Two sanguine interpretations of American civil religion

Bellah maintains that American civil religion can be a benevolent sort of national religious consensus, provided it attends to the cautionary words of its prophets. (Bellah, 17) Stout agrees that there is a consensus view in American civil religion, and that it is "faith in the institution of war as a divine instrument and sacred mandate to be exercised around the world." (Stout, 284) Bellah finds grounds for national optimism in the same place that Stout finds little but blood-stained ground (and much of that foreign). Which scholar makes his case more convincingly? Does Bellah demonstrate to your satisfaction that the prophets of civil religion and belief in transcendent judgment serve to keep its jingoistic tendencies in some sort of check? Does Stout prove that Americans are inspired to violence specifically by America's civil religion, rather than by violence inherent in human nature or (to offer a less nebulous option) by a broadly western European imperialist impulse?

It seems to me that Bellah and Stout shade very close to the same interpretive error that has bedeviled other authors in previous weeks: in endeavoring to explain American behavior on the basis of American civil religion, both authors treat both phenomena as peculiarly American. Perversely, this replicates one of American civil religion's conceits, American exceptionalism... which national conceitedness, I hasten to add, is hardly peculiar to Americans. Have Americans been particular people in particular times? Of course: we could hardly be otherwise. Have we been, collectively, peculiar? Not nearly so much as we have (collectively) told ourselves at times, either in flattery or in reproach.

It seems like Christianity is not the only one with a problem of interpretation of the Sacred text. The writings of Muhammad are also easily used to achieve political interest. According to Appleby, Qutb made a good job when interpreting the prohibition against fighting as well as freeing himself from the death of individuals because Islamist attacks should or would be directed only to institutions. anyway, it seems like religion (at least some elements of it) will always be there causing wars and not feeding the hungry  regardless of the good intentions claimed by the leaders.

What...too soon?

As I reflected upon my own experiences and memories from the past decade, I have to wonder if oven is still hot on this one. After all, the POTUS did have bi-partisan support on pretty much everything he wanted immediately after 9/11, he could have requested all white house chairs be changed to that of the bean bag variety and congress would have approved that increase in spending. It was such an emotional time. Having just moved to Nashville from NYC, I can tell you that even a decade removed from the incident (at least among that concentrated populous), the wound is still fresh. How soon is too soon before historians can begin the historical task?

Another question arises in that same vein, has ever in American history risen such a passionate response to such an ambiguous enemy? Who are these terrorists? And where are they? Afghanistan? Iraq? Pakistan? What is a muslim? Islamist and Islam sound too similar terms to be throwing around. Also, doesn't stating Islam as a "religion of peace" give you a free pass against any muslim response to the contrary, Islamist or otherwise (especially since no one in America were so far removed from the identity, religious or otherwise, of their enemy)?

Pre-Post-Post-Modern

R. Scott Appleby convincingly argues that fundamentalism can only be understood as a response to modernism; that is, that fundamentalism is anti-modern. And while that seemed to me, as I read it, a correct assertion, the very next author I encountered, Bruce Lawrence, posed a challenge – that of “[foregrounding] the disciplinary variables we face today” – that called into question the neat, clean delineation implied by the word “modern.” As a supposed modern, should I not be able to define the word? And if I cannot define modernism, how can I understand anti-modernism?

 I “foreground” the problem of historical periodization with respect to the cluster of recent events that can loosely be associated under the rubric “War on Terror,” precisely because they have not yet fallen into the domain of history proper. Hence they yield a certain charge, like a foul ball sailing into the stands at a baseball game, markedly different than the prior events studied – they’re still up in the air. Does this difference also entail a different approach? A different ethics of historical methodology?

 “’Modernity’…plays a peculiar dual role as a category of historical periodization: it designates the contemporaneity of an epoch to the time of its classification; yet it registers this contemporaneity in terms of a qualitatively new, self-transcending temporality which has the simultaneous effect of distancing the present from even that most recent past with which it is thus identified. It is this paradoxical doubling, or inherently dialectical quality, which makes modernity both so irresistible and so problematic a category.” – Peter Osborne, The Politics of Time: Modernity and Avant-Garde

 

Meet the new boss... same as the old boss

“Historians are not alone in reconstructing the past” (Applyby 1).  This was the first line I read in this week’s readings and it framed my interaction with all the subsequent articles and caused me to reflect on the past readings.

Kidd, in God of Liberty, interpreted the coalescence of deists, enlightenment thinkers and evangelicals as an inspirational non-partisan coalition of divergent positions for the greater good of the nation, all of whom felt virtue was of the utmost importance for the republic to succeed.  I feel Kidd was writing with the present day in mind while still making a solid historical contribution.

Is there a connection between the groups Kidd discusses and the fundamentalist Christians that pop up as representations in President Bush II and as clergy and average citizens in various manifestations thorough the readings?  What does the reconstruction of history tell us to think of modern day fundamentalists?  Are they a continuation of forces pressing America to avoid vice and keep God/providence on its side?

