Steven Waldman / John Adams: God Damn America

[Demeter]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/steven-waldman/john-adams-god-damn-amer_b_92659.html




As I alternate between reruns of Jeremiah Wrights "God Damn America" tirade and first-runs of the HBO's John Adams series, I see a surprising connection. Like many of the Revolutionary era, Adams believed that if we weren't careful, God would damn us or at least withdraw his support.

At some points during the war, Adams feared that the cause would fail because he saw too much greed and commercialism in the colonies. "I have seen all my life such selfishness and littleness even in New England, that I sometimes tremble to think that, although we are engaged in the best cause that ever employed the human heart, yet the prospect of success is doubtful not for want of power or wisdom but of virtue." During the revolution, Adams -- evoking the manner of his Puritan ancestors -- told his friend Benjamin Rush that the colonials would only have a chance of winning, "if we fear God and repent our sins." He even speculated that God might intend for America to be defeated so that its "vicious and luxurious and effeminate appetites, passion and habits" would be cleansed, laying the foundation for a more-deserved victory in the future.

Adams wasn't alone in seeing the events on the ground as a reflection -- positive and negative -- of God's assessment. One minister ascribed the Continental Army's difficulties to the presence of slavery. Noting the brutal winter, the poor crops, the loss of cattle, and the seemingly imminent collapse of the army, a Quaker farmer speculated that it was part of a divinely-ordained set of plagues. When on July 20, 1775 the Continental Congress called for a day of prayer, it was accompanied by a call for fasting, self-reflection and a unified effort to "unfeignedly confess and deplore our many sins."

I don't mean this as a defense of Jeremiah Wright (or John Adams). It's just a reminder that there's a long tradition among preachers and politicians of asserting that if God is to bless us when we're good, He may damn us when we're bad.

[durrrty libby]

1. Yea baby...Woot Woot

[roseBudd]

2. As a skeptical secularist I don't ascribe to those beliefs but do acknowledge their currency

[Igel]

3. What does the phrase "God damn X" mean?

I see two meanings in it.

The first is lexicalized: "God damn ____" is just a formula for saying that "I really hate _____" or "I want _______ to stop being so bad or painful."

The second is not: "God damn X" is a jussive, a call or request for God to damn or curse _____. It's archaic for "May God damn ___" and is an exhortation, sort of a 3rd-person command.

In a sermon I expect the second to be used. Note that exhorting God to damn America is a different kind of proposition from warning that God will damn us. It's the difference between saying, "Continue to lie and you'll go to hell" and "You liar, go to hell."