Faith, Culture and Politics--A Few Thoughts Re War on Iraq 03

Wanted to pass on some thoughts re Iraq. What a world, eh?


The Main Thing Is to Keep the Main Thing the Main Thing

There are multi ways of looking at the impending invasion of Iraq. But the question I’m interested in at this point is whether Christian people can support the invasion and conquest of Iraq from an ethical or moral standpoint.

Wars are hard to fight without high levels of moral certainty. Because the people who give the orders to kill hundreds of thousands of people are human beings who on some level recognize the stakes involved, in most cases they feel the need for a certain moral certainty on their side. The killers themselves, largely young men and career military people, also need to believe they are doing the right thing.

Calling that moral foundation into question is an important way of resisting an unjust war. Perhaps it’s the most important way.

Point of View

I believe a U.S invasion and conquest of Iraq would be immoral. I feel Christians should resist our current government’s preparations and plans for war.

The Heartbeat

The present U.S. administration has clearly and repeatedly announced a new doctrine which they hope will guide our foreign policy in the future.

This new way of engaging the world is the doctrine of pre-emption. In this new approach to foreign policy the U.S. reserves the right to violently attack—with our full “conventional” arsenal and possibly even with “limited” versions of our nuclear weapons of mass destruction—any nations who are potential sources of future violence against the United States or our allies. Whether they are actually a present threat to the U.S., or whether they have more recently committed direct violence against the U.S, is a secondary issue under this new approach. Put most simply, this doctrine legitimizes “first strike” warfare to eliminate potential future threats using some of the most terrifying weapons ever developed.

This is an important departure from past U.S. views on the use of warfare and crosses well over the line of respectable and considered Christian views of the use of warfare which have been created over thousands of years of experience in many cultures and in many ages.

From a Christian moral and ethical point of view, whether the U.S achieves a UN mandate is perhaps less important than some seem to believe. That’s primarily a political and pragmatic issue, though it also has some potentially important moral implications. The key issue from a moral and ethical standpoint, I believe, is whether pre-emption can be supported.

Why Pre-Emption is Wrong

It’s important to underscore the fact that believers, for the first three centuries of the Church’s life, refused to support or participate in any state-sponsored military violence. That’s perhaps not surprising given the fact that the early Christians believed that their God had been violently crucified at the hands of the greatest state of their day and that the crucified Jesus would return very shortly and end all of history, including the Roman state. It’s not hard to imagine that their assertive non-violence also grew out of their reactions to the violent state-sponsored persecutions they experienced from time to time.

That comprehensive non-violence didn’t last. Eventually Christianity became the official state religion of a military empire.

It was during that imperial period, under St. Augustine, that the basic precepts of the “Just War Theory” (from now on JWT) were developed. Those precepts were refined over the centuries in many places and cultures and centuries.

The goal of the JWT was (and is) to influence political leaders with a Christian prophetic stance on warfare which is, at the same time, both realistic and in touch with the kind of “real world” tensions and contradictions that people in power—even Christian people--face when making decisions about the use of military violence. The situation in Iraq is a classic example of the complexities leaders encounter in trying to do the right thing in a very fallen world. It’s precisely the kind of situation for which the JWT was developed.

The JWT is arguably the most permissive Christian stance on war ever developed which also has reasonable biblical integrity. It has been the reigning Christian litmus test for the legitimacy of war for over 1500 years.

I thought the best way to ask whether a potential invasion of Iraq was ethically legitimate was to apply the most lenient and still legitimate Christian measuring stick to it, which is the JWT. Obviously, other less lenient but still biblically legitimate Christian perspectives would be even less likely to support state sponsored military violence.

The JWT
A just war can only be waged as a last resort. All non-violent options must be exhausted before the use of force can be justified.
A war is just only if it is waged by a legitimate authority. Even just causes cannot be served by actions taken by individuals or groups who do not constitute an authority sanctioned by whatever the society and outsiders to the society deem legitimate.
A just war can only be fought to redress a wrong suffered. For example, self-defense against an armed attack is always considered to be a just cause (although the justice of the cause is not sufficient--see point #4). Further, a just war can only be fought with "right" intentions: the only permissible objective of a just war is to redress the injury.
A war can only be just if it is fought with a reasonable chance of success. Deaths and injury incurred in a hopeless cause are not morally justifiable.
The ultimate goal of a just war is to re-establish peace. More specifically, the peace established after the war must be preferable to the peace that would have prevailed if the war had not been fought.
The violence used in the war must be proportional to the injury suffered. States are prohibited from using force not necessary to attain the limited objective of addressing the injury suffered.
The weapons used in war must discriminate between combatants and non-combatants. Civilians are never permissible targets of war, and every effort must be taken to avoid killing civilians. The deaths of civilians are justified only if they are unavoidable victims of a deliberate attack on a military target.
After reading over the principles of the JWT you may have been struck, as I have been, by how deeply the contemporary debate in the West over the potential war in Iraq is rooted in the various requirements of the JWT. Governments are struggling to demonstrate that they are fulfilling its various articles because it represents millennia of Western values and is a basis, sometimes unconsciously, of moral legitimacy in matters of war for Westerners. And even among non-Westerners I believe many if not most people would find the principles of the JWT to be morally self-evident.

