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Bringing Back God: Goldenberg and the Vestigial State in American Religion
Version 1
: Received: 17 July 2024 / Approved: 18 July 2024 / Online: 18 July 2024 (17:30:55 CEST)
How to cite: Cloyd, C. B. Bringing Back God: Goldenberg and the Vestigial State in American Religion. Preprints 2024, 2024071533. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202407.1533.v1 Cloyd, C. B. Bringing Back God: Goldenberg and the Vestigial State in American Religion. Preprints 2024, 2024071533. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202407.1533.v1
Abstract
Naomi Goldenberg’s model of religion as a “vestigial state” is an excellent interrogation of how religion interacts with the state. To Goldenberg, religions traditionally functioned in the same manner as nation-states before being conquered and delineated as semi-autonomous institutions under the larger secular apparatus. However, I argue in this paper that Goldenberg’s “vestigial state” fails to account for the dynamism that religions have in their relationships to the state. I propose seeing religions as “alternative authorities,” which can be subordinate, cooperative, or hostile to the secular state. These perspectives as an alternative authority are seen best in the evolution of American fundamentalism and Christian nationalism, whose adherents have historically distinguished themselves from the state while simultaneously engaging in the effort to reshape it. In looking at how these movements develop, we understand that religions are constantly evolving in how to achieve and maintain power.
Keywords
Christian Nationalism; Fundamentalism; Secularism; American Christianity; Vestigial State
Subject
Arts and Humanities, Religious Studies
Copyright: This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
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