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]?”