Documentary: The End of America by Naomi Wolf
In a stunning indictment of sweeping policy changes during the Bush years, best-selling author Naomi Wolf (The Beauty Myth) makes a chilling case that American democracy is under threat. Investigating parallels between our current situation and the rise of dictators and fascism in once-free societies, Wolf uncovers a number of deeply unsettling similarities-from the use of paramilitary groups and secret prisons to the targeted suspension of the rule of law. With this galvanizing call to arms based on her recent book, she urges regular citizens to take back our legacy of freedom and justice.
Note: RLTV presents materials from a variety of perspectives. This film appears for informational purposes only and does not indicate an endorsement of ideas presented.
BREAKING NEWS: President Obama Creates New Office of Faith-based and Neighborhood Partnerships
By Derek H. Davis, J.D., Ph.D.
Director, UMHB Center for Religious Liberty
University of Mary Hardin-Baylor
Belton, Texas
WASHINGTON, DC – President Barack Obama signed an executive order on Thursday, February 5, to create the White House Office of Faith-based and Neighborhood Partnerships. The office replaces the controversial Office of Faith-based and Community Initiatives that George W. Bush created to provide government grants to churches and other faith-based organizations to administer welfare programs. ”The goal of this office will not be to favor one religious group over another–or even religious groups over secular groups,” Obama stated when announcing the new office at the annual National Prayer Breakfast. The purpose, he said, “will simply be to work on behalf of those organizations that want to work on behalf of our communities, and to do so without blurring the line that our founders wisely drew between church and state.”
The president’s announcement follows his selection last week of Pentecostal minister Joshua Dubois, 26, to direct the new office. DuBois previously directed a religious outreach program in Obama’s former Senate office and holds a master’s degree in public affairs from Princeton University. DuBois also headed the Obama campaign’s religious outreach efforts, which included organizing nearly 1,000 meetings with clergy across the country to discuss how government might work with faith-based and other community groups to improve the lives of people on the margins.
Obama now faces the task of revamping the faith-based initiative while avoiding the criticism that was frequently directed at President Bush for ignoring prevailing church-state law.
Obama now faces the task of revamping the faith-based initiative while avoiding the criticism that was frequently directed at President Bush for ignoring prevailing church-state law. For example, many faith groups are now waiting to see if Obama will fulfill his campaign promise to prevent religion-based hiring for federally-funded positions within faith-based organizations that receive grants. Under Bush, faith-based groups receiving government dollars were allowed to exclusively hire those of the same faith, a practice that defied traditional law and custom. Obama said in a campaign speech last summer, “If you get a federal grant, you can’t use that grant money to proselytize to the people you help and you can’t discriminate against them — or against the people you hire — on the basis of their religion.” Obama has not specified how he will handle the hiring issue, but the executive order he signed Thursday calls for collaboration between his new office and the attorney general for advice on “difficult legal and constitutional issues.” (See www.pbs.org, 2-5-09).
No previous president had been as bold as Bush in crafting a specific program that would so dramatically challenge the American principle of church-state separation. Grants to faith-based charities during the Bush years, more than 1300 total awards, averaged more than $2 billion annually. While campaigning last summer, Obama criticized Bush’s plan, saying it “never fulfilled its promise.” Perhaps the greatest shortcoming of the Bush plan was the way it failed, as promised, to end discrimination against religion generally and against various religious groups specifically. When the Bush plan was first announced in 2000, well-known evangelical leaders such as Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson voiced objections to the plan because it threatened “Christian America” since groups like Scientology, the Unification Church, and Wicca might receive government money. But this concern proved toothless, since according to one study in November 2006 reported by the Boston Globe, 98.3% of all Bush administration grants to faith-based agencies from the Office of Faith Based Initiatives were awarded to Christian groups. The practice of excluding non-Christian groups was confirmed by a former staffer in the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives. David Kuo, in Tempting Faith: An Inside Story of Political Seduction, asserted that applications for federal faith-based funds were often rejected by reviewers because they came from non-Christian applicants. Kuo reported being told by one grant reviewer, “When I saw one of those non-Christian groups on the set I was reviewing, I just stopped looking at them and gave them a zero. A lot of us did.” (Americans United Press Release, October 12, 2006).
President Obama faces a strong challenge to administer his new office in a way that fairly and effectively distributes government grants to worthy faith-based organizations while respecting settled American law governing the interplay between church and state.
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The mission of The University of Mary Hardin-Baylor Center for Religious Liberty is to advance religious liberty for all persons, in all parts of the world, without regard to their religious, ethnic, gender, racial or national background. Religious liberty is a basic human right that must be nourished and protected by all human societies; it is the cornerstone of modern societies’ efforts to build a more peaceful world. The Center advances this mission by publishing relevant literature, hosting and sponsoring lectureships and conferences, sharing its expertise with media and other public information outlets, and partnering with other persons and groups who share the goal of advancing religious liberty. The web site for the Center can be found at www.umhb.edu/academics/crl
Seven Years Later and Counting – A 9/11 Scrapbook
9/11
Seven years have passed since the planes hit the World Trade Center. Here is an unvarnished scrapbook of events that took place on that day and how these events led to a war in the Middle East and what happened there.
The Attack – After the first plane hit one of the towers, this cameraman set up his home video camera on a balcony 1 block from the world trade centers and left the room to let it record unknowing a 2nd plane would hit and he would catch it on tape.
A few religious leaders reacted to 9/11 in unusual ways. Included towards the end is a section where Bush takes a passage from the Gospel of John and revises it, so that the light of Christ becomes the light of America. Here are excerpts of comments by Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, and others.
That evening, the singer Sting held a concert in Tuscany, Italy. Here he is singing “Fragile”.
A YouTuber made this video clip with pictures of some of the people who died on September 11, 2001. The song is “I Can Only Imagine” by Mercy Me.
9/11 Tribute – “How to Save a Life” by The Fray
The U.S. then went to war – “Daddy Where You Going?” Performed by Brian Wardwell. Written by Tommy Joe Myers and Jim Flynn.
“Half My Heart Back in Tennessee” A soldier sings to his family from Camp Victory in Iraq – Country Music Video by Army Captain Chris Atkins, a Combat Stress Mental Health officer, filmed at Camp Victory, Iraq on November 10, 2007 in front of Saddam’s Old Palace and current HQ of FORSCOM and General Petreus. Chris lives in Chattanooga, Tennessee with his wife of 9 years, Miranda, and daughters Hannah, 8 and Grace, 5. They just found out they will have a third child due 5 days before Chris returns stateside in late May. This song is a love song from a soldier in Love during a time of war.
There were protests – Let it Be
There were more protests - Eminem “Mosh”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=quTwzpM3qnM
Congress was concerned - Senator Joe Biden on the War in 2007
Beginning Monday 9-01-08 until 11-05-08, the documentary film No End In Sight will be released in it’s entirety on YouTube by Director and Producer Charles Ferguson.
http://www.youtube.com/user/noendinsight
Chrisopher Hitchens: Don’t Patronize Palin (Salon.com)
In today’s column, outspoken atheist Christopher Hitchens describes the religious situation of this year’s crop of candidates. Here is an excerpt of the full article which is available at http://www.slate.com/id/2199568/
Interviewed by Rick Warren at the grotesque Saddleback megachurch a short while ago, Sen. Barack Obama announced that Jesus had died on the cross to redeem him personally. How he knew this he did not say. But it will make it exceedingly difficult for him, or his outriders and apologists, to ridicule Palin for her own ludicrous biblical literalist beliefs. She has inarticulately said that her gubernatorial work would be hampered “if the people of Alaska’s heart isn’t right with god.” Her local shout-and-holler tabernacle apparently believes that Jews can be converted to Jesus and homosexuals can be “cured.” I cannot wait to see Obama and Biden explain how this isn’t the case or how it’s much worse than, and quite different from, Obama’s own raving and ranting pastor in Chicago or Biden’s lifelong allegiance to the most anti-”choice” church on the planet. The difference, if there is one, is that Palin is probably sincere whereas the Democratic team is almost certainly hypocritical. The same is true of the boring contest over who can be the most populist, and of the positively sinister race to see who can be the most demagogically anti-Washington. With this kind of immaturity right across both tickets, it’s insulting to be asked to decide on the basis of experience, let alone “readiness.”
Read the full column at http://www.slate.com/id/2199568/
Could Chet Edwards be Obama’s Running Mate? Edwards speaks on Religious Liberty
Today, Friday, August 22, 2008, the country is waiting to hear who Barack Obama has chosen as his running mate. One of the names that is surfacing is Rep. Chet Edwards.
Editor
————-
Rep. Chet Edwards represents President George Bush’s home district (including Crawford, Texas) in the United States House of Representatives. A moderate who considers himself a bridge-builder between left and right, and a Methodist who attends the Calvary Baptist Church in Waco, Texas, Rep. Edwards is a staunch supporter of the separation of church and state.
The following is text from a speech Rep. Edwards gave on November 19, 2003.
America’s Would-be Saviors
This article originally appeared on the Northwest Religious Liberty Association at http://www.nrla.com/article.php?id=75 and is used here by permission of the author.
By Gregory W. Hamilton©
August 5, 2008
It is not just the Pope who is drawing hundreds of thousands, with throngs pressing all about to get a glimpse of him, and maybe even a touch of his hand. During his media saturated whirlwind tour of the Middle East and Europe, Illinois Senator Barack Obama drew a wildly enthusiastic crowd of over 200,000 to the Victory Column (the Siegessäule) in Berlin, Germany’s Tiergarten Park.
Obama’s speech was a classic “kumbaya moment” in which he proposed a “why can’t we all just get along” group hug involving Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran, its sponsored Hezbollah and Hamas terrorist organizations, the Palestinians, Israel, and Western nations, as one means, among many, of solving the global war on terrorism and saving the world.[1] Realistic or not, it was effective in Europe but short-lived in terms of political poll numbers and influence back home.[2]
Not unlike Pope Benedict XVI’s reason for employing his reform-minded slogan of “faith and reason,” this year’s cast of presidential candidates offer “hope and change,” with both promising to rescue our country and the world from the apparent brink of disaster—economically, militarily, spiritually, and environmentally.
The world we enter in 2008 is radically different than 2000, or even 2004. It seems that the world is spinning out of control with escalating oil prices, crumbling financial infrastructure, moral decay, the threat of terrorism and global climate catastrophe. Americans are looking for a savior they can see and touch; a political savior who can deliver our country and the world from this growing turmoil.
Obamafest
It may seem like a stretch to describe a candidate as a literary “Christ figure,” but so pronounced has this savior-like phenomenon become, that Senator Barack Obama was caricatured on the front cover of The New Republic magazine as a Saint with a large glowing halo behind his head, and with his hand and forefingers bent forward as if he were blessing the planet.
Superimposed behind this amazing civil-religious image was the United States flag, unfurled in all its glory, subliminally reinforcing in propaganda-like proportions that history had foreordained Barack Obama to save us from an eight-year nightmare and, as the next leader of the free world, guide it into the Promised Land.
Unlike other magazines, which have caricaturized Senator Obama as a Muslim in an attempt to disparage conspiracy theories that claim he is a secret Muslim and sympathizer, the editors of The New Republic explicitly fawned over him, even designating him to be the next JFK.[3]
A month later, British-based Economist magazine pictured him in a rock star mode before a huge crowd at a stadium with the caption: “But could he deliver?”[4] Whether he can or not is missing the point: Obama’s sunny innocence, youth, and optimism is contagious because he seems to be genuinely honest and sincere, uncorrupted by the insider world of politics. This is apparently what he means by the promise of “hope and change.” He is the proposed change, not any specific policy proposal. Politically, this is his drawing card. This is what attracts so many to him.[5] History demonstrates that elections are not won on substance, but personality and smart sound bites. “Hope and change” is simply enough during times of seeming hopelessness and despair.[6]
History and Reality
Americans and the world have been witnessing a passionate revival of an all-American four-year tradition known as the “race for the White House.” This election season, history will be made. Barring some major gaffe or damaging revelation, polls indicate that there is a reasonable chance that an African American will serve as the next President of the United States. Or the first Vietnam veteran, a War hero, will be President.