Reflect for a minute or two on the various precepts of the JWT, using your moral and historical imagination, and then ask yourself why you think these 7 tenets have survived 1700 years of the Church’s experience with nations and powers of every kind. There is a subtlety about the JWT which might be missed in a quick skim job.

The elements of the JWT most relevant for a moral critique of a potential war and invasion of Iraq are points 3 and 6.

Together these two moral directives are explicitly aimed at ruling out “preventive” or “pre-emptive” wars. The nation or power attacking must be redressing a clear “wrong” it (or by extension, an ally) has suffered. A nation or power which attacks another nation with a pre-emptive strike is acting unjustly.

Even the intentions of a nation or power are addressed. If the intention of a nation or power initiating violence against another is anything other than redressing an injury it has suffered, that nation or power’s intentions are explicitly understood to be unjust. There is nothing ambiguous about that moral reasoning in the JWT.

There is not time to go into all the reasons why the JWT so strongly emphasizes this third point. But suffice it to say that this element of the theory has been crystallized over millennia because of Christian people’s long experience of warfare in many ages and cultures, the clear teachings of the Bible (which regularly condemn nations and cultures for pre-emptive military violence), and as I mentioned before, the witness of even non-Christian peoples to what they intuitively understand to be right and just in terms of the use of violence between nations.

If there were any residual ambiguity after point 3 about the view of the JWT of pre-emptive war, it is dispelled by point 6. According to this tenet of the JWT, any nation or power that uses proportions of violence that are beyond what it itself (or by extension, an ally) has directly suffered is acting unjustly and immorally.

I simply don’t believe a potential pre-emptive U.S. invasion and conquest of Iraq meets either of these two tenets of the JWT. Actually, I don’t think the upcoming war even comes close to meeting the moral requirements articulated here.

That’s not surprising since the JWT has been constructed to rule out pre-emptive war from a moral and ethical point of view.

Why is that important? Well, when a moral standard like the JWT has been the consensus of the Church for millennia, and when it is arguably the most permissive (and still biblically legitimate) Christian moral standard for evaluating war, and when it explicitly rules out the kind of massive, pre-emptive war contemplated by our present government, then I think Christians should evaluate soberly if they can give any support to that war. In any case, I believe the onus of “proof” lies with Christians who would support such a war. I believe they need to make a strong case why this war should be supported.


Past American Views on Pre-Emption

I also want to touch briefly on traditional American views on pre-emptive wars, and especially pre-emptive wars in which the force and violence applied are grossly out of proportion to any wrong suffered.

The reality is that American leaders have consistently repudiated this kind of warfare. Perhaps the most striking example of this was the Kennedy administration’s response to the Soviet Union’s installation of nuclear missiles in Cuba in the early 60’s. If ever a “pre-emptive” strike would have been called for to protect American citizens it was during the Cuban missile crisis. One important reason, among a number of reasons, why that administration chose not to make a pre-emptive strike against Cuba was that they believed such a strike was immoral and would likely brand the U.S. as an unjust power in the world. They explicitly argued that the U.S. had never engaged in first strike, pre-emptive warfare, and they made it clear they didn’t want to be the first to cross that ethical line.

That is not to say that the U.S hasn’t made immoral decisions during wartime in the past or that we haven’t crossed crucial moral boundaries before. We’ve done so a number of times. Our wanton destruction, even obliteration, of cities and vast civilian populations during WW2, and the fact that we did it as a specific and conscious military strategy, was grossly immoral by any Christian standards of ethics or warfare (see tenet 7 of the JWT). From my point of view it was one of the most shameful episodes in our national history.

Many argue that it was a militarily necessity. That may be so (I’ll address those kinds of ideas in a bit), but its immorality can’t be doubted, in my mind. We crossed a moral line when we began killing hundreds of thousands of women and children in horrifying bombing raids on enemy cities at the end of the Second World War, and I fear we are going to cross another one as we make pre-emptive war on Iraq, and as we make it a part of our new policy of warfare.

So in summary, I’d maintain that the witness of generations of Christians in the past (as expressed in the JWT) as well as the witness of our own nation throughout its history makes it hard to argue that pre-emptive warfare has ever been understood to be moral or acceptable. Why it would be considered acceptable now is not clear to me.


Why So Few Like Our Upcoming Rambo on Iraq

I think part of the reason why such huge numbers of people in polls all over the world reject the legitimacy of this war is the moral issue I’ve been focusing on. While there are obviously a number of governments that are supportive, I don’t think there is any question that this war is highly unpopular among the people of most any nation in which public opinion polls have been taken.

I’d guess people’s response around the world would be different Iraq had recently attacked the US in some way, or if it had recently attacked or done violence against some other neighboring country. I don’t think there’s any question that large numbers would be supportive of US military action against Iraq in that situation, as the first Gulf War and the recent campaign against the Taliban in Afghanistan made clear. Most people believe that a war fought to redress violence in self-defense is at least potentially moral and just.

