Patterns of the Past

Patterns of the Past
Infallibility of Christian leadership
Democratic contradictions in faith-based politics
Resolution of policy dilemmas in faith-based politics
Faith-based evidence
Evil and demonization
Faith-based justice
Interfaith dialogue
Faith-based withdrawal of human rights
Torture under faith-based leadership
Faith-based military action: "Gott MIT Uns"
Faith-based commerce
Faith-based intolerance of disagreement: avoidance of dialogue with dissenters
Transference of moral responsibility for deferred pain
Vengefulness and redemption
Complicity of Christian faiths

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The focus in what follows is on Christian complicity in global disorder. This is not to deny complicity of other faiths (notably Judaism and Islam) but that has been frequently analyzed in relation to the crisis in the Middle East. It is the Christian-inspired response to global instability that is of concern here.

What might be termed "faith-based governance" has a long history dating back to intimate involvement of priestly hierarchies in advising the ruler, if the ruler was not a priest or divinity in his (or her) own right. Policies were determined through consultation of oracles such as at Delphi or through the interpretation of entrails of sacrificial animals as in Rome (extispicium). The policies of the Empire of China were guided through consultation of the I Ching. Ronald Reagan, like Calvin Coolidge, Theodore Roosevelt, and Franklin D. Roosevelt before him, made use of astrology in evaluating important decisions [more]. So did Adolf Hitler. Faith in such aids to governance is active in non-western countries at the highest level especially with regard to the selection of auspicious occasions. It remains to be discovered whether the well-recognized influence of Nancy Reagan's astrologers on the President of the USA [more] is now matched by the influence of Cherie Blair's unconventional faith-based interests on the Prime Minister of the UK.

Early in his mandate, George Bush set in place a variety of faith-based initiatives in response to the wishes of his Christian supporters and associates [more]. The focus was provided by the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives. Religious organizations have been given a powerful input to policy-making -- particularly on sensitive issues like abortion. These initiatives have been supported by "faith-based legislation" as described in the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life's Lift Every Voice: Report on Religion In American Public Life (2002).

For many evangelical Christian supporters of George Bush it is to be expected that the global American hegemony sought by the new American strategic policy will be seen as the ideal vehicle through which fulfilment of the long-standing missionary aspiration can be brought to completion. This Great Commission to evangelize the world derives from the Biblical injunction: "Go ye therefore and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost." (Matthew 28 : 16-20; Acts I: 8; II; Corinthians 5:20) [more | more | more].

Franklin Graham, son of the Rev. Billy Graham (advisor to a succession of presidents) and one of the USA's most outspoken critics of Islam, indicated that he had relief workers "poised and ready" to roll into Iraq to provide for the population's post-war physical and spiritual needs (Crusaders sending in missionaries after the Blitzkrieg, 2003; Christianizing the Enemy, 2003) [more].This is seen as part of the process of bringing about the Kingdom of Christ on Earth -- overriding any opposition and ignoring the possibility that any such Kingdom is necessarily of the spirit. One preferred evangelical model is to "invade" the world [more]. The major failure in post-invasion Iraq to win over "hearts and minds" is clearly a challenge for the future of this mindset and the assumptions on which it is based.

Three years after the invasion of Iraq (2003), it is believed that half the Christians in the country have fled, driven out by bomb attacks, assassinations and death threats. So why haven't the coalition forces done more to protect them? (Mark Lattimer, In 20 years, there will be no more Christians in Iraq, The Guardian, 6 October 2006)

In emulation of the US initiative of George Bush, on 3 August 2003 it was revealed by The Observer that "Blair is to allow Christian organisations and other 'faith groups' a central role in policy-making in a decisive break with British tradition that religion and government should not mix" [more]. He has "set up a ministerial working group in the Home Office." Its terms of reference are:

"to consider the most effective means of achieving greater involvement of the faith communities in policy-making and delivery across Whitehall [and] to identify the specific policy areas where this input would be most valuable...It will lay down the foundations for the effective involvement of the faith communities' perspectives and needs in policy development across government."

Non-religious groups (including humanists and atheists) have been excluded from any involvement in the group. Should the Conservatives regain power in the UK, it has now become clear that they have associated themselves closely with a Christian faith-based perspective through their Conservative Christian Fellowship (based in the party's headquarters) and the recent appointment of Tim Montgomerie as the political secretary of the Ian Duncan Smith, leader of the opposition to Blair's Labour party. Montgomerie has posted an extensive set of prayers on the Fellowship's website in specific support of the Conservative party. He is known to be close to the American theologian Marvin Olasky who inspired George Bush in positioning his campaign for the American electorate [more].

A faith-based approach to governance, as currently envisaged, ignores:

the lack of government experience with interfaith dialogue (see below)
the extremely modest successes of such dialogue in relation to policy (Northern Ireland, Middle East, Kashmir, Sudan, etc)
the disproportionate weight that is likely to be attached to the views of particular faiths (notably those with which Tony Blair has sympathies, by analogy with the situation in the case of George Bush)

It is a curious irony that a principal Western criticism of the governance of fundamentalist Islamic states, and of their inhibited development, has been the restrictive and distorting influences of the sharia as a legal interpretation of the prescriptions of the Koran. The question is what legal prescriptions would follow from a literal interpretation of the Bible in the light of the development of faith-based governance inspired by Christian fundamentalism? Was this not the experiment conducted by the early Pilgrim fathers in the USA? Has this evoked widespread calls for its emulation today?

Aspects of the theme of government by fundamentalists are now recognized as having been explored by Margaret Atwood in a prescient novel (The Handmaid's Tale, 1985) about a future dystopic Republic of Gilead (formerly the USA) where the regime spins news of war and terrorism to its advantage [more]. Civil rights have been extinguished, books have been banned and culture has been terminated with extreme prejudice. Women are forbidden to hold jobs, property or money. Pollution and disease have decimated fertility rates -- birth control and homosexuality are now crimes punishable by death. (The few remaining fertile women, called "handmaids", are used as brood mares for regime officials and their barren wives).

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