Is Kidd’s interpretation of the role of religion in the revolution a virtuous history (does it encourage individuals to behave in the best interest of the people) because it encourages non-partisanship?

Is America Really That Exceptional?

    Dick Johnson's article in Newsweek mentioned poll data that suggests that "80 percent of Americans say a belief in God shapes their views." This is a pretty broad statement. Looking at specific evidences, at least about Iraq, we get a different view.
     Forgive me for going outside of our readings, but a Pew Research survey from 2003 found that "Nearly six-in-ten (57%) of those who regularly attend religious services say their clergy has spoken about the prospect of war with Iraq. But just a fifth (21%) say their priest or minister has taken a position on the issue." with "Just one-in-ten Americans cite their religious beliefs as the strongest influence in their thinking about the war"
     This contrasts to 53% being influenced by friends and family, and 43% saying the same about political commentators.
     Is it fair to point to religious conviction or participation as such an influential aspect of American public opinion? It seems churches are not the forums where discussions of just war are happening, and opinion on war seems to more closely fall along party lines, sometimes contrary to a church's stance. 

I am Joe's Six-Pack

Bruce Lawrence and R. Scott Appleby, writing in September of 2002, present us with two different treatments of Islam. Appleby's article is more positive, inasmuch as it attempts to explain Islamic fundamentalism. Radical Islam, via figures such as Maududi, Hasan al-Banna, and Sayyid Qutb, attempts to de-secularize the Muslim world through "divinely guided political leadership" and strict adherence to shari'a.[*] According to Appleby, this ideology is much akin to Jewish and Christian fundamentalism: "Their different settings, beliefs, and goals notwithstanding, Jewish, Christian, and Islamic fundamentalists interpret the history of the modern period, especially the twentieth century, in remarkably similar ways."[1] Through themes of "humiliation, persecution, and exile of the true believers," Appleby clearly illustrates what he believes to be commonalities in "a tortured vision of the past" that exist within the fundamentalist circles of Abrahamic religions.[2]

Lawrence's article, in contrast, comes as a response to an inquiry from "your average work-hard, play-hard American." I fear, however, that Lawrence is much more explicit in his critique of writers such as Friedman, Lewis, and Fukuyama than he is in his explanation of "why they hate us so much."[4] Lawrence's efforts are much more centralized around debunking the myths fabricated by "so-called Middle East experts," who are notably ill-versed in Arabian and Middle-Eastern culture, than they are to an explanation of the tensions between America and the Arab world.[5] 

What sort of solutions are out there? Lawrence concludes that we need "to go beyond Manichean thinking, to drop moralizing from foreign policy rhetoric and to focus instead on the tough pragmatic choices that a post-Cold War and postcolonial world pose for the rich and the poor alike."[6] That sounds great, but is that possible? Have we witnessed any objective, amoral politics in our study of America's religions and wars?

[*] R. Scott Appleby, History in the Fundamentalist Imagination, 505.

[1] Ibid., 503.

[2] Ibid., 498.

[3] Bruce Lawrence, Conjuring with Islam, II, 485.

[4] Ibid.

[5] Ibid., 487.

[6] Ibid., 497.

The President's Speech...

Lawrence states, “Indeed, many so-called Middle East experts, including one well-known historian, have abetted the incendiary penchant of journalists, making certain that one stereotype predominates over all others in middle America’s reflection on Islam.  (Lawrence, 487).

Fineman states that, “Every president invokes God and asks his blessing. Every president promises, though not always in so many words, to lead according to moral principles rooted in Biblical tradition.” Fineman specifically points out President G.W. Bush by stating, “this president- this presidency- is the most resolutely ‘faith-based’ in modern times, an enterprise founded, supported and guided by trust in the temporal and spiritual power of God”  (Fineman Newsweek Article).

Johnson picks up this same theme when he states, “But with Bush, religious conservatives can for the first time fully claim one of their own in the White House” (Johnson, Newsweek Article).

In the president’s State of the Union address to Congress shortly after the attack on American soil, he states, “They know that victory for us means victory for religion. And they could not tolerate that.  The world is too small to provide adequate ‘living room’ for both Hitler and God… [their plan] by which the Holy Bible and the Cross of Mercy would be displaced by ‘Mein Kampf’ and the swastika and the naked sword.” (FDR Address, 291)  “We are inspired by a faith which goes back through all the years to the first Book of Genesis:  ‘God created man in His own image.’ We on our side are striving to be true to that divine heritage.  We are fighting, as our fathers have fought, to uphold the doctrine that all men are equal in the sight of God… Only total victory can reward the champions of tolerance and decency, and freedom, and faith” (FDR Address, 295).  