But another important reason for the almost universal resistance around the world to this potential war is another new U.S. foreign policy doctrine, pre-eminence.

Our present government has announced that its policy--and what it hopes will be the policy of our nation in the future--is to pursue ongoing and unchallenged U.S. dominance in the world. No nation or power, whether friend or foe, will be allowed again to compete with the U.S militarily or politically, according to the people running our country these days.

That is now our official and public foreign policy, whether many Americans are aware of it or not. It’s obvious from public reactions to a potential U.S. war on Iraq that people from other nations around the world are very aware of it.

In effect our present leaders have extended the Monroe Doctrine--which announced our intention to pursue a decisive and unchallenged dominance over the western hemisphere 200 years ago—out to the whole world. We will no longer tolerate serious political or military rivals on the world scene.

That’s a clear departure from our past foreign policy, which has always been about alternating years of isolationism with periods of intense alliance building. During the Cold War the idea was to achieve some kind of strategic parity with the Soviet Union while at the same time encircling it with alliances and treaties. The method was keeping the pressure high and waiting patiently for 40 years, and the end game we were seeking was the collapse of the Soviet Union from within.

Some who are more cynical may say that global hegemony has always been our real but unstated goal, but I don’t think that point of view will stand up to even a cursory look at our national history. No American administration that I’m aware of has ever clearly announced a foreign policy doctrine like this one. And even if the cynics’ point of view is accurate, I believe an important moral and ethical boundary has been crossed when immoral behavior is publicly announced and publicly supported.

I think the doctrines of pre-emption and pre-eminence, taken together, frighten and galvanize many of the world’s people against the U.S. and especially against the potential war in Iraq.

Again, I would argue that many people around the world are responding out of their own cultural and religious traditions, and often from their own moral intuition. They understand that both pre-emption and pre-eminence are morally wrong and very dangerous. They are a witness against this kind of approach just as past American leaders and the mainstream of church tradition are. To me these are powerful reasons for Christians to consider, or re-consider, any support they might give this war.

The fact is that the U.S. now has an overwhelming advantage in terms of power and influence in the world. And that overwhelming advantage is a relatively new state of affairs for our nation.

Many respectable and leading thinkers in all parts of the world argue seriously that the U.S. now has greater relative power in relationship to the nations of its own day than any other nation in history. Whether that is true or not isn’t the point. The key issue is that we possess overwhelming military, economic, scientific, political, and cultural might.

When a nation which possesses such powers also commits itself unselfconsciously and publicly to resisting any serious rivals for power, and when it allows itself the moral leeway to engage in pre-emptive war using many of the most terrible weapons ever devised, is it any wonder why people around the world are deeply concerned?

And given the clear biblical judgments in the Old Testament and the New on nations who seek such pre-eminence and who achieve and maintain it through violence, shouldn’t Christians in this country resist the direction our present government is taking us?

The Bible clearly teaches and warns that all nations, no matter how well meaning, are fallen and are primarily concerned with advancing their own interests and assuring their own survival. So skepticism is the order of the day when evaluating any government or power. It also warns that when nations or powers begin to seek pre-eminence they are more prone to sin and to doing real damage to others and ultimately, to themselves. And finally, it warns that when nations actually achieve pre-eminence through military power and when they are convinced of their own moral rightness, a dangerous combination has emerged.

Some will say that the peoples of the world reject this war because many have a cultural hatred of the U.S. Some say it’s because many people reject or are ambivalent about modernity (which the U.S. symbolizes) Many believe the resistance springs from envy, jealousy, and pettiness. Others point out that some of the governments who are negative are cynical and self-serving (“champaign and cheese, anyone?”). And still others point to our policies in Palestine and believe we have acted unjustly toward the Palestinians, which casts doubt on our fairness to the Islamic world.

All of those points of view have validity to them. All are obviously part of the picture. But I also believe very clearly that many people are responding to the truly frightening, and I believe, immoral developments in our foreign policy which are summarized by the doctrines of pre-emption and pre-eminence.

There are other people who argue that the war on Iraq isn’t really pre-emptive, in spite of the fact that the present administration has clearly labeled it that way and has announced pre-emption as a new military doctrine which is “suited to our times.” Those people argue it’s really a police action in which the U.S, deeply concerned for the UN’s credibility and deeply concerned that international treaties be upheld, is simply doling out the consequences of Iraq’s failure to be a good member of the international community.

I don’t know how to respond to that point of view. Some people obviously believe our government is being drawn in as a world policeman in order to uphold international organizations and treaties. Personally, I side with those who believe our government is moving us toward war in order to take out a potential future threat in a pre-emptive war. Perhaps we’ve been following different world events.

If there have been any efforts on the part of the U.S. government to uphold the UN’s credibility, it’s pretty obvious to me that this has been seen as a necessary evil by our present government in order to allow them to do what they’ve been planning to do for quite some time.


