COLUMN: What’s God got to do with the Iraq war?
I seem to have stirred the hornets nest with my unambiguously antiwar rant last week.
The venomous e-mails haven’t abated since the piece ran Wednesday. It’s quite amazing how rich our vocabulary of hate is on this campus. Some of the epithets and slurs hurled my way are debase enough to shame even an unsavory politician in Indian parliament.
Be that as it may. The most distressing feature in many of the messages I’ve received is a distinctly conservative religious advocacy of war. Alan Ayers, a rather enthusiastic critic who e-mails me several times a day, included in his correspondence what I presume to be a newspaper headline announcing in bold: “LDS Church President Encourages Soldiers.” This, I am led to understand, is a point to be noted, prompting me to ask a perplexing question: What exactly is the connection between justification for war in Iraq and the expression of solidarity of a prominent religious leader?
The issue gets muddier. In his letter to the editor on Friday, Jake Adkins launched a scathing diatribe against the United Nations: “If the United Nations was to ‘die,’ what possible difference could it make?” he wrote. This is acceptable. But the way he ends his letter — “God bless the commander in chief” — is significant.
The guest commentary by Jamie Forbush (whose surname unequivocally declares his position) was written in a similar vein, its general theme being that the United Nations is an evil empire with hegemony on its mind.
“Any citizen who truly supports our Constitution, our sovereignty and capitalism should know the danger the United Nations poses to our country,” Forbush affirmed.
Again, allow me to draw your attention to his conclusion: “Let’s continue only as the United States of America, one nation under God. May God continue to bless the United States of America.”
Notice the intertwining of religion and politics. This is a lethal combination, as nothing fuels ignorance and arrogance more than unilateralism mixed with a twisted interpretation of religious obligation.
Sadly, this brand of madness is sweeping America. It is the Christian equivalent of Islamic fundamentalism.
Justin Webb, Washington correspondent for the British Broadcasting Corporation, stumbled on this trend in January, when, in his words, “Armageddon fiction” gripped the United States.
Webb observed a spectacular increase in the sales of a series of novels, titled “Left Behind,” which dramatize the “end times” as fundamentalist Christians call them. Fifty million copies of the books, which deliver a strong political message, had been sold. Webb interviewed the author, an evangelical preacher named Tim LeHaye.
“Never in the history of mankind has there been so much fear of self-annihilation,” LeHaye told the BBC. “People are asking the question what is going to happen in the future, and the Bible gives them the answer.”
LeHaye believes a world government will preside over political affairs as the end approaches. That governing body may well be the United Nations, he speculates, since it is “totally an anti-Christian organization, and has been from the beginning.”
This, Webb suggests, is an important point, because it gets right at the heart of the message contained in the books: The U.N. Secretary General is the Antichrist who persuades all nations to disarm.
Watchers of the religious right warn that LeHaye’s message could have a powerful impact on those not previously exposed to this point of view.
Listen to what noted author and researcher Rob Boston told Webb: “I know that a lot of people who read these books are susceptible to its political and religious message, and many people in this country have not been terribly supportive of the United Nations,” he said. “Look how long it took for George Bush to go to the United Nations over Iraq.”
At first glance, all of this might seem a tad extreme, even far-fetched. However, the tragedy is that these opinions exist in America today. On our own campus, such mindless reasoning is rampant. Somewhere along the way, patriotic conservatism has gone awry.
Let’s not confuse war with things sacred. Simply put, there is nothing holy about war. There is only destruction, loss of life, loss of innocence, unimaginable suffering, fear and terror.
Leon D’Souza is a senior majoring in journalism. Comments can be sent to leon@cc.usu.edu.