Fast forward to “the most resolutely ‘faith-based’ [president] in modern times, the most religious comments quoted in Bush’s State of the Union address were: “..ways to encourage the good work of charities and faith-based groups,” “Deep in the American character there is honor, and it is stronger than cynicism. And many have discovered again that even in tragedy -- especially in tragedy -- God is near,” and “Thank you all and may God bless.” (George W. Bush Address).

Notwithstanding the fact that George W. Bush obviously is an outspoken evangelical, he certainly did not use near as much religious rhetoric as FDR when comparing their first post-attack State of the Union. Roberta Coles even gives numerous examples of Pres. George W. Bush’s predecessors using a plethora of religious language in their speeches.  Even Jimmy Carter -- while in office -- was an evangelical Southern Baptist. Given the fact that our primary sources seem to highlight President W. Bush’s faith, what does that say about the changing culture in America and its views on Religion and War since 1942?   Would today’s media call FDR’s presidency “the most resolutely ‘faith-based’ in modern times” if he gave his speech today? What weight should historians place on news sources versus other primary sources like speeches, Congressional records, etc?

The Temptation of Adam

I have always been a little confused by what the War on Terror actually was/ is. Perhaps I do not understand terrorism, but I believe an oversimplified definition would be, violence used for political purposes. It seems like Bush really felt like he was waging a just war: "But he didn't do it [conclude the war was just] by combing through texts or presiding over a disputation. He decided that Saddam was evil, and everything flowed from that." He made his decision and then backed it up, which seems like backward reasoning. How is this different than what "terrorists" do? They say we are evil, we say they are evil. And both use violence to hurt the other one. So I'm being vulnerable here and saying, I don't understand how the 9/11 attacks were evil but the War on Terror was just, other than the later being retaliation.  

Theorizing Civil Religion and War

In her article on Manifest Destiny, Coles it seems is attempting to use an expanded and nuanced definition of manifest destiny in order to show how Civil Religion still plays an important role in American Foreign policy, albeit in a manner that changes through time and that is adapted to the needs of both the speaker and the nation.  Coles uses the religious titles of priest and prophet to describe rhetoric that on its face is more secular, but that can be traced back to the more explicit religious content of American Civil Religion.  In her discussion of the concept of mission within manifest destiny, Coles cites Tiryakian as demonstrating three varied types of mission, the third being “a civilization mission, to save the world and mold it in the image of America.”[1]  Furthermore, as part of the “Priestly” mode of civil religion, Coles states that the Priestly role “sanctifies the economic order, leg imitates the system and actions of the government, and sees the American Way of life as unique and desirable.”[2}

If Tiryakian, and Coles, are correct, then we should be able to apply this theory to what Lawrence describes in “Conjuring Islam II.”  For example, in describing the thought of Fukuyama (which Lawrence disdains), Lawrence states that “his well-known thesis [is] that capitalist democracy is the inevitable tide of the future, crossing economic, political and finally cultural boundaries in forging a global society. So strong is ‘the inner historical logic to political secularism,’ according to Fukuyama, that it will inevitable produce a more liberal strand of Islam.  In the meantime, however, there will be spoilers—the Islamo-fascists.”  Lawrence goes on to state that according to Fukuyama, the Islamo-fascicts hate America because it is “dedicated to religious tolerance and pluralism, rather than to serving religious truth.”[3]

Fukuyama sees America as providing a “civilizing” model to Arab nations, one that he might even say, to borrow the words of Coles, would “save the world and mold it in the image of America.”[4]

This Priestly (conservative, according to Coles) view of Civil Religion could also be applied to theorize about the role of “conservative” civil religion in the conflicts of World War I, the Spanish-American, and others.  However, Presidents such as Wilson and McKinley are generally considered “progressives,” not conservative, with McKinley being the President who ushered in “the Progressive era.”   What then does this theory mean for these Presidents, their politics, and the complicated role that religion and politics always play in American war making?

[1] Roberta L. Coles “Manifest Destiny Adapted for 1990s' War Discourse: Mission and Destiny Intertwined”, Sociology of Religion 63, no. 4 (Winter 2002): 407.

[2] Ibid.

[3] Bruce B. Lawrence, “Conjuring with Islam, Ii”, The Journal of America History 89, no. 2 (September 2002): 490.

[4] Coles, 407.

Prophets and Priests

In Coles’ discussion of civil religion, she distinguishes between Bush’s priestly style and Clinton’s more prophetic style.  However, the short note on George W. Bush after September 11 left me wondering.  Coles seems to attribute the differences between Clinton and Bush to personal differences.  However, are there some cases in which the situation, rather than personal style, dictates the mode of civil religion that the president must employ?  For example, indulging in a counterfactual, if Clinton had been president on 9/11, would he have had to adopt a more priestly style?  It’s difficult to imagine a president using a strong prophetic voice at such a moment.  And, if that’s the case, how can we understand the relationship between civil religion and American foreign policy?