Dark World and Difficult Decisions

For the sake of clarity I’ve made a strong and pretty one-sided argument against the moral legitimacy of the potential upcoming war.

But the decisions American leaders and leaders around the world are making are anything but easy or simple. There is a lot to be said for considering war.

We’re being told that present circumstances are so unprecedented that they require a new morality of warfare. There are a number of dangers our leaders are pointing to, but the heart of the argument for war against Iraq—and for pre-emption—seems to be that because of the tremendous and unprecedented power of weapons of mass destruction, and because there are now terrorists who will use them against us, past moral arguments against pre-emption, like the elements of the JWT, are no longer valid.

Are present circumstances dire? And do supporters of war have a strong case? And finally, are the circumstances so unprecedented that they require a new moral and ethical reasoning about war?

There is no question in my mind that Hussein is an evil man and that the Baathist regime in Iraq is evil. I say “evil” very specifically, and distinguish it from simply “fallen.” I think the Bible recognizes gradations of sin. There is “falleness,” which is the ‘garden variety’ of sin (excuse the pun). This is the common condition of all people and certainly of all governments and powers.

But there is a deeper wickedness which is evil. This is a moral and spiritual condition in which a person or group of people, or even nation, become so alienated and so distanced from God that they become what might be called “demonic.” At that point most vestiges of concern for the well-being of others are lost and self-obsession becomes almost pathological. Lying and the distortion of truth become routine. There is often pleasure taken in inflicting suffering and pain on others and in the sheer exercise of power and domination in the lives of others.

When this kind of spiritual and moral condition is combined with great power, something truly terrible has arisen which must be prophetically identified and resisted.

Some of the Europeans no longer seem comfortable thinking about a regime like Iraq’s as “evil.” My response is that if this regime is not evil the term has no meaning. Actually, though I understand why for political reasons governments might refrain from “speaking” about Iraq as evil, I wonder how to think about people who would not be willing to “view” Hussein this way.

So I do believe Iraq is a true threat, though I have major doubts about whether it is a true threat to us right now. I don’t doubt that many in the U.S. government honestly believe that Iraq’s regime is both evil and a threat to this country and his neighbors, and that they are motivated by it.

And of course, after 12 years of sanctions against Iraq, our government has good reason to doubt whether further sanctions of the type we’ve seen so far will actually disarm Iraq. Hussein is a master liar and manipulator, and a skilled politician. Why would anyone trust this man or this regime?

And perhaps most importantly, I believe many in our government and others who support this war also understand that the “peace” over the past 12 years in Iraq has hardly been non-violent. By even the most conservative estimates, over 200,000 Iraqis, mostly children, have died because of the deprivations caused by the sanctions and by Hussein’s wicked callousness toward his own people. Many others have been permanently physically and mentally damaged.

We’re also being told by our government that Iraq is working with terrorists to strike at the U.S.
I see little evidence that the Iraqis are working with terrorists, though I understand why there is a fear of “what might happen” were Hussein to give weapons of mass destruction to such terrorists.

When the Iraqi regime’s evil, the seeming failure of sanctions over 12 years, and the terrible loss of life and suffering during the “peaceful solution” to Iraq are all taken into account, there are very good reasons to consider a military “solution.” I don’t believe those reasons are strong enough to sanction a new morality, but I do understand them.

Political leaders and governments cannot afford romantic and idealistic views of the world. The bible clearly teaches that the world is a dark place of conflicting powers all seeking their own advantage, and where some of those powers become evil and demonic. Moral clarity is often hard to come by, and events present new challenges that people and governments are often unprepared to meet well and thoughtfully.

And as much as some Christians don’t like to hear this, because of the nature of evil in the world and because the world is fallen, sometimes governments and powers must use violence. Or in other words, sometimes there is simply no good choice.

So I don’t view the present administration or others around the world that support a war on Iraq, as “evil” people. I believe they are fallen people trying to make decisions in a fallen and complicated situation, and who are confronted with a specific challenge that is difficult and which might tempt anyone to use violence to solve it. I’m sure they understand that there will be many tragic deaths whether they choose to continue sanctions (200,000 and counting) or strike Iraq militarily. There are no good choices in a situation like this, no matter what politicians say for public consumption. Until we have strong evidence otherwise, I think we have to assume our leaders are human beings who are aware, on at least some level, of the “bad hand” they’ve been dealt.

This is part of why it is hard for me to get with much of the “peace movement.” I believe many of the people protesting are very well meaning and motivated by the kinds of issues I’ve been addressing, but quite a few seem to have lost (or maybe never had) the ability to draw finer moral distinctions or the ability to understand that the people leading are facing a very difficult challenge. To draw parallels between Bush and Hitler, or to be unable to distinguish between what is simply fallen and that which is evil, really damages the moral credibility of many of the protesters in my view. And when people support a more “simple-minded” anti-violence stance based on an unrealistic and naïve view of the world, well, that’s just weak anthropology and poor theology. Perhaps it’s the result of too much post-modernism, too much therapeutic mush that passes as a moral point of view, and too much TV…. Sorry, now I’m getting cynical!
It’s just frustrating when what I believe to be the best point of view on this war is discredited unnecessarily.

