Accept No Substitutes
Posted on November 18th, 2008
by Daniel Larison |
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Ross:
Or put another way: I expect my Presidents to be heretics, but I think it matters a great deal what kind of heretics they are.
Arguably, no one can win the Presidency without confessing some form of the Americanist heresy, and so every President ends up adopting or professing views that are deeply at odds with traditional Christianity.
This reminds me of something important that Richard Gamble said at the ISI conference at Yale (about which I really will be saying more soon). He argued against the continued national and political appropriation of Christian language of mission and redemption. This language, of course, is at the heart of American nationalism/Americanism, and the use of religious language and concepts to justify, whitewash and simplify the past both displaces the proper Christian understanding of these words and concepts and invests the nation-state with quasi-sacred status and makes nationalist historiography into the record of a secular salvation history. Prof. Gamble was very anxious about the dangers of civic religion and the description of America as a “city on a hill” and a “credal” nation (the latter, in my view, simply being the “proposition nation” idea using bastardized religious language) for some of the same reasons. Of course, it is impossible to be a normal country when a nationalist secular pseudo-religion defines the political culture. The exceptionalism justified by this appropriation of religious language (and even more absurdly defended in theologically nonsensical ideas that God wills everyone to be a liberal democrat) paves the way for a missionary role in the world that just so happens to coincide with the interests of certain factions in and around the state apparatus. What is most frustrating about all of this is that secular and heterodox Americans are among the most likely to believe and espouse these things, while at the same time the use of religious idiom in confessing Americanism will be cited as evidence of incipient theocracy, which is the last thing this substitute religion offers.
You’ve noted before how Bush’s foreign policy principles evoke liberation theology. Obviously, some of Obama’s speeches echo the same, though their utopianism seems more directed towards domestic policy.
Like Pedro, they say “Vote for me and all your wildest dreams will come true.” It’s puzzling that more pragmatic politicians have not effectively rebuked this rhetoric. Such rebukes are left to ideological Libertarians, and we know how successful they’ve been.
Some Straussian gnome holds that the Founders “built low but solid.” I’d like to think there’s an unfulfilled constituency itching for an “Aim low!” campaign.
A few pols feint in this direction with pleas for limited government, but even these remarks are interspersed with nationalist pseudo-Biblical grandiosity. They’ve lost the ability to praise the secular order with language befitting it.
Perhaps the real problem is they’ve lost the ability to praise God.
“Something higher than oneself” evokes a 12-step program.
And isn’t the word “oogly-boogly” or “ooby-dooby”? Some people!
Daniel, if you had a point with this article, it got buried in the words somewhere.
What I take away from the article (and it may be a stretch as you are as clear as mud here) is that liberal democrats want to use the idea of Amercian exceptionalism (my take on “the American heresy”) as a reason to act unilaterally in the world, and that these liberal, democratic state actors do so knowing it is all kabuki. Further, in doing so they somehow subvert the Christian faith.
I am most certainly wrong in my take on your words – but this is what I gleaned from the article.
What is odd is that, if take you at all correctly, the latest state actors to abuse Christian theology are largely Republicans. I don’t think anyone would confuse Bush with a liberal democrat.
Jake, the post makes sense if you interpret “liberal democrat” to mean (a) liberal in the classical philosophical sense, rather than in the modern American political usage, in which case all elected politicians in this country are “liberal,” and (b) democrat as one who supports elective democracy as opposed to other forms of government, not a member of a political party, thus explaining the lower case reference. Then the post would be a call against using language of mission and salvation to argue in favor of exporting (actually, imposing) Western-style political and economic arrangements (i.e., “liberal democracy”) elsewhere.
I read it as such, and it made sense to me. Of course, I am also a person who once wrote an overly long paper to the effect that there was no Scriptural or Traditional support for (much less requirement of) democracy or capitalism. So I may be a suspect source of interpretive clarity.
eshy, I considered your interpretation when I first read the article. Given Daniel’s use of “American heresy”, your interpretation has a certain consistency. I believe, though, that given the context of most of Daniel’s posts – politics of one kind or another – the use of liberal democrat means something different from the classical philosophical sense and supporting an elective democracy.
Certainly your interpretation makes every bit as much sense as what I took away from the article. Having said that, this phrase throws the whole thing in confusion: “Of course, it is impossible to be a normal country when a nationalist secular pseudo-religion defines the political culture.” It is possible that was the case for both Democrats and Republicans in times gone by, but I think, and fervently hope, that the Democratic party has moved away from that position. The Republican party, on the other hand, seems to have that position as the foundation of their platform. To the extent Democrats pay any heed to the idea, it is lip service only. The Republican’s use of American exceptionalism makes this statement problematic: “…while at the same time the use of religious idiom in confessing Americanism will be cited as evidence of incipient theocracy, which is the last thing this substitute religion offers.” If the religious conservatives animating the Republican party at this time have their way, theocracy is exactly what this substitute religion offers.