Let American Be America Again Analysis

Lincoln knew what it was to be a secular leader with a profound religious sense of moral and spiritual accountability [EPA]

"America never was America to me,
And all the same I swear this oath –
America volition be!" – Langston Hughes

As I wrote final calendar week, there are a number of troubling facets of the New Apostolic Reformation [NAR] that weep out for media attending. The NAR is the significant, yet relatively niggling-known religious movement embraced by many prominent endorsers of Texas Governor Rick Perry's upcoming prayer upshot, "The Response". It represents a major break with the Religious Right of the by: it's not virtually problems or even "values".  It's about power, pure and elementary. About taking over the world, a form of Christian dominionism, and as I described, they've even got a vii-point program for doing so – the "Seven Mountains Mandate".

i. Mythos and Logos

This week, I want to take a step back and write well-nigh the NAR in a much broader, historical context – the context of the by few centuries in which fundamentalism has emerged. To practice and so, I turn to Karen Armstrong'south remarkable 2000 book, The Battle For God, which provided profound insight into the nature of fundamentalism past securely examining specific examples from the Jewish, Christian and Muslim worlds. It may seem like a less gripping, less titillating story at kickoff, just I hope y'all, information technology's well worth hearing, and could even save your civilisation – or your life.

In her introduction, Armstrong argued that the late-20th century resurgence of fundamentalism needed to be seen in an historical context. Fundamentalism was not, as its believers assumed, a return to older forms of faith, more true to the original. Rather, she said that fundamentalist movements "accept a symbiotic relationship with modernity. They may reject the scientific rationalism of the Westward, merely they cannot escape it. Western culture has changed the globe. Nothing – including religion – tin can always be the same again."

Providing a sharper focus,  Armstrong went on to discuss ii means of knowing that were traditionally regarded as entirely distinct: mythos and logos. The first was master, dealing with "what was thought to be timeless and constant in our existence" – the origins and end purpose of life, civilization and individual being. "Myth was not concerned with applied matters, but with significant," she wrote. "Unless we detect some significance in our lives, we mortal men and women autumn very easily into despair."

"The mythos of a guild provided people with a context that made sense of their mean solar day-to-twenty-four hour period lives; information technology directed their attending to the eternal and the universal," writes Arsmtrong. No i can doubt why this form of knowing held such profound importance.

Logos, on the other hand, was "the rational, pragmatic, and scientific thought that enabled men and women to function well in the world". It was equally vital for human being, just in a more than mundane, everyday way. We humans know practically nada by instinct. Without the fruits of logos we should surely perish in short society.

Only it is only within the past few hundred years that logos has become transformed from a vast collection of dissimilar strands of specialised knowledge into a relatively integrated whole: our collective scientific knowledge of the globe, whose totality provides, in its own fashion, the same sort of comprehensive story of "life, the universe and everything" that's traditionally feature of mythos.

The distinction between mythos and logos could ever break down, with troubling results, Armstrong explains. Just with the emergence of modern science the condition has get chronic. Fundamentalism is, in essences, an attempt to express the lost primacy of mythos by asserting it in terms of logos. "[B]ecause an increasing number of people regard scientific rationalism solitary as true, they have often tried to turn the mythos of their faith into logos," Armstrong wrote. "Fundamentalists take also made this endeavour. This defoliation has led to more than problems."

2. Post-fundamentalism

With all the above in mind, I would argue that the NAR itself is not simply some other form of fundamentalism, although many who come to information technology no dubiousness experience it that fashion – equally a kind of supercharged version of the Pentecostal or Charismatic movements. Withal, careful reading and attention to critics makes it articulate that it differs dramatically from Christian fundamentalism in ane basic way: It does not simply effort to assert that the Bible is a scientific text superior to all others, every bit creationist organisations such as "Answers In Genesis" does.

Rather, the NAR has been sharply criticised past more than traditional conservative Christians precisely because practitioners go beyond the Bible – a polite way of saying that when push button comes to shove, they supersede or disregard it.

"[E]xperience is elevated to a position of high authorisation when information technology is confirmed by consensus opinion and patently positive results accordingly, it may supercede biblical truth," wrote Bishop Michael Reid in his 2002 volume, Strategic Level Spiritual Warfare: A Modern Mythology? Reid goes on to quote from Confronting the Powers, a book past the NAR's intellectual godfather, C Peter Wagner, in which Wagner admits: "I am not claiming biblical proof for the validity of strategic-level spiritual warfare, spiritual mapping or identificational repentence," [glossary here]. Simply he does fence at that place is "sufficient Biblical bear witness to warrant … a working hypothesis that we tin field exam, evaluate, modify and refine".

Which is to say, Wagner is proposing a "scientific method" of developing extra-biblical demon-fighting practices, based on the claim that "the Bible doesn't forbid it". It should be clearly understood that dealing intuitively with the spirit world, gradually building up a body of experience on which to rely is precisely the practice of pagan "witchcraft".