Both offer strengths and weaknesses when it comes to their foreign and domestic policy proposals. For the purposes of this article, their respective foreign policy approaches and the influences shaping these approaches will be our focus.
Foreign policy is an area of concern that we need to be aware of and understand during this election season.
Barack Obama’s Foreign Policy
Aside from Barack Obama’s statement that he did not vote in favor of invading Iraq, and promising to withdraw all American troops within 16-months after being elected, he has not said much. Yet there are clues that are consistent with his Christian faith.
Obama states on his campaign website, www.barackobama.com, that he “is the only major candidate who supports tough, direct presidential diplomacy with Iran without preconditions.” Underlying this approach is a religious component.
One of Barack Obama’s foreign policy and campaign advisors is former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright. Her book, The Mighty and the Almighty: Reflections on America, God, and World Affairs, promotes a movement toward religious and political ecumenism. She proposes drafting the world’s leading religious leaders, including the Pope and his worldwide diplomatic corps, as diplomats at a higher level than even the state departments of Western countries currently recognize.[7] She also advocates diplomatic engagement instead of the use of force to achieve America’s goals with rogue nations, such as Iran. Based on her years of professional experience, she believes that direct diplomacy breaks down barriers better than isolation and builds relationships through mutual understanding, utilizing the proven Reagan doctrine of “trust but verify.” During the Reagan presidency, this was code language for using covert military operations in the attempt to force rogue nations to accept democratic reform and thus democratic governmental rule. “Engagement,” therefore, “is not appeasement,” she says.[8]
Fareed Zakaria is another advisor. In his book Post American World, Zakaria praises Obama for his vision of strengthening America’s infrastructure, and working with cultural and religious realities in various parts of the world as the best long term way to deal with terrorism. Equipping the nation’s ability to quickly bounce back, economically, diplomatically, and culturally from a terrorist attack is equally as important as preventing an attack, he argues, and is the best way to win back alienated nations and to enlist their support for mutual long term prosperity and security.[9]
Religion, according to a growing chorus of thought leaders, is the missing dimension of statecraft.[10] The idea is to bring together religious leaders from around the world to dialogue and formulate ways to make religion a force for good, with the ultimate goal of world peace. Many see Rome as the originator of this approach—with its unique and powerful mix of sovereign nation status along with being the most powerful church on earth.[11]
Coincidentally, this ecumenical model was revived by the advents of President Jimmy Carter (elected in 1976)[12] and Pope John Paul II (elected in 1978),[13] who both emphasized this approach in theory and practice throughout their lifetimes. Their legacy has been revived, in part, by former British Prime Minister Tony Blair and his newly established Faith Foundation.[14]
Another striking example of this approach is in The Review of Faith and International Affairs, a quarterly with ecumenical, non-partisan mission intentions. It is an academic journal in which well-known scholars, conservative and liberal, Protestant and Catholic, call upon the U.S. State Department to shape foreign policy around the strategic values of faith, particularly human rights and religious freedom.[15]
This ecumenical model, which fits nicely with his belief in “tough, direct presidential diplomacy,” is the foreign policy model that Barack Obama hopes to build on if he wins in November. Obama’s approach to foreign policy, however, possesses the same potential temptations and pitfalls to foreign policy as John McCain’s, particularly in regard to any real connection to Rome’s increasing involvement in U.S. foreign policy. The difference is that McCain accepts the explicit risks involved. Obama’s approach is less developed.
McCain’s League of Democracies
Enter John McCain. A Vietnam War hero, and a former graduate student of the National War Academy, he is praised by some in the conservative press as the visionary savior of advancing U.S. and international freedom—a tried and steady hand who offers wisdom, foresight and true leadership experience in both domestic and foreign policy matters.[16] However, one of his proposals, while backed by extensive foreign policy experience, is as dangerous as it is utopic,[17] particularly when viewed from a prophetic perspective.
In the November/December 2007 issue of Foreign Affairs, Senator McCain proposed that “democratic nations should be linked in one common organization: a worldwide League of Democracies.” He promised that “If I am elected president, during my first year in office I will call a summit of the world’s democracies to seek the views of my counterparts and explore the steps necessary to realize this vision.” McCain’s goals: 1) “Harnessing the political and moral advantages offered by united democratic action;” 2) “bringing concerted pressure to bear on tyrants;” and 3) “defeating radical Islamists.” McCain emphasizes that steps two and three involve the options of using economic sanctions or necessary military force to achieve these goals. In a speech in Los Angeles he noted that there were “one hundred democratic nations around the world to advance our values and defend our shared interests.”[18]
Since the invasion of Iraq by the United States in 2003, a number of liberal and conservative foreign policy experts, for varying reasons, have been urging this novel idea.[19] With the exception of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which was recently praised by G8 leaders in Japan for their aggressive monitoring of Iran’s nuclear ambitions,[20] the perception has been growing that the United Nations (UN), including the UN Security Council, is ineffective, has lost its focus and will, and has no tangible power or authority to affect peace or justice throughout the world. They say it has been hijacked by member nations who have little or no interest in promoting democratic reform or freedom.[21]
A League of Democracies would take decades to develop,[22] but as a convenient substitute, the United States has begun expanding and using the previously limited Cold War prerogatives of NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) in Afghanistan, Iraq, Darfur, including a proposed missile defense shield in the Middle East.[23]
This is significant, because unlike the United Nations, such an institution would not be limited to economic sanctions but could actually use military force to achieve its objectives for world peace.
But there is more. Proponents argue that it would be the most effective method of peacefully pressuring rogue and developing nations to adopt democratic reforms and put religious freedom on the fast track in cooperation with the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF). According to Allen Hertzke, Presidential Professor of Political Science at the University of Oklahoma, advocates of this plan have been determined to “expose, shame, and potentially punish nations that violate the rights of religious believers.” Economic sanctions alone “reflected a lack of trust in routine diplomacy” to ensure compliance. Until the advent of the Bush Administration—with the exception of former Secretary of State Colin Powell—this approach differs significantly from the U.S. State Department’s traditional tendency of using the sensitized “go slow” diplomatic and ecumenical engagement efforts of the U.S. Ambassador-at-Large for international religious freedom, which is the approach that Senator Barack Obama and former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright champion as discussed earlier.[24]
In May, Senator McCain announced that He would make freedom of religion a key foreign policy issue if elected to the White House in November. He stated emphatically that “No society that denies religious freedom can ever rightly claim to be good in some other way.”[25]
In a speech given on another occasion, Senator McCain focused on America’s moral obligation—its so-called manifest destiny, a crusade if you will—to export religious freedom, and freedom in general, as a matter of foreign policy principle. His proposal was put forward in terms of benevolence and transparency, with no hidden agenda. “America truly is not like past superpowers, countries who sought territorial gain or imperial dominion.” Instead, he said, “We wish to free, not to enslave; to trade, not to steal; to enlighten and learn, not to dominate and convert.”[26]
McCain can legitimately make this claim. As Allen Hertzke explains, “Because virtually all of the globe’s nations are signatories to the Universal Declaration [of Human Rights] and subsequent covenants, U.S. officials legitimately can claim that they are not attempting to impose ‘our values’ on the rest of the world. Rather, in implementing IRFA [International Religious Freedom Act] the United States is merely calling upon other nations to live up to covenants they have approved.”[27]
In this context, McCain went on to argue that “Our moral standing is directly tied to our ability to maintain America’s preeminent leadership in the world.” Isolation and leadership by example are no longer sufficient: “The object of American power should not be limited to our own protection and economic self-interest.” Instead, he said, “We must seek a better world, one respectful of the rights we believe to be the universal province of all people. To do less would not simply threaten the very interests we seek to protect; it would also mean abdicating American leadership at this unique moment in history.”[28]
After the events of 9/11, Economist magazine made an interesting observation: “Terrorism against American interests ‘over there’ should be regarded just as we regard terrorism against America ‘over here.’ America’s homeland is, in fact, ‘the planet.’”[29] This helps to also sum up the assumed and internationally recognized role of the United States when it comes to religious freedom and human rights around the world: protagonist and enforcer (i.e., the world’s champion advocate and policeman). Indeed, America’s homeland has become the planet. In this sense, Senator McCain has a legitimate argument: a self-imposed isolation would not be possible. We are stuck in the unenviable position of being both loved and hated. There is no turning back. From a prophetic perspective, we are at once both “lamblike” and “dragon-like.”[30]
Just recently, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice offered a startling revelation in an essay in Foreign Affairs demonstrating just how far such policy thinking had progressed since 9/11 when she discussed the strategic connection between Iraq, democratic reform in the Middle East, and religious freedom. She wrote: “The democratization of Iraq and the democratization of the Middle East were linked. So, too, was the war on terror linked to Iraq, because our goal after September 11 was to address the deeper malignancies of the Middle East, not just the symptoms of them.”[31]
The “malignancies” Secretary Rice referred to was how best to manage and unite Sunnis and Shiites in Iraq, and exterminate religious fanatics, namely Al-Qaeda operatives, in behalf of world peace. “In the long term,” she argued, “our [national] security is best ensured by the success of our ideals: religious freedom, human rights, open markets, democracy, and the rule of law.”[32] This is exactly John McCain’s argument.
Circling the Wagons
Most people do not comprehend the larger strategy: a three-step process of democratization, religious freedom, and proselytization; using peaceful diplomatic means, and short of that, force, to achieve its ends. It has a decided “missionary” component, with the tanks circling not to defend but to intimidate and coerce all those who work against world unity.
The circling of the religious and political wagons (i.e., “tanks”) can be seen in the anxious, threatening July 29 press release by Abu Yahya al Libi, a close associate of Al Qaeda’s leader Osama bin Laden. Catholic World News reported that al Libi called for the death of Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah for making an ecumenical pact with Pope Benedict XVI in November (2007) and allowing the Roman Catholic Church to build several cathedrals in Saudi Arabia.[33]
Certainly, the moral force to bear on such extremists is clearly warranted. But where does it ultimately lead, and when does it end? Good intentions are one thing, but as Benjamin Franklin once wrote: “Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.”[34]
The use of force in addition to the use of diplomatic “big sticks” to bring about religious freedom in lands that propagate terrorism and terrorists may sound good to us now because we are not the target, and it keeps us comfortable and secure. But prophetically speaking, the growing trend of uniting ecumenically and politically to achieve this goal—whether coming from Rome, from the leaders of our country, or both—carries with it the seeds of democratic dictatorship and intolerance in its train—not true religious freedom as we understand it today, despite the glowing rhetoric of religious freedom and human rights increasingly attached to it. E.G. White, a prominent 19th and early 20th-century Protestant reformer, once wrote about the coming circling of the wagons: “Foreign nations will follow the example of the United States. Though she leads out, yet the same crisis will come upon our people in all parts of the world.”[35]
In context of making void God’s law by forcing American citizens and the world to worship on Sunday instead of the true Sabbath, White also wrote that “The nation will be on the side of the great rebel leader.”[36] It would not be surprising if a religious worship law—national and universal—is decreed in the name of both preserving the peace, security, and common good (or “ecumenical” good) of the world (i.e., in the name of world peace and security). Tolerance instead of religious freedom is the new word of choice these days. It is even being argued today that tolerance and religious freedom are ideals that are only as strong as peace and security. To secure the one—peace and security—is to secure the other—unity and religious tolerance. In the meantime, religious freedom as a guarantee is conveniently lost along the way.
