A God of War? Presidential Faith and U.S. Foreign Policy

By Lyn Boyd-Judson

The religious values held by George W. Bush have undoubtedly informed his foreign policy decisions. This simple fact should give every American voter pause.

For the past eight years, many like-minded Americans have rejoiced in the current president's conservative Christian worldview and its foreign policy consequences, rather than recognizing that this worldview is a profoundly disturbing element of his presidency. They take comfort in the belief that their president receives God's guidance in political matters, both domestic and foreign. Their logic is that if good and evil exist in our world, the tension between the two manifests in the political realm and plays out in our foreign policy. These Americans see themselves as members of a religious nation, founded on Christian principles, with a special mission in the world. For them, it is not disturbing to see religious values mixed with foreign policy objectives; in fact, it is reassuring. They know and trust George W. Bush's God.

In contrast, those Americans - both secularists and liberal Christians - who find the current president's claims of divine guidance profoundly disturbing argue that one of the key principles on which the U.S. was founded is freedom from religion in state institutions. They argue that the founding fathers were deists who advocated a natural religion based on human reason rather than divine revelation. They understand that one's religious beliefs or worldview can never truly be divorced from decision-making, but they also hold that these religious assumptions should constantly be re-evaluated by rational and factual criteria when applied to matters of state. So when it is reported that President Bush says he receives divine guidance on matters of U.S. foreign policy - for instance, that God told him to invade Iraq¹ - these Americans believe that all citizens, Christian or otherwise, should be profoundly disturbed, because an unjust war can never be a divine war.

This contrast between American Christian worldviews is starkly apparent in the recent media reports of controversial comments made by religious leaders connected to the current presidential candidates. Barack Obama's former pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, has made inflammatory remarks about the U.S. government, suggesting that the U.S. is racist on the home front and that its foreign policy is unjust, aggressive and foments Islamic terrorist attacks on U.S. citizens. John McCain has close ties to pastors Rod Parsley and John Hagee. Parsley has claimed that Islam is a false religion that America should destroy, and John Hagee has called for bombing Iran to hasten the Christian apocalypse. Both McCain and Obama are correct to claim that they cannot be responsible for comments made by their supporters, that they can - and often do - vehemently disagree with the religious views of those who endorse them. Yet these two American religious worldviews on display reveal the foreign policy choice that confronts us as voters. Which presidential God will have influence in the Oval Office?

Several political pundits describe the current politico-cultural divide in the U.S. as a rift between God-fearing Christians and "secular" (read atheist) liberal intellectuals from (pick your coast). Of course, this distinction is inaccurate and misleading. The divide in American political culture over God is not so much about whether Americans believe in God as it is about how the 90 percent of Americans who believe in God² want to define his purpose in our political world. In this sense, the divide in American political culture over a presidential God is an argument between the politically left-leaning Christian who embraces a God of peace, inclusiveness, forgiveness and social justice, and the politically right-leaning Christian who embraces a God Almighty whose main attributes are judgment, the strength to vanquish enemies, and the righteous impulse to devalue - even destroy - all things not Christian. Again, which presidential God will shape the foreign policy decisions made in the Oval Office?

As Americans, regardless of our religious beliefs or political commitments, it is our duty as voters to reflect deeply on what we value in foreign policy initiatives, why we hold these values, and how we express them in the public sphere. We need reasonable voices speaking to reconcile the factions in the religio-political divide - a divide not over whether a candidate knows God, but over how Americans want to define the role of a candidate's God in a president's foreign policy. While religious values can certainly inform our moral impulses, the distinction between an exclusive or inclusive God is where war and peace often hang in the balance.

Americans overwhelmingly prefer to vote for a president who believes in God. This time around, let's ask the right foreign policy question: Will the God of McCain or Obama lead us toward a more humane, inclusive and just approach to world affairs, or farther down the path of an aggressive and brutally divisive foreign policy?

Lyn Boyd-Judson, adjunct professor in the USC School of International Relations and USC Annenberg School for Communication, is author the forthcoming books Strategic Moral Diplomacy: Understanding the Enemy's Moral Universe and U.S. Diplomatic Isolation of Iran: Consequences for Media Coverage and Foreign Policy.

¹BBC, Elusive Peace: Israel and the Arabs, a series on BBC Two, October 2005. Palestinian Prime Minister Abu Mazen and Palestinian Foreign Minister Nabil Shaath quote this statement made to them by George W. Bush, which they later explained they did not take literally.

²The 90 percent figure is from a March 31, 2007, Newsweek poll conducted by Princeton Survey Research Associates International.

judythpiazza@newsblaze.com