Democracy in America, Take 4

Reading the Democracy in America reading for Friday, I was struck by the connections between Toqueville's musings on the subject of religion and democracy, and the readings we have studied recently on the Second Great Awakening, written over a hundred years after Toqueville's time.  Many of his ideas still ring true to this day, and help to shed even more light on the subject of religion and democracy in America.  A quote which I found particularly insightful on the subject concerned the nature of religious practice in America. He says, " Another truth seems very clear to me, that religion should pay less attention to external practices in democratic times than in any others.  In speaking of the philosophical method of the Americans I have made clear that in a time of equality nothing is more repugnant to the human spirit than the idea of submitting to formalities"(447).  I found this particular comment to be interesting, because it is not one that has been mentioned in the Mary Ryan, Amy Frykholm, or other articles we read, and yet I find it to be very true in America today.  We have spoken a lot in class about how religion during the Second Great Awakening placed more emphasis upon the common man and less upon the divine power of the clergy, but we did not discuss the power of making ritual and symbolism less prevalent.   By making such acts optional rather than required for pious life, religion was made to be more flexible, and therefore more accessible in a "time when men [were] becoming more equal"(447).  The importance of this rests in the fact that religions bound to orthodoxy and ritual were likely to lose a good portion of followers in a democratic society, for democratic societies are constantly changing and subject to a majority which is therefore also always changing.  If the religions do not conform somewhat to fit the majority of the time, they themselves will become an ignored minority.  However, he empahsizes that religions shouldn't change everything to be "popular,"  but rather only allow for more flexible practices in areas which don't threaten the "chief principles of faith"(447).  I think that this particular idea has carried into religious life today, as religion becomes an increasingly more personal act less centered on following specific rites and more centered on individual spirituality in many denominations.