It should be no surprise that this approach has proven immensely popular in places like Africa with a strong living tradition of understanding the world in terms of competing spirits and demons. Even while pretending to fight against pagan belief systems, the NAR itself is actually deeply embedded inside them – much as fundamentalists are deeply embedded in logos, while utterly convincing themselves they are fighting against information technology to the death.

There should exist no doubt that the NAR is responding to an intensification of the same historical developments that Armstrong describes as giving nascency to fundamentalism. Just the de facto abandonment of the Bible (which, of course, they would never admit to) represents a much more radical response. This ultimately constitutes a difference in kind, which, for lack of a better term, we might telephone call "postal service-fundamentalism". This actually did non originate with the NAR, but has been bubbling upwards in different forms for quite some time now – equally for example, in the "Latter Pelting" movement of the early postal service-Earth War Ii era, which was condemned by the Assemblies of God in 1949, just as elements of the NAR were condemned in 2000.

Another precursor was known as "Moral Government Theory", which taught that homo free volition limited God'due south foreknowledge – a clear indication of how post-fundamentalists tend to subtly elbow God aside, the same way that they accuse secularists of doing.  Critics have correctly noted that this amounts to a reassertion of the ancient Gnostic heresy.

We can see the difference between fundamentalists and mail service-fundamentalists more clearly by ways of a parallel: Just as fundamentalists attempt to argue they are more scientific than secular scientists by picking and choosing bits and pieces of scientific evidence out of context, every bit jumping-off points for their own pseudo-scientific speculations and "scientific" arguments, and so, too, post-fundamentalists effort to argue they are holier than the holy fundamentalists by picking and choosing bits and pieces of the Bible out of context, equally jumping-off points for their own pseudo-biblical speculations and "spiritual" practices.

Of form, a like sort of statement can be made against violent "Jihadists", such as members ofal-Qaeda, whose terrorist attacks on 9/xi were extensively condemned as un-Islamic, even by quite conservative religious authorities. This is a farther indication that nosotros are seeing the results of a world-historical process, impacting different religious traditions in similar means, as post-fundamentalism appears in different guises to accost felt shortcomings, or failures of the fundamentalist project.

3. Jihad vs McWorld

Although beyond the compass of my summary above, Armstrong besides argues that the logos-based forces of modernisation were highly disruptive and destructive of older ways of life, though she focuses much less on how this happens than on the results it produces in the realm of mythos.

Another book that provides a more than ii-sided test of this process – though in a much more compressed time-frame – is Benjamin Barber's 1995 volume, Jihad vs McWorld [Article that spawned the book here]. Somewhat similarly (though not identically) to Armstrong, Barber argues that the global modernising forces of engineering and commerce ("McWorld") are locked in a profound struggle against the astern-looking ethno-religious forces of religion and localised civilization ("Jihad").

However, Barber likewise argues that both sides of this struggle besides feed off of each other and gang upwards against a third alternative – the humanistic, secular democracy adult in modern, Western, democratic welfare states, which empower citizens to human action collectively in multiple means to negotiate and achieve shared ends that help create new forms of community and means of living together.

Barber has written extensively virtually "strong republic", a sustained participatory practice that both institutionalises and regularly recreates the sort of deep straight democratic involvement seen in Egypt's Tahrir Square which led to the overthrow of Hosni Mubarak. Furthermore, decades of international research has shown, via the Globe Values Survey, that the more people manage to have their basic needs met, the more interested they become in actively self-governing themselves.

If one takes Hairdresser's framework seriously, one can look at America's pre-9/eleven interest in the Middle East as a classic example of how McWorld and Jihad collaborate: oil out and guns in for the Saudis and other "pro-West" governments constituted the main thrust on the McWorld side, along with increasing levels of Western-style consumer affluence for those on summit.

Support for fundamentalist institutions at habitation and abroad largely bought off the criticism this would otherwise take brought on. The calculus varied somewhat elsewhere – such as Egypt – but the dynamic was like: the wages of McWorld were used to buy-off and redirect anger of Jihad, which in plough was and so used to justify still more than of the hard-nosed armed services side of what McWorld had to offer.

Things were more complicated on the Israeli side of things, only similar dynamics were involved in terms of how McWorld's consumerism and techno-rationalism and Jihad's tribal-religious passions fed off each other, each pretending to be each other'due south opposite, while collaborating together to stalemate any functional democratic process that could substantially better people's lives and movement towards a just, peaceful and fear-free future.

The 9/xi attacks brought all these contradictions out into the open. But they also drew out so much fright, astonishment and anger in America that contemplating contradictions – much less resolving them – was  the last thing on near American'southward minds. The fact that Bush-league took Osama's bait, elevating a claret-drenched killer of innocents to the status of "holy warrior", may take been just what Osama wanted.