Exporting religious freedom abroad by force is doing the same in the spirit of coercion—the very spirit of the dragon found in Revelation 13:11, and paradoxically a pattern throughout Revelation 13 in which powers that appear to have holy agendas are dragon-like in spirit, using dragon-like methods.[37] It seemed so right after 9/11 because we had been attacked. But it is, in fact, an ideal that cannot be morally sustained. It is wrongheaded.
In this sense, when it comes to foreign policy, the spirit of Protestantism in America has yielded to the Catholic spirit of forced uniformity for the sake of international unity, peace, and security. In other words, defining religious freedom in terms of ecumenical and political unity for the sake of international cohesion is not true religious freedom. It is the spirit of coercion.
True religious freedom cannot be equated with “unity.” It is the right to dissent—yea, to “protest”—which was the very spirit and foundation of the Protestant Reformation and the American Constitutional Revolution. That definition is changing as Rome is reshaping American domestic and foreign policy to fit its own religious and political ideals.
Rome, John McCain, and U.S. Foreign Policy
With the election of Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger as Pope Benedict XVI in April 2005, Rome began an unofficial policy role reversal by quietly backing progress by the United States in bringing about democratic reform in Iraq and the Middle East.
When Francis Rooney became U.S. Ambassador to the Vatican in November of 2005, he told Catholic News Service that the war in Iraq had moved into the category of “shared objectives,” and away from strong opposition by the Vatican during the waning years of Pope John Paul’s Administration. He announced, “We’re in a new day here, with the Vatican and the United States supporting each other as we work together to support the people of Iraq.” In regard to nation-building, he said, “the Holy See is there to lend its voice of support, in developing a free, particularly religiously free, country that is based upon freedom and democratic principles.”[38]
There are three reasons for this policy change. First, Rome seeks to ride the wave of democratic power exhibited by the United States since the fall of Communism in the Soviet Union[39] and particularly since the 9/11 threat of Islamic Fundamentalism and Osama bin Laden. Prior to Pope Benedict’s recent visit to the U.S., Brad Minor of Newsmax magazine observed that “As the world’s last global superpower, American political hegemony can help the Church’s global efforts.”[40] Indeed, Miner’s description unwittingly harmonizes with Revelation 17’s depiction of the harlot (i.e., the Church of Rome) riding a beast symbolizing Rome’s return to its historic and corrupting political-power sharing role—if not a controlling one—with the kings of the earth, but this time with the last superpower nation depicted in Bible prophecy, the United States of America.[41]
The second is to express in subtle but specific diplomatic words and actions—official and unofficial—that it buys into the developing U.S. foreign policy strategy of benevolently forcing failed nations—through all three methods, diplomatic (including ecumenical) pressure, economic sanctions, and military force (whatever works)—to adopt major democratic reforms as a means of being accepted into the world community. The national and international security interests of the United States are in the strategic interests of Rome. These shared interests were manifested in “diplomatic speak” during Pope Benedict XVI’s visit to the United States in April, and particularly during his visit to the White House on his 81st birthday. The official Web site of the White House posted a welcome message to “His Holiness” by President and Mrs. Bush. In a brief message, the First Couple announced: “The President and the Holy Father will continue discussions, which began during the President’s visit to the Vatican in June 2007, on their common commitment to the importance of faith and reason in reaching shared goals.” “These goals,” they said, “include advancing peace throughout the Middle East and other troubled regions, promoting interfaith understanding, and strengthening human rights and freedom, especially religious liberty, around the world.”[42] John McCain also welcomed Benedict by praising him as “the most influential advocate for peace and faith in the lives of millions of Americans, and for millions more” throughout the world.[43]
As Richard John Neuhaus of the evangelical Catholic journal First Things observed during the Pope’s American tour, Benedict quietly affirmed “the connection between a nation’s sovereignty and its duty to protect its citizens.” In reflecting on the Pope’s unexpected affirmation of this aspect of U.S. foreign policy and the global war on terrorism, Neuhaus argued that this “entails the” corresponding “obligation of outside intervention when a nation defaults on that duty.”[44] If Neuhaus’ assessment is correct, it would reinforce Senator McCain’s League of Democracies proposal and a continuation of the preemptive foreign policy track of Secretary of State Rice and the Bush Administration.
Economist magazine recently reported that Rome has been dispatching its historic diplomatic consulting services more aggressively through its international cadre of diplomats, which are now stationed in 176 countries, many of them democratic. While there is no doubt that Rome is ready to work with Senator Obama with his strictly diplomatic and ecumenical foreign policy strategies if he should become president, Senator McCain is, in this sense, definitely more in-sync with Rome and its current policy role reversal in his overall foreign policy goals. In comparison with Senator Obama’s “savior” persona, this is significant, because, philosophically, John McCain’s candidacy potentially comes attached with a much more powerful would-be “savior,” or ally.
Which brings us to the third motive: the day before the Pope arrived in the United States for his whirlwind tour in April, Harvard Constitutional Law professor and newly appointed U.S. Ambassador to the Vatican, Mary Ann Glendon, confirmed this dramatic shift between Pope John Paul II’s opposition to the U.S. invasion of Iraq and Pope Benedict XVI’s new position. Benedict, according to Glendon, is fully supportive of U.S. efforts to bring about democratic reform in Iraq and the Middle East, despite “some initial disagreement” between the Vatican and the U.S. regarding the war there.[45]
As Brad Miner points out, this was because Benedict is interested in protecting the fledgling Catholic Church, as well as all other Christians. The Pope has expressed concerns for the inequality that allows Muslims to worship freely and propagate their faith in Western countries, while Muslim countries do not allow Christians to thrive in the same way.[46] This is an argument that John McCain has consistently used, an argument that is sure to gain traction throughout the world over time. In a rather revealing, yet simplistic, slip of the tongue, Miner stated that “The Pope’s visit to America also has strategic importance, as the Church races to solidify its position against Islam worldwide.”[47]
What did Miner mean by this statement? Is Rome against Islam as a general rule? For competitive reasons, the answer is yes. For example, Miner observes, “As the power of the Communist Party [in China] wanes as many predict it will, the vacuum it leaves will have to be filled by something, and, as in other parts of Asia, that will probably be either Catholicism or Islam. The Pope knows this.”[48] Indeed, the Catholic Church is in a high stakes competition to cut off Islam at the pass.
This resurgence of Rome’s historic diplomacy to modify existing governments to encourage stronger nations to modify weaker ones is remarkable. In other words, bringing about religious freedom through the use of multilateral democratic forces is exactly the kind of “just war” thinking that is gaining ground among some of the world’s most influential thought leaders, independent of McCain’s electoral fortunes. (See McCain’s official campaign website: www.johnmccain.com.)
According to Foreign Affairs,[49] a book that has been widely influential in 2008 is Faith, Reason, and the War against Jihadism: A Call to Action, by George Weigel, a prominent Catholic journalist and theologian, and the official Vatican biographer of Pope John Paul II. Like Pope Benedict XVI, his message emphasizes the importance of saving Christian Civilization from the forces of Islamic fundamentalism. Weigel’s book is endorsed by influential academics and thought leaders, including former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, and former Senator Sam Nunn; Senator Joseph Lieberman, Fouad Ajami, Director of Middle East Studies, Johns Hopkins University, and R. James Woolsey, former CIA Director; William Kristol, panelist on FOX News Sunday and editor of The Weekly Standard, and Jon Meacham, editor of Newsweek magazine.[50] McCain has not endorsed it, yet not surprisingly some of the same gentlemen endorsing Weigel’s book are some of McCain’s leading foreign policy advisors on the campaign trail.
Although subtly nuanced, it is truly the first politically and academically sanctioned call for a modern-day Crusade, not necessarily militarily, but ideally. It proposes that the United States and its Western allies rediscover Pope Benedict XVI’s call to “faith and reason” in achieving world peace and abandon the dead end secularist road toward what he terms the “dictatorship of relativism.” Weigel argues that a united Roman Catholic front is poised to lead the way to defeat radical Islamism through diplomatic dialogue with moderate Islamists, which they are already doing, to discuss the need to educate their young toward the abandonment of violence and to accept reason as a guide to faith. This goal of peace may sound benevolent, but for Weigel, radical Islamists cannot win, or even have an equal shot at self-governance. For Weigel, Islam itself is inherently violent and unreasonable because it is guided by a messianic insistence on world dominance.[51] Dar al-Harb means “House of War,” or territories outside of Muslim rule. Dar al-Islam means “House of Peace,” or territories under Islamic law. Combine the two logically, and what you have is what Pulitzer Prize-winning historian David Levering Lewis describes in his book God’s Crucible: Islam and the Making of Europe, 570-1215, as the traditional Islamic concept that “War is the health of the state.”[52] Starved of war, Weigel argues, Islam as we know it will either be transformed or it will cease to exist as a viable entity.[53]
As Islam is unlikely to concede this struggle, there is an underlying doctrine, if you will, of “eternal warfare,” that represents a state of mind and heart among jihadists. They believe that force must be used to convert others outside of Islam and to establish Islamic world dominance. This is what Weigel understands, this is what the Pope believes, and this is how George W. Bush, John McCain, and the leaders of the Western world now proceed. No matter how much it is “danced” around, they believe that radical fundamentalist Islamists are the roadblock in the march toward world peace.
As Adam Garfinkle points out in “Culture and Deterrence,” “In the war against global Jihadism, deterrence strategies [such as diplomatic appeasement or the Cold War nuclear doctrine of mutually assured destruction] are unlikely to be effective [against such an enemy], because it is almost impossible to deter those who are committed to their own martyrdom.” He points out that Iran’s eleventh-grade textbooks teach that “in the coming era-ending war against the infidels, Muslims cannot lose: ‘Either we all become free, or we will go to the greater freedom which is martyrdom. Either we shall shake one another’s hand at the victory of Islam in the world, or all of us will turn to eternal life and martyrdom. In both cases, success and victory are ours.’” As Garfinkle argues, “How does one deter people who…are willing and even eager…to turn their country and their entire religious sect into a suicide bomb?”[54]
Summary
We have identified several ways in which the candidates’ foreign policy views may be problematic, though not immediately, for religious minorities and others in the U.S. and countries around the world.
John McCain’s proposal of a League of Democracies to bring about “freedom from oppression” is worrisome, because when international majoritarian rule is backed by military force, it could easily become a persecuting power if it chose to continually redefine “religious extremism” and “extremists” beyond Islamic terrorists. Barack Obama’s ecumenical “kumbaya” approach is equally troubling, because the ecumenical movement, when used for political peace-making ends and attached to Vatican advisement, also carries with it the inherent seeds of discrimination, intolerance, and persecution of minority religions. The Ecumenical Movement is a “sleeper movement” and converges with our country’s inevitable dragon speak in Revelation 13.
It should be noted that John McCain did not initiate his proposed League of Democracies. It is an outgrowth of President George W. Bush’s ad hoc coalition of democratic nations during the advent and aftermath of the U.S. invasion of Iraq. Nor did Senator Obama originate the ecumenical approach, which for some conservative Republicans is naïve and tantamount to diplomatic appeasement. George Weigel’s approach combines both McCain’s and Obama’s approaches. But the new president elect in November may manage U.S. foreign policy in new and potentially troubling ways, as has been evident in recent years. We cannot place blame on any one President or individual leader. Such movements are bigger and more powerful than the candidates themselves.
This article demonstrates that foreign policy has become an increasing concern in the light of Bible prophecy. For many Christians, the events of 9/11 should cause us to remember that while Supreme Court appointments often influence the interpretation of our laws for years after a presidential term, a President’s foreign policy initiatives affects a much wider sphere of influence and in turn could imperceptibly force America to compromise its unique religious freedom guarantees by accepting foreign standards—the once discarded Roman Catholic and European standards of tolerance and ecumenical uniformity, or religious and political majoritarianism, in which minorities were merely tolerated and even persecuted for their faith.
