...I myself seek in vain an expression that exactly reproduces the idea that I form of it for myself and that contains it; the old words despotism and tyranny are not suitable. The thing is new, therefore I must try to define it, since I cannot name it." (8)
I think that radical evangelical nationalism is a fair shorthand for the possibilities that may await us, if our country continues down the current track. Fascism is too facile and too foreign a word for what may be coming in our country. We are not talking about black- or brownshirts. Hitler, Mussolini, Peron and others drew on and exaggerated the native traits and emotions of their own nations. It will follow the same course here, after our own manner.
In America, this change is being clothed in traditional American values and symbols: in the Flag and God, in life and liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Or as Sinclair Lewis said (It Can't Happen here): "When Fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying the cross."
If Americans believe this to be the chosen nation both by virtue of its political system (Freedom and Democracy) as well as chosen by God's hand, and if people are manipulated to feel themselves under attack by outside forces: then this is too powerful a force to be stopped by appeals to economic interests and international co-operation.
Aggressive nationalism has historically come to a bad end. In the past, it has ultimately been stopped by uniting enough opponents to inflict military defeat, or by economic bankruptcy (or both). Reflect upon Napoleonic France, Fascist Italy, Germany of Wilhelm and Hitler, Athens: all dominant powers that drank nationalism to the bitter dregs. Or smaller powers, such as Serbia of Milosevic, or Argentina of the Falklands War, gutted by stronger nations. And now, at a time when exhaustion and bloodletting have made the "Old Europe" foreswear nationalism, the most powerful force of the twentieth century -- now the United States has embraced it for the new millennium.
"The sudden change from democracy will no longer result in the rule of an individual - but in the rule of a military corporation. And by it, methods will perhaps be used for which even the most terrible despot would not have the heart." (9) (Jacob Burckhardt)
The current phase of nationalist and economic adventure we are embarked upon will come to an end at some point, and not a pleasant one. Ideological hubris will reap the whirlwind, and there will in time come a turning point: the time of `testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure'.
Then - when we feel even more under attack and even more threatened - the US will face a choice: to continue a nationalist program into what will necessarily be an authoritarian form of government, or to return to a real American conservative and internationalist policy, adapted to the actual conditions of the new millennium: reality-based rather than faith-based as now. It is very much an open question as to which choice will be made. That will be our time of decision as American citizens: in active opposition or in passive acceptance.
Both these threads of the American political psyche: the nationalist and the internationalist, the evangelical and the modern, the radical and the truly patriotic - both these threads have been a part of our political and social fabric throughout our history.
Now, however, American politics and the American psyche have become greatly magnified by the power of the US and by its influence over the world, and in the moment of our global power the Evangelical and the Nationalist have taken the helm. International and domestic policies have transcended politics to become a battle between Good and Evil. The current Radicals, the evangelical nationalists, see this as the final battle, to take over this country, to change the world - and, for the Truly Faithful, to bring on Armageddon and Rapture.
They may well be correct in a way they do not realize: this is shaping to be the last battle to determine if the Republic as we have known it will long endure. And we are creating opposition throughout the world that may haunt us for generations.
Before the last election, Hal Lindsey - one of the most popular evangelical writers and speakers - "told audiences that liberals were determined to `bring about our literal annihilation.'" (10)
The same is heard from radical commentators like Limbaugh and Coulter, calling all who oppose them traitors. As from Russell Johnson, an Ohio evangelist who is enlisting "Patriot Pastors" to register voters for the 2006 election:
"There is a warfare for the heart and soul of America. This is a battle between the forces of righteousness and the hordes of hell. Millions of souls weigh in the balance and the church stands at the Critical Crossroads of history." (11)
Politics is becoming War. Religious War.
Evangelical Christianity has become firmly allied with the State, dominating the ruling political party and denying what Jesus said to render unto Caesar only that which is Caesar's, as well as denying the founding principles of the United States. It may not yet be clear who will hold the reins, but Empire and Church are in close alliance in a way not seen in the West in modern times. The current evangelical nationalists now believe that rational political opposition is treason and blasphemy. Fear and populism, religion and nationalism: a powerful and intoxicating mixture, Four Horsemen fraught with great danger for the world as we know it.
This alliance corrupts both politics and religion...
This is in no way "Conservatism": this is a movement every bit as radical as Fascism, though it draws upon thoroughly American themes and emotions. It is diametrically opposed to the traditions upon which this country was founded and from which we have drawn strength and unity.
The great men who founded this country knew well the wars of religion that had caused so much bloodshed in Europe for three centuries, as well as they remembered the wars of monarchs that had so bloodied Europe for a millennium. As they sought to avoid the political wars of Europe, so they sought to separate politics from religion. England had endured two centuries of war between Puritans and monarchical Cavaliers, which cost the head of one king and the throne of another, as well as many lives: Catholic, Puritan and Anglican.