Propriety of attributing the plausibility of U.S. foreign policy to manifest destiny

How plausible is Coles's claim that the ideology underlying American foreign policy is still best characterized as "manifest destiny"? (See especially Coles, 421-422) To some extent, Coles is able to make parts of the case persuasively. It is perhaps plausible to assimilate the acquisition of resources and military bases to manifest destiny. But projecting political power and opening new markets are activities comfortably treated under a heading at once more general and more suggestive: imperialism. A comparison with the British experience is illuminating: the British are not often accused of ideology akin to "manifest destiny," in part because the Anglo-Norman (and eventually English) consolidation of power took place over such a long period of time. And yet, manifest destiny or no manifest destiny, all the way down to the twentieth century (if not the present), the British sought to secure resources, military bases, political power, and new markets throughout a far-flung empire. I worry that Coles's analysis of manifest destiny, geared as strongly as it is to explaining the justification of American foreign policy in light of American experience, lapses into the same ideological trap that she imputes to American government: the conviction that America's behavior is special, and must be explained in terms of its special history. America's behavior is no doubt particularly American, but is not totally idiosyncratic; America's history is its own, but is not without foreign parallels. It seems to me that, before supposing that Americans are peculiarly prone to foreign intervention because of manifest destiny, it would be important to show that this sort of behavior is actually peculiar to Americans.

Defense is expensive.

In his 2002 state of the union address, George W. Bush declared, "the price of freedom and security is high, it is never too high. Whatever it costs to defend our country, we will pay." His statement is inspiring, however it is dangerously vague when defense of our country eases into defense against all terrorism through offensive means.
The danger in this is when Qutb as quoted by R. Scott Appleby in "History in the Fundamentalist Imagination" states "we must change the meaning of the word 'defense' and mean 'defense of man'."
Considering the American mindset, the nuances in such a position, and the words of Qutb, what do we do? Does America own up to its actions and claim defense of man? Or does it quit offensive actions against threatening enemies? How do we keep America in check to live out the identity that it claims? Does it need to?

Catholic War Resistance

I was surprised to learn several interesting details regarding the peace work and stance of the Catholic Worker movement during the Vietnam War.  While I was aware that voluntary poverty was a standard tenant of the Catholic Worker movement, I had supposed that the movement had appropriated this idea from the many religious orders of the Catholic Church.  The fact that Dorothy Day used voluntary poverty as a way to resist war taxes, and that she "elevated it to a precept of the movement" for that purpose was a brilliant move on her part, both as a way to create solidarity between her new form of monasticism and the old, and as a way to very visibly reject the war power of the United States. [1]

Further, while I was aware from Daniel Barrigan and Thich Nhat Hanh's book The Raft is Not the Shore that several Buddhist monks had self-immolated themselves in protest against the war both in Vietnam and in the United States, I was unaware that a member of the Catholic Worker movement had done the same.  Barrigan and Hanh set forth a sort of Catholic-Buddhist theology for the act of self-immolation in that text ten years after Roger LaPorte set himself on fire.[2] I would imagine that LaPorte's death effected Barrigan greatly.

While I am aware that as public sentiment turned against the war it created more and more pressure on U.S. politicians to end the war, the war lasted for almost ten years from the time that LBJ ramped up the war after the Gulf of Tonkin.  What I don't know is how much of an effect did the actual peace movement itself have on the eventual ending of hostilities between the United States and Vietnam. Is it possible to separate the effects of the war being unpopular from the active resistance of the war by groups such as the Catholic Worker?

[1] Anne Klejment, American Catholic Pacifism: the Influence of Dorothy Day and the Catholic Worker Movement (Westport, CT: Praeger, 1996), 163
[2] Thich Nhat Hanh and Daniel Berrigan, The Raft Is Not the Shore: Conversations Toward a Buddhist-Christian Awareness (New York: Orbis Books, 2001), 63-72.

Negotiation, not in bad faith, but between bad parties

Abraham Heschel laments, "Driven by our tendency to suspect social change, by our tendency to measure other peoples' values by our own standards, we have no communication with the people of Vietnam, nor have we sought to relate ourselves to their political understanding." (Heschel, "Moral Outrage...," 54) Robert McAfee Brown writes that one of the vital roles of the church in times of war is "maintaining lines of communication between nations in times of war." (Brown, "Appeal...," 62) And Brown makes concrete suggestions as to how the credibility of such communication may be established. (Brown, "Appeal...," 90-95)

This is all well and good, but suppose neither side likes anything the other could possibly say? Worse, suppose both sides are downright unpleasant? Amanda Porterfield does a nice job of summarizing the (broadly) personalist convictions that might have given some religious Americans confidence that it could all be worked out at the negotiating table. But American renunciation of brutality would not have been the end of brutality in Vietnam: although surely exaggerated in the American press, nevertheless a significant number of war crimes were perpetrated by Vietcong irregulars and North Vietnamese regulars that were, similar to American war crimes, "unauthorized" only in the official record. My point here is not to downplay the seriousness of American war crimes with the hollow, morally trivial rejoinder, "But everybody does it!" My point is that the diplomatic solution proposed by Brown and the general attitude adopted by Heschel presume that Americans constituted the overwhelming majority of violent, ruthless people in Vietnam. It's worth saying that had that actually been true, the war would likely have been a resounding American and South Vietnamese victory, even as it would have been a perhaps greater moral defeat for the United States.

