Review of Herbert Schlossberg's Book, Idols for Destruction: The Conflict of Christian Faith and American Culture

Wealth gives not as fortunate people the allusion that the wealthy are happy because they are able to do whatever they want to. It imprisons a person because people do have that mindset and don’t always think that they can use their money for good.

In the “Gospel of wealth”, Andrew Carnegie argues that it is the duty of the wealthy entrepreneur who has amassed a great fortune during their lifetime, to give back to those less fortunate. Greed and selfishness may force some readers to see these arguments as preposterous; however, greed is a key ingredient in successful competition. It forces competitors to perform at a higher level than their peers in hopes of obtaining more money and individual wealth. A capitalist society that allows this wealth to accumulate in the hands of the few might be beneficial to the human race because it could promote competition between companies; it might ensure health care for everyone no matter their social standing, and parks and recreation could

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” Thomas Jefferson wrote those words to express the emotions of a nation that desired freedom, and to shake the foundation of the British Empire. However, this simple, but eloquent phrase has sparked one of the greatest debates in American history. Is America a Christian nation? One question has divided the nation and its politicians since the founding and forming of America. This fiery debate has sparked more controversy than any other debate in modern politics.

IVP Books, publisher of Andy Crouch’s Culture Making: Recovering our Creative Calling, calls the literature a “rallying cry for a new generation of culturally creative Christians.” Named one of the best religion books of 2008 by Publisher’s Weekly, Crouch begins his preface stating that he “wrote Culture Making on a hunch that the language of “engaging the culture,” let alone the “culture wars,” fell far short of what we were really meant to do and be as Christians in the world. I also sensed that most churches were neglecting the centrality of culture to the biblical story and the gospel itself,” (p. 5). While the book is intended for a Christian audience, Crouch

He discusses all that is wrong with the wealthy individuals and how they are spoiled. He makes his argument by revealing how wealth is disposed of, “There are but three modes in which surplus wealth can be disposed of. It can all be left to the families of the descendants; or it can be bequeathed for public purposes; or, finally, it can be administrated during their lives by its possessors” (3). The author is Andrew Carnegie and intended audience is the general public but more specifically are those of wealth and make them conscious of how surplus wealth is disposed of. This is a primary source and reveals that even though this was how the world was a decade ago, it is quite similar and not much has

Supposedly, both the individuals with ascribed statuses with hereditary wealth and the poor and homeless have equal chances to become successful although, Orestes Bronwnson in The Laboring Classes, pointed out that this is not true. “Do the young man inheriting ten thousand pounds and the one whose inheritance is merely the gutter, start even?” (219). As a result, the harsh separation of the rich and the poor, where capitalism thrives and,” the division of the community into two classes, one which owns the funds…the other provides the labor” (216). The inhumane apprehension of a capitalist society that keeps its workers “in a permanent system, [has] given preference to the slave system” (214) says a lot about the evils of capitalism corresponding with the false American Dream. An outcome of capitalism is the frustrating rivalry between the poor. “There’s more people! That’s what’s ruining the country. The competition is maddening”

Many people believe the United States is becoming a "Godless" culture. The argument is that we are losing our moral values, because religion is not an important part of our life anymore. This is the view of most Fundamentalist Christians and right wing believers. I vehemently disagree with this argument. I say this because there are many ways to practice religion. We have many ethnic populations in our country with many different religions. Because of this, there are many beliefs that differ from the Christian based or religions of only one god. Therefore, our country is not becoming Godless, there are many ways to practice one's faith.

The religion of Christianity is a practice that has been apart of the American nation since it’s early founding, but what is the United States relationship to Christianity? In this class we have discussed three very different versions of the “Christian Nation” dialogue in the books that we have read throughout the semester. These books include John Fea’s Was America Founded as a Christian Nation?, Matthew Sutton’s American Apocalypse: A History of Evangelicalism, and Kevin Kruse’s One Nation Under God: How Corporate America Invented Christian America. Each book gives a different interpretation of the relationship between the United States and the religion Christianity, and how this relationship shaped the United States to the country that it

They come to realize that a system of welfare that makes no moral judgments in allocating economic rewards promotes antisocial egotism. The spiritual impoverishment of the population seems to them worse than anything they have ever known in their own countries. And what they see is all the worse, of course, because it should be so much better. The wealth that enables everyone effortlessly to have enough food should be liberating, not imprisoning. Instead, it has created a large caste of people for whom life is, in effect, a limbo in which they have nothing to hope for and nothing to fear, nothing to gain and nothing to lose. It is a life emptied of meaning (Dalrymple, 6).

Andrew Carnegie's story, The Gospel of Wealth, captures the hardships and truth of being a wealthy man, especially if it is self-made wealth. Carnegie mentions how the wealth that these men have should be redistributed responsibility. By the redistribution of wealth, this would close the inequalities of the haves and the have-nots, but could also employ working-class men. The argument is in favor of being responsible with money and recirculating it into the United States economy as opposed to, spending money on excess and unnecessary items as well as, not just passing money to heirs. The surplus of wealth is best used when recirculated into the United States economy. This is portraying the

In his second essay, titled “Rethinking Power” describes this “Constantinian error” and the different ways that Christians try to create change in culture. He focuses on three major Christian culture-changing movements of our day: the Christian right, the Christian left, and the Neo-Anabaptists. All of these movements lack an

The article discusses what Americans value the most and the least through statistical evidence. Hughes claims that Americans value their family first with 41% and moral values at 31%. Religious values however come in third at 17%. Unlike the late 1990s and early 2000s the number of people who think religion is important has dropped 10% (Hughes). The statistics from 2012 show that America has valued religion and God less over the years. This evidence didn’t really surprise me because of how secular America has gotten with all fifty states recognizing marriage between the same sex is conditional and the huge women's right movement that happened recently. With the discovery of the decline of religion I wondered what changed and why Americans no longer value religion as much as they

Throughout the history of human civilization, people have been creating, critiquing and altering institutions. For instance, people have been condemning religion for centuries, indeed millennia. Yet the institution of religion still remains a dominant force in modern society. Without question, religious institutions and practices have morphed, dare I say, evolved, over the centuries. But the fundamental concept that human beings exist within an abstract framework of Gods, mythologies, symbols, and so forth, still remains.

Was America founded as a Christian nation? This is a controversial topic for all Americans. There are a lot of sayings and supports for both sides of understanding. However, as for myself, I do not believe the United States has a Christian foundation. The reasons why I am not on the side of support are the words of former Presidents and Founding Fathers, requirements in US policies, and deductive reasoning from the past.

Putnam and Campbell’s “America Grace: How Religion Divides and Unites Us” does a better job of foreshadowing the future religious landscape in the United States. The two authors use the concept of ‘shocks, aftershocks, and earthquakes’ in order to convey religious turbulence in the United States. The earthquake of the 1960s was the most significant indication of change in which there was a steep decline in religious observance (Putnam and Campbell, 97). The 1960s was a transitional time for the United States as the Civil Rights Movement, immigration reform, and the sexual revolution dominated American culture. These events displaced religion from the lives of Americans and thus became a clarion call for the transition away