The Cold War pitted the USA against the USSR in all manner of ways – and a key part of that was a religious, Christian America against an atheist Soviet Union. Here, Victor Gamma returns and looks at the Cold War as a religious ideological struggle.
The 1931 demolition of the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour in Moscow.
On September 19, 1965 an episode of the popular science fiction show Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea" called "Jonah and the Whale" was broadcast. In it a Russian scientist teamed up with the Seaview to repair a damaged deep sea station. In the process, the American Admiral Nelson and the Russian end up swallowed by a giant whale while attempting to reach the station. While awaiting rescue, their unusual circumstances led to a discussion of the Biblical account of Jonah and the Whale. The Russian scoffs at the story, dismissing it as “myth.” The American, by contrast, defends the account as reliable. Additionally, throughout the episode a running conflict takes place between the Americans and Russian over the value of life. The Russian Dr Markova persistently places the mission objectives above the safety of crew members and displays a callous disregard for human life. The Americans display the opposite.
This episode was typical of American perceptions of the nature of our Cold War enemy: Soviet Russia. American pop culture often delivered pointed reminders to the American people that we were dealing with an enemy that was cold-hearted, ruthless and above all, godless. In fact, Russian or Slavic villains became staple in cinema and TV as soon as the Cold War “heated up” beginning in the late 1940s. The godless communist narrative became pervasive in the years that followed. The Jonah episode also reflected long-standing American values and self-perception as champions of goodness and virtue, a fundamental aspect of which is respect for traditional religion.
Traditional religion
The conflict between communist statism and Western values of freedom was often seen as reflecting the spiritual and moral truths grounded in traditional religion.
Individual and economic freedom was seen to be based on religious ethics - God -given rights that no government could take away. Communist hostility and threats toward this freedom and religion was a continuous theme in the very anticommunist media of the day.
Popular culture joined in the fight long before the Jonah episode. This was largely the result of an organization keenly feeling the threat of “godless communism; the Catholic Catechetical Guild Educational Society. In 1947 they published a 50-page political pamphlet/comic book warning of the threat faced by all Americans: the ruthless scheming of our own home-grown American Communist Party. The comic book title warned: Is This Tomorrow? The book described a hypothetical future communist coup d’état in America. Its lurid descriptions and imagery was designed to shock the reader into alarm over how the communists would take power aided by an ill-informed American public. Assisting the communists were a number of gullible “useful idiots” including well-meaning but misguided American officials. One is a Bible-burning politician. The Catholic Educational Society made the point that those who burn or oppose the Bible and Christianity are terrible people, that the communists target not just a political or economic ideology but are the enemy of everything decent and good. In the comic, clergy of all variety suffer severe persecution. At the back of the book readers could find the “Ten Commandments of Citizenship.” One of these was “Follow your own religion.” Religion is encouraged as an important aspect of citizenship. A best-seller, about 4 million copies were printed and distributed to churches throughout the country. Is this Tomorrow? was not the only attempt to clarify the spiritual struggle. Treasure Chest, a comic book distributed to private, religious schools, contained a regular feature entitled "This Godless Communism."
Deeply embedded values
Although featuring a hysterical tone, these publications reflected values deeply embedded in American culture. Our religious ideology was not forced on our people. The phrase "under God" was not added to the pledge of Allegiance until 1954, but this does not mean that public education was void of any religious sentiment prior to that time.
Long tradition promoted decorating the walls of many elementary classrooms with some kind of acknowledgement or faith in God. One such example was a class chalkboard accidentally uncovered by construction crews at an Oklahoma High School in 2015. The crew discovered a chalkboard full of lessons, perfectly preserved, as they were written in 1917. One section of the chalkboard is dedicated to an encouragement to patriotism which reads "I give my head, my heart, and my life to my God and our nation indivisible with Justice for all." A generation later this tradition continued. In a 2nd grade classroom in New Jersey in 1949, the following display was featured next to the classroom entrance; a prominent place where all could see;
A Child’s Grace
Thank you for the world so sweet
Thank you for the food we eat
Thank you for the birds that sing
Thank you God for everything
Additionally, in classrooms across the nation could be heard the refrains of America’s national songs, laced with references to God and Scripture; America, America, God shed His grace on Thee, for instance. Building on this tradition and faced with a mortal challenge from atheistic Marxism, 1950s America underwent a significant spiritual revival in which values were frequently reflected In popular film as well.