But playing into Osama's illusions helped Bush promote his own "holy warrior" illusions as well, heightening the synergy of Jihad and McWorld within the Republican coalition. If just Iraq had not turned out to be such a disaster, Bush really might accept established a prolonged catamenia of Republican dominion, as "Bush'southward brain", Karl Rove, had dreamed of doing.

Instead, Bush became deeply unpopular, and Barack Obama sailed into the White House backed past an incredibly hopeful balloter movement expecting dramatic democratic renewal – a rebuilding of the elements of strong commonwealth Barber has written about, which had eroded for decades before Bush-league took a battering ram to them.

Only that, too, has turned out to exist an illusion, as Obama's cash-on-the-barrel indebtedness to the high-rolling donors of McWorld has proved vastly superior to the empty potent democracy rhetoric of his campaign. As culture critic Naomi Klein – writer of No Logo and The Stupor Doctrine – put it, in a Democracy At present! interview, Obama's campaign was the first example of Nike-style lifestyle marketing campaign "that plays on our, sort of, faded memories of a more than idealistic era, only, however, doesn't quite say annihilation". This is McWorld, branding itself with the iconography of potent democracy. "We think nosotros hear the message we desire to hear," Klein said. "Simply if you lot really parse it, the promises aren't at that place, information technology'due south really the emotions."

Thus, the very model of how republic is supposed to work is systematically existence dismantled in America, the birthplace of modern republic. Every bit Obama sells out his base in ever more sweeping means at every turn, he relies on their fright of much worse to support him anyhow. And what does the GOP have to oppose him?

Rick Perry, with the assist of the NAR post-fundamentalists, or so information technology would seem.

iv. With malice toward none

Investigative reporter Forrest Wilder of the Texas Observer, recently published an extensive commodity on Perry's August vi prayer outcome and his endorsers, "Rick Perry'due south Ground forces of God." I spoke with Wilder at some length, and our give-and-take also encompassed the prolonged drought that Texas is experiencing, with virtually no policy response, except of class, for Perry having issued withal some other call for prayer – this time for rain.

Whether or how much Perry really shares in the NAR's conventionalities organization is hard to say, Wilder told me, only, "You tin can say this near Perry and The Response – in that location is this underlying theme which is kind of throwing upward ane's hands at all these problems that we're faced with in guild and saying: 'Well, I got nothing, and then allow's meet what God can do for u.s.a..'"

Although Perry – along with the preachers backside him – tries to spin this as typically American, and a return to an earlier, more overtly religious mental attitude among presidents and other political leaders, the lack of any sort of rational planning, or pragmatic foundation is actually profoundly at odds with our real American heritage, which is much more along the businesslike, activist lines that "God helps those who aid themselves". What's more, the hollow helplessness at its core is the exact opposite of the NAR's self-promotion as an arrangement of prophets and apostles so powerful that God himself can't become the chore done without them.

In contrast to these pseudo-religious shenanigans, Lincoln's second inaugural address is a deeply religious meditation on the meaning and significance of the Ceremonious State of war, arguably the most terrible tribulation America has ever faced as a nation. It was a masterful blend of both mythos and logos, addressing both, confusing neither. On the one hand, Lincoln saw it as beyond man power to say what the state of war'south outcome would be.

"Fondly do we promise, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away," Lincoln said. "Nevertheless, if God wills that information technology continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman's ii hundred and 50 years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every driblet of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said iii thousand years ago, and so even so it must be said 'the judgments of the Lord are truthful and righteous altogether'."

Such was the level of Lincoln'due south give up to the will of God. Yet, that did not for one moment lead him to Perry's sort of pathetic despair and utter cluelessness well-nigh what to exercise. He did non carelessness logos or determination, fifty-fifty hope. Instead, Lincoln concluded with i of  the strongest statements of national purpose and commitment e'er uttered by an American President, or any other national leader:

"With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right every bit God gives us to see the right, permit u.s.a. strive on to end the piece of work we are in, to bind up the nation'southward wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to exercise all which may achieve and cherish a but and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations."

Lincoln's words reveal what information technology ways to be a secular leader with a profound religious sense of moral and spiritual accountability, witting of the requirements that mythos and logos each need. His words tower over America today, which seems utterly incapable of even recognising what information technology has lost – much less figuring out how to regain it.

If America is to be saved, information technology will be in no small part because the people of other lands, such every bit Egypt, have learned lessons from America that America herself has forgotten. Seeing them put America'due south lessons to work in their countries – perhaps, just possibly, Americans can relearn what we've forgotten.  And in the words of Langston Hughes, let America be America once more.

Paul Rosenberg is the Senior Editor of Random Lengths News, a bi-weekly culling community newsletter.

The views expressed in this article are the author's own and practise not necessarily represent Al Jazeera'southward editorial policy.

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Source: https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2011/8/5/let-america-be-america-again

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