More importantly, we should resist voting based on charisma, party loyalty, race, or sound bites. We look for a Savior, but One not of this world. Let God’s grace, a fervent study of God’s Word, and an understanding of the true nature of Christ’s kingdom, guide you constantly during these exciting and fearful times.
Gregory W. Hamilton is president of the Northwest Religious Liberty Association, located in Ridgefield, Washington. The Northwest Religious Liberty Association (NRLA) is a legislative advocacy and workplace mediation services program, representing the constitutional and workplace discrimination concerns of all people of faith in the states of Alaska, Idaho, Montana, Oregon, and Washington. For more information, visit their Web site at www.nrla.com.
[1] “Obama’s Speech in Berlin,” Transcript release by The New York Times, July 24, 2008.
[2] Steven Erlanger, “Obama, Vague on Issues, Pleases Crowd in Europe,” The New York Times, July 25, 2008. See also David Brooks, “Playing Innocent Abroad,” The New York Times, July 25, 2008, in which Brooks called Obama’s speech anything but Kennedyesque or Reaganesque. He depicted it as an embarrassing and simplistic “kumbaya moment.” Brooks wrote: “Substantively, optimism without reality isn’t eloquence. It’s just Disney.”
[3] “The Trials of Barak Obama,” The New Republic, January 30, 2008.
[4] “But could he deliver?” The Economist February 16th-22nd 2008.
[5] William Kristol, “It’s All About Him,” The New York Times, February 25, 2008.
[6] Sharon Begley, “When It’s Head versus Heart, the Heart Wins,” Newsweek, February 11, 2008.
[7] Madeleine Albright, The Mighty and the Almighty: Reflections on America, God, and World Affairs (New York: Harper Perennial, 2007).
[8] “Madeleine Albright explains her support for Barack Obama” with CNN’s Wolf Blitzer, You Tube, June 24, 2008. Much of Obama’s foreign policy philosophy is detailed in The New Republic by Eli Lake in an article entitled “Contra Expectations: Obama isn’t Jimmy Carter—He’s Ronald Reagan,” July 30, 2008: 16-18. Barack Obama’s foreign policy is largely being shaped by Harvard professor Joseph Nye’s theory of “soft power.” See Joseph Nye’s three most recent works on this point: (1) Soft Power: The Means to Success in World Politics (Cambridge, Mass.: Public Affairs Books, 2004); (2) The Paradox of America Power: Why the World’s Only Superpower Can’t Go It Alone (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002); (3) The Powers to Lead (New York: Oxford University Press, 2008).
[9] Fareed Zakaria, The Post American World (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2008). The entire book is applicable, but see particularly pages 254-255 in regard to Zakaria’s observation about how Senator Barack Obama would respond to another terrorist attack on U.S. soil. See also “Talk to Iran: The Christian message is reaching where diplomacy can’t,” A Christianity Today [Online] editorial, June 27, 2008: http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2008/july/12.21.html.
[10] Douglas Johnston and Cynthia Sampson, eds., Religion, the Missing Dimension of Statecraft (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994). With Foreword by Jimmy Carter. See also Johan D van der Vyver and John Witte, Jr., eds., Religious Human Rights in Global Perspective: Legal Perspectives (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 1996).
[11] “God’s Ambassadors,” Economist, July 19th, 2007.
[12] See Jimmy Carter’s Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2006). See also Our Endangered Values: America’s Moral Crisis (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2005); and Madeleine Albright’s aforementioned book, The Mighty and the Almighty: Reflections on America, God, and World Affairs, pages 37-52, 77-78, 142, 194. The Carter Center at Emory University is Jimmy and Roselyn Carter’s legacy. It is a non-profit organization that prevents and resolves conflicts using faith-based diplomacy methods, and appeals to human rights reform and development in foreign policy approaches. It seeks to enhance freedom and democracy, and the improvement of health around the world.
[13] Pope John Paul II’s insertion of faith into his foreign policy was staggering in its proportion and influence on world leaders. Popes have historically inserted the power of their seat to influence kings and emperors, but as Newsweek put it the week after Pope John Paul II’s death on April 2, 2005, “Under John Paul, the Holy See gained more political clout and diplomatic recognition than it had enjoyed since the Renaissance” (April 11, 2005). Economist magazine put it this way: “Over the past century—despite the march of secularism—the Vatican’s role in world affairs has expanded. In 1890 a famous English Catholic, Cardinal Manning, said the Holy See’s diplomatic activities were ‘a mere pageant,’ a medieval relic. He would be amazed to find that in 2007 papal diplomacy is more active than ever. The real explosion came under John Paul II. When he was elected in 1978, the Holy See had full ties with 85 states [i.e., countries]. When he died, the figure was 174. Among states that dropped their misgivings were Margaret Thatcher’s Britain, Ronald Reagan’s America and Mikhail Gorbachev’s Soviet Union. The Holy See now has full diplomatic relations with 176 states” (July 19, 2007). Indeed, the mortal political wound that Rome sustained in 1798, and described in Revelation 13 so vividly, seems to be healing rapidly since Vatican II and the advents of Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI. See John Paul’s Encyclical Letter of May 1, 1991, entitled “Centesimus Annus: On the Hundredth Anniversary of Rerum Novarum,” which was the first major statement on social doctrine by Rome since 1891, and played an enormously attractive role in getting the attention of world leaders to recognize the value of Rome, under John Paul’s leadership, in shaping the domestic and foreign policies of the world’s leading foreign governments, both great and small. See also Sister Mary Walsh’s editorial treatment of John Paul’s foreign policy legacy, From Pope John Paul II to Benedict XVI: An Inside Look at the End of an Era, the Beginning of a New One, and the Future of the Church (Lanham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 2005). I would be remiss to not include Malachi Martin’s The Keys to this Blood: The Struggle for World Dominion between Pope John Paul II, Mikhail Gorbachev, and the Capitalist West (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1990).
[14] For the Tony Blair Faith Foundation, go to http://tonyblairfaithfoundation.org.
[15] The Review of Faith & International Affairs. See Volume 6, Number 2, Summer 2008, an issue focusing on “Religious Freedom and U.S. Foreign Policy.” Again, see “Talk to Iran: The Christian message is reaching where diplomacy can’t,” A Christianity Today [Online] editorial, June 27, 2008: http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2008/july/12.21.html.
[16] Evan Thomas, “What These Eyes Have Seen,” Newsweek, February 11, 2008. Thomas details the savior-like phenomena of Senator McCain to a certain segment of Republican conservatives, including Karl Rove, who see in McCain their only hope of advancing the foreign policy goals and gains of the Bush Administration.
[17] Matt Bai, “The McCain Doctrines,” The New York Times, May 18, 2008.
[18] John McCain, “An Enduring Peace Built on Freedom,” Foreign Affairs, Nov./Dec. 2007: 19-34. See also John B. Judis, “Back to the USSR: McCain’s plan for the next cold war,” The New Republic, July 30, 2008: 18-20. Senator McCain derives much of his proposal for a “League of Democracies,” and much of his foreign policy objectives from neo-conservative political thinker Robert Kagan, who has written three influential books in the last few years: (1) The Return of History and the End of Dreams (New York: Knopf Publishers, Inc., 2008); (2) Dangerous Nation: America’s Foreign Policy from its Earliest Days to the Dawn of the Twentieth Century (New York: Vintage Books, 2007); (3) Of Paradise and Power: America and Europe in the New World Order (New York: Vintage Books, 2004). Robert Kagan specifically makes his argument and appeal for a League of Democracies with the following punctuated paragraph in his most recent book, The Return of History and the End of Dreams: “With the dreams of the post-Cold War era dissolving, the democratic world will have to decide how to respond. In recent years, as the autocracies of Russia and China have risen and the radical Islamists have waged their struggle, the democracies have been divided and distracted by issues both profound and petty. They have questioned their purpose and their morality, argued over power and ethics, and pointed to one another’s failings. Disunity has weakened and demoralized the democracies at a moment when they can least afford it. History has returned, and the democracies must come together to shape it, or others will shape it for them” (page 4). This disunity and inability to act decisively was recently showcased in August of 2008 when the United States, the European Union, and NATO failed to come to Georgia’s defense upon Russia’s military incursion into the heart of the breakaway region of Ossetia within Georgia.
[19] Thomas Carothers, “A League of Their Own,” Foreign Policy, July/August 2008: 44-49.
[20] See the International Atomic Energy Agency’s web site and the following article entitled “G8 Leaders Stress Safe, Peaceful Nuclear Development: Key IAEA Roles Singled Out in Summit Statements”: http://www.iaea.org/NewsCenter/2008/g8leaders.html. See specifically the G8 leaders’ statement in the subsection of the article titled “Nuclear Non-Proliferation.”
[21] Carothers, “A League of Their Own,” Foreign Policy, July/August 2008: 49.
[22] Ibid.
[23] Condoleezza Rice, “Rethinking the National Interest: American Realism for a New World,” Foreign Affairs, July/August 2008: 7. Senator McCain echoes this point in “An Enduring Peace Built on Freedom,” 25-27.
[24] Allen D. Hertzke, “International Religious Freedom Policy: Taking Stock,” The Review of Faith & International Affairs, Summer 2008: 19. Professor Hertzke retells the history of the competing visions of the two bills (House and Senate) that proposed the International Religious Freedom Act, which was eventually passed in 1998 by an overwhelming majority in both chambers. He demonstrates how the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) was created as a compromise and designed as a separate and competing agency to the U.S. State Department and the efforts of their assigned U.S. Ambassadors-at-Large for international religious freedom. These two agencies are currently at “loggerheads” with each other, which, Hertzke explains, is the reason for the little progress made. This helps explain why USCIRF would benefit greatly from a League of Democracies proposed by Senator McCain, and how it flies in the face of Senator Obama’s ecumenical approach.
[25] Carlos Hamann, “McCain to make religious freedom a key foreign policy issue,” Yahoo! News in cooperation with Agence France Presse, May 7, 2008.
[26] “United States Senator McCain Tells Adventists America’s Leadership Tied to its Moral Standing,” Annual Liberty Banquet sponsored by Liberty magazine and the International Religious Freedom Association, May 6, 2006, Senate Caucus Room, Russell Senate Building, as reported by Adventist News Network. See http://www.irla.org/news/2006/may06.html for the transcript of Senator John McCain’s speech.
[27] Hertzke, 18. Other covenants include: 1) 1966 International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights; 2) the 1981 Declaration on the Elimination of all forms of Intolerance and Discrimination Based on Religion and Belief.
[28] Ibid.
[29] The Economist, September 11, 2004, p. 32. The primary source for this quote can be found in The 9/11 Commission Report, 362.
[30] See Revelation 13:11, “Then I saw another beast, coming out of the earth. He had two horns like a lamb, but he spoke as a dragon. He exercised all the authority of the first beast….” New International Version.
[31] Rice, 14, 16.
[32] Ibid.
[33] “Al Qaida condemns Saudi ruler for interreligious dialogue,” Catholic World News, July 29, 2008.
[34] Quoted in Walter Isaacson, Benjamin Franklin: An American Life (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2003): 169. Robert Meyer wrote an Online column for Renew America on the fifth anniversary of the attack on the World Trade Center in New York City on September 11, 2001, challenging the supposed misuse of Benjamin Franklin’s quote regarding governmental policies since then. See http://www.renewamerica.us/columns/meyer/060911. He wrote: “The basis assumption being promulgated by identifying with Franklin is that no tradeoffs of liberty for security are ever justified. Of course that idea is usually derived from using truncated versions of Franklin’s entire quote. Notice the phrase ‘essential liberty.’ I want to know what ‘essential liberty’ anyone has lost via any measure to heighten security in the wake of 9/11? Perhaps people have been inconvenienced, but scarcely more than that.” My arguments are regarding developing trends and likely future scenarios based on traditional Seventh-day Adventist biblical interpretations of Bible prophecy. Nothing more. Nor is it my focus to sympathize with the detention and torture of Islamic terrorists, or with those detained for suspected ties to Al Qaeda.
