, Ed., Finding Common Ground, Nashville, Tennessee, First Amendment Center, 1998.

 Herberg, Will, Protestant, Jew, Catholic, Garden City New York, Anchor Books, 1960.

 Kaplan, Mordechai, A New Zionism, New York, The Herzl Press and The Reconstructionist Press, 1959.

 Wertheimer, Jack, A People Diyida New York, Basic Books, 1993.

 Wills, Gary, Under God, Religion And American Politics New York, Simon And Schuster, 1990.

 Wuthnow, Robert, The Restructuring of American Religion, Princeton, New Jersey, The University Press, 1988.

 

STUDENT RESOURCES

 

There will be resources for the students to read which will include sections of books such as Finding Common Ground and Protestant, Catholic, and Jew. There will also be at least two films to view: "The Religion of Man" which has segments on Christianity and Judaism, and the "Holy Battles of the Supreme Court" which has already been mentioned in the narrative and the activities portion of this curriculum.  Both the films and the books, as well as some articles, such as one on Feminism in the Orthodox Jewish community will be helpful in teaching this unit.

 

Each teacher will find other books listed in the Bibliography useful for his/her students depending on the interest and the teaching style of the teacher and the academic level of the students.