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THE DIRTY STORY BEHIND THE ORIGINS OF NATIONAL BIBLE WEEK:
1999 CELEBRATIONS ARE LOW KEY
Web Posted: November 20, 1999
his Sunday begins the yearly ritual known as the National Bible Week,
a time when political leaders are asked to issue proclamations and
decrees urging citizens to read the Judeo Christian holy book. The
week-long activity has taken place since 1941, when President Franklin
D. Roosevelt issued a Presidential Message in the support of the
event.
For years, governors, mayors and other officials routinely signed proclamations at the behest of the National Bible Association, the New York-based group which organizes the celebration. Recently, though, protests and legal suits have challenged the pro forma ritual; one result may be that this year's celebration is unusually low key. Stung by charges that such decrees violate the separation of church and state, endorse one religion over another and marginalize millions of American who have no religious faith or reliance in the Bible, political leaders seem to be backing off from announcing their support of National Bible Week, or are downplaying the event altogether.
There are exceptions.
In Arizona, Gilbert Mayor Cynthia Dunham issued a toned-down letter of endorsement which even met with the conditional approval of the American Civil Liberties Union. Dunham and Arizona Governor Jane Hull had intended to sign Bible Week proclamations last year, a move that quickly resulting in the threat of possible litigation. Hull has reportedly dropped plans for a 1999 decree, and Dunham's letter of endorsement lacks the official Town Seal.
Utah Gov. Mike Leavitt has issued a Bible Proclamation, and Mayors in Provo, Springfield, Bountiful and North Salt Lake have followed suit.
At the national level, Bible Week continues to be an important event. Sen. Joseph Lieberman (D-Conn.) and Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas) serve as the Congressional Co-chairs for the National Bible Association. Gov. Don Sundquist (R-Tenn.) and outgoing Mayor Ed Rendell (D) of Philadelphia chair leadership committees as well. Overseeing the 1999 National Bible Week is William E. Simon, former Treasury Secretary.
While the question of religion in the public square has taken on a populist dimension -- prayer advocates frequently describe themselves as being in opposition to an onerous government tyranny that bans religious expression in public schools or other venues -- National Bible Week was invented as part of a more elitist agenda. The present National Bible Association has its roots in what was known as the National Committee for Religious Recovery, founded in 1940 by New York City business and professional interests.
A series of convulsive events had stressed the fabric of American
society. World War I and the boom era of the 20' were followed by the
Great Depression. Labor unions began to emerge, and strikes and
collective bargaining began to transform the social and economic
landscape. Women had obtained the right to vote only a few years
earlier; what would evolve into full-fledged movements on behalf of
civil rights was slowly gathering momentum.
The National Committee for Religious Recovery stepped into this gap, with the stated purpose to "encourage belief and faith in God, daily reading of the Bible, religious education, attendance at houses of worship and Sunday Schools, and to strengthen religious life in America as the basis for national as well as individual living." It was a socially conservative, even reactionary message; and the leadership of the NCRR, and its subsequent incarnations reflected membership of the country's economic and political elite.
In 1941, the NCRR morphed into "The Laymen's National Committee, and began planning the first National Bible Week event. It was interrupted by the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Even in wartime, the trend began of organizing key political leaders, including the President of the United States, to promote the Bible Week activities. In 1969, in the midst of another tumultuous time in American history, the Laymen's National Committee changed its name to the "Laymen's National Bible Association."
The web site of the National Bible Association once noted the origins of the group in the National Committee for Religious Recovery. That is no longer the case. In 1997, the group's web site included the following reference:
"In seeking a means to help restore moral stability, eleven prominent business leaders gathered in New York City in 1940 and organized the "National Committee for Religious Recovery.'"
| "A series of convulsive events had stressed the fabric of American society. World War I and the boom era of the 20s were followed by the Great depression. Labor unions began to emerge, and strikes and collective bargaining began to transform the social and economic landscape..." |
"Formed in 1940 by prominent business leaders in New York City and led and governed by lay persons from the beginning, the National Bible Association is nonpartisan and does not in any way promote one version of the Bible over another, nor any particular religion or faith view..."
One reason for this new, Bowdlerized version of history could be that the National Committee for Religious Recovery may well have been more than a group of Bible-believing businessmen intent on doing good for others. There are skeletons in this closet, and one key in opening the door is found in the writings of a now-obscure journalist named John Roy Carlson. In the early 1940s, his two books "Under Cover" and "The Plotters" were bestsellers.
Carlson described "Under Cover" as "My four years in the Nazi underworld of America -- the amazing revelation of how axis agents and our enemies within are now plotting to destroy the United States." Using a series of journalistic covers, Carlson attending meetings of the Ku Klux Klan, the German American Bund, the Silvershirts, and countless other groups that drew ideological succor from Adolph Hitler's German Reich.
His 1946 book, "The Plotters" updated much of the information from "Under Cover." Carlson declared that it "strikes deep into the rash of poisonous political and social growths blossoming from our native soil," adding "In their native qualities lies their greatest danger to our democracy." Carlson was deeply suspicious of utopian ideologues of both the far left and right, eschewing the Stalinism of the American Communist Party, and the dangerous nationalism of Gerald Smith, Father Coughlan and others who had supported Hitler's Nazi experiment.
