THE DIVINE SUPERMARKET
Shopping for God in America
Malice Ruthven
New York: William Morrow and Company, Inc., 1989
317 pp., $18.95
Just as people fawning to observe a wide variety of unusual and exotic creatures in close geographic proximity will go to a zoo, so those wishing to observe a wide variety of religious beliefs, from the traditional to the bizarre, come to America.
America has been the greenhouse for an enormous number of religions and their variations. Some are homegrown, some are transplanted, and a few are hybrids, but almost all have found fertile ground in this country.
Thus, people interested in studying religion - historically, theologically, and sociologically - often come to America. And that is why Malise Ruthven, a resident of London and a visiting professor of religion at Dartmouth College, has journeyed across the United States and back again. Fascinated by the fact that so many Americans seem drawn to religious belief - in some cases, fanatically so - Ruthven wanted to tour America personally to discover "the source of this religiosity."
His interest in religion does not, however, mean that Ruthven professes any serious attachment to religion himself. Though raised, as he occasionally mentions, as an Anglican, he refers to himself today as an "honest-to-the-devil agnostic." That makes Ruthven as outsider twice over: He is a stranger to America and a stranger to any committed religious belief. That distinction is important, especially the latter element, since it is always difficult, if not impossible, for the man of non-faith to understand the man of faith.
The inspiration
The inspiration for The Divine Supermarket was Ruthven's earlier work on Islam. His study of Islam raised questions about the nature of religious fanaticism, which, in turn, drew his thoughts toward Christian fundamentalism in America. Where there parallels between Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, and the Ayatollah Khomeini?
His colleagues thought not: " 'OK,' said my colleagues. 'We all know Americans are crazy; but they don't mount suicide attacks in car bombs, expecting to be instantly transported to paradise.'"
But such remarks got Ruthven interested, raising countless questions in his mind. "Why," he wondered, "despite the common language and a common Protestant legacy, were the American and British religious cultures so different?" England had Christianity, but in America "the Gospel was being marketed like soap Powders: the same product with different packagings."
Ruthven recognizes that many of the religious sects, which would have been shunned in almost any other country, have managed to grow and prosper in the religious free market of America, though many times that prosperity came only after a period of persecution:
“In the New World, the structures
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