The Observer,
September 23, 2001
I've done my head counts. My family, in Washington DC, is fine. The
house shook when the Pentagon was hit, but no one was injured. My former
neighbour, who works at the Pentagon, is unscathed, having fled his
office when he heard the explosion. My friend Charlie, a banker based in
the Twin Towers, was still away on holiday in Cape Cod on 11 September.
But while the tragedy has spared my family and friends, it has hijacked
my God.
The Taliban and bin Laden invoke God as the co-pilot in their jihad. (In
a recently recycled interview bin Laden gave to Time magazine two years
ago, the word 'Allah' punctuated his every threat.) Yet talk to any
moderate mullah, and he'll tell you that the ethos of the Koran is
compassionate and inclusive, and that Islam values the peace lover as
highly as the soldiering martyr.
Meanwhile, a distorted Christianity is being megaphoned by public
figures like the US televangelists Gerry Falwell and Pat Robertson - not
to mention President George Bush. In a shameful double-whammy that
showed 'compassionate conservatism' had made no inroads into Bible Belt
bigotry, Falwell and Robertson worked themselves into a fire and
brimstone fury, blaming the present crisis on gays, feminists and the
pro-choice movement: these sinners had offended God, and here was his
vengeance.
No sooner had the duo delivered their holy-roller sermon than George
Bush was telling the American people to get ready for an all-out war on
terrorism - and pray.
Presumably the President's Prayer, unlike the Lord's, wastes no breath
on forgiveness, but urges the faithful to bomb the hell out of those
towel-heads, Amen! Coming in the wake of his talk about launching a
'crusade', the President's message was clear: God's on our side. Beware
the infidel - ie, anyone who does not subscribe to our belief in America
the beautiful.
To American ears, this kind of noise is as cosily familiar as Songs of
Praise is to British ones. Since President Dwight D. Eisenhower spoke of
the 'spiritual weapons' which 'forever will be our citizens' most
powerful resource' at the beginning of the Cold War, successive
governments have turned Americans' piety into their best defence shield
system. Whatever the fight - the pinko commie enemy within, or the Evil
Empire of the Soviet Union - the citizens of the world's No 1 superpower
can rest easy in the knowledge that, when God's on your team, you've got
nothing to fear.
In the sinister, trenchcoat and fog world of the Cold War, when a few
too many embarrassing questions (like 'Hey, is that a bug in my phone?')
were being asked by a few too many ordinary citizens, the powers-that-be
were eager to frame any conflict in religious terms. Thinking of
themselves as the Godly taking on the ungodly might just convince
Americans of the legitimacy of the campaigns being waged in places like
Chile, Nicaragua, or - under Joe McCarthy's witch-hunts - Hollywood.
No wonder that, as Frances Stonor Saunders shows in her book about the
CIA, Who Paid the Piper? , God was dragged into every aspect of American
civic life. In 1954 the words 'one nation under God' were added to the
pledge of allegiance with which every child begins their school day. In
1955, Congress mandated the use of 'In God we trust' on all currency; a
year later those words became the official national motto.
The same decade saw the emergence of Billy Graham, patriarch of American
evangelism, who rushed from sea to shining sea, delivering
Bible-thumping sermons that reassured WASPs they were holy (shame about
the Jews, the Papists and the 'Mohameddans'). His wild-eyed
proselytising was aided by two publishing magnates,William Randolph
Hearst and Henry Luce, who puffed the Graham Crusade in their newspapers
and magazines.
God was turned into an instrument of national policy, sanctioning every
intelligence and military operation. In this way, the murkiest CIA plots
and the most senseless military manoeuvres could be given the
imprimatur; shady dealings were bathed in divine light.
It's a tactic that, in a nation where the overwhelming majority call
themselves believers, works wonders - or at least, helps citizens turn a
blind eye to phone tapping and other infringements of their civil
liberties; and a deaf ear to the faulty logic of invading Vietnam, say,
or Kent University campus.
The American patina of God-speak is about as true a religious statement
as some tatty plaster saint in church. The paint and the gold leaf
inevitably peel to expose a soulless mould. There's nothing Christian
about nuking Afghan civilians, nor spying on American students; just as
there is nothing Muslim about hijacking planes and flying them into the
twin towers of the World Trade Centre or the Pentagon.
Yet US history has shown that, by appealing to their Christian identity,
Americans will accept much that is contemptible, and confuse the
ideological with the theological. With this mindset, 'Hallelujah!'
amounts to a war cry, and 'Onward, Christian Soldiers' to a latterday
crusade. This is bad religion passed off as good. We should beware
Dubya's Bible-thumping. When a US President invokes God, he has
something to hide. Bad religion hides dirty politics.