black and white

How do we deal with the tendency to see everything in either black or white? from one extreme to the other? I really like Michael Novak's statement: "Worse than making one mistake is to correct it just when the time for the correction has passed. We must meet each new situation on its own terms, keeping the past in mind but not being predetermined by it." now, should we determine the past? How do historians avoid dogmatism and leaning towards extreme views supported by inflexible arguments? should we follow a balanced approach or should we determine the past by our current historical constructions?

Comrade Jesus.

The intense globalization of the American mind brought on by two world wars and the increasing "threat" of communism seems to have drastically affected the American religious psyche. This week's writings are dripping with evidence for this move from the individualistic, anxiety-laden faith of the late 19th century toward the more corporate-minded, Social Gospel movement of the early 20th century. Brown writes, "Religion is not a private affair between the individual and God, but a corporate affair between the individual, God, and the neighbor." As Brown continues, the "new" idea of religion's social responsibility echoes the sentiments of those who conceptualized the nation of the United States. He writes, "It is the duty of the individual, both as religious person and as citizen, to play a responsible role in the processes of democracy."

I wonder if this shift in priority is the result of the threat of communism, not to the national identity, but to the role of religion in society. Religion was not accomplishing the goal that the founding fathers intended within a democratic republic. As the working class grew restless and the church proved less revolutionary, the socialist ideals of Marx and communists like Kropotkin took hold of the world. As Marx wrote, "[Religion] is the opium of the people."

Dorothy Day, a communist to Catholic convert, perplexes me. The Catholic church did not seem to align with her stance on military involvement, not initially anyway. Even her stance on non-violence was not a Catholic position. Instead she seemed to bring her communist ideals to her Christian faith. Could this, perhaps, be the case for the evolution of the "liberal" christian agenda? Would it exist without the rise and popular intellectual embrace of communism?

Vietnam and Civil Religion

So far in this class, we have mostly talked about how Americans have used religion to justify their role in wars.  They have talked of having God on their side, appealed to Providence, and honored the fallen.  The reading this week was markedly different, however, showing instead how religion could be used to denounce a war.   Much of Crisis of Conscience seemed to be a response to an earlier black and white Cold War ideology that posited righteous Americans against godless Communists—the authors state that, in the eyes of God, there is no “us” versus “them.”  But the authors’ argument goes further, stating that the actions of the nation are subject to the judgment of God.  The Vietnam War, then, was not just a mistake, it was a sin that needed to be confessed and atoned for. 

Does this argument signal a challenge to American civil religion?  Or is it the introduction of a new, chastened, and less bellicose civil religion?

Ritual of American Solidarity

      Amanda Porterfield talks about the disconnect between the "prophetic" and the "priestly," stemmed in a "disjuncture between internalized ethical principles and external social structures." (92)  People were not identifying with the actions that their government were taking.  I wonder how much the lack of a formal declaration of war on the part of the U.S. government contributed to this disjuncture.  Did the lack of "public" participation in the ritualized action of a declaration of war affect the notion of a nation unified in war? Could it have contributed to the national acceptance of resistance?

Big Time in the Jungle

Jill Lepore's idea that wounds and words win wars has continued to stick with me through this class. I have talked about the importance of communication in a couple different posts, but I am again drawn to the importance of words, the interpretation of war, and the communications that lead to war. 

Poterfield says, "the breakdown of traditional religious belief had strong precedents and antecedents in American history." She then goes on to talk about writers and teachers (communicators) who broke the ground for the cultural critics of the '60s and '70s.  

Novak talks about how Vietnam was seen on the TV and how that made people of faith uneasy. He also talks about how the lack of communication (the lack of listening, actually) within differing American viewpoints makes peace very difficult. Perhaps these thoughts seem unrelated, but they all tie back to the importance of communication. We saw in A Common Sense that communication can be used to manipulate and communication can be used to start wars. But without communication peace can never be found. So how does good communication happen without manipulation? Think about watching real live war on TV, is that manipulation or just communication?

unJust the war, reJust peace

Last week we discussed World War II and its ability to represent a Just War and its influence on several accepted paradigms, such as appeasement always being folly, which shape the interpretation of conflict.

The Vietnam War also became an illustration for future conflicts.  It is an example of an immoral war fought for selfish and arrogant reasons, doomed to fail --perhaps because it was immoral.  The quotes below illustrate the contextual legacy of WWII and the moral dilemma American Clergy faced in response to an unjust War.