A Brief Comment on Presuppositions

I realize my comments in the section immediately above, and probably in the entire essay, would make more sense if I made my presuppositions about the Church and its relationships to nations and powers and to violence more explicit.

The Bible recognizes that violence must sometimes be used by governments or powers to restrain evil in this world. This kind of use of violence, on one level, is always a sign of falleness in that it is only necessary because of human sinfulness and rebellion against God. The Bible understands that violence in a fallen world is sometimes necessary precisely because it takes the sinfulness and darkness of the world very seriously. If you’re looking for idealism and romanticism, you’ll have to look elsewhere than in the pages of Scripture.

On another level, however, some uses of violence are worse than others. It is important for Christians to be able to draw moral and ethical distinctions between various situations they encounter in a fallen world. It is not enough to simply pronounce the standards of the Kingdom of God, which are to govern the Church, and then lump all nations or people or decisions into the hopelessly fallen category and draw no distinctions between them. To fail to do so is to fail to act morally and responsibly in this world. The governments of Sweden and Iraq may both be fallen, but there is an important difference between the two from a moral standpoint.

Some uses of violence to restrain evil may be understood to be “moral,” in the tentative and relative way that term must be used by Christians evaluating fallen governments and powers. War should never be celebrated or rejoiced in by Christians. It can only be grudgingly affirmed on those occasions when sin has made other options unworkable. And when the way it is waged meets both biblical and more common standards of morality.

Interestingly, in the prophetic literature nations are judged by God both by how far they fall short of Kingdom ethics (by how they manifest general human sinfulness along with all nations), but also in terms of how much they live up to their own stated codes of morality and the moral standards of the nations around them in their own day. This is based, I believe, in the Bible’s confidence that basic moral understandings remain in every human heart and culture and are expressed in all moral codes, though the way they are expressed may vary.

Since that is true, it’s important for Christians to evaluate how their own nation and other nations are doing in living up to important moral standards. And the standards related to the use of power and violence are some of the most important because they have such a dramatic effect on the lives of so many people.

What Should Be Done?

It’s time to summarize. My original question was whether Christians can support this potential war morally or ethically. My answer to that question is no.

What it comes down to in the end is deciding whether the potential moral good done by attacking Iraq justifies creating a new morality of pre-emption and putting that new morality into the hands of a fallen and very heavily armed superpower which has committed itself officially to a policy of pre-eminence. I just don’t believe the potential benefits of assertive military violence against Iraq or the present circumstances here create that justification, however understandable it may be that others disagree. I believe a pre-emptive war on Iraq would be morally very dangerous for our country’s future and the world’s future. This is a precedent that should not be set and a line that should not be crossed.

What should Christians do? Well, I believe part of our role in the world is prophetic. We must be willing to publicly evaluate both the U.S. and Iraqi governments and their policies in light of biblical teachings and standards, in light of Christian tradition, and also in light of the standards of our own nation and other nations and their traditions. That is what I’ve been trying to do in this argument.

I think Christians should resist this war both lovingly and non-violently. That means seeking to persuade leaders (I’ve been writing letters and making phone calls, for instance), but doing so in a way that shows respect for them as people and recognizes the moral ambiguities inherent in this particular situation.

Others may be motivated to actually become political leaders because of the directions they see us moving as a country. For some believers, if they believe they can actually do some practical good, this could be an important step to take.

It may mean protesting publicly as well. There’s no doubt in my mind that the public protests around the world have had a major impact on what politicians are doing and saying around the world.

And it might even mean practicing civil disobedience if a meaningful and helpful way of doing that can be created. I have been arrested doing civil disobedience on a number of occasions. Sometimes it is called for depending on the circumstances.

Well, I’ve tried to make clear what I think we should be against. What should we be for?

I think our government, and other world governments, should resist and contain the regime in Iraq in whatever ways clever people can devise. Much more intrusive measures may need to be taken, and Iraq may need to be squeezed much more tightly than it already has been. That may mean an even more dramatic reduction of Iraq’s sovereignty.

This will probably mean a much more active investment on the part of many nations to punish Iraq diplomatically and economically, and high levels of pressure on Arab governments and others to work for Hussein and his regime to step down.

In effect, it will take a concerted, intensive, and sustained effort to break the Iraqi regime. We did it with the Soviet Union. I see no reason why this kind of containment would not work against a much weaker and more isolated state like Iraq. If we have to exercise patience rather than go down the perilous road of pre-emptive war then by all means let’s be patient.

This will not change the terrible situation for the Iraqi people in the short run. But their situation will be terrible either way. A quarter of a million of them were horribly killed in the Gulf War, and any attack this time around is very likely to kill many more. They are people we should be praying for every day.

May God deliver us all from evil and lead us away from temptation. Amen.