For example, in 1951 the film My Son John hit theaters across America sending Cold War shivers down the spines of theater goers. The antagonist, John, comes home after living abroad for a while. His parents & others in the community soon notice his strange behavior. Among other “un-American” behaviors are his strange refusal to attend church with the family. Eventually, it comes out that while abroad he converted to communism.
At roughly the same time the popular television show "Life is worth Living" featured the eloquent Bishop Fulton Sheen. His Excellency dedicated episodes of the TV program to the topic of communism. To an audience of millions the charismatic Bishop articulated a devastating critique of Marxist ideology. He concluded with a thundering denunciation of it as a soulless and deadly threat to civilization.
Leaders
America’s political leaders were also not shy about invoking their nation's spiritual superiority. Congressman Charles J. Kersten believed it was “immoral and unchristian to negotiate a permanent agreement with forces (communism) which by every religious creed and moral precept are evil.”
Kersten was by no means the only public official emphasizing the spiritual and moral aspect of the conflict. In a speech that marked the beginning of “McCarthyism” delivered on February 9, 1950, Wisconsin Senator Joseph McCarthy voiced the shocking claim that recent communist gains, such as the “loss” of China to the Reds, could be explained by traitors within the State Department. McCarthy made sure to explain WHY this was such a problem. The nature of communism, he declared, is “not the usual war between nations for land areas or other material gains but a war between two diametrically opposed ideologies. The great difference between our Western Christian world and the atheistic Communist world is not political, it is moral.”
This championing of Christian values in the face of the world-wide enemy of religion went all the up to the White House. On July 30, 1954 President Eisenhower addressed the nation on the subject of religion; "... we are reaffirming the transcendence of religious faith in America’s heritage and future; in this way we shall constantly strengthen those spiritual weapons which forever will be our country’s most powerful resource in peace and war.”
The occasion was the passing of Public Law 84-140, concerning “inscriptions on currency and coins.” The law declared that “all United States currency shall bear the inscription "In God We Trust." Soon everyday business transactions would remind millions of Americans of the important place of religion in America.
What would move the President to deliver an address on such a mundane topic as coin inscriptions - Dwight Eisenhower was not particularly known for his religiosity. In his own words he had "gotten a long way" from his religious upbringing. But that was soon to change. Even earlier, in 1953, he had reached out to a young, up-and -coming evangelist named Billy Graham. He had met the revivalist on a number of occasions. The two formed a bond that would last to the end of Eisenhower's life.
Besides Graham, other eloquent preachers influenced the President. On February 2, 1954 Eisenhower attended a service at New York Avenue Presbyterian Church in Washington DC. The sermon by Reverend George Doherty would prove to be very influential on the President. Doherty declared; "To omit the words ‘under God’ in the Pledge of Allegiance is to omit the definitive factor in the American way of life,” He further argued that “an atheistic American is a contradiction in terms,” … “you deny the Christian ethic, you fall short of the American ideal of life.”
In 1952 the Knights of Columbus began petitioning the government that there should be some reference to God in the Pledge recited in classrooms across the country. Specifically, they wanted the words “under God” added. They found a sympathetic ear in Louis Rabaut, Democratic Representative from Michigan. Rabaut was a fervent Catholic with nine children. The Knights movement caught his attention. He introduced a bill on the floor of congress stating that the reference to God was needed to "as a public proclamation of our religious traditions" and a "Bulwark against communism." Rabaut also declared what a majority of Americans believed when he said “Love of country is a devotion to an institution that finds its origin and development in the moral law …Our country was born under God and only under God will it live as a citadel of freedom.” “To omit the words ‘under God’ in the Pledge of Allegiance is to omit the definitive factor in the American way of life.”
