This is part 6 in the Cheap Religion series. Last week, I described the economic term Monopsony. This week, we will apply Religious Monopsony to Christianity in America since World War 2.
You can catch up here part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, and part 5.
Table of Contents
Cheap Grace
The goal of this week is to discuss the why behind The Conservative Resurgence (part 4).
Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s “Discipleship” is perhaps the closest we get to explaining or understanding Christianity’s complicity horrors. In that book, Bonhoeffer describes Cheap Grace. He writes compassionately about how the world works but with conviction toward what Christ calls Christians. It is not a Cheap Grace where everything will be fine, and the cost of Christianity is nothing. Instead, a Costly Grace costs Christians everything to bear the cross of the world just as Christ did. Christians who exempt themselves from carrying the cross can barely be called Christians at all for Bonhoeffer. Worse are the “Christians” who build crosses and force others to bear them as the Nazis did.
The idea of Cheap Grace has left an indelible imprint on how Christian scholarship functions in the world. The fact that “cheap” is an economic term has helped me understand how we might arrive at such a situation using economic terminology. It is also helpful that economic terminology permeates American society. So, while I am no Dietrich Bonhoeffer, I will coast off his idea to apply Cheap Religion using Monopsony.
Creating the Religious Monopsony.
First, let’s remember what happened after World War 2. There was a push by Truman and then Eisenhower to make America religious in response to the burgeoning Cold War. This pushed Americans into any religion; however, there was only one religion capable of handling or “purchasing” that many converts: Christianity. Judaism has too long a process to join and is too small to handle millions of Americans converting. Islam was not ideal either because it was not spread across the United States enough. Also, Islam has a strong tendency to convert people away from Nation-State patriotism to see Islam as the primary identity.
So, Christianity is the largest and most capable buyer of American religion in the 1950s, making it a Monopsony. The United States, having learned European History, was all too happy to sell Americans to Christianity, especially at the lowest price. The lower the price, the more the American convert could be first baptized into American Patriotism instead of Christian values such as dying for the other. Instead, passages like “No greater love has this than a man who dies for his friend” could be highlighted. A friend was meant to be a white male person.
For its part, Christianity decided to be baptized into the “American way” to win converts. Of course, no servant can serve two masters, so which will it be, Jesus or America? The answer, the government has made sure for the majority of Christians, is to serve America.
So, let’s see how that plays out.
Rejuvenating the Religious Monopsony
As the money flowed into Christian education, the educators took a stand against America. They did so by siding with the Civil Rights Movement and advancing liberation theology. The move away from American patriotism (re: White Supremacy) sparked the Conservative Resurgence in the Southern Baptist Convention. They wanted a return to a “Christian” America that never existed.
Ronald Reagan, with his Reagonomics, was a master of Monopsony. In terms of economics, he broke the Soviets. In terms of religion, he used the latent patriotic Christianity to fuel his rise to the presidency over the more “traditional” Christian candidate, Jimmy Carter. I think Jimmy Carter is still building houses for poor people despite being over 100.
What helped Reagan was his appeal to the Conservative Resurgence. He promised them access to the White House and Congress to create a “Christian voting bloc.” He succeeded by promising Christians to reverse changes made in the 1960s and 1970s that had opened up opportunities for minorities. Over-policing of Black neighborhoods and red-lining white neighborhoods were the beginning of Reagan’s war on drugs. A war that has ultimately focused on suppressing Black and Latino economies in favor of white neighborhoods.
As a master of Monopsony, Reagan pushed down Asians, Blacks, and Latinos to lift and fuel white patriotism. We can see how the intentional devaluing of minorities led to a rise in the GDP of White people. Today, this continues by underfunding inner city schools and continuing to allow specific markets (cigarettes) to advertise outside of predominantly minority schools and not outside of predominantly white schools.
Next Week
The Reagan administration married Christianity to the Republican party. It did so through deft use of the Monopsony. This carries us to today. Many Christians cannot vote for a Democrat, though they cannot explain why. In the 1980s, Ronald Reagan and the Evangelical Conservative Resurgent Southern Baptist Convention leaders married each other to create a voting bloc and ensure the Conservative Resurgence’s agenda would eventually be accomplished in Washington, D.C.
As a friend and respected member of my church once told me when I challenged him on his vote. He said, “I just can’t vote for a Democrat.”
I replied, “Why? From what you told me, this candidate better represents your secular values and Christian ethics.”
He responded, “I agree with that assessment, but I just can’t vote Democrat and don’t know why.”
He can’t vote for someone who better represents his Christian ethic because his Christianity was purchased decades ago for pennies on the dollar. He can’t escape the monopsony.
I am not angry at him; I am sad for him. My anger is directed at those who sold Jesus for a seat at the table in Washington, D.C. I am sorry that many Christians have made the same mistake throughout history. Christian history brings us to the black holes created by Christian monopsony in America. Tune in next week.
Let me know what you think. Share this on social media. Monopsony is not a grand theory of the universe, but it helps us uncover the mechanism behind Christianity’s failures in America in the 20th and 21st centuries from a different angle.