[35] Ellen G. White, Testimonies for the Church, Volume 6 (Mountain View, California: Pacific Press Publishing Association, 1948): 394, 395.
[36] Ellen G. White, Testimonies for the Church, Volume 5 (Mountain View, California: Pacific Press Publishing Association, 1948): 136.
[37] See Revelation 13:11 and all of chapter 13.
[38] “New U.S. Ambassador Bullish on U.S.-Vatican Relations,” Catholic News Service, November 15, 2005.
[39] See Malachi Martin’s book The Keys of This Blood: The Struggle for World Dominion between Pope John Paul II, Mikhail Gorbachev, and the Capitalist West.
[40] Brad Miner, “The Great Crusader: Benedict XVI fights for the Church in a changing world” (magazine cover title), “The Last Crusade” (article title), Newsmax, April 2008: 54.
[41] Again, this is reminiscent of the spirit and content of Malachi Martin’s book The Keys of This Blood: The Struggle for World Dominion between Pope John Paul II, Mikhail Gorbachev, and the Capitalist West published nineteen years ago.
[42] Go to http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2008/02/20080215-1.html.
[43] Statement by John McCain On the Pope’s Visit to America, www.JohnMcCain.com, April 15, 2008.
[44] Richard John Neuhaus, “Benedict in America,” First Things, August/September 2008: 47.
[45] “U.S., Vatican Share Goals in Iraq, American Ambassador Says,” Catholic World News, March 26, 2008.
[46] Brad Miner, 62.
[47] Ibid., 61.
[48] Ibid., 62. See “Pope Benedict ask Chine to ‘open up’ to the Gospel,” Catholic News Agency, August 7, 2008. See also “China Blames Attack on Muslim Separatists” by Edward Wong and Andrew Jacobs, The New York Times, August 6, 2008.
[49] See the “Foreign Affairs Bestsellers” list in the May/June issue of Foreign Affairs: 172.
[50] George Weigel, Faith, Reason, and the War against Jihadism: A Call to Action (New York: Doubleday, 2007).
[51] Ibid. The entire theme of Weigel’s book is predicated on Islam’s threat to the world community if not taken on appropriately—culturally, diplomatically, and militarily.
[52] David Levering Lewis, God’s Crucible: Islam and the Making of Europe, 570-1215 (New York: W.W. Norton, 2008): 101, 127. For an exhausting treatment of the history of the Crusades, see Christopher Tyerman, God’s War: A New History of the Crusades (Cambridge, Massachusetts: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2006): 1024 pages.
[53] Weigel, 11-106. See also Graham Fuller, “A World Without Islam,” Foreign Policy, January/February 2008: 46-53. See also “The Myth of Moderate Islam” by Steven A. Cook, Foreign Policy, June 2008, Web Exclusive: http://www.foreignpolicy.com/story/cms.php?story_id=4334.
[54] As quoted by Weigel, 95, 96. See also Adam Garfinkel, “Culture and Deterrence,” Foreign Policy Research Institute E-Notes, August 25, 2006, available at http://www.fpri.org. Again, see “The Myth of Moderate Islam” by Steven A. Cook, Foreign Policy, June 2008, Web Exclusive: http://www.foreignpolicy.com/story/cms.php?story_id=4334. Charles Malik, former President of the General Assembly of the United Nations, proposed an answer in 1979 at a pastors’ advisory committee in Arrowhead Springs, California. He said, “The only hope for the western world lies is an alliance between the Roman Catholic Church, which is the most commonly, influential, unifying element in Europe and the Eastern Orthodox Church. Rome must unite with Eastern Orthodoxy because the Eastern Orthodox Church controls the western Middle East [the east end of the Mediterranean], and if they don’t solidify that control, Islam will march across Europe. Islam is political. The only hope of the western world lies then, in a unified Europe under the control of the Pope. And then all Protestant Christians around the globe must come into submission to the Pope so we will have a united Christian world.” This may be an unreliable quote, but there is record of an eye-witness testimony in a sermon transcript given by John MacArthur, “The Rise and Fall of World Powers—The Rise and Fall of the World, Part II.” Found online at http://www.biblebb.com/files/mac/sg27-8.htm. I have yet to find a single credible academic expert in Islam and Christianity, particularly as it pertains to the current so-called “Clash of Civilizations” who quotes Charles Malik.
Bush to attend church in China, urge religious freedom (AFP)
EXCERPTS FROM: http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5jTCaQ-QMoHDqK5mk7ao7ryoZGzMw
WASHINGTON (AFP) — US President George W. Bush plans to attend church while in China for the opening of the Olympic Games next month, and will speak about freedom of religion, a top aide said Wednesday.
“When he goes to church on Sunday (August 10) he will make a statement afterwards in which he discusses his view on religious freedom in China,” said national security council director of Asian Affairs Dennis Wilder.
…
Bush, a devout Christian, has walked a diplomatic tightrope over the Olympics, repeatedly insisting the games are not a political venue while recently stepping up his public criticism of Beijing’s rights record.
…
“What we are looking for in China is not gestures, we are looking for structural change, we are looking for long term change,” Wilder said.
“We are looking for the Chinese at these games to show that they are making progress, to demonstrate to the world, the spotlight is on Beijing, this is an opportunity for Beijing to show that it is widening … freedom of press, freedom of expression,” he said.
…
Asked about China’s failure to release political prisoners as a goodwill gesture ahead of the Games, Wilder said: “Obviously I would like to see all these political prisoners that we have on our lists released.
“We have handed the Chinese lists of people that we think are unfairly in prison.”
Manifest Destiny and the Momentum of Empire: Making Sense of America’s Global War on Terrorism
By Gregory W. Hamilton
Today there are two significant global movements that enjoy a symbiotic relationship. The first involves America’s accelerated role as the world’s propagator of democratic values, and as a matter of national and international security the world’s enforcer of those values. The second is the not-so-obvious rapid global expansion of Christianity, a phenomenon that is aided by the expansion of democratic values while also facilitating the spread of those values.
Terrorism Revives America’s Sense of Destiny
Not a few American presidents have invoked “manifest destiny” to describe America’s political mission to establish freedom and democracy in every region and country of the world.[1] The war on terrorism has given this mission a renewed sense of urgency, as evidenced by President George W. Bush’s declaration after 9/11: “Every nation, in every region, now has a decision to make. Either you are with us or you are with the terrorists.”[2]
During his Inaugural Address in January 2005, President Bush emphasized in no uncertain terms that America’s mission, its destiny,[3] is to market democracy to every nation, region, and corner of the world through diplomatic means, or by force if necessary.[4] To date, however, no American president has ever thematically employed the unilateral threat of force as a means of exporting democratic reform on a global scale, or made it the visionary cornerstone of their foreign policy. Indeed, despite persistent questions about the Administration’s stated rationale for invading Iraq—the enforcement of United Nations resolutions requiring Iraq to destroy its weapons of mass destruction—few doubt the President’s commitment to prevail against terrorism, and to establish democracy throughout the Muslim world, beginning with Iraq.[5]
What doubts do remain would likely dissolve should America suffer another terrorist attack of serious magnitude. If the world was reordered after September 11, 2001, another catastrophic attack would only intensify America’s resolve to swiftly and decisively establish world order and security. Such an attack could also be expected to unite international sentiment and support for the American effort to secure peace and safety. The recent attacks in London have certainly heightened this sense of awareness among European community leaders.
Further terrorist attacks on American soil actually pose the greatest threat to Islamic countries and Islamic hegemony in the Arab Middle East. While Islamic terrorism may be motivated by a desire to establish authentic Islamic states, the opposite would likely result. The United States and the international community would only unite more fully to pressure the Islamic world to implement democratic reforms.[6]
Democratic reform has already become a linchpin of American foreign policy. As Fareed Zakaria observed in Newsweek, “The war on terror has given the United States a core security interest in the stability of societies.”[7] The United States appears committed to the task of enforcing international standards of conduct in the Islamic world, with or without United Nations support. The 9/11 Commission Report energetically adopts President Bush’s call for a global effort to win the war on terrorism by urging the U.S. to move more rapidly toward reforming the Middle East through the projection of American power.[8] As The Economist couch-phrases it, this is because “Terrorism against American interests ‘over there’ should be regarded just as we regard terrorism against America ‘over here.’ America’s homeland is, in fact, ‘the planet.’”[9]
Colonel Qadhafi’s recent repudiation of terrorism by Libya is evidence that American policy is having some success. The Israeli-Palestinian situation has certainly calmed down during the last couple of years. And despite the prison abuse scandal at Abu Ghraib, the invasion of Iraq, following on the heels of a successful campaign in Afghanistan, appears to be slowly achieving its intended effect on other nations, including Egypt’s, Saudi Arabia’s, and Indonesia’s pledges and assurances to conduct genuine elections.[10]
Stung by the outrageous attack on American soil, the U.S. was compelled to dispel assumptions about its unwillingness to spill American blood in fighting terrorism.[11] These assumptions were grounded in decades of vacillating responses to terrorism. As New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman observed: “We invaded Iraq because we could.” The Iraq war was never really about weapons of mass destruction. Instead, the war put the Islamic world on notice that the United States was serious about dealing with terrorism.[12]
As Douglas Feith, former Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, points out in his book, War and Decision: Inside the Pentagon at the Dawn of the War on Terrorism, President Bush, Donald Rumsfeld, and the U.S. Defense Department sought to do more than route the Taliban and pound dust in Afghanistan. They sought a much more comprehensive strategy—a global strategy, if you will—in taking on and defeating the Al-Qaeda terrorist network worldwide and to effectively deal with its root causes. Like the use of an old-fashioned summer fly strip to catch and destroy flies on a hot summer night, Iraq was a central part of their twofold strategy: attract the global forces of Al-Qaeda to one strategic area and defeat them there, while democratically reforming the Middle East and instilling, with the help of Rome, the value of religious freedom.[13]
Like it or not, right or wrong, this prophetic trend regarding America’s induced boldness to renew its destiny by projecting power abroad is happening.[14] The American vision of its manifest destiny to export democracy and secure global peace has become the centerpiece of American foreign policy. Such a Messianic vision may well propel the United States toward its prophetic destiny of imposing a sort of global religious truce that is based on religious and political compromise. In this apparent clash of civilizations—indeed, during this time of increasing uncertainty—there is no rewind button, only painstaking national and personal sacrifices from this point forward.
The Clash of Civilizations
We should realize, however, that the projection of American power is not the only threat to the Islamic world. Although virtually unnoticed, Christianity has enjoyed explosive growth in recent decades.
The globalization of Christianity had its roots in the early Christian era, even before Constantine invested the prestige and power of the Empire in the church. After the fall of the Caesars, the church cloaked itself with the mantle of Roman glory, eventually fostering the Holy Roman Empire. The 1,260 years of Roman Catholic dominance in the West was punctuated by the Protestant Reformation, and then the Enlightenment. The first and second Great Awakenings of the 18th and 19th centuries unleashed a powerful missionary movement, continued by 20th-century American evangelicals and Pentecostals until the entire world has been quietly but steadily influenced.
Americans are often confused by the hostility and jealousy displayed by some in other nations. We fail to recognize that the United States is more than just the world’s superpower, but rather a vast multilateral empire (or leader of a worldwide coalition of nations). The United States is more powerful than ancient Rome, with which Europeans often compare us, because of its overwhelming political, military, economic, technological, and yes, spiritual influence around the globe.
