For one thing, [Neuhaus' argument] casts the war on terrorism in the exaggerated terms of a struggle for freedom and justice against cruelty and fear, and thus fails to acknowledge the possibility that neither the United States nor al-Qaeda may be on the side of freedom and justice (properly understood) or that both may be given to spreading cruelty and fear. Possibilities such as these do not appear when the world is viewed through the simplistic lens of Neuhaus (and Bush). For another thing, after identifying the cause of the United States with the cause of freedom and justice, it employs a flawed argument to align both of these causes to the purposes of God. The argument is flawed because, while it is true, as Neuhaus argues, that God is not neutral when it comes to freedom and justice, it is also true that God's purposes may well be aligned with a form of freedom and justice that is represented neither by the United States nor by al-Qaeda, but rather by some other political entity or body or by the church itself.
Of course, Neuhaus and especially Bush are involved in stirring up the people and the troops for the conflict, and saying, for instance, "We're fighting for the lesser of two evils" is hardly the wording used to instill dedication and sacrifice. Baxter continues, touching on the vagueness of the deity to which Americans refer in saying "One nation under God," or "In God We Trust." This is a key insight, I think. How many Christians were eager to believe that Muslims do not worship the same God as they, but yet also have quoted with approval Jefferson's dictum that "all men are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights" when in fact it is certain that Jefferson neither worshipped nor believed in the God of Abraham?
Baxter's essay is a worthy examination of the tenets of American civil religion. I am surprised it appeared at Free Republic, yet it is for a thread such as this that I continue to browse that increasingly emotivist forum.
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