"One is tempted to say the destiny of America is in the hands of a small group of Protestant bigots."
So says an editorial quoted with apparently unintended irony from Le Monde (a daily newspaper from a nominally Catholic nation) in this Reuters article which asks the question: just how freaked out are the Europeans by GWB's evangelical Christianity? Answer: extremely freaked out.
A lot of Americans are just as disturbed by the idea of "religion in politics," of course, and the debate about Church and State is an essential, defining argument that goes back to the foundation of the republic. There's a great deal to the ironic observation, analogous to arguments about the economic power of free markets, that the prohibition against a state church in the US is the main reason that religiosity continues to thrive in America with such Eurocrat-frightening vigor.
Worries about the excesses and influence of what they call the Religious Right (or the "theocons") are not groundless, though such influence has arguably been on the wane for some time. Yet those who spin such influence as a root cause or prime explanation for the "true agenda" behind policies with which they disagree frequently veer into, and often fail to emerge from, the rockiest conspiracy-theory territory. Each Presidential mention of God or allusion to insufficiently relativistic morality is puffed up as a cryptic clue revealing a corner of a sinister plot to redraw reality in accord with a cretinously simplistic view of Biblical prophecy.
The majority of the letters I get from those who disagree with my view that deposing Saddam Hussein by force is a better policy than failing to do so inform me, to no great surprise, that it's "all about the oil." But there's a significant minority view (sometimes expressed, somewhat illogically, in the same missive) that it's "all about" the Apocalypse. Of course, it's pretty hard to sustain the argument that it's "all about" any one thing. But does anyone sincerely believe, even just a little, in this evangelical determinism, in the "analysis" that US policy can only be fully intelligible through reference to irrational religious fanaticism?
I have a hard time crediting it. It's more likely just a winking indulgence in a kind of hyperbole that plays well to a certain audience which eats it up no matter how many times they hear it: hence the regular statements by this or that Guardian columnist to the effect that "when you look beneath the surface, George Bush and Osama bin Laden might as well be identical twins." What's going on within the psyches of those who find this sort of thing persuasive, or who derive a degree of satisfaction or fulfillment from striking such an attitude or feigning agreement with it, is a fascinating question. (The caricature of evangelical spirituality is often brought up concerning Israel: some claim that American conservatives support Israel solely because they believe doing so will hasten an imminent/immanent eschaton. Maybe some ultra-weird whack-jobs do, but it seems to me that anyone who can't think of a reason other than this to explain why anyone would defend the existence of Israel ought to examine his own soul for prejudices and intellectual short-circuitry.)
Here's another, perhaps revealing, quote from the article, from a German cardinal:
"I believe George Bush's religious views are genuine," Cardinal Karl Lehmann, head of the German Bishop's Conference, told the Catholic weekly Rheinischer Merkur in an interview on Thursday. "But this careless way of using religious language is not acceptable anymore in today's world.
There are two angles to this critique. One is the familiar aesthetic distaste on the part of "the better sort" for the comportment and parole of those whom they regard as their cultural and intellectual inferiors. The Better Sort never complained about Clinton's frequent references to God, since they could sense he was one of them; coming from the mouth of the boorish GWB, however, the same rhetoric simultaneously confirms their sense of cultural superiority and their worst fears. Hence they return to it again and again. It's irresistible. (It's an interesting question whether GWB's public statements, in fact, are word for word more God-oriented than those of previous presidents. I'm sure it would be possible to quantify, though I don't know if it would mean much. Be that as it may, despite the spin of this article and the conventional wisdom among many, Bush's public religious rhetoric doesn't strike me as particularly "evangelical." Anyone who thinks so hasn't hung around too many evangelicals, it seems to me. Much of it indeed seems entirely conventional, even platitudinous; and the charge of "Protestant bigotry" is belied by a determined ecumenism which famously extended to a well-known "religion of peace." Carter was far more explicit and expansive about being "born again," if I recall correctly. So I wonder if this characterization has not, to a degree, been colored by the conclusion that it is supposed to support.)
The other angle is both more fundamental and stranger, harder to describe. What really bothers people, in this regard, about the latest in a long, unbroken line of Christian presidents is not his unexceptional belief in God, nor his "careless" language about matters of faith: it's the willingness to speak without reticence, caveats, or embarrassment in terms of absolute moral categories such as good and evil. (Leave aside, for a moment, the fact that GWB does not, in fact, always do this.) To be sure, more sophisticated, less careless rhetoricians might contrive a way to address the same matters (and even reach similar conclusions) while preserving a "way out" for those who should wish to engage in the conversation without necessarily being seen as having endorsed such a starkly absolute moral scheme in principle. But many critics who shy away from what is often described as "moral clarity," for whom one man's evil is always merely another's good, seem themselves unable to express their discomfort other than as an attack on the purported deficiencies of a "religious worldview." And you really have to wonder about someone who can understand what people are talking about when they say "evil" only through reference to what are seen as the curious, mysterious beliefs of an alien, arcane, largely unfathomable religious tradition.
Leaving religion out of it altogether, and whether or not you think the current administration's policies are wise, just, or necessary, it shouldn't be so terribly difficult to recognize the evil in Islamo-fascism, Osama bin Laden, international terrorism and the depredations of Saddam Hussein. An inability to do so is a moral and intellectual failing. And this would be the case even if the caricature of George Bush's religious beliefs, and the reductionist explanatory hypothesis which accompanies it, were to turn out to be entirely accurate.
Posted by Dr. Frank at April 4, 2003 02:04 PM | TrackBack