America is the recognized leader of both the Christian and secular worlds—a colossal civil-religious power unlike any in history. America is a powerful combination of Caesar’s Rome, with its military might—currently present in 137 countries[15]—and the Holy Roman Empire, on account of its expansive Christian missionary might. Charles Krauthammer observes that “we live in a new world, a unipolar world of a sort that has not existed in at least 1,500 years. We have not seen this since the end of the Roman Empire, and I do not think we have adjusted our thinking to understand exactly what that means.”[16]
Although American missionary might operates mostly independently of its political structure, the close international cooperation escapes the notice of most Americans. American foreign aid is associated with the mostly religious charities that administer considerable disaster relief and development projects. Americans may conceive of a separation of church and state in functional and legal terms as our domestic reality, but foreigners, among them Islamic fundamentalists, are not wrong to associate American policy with its Christian missionary efforts.[17] The United States has emerged as a distinctly civil-religious superpower. The American commitment to propagating democratic values includes a respect for religious freedom, which in practical terms means expanded opportunity for Christian missionaries who are especially interested in the Muslim world. Radical Islamists perceive this civil-religious combination as a “crusade” and therefore a distinct threat to their own visionary quest to establish Islamic global dominance.
This new crisis between the Islamic East and the Christian West is the successor to the cold war, in the sense that it is truly global in scope. Indeed, it has been aptly described as “the clash of civilizations.”[18] From a prophetic standpoint, it would seem that Christianity is destined to prevail. The Gospel commission commanded by Christ Himself is clear enough: “Therefore go and make disciples of all nations,” and “This Gospel of the Kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.”[19] Indeed, many Christian leaders have affirmed America’s “evangelical destiny” to evangelize the world for Christ. Taken together with the political side of America’s “manifest destiny,” and in the context of the war on terrorism, one begins to perceive anew the profound prophetic implications of American civil and religious might.
In The Next Christendom: The Coming of Global Christianity, Professor Philip Jenkins astutely observes: “Western evangelicals are talking seriously about spreading their faith within the ‘10-40 window,’ the heartlands of Islam.”[20]
The effective preaching of the Gospel to every nation, kindred, tongue, and people is a major prophetic trend. Since the Islamic world has been largely resistant to the spread of Christianity for centuries, the global war on terror must be seen in more than geopolitical terms; it has prophetic implications as well.
Global Christianity
Jenkins observes that Christianity, especially Pentecostalism, is steadily capturing the hearts and minds of millions in Latin America, South America, Africa, India, Malaysia, China, and Eastern Europe, including Russia. Between 1900 and 2000, the number of Christians in Africa grew from 10 million to 360 million, and by 2025 is expected to reach 633 million.[21]
Jenkins contests Samuel Huntington’s thesis in The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order,[22] that “the relative Christian share of global population will fall steeply in the [21st] century, and that this religion will be supplanted by Islam.” Huntington predicts that “in the long run . . . Muhammad wins out,” mainly because Islam is advanced by “conversion and reproduction,” whereas “Christianity spreads primarily by conversion.” Based on statistical studies of current conversion rates, Jenkins concludes: “Far from Islam being the world’s largest religion by 2020 or so . . . Christianity will still have a massive lead, and will maintain its position into the foreseeable future.” Jenkins estimates that by the year 2050 Christians will continue to outnumber Muslims by a margin of three to two worldwide.[23]
The competing speculations of Jenkins and Huntington are mostly irrelevant to the significant prophetic trend. Regardless of which faith wins the numbers game, the opening of the Islamic world to the preaching of the Gospel would significantly fulfill the requirement that the Gospel must first be preached to all the world before the Second Coming of Christ.[24] Today, the most significant Christian communities within the Islamic world have come under increased pressure, including outright persecution.[25] American influence in the region has been to oppose persecution, and to advocate human rights and religious liberty. The success of American policy to spread democratic values can only mean increased opportunity for Christian worship and evangelism. Indeed, the Second Coming may be closer than many realize.
Crusade and Jihad: Is History Repeating Itself?
The church militant has a worthy adversary in a revived fundamentalist Islam. Muslims are militant and do not accept the notion of the separation of church and state.[26] The Islamic legal tradition, Sharia, combines religious and secular legal principles, and has always been considered the fundamental legal code for government. Islam has its own vision of world dominance and believes in the superiority of the Islamic revelation. Democracy is not an Islamic political value, although shrewd Muslim politicians believe they can utilize democracy to restore Islamic dominance.[27]
Jenkins draws from the history of the Holy Roman Empire to describe the Islamic perspective on Christianity and its evangelistic fervor—as “forces of Crusade from the Christian Third World.”[28] This represents “a future Christendom not too different from the old, defined less by any ideological harmony than by its unity against a common outside threat.” The threat, of course, is Islam, regarded as heresy. He warns that “we must hope that the new Res Publica Christiana [Christian World Order] does not confront an equally militant Muslim world, Dar al-Islam [Allah’s Islamic World Order] or else we really will have gone full circle back to the worst features [the Crusades] of the thirteenth century.”[29]
Correspondingly, Jenkins says that “we may be entering the great age of Vatican diplomacy.”[30] Written prior to September 11, 2001, Jenkins’s words are eerily prophetic. Indeed, Jenkins’s fears are borne out by popular Christian sentiment exemplified by Franklin Graham. In The Name, Graham writes: “Christianity and Islam are eternal enemies locked in a classical struggle that will end with the Second Coming of Christ.” He adds: “the war against terrorism is just another conflict between evil and The Name,” meaning Jesus.[31]
While many Americans are reluctant to engage in such a geopolitical religious conflict, many evangelicals are saying, in effect, “Bring it on!” President George Bush invoked the term “crusade” several times immediately after September 11, 2001, and that languageBe evoked powerful responses from within both the Islamic and Christian communities. Since then he has been careful not to use “crusade” language, and has rightly emphasized that the war is not against a peaceful religion of Islam, but against terrorism. But whatever one chooses to call it, rightly or wrongly, the global conflict between Islam and Christianity is real. The war on terrorism has a profound religious dimension.
The Clash of Kingdoms
Huntington’s thesis in The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order is one in which the global conflict for political supremacy is not merely a conflict among nation-states, but civilizations. Culture and religion are the driving forces in this clash, rather than traditional sources of conflict such as territory or economics.[32]
Seen in this light, the global conflict between Islam and Christianity is more complex and intransigent than many realize. It is more a clash of kingdoms than of nations.[33] In Newsweek, Fareed Zakaria wrote: “If envy were the cause of terrorism, Beverly Hills, Fifth Avenue, and Mayfair would have become morgues long ago. There is something stronger at work here than deprivation and jealousy. Something that can move men to kill but also to die. Osama bin Laden has an answer—religion. For him and his followers, this is a holy war between Islam and the Western world.”[34] Islam may covet Western economic development and technology, but resists the incursion of its political and cultural values.
The emphasis on the religious element in the conflict does not mean it is the only source of conflict. Of course, it is not. There is profound economic and political conflict along with the religious, but it is religion that has driven this from the diplomatic to the military field.
Franklin Graham may be rather blunt in his assessment, but he is at least partly right. There is a fundamental theological competition between Christianity and Islam, a spiritual struggle over the path to salvation of men’s souls. What Graham and many Christians do not realize is that Muslims and Christians alike are preparing to receive a counterfeit Jesus. Both expect this Jesus to establish a millennial reign of peace on Earth.
Bernard Lewis observes in The Crisis of Islam: Holy War and Unholy Terror, that although Western secularism is itself a threat to Islam, most do not understand that “Christendom and Islam are two religiously defined civilizations that were brought into conflict not by their differences but by their resemblances.” Moreover, Muslims recognize Christians “as having a religion of the same kind as their own, and therefore as their primary rivals in the struggle for world domination.”[35] Indeed, as Jenkins points out: “Muslims and Christians have so very much in common. Scarcely known to most Christians, the Muslim scriptures are almost entirely focused on the same characters who feature in the Christian Bible. The Quran has much more to say about the Virgin Mary than does the New Testament, and Jesus is, apart from Muhammad, the greatest prophet of Islam. It is Jesus, not Muhammad, Whose appearance will usher in the Day of Judgment.”[36]
Islam teaches that Jesus is a prophet whom Allah will send a second time to destroy the infidels and unite Islamic believers into a worldwide kingdom.[37] Few realize that of the five traditional pillars of Islam, the third (Zakat) requires Muslims to financially support jihad or holy war intended to annihilate infidels.[38] Christians are viewed as apostates, and therefore infidels. All religions are to be supplanted by the one pure and true religion, Islam.
One of the most powerful symbols of Islamic aspirations is the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem, the oldest mosque outside the Arabian Peninsula. According to Bernard Lewis: “The erection of this monument, on the site of the ancient Jewish Temple, and in the style and the vicinity of Christian monuments such as the Holy Sepulcher and the Church of the Ascension, sent a clear message to the Jews and, more important, the Christians.” The message from caliphate to Christian emperor: ‘Your faith is corrupted, your time has passed. I am now the ruler of God’s empire on Earth.’” As Lewis explains: “In the Muslim perception, the Jews and later Christians had gone astray and had followed false doctrines. Both religions were therefore superseded, and replaced by Islam, the final and perfect revelation in God’s sequence. . . . [More specifically,] just as the Jews had been overcome and superseded by the Christians, so the Christian world order was now to be replaced by the Muslim faith and the Islamic caliphate.”[39]
The term “caliphate” derives from the Arabic word chalifa, meaning “successor” or political and spiritual heir to Muhammad.[40] As The Economist magazine recently observed in an editorial: “Mr. bin Laden and his sort are impatient for the advent of the global caliphate.”[41]
More than a millennium after the completion of the Dome of the Rock in 691 or 692, the stationing of American troops in Saudi Arabia sent a profound symbolic message to Muslims, whose grasp of history is longer than many in the West. To Osama bin Laden and many others, American troops presented a profound challenge by the Christian West to Islam’s mandate of world domination: For bin Laden, “his declaration of war against the United States marks the resumption of the struggle for religious dominance of the world that began in the seventh century. . . . America exemplifies the civilization and embodies the leadership of the House of War, and like Rome and Byzantium, it has become degenerate and demoralized, ready to be overthrown.”[42]
To the Islamists, Christianity poses an even greater threat to their own imperial aspirations than do the secular materialist values of the West. To Osama bin Laden and his Al-Qaeda forces, therefore, it is Christianity itself and America, the leader of the Christian world, which stand in their way. Islamists envision more than the caliphate restored in the Arab world, but as the ruler of a worldwide Islamic state, establishing Allah’s kingdom on Earth. In this sense, the notion of a clash of kingdoms—being synonymous with the civil-religious competitive clash of political and theological goals—is to be taken seriously. This is because American projection of power in the Middle East threatens to impose not merely democratic values, but a Christian kingdom of God on Earth. As Bernard Lewis observed: “You have this millennial rivalry between two world religions, and now, from their point of view, the wrong one seems to be winning.”[43]
Lewis explains further: “Islam has been on the defensive ever since 1683, when the Turkish Ottoman Empire failed to sack Christian Vienna in Austria.” Furthermore, for over “300 years Muslims have watched in horror and humiliation as the Christian civilizations of Europe and North America have overshadowed them militarily, economically, and culturally.”[44] Today, Muslims rightly perceive that Western democratic values include an emphasis on religious freedom. Exported to the Islamic world, what has been referred to as the “10-40 window,” democracy means having to tolerate Christian evangelism, which is unacceptable.
Manifest Destiny’s Inherent Problem
The war on terrorism has given the United States a renewed sense of commitment to the spread of democracy. The problem is that military force has become a primary means to that end. A democratic system imposed by overwhelming military force, through imperialistic means, is not only self-contradictory but holds little hope for ending the war on terrorism. The transition to a constitutional democracy in Iraq, even if successful, is not expected to dramatically reduce the risk of further terrorist attacks on Western soil.
