American Believers

**Brian Lehrer** (0:10)
It's The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning again, everyone. Here's a take on the United States at 250 years old. It's a book with more than 100 excerpts of different things, so explain the context in a sec, from the nation's history.
About what? About the history of religion in the country, from indigenous religions that the European settlers learned about when they got here, through the Puritans, Abraham Lincoln, atheists, feminist spiritualists, both Stephen Colbert and Donald Trump, believe it or not, the adoption of the motto in God We Trust, which only came in the 1950s, and many others, including Malcolm X in the 1960s.

**Malcolm X** (0:55)
I'm a Muslim. I believe in the religion of Islam, which believes in brotherhood, complete brotherhood of all people. But at the same time that I believe in this brotherhood, I still don't believe in forcing my desire for brotherhood upon those who aren't willing to accept it. I think the Christians would say that they also believe in brotherhood. What would you say to that? I'd say they believe in it, but don't practice it. That would be a pretty good answer.

**Brian Lehrer** (1:18)
Malcolm X on the CBC back then. Our next guest is Ilan Stavans, Professor of Humanities and Latin American and Latino Culture at Amherst College and publisher of the imprint Restless Books, his own new book, published by that imprint, is called A Nation Wrestles with God, American Prophets, Philosophers, and Firebrands. Hi, Professor Stavans. Welcome back to WNYC.

**Ilan Stavans** (1:44)
It's such a joy to be with you again.

**Brian Lehrer** (1:47)
Do you have a thesis in this book? We're going to go through some excerpts. I know you brought some things to read. I have a couple of clips.
But is this just like a beautiful mosaic of people from before the United States was a country, right up through Donald Trump, expounding on religion? Or do you have a through line here?

**Ilan Stavans** (2:08)
I think the main purpose of this is first as an immigrant myself, born Jew in Mexico, who came to the United States in the 80s, in the mid 80s. It is a love letter and thank you notes to this country that is so complex, and particularly through the prism of religion and through the vision of God. And maybe if there is a message or an argument, is that a country of 335 million people, a country with around 375 different faith groups in the United States, how is it that we all stick together? What do we say when we talk about religion? Do we all have a single god? Or are there many gods, as many as believers and faith groups and religious institutions? And is it only us individually and nationally that are constantly wrestling and bargaining and fighting and embracing God? Or might it also be said that God looks for us in different ways and God is also being changed in the process of America changing in 250 years or many more before the actual independence?

**Brian Lehrer** (3:27)
God changing. So that kind of accepts a premise that man created God rather than God created man.

**Ilan Stavans** (3:34)
Yeah, I think it's a dialectic between the two. Certainly, God is a projection of our fears to the unknown, our need for higher powers, maybe a desire to have some kind of authoritative entity or figure that narrates the story and with whom we feel comfort. But it is also that in this vast and very chaotic universe, the higher powers might be also looking for followers.
I believe in that connection between the two that is constantly being transformed.

**Brian Lehrer** (4:13)
All right, so let's do some sampling from the items in the book and from history. Many people might think of Christianity as America's first religion, but as we know, there were many indigenous people who called this land their home. Before the settlers from Europe did, the battle for land included a battle for culture. You include, I guess we could call it a sobering 1854 speech by Chief Seattle, who said, your God is not our God, your God loves your people and hates mine. And so Ilan, that's tough stuff, and a competition of the gods, and Chief Seattle's telling. What was the context for that?
Yeah.

**Ilan Stavans** (4:54)
First, let me, let me contextualize this. This competition for God, for the attention of God, runs through our culture from the very beginning, and it's likely to go on till the end. Different groups use God to showcase supremacy or to denigrate other groups.
Upon arrival, there were a variety of religious beliefs in the indigenous population. And the book showcases many of them, many different tribes who see other tribes as being different and likely inferior to them. But it is particularly against the white man, as it's being described in the 17th and 18th century, the white man that has come to impose a god that must be celebrated, must be bowed to in an unconditional way. In Chief Seattle and others in the book of Indigenous background say, to their own followers, do not be fooled by that lie, that the sudden arrival of an outsider god is going to mess our own beliefs, and we should stick to who we are and what we have. It is the same premise that other groups, immigrant groups, slaves, other groups that have come and formed new religions here, will constantly, recurrently be stating, our god is the one that is superior and be aware of the other ones, all in the context of the borders that keep on expanding in this nation, from the arrival of the Mayflower to the Manifest Destiny and the conquest of the new territories.