America may be on edge of religious revival

Yale University computer scientist David Gelernter was routinely opening his mail one day in 1993 when a mail bomb exploded in his face, inflicting permanent bodily damage. Gelernter had just become the latest victim of the violent technophobe Theodore Kaczynski, also known as the "Unabomber." Some readers will remember Gelernter from his Organick Memorial Lecture given in 2002 at the University of Utah.

Gelernter is described by his peers as "a leading figure in the third generation of artificial intelligence." One colleague notes, "There are lots of clever computer scientists; David Gelernter is one of the few who is wise."

And yet there is another dimension to him, perhaps triggered by his near-death experience with the Unabomber. Gelernter writes extensively on public policy issues that range far from his home turf. He has written for a number of national magazines and newspapers. He has also authored a number of books on technology and history.

Though I have read much of his non-technical writing and understand him to be a conservative commentator, I was utterly unprepared for his remarkable and astonishing new book, "Americanism, the Fourth Great Western Religion." Published just in time for the Fourth of July, Gelernter sets out in "Americanism" to define the American religion and describe its peculiar "American creed."

The notion of an American civil religion has been around for some time. "They (British America's early settlers) brought with them into the New World a form of Christianity which I cannot better describe than (as) a democratic and republican religion," wrote Tocqueville in the mid-1830s. The actual term American "civil religion" was coined by Robert Bellah in the mid-1960s. This religion recognized the general biblical concept of God rather than any specific denominational understanding of God. An important tenet of the American civil religion is that America is particularly blessed and guided by God.

Most who agree with the idea of an American civil religion see it as largely secular, however adorned with religious trappings. The largest point of Gelernter's book is that "Americanism is no civic religion; it's a biblical religion." He believes that this notion of America as a biblical republic is "perfectly consistent with absolute religious freedom." While the American religion is "an extension or expression of Judaism or Christianity, it is also separate from those faiths. You don't have to believe in the Bible or Judaism or Christianity to believe in America or the American religion." Gelernter notes that you can hum and enjoy a melody from a Bach oratorio without converting to Christianity "but there is no denying that Christianity inspired the melody."