The Bush Administration has recognized the danger of having the war on terrorism be perceived as a revival of the medieval Crusades. Yet, Muslims per-ceive this conflict in essentially those terms. As Thomas Friedman has frequently noted in The New York Times, the hands of terrorists will not be slowed as long as radical Muslims are allowed to continue to win the internal struggle between them and progressive Muslims in other Muslim countries in the “war of ideas.” Whatever geopolitical goals American projection of military power may achieve, it also fuels terrorist propaganda, and aids in their recruitment efforts.[45]
However, this may explain why Bernard Lewis, President Bush’s chief academic adviser on Middle East policy, has established what some Defense Department officials and foreign policy experts refer to as the Lewis Doctrine—the idea that “instilling respect or at least fear through force is essential for America’s security.”[46] In other words, in time it may become more and more apparent that if Mr. Bush’s experiment in democracy in Iraq, and thereby America’s destined war on terrorism, is to be successful, it may be compelled to take on a more draconian approach if democracy is truly going to have a widening influence in other parts of the Middle East. Certainly, diplomacy and democratic reform alone will not curb the terrorist attacks by Islamists.
Like the doctrine of preemption, this policy is capable of creating a wider region of conflict. The stalemate over Europe’s and America’s efforts to persuade Iran to end its nuclear program is one example. The recent economic sanctions placed on Syria for arming and allowing foreign terrorists to filter into Iraq, is another. Indeed, since the events of 9/11 the fog is slowly lifting from the eyes of many observers to the shocking realization that a clash of civilizations, an unintended holy war (at least on America’s part), has been revived and unleashed over the global war on terror.
No matter how one chooses to evaluate the global war on terror, it is evident that there are larger forces at play—two global phenomena that seem to be moving forward on their own momentum. The characteristic imagery of Revelation 13, verse 11 perhaps describes it best: “Then I [the apostle John] saw another beast coming out of the earth. He had two horns like a lamb, but spoke like a dragon.”
If Seventh-day Adventists correctly assume that this verse is a description of the rise of the United States of America as the civil-religious leader of both the political and religious worlds—as “a lamb” possessing the spirit of benevolence in keeping with its Protestant and evangelical historical foundations, and as a dragon where its benevolent missionary and political zeal is carried out by force—then its prophetic destiny never needs to be in doubt in this apparent clash of civilizations.
For example, notice the following comparative lesson in diplomatic history involving the United States and its approach to foreign policy. In his book Diplomacy, which continues to be used as one of the standard textbooks in many university graduate programs in diplomatic history and political science, former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger describes America’s traditional role in the world during the 20th century this way: “Almost as if according to some natural law, in every century there seems to emerge a country with the power, the will, and the intellectual and moral impetus to shape the entire international system in accordance with its own values . . . . In the twentieth century, no country has influenced international relations as decisively as the United States. No society has more firmly intervened in the domestic affairs of other states, or more passionately asserted that its own values were universally applicable. . . . No nation has been more pragmatic in the day-to-day conduct of its diplomacy, or more ideological in the pursuit of its historic moral convictions. No country has been more reluctant to engage itself abroad even while undertaking alliances and commitments of unprecedented reach and scope.”[47]
Did you take note of Mr. Kissinger’s use of the word “reluctant?” Seventh-day Adventists believe that America’s prophetic destiny is to repudiate its benevolent, generous, and yes, “reluctant” lamblike principles and become transformed into a dragon. But in what manner, and under what circumstances? As a dragon, it is interesting to note that since 9/11 and the ensuing global war on terrorism, America has shifted away from Mr. Kissinger’s definition of America’s manifestly benevolent and moral role in the world to the official, if not insecure, foreign policy of “preemptive strike”: the need to export democratic principles by force before another power rises up to threaten or compete with it.[48] In fact, it is interesting to note that The American Heritage Dictionary defines America’s historical experiment with manifest destiny as “a policy of imperialistic expansion defended as necessary or benevolent.”
According to Revelation 13, verses 11-15, American imperialism—if one could rightly call it that—is expected to lead to a religious compromise enforced by legislation and constitutionalized, both here and abroad. In the new Iraqi constitution, religion is expected to be blended with democratic reforms. Ironically, the Islamic approach to relations between the state and the religious establishment is an example of what Revelation 13 predicts, not only for the United States, but also for the world.
The advancing dual phenomena of steady democratic and Christian advancement throughout the world, particularly as embodied in America’s manifest destiny to lead the world, are having their effect. These dual phenomena represent more than just a threat to Islam. They clearly tell us that Christ’s coming is sooner, not later.
The Clash Between Heaven and Earth
While America’s global war on terror and the forced advancement of democratization in the Muslim world since 9/11 may open up the heartlands of Islam to Christianity, the most important question to ask is: “Which gospel will be preached, whose kingdom promoted?” Are we all striving for the same kingdom, or is it possible that much of the religious and political world—made up mostly of Muslims and Christians—are preparing to receive a counterfeit savior and a kingdom of their own making?
The Gospel is advancing on the heels of the American military, and whether or not military or other forms of force are effective in the spread of democracy, their use is foreign to the spirit of the Gospel. Only one Gospel is consistent with Christ’s declaration: “My Kingdom is not of this world. If My Kingdom were of this world, My servants would fight, so that I should not be delivered to the Jews; but now My Kingdom is not from here” (John 18:36). Christ’s Gospel, Christ’s millennial Kingdom, is Heaven-based (see Revelation 20). Yet another, more popular, gospel proclaims that the millennial kingdom of God will be established on Earth. (Its adherents are also the same ones most adamant about tearing down the constitutional principle of the separation between church and state.)
Those proclaiming this popular gospel are among the most ardent supporters of American unilateralism and the expanded use of military power throughout the world. As Andrew Bacevich, Director of the Center for International Relations at Boston University argues, American militarism emerged as a reaction by “various groups in American society—soldiers, politicians [Democrats as much as Republicans], intellectuals, strategists, Christian evangelicals, even purveyors of pop culture . . . as the antidote to all the ills besetting the country as a consequence of Vietnam and the 1960s.”
But, he contends—and rather convincingly—of this group the most significant contribution to the rise of the new American spirit of militarism has come from evangelicals and their passion-driven vision for establishing Christ’s Kingdom on Earth: “Conservative Christians have conferred a presumptive moral palatability on any occasion on which the United States resorts to force. They have fostered among the legions of believing Americans a predisposition to see U.S. military power as inherently good, perhaps even a necessary adjunct to the accomplishment of Christ’s saving mission. In doing so, they have nurtured the preconditions that have enabled the American infatuation with military power to flourish. Put another way, were it not for the support offered by several tens of millions of evangelicals, militarism in this deeply and genuinely religious country becomes inconceivable.”[49]
When appealing in April 2003 for Pope John Paul II to intervene and prevent the U.S. invasion of Iraq, Mohammad T. Al-Rashid, an Islamic scholar writing from Saudi Arabia, also made the following interesting broadside: “Fundamentalism is not the exclusive domain of the Middle East. The Far Right in America has its agenda and now that they have control of the mighty American war machine, the problem is global.” He asked, “Will Iraq be the first drop of blood on the road to Armageddon?”[50]
No wonder Islamists view this as a religious war. Jordanian-born terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, after beheading one of his captives, remarked in a recording that “we will carry on our jihad against the Western infidel and the Arab apostate until Islamic rule is back on Earth.”[51] The irony in all of this is that fundamentalist Muslims and Christians alike are susceptible of welcoming the same counterfeit savior, Satan appearing as Christ, and a counterfeit earthly kingdom.
This leads us to a more serious conclusion in this discussion. Far more important than the outcome of any earthly clash of civilizations is the clash of kingdoms between Heaven and Earth. Indeed, the real battle is to help people to understand the true nature and meaning of Christ’s Kingdom, and the eternal grace and character of the King. Only the righteousness of Christ can save mankind—not any militaristic, legislative, or utopian attempt to save the race. The three angels’ messages found in Revelation 14:6-12 can be summed up with these ten words: “The essence of all righteousness is loyalty to our Redeemer.”[52] Perhaps this is what Christ meant when He uttered that most sobering of truths: “He who stands firm [or endures] to the end will be saved.”[53]
That is why, during this time of seeming uncertainty, during this global war on terror, our prayers need to ascend to the merciful God of Heaven for global intervention and specifically for the personal courage to be used by the Holy Spirit to prepare the peoples of all the civilized world to receive the true Jesus, and His Kingdom prepared for them in Heaven, when He comes (see John 14:1-3). Indeed, understanding the present and future—however awkwardly or precisely—is not enough. During these difficult times, our faith experience must not shrink from the mission assigned to each of us by Jesus Christ Himself. His personal calling reaches all of us where we are.
NOTE
Gregory W. Hamilton is President of the Northwest Religious Liberty Association, the government relations division of the North Pacific Union Conference of Seventh-day Adventists in the states of Alaska, Idaho, Montana, Oregon, and Washington. He also serves as Director of the Office of Public Affairs and Religious Liberty for the North Pacific Union Conference. Gregory and his wife Laura live in Vancouver, Washington.
[1] President Thomas Jefferson used the metaphor “manifest destiny” to describe the continental, coast-to-coast vision of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, called the Corps of Discovery, whose mission began in St. Louis, Missouri, on May 14, 1804, and was completed when returning to St. Louis on September 23, 1806, nearly 200 years ago. However, Presidents Teddy Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson were the first to internationalize the concept of “manifest destiny” in relationship to the marketing of democratic values, both militarily and diplomatically. This is well established in high school and undergraduate college textbooks in American history. For an interesting short discussion of the history behind America’s notion of “manifest destiny,” and parallels to today’s events in the global war on terror, see “Special Report: America and Empire: Manifest Destiny Warmed Up?” in The Economist, August 16, 2003, pp. 19-21.
[2] Office of the Press Secretary, September 20, 2001, Address to a Joint Session in Congress and to the American People, United States Capitol, Washington, D.C., 9:00 p.m. EDT. For a transcript of President W. Bush’s speech, visit the official White House Web site: http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2001/09/print/20010920-8.html.
[3] “We are led, by events and common sense, to one conclusion: The survival of liberty in our land increasingly depends on the success of liberty in other lands. The best hope for peace in our world is the expansion of freedom in all the world. . . . So it is the policy of the United States to seek and support the growth of democratic movements and institutions in every nation and culture, with the ultimate goal of ending tyranny in our world. This is not primarily the task of arms, though we will defend ourselves and our friends by force of arms when necessary. Freedom, by its nature, must be chosen, and defended by citizens, and sustained by the rule of law and the protection of minorities. . . . The difficulty of the task is no excuse for avoiding it. America’s influence is not unlimited, but, fortunately for the oppressed, America’s influence is considerable, and we will use it confidently in freedom’s cause. . . . We will persistently clarify the choice before every ruler and every nation: the moral choice between oppression, which is always wrong, and freedom, which is eternally right. America will not pretend that jailed dissidents prefer their chains, or that women welcome humiliation and servitude, or that any human being aspires to live at the mercy of bullies. . . . Today, America speaks anew to the peoples of the world: All who live in tyranny and hopelessness can know: The United States will not ignore your oppression, or excuse your oppressors. When you stand for your liberty, we will stand with you.” See Office of the Press Secretary, January 20, 2005, Inaugural Address by President George W. Bush, United States Capitol, Washington, D.C., 11:59 a.m. EST. For a transcript of President Bush’s speech, visit the official Web site of the White House: http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2005/01/print/20050120-3.html.
[4] Ibid. The traditional American theme of “manifest destiny” was unmistakable: “From the day of our founding, we have proclaimed that every man and woman on this earth has rights and dignity and matchless value, because they bear the image of the Maker of Heaven and Earth. Across the generations we have proclaimed the imperative of self-government, because no one is fit to be a master, and no one deserves to be a slave. Advancing these ideals is the mission that created our nation. It is the honorable achievement of our fathers. Now it is the urgent requirement of our nation’s security, and the calling of our time. So it is the policy of the United States to seek and support the growth of democratic movements and institutions in every nation and culture, with the ultimate goal of ending tyranny in our world.”