Faith, Culture and Politics--Post War Thoughts on Iraq 03

Before the war on Iraq began I sent out a moral argument against the war from a Christian point of view. I made no attempt to look at the war from a political perspective, though that’s certainly an important way to analyze any war.

The gist of my argument then was that a pre-emptive and unilateral war fought by a nation which is a superpower by any historical standards, and which is now officially committed to a policy of perpetual pre-eminence and to pre-emptive violence against other nations, would be unjust and immoral and should not be supported by Christians.

I based my argument on the ‘just war theory,’ which is arguably the most lenient and widely held Christian viewpoint on state sponsored violence. I’m not necessarily a devoted supporter of the just war theory, but using the most lenient and respectable Christian view on war seemed the best way to measure the moral acceptability of a potential war on Iraq and the best way to give that war’s supporters the benefit of the doubt. Other respectable and historical Christian viewpoints on war would have been much less open to sanctioning a pre-emptive and unilateral war.

The war’s been fought.

It seemed appropriate after a year to revisit the whole situation now that we have the benefit of a measure of hindsight and now that we aren’t limited to well meaning attempts at foresight.

The primary moral argument for the invasion of Iraq was that Iraq was a clear and present threat to the US and to other “civilized” powers. The threat was so great and pressing, from the point of view of the current administration and its supporters, that no time could be wasted in destroying it. The uniqueness of the threat required a new morality of war which discarded time tested Christian views of war and previous U.S. perspectives on state sponsored violence as well.

As it turned out, responding to the perceived threat also meant alienating most of the nations of the world and the vast majority of the world’s population.

I went into some detail arguing against the war beforehand while trying at the same time to be fair to those who felt this kind of state sponsored violence was necessary. There were strong and understandable emotional reasons and a few concrete reasons as well to consider a war against Iraq, given the apparent “facts” at the time, even though I considered those reasons to be insufficient to create a new morality of war.

But my main concern was to argue that fallen nations and individuals, particularly when they have an overwhelming advantage in power and influence, are in a very tenuous moral position when they choose pre-emptive violence against other nations and peoples, especially when they act alone and without honest accountability.

The reason that’s true is that they are fallen. And besides being fallen, they are also simply human and therefore limited and fallible; as are all of the complex governmental and military and intelligence structures they inevitably create.

They are susceptible, along with every one of us, to believing what they want to believe, and at times to trumping up or even creating reasons against the evidence to do what they would like to do. The temptation to do those kinds of things increases exponentially as a person or nation’s relative power over others increases, as both the Bible and simple common sense make clear.

In my original piece I wanted to apply these kinds of moral critiques to the current U.S. regime.

Now that we have a bit more experience to go on, I’ll leave it to you to decide if there were actually weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, or whether the Iraqi regime was potent and powerful and an immediate threat to “civilization” and the US. Or whether it was so powerful and such an immediate and unique threat that a new and more invasive ethic of war was required.

Or whether it was so grave that we had to rush into the war and alienate the nations that are our natural allies by virtue of values and convictions, if not always by virtue of national interest. Or if there was any real evidence at any time that Iraq was allied with Al Queda and other terrorist groups.

Those were the moral justifications for war that our present government aggressively pressed onto a nation still emotionally overwhelmed by the events of 9/11.

And you can make up your own mind whether the whole thing distracted us from the more reasonable and just pursuit of the Al Queda terrorists and their collaborators.

The issue, in my view, isn’t whether intelligence agencies believed Iraq to be an imminent threat. Some important leaders in some intelligence agencies, especially those who had to please their bosses, obviously did, though it’s interesting that the CIA is scrambling now to distance itself from this position and to demonstrate that they made every effort to tone down the intentional and very generous spin toward war on the part of the Bush administration officials.

Many people within many intelligence agencies, no matter what kind of spin our leaders now want to give it, warned that the intelligence on Iraq was iffy and tentative. And it’s important to also state that the striking majority of countries who’s intelligence indicated Iraq could have some form of chemical weapons did not consider those potential weapons as a serious current threat and therefore rejected the invasion as unnecessary and inappropriate.

From a Christian standpoint, we shouldn’t be surprised that the CIA and the Bush administration “were all wrong” in believing Iraq was a serious threat, to quote the administration’s own chief weapons inspector. Fear combined with immense power is a bad combination when it comes to discerning the truth and sticking with the facts.

Chief Inspector Kay’s findings were pretty much what the UN inspectors found. I feel especially bad for those unfortunate and honorable people who were ridiculed—hilariously in my view--by our current administration as “cheese eaters and chocolate makers.”

Recent revelations by two top ex-Bush Administration officials (one of cabinet rank) indicate fairly strongly that the administration was committed to taking out Iraq militarily both before and immediately after 9/11. Richard Clarke, who was the Bush Administration’s top Anti-Terrorist Director, and who served in four presidential administrations of both parties (three under Republican presidents), makes it clear that Bush and others in his administration wanted to attack Iraq from the get go.

