Sunday, July 04, 2004
The dangers of civil religion
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and Brian Britt ±
Turner is an instructor of religious studies at Radford University and Virginia Tech.
Britt is associate professor of religious studies at Virginia Tech.
Although Robert Benne's June 16 essay, "Objectivity and history say we should stay the course," is framed in terms of Christian ethics, it seems to promote not Christian principles but a form of "civil religion" based on American patriotism. Benne's defense of the war combines reverence for the memories of D-Day and the life of President Reagan with tactical judgments of the war's progress.
Benne criticizes the American media and "most of American liberal Protestantism and academia," whom he blames for taking pleasure in American setbacks and undermining "our will to persevere." The media, liberal Protestants and academics "are so obsessed with their hatred of President Bush," he writes, "that it is difficult to sort out where the hatred ends and sound criticism or our policy in Iraq begins."
Benne fails to mention, however, that many criticisms from liberal Protestants, academics and even the British press, which Benne praises for its fair and balanced perspective, have turned out to be justified.
Arguments over faulty evidence are arguments against policy, yet they were dismissed 24 months ago, just as they are today, as products of the left's "hatred against Bush." As the 9/11 Commission recently found, clear links between Iraq and the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks do not exist.
Many Christian leaders, from the pope to bishops of President Bush's own United Methodist denomination, opposed starting the war when and how we did. Today, critics of the president's policies include many military and Republican officials (not the "usual suspects" cited by Benne).
With regard to these critics, Benne has confused hating the sin with hating the sinner. Critics hate the failed leadership of this administration, not the people in it.
President Bush chose to disregard advice from Secretary of State Colin Powell and others in favor of the rush to war. As recent books by Richard Clarke and Bob Woodward show, Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld appear to have decided on the Iraq invasion within days of 9/11, perhaps to settle old scores.
And since the war began, Halliburton, the company in which Cheney still owns stock options, has received no-bid contracts for billions of taxpayer dollars.
American civil religion treats "secular" elements of society such as democracy, capitalism and the historical past as if they were divinely sanctioned. Benne is right that D-Day is one of the defining moments in American history, and one that deserves great respect. D-Day helped make the world safe for democracy. But if reverence for D-Day overshadows the democracy it helped to preserve, then it becomes corrosive to democracy itself.
Civil religion works best when the ideals of a nation are held sacred but not at the expense of liberty and open debate, the foundations of democracy. American policy in Iraq and the Middle East should emerge from vigorous public discussion, not from blind faith in American civil religion.
