Christians are like frogs holding a symposium round a swamp, debating
which of them is most sinful.-- Celsus on Christians in the second
century A.D.
Sunday, May 1, 2005 - Page updated at 12:00 a.m.
Guest columnist
George W. Bush and the gospel of freedom and liberty
By David Domke
Special to The Times
David Domke
On the evening of Sept. 11, 2001, George W. Bush quoted Psalm 23,
declared the day's events to be the opening salvo in a cosmic struggle
against evil, and vowed that the nation would "go forward to defend
freedom and all that is good and just in our world."
Nine days later, before Congress and an estimated television audience
of 82 million Americans - the largest ever for a political event -
the president issued these powerful words: "The course of this conflict
is not known, yet its outcome is certain. Freedom and fear, justice and
cruelty have always been at war, and we know that God is not neutral
between them."
These statements, and many similar ones since, have spurred a heated
public debate about this president's religious beliefs and language:
standard and appropriate for a president, or unusual and dangerous?
Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it with
religious conviction. -- Blaise Pascal
The former, say many administration supporters and officials, who
consistently have claimed that Bush's mixture of religion and politics
is nothing new in the presidency. For example, Rev. Richard John
Neuhaus, editor of the Catholic journal First Things, told The
Washington Post last September, "There is nothing that Bush has said
about divine purpose that Abraham Lincoln did not say. This is as
American as apple pie."
Similarly, Michael Gerson, Bush's primary speechwriter during his first
term, told a group of journalists in December that the president's
outlook is "not new" and "I don't believe that any of this is a
departure from American history."
Some evidence supports their case. Only one presidential inaugural
address, George Washington's second, makes no reference to a divine
presence. Similarly, Bush's common emphasis on freedom and liberty
trumpets principles so firmly planted in American national identity
that they are enshrined in more than 500 literal symbols, according to
Brandeis University historian David Hackett Fischer. In emphasizing a
higher power along with freedom and liberty, Bush is, as his supporters
contend, emphasizing ideas that are as mainstream as one will find in
U=2ES. presidential rhetoric.
That is not the whole story, however.
For while Bush's emphasis on God, freedom and liberty are not uncommon
for the presidency, the manner in which he strategically uses these
ideas for political advantage is unusual for his office, perhaps even
unprecedented. Consider this: In his recent second-term inaugural
address, Bush mentioned a higher power seven times and used the words
freedom or liberty, in some form, 49 times. Even if such beliefs are
genuine (and I don't doubt that they are), such a heavy presidential
emphasis is strongly suggestive that there is a strategy behind the
words - a wholly reasonable interpretation given this
administration's long and documented history of political calculus.
For example, the White House in early February made official what had
been a fait accompli in its first term by naming top political
strategist Karl Rove deputy chief of staff, giving him control over
policies related to national security, domestic policy, economic policy
and homeland security - i.e., almost everything.
It was Rove who drove out policy heavyweight and University of
Pennsylvania professor John DiIulio after less than a year as director
of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives.
Following his departure, DiIulio characterized the administration as
"the reign of the Mayberry Machiavellis" for their
strategy-always-trumps-policy approach.
To be clear, though, an obsession with political tactics begins at the
top in this White House. Recently released recordings by friend Doug
Wead show Bush in the late 1990s as he contemplated a run for the
presidency - with a foremost concern about how to woo evangelicals
while not turning away the broader public.
Which is where freedom and liberty come in. These noble principles have
broad appeal in America - after all, who doesn't support the ideas of
freedom and liberty? - while at the same time occupying a sacrosanct
position in the worldview of many Christian conservatives. In the eyes
of evangelicals and fundamentalists, the desire to live out the "Great
Commission" of Christ, in the book of Matthew, to "go therefore and
make disciples of all the nations" has become intertwined with support
for the principles of political freedom and liberty. In particular, the
individualized religious liberty present in the United States
(particularly available historically for European-American Protestants)
is something that religious conservatives long to extend to other
cultures and nations.
In the 1980s, fundamentalist preacher and leader Jerry Falwell argued
that the dissemination of Christianity could not be carried out if
other nations were communist - a perspective that provided a good
reason to support Ronald Reagan's combination of a strong U.S.
military, conservative foreign policy and the spreading of individual
freedoms. In that era, Falwell told his flock they could "vote for the
Reagan of their choice."
Falwell echoed this perspective in 2004, saying in the July 1 issue of
his e-mail newsletter and on his Web site, "For conservative people of
faith, voting for principle this year means voting for the re-election
of George W. Bush. The alternative, in my mind, is simply unthinkable."
