THE IMPACT OF RELIGION IN AMERICAN 'FOREIGN 'POLICY AND THE PURSUIT OF EMPIRE

Andrew Preston, Sword of the Spirit, Shield of Faith: Religion in American War and Diplomacy (New York: Knopf, 2012) (MUCH FOOD FOR THOUGHT!!! "Angered by their Northern members' hostility to slavery, Southern Baptists and Methodists anticipated the sectional split of 1860-61 by breaking away from their national organizations in the 1830s and '40s; Southern Presbyterians followed suit in 1861. Both halves of these once-national bodies could now pursue what one historian has aptly called 'the foreign policy of slavery' in states of ideological purity. Presciently, John C. Calhoun feared that after the church schisms 'nothibg will be left to hold the States together except force.' Each side saw itself as the true heir to the American republican tradition. But for all sides of the dispute, the foreign policy of slavery was fundamentally about territorial expansion, which in turn posed fundamental problems of war and empire. For Southerners like John Rice, a contributor to the Southern Presbyterian Review, the opening of the westward settlement at precisely the moment the invention of the cotton gin rejuvenated the stagnating institution of slavery was  nothing short of providential. Simply put, God favored slavery because he had made it possible. Thus the South must 'never to consent that her social system . . . be confined and restrained by any other limits than such as the God of nature interposes.'" "Likewise, many religious Americans supported Indian Removal as a way to gain territory as well as an extension of Christian benevolence without necessarily seeing a clash between the two." Id. at 137. "By reopening the link between expansion and slavery, the Mexican War was actually the first skirmish in the Civil War." Id. at 146. "Based partly on Lincoln's rechristening of America's civil religion and partly on the moral absolutism of preachers in the victorious North, Civil War faith helped form the ideological core of U.S. foreign policy into the twentieth century. Comprised of two key ideas, this ideology of universal redemption was not always exclusively religious in character, but religion provided its most important source. Nor were either of these ideas necessarily new, though their testing in the Civil War changed them significantly. The first of these ideas was humanitarian intervention, the second America's role as God's chosen nation. When blended with the culture of progressive benevolence, missionaries, and the dictates of the national interest, the ideology of universal redemption enabled American leaders to follow a more interventionist, activist, and ultimately global foreign policy." Id. at 163. "The Spanish-American and Philippine-American conflicts were not America's first holy wars; they would certainly not be the least." Id. at 232. "As internationalists, mainline Protestants envisioned a world in which nations were fundamentally interconnected and mutually dependent; contrary to its mythic tradition of isolationism, the United States was no exception. However, as nationalists, they also assigned the leading role in managing this interconnected world system to the United States. Without America's political, economic, moral, and spiritual guidance, the world system would collapse in a fury of competing petty interests and jealousies. Liberal, mainline internationalists were thus among the first to recognize a complex phenomenon that, after the interruption of two world wars and the Great Depression, would reorder the world and its inhabitants: globalization." "It was no coincidence that religious Americans were among the first to recognize the emergence of a new global community." Id. at 249." But what had changed for Niebuhr? What had led him to abandon his commitment to a universal peace through Christian love? Based on his experiences in America and his reading of the international scene, Niebuhr saw, earlier than many others, that one could only be a true Christian pacifist if one lived beyond the margins of modern society. In the real world. it was sometimes necessary to use coercive means to achieve just end. Christan ethics remained central to politics because they would help determine the acceptable limits of coercion and distinguish between just and unjust causes. Though Niebuhr was not its creator, this essentially Niebuhrian vision of politics quickly became known as Christian realism. With it, Niebuhr also criticized American exceptionalism and national self-righteousness. In the depths of the world crisis of the 1930s, he maintained that Americans were no more free of guilt and responsibility than others. Sin was universal and nobody, certainly not Americans, was free of it. But crucially, Christian realism did not prevent Niebuhr from identifying those who bore more culpability than others. There were no heroes in the Niebuhrian world, but their were definitely villains." Id. at 304-305. "Less well known are McNamara's religious and moral views. ... [H]e had a strong moralistic sense of right and wrong which, in turn, had a firm grounding in Christian ethics. [] Nothing bothered him as much as Norman Morrison. On November 2, 1965, Morrison, a young, clean-cut Quaker pacifist, set fire to himself in a protest against the Vietnam War. He did it in a Pentagon parking lot which, not coincidentally, had a clear view of McNamara's office window. His final words to his wife, who did not know his intentions that morning, were: 'What can I do to make them stop the war?' From his window, McNamara saw the twelve-foot high flames engulf Morrison's body, and then the ambulances converge. It was too terrible to bear contemplating, but McNamara could not push the episode out of his mind...." Id. at 531.).