The National Committee for Religious Recovery was described by Newsweek magazine as a group founded by "a few Wall Streeters" who "decided that what the country needed was a religious revival and that businessmen could promote it better than the clergy." The first Chairman of the group was Lambert Fairchild, whose task was "to stimulate regular church attendance and support" and combat "Godless ideologies," said Carlson. Carlson also had a list of judgments against Fairchild from Minneapolis District Court that he reproduced in "The Plotters." He added: "Fairchild, who traces his ancestry to Pilgrim John Alden, spoke over the radio, damned the New Deal and whooped up Wall Street's sudden religious fervor which came on just prior to national elections..."
Fairchild was more than a shill for Wall Street, though. He showed up in prominent roles inside groups like the "Committee of Honor" which gave a testimonial dinner for General George Van Horn Moseley, a favorite of the German-American Bund crowd which had supported Hitler, and other nativist movements like Joseph William's Christian Mobilizers. He was also rubbing shoulders with other Third Reich sympathizers, including Canadian Nazi leader Adrian Arcand, George U. Harvey of the fascist Christian Front, and Allen Zoll, a close associated of Father Coughlan.
When Fairchild's history as a deadbeat and a gentleman who had led prayers at meetings at "Brown House," a New York hangout of the German American Bund, was made public he quietly left the National Committee for Religious Recovery. The leadership passed to Howard Kiroack, who like Fairchild is the subject of several pages of Carlson's text. Kiroack, for instance, has been involved in a scheme to form a reincarnated fraternal order called "Guardsman of America."
Carlson:
"We intend to wrap the American flag around the ritual," he said, "make it emotional, actually squeeze the American flag so it'll speak."
Kiroack was also on the hunt for a "high powered evangelist" to energize the NCRR, which he had re-christened the Laymen's National Committee. In 1945, the group presented its Annual Award of Merit to William Randolph Hearst, who had "stimulated religious thinking" through his media empire.
Curiously, the National Bible Association lists National Chairs going back as far 1951. A line of small type declares: "From 1941 to 1950, there was no specific national chairperson..." The likes of Kiroack, Fairchild, or even another NCRR founder, George U. Harvey, are not mentioned. Harvey was a member of Father Coughlan's Christian Front movement.
The list that is now made public by the National Bible Association, though, reflects that the group has maintained close ties for over half-a-century with the rich and powerful. Chairman have included William J. Grede (Grede Foundries), Charles Hook (Armco Steel), Edward C. Werle (New York Stock Exchange), Frank M. Folson (RCA), J.Peter Grace (W.R. Grace & Co.), Richard I. Fricke (Mutual of New York, John B. Carter (Equitable Life), Thomas Murphy (General Motors), Donald E. Procknow (Western Electric), and C. Fred Fetterolf (ALCOA). Richard M. DeVos, right wing patriarch of the Amway Corporation served as Chairman for 1986 and 1987. In 1996, George Gallup of the Gallup Polling Organization occupied the post.
The current Board of Trustees of National Bible Association also reflects ties to the well-off and well-healed. Included are John F. Church (Cincinnati Cordage & Paper), Philip J. Clements (PricewaterhouseCoopers, New York), Charles Grace, William Simon, John M. Templeton and (Templeton Growth Fund, Ltd., the Templeton Prize). Others are tied to the religious community; they include Ruth Peale (Guideposts -- A Church Corporation), Charles Z.Moore (Thomas Nelson, Inc.), Robert Cavalero (Catholic Book publishing Corp.), H. J.. Marshall Gage (B. B. Kirkbridge Bible Company, Bruce Ryskamp (Zondervan Publishing House) and Thomas Freking (R. R. Donnelley & Sons).
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Today, events like National Bible Week are proposed as a panacea for a range of domestic ills. The fear of militant unionism and labor strikes has been replaced by more diffuse anxieties, though, from alleged epidemics of school and youth violence -- the shooting spree at Columbine High in Littleton, Colorado comes to mind -- to other problems such as gay rights, single mothers and the erosion of traditional roles in the family.
Declarations on behalf of National Bible Week by public officials have also met with a growing chorus of opposition, and even legal challenges. That may be why the National Bible Association web site no longer includes a list of states and cities where governors, mayors and other elected office holders have issued decrees in support of the event. In addition, the National Bible Association is less political these days than it was during the era of its founders, men like Lambert Fairchild. The battle to move religion further into the public square has now shifter more to the leadership of groups like Shirley Dobson's National Day of Prayer, or Pat Robertson's American Center for Law and Justice which supports efforts to institute prayer and other religious exercise in public school classrooms and even athletic events.
National Bible Week remains, though, part of a "civic religion" in America, which rallies politicians, business and community leaders. Its roots lay in a calamitous period of American history, where religious belief was proposed as a unifying agent in a world threatened by global war, economic upheaval, and profound social change. It was embraced by elites as a way of not just promoting the faith, but of assuring a modicum of social stability, and the preservation of economic privilege.
    
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