“History asks that question about the rise of Nazism in the 1930s in Germany, and notes the failure of the churches to speak up until it was too late” (Vietnam: Crisis of Conflict, 65)

“Christians who aimed to rebuild society on Christian teachings faced enormous structural challenges.  Too often the church deferred to secular authority, namely, the nation-state and the narrow economic interests of capitalists” (Klejment & Roberts, 155)

Post-Vietnam, does a Just War still exist? Is the behaviour of the clergy in the readings a continuation of a moral responsibility to be society’s conscience or a re-appropriation of that responsibility?

Out of My Element

(Please note – the following is an exercise in polemics by the author with an eye towards our discussion)

V.I. Lenin was right: Imperialism is the highest form of Capitalism. And the American war in Vietnam was an imperialist war. “The present world order is very profitable for capitalists in the United States, who sit at the top of the heap,” wrote Michael Novak in 1967 while the war raged on. He used the phrase “dollar imperialism” to describe the economic benefits of enforcing the status quo, but a new, more insidious term has proliferated: “globalization.” Globalization is late-stage capitalist ideology triumphant.

Seen in this light, the Vietnam War was not about dominos or communists or humanitarian ideals, but about money. That and the viral spread of capitalist ideology, which is the same thing in the end – capital. To crib a phrase that Noam Chomsky nicked from John Dewey: government is the shadow cast by business over society. The American government may have signed the papers to go to war in Vietnam, but be sure that business interests sold them the pen to do so.

 Lenin again: unless the “economic essence of imperialism” is studied, “it will be impossible to understand and appraise modern war and modern politics.” Dorothy Day does not go far enough when she writes that “it is not Christianity and freedom we are protecting, but our possessions.” The economic essence of the Vietnam War has nothing to do with protection and everything to do with expansion – Eastward, ho. Question:  Was American “intervention” in Vietnam a war or a crisis (like our recent financial crash)?

“Moribund capitalism” is how Lenin defined the economic essence of imperialism. Lenin is dead. Capitalism lives on, or at least dies so very slowly.

Vietnam War

Dorothy Day. Robert Ludlow. Daniel and Philip Berrigan. During a "period of cultural and political transition from cold war consensus to widespread public dissatisfaction" the Catholicity of certain American citizens was becoming more and more prominent. [1] Catholic leaders began to have a political voice, and they screamed for pacifism and conscientious objection. Dorothy Day was highly critical of America's occupation with positions of power in French Indochina following the conflict in Vietnam. Through collaborations with The Catholic Worker, a "consistently pacifist" newspaper, leaders within the Catholic Church used Scripture and just-war theory to fight against convictions of military involvement in Southeast Asia.

The authors note that "the Worker was not an official publication of the church, the vast majority of Catholic leaders and church publications could safely ignore it." [2] But I wonder, if America had been more dominantly Catholic--if Catholicism had played a more prominent role in American civil religion--would we not have gone to war in Vietnam? Would "Vietnam" have been something else to us? Maybe more of a mission field than a battlefield?

[1] Anne Klejment and Nancy L. Roberts, The Catholic Worker and the Vietnam War, p. 156.
[2] Ibid., 154.

American Loyalties

In both our primary and secondary sources, one finds denominations and church leaders not just looking for a way out of the conflict, but arguing Judeo-Christian principles to implore their congregations to work for peace in the Vietnam conflict.  On top of this, the sources indicate a sense of unquestioned loyalty to the government leaders' decisions.

Novak states that, “Americans have a tradition of giving the benefit of the doubt to their leaders.  Americans think of themselves and of their leaders as basically decent and humanitarian.  Consequently, it is almost impossible for them to admit the truth about what is happening in Vietnam.” (Novak 36)  He goes on to state that “many of us have been unwilling to recognize mistakes, mistakes made in good faith, but mistakes nonetheless” (Novak, 46).

Porterfield states, “Many people simply could not tolerate the idea that the cause for which young Americans were risking or losing their lives was unworthy. And many of these people supported the war because, at some fundamental and ultimately religious level, America was true and good and right, whatever it did” (Porterfield, 92).

Countering this sentiment, one finds the comment in the Statement of the American Roman Catholic Bishops that, “No one is free to evade his personal responsibility by leaving it entirely to others to make moral judgments” (Appendix, 114).

Brown, in his chapter “An Appeal to the Churches and Synagogues” states, “the ultimate loyalty of Christian and Jew is not to the government but to God” (Brown 63).  He continues by stating, “as we look back from some vantage point in the future...one question will have to haunt the churches and synagogues: ‘Where were you?’” (Brown 65)

Given the fact that this is the first war that we have covered in class where the American people allowed such a gradual -- yet ultimately dramatic -- increase in involvement over time, do we “look back” now and ask the churches “where were you?” Or do we “look back” and see that many Americans had a new “ultimate loyalty” to the American civil religion and an unquestioned belief that America (and its leaders) were “true and good and right” and ask the question “why did you [give such loyalty to civil religion]?”

