Written by Peter F Daily Journal (Opinion) Mar 9, 2011
The conflation of religion and nationalism, or “God and country,” has long been a hallmark of the American ethos. Many of the first Europeans to unsettle the so-called New World were fleeing from domineering, state-sanctioned religious institutions like the Church of England and the Roman Catholic Church. (That there was nothing “new” about this continent, already home to tens of millions of civilized people is another conversation.) Yet over time Euro-American society has developed increasingly theocratic undercurrents, specifically those of fundamentalist Christianity. Recent decades have seen an acceleration of this politicized religiosity, even spawning in the academic world the discipline of Political Theology. This past decade has seen an alarming intensification of this marriage between god and country, the re-dedication having largely to do with the hysteria whipped up following the events of 11 September 2001, and the George Bush, Jr presidency. The spectacle of 9.11.01 was indeed the “trifecta” needed for the ultra-regressives to launch their ideological assault at home and a belligerent unilateral militarism abroad. The church, always the faithful servant of tyranny, has been aiding and abetting this imperialist onslaught every step of the way.
Any one with eyes has seen the ubiquitous ribbons, with their pious appeals for “God” to support and/or bless “our troops” (see I AINT IN IT: THE RHETORIC OF DOMINATION). I’ve seen the bumper sticker reading “God bless our troops – especially our snipers,” and its all to common to see vehicles sporting the “Jesus fish” or other Christian slogans along with “support the troops” propaganda. In recent months we’ve seen revelations of a weapons manufacturer stamping their weaponry with bible references, and concerted efforts to turn the US military into a missionary branch of fundamentalist Christianity (see the efforts of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation to combat this). And casual observation reveals that most churchgoers aren’t opposed to American militarism, holding disinterested ambivalence at best. With acritical indifference typical of the masses, or with fervent faux patriotism of regressives, American Christians never get around to asking the simplest of questions, like How can their god of love condone America’s wars of aggression and “bless” her soldiers that carry them out? or How could their god “bless” a nation that for centuries has enslaved and slaughtered other peoples as a matter of policy? or Just why would this god, reputed to be the creator and lover of all humanity, hold in especially high regard a nation built on genocide, racism, and exploitation, and fueled by economic violence and permanent war?
But these pesky theological questions need not be asked, because the answers have already been established. Solutions to these troubling inconsistencies have been reached by applying the calculus of Americanism – by crafting the dominant narratives that serve to define what America is, irrespective of the facts. The crafting of Narrative Americana has unfolded over the last several centuries, the developments of each era woven into its ethnocentric distortion of history, new questions and conundrums rationalized in light of its own delusional logic. Any inconsistencies involving a “just god” alongside systemic injustice, or the “Prince of Peace” embracing a society defined by violence and perpetual war are rendered unnecessary. The resolution of these damning obscenities – oops, I mean theoretical questions – is found in one final decision, one definitive doctrine, namely American Exceptionalism. This doctrine has been the doorway to all manner of ethical effrontery, breathtaking hypocrisy, and of course, unspeakable crimes against humanity.
Theologically speaking, this racist, murderous doctrine is the ultimate example of syncretism, based as it is on the conviction that the Judaic-Christian god is the source of America’s “manifest destiny” to conquer and subjugate lands and peoples as she sees fit and to police the world as its arbiter of human rights and political liberties. Syncretism is a conscious combining of two or more religions over a short period of time, or a process by which one religion absorbs elements of another religion over a long period of time. With American Christianity, we see both of these functions over the course of history. And make no mistake; Americanism is very much a religion, the civil religion of the United States. It is a set of beliefs (about America) that a group ardently or fanatically adheres to, and is upheld by myth, rituals, and symbols. Or to borrow from Black Theologian James Cone, religion is that which “gives a people their identity and determines what they must do to actualize in society what they believe necessary for the attainment of their peoplehood.” And what gives Americans their identity, frames their worldview, forms the limited sense of peoplehood they may have, and determines their collective trajectory? It’s not Jesus of Nazareth, that much is for certain.
If there’s any question about the religious status of Americanism, consider the brouhaha over Rev Jeremiah Wright during the 2008 election cycle: he was slanderously misquoted by the press, but the excerpt made famous by corporate media was what – “god damn America….” The once-venerated Wright was an overnight pariah, pilloried by corporate media and kicked to the curb by his own once-loyal congregant Barack Obama in a shameful and cowardly act of betrayal and political posturing. The firestorm against Rev Wright was fanned by regressive Christians (the so-called Christian right), and not because the preacher had said “god damn” from the pulpit, but because “god damn” was followed by “America….” Never mind that that was followed by “…for killing innocent people…for treating our citizens as less than human…for as long as she acts like she is God and she is supreme.” Americans couldn’t seem to muster any righteous indignation for that litany of national treachery, but were outraged, insulted, and undone by Wright’s rhetorical irreverence toward America, the perpetrator of these and countless other atrocities. It was blasphemy in red, white, and blue.
Christianity itself was born when the nascent (and at one time illegal) Christian faith was adopted as the official religion of empire, namely the Roman Empire. This abrupt conjoining of “God and country” was the foundation for the ideology that served and supported European colonial enterprises for a millennium. American Christianity is the contemporary incarnation of that ideology, and must be recognized as such and exposed for the handmaiden of oppression that it has always been.
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