[ALBSA-Info] NYTimes.com Article: The God of a Diverse People

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The God of a Diverse People

October 14, 2001 

By ALAN WOLFE


BOSTON—These events have split the whole world into two
camps: the camp of belief and the camp of disbelief," Osama
bin Laden said in his speech televised on the day America
started bombing Afghanistan. And he left no doubt about the
beliefs to which those in the first camp must adhere.
"There is only one God," Mr. bin Laden told his listeners.
"And I declare that there is no prophet but Muhammad." 

Osama bin Laden's words are chilling, not only because they
threaten further terrorism, but also because they echo
themes that have run through America's own religious
history. At the same time, his rant is oddly reassuring,
for the contrast between his zealotry and our measured
response reminds us of how far we have come since the days
when Protestant triumphalism reigned in this country. 

The Puritans who landed in Massachusetts, fleeing from
religious intolerance, were anything but tolerant
themselves. They saw infidels all around them, even among
other Christians who did not share all of their theological
convictions. As the Salem witchcraft trials showed, the
Puritans could be as unbending and cruel in their
interpretation of what the Lord required as any Taliban
court. 

Because it stressed the notion of a covenant, Puritanism
eventually made its peace with individualism. And because,
unlike Islam in so many contemporary settings, Puritanism
had to accommodate to a democratic society, it lost its
harshness in the quest for popularity. Still, the notion
that Americans were destined by their faith in a
specifically Protestant God to fill their own land and to
exercise their influence abroad lasted throughout the 18th
and 19th centuries. 

"Christianity is the only possible religion for the
American people, and with Christianity are bound up all our
hopes for the future," the German-born scholar Philip
Schaff told the American Historical Association in 1888.
Josiah Strong's influential book "Our Country," published
three years before Schaff's speech, asked the United States
to carry out its duty to "Christianize" the world. And the
Christianity they had in mind was Protestant Christianity.
The first war to come along after their pronouncements, the
Spanish- American War, was justified by many Protestant
leaders because it was fought against Catholic Spain. 

Even after Catholics and Jews were accepted into American
life, our political leaders still invoked religious
language that Protestants could interpret as their own. An
American as liberal as Henry Wallace could say, in his 1944
book "Faith of Our Fighters," that democracy was "the only
form of government which harmonizes fully with the
principles of the Bible." 

America remains a decidedly religious society, but it is
now religious in a very different way. To be sure,
religious fundamentalists have prominent political presence
even now. Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell, for example, are
not averse to invoking a language of crusade in the
political arena. 

But neither Mr. Falwell nor Mr. Robertson is president;
George W. Bush is. And Mr. Bush has done a brilliant job of
not permitting Osama bin Laden to define the terms of the
conflict. The more we think that what is at stake is a
clash of civilizations, the more like our enemy we become.
By insisting that we are not at war with Islam, Mr. Bush
deprives Mr. bin Laden of the religious battle he so
intensely desires. 

It is not only President Bush who has kept his viewpoint
balanced; it is also the American people. A country whose
single largest religious denomination is Catholicism can no
longer feel comfortable fighting for Protestant principles.
Indeed America is no longer Judeo-Christian, the term of
art we developed, after the Holocaust, to include Jews.
Even "Abrahamic," a term invented to include Muslims along
with Christians and Jews, excludes Buddhists and Sikhs.
There is no single God for whom this ever more diverse
society could enter a war. 

And it is not just our religious diversity that makes our
religious experience different from our Puritan past;
whatever their particular beliefs, Americans tend to
practice their faith in distinctly modern ways. Many
Americans, including many evangelical Christians, strongly
support the constitutional principle of separation of
church and state. (Conservative opposition to President
Bush's faith-based initiative shows that this support is
not just a liberal position.) 

Our cultural temperament may also help inoculate us against
a stringent religious fundamentalism. We are too optimistic
in our beliefs to find Satan lurking behind every rock.
There are, of course, American believers who evangelize,
persuaded that those who do not believe as they do are
destined for hell. Yet there are far more who believe that
whatever their own path to God, other people will choose
different paths that deserve respect. 

Surveys routinely show that more than 90 percent of
Americans believe in God. Our culture celebrates religious
belief and provides it enormous freedom in the private
sphere. But our constitutional system of government - by
separating belief from politics - tempers this impulse when
it interferes with governance and the making of laws. The
Taliban and Osama bin Laden wage war against us because
they embrace religious governance in the political sphere
while allowing individuals no religious choice. That use of
religion has resulted in a totalitarian society that cannot
countenance any deviation. 

The war now going on between Americans and the forces of
Osama bin Laden is not between belief and nonbelief. It is
instead about two different ways of believing, only one of
which allows for individual conscience and freedom. The
refusal of the other to make that allowance is what makes
terrorism against nonbelievers possible. 
Alan Wolfe is professor of political science and director
of the Boisi Center for Religion and American Public Life
at Boston College.

http://www.nytimes.com/2001/10/14/opinion/14WOLF.html?ex=1004083986&ei=1&en=a3755e452f29ee2a



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