Othering in Vietnam

In chapter one of Crisis of Conscience, Michael Novak argues that the United States never made up its mind as to whether it was fighting the Chinese people or the ideology of Communism. In choosing a people and an ideology as an enemy, but not differentiating clearly between the two, the United States "muddled" the war by not declaring a concise enemy or its concise intentions (23).
What effect does it have on the ideology of the protagonist when it is unable to dissociate the people it is othering from the ideology it is othering? What happens when we don't give the enemy a voice or allow them a place at the table like the United States did during not so unconditional negotiations?
[Was this productive for religious support of the war by creating an identity for the enemy that was so opposite of the American ideal? Or was this negative for religious support, causing confusion as to which--ideology or people--was the enemy?]
And in the second chapter, Abraham Heschel caused me to wonder if in defining the enemy, was it ever a question to Americans whether the enemy was human first, Chinese or Vietnamese first, (ir)religious first, or Communist first? What do we do when they aren't given the voice to say what they are first?

The majority of academic literature regarding American war-time sentiments, despite its eloquence and scholarship, cannot do the same justice as a colloquialism from an American president. FDR, in his Annual Message to Congress (January 6, 1942), romantically uses this phrase, "They know that victory for us means victory for..." Freedom, democracy, family, decency, humanity, and religion--these are the hopeful spoils from a war with the Nazis, the Japanese, and the "Fascists." Reinhold Niebuhr, however, believes that the Christian American, and "the common guilt which makes him and his enemy kin," must invoke an understanding of mercy. I wonder, then, how did such feelings toward ultimate action (whether it to justice or mercy, or both) shape the physical nature of the war?

turn the other cheek or buy a sword

Reinhold Niebuhr pointed out two schools of Christian thought on the question of war: one was trying to avoid war at all cost by holding to the ideals of love and the character of the Christ, while the other one held war as the an ultimate response to tyranny which would be worse that the war itself. He argues that some modern versions of Christianity do not realize that human evil is a problem that needs a radical solution and that every Christian has the responsibility to take action as an instrument of God's justice. If the result of the war had disastrous implications/consequences for the whole world, how could Christians have avoided helping other nations?

Did Holy War Receive Collateral Damage from World War I?

Like some of my colleagues who have beat me to it earlier this evening, I was left wondering exactly what it was about World War I that caused such "cautious patriotism" as described by Sittser.  After all the reading and research that I've done previously on the attack of Civil Liberties during the Great War, along with the American public's (and the Churches) sometimes almost joyous collusion with the government in bring that erosion about, I was surprised to learn that the mainline Churches did not go into World War II with quite as much excitement as they did during World War I. Also, knowing that Harry Emerson Fosdick had supported the Great War vehemently, I was amazed to learn that he became a pacifist after the war and remained so during World War II.

So what was it about the Great War that turned men like Fosdick and others off of war, to the point that some had to be dragged back to the fount? Was it because, as Fosdick says, that the "unanimous judgment seems to be that we, the democracies, are just as responsible for the rise of the dictators as the dictatorships themselves, and perhaps more so."?[1]  Was it due to the fact, as he quotes the President of Columbia University, that "that Great War., with all its terrible sacrifice of life... was futile."?[2]  Was it due to the fact, as Sittser suggests, that some worried that entrance into yet another World War would put those progressive social changes that were currently at work in the country at risk?[3] Or, as Sittser also suggests in the same paragraph, that people were worried about the collapse of Civil liberties in the same manner that they were run roughshod over during the Great War?[4]  Was it a combination of all of these things and much more?  The answer, it seems, is important not only to the is historian, but also to those in the church that would like to see cautiousness rule the day with regards to the next conflict American finds herself embroiled in.


[1] Harry Emerson Fosdick, “If America Is Drawn Into War,” The Christian Century, January 22, 1941, 116.
[2] Ibid.
[3] Gerald L. Sittser, A Cautious Patriotism: the American Churches and the Second World War (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1997), 58.
[4] Ibid.

Don't Wake the Lion

As I was reading Neibuhr I found myself questioning my pacifist beliefs. But then as I was reading Fosdick I reaffirmed those beliefs. I know this class is not supposed to be about Christian non-violence or JWT and what is right verses what is wrong, it is a history class, but sometimes it is impossible to talk about war and not be utterly consumed with the moral implications of non-violence vs. non-non-violence. Did I miss it or does Neibuhr ignore the "third" option - the option that doesn't use violence but still gets stuff done? Fosdick seems to think that this option is the better one, but he does acknowledge that if the "third" option is not available to you, then fight because it is better than doing nothing. It seems like Christians need to be more creative, like Andre Trocme who rescued Jews during the Nazi occupation in France without using violence. But where does that creativity come from and what should it look like?