The vicious political “smear” machine which both parties run so well, but which the Republicans seem particular gifted for, will undoubtedly try to discredit both of these officials, especially Clarke, but after a while the argument that key past administration officials “weren’t in the loop” or “don’t understand” or “have a personal vendetta” or “are in league with the devil” (a.k.a. the Democratic Party) simply won’t wash. That’s particularly true in the case of Clarke, who has an impeccable non-partisan track record of over 20 years and who was one of the people most “in the know” about the war on terror within the Bush Administration. I think there is enough evidence at this point to raise important reservations about the present Administration’s motives in the run up to the war on Iraq.

The strong consensus on the part of 2000 years of Christian theology and tradition—with very few exceptions--has always opposed pre-emptive war, and especially unilateral pre-emptive war, because Christians have understood and appreciated in an unusual way the weaknesses and failings of the flesh, and because they’ve clearly understood the particular pitfalls and even evil that can arise when immense power and authority is colored by both fear and self-righteousness.

Self-deception, particularly for those who are unusually powerful and without real accountability, is easy. Rigorous honesty is much more difficult. Those are some of the important and unique insights Christians can contribute to the current public discussion

Unlike Islam and other spiritual traditions, Christianity arose from a 300 year experience of unjust violence and persecution at the hands of an economic and political superpower. Though we’ve lost our way a number of times, and though at times our attitudes have aped the support of the kinds of invasive and dominating violence so characteristic of imperial Rome and imperial Islam, the Church has still—miraculously in my view--had a reasonably consistent witness against pre-emptive and unilateral state violence. That’s very encouraging to me.

And there is no doubt in my mind that the Christian witness against such violence made a big practical difference over the centuries in restraining ill-advised state sponsored violence.

But with the evangelical Christian church largely a captive of the Republican Party right now and desperate to win the “culture wars,” this important and inspiring witness was muted during the run-up to the war on Iraq. I understand that many Christians are looking at a number of important cultural issues and may see the Republicans as their greatest allies, and perhaps felt the need to be loyal to “one of their own.” But I think that kind of “citizenship” is misguided and destructive. When a policy is morally wrong, it is wrong, no matter the president or the party he or she may belong to.

Taking a look at the development of the moral argument for the war in Iraq might be worthwhile at this point.

The Bush Administration’s moral arguments have evolved, to say the least, since the war began.

At first we were told Iraq had weapons of mass destruction they could use within 45 minutes (based on Tony Blair’s striking and totally erroneous contribution to the rhetoric of war) and that they were in bed with Al Queda and other Islamic fundamentalist murderers.

Then, once US forces got inside of Baghdad, we were told that maybe Iraq wasn’t allied with Al Queda. This line of argument was dropped almost immediately since there was little or no evidence for it before or after the war. “Subterranean” Dick Cheney is the lone holdout among current government officials for this point of view. I respect his commitment to what he thinks is best for the U.S. and the world, however dark and pagan and somewhat paranoid it might be.

Then we were told we invaded because Iraq was a center of planning for weapons of mass destruction.

Then, after greater doses of reality and evidence intruded, we were told, in Washington’s characteristic obfuscation-speak, that we invaded because Iraq was the center of a looming and gathering threat of weapons of mass destruction “related activity.” Clearly, by that time the lawyers were loose in Washington, attempting to cut very fine distinctions in order to protect the Administration from the fallout to come. I know they had no desire to be funny, but I thought this particular argument was unintentionally hilarious. Those Bush types are such jokers and characters.

And more recently, after they realized this line of argument was making them the butt of late night humor shows, the argument was paired back to a simple, Iraq was a looming and gathering threat. Whatever that might mean specifically and practically, it does have the virtue of a poetic and mythical touch, which normally goes over well with partisans when facts are slim.

The “looming and gathering threat” rhetoric and argument are all that is left of the once alarming and specific arguments about the immediate and dramatic threat Iraq posed to the U.S. and other nations. So on one level, the Administration deserves credit (outside of “Groundhog” Dick Cheney, the last true believer) for adjusting its moral rhetoric to evidence and reality. Too bad more attention wasn’t paid to evidence and reality before the war.

Within a few months, if trends continue, we may be told through images and music and slogans that the reason we invaded was because Iraq bad, US good.

Along with being short and to the point and also emotionally satisfying on a primitive level of moral reasoning (say, the level children reach at about 5th grade), this final argument could potentially turn out to be the most accurate and honest assessment of the moral sophistication of some of our most powerful leaders.

Of course, I’m being a little facetious in my last comments. But maybe only a little.

From my point of view, the best remaining moral argument for the war has little or nothing to do with the supposed threat Iraq posed to the U.S. or to “civilization.” The strongest argument left for supporters of the war is that the US used its unique power to take out a murderous and evil dictator who oppressed millions of his own people. The hope was that by freeing the Iraqi people the Muslim peoples of Iraq and the many other nations in the region would eventually turn to democracy and free markets and throw off the petty dictatorships and silly theocracies which control them. This is the best of neo-conservative moral position, as much as I can make it out.

This is definitely a moral argument worth considering and taking seriously.