In fact, these religious wars had spurred the settling of America, as the losers of each phase often migrated across the ocean to avoid reprisal: the Puritans to New England and the Cavaliers to the plantation South. Our founders understood history as a living thread, in a way that we do not.
This nation was certainly founded with a belief in Divine Providence, but even moreso it was founded upon a belief that Providence had given Man his reason and free will to fathom and to live by that Providence. As Jefferson states: We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed...+
Government is created by and derives its powers from the governed, not from divine authority. John Adams: "The United States of America have exhibited, perhaps, the first example of governments erected on the simple principles of nature; and if men are now sufficiently enlightened to disabuse themselves of artifice, imposture, hypocrisy, and superstition, they will consider this event as an era in their history. Although the detail of the formation of the American governments is at present little known or regarded either in Europe or in America, it may hereafter become an object of curiosity. It will never be pretended that any persons employed in that service had interviews with the gods, or were in any degree under the influence of Heaven, more than those at work upon ships or houses, or laboring in merchandise or agriculture; it will forever be acknowledged that these governments were contrived merely by the use of reason and the senses." (12) ++
Abraham Lincoln, the founding father of the Republican Party and of the re-birth of the nation, was the most deeply spiritual of American political leaders. His Memorial is the political temple of the American Union. On the walls of that temple are inscribed the ideal of our political faith, as from his Second Inaugural:
"With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan--to do all which may achieve and cherish a just, and a lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations."
This is the faith of Christian charity as applied through government of the people. This is as far from our current radical evangelicalism as is true patriotism from our current nationalism. It represents the wisdom and humility of the man who fought and won our bloodiest war - a battle for freedom and for union. Lincoln spoke that day in essential opposition to the Radical Republicans of his own time, who sought vengeance rather than charity, individual power rather than union, evangelical self-righteousness rather than Christian humility.
Lincoln's words are even more true 140 years later.
This new political movement and belief system that calls itself `Conservatism" - this new Radical Republicanism - is in fact Evangelical Nationalism. As such, it is a radical departure from anything that could be called traditional American politics and governance, both nationally and internationally. It is in no way conservatism, any more than Hitler was a `conservative'.
Bit by bit, over the last 25 years, American politics has abandoned the beliefs upon which this Republic was founded and maintained for 200 years, beliefs which had made this country Lincoln's `last, best hope of earth'. Only by looking back can we understand how much we have truly lost, and how dangerous a time we have entered. And only by looking within can we understand the deep emotions these radicals play upon within the American psyche.
In a time of increasing cultural sensationalism and of ignorance of history and tradition, can we recall those real American convictions upon which to stand, convictions that are moral and ethical far more than just economic and emotional? These need to be grounded in both American traditions and in modern realities, as well as in the dictates of the all-too-human heart, or else we can never stand up against the simple and emotional (faith-based) answers offered by the religious nationalists in our battle for the heart of America. Our foundation must be both deeper and stronger than theirs.
We cannot go backwards to find easy answers for a modern world. But we must bring our past with us, our traditions and our beliefs, and we must stand on the convictions of our conscience that are as strong and unyielding as fundamentalist faith.
If we do not, we must fear for our country and for the world we stand astride, and we must fear indeed for the future that we leave to our children.
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Click on my name above for Parts I & II
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Footnotes
+ Much of the US founding principles come from John Locke, as in the following: I esteem it above all things necessary to distinguish exactly the business of civil government from that of religion and to settle the just bounds that lie between the one and the other. If this be not done, there can be no end put to the controversies that will be always arising between those that have, or at least pretend to have, on the one side, a concernment for the interest of men's souls, and, on the other side, a care of the commonwealth. ....The commonwealth seems to me to be a society of men constituted only for the procuring, preserving, and advancing their own civil interests.....Civil interests I call life, liberty, health, and indolency of body; and the possession of outward things, such as money, lands, houses, furniture, and the like. (John Locke, A Letter Concerning Toleration, 1689)
++ Adams writing to Jefferson (September 14, 1813: The Adams-Jefferson Letters)): "The human Understanding is a revelation from its Maker, which can never be disputed or doubted...No Prophecies, no Miracles are necessary to prove this celestial communication. This revelation has made it certain that two and one make three; and that one is not three; nor can three be one." Adams the New England Puritan and Jefferson the Virginia Cavalier - partners in Revolution, then bitter political foes, then at the end of their lives close friends and confidantes - embody the ideals, the faith and the wisdom upon which this nation was founded.
(8) Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America,
(9) Burckhardt, in New Republic, Lukacs, pg 414
(10) http://www.cjr.org/... (Columbia Journalism Review)
(11) http://www.au.org/..._ Americans United for the Separation of Church and State, June, 2005
(12) "A Defence of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America" [1787-1788], quoted at http://earlyamerica.com/...
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