American "neutralists" and the Second World War

Sittser outlines the political anxieties of American "neutralists" opposed to American involvement in the Second World War, such Francis Talbot and Charles Clayton Morrison: the malignant growth of presidential authority, stalled social reform, and constrained civil liberties (Sittser, 56-59) What are we to make of these supporters of American neutrality? The awkward truth is that their prospective analyses were substantively correct. Militarizing the nation did, in fact, put a number of reform-minded legislative efforts on hold, dramatically expand presidential authority, and lead to significant limits on previously-assumed civil liberties. The long-term consequences were not significantly different; although Orser makes the case that the Second World War saw significant advances in mainline Protestant thought about institutional discrimination against African-Americans, Sittser points out the well-known fact that Japanese-Americans did not enjoy the same advances, such as they were. Certainly, presidential authority did not promptly shrink back to pre-World War II levels after the cessation of hostilities. And as far as civil liberties go, it's worth remembering that the late forties see the formal genesis of the Central Intelligence Agency and National Security Agency, agencies not exactly noted for their robust defense of traditional liberties. (Remaining students contributing to this blog: I know that you will want to thank me for calling your remarks on this blog to the attention of our nation's intelligence-gathering apparatus, but please, no gifts. My needs are few and my apartment is full.)

So the relatively thoughtful neutralists whom Sittser considers were right in important respects. That they had an accurate analysis obviously didn't help them carry the day in American foreign policy. Are these tragic figures? Prophetic figures? People who happened to be right but were hardly assured of being so? Or people whose values Sittser admires on some level but whose values (or at least whose relative ordering of those values) just weren't shared by the average American?

To conclude on a note of disordered American values and expansion of presidential authority, I offer this story about a member of my extended family who lived through the Great Depression and the Second World War. Many years after Franklin Roosevelt's death, a local pastor, weary of my relative's rhapsodizing about Roosevelt's saintliness, sardonically inquired whether my relative would follow Jesus or Roosevelt if both returned to Earth simultaneously. Without any hesitation or trace of irony, my relative answered, "Roosevelt."

Historical Theological Questions

What theological developments and academic innovations occurred between the world wars? Niebuhr and Fosdick both refer to relatively recent focuses on the "historical Jesus" and speak about him and his political involvement in ways we have not seen thus far in primary sources. It seemed that Niebuhr's references to the Old Testament were somewhat void of historical criticism, yet he references the "historical Jesus." What was the academic focus in theology at that time and how did affect the American-Christian position on war? What made this situation different from a theological perspective from the debates among the clergy prior to WWI?

Intertwined or inseparable?

In his state of the Union address, Franklin D. Roosevelt says, "They know that victory for us means victory for the institution of democracy....they know that victory for us means victory for religion" (291). Are these two ideologies intertwined or inseparable?

In his book, A Cautious Patriotism, Sittser mentions that many religious leaders idealized democracy during World War II by treating it like it was its own religion or an essential part of Christian theology. Is democracy its own religion? Or is it really just an ideological source for American civil religion?
If it isn't its own religion, is it an essential part of Christianity? Could true (unforced), popular Christianity survive without democracy? Could democracy occur without Christianity?



In addition, is it democracy, is it Christianity, or is it our approach to war what has made America so unique as a country?

What Happened to American Optimism?

   In "The Christian Faith and the World Crisis," Niehbur writes, "We are well aware of the sings of all the nations, including our own, which have contributed to the chaos of our era." Harry Emerson Fosdick echoes the same sentiment when he says "the bill of particulars has often been written, and all but unanimous judgment seems to be that we, the democracies, are just as responsible for the rise of the dictators as the dictatorships themselves, and perhaps more so." 

     Of course, Fosdick and Niehbur reach completely different conclusions when it comes to American foreign action, but both hold a fundamental pessimism about the effectiveness of our nation and modern war that we did not see just two decades previous in the American attitudes toward the Great War.  Were any optimists left, or were all sides of an argument approached from this new understanding of war?  What caused this pessimism about war? Was it the destruction caused by WW1, despite the relatively light impact it had on the United States specifically? Was it the failure of the Great War to literally end all war? Or was it caused by other factors, like global depression?  Was the pessimism an American idea, or more of an import from Europe?

How to Fight a War

Gerald Sittser’s book chronicles the tension among American churches at the eve of America’s entrance into WWII.  According to Sittser, the interventionist moral and political argument eventually won out (helped greatly by Reinhold Niebuhr).  However, I was left wondering if this debate continued to play out throughout the war.  It’s one thing to reach a consensus that intervention was a political necessity, but was there a subsequent debate over how the war should be fought?  Looking back at WWII, it is clear that it was a total war, one that blurred the lines between civilians and combatants.  Was this clear from the eve of the war?   It seems like the logical extension of much of the intervention argument: if Western civilization was indeed at stake, then a “Christian realist” might argue that it was morally right to do what was necessary to protect it.  But did this “Christian realism” have humanitarian limits, and if so, how could they be identified?  Did it justify the bombing of civilians, if such actions could bring a faster end to the war?  And, at the most extreme of these examples, could it ever be used to justify the use of the nuclear bomb?