The certitude in the support for Bush by Falwell (and by many other
religious-right leaders, including James Dobson, Pat Robertson and Gary
Bauer) is emblematic of Christian conservatives' confidence that their
vision of the world is the vision of the world - entirely true and
without flaw. Such an outlook inevitably fosters a conception of their
beliefs as providing what religion scholar Bruce Lawrence terms
"mandated universalist norms" that cross cultural contexts and
therefore, as the biblical command makes clear, are to be shared with
all nations.
At the center of these norms for religious conservatives are U.S.
conceptions of freedom and liberty. After Sept. 11, these values gained
a heightened resonance among all Americans - and the ever-strategic
Bush administration capitalized with a gospel of freedom, liberty and
God.
It is a message embraced by religious conservatives. Consider the
perspective of Richard Land, president of the ethics and religious
liberty arm of the Southern Baptist Convention, the nation's
predominant religious fundamentalist organization with 16 million
members, more than 42,000 churches and considerable political
influence.
Land, a graduate of Princeton and Oxford and an adviser to the White
House on the intersection of religion and politics, said in a 2003
interview: "The president believes America has a purpose in the world,
and that purpose is to fan the flame and light the candle of freedom. I
believe that he believes - as do I and many evangelicals - that we
have a responsibility to help people experience the freedom that is
their God-given right."
Such beliefs, and the presidential rhetoric that encourages and
sustains them, translate into real political capital. In the late
1980s, according to the Pew Research Center, white evangelical
Protestants were evenly split between Democrats and Republicans in
political party self-identification. In 2004, white evangelicals were
more likely to self-identify with Republicans than Democrats, 54 to 21
percent - and in the election Bush received nearly 80 percent of this
group's vote. This pro-GOP and pro-Bush outlook particularly matters
because when the citizenry is sliced by race and religion, white
evangelicals represent the largest voting bloc at more than one-fourth
of the electorate.
Machiavellian? Perhaps. Mayberry-ian? No.
An emphasis on freedom, liberty and God may represent the holy trinity
of political strategy in America. It's also disingenuous for this
president. Most especially, it obscures the underlying truth that the
Bush administration is determined to define what counts as freedom and
liberty and who will have the privilege to experience it. Consider two
points:
First, it is only a short step from talking about God, freedom and
liberty to suggesting that that the U.S. government is doing God's
work. For example, in a press conference in 2003 shortly after Saddam
Hussein was captured, Bush declared that "justice was being delivered
to a man who defied that gift" - freedom and liberty - "from the
Almighty to the people of Iraq." And in the final presidential debate
last October, Bush said, "I believe that God wants everybody to be
free. That's what I believe. And that's part of my foreign policy. In
Afghanistan, I believe that the freedom there is a gift from the
Almighty."
Claims that the U.S. government and military are doing God's work may
appeal to many Americans, but it frightens those who might run afoul of
administration wishes-*****-demands. This is particularly so when one
considers how declarations of God's will have been used by
European-Americans in past eras as rationale for subjugating those who
are racially and religiously different, most notably Native Americans,
Africans, Chinese and African Americans.
Indeed, religion scholar R. Scott Appleby in 2003 declared that the
administration's omnipresent emphasis on freedom and liberty functions
as the centerpiece for "a theological version of Manifest Destiny." If
so, one must note the risk of repeating today what previous versions of
Manifest Destiny did in the past: unduly emphasizing the norms and
values of white, religiously conservative Protestants at the expense of
those who will not or cannot conform.
This concern, in part, prompted more than 200 U.S. seminary and
religious leaders last October to sign a petition condemning what they
called a "theology of war" in the administration's convergence of God
and nation in the campaign against terrorism.
Second, the president's proclamations about freedom and liberty are
contradicted by several administration policies that go far in
restricting the actual liberty of Americans. One of these is the
president's support for a constitutional amendment to deny homosexuals
a freedom that all heterosexuals enjoy - the right to enter into a
state-sanctioned marriage. Another is the administration's detaining of
U=2ES. citizens designated as "enemy combatants" in the campaign against
terrorism for unlimited time without an opportunity to face one's
accusers. And yet another is the administration's efforts to control
citizens' medical decisions - from stem-cell research to Terri
Schiavo. The president and administration have yet to articulate how
their lofty rhetoric about freedom and liberty meets these
contradictory realities.
More than three years ago, on Sept. 20, 2001, the president spoke to a
nation desperate for his leadership. Among his words were these: "I ask
you to uphold the values of America and remember why so many have come
here. We are in a fight for our principles, and our first
responsibility is to live by them."
Indeed. We ask the same of you, Mr. President.
David Domke is an associate professor in the Department of
Communication at the University of Washington. He is the author of "God
Willing? Political Fundamentalism in the White House, the 'War on
Terror,' and the Echoing Press" (Pluto Press, 2004).
Copyright =A9 2005 The Seattle Times Company
If the gods listened to the prayers of men, all humankind would quickly
perish since they constantly pray for many evils to befall one another.
- Epicurus
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