By LeRoy Lawson
Fareed Zakaria, The Post-American World (New York: W. W. Norton and Company, 2009).
James A. Morone, Hellfire Nation: The Politics of Sin in American History (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2004).
David Domke and Kevin Coe, The God Strategy: How Religion Became a Political Weapon in America (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007).
Love of country can be beautiful. I remember returning from my first extended trip to Europe. When we landed I almost kissed the ground, I was so glad to be home again. I”ve since had that experience over and over. I”m proud to be an American.
But love of country also can be blinding. It can morph into jingoism: My country, right in all things at all times. Or, “My country, right or wrong!” This is the thinking that wars””international, civil, racial, and class””are made of. Patriotism brings out the best and the worst in us. That”s the message of the three books critiqued here.
Us Competing With Them
The most upbeat is The Post-American World by Fareed Zakaria, editor of Newsweek International. He presents a balanced and compelling survey of America”s diminishing global role. His thesis is not that America is becoming less, but the rest are becoming more.
“The rest” are China and India and to a lesser extent Brazil, Russia, South Africa, and others. That the economic clout of the United States is weakening is obvious, but it”s a relative weakening. These other countries are rapidly growing stronger. Like it or not, the United States will not dictate terms on any subject to the post-American world.
The rise of the rest is reshaping international economics. Recent trips abroad have convinced me: the tallest buildings, biggest dams, best cell phones, and gnarliest traffic jams are “over there,” not here. As their economies escalate, so does their nationalism. With incredible discipline they”ve set their course to be number one. So how should the lone superpower fight back? We can only hope with more wisdom than we”ve exhibited so far.
Zakaria is basically optimistic. For one thing, ours is a peaceful era. World violence peaked around 1990 and then dropped to a record low. (This is hard to believe, with Iraq and Afghanistan dominating the evening news, but this is Zakaria”s opinion.) In this environment, he predicts that in spite of our many recent blunders on the world scene, America”s strong educational system (at the university level) and incoming young immigrants will enable us to compete with the rise of “the rest.”
One dismaying revelation, though. Zakaria describes the rising nations” adoption of free trade, liberal immigration, technological change, and open government that fosters their progress””as they earlier did for the United States. But after America urged developing nations to adopt these policies””and they have done so to their profit””we are closing down, clamoring for more restricted trade, less liberal immigration, a slower adoption of technology, and a more tightfisted government. Worrisome.
Us Against Them
Hellfire Nation is a disturbing title. If the meaning is not clear, consider the subtitle: The Politics of Sin in American History. As regular readers of this column know, I love to study history, American history perhaps most of all. But maybe it”s best not to dig too deeply lest you lose your innocence””or your belief in your country”s innocence.
James Morone probes the depths. His findings confirm that America is what G. K. Chesterton thought in the early 20th century: “a nation with the soul of a church.” Much earlier (1835) Alexis de Tocqueville, wrote, “Upon my arrival in the United States the religious aspect of the country was the first thing that struck my attention.” Religious we are, but paradoxically so. On the one hand, we”re properly Victorian, quick to condemn any of “them,” those sinners who aren”t as pure as we are. Yet from the earliest settlers to the present there”s also been a large social gospel commitment to improving the community””even with all those sinners in it.
Among their other achievements, Victorians of various eras conducted witch hunts, pushed the nation into Prohibition, and outlawed abortion and gay rights. Social gospel advocates, on the other hand, led the charges for more governmental services, championed the New Deal, and marched for civil rights.
Both camps pursued (and still pursue) their moral visions, one focusing on individual sin and responsibility, the other on more inclusive civil rights and community development. A careful read probably will convince you, as it did me, that our all-too-human habit of dividing all humanity into “us” over/against “them” has disastrously turned Americans against each other.
My personal history reflects this “us vs. them” mentality. In the first grade, for example, America taught me to hate the Germans (we were at war with them) and the “Japs” (with them, too). But the Russians were on our side. Before long, though, I was supposed to hate the Russians and befriend the Germans and Japanese. Not just Russians, but I was supposed to hate all communists everywhere. Especially in America. Senator McCarthy did his hateful best to drum the alleged commies out of the State Department and the Army and the clergy and anywhere else he thought he smelled them.
Then in the raucous 1960s I was expected to hate the hippies and the North Vietnamese (it had been the North Koreans in the “50s). Then came civil rights and, depending on which side you took, you must hate the uppity blacks or the vicious whites. Then along came the women”s libbers to scare us men. Now we must hate (depending on your side) the abortionists or the antiabortionists, the gays or the antigays, the stand-fast-on-immigrationers or the anti-immigrationers. For most Americans, unfortunately, there”s no debate about hating Muslims. It”s the patriotic thing to do.
Frankly, I”m tired of hating. I ain”t gonna do it.
That”s what makes Hellfire Nation such a gripping book. When you read American history as a lesson in moral warfare, you remember how much the New Testament talks about reconciliation through the One who tore down the dividing walls of hostility.
And why we need to listen.
Us Reforming Them
Morone”s book sweeps across all American history. David Domke and Kevin Coe restrict their gaze to the last 75 years. The God Strategy: How Religion Became a Political Weapon in America begins with Franklin Roosevelt but concentrates on the presidencies from Ronald Reagan to George Bush II. It, too, is about saving or protecting “us” and reforming or defeating “them.”
My review of God Strategy may seem a bit cynical. I have learned to fear politicians (national, statewide, local) who wear their religion on their sleeves. The more God-talk they utter, the more they scare me. Jesus was right: “By their fruit you will recognize them” (Matthew 7:20). Not by their talk! “Not everyone who says to me, “˜Lord, Lord,” will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven” (Matthew 7:21).
We”ve been manipulated too often by smooth-talking (read “God-talking”) politicians who brandish their religion to serve their personal and party ends. No, I don”t believe that if we can just get “godly” people elected, we”ll solve our nation”s problems. Not because I don”t think godly men and women can make a difference; they can. But when they are pious to please a gullible electorate, well, let the voter beware.
LeRoy Lawson is international consultant for Christian Missionary Fellowship, a contributing editor to CHRISTIAN STANDARD, and a member of the Publishing Committee. His column appears here at least monthly.
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