Eisenhower’s backing
When Eisenhower's own pastor championed the cause, Ike threw in his support as well.
He believed he had a good reason. He had seen first-hand the horrors of totalitarianism as he went into the liberated Nazi death camps in 1945. The Cold War, then raging fiercely, challenged the leader of the free world not only militarily and economically but morally and spiritually as well and Eisenhower was determined to bolster American ability to withstand it.
Besides money, On April 8, 1954 postage stamps appeared for the first time with the words "In God we trust." In the biggest ceremony of its kind in the history of the United States Post Office Department, attended by the highest officials in the country, including President Eisenhower, the stamp was inaugurated with the words. "It will set the stage . . . for the introduction of the nation’s first regular stamp bearing a religious significance.”
In the following year, 1955, American elementary school children recited the Pledge of Allegiance with the new words “Under God" added to the pledge. During the Cold War many organizations eagerly joined in the crusade of defending religion against the forces of communism. John Swift Knights of Columbus began to petition the government to add the words “under God” to the Pledge of Allegiance.
On Flag Day of the same year, President Dwight Eisenhower signed the bill that added the phrase to the pledge schoolchildren recited every morning. The original pledge, written in 1892, had contained no reference to religion. To emphasize the point still further, in 1956 the official motto of the United States became "In God We Trust."
In 1958 Christianity Today Magazine reported on the low reputation of communists; “The word “communism” suggests all manner of evil. You need but whisper, “He is a Communist,” and, if your neighbor believes you, the alleged Communist could next be charged with almost any crime whatever and your neighbor would not be surprised. The Communist has the role of international villain once held by the Fascist, except that the Communist enjoys an even worse reputation. He would rob his own brother blind; he would betray his own parents to the police; he would delight in desecrating churches, for he is an atheist.”
How close was this media narrative to reality? The portrayal of Russians as cold-hearted, inhumane and anti-religious were not simply empty platitudes of pop culture. Just before the Jonah episode, the Soviet Union, although not officially atheist, had conducted the “anti-religious campaign” (1958-1964). Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev was very hostile towards religion. During his leadership the number of churches declined from 22,000 to 7,873. In his speech at the plenum of the Central Committee of the CPSU, Khrushchev made sure anti-religious propaganda was promoted. June, 1963.
By contrast, at this same time in the Soviet Union and Red China religion suffered from often harsh persecution. Sometimes the anti-religious propaganda and measures rose to the level of the anti-Jewish policies of Nazi Germany. The Soviet National anthem ignores religion and attributes the existence of the nation to “the people's mighty hand.” Events known as “youth anti-religious evenings” were held which included dramatizations and songs characterized as “humorous, show how priests, fortune-tellers and other rogues deceive believers with imperishable relics, holy tales and other rubbish.”
Such policies made it clear to Americans that it was necessary to face down this darkness with even more powerful forces of moral and spiritual strength. In the 1950s and even into the 1960s the American nation was in a mood to embrace and safeguard its historic spiritual heritage, including government action promoting religion - such as on postage stamps, unfettered by constitutional qualms.
In context
This battle continued up to the end of the Cold War. Ultimately, the Soviet colossus collapsed. The Democratic, free market system was proclaimed the Victor. The Soviet Empire has been replaced by a fragmented shadow of its former self. This does not mean, though, that Russia no longer has dangerous ambitions and only time will tell what role religion will play in any future confrontation.
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References
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/belief/2009/nov/10/religion-christianity
How 'One Nation' Didn't Become 'Under God' Until The '50s Religious Revival |
How Dwight Eisenhower Found God in the White House | HISTORY