[5] According to speechwriters in the White House, the inspiration for President W. Bush’s speech was from former Soviet dissident and political prisoner Natan Sharansky. See Natan Sharansky with Ron Dermer, The Case for Democracy: The Power of Freedom to Overcome Tyranny and Terror (New York: PublicAffairs, 2004). The other source was Robert Kagan’s Of Paradise and Power: America and Europe in the New World Order (New York: Vintage Books, 2004), which provides on pages 85-103 America’s historical rationale for “manifest destiny” dating back to its founding. Kagan makes this significant observation: “Americans have always been internationalists . . . but their internationalism has always been a by-product of their nationalism.”
[6] This theme is prominent in The 9/11 Commission Report: Final Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, Authorized Edition (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., 2004), pp. 362-383. See also “In Search of Pro-Americanism: Why America Is More Loved Than You Think” by Anne Applebaum in Foreign Policy July/August 2005, pp. 32-40; and Robert Kagan’s Of Paradise and Power: America and Europe in the New World Order (New York: Vintage Books, 2004).
[7] Fareed Zakaria, “Arrogant Empire,” Newsweek, March 24, 2003: http://www.fareedzakaria.com/articles/newsweek/032403.html.
[8] The 9/11 Commission Report: Final Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, Authorized Edition (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., 2004), pp. 362-383.
[9] The Economist, September 11, 2004, p. 32. The primary source for this quote can be found in The 9/11 Commission Report, p. 362.
[10] An excellent slate of articles entitled “Debating a World Without Israel” thematically titled on the cover of Foreign Policy magazine with “Is Israel What’s Wrong With the Middle East?” clearly demonstrates that democratic reform in the Middle East is not only desired by Islamic countries, but it is desired by Arab and Islamic leaders in part to demonstrate that Israel is, and always has been, the problem in this region of the world. This has certainly been Colonel Qadhafi’s underlying strategy. This merely confirms the historical, cultural, and psychological nature of the seemingly never-ending Israeli-Palestinian conflict. See the lead article in the debate by Josef Joffe, “A World Without Israel,” Foreign Policy January/February 2005, pp. 36-42; and the articles responding to Joffe’s article in Foreign Policy March/April 2005: 56-65.
[11] The Economist, August 16, 2003, p. 19. “Stung by the events of September 11th, America is no longer shy about spilling blood, even its own. Weren’t the Afghan and Iraqi wars largely designed to show just that?”
[12] “Because We Could,” The New York Times, June 4, 2003; and “The War Over the War,” August 3, 2003.
[13] Douglas J. Feith, War and Decision: Inside the Pentagon at the Dawn of the War on Terrorism (New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 2008), 688 pages. See also Spengler, “The Pope, the president, and the politics of faith,” Asia Times, June 17, 2008.
[14] See Gregg Easterbrook, “American Power Moves Beyond the Mere Super,” The New York Times, April 27, 2003; and Fareed Zakaria’s explanation of why America’s unprecedented power scares the world: “Arrogant Empire,” Newsweek, March 24, 2003. Online: http://www.fareedzakaria.com/articles/newsweek/032403.html. Easterbrook puts it this way: “No other military is even close to the United States. The American military is now the strongest the world has ever known, both in absolute terms and relative to other nations; stronger than the Wehrmacht in 1940, stronger than the legions at the height of Roman power. For years to come, no other nation is likely even to rival American might. Which means: the global arms race is over, with the United States the undisputed heavyweight champion. Other nations are not even trying to match American armed force, because they are so far behind they have no chance of catching up. The great-powers arms race, in progress for centuries, has ended with the rest of the world conceding triumph to the United States.”
[15] The Economist, August 16, 2003, p. 19. International hegemony, influence and power “on a scale never seen before.” The article refers to America as the world’s “Globocop.” “What other country divides the world up into five military commands with four-star generals to match, keeps several hundred thousand of its legionaries on active duty in 137 countries—and is now unafraid to use them?” This article highlights a quote by Max Boot, a fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, who refers to America as an empire, but only uniquely: “America’s destiny is to police the world.”
[16] What followed the demise of the Rome of the Caesars? The Rome of the papacy. America is both wrapped into one. This is my emphasis. See transcript of a panel discussion response by Charles Krauthammer: “Religion and American Foreign Policy: Prophetic, Perilous, Inevitable.” A discussion cosponsored by The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life and The Brookings Institution in conjunction with Georgetown University and The Brookings Foreign Policy and Governance Studies Programs, February 5, 2003. See also Charles Krauthammer, Democratic Realism: An American Foreign Policy for a Unipolar World (Washington, D.C.: AEI Press, Publisher for the American Enterprise Institute, 2004), pp. 1-28, from which his response originates.
[18] The phrase “Clash of Civilizations” originated with Princeton Professor Bernard Lewis in a 1990 essay “The Roots of Muslim Rage,” and was subsequently popularized by Harvard Professor Samuel Huntington in a 1993 article published in Foreign Affairs called “The Clash of Civilizations?” See Foreign Affairs, Summer 1993, pp. 22-49.
[20] Philip Jenkins, The Next Christendom: The Coming of Global Christianity (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002), p. 168. What is sometimes referred to as the “10-40 window” is a description of the actual geographical region between ten and forty degrees latitude, consisting of a wide swath of North Africa, the Middle East, and including the largest Islamic countries in the world, Indonesia and Pakistan. As an example of the emphasis on reaching those in the 10-40 window, see the mission statements of Gospel Outreach and Adventist World Radio, respectively, by logging onto their Web sites: www.goaim.org and www.awr.org.
[22] Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order (New York: A Touchstone Book published by Simon & Schuster, 1996).
[25] Sudan and Nigeria are prime examples of persecution. Indonesia has been fraught with violence between jihadists and Christians; while in Saudi Arabia it is very difficult for any Christian, even foreign workers, to worship in private, much less in public. In many countries, Muslims who convert may be killed. As Jenkins puts it in The Next Christendom: “We have to remember that for a Muslim to abandon his or her faith is apostasy, an act punishable by death under Islamic law. As the maxim holds, ‘Islam is a one-way door. You can enter through it, but you cannot leave’” (p. 168).
[26] Bernard Lewis, “The Roots of Muslim Rage: Why So Many Muslims Deeply Resent the West, and Why Their Bitterness Will Not Easily Be Mollified,” The Atlantic Online, September 1990: http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/90sep/rage.htm.
[27] Ibid. Case in point: Iranian Shiites have carefully organized Iraqi counterparts, who are poised to take control of the new Iraq, shorn of its secular Sunni administration under Saddam Hussein.
[31] Franklin Graham, The Name (Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 2002). Quotes are from a Washington Post editorial, April 15, 2003.
[32] Huntington observed in his groundbreaking article in Foreign Affairs (Summer 1993), that “world politics is entering a new phase, in which the great division among humankind and the dominating source of international conflict will be cultural. Civilizations—the highest cultural groupings of people—are differentiated from each other by religion, history, language, and tradition. These divisions are deep and increasing in importance. From Yugoslavia to the Middle East to Central Asia, the fault lines of civilizations are the battle lines of the future. In this emerging era of cultural conflict the United States must forge alliances with similar cultures and spread its values wherever possible. With alien civilizations the West must be accommodating if possible, but confrontational if necessary” (contents summary, p. iii). Huntington predicted with amazing accuracy that “the great divisions among humankind and the dominating source of conflict will be cultural. Nation-states will remain the most powerful actors in world affairs, but the principal conflicts of global politics will occur between nations and groups of different civilizations. The clash of civilizations will dominate global politics. The fault lines between civilizations will be the battle lines of the future” (p. 22).
[34] Fareed Zakaria, “The Politics of Rage: Why Do They Hate Us?” Newsweek, October 15, 2001. Read the article Online at: http://www.fareedzakaria.com/articles/newsweek/101501_why.html.
[35] Bernard Lewis, The Crisis of Islam: Holy War and Unholy Terror (New York: The Modern Library/Random House, Inc., 2003), p. 43.
[37] Harun Yahya, “Jesus Will Return,” IslamiCity.com–Communications & Services, April 16, 2003. Online at: http://www.islamicity.com/articles/articles.asp?ref=IC0303-1906&p=2.
[38] Zakat, which initially meant alms, later came to signify payment of taxes for purposes of war. See The 9/11 Commission Report, p. 372. “The Western notion of the separation of civic and religious duty does not exist in Islamic cultures. Funding charitable works is an integral function of the governments of the Islamic world. It is so ingrained in Islamic culture that in Saudi Arabia, for example, a department within the Saudi Ministry of Finance and National Economy collects zakat directly, much as the U.S. Internal Revenue Service collects payroll withholding tax. Closely tied to zakat is the dedication of the government to propagating the Islamic faith, particularly the Wahhabi sect that flourishes in Saudi Arabia.” The Ministry of Islamic Affairs in Saudi Arabia “uses zakat and government funds to spread Wahhabi beliefs throughout the world, including in mosques and schools.”
[41] The Economist, January 8, 2004: http://www.economist.com/PrinterFriendly.cfm?Story_ID=2330153.
[42] The Crisis of Islam, pp. 162, 163. Westerners have difficulty understanding that Muslims perceive Christian culture as thoroughly corrupt and decadent. Christians are seen as the ones who eat pork, drink liquor, and indulge in pornography and obsessive sexuality. This provides Seventh-day Adventists with a unique opportunity to build bridges, since we share the Islamic rejection of pork, liquor, and decadent Western values.
[45] “War of Ideas,” a six-part series involving Islam’s internal struggle between fundamentalists and progressive moderates over the Western ideal of democracy emanating from the United States, Western Europe, and now Eastern Europe, The New York Times, January 8, 11, 15, 18, 22, & 25, 2004. See also “Hearts and Minds,” December 14, 2003; and “Winning the Real War,” June 16, 2003.
[48] The Wall Street Journal Europe, February 3, 2004, p. A10. See also Robert Kagan’s Of Paradise and Power: America and Europe in the New World Order (New York: Vintage Books, 2004).
[49] Andrew J. Bacevich, The New American Militarism: How Americans Are Seduced by War (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005), book jacket and p. 146. See specifically chap. 5, pp. 122-146. See also Daniel Yankelovich, “The Public Agenda Poll: What Americans Really Think About Foreign Policy,” Foreign Affairs September/October 2005, pp. 2-16.
[50] Dr. Mohammad T. Al-Rashid, “Christians & Muslims Must Unite,” Arab News (Saudi Arabia’s first English-Language daily), April 17, 2003.
The Pope, the President, and the Politics of Faith (Asia Times)
The balance between faith and politics is fragile, and Asia Times writer Spengler gives an interesting perspective in today’s paper. It is worth reading. A link is provided following this excerpt:
It is not only faith, but the temerity to act upon faith, that the pope and the president have in common. In the past I have characterized Benedict’s stance as, “I have a mustard seed, and I’m not afraid to use it.” (See Ratzinger’s mustard seed Asia Times Online, April 5, 2005.) Despite his failings, Bush is a kindred spirit. That is what horrifies their respective critics within the Catholic Church and the American government, who portray the president and the pope as destroyers of civilizational peace. The charge is spurious because there was no civilization peace to destroy, but like many calumnies, it contains an element of truth.
Never before did a pope descend to the Vatican gardens to greet a national leader as Benedict did for Bush, returning the unprecedented deference that the president showed in meeting the pope’s plane at Andrews Air Force Base in April. More than mutual courtesy is at work here; the two men evince a natural affinity and mutual sympathy. Prelates in the Vatican’s permanent bureaucracy fumed at the warmth with which Bush was received, the Italian daily La Repubblica noted June 12, given that the US president “is very distant from papal exhortations condemning war”, the Iraq war in particular.
Read more at http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/JF17Ak01.html