In 1912 a researcher named Émile Durkheim published a work which he called “The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life”. To simplify a lot of what he said, it basically boiled down to, the images of religion and God within a society were reflective of the society itself, in a social and political sense. Meaning, our images of God reflect the existing power structure and cultural norms of our society.

Using Europe and the United States as an example, all the popular depictions of important figures such as Jesus or God, are either prohibited by various sects, or they are portrayed as white men. God, when shown, is usually depicted as being older. This reflects a society that is dominated by males, therefore until just recently, God was always referred to in short with “he”, not “she”. There is also a trend in society towards the older, rather than the younger.

If you examine the social structure and power structure of American and European society in the past, you will see it was generally dominated by white men, who were in their more elder years. This of course, does not hold true universally, William Pitt became a member of English Parliament at age 21, and became Prime Minister under George III at age 24, during the 1780’s, and was a very important figure in English history.

So in essence, a religion worshipping a God and other religious figures portrayed based on the political and social structure, is in fact, worshipping the current status quo. One is reaffirming their loyalty to the social and political structure in this way.

This idea works in many religions, if you look at the Jewish faith, the second most important figure outside of “God” would be Moses, who is always depicted as being an elderly, white, bearded male. Even fictional characters merely based off of being symbolic of Judeo-Christian figures, such as Jesus, are shown in this way.

There is some logical and scientific backing for Durkheim’s ideas as well. It has been found, in general, that the most religious sectors of societies, cross culturally, tend to be the most conservative and patriotic, believing that the current order should be kept in tact, because it is what their religious images and principles are based off of.

And dare I say it, this holds true for America in 2008. The most strictly religious sectors of our society, which I would say is the religious right, is blindly patriotic and conservative, because their religion and their government, are in theory, the same thing. The structure can’t be questioned, and if you do question it, you are un-American, a blasphemer against the state.

Despite the train wreck of a presidency, almost all the Evangelical conservatives in exit polls have been highly optimistic and positive towards the presidency of George Bush, while moderates and the less religious tend to not think so highly of him. George Bush would be the ultimate figure in this religion of the state, not to be questioned or criticized.

God is also depicted as being a very strict and non-negotiating figure. Whenhe hands the ten commandments to Moses, he doesn’t discuss what’s on them, or why he put what he put, he just said go and do it, or else something bad will happen.

So then there is a natural tendency toward order, which I briefly discussed the problems of last time. This moves Evangelicals to the position of wanting to use centralized power to tell other people how to live.
Things like that are disturbing in a free society.