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Spiritual optimism and the belief in personal transformation became so widespread that they flowed beyond the walls of the church and into the business and secular communities. God took up residence on Wall Street, and many authors promoted the notion that faith in oneself was enough to bring both spiritual and material wealth. Here is an example of what one could call secular spirituality, written in 1901 by William Atkinson, editor of the popular magazine New Thought:

I believe that the mind of Man contains the greatest of all forces—that Thought is one of the greatest manifestations of energy … that not only is one's body subject to the control of the mind, but that, also, one may change environment, “luck,” circumstances, by positive thought taking the place of negative…. I believe that Man is rapidly growing into a new plane of consciousness, in which he will know himself as he is—will recognize the I AM—the Something Within. I believe that there is an Infinite Power in, and of, all things. I believe that, although today we have but the faintest idea of that Power, still we will steadily grow to comprehend it more fully—will get in closer touch with it. Even now we have momentary glimpses of its existence—a momentary consciousness of Oneness with the Absolute.8

Atkinson placed this spiritual power in the human brain, and his ideas ignited a flurry of books on the powers of positive thinking and power to manifest wealth. Others, like Ernest Holmes, used similar ideas to create the Church of Religious Science, founded in 1926. In this evolution of New Thought theology, God, oneself, and the universe are interconnected, creating new doorways to happiness and success.

Along with the Unitarians, Unity Churches, and Quakers, the Church of Religious Science developed philosophies of greater open-mindedness by proclaiming the inner divinity of the human being and extending kindness to every person regardless of their religious orientation or belief. In these churches, God, consciousness, morality, and science are melded into a universal human spirit that is simultaneously mystical and materialistically pragmatic. In many ways these modern churches reflect the same deist philosophy that had captured the imagination of the eighteenth-century leaders of the Enlightenment. God had fallen out of heaven and taken up residence in the mind.

OLD GODS NEVER DIE

In reaction to these new, liberal, and modernistic theologies, Milton and Lyman Steward produced a twelve-volume set of books in 1910 called The Fundamentals.9 Their basic tenets insisted on the inerrancy of the scriptures, the virgin birth and the deity of Jesus, the doctrine of atonement solely through faith and God's grace, the bodily resurrection of Jesus, the authenticity of Christ's miracles, and his imminent return. But the books went much further, specifically attacking Catholicism, socialism, New Thought philosophy, atheism, Christian Science, Mormonism, Spiritualism, and evolution. For many decades the movement was small, but after World War II, and with the rise of “televangelism,” fundamentalist churches burst forth on the American scene, waging war against what they saw as a rampant immorality throughout the world. The authoritarian God became a genuine political force, and it landed on the White House steps. But a question remains: How dangerous is the belief in an authoritarian God?

WHAT DOES

GOD READ?

The Baylor study found that the more people attend church, the less likely they are to read The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown. Those affiliated with non-Judeo-Christian religions were three times more likely to read the book than Evangelicals.

THE WAR BETWEEN THE AMERICAN GODS

Of all the hate crimes conducted in America, victims of religion are ranked as second, although well below those related to race. According to the FBI, 68 percent of the religious hate crimes were against Jews and 13 percent were against Muslims.10 So the question naturally arises: How tolerant are we as a nation? It is difficult to tell. On the average, there