In the early nation, “nationalism” and “religion” were a lot alike.
One of the first examples that the book gives for the similarities between “nationalism” and “religion” is the feelings that they both envoke on a person. There was a close parallel to evangelical Protestantism which sought to “establish sentimental, affective bonds among audiences, impart certain norms of behaviour, and inculcate a voluntary attachment to abstract principles. The religious sentiments held would serve as a motor for promoting “nationalism”.
Another example that the book gives is the civic texts being parallel to books in the bible. When reading the civic texts, the citizens were encouraged to take the texts to heart, in the same way that they were encouraged to take the words of the Bible to heart. The Bible was also to be read as universally as possibe. The civic texts emulated the idea of the universality of the Bible. The citizens were also taught to read the civic texts with the same “extraordinary intensity” as they used to read the Bible. The intensity of these civic texts turned the people that wrote them into icons like people in the Bible and Jesus himself.
Washington, himself, was compared to people in the Bible. Many people thought that Washington and Moses were alike because they both brought the people of their land out of bondage. The mourning rituals of Washington’s death were similiar to the religious rituals: such as the thirty days spent mourning Moses’ death. Washington’s life itself became a sacred text and a “volume” to be read, studied, and memorized by future generations. According to the book, “they created nationalist traditions that could be replicated long into the future by consenting Americans, perpetually bound together in everlasting remembrance of Washington. One visitor stated that the Americans felt the need to have a likeness of Washington in themselves as we feel the need to have a likeness of God in ourselves as saints. Sometimes the most lavish and the only pictures in people’s homes were of Washington. People from every region started making trips to Washington’s home at Mount Vernon after his death to “drop a tear at the tomb of Father of his country.”
I feel like there was an extremely thin line between the “nationalism” and the “religion” of the early national period. The fact that the nation was formed based on the purposes on religious freedoms helps to blur those lines even more. The way that the early citizens immoralized Washington and the civic texts makes it extremely hard to draw the line between what was nationalism and what was religion. The only argument that I can think of that they were not alike was that the people did not go to a special place to worship Washington or the civic texts, but at the same time, the citizens did keep those things in their Bibles and studied them in school which makes my argument weak. I personally believe that the Americans of that time did not have a difference between “nationalism” and “religion”.