In last night’s debate between the Republican candidates for president, former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney brushed off the controversy surrounding a Texas pastor’s suggestion that as a Mormon he was a member of a cult. “I’ve heard worse,” he said of the pastor’s comments, before explaining why he found the remarks to be “a very dangerous and enormous departure from the principles of our Constitution”:
What I actually found that was most troubling in what the reverend said in the introduction was he said, in choosing our nominee, we should inspect his religion. And someone who’s a good moral person is not someone who we should select; instead, we should choose someone who subscribes to our religious belief.
That—that idea that we should choose people, based upon their religion, for public office is what I find to be most troubling, because the founders of this country went to great length to make sure, and even put it in the Constitution, that we would not choose people who represent us in government based upon their religion; that this would be a nation that recognized and respected other faiths, where there’s a plurality of faiths, where there was tolerance for other people and faiths. That’s bedrock principle.
(A full transcript of the debate can be found here.)
Despite Romney’s objection to its presence, religion is actually playing a very visible role in these campaigns. One take on that role came earlier this week in the form of a Los Angeles Times op-ed from Andrew J. Bacevich, professor of history and international relations at Boston University, former military officer, and noted critic of American empire. In the piece, Bacevich highlights the reality that all mainstream presidential candidates, regardless of party affiliation, share a view of American exceptionalism that is rooted in a belief in God’s intentions for the country.
Bacevich quotes a recent speech in which Romney exclaimed that “God did not create this country to be a nation of followers,” and that the United States is a nation with “a unique destiny and role in the world.” To Bacevich, Romney’s comments were both striking and unexceptionable in their reflection of a position widely held by those seeking higher office. Where, Bacevich asks, are candidates learning of these higher plans for their country? From his piece:
The Hebrew Bible provides no evidence to support this proposition. Nor do the teachings of Jesus Christ and his disciples. Yet the American Bible incorporates a de facto Third Testament, which validates this assertion of American uniqueness. That testament, fashioned from a carefully tailored rendering of the 20th century, recounts the story of a new chosen people serving as God's instrument of salvation, leading humankind onward to the promised land. For anyone aspiring to high office, professing fealty to this Third Testament has become all but obligatory.
Bacevich’s concern with this widely accepted American divinity lies with the violence it’s made to underwrite. A country that sees itself as chosen by God for a “unique destiny and role in the world” is one that imagines itself having been granted license to play an outsize role. As Bacevich quotes Romney, that role is to lead the world to safety behind the strength of its military force. A country that believes in the divine purpose of that role, Bacevich worries, “need not apologize for its pursuit of permanent military supremacy or for its propensity for violence.”
To Bacevich, fealty to this “Third Testament” is the real religious belief at stake in this election. Romney, Bacevich says, has rendered moot the question of whether Mormons are really Christians. “In all the ways that count politically, he has shown himself to be a true believer, committed to a faith-based approach to statecraft.”
This belief in American exceptionalism is rooted in a refusal to recognize the world as it is, and to instead cling to the pretense that it’s still 1945. When politicians declare that “this is America’s moment,” they are rejecting the reality of the post-Cold War era, which Bacevich describes as one of “unquestioned U.S. military preeminence going hand in hand with widespread disorder.”
In the spring we’ll publish The Short American Century: A Postmortem, a powerful new collection of essays edited by Bacevich. Together, the essays demonstrate how far the world has come from the moment in 1941 when publisher Henry Luce famously declared that the 20th would be the “first great American Century.” And yet, as Bacevich’s op-ed piece lays out, there’s a near-universal refusal among presidential candidates to acknowledge the fundamental shift we’ve seen over the last decades. “Whoever takes the oath of office on Jan. 20, 2013, will be someone who believes in the American Bible's Third Testament,” he wrote. “In that regard—whether for better or worse—the outcome appears foreordained. One might even say that God wills it.”
