Presidential Evangelist for War

Abstract

Presidential Evangelist for War Francis X. Kroncke America, land of the evil ones “America, Land of the Evil Ones.” Sounds like a bin Laden rant. Yet, it should be a common image for national self‐reflection. That it is not is a prophetic charge laid against America's presidents. “America, Land of the Good Ones” marks their bully‐pulpit evangelism. It is a homiletic theme oft orated by American presidents when drumming for wars, domestic and foreign. The striking spiritual characteristic of Americans is that we claim to have no dark Shadow side, no demonic traits, that evil is something which non‐Americans do. This characteristic is not trivial. It is not superficial. Truly, we believe that Americans can never be Evil Ones. As Bush‐43, “The Appointee,” (George Walker Bush, 43rd President of the United States) claimed, we Americans are the Light to the world. Heed his homily. During the Vietnam War, the image of Good Ones was tarnished. However, broad cultural acceptance of America's evilness is always kept in check by recalling the World War II generation who still remain convinced that their Good War was morally unsullied. This has become a dogma of Cold War theology. Such is held notwithstanding The Atomic Bomb which—for the first time ever—vaporized humans, “Poof!”…yet to come, again? The Appointee represents those who aggressively proclaimed the rightness of the Vietnam War—as an extension of the Good War, fought against godless Communism. Yet, few Americans, then or now, grasp why all presidents must go to war. Why it is their commanding spiritual as well as political altar call. Why warring is the bedrock American ritual, part of our cultural and spiritual DNA. For all presidents, “America, Land of the Good Ones,” has been a self‐conscious prophetic charge, in that the President believes he is authoritatively foretelling the future of his People. He continually reasserts that as Good Ones we Americans are moral models, and ours, the framework for every other culture's development. Civil religion The President is a prophet of a religion about which most Americans are not formally educated. It is a hybrid, theologically secular “Civil Religion”—and it is the mightiest, most evangelical, conquering creed of all times. Yet, its lack of clerical ceremony and classical religious imagery leads most to the conclusion that it is more a loose collection of patriotic, nationalistic, and holiday hoopla than a religion: the Flag, “one nation under God,” “in God we trust,” the Declaration of Independence, and holidays such as July 4 and Memorial Day. Nevertheless, it is a religion because it defines and determines how the individual and the group understand and value sacrificial bloodshed. The fundament of this Civil Religion is that America is a Chosen People—a covenanted People journeying through a Frontier land of promise. On this Frontier horizon Good slays and conquers Evil. This story of origin reveals a People set upon a Manifest Destiny. One set apart from “the Old World”—in parallel to St. Paul's Old Man/New Man imagery. All other cultures are judged fallen, lost, depraved. America, in contrast, is “exceptional” and seen as “A nation with the soul of a Church.” Ritual and liturgized bloodshed is a core religious belief and practice. Animals for the Hebrews. Jesus for the Christians. Although its ceremonial garb is solely militaristic and no longer clerical, Civil Religion sheds the blood of the “un‐American Other.” Denial of biblical fundamentals Civil Religion has clear Biblical roots. Yet, it is the denial of Biblical fundamentals which defines its essential beliefs and doctrines. Doctrinally, Original Sin gives way to a belief in the Perfectibility of Man. Americans are no longer judged unfaithful and in need of prophets to call them back to Righteousness. Rather, Divine Providence has granted them a Manifest Destiny—a companion to the British “White Man's Burden.” This denial differentiates the Civil Religion from mainstream Christianity. It is a splinter sect of the broader Protestant movement—for whom faithfulness to God is fully expressed through faithfulness to civil authority, here, the Democratic State. There is a transfer of power from the clerical, sacral realm to the civil realm of...