I think that’s especially true because it’s the one moral argument that would have failed miserably from a political point of view. If that had been the main thrust of the run-up to the war only a small percentage of Americans would have supported the war. In my view, that speaks both well and badly of Americans.

We’re a nation that’s inherited the medieval notion of “chivalry” where the Christian “knight” uses his military prowess to rescue the oppressed and downtrodden. How many of our most popular westerns, crime dramas, and even sci-fi movies are based directly on that still potent image and idea? And we’re also heir to the Puritan notion of a “revolution of the saints” where serious Christians use worldly power, including crusading violence, to bring about a more Christian and just world. The Bush folks are clearly in line with a strong theme of “crusading violence” in our national moral fabric and in the moral fabric of the West. I think that’s part of what makes this particular argument so powerful for many.

It’s a powerful argument for me personally. I’m thoroughly delighted that Hussein is out of power and that he’s in custody. I pray he’ll be tried and put away for good, however that might be accomplished.

I’m also very sympathetic to the idea that the Arab and Muslim world is captive, for the most part, to dictators and ignorant religious leaders who are contributing to the gross poverty and ignorance of that vast and remarkable community. On one level, anything that promises to change that situation for the better is very emotionally attractive and is worth considering.

It’s possible that Iraq and the Middle East may emerge better off after our pre-emptive, largely unilateral, and crusading violence. I hope and pray so. Sometimes God’s grace abounds all the more even after unwise and even immoral decisions. Thank God for that. I’m not one of those who believe things in Iraq are hopeless or will turn out disastrously, though I do think the whole occupation has been handled remarkably badly.

But the question at hand is whether pre-emptive and unilateral state sponsored violence, however emotionally satisfying, is a moral alternative for dealing with nations like Iraq or the broader challenges of the Arab and Islamic worlds. I would argue it is not.

I believe that the long-term moral and practical dangers of an unprecedented superpower like the U.S. giving itself the moral leeway to attack nations without direct provocation, and to do it in the face of the strong opposition of the vast majority of the world’s nations and peoples, are too great to justify any short term gains from knocking out a second rate dictator like Hussein and a nation like Iraq which had been devastated by many years of Saddam’s rule and over a decade of brutal sanctions. That’s particularly true when our government commits itself to perpetual American dominance in the world.

Once we discount all the heroic hype and hyperbole, what we actually saw in the most recent war on Iraq was one of the greatest military and economic powers in history smashing a backwards and already devastated regime. It was about as impressive as a tank rolling over a barking dog.

That’s the way that the Islamic world, and the vast majority of the rest of the world, saw things. Is it possible they may see an aspect of the truth?

As I’ve tried to argue in both of these essays, Christian ethics always puts those with the greatest worldly power under the greatest scrutiny. The burden of proof is with the superpower to explain why attacking others without direct provocation should be supported. I don’t believe the facts of the case in Iraq support a new morality of war.

The events of 9/11 were such a shock to every American that I have sympathy for the Bush Administration and its supporters. It’s easy to criticize after the fact, and I’m sensitive to that.

But when an administration decides to argue for a new pre-emptive morality of war, and when it argues for perpetual American dominance in the world (that’s our official and clearly articulated foreign policy now), it invites the strongest possible critiques.

I believe there are a number of better and more moral alternatives to what we’ve seen recently.

We should make every effort to eliminate terrorist groups. When groups like Al Queda clearly commit themselves to mass terrorism they must be stopped in whatever ways may be necessary, including the use of violence. The sword of the state may be wielded legitimately against these types of groups. One of my greatest regrets about the war on Iraq is that it diverted monies, energy, and attention away from breaking the unfortunate rise of the Islamic death cults. The war on Iraq was a side-show in the battle against terrorism. That’s a shame. Sadly, it appears that the war on Iraq has actually emboldened terrorists and created even greater opportunities for them.

Perhaps even more important, we should make every effort to halt the spread of weapons of mass destruction. That will take moral persuasion and every diplomatic resource at our disposal, as well as severe sanctions and even military intervention if necessary.

We are the world’s most powerful nation, and perhaps one of the most powerful nations in history. We are the world’s largest supplier of weapons. Since we are neck deep in weapons of mass destruction which we originally created and which give us some of our unprecedented power in the world, our moral leverage in trying to halt the spread of weapons of mass destruction is not very impressive.

It’s possible that a diplomatic approach which recognizes the moral ambiguities created by our own immense power rather than ignoring them would be the best way to go in order to achieve the moral ends of defeating terrorism and disarming nations attracted to mass terrorism. This will mean exercising a little patience, showing some measure of humility, and actually listening to our allies and to other nations. Odds are that they are not all immoral idiots, in spite of what some of our present leaders seem to think. Even those stupid and spineless people who aren’t Americans (a.k.a. the U.N. in Bush-speak) might be useful if we decide not to insult them regularly.

States that clearly support and harbor terrorist groups are legitimate military targets from the point of view of millennia of Christian ethics. Afghanistan is a good example of a “terrorist state” which required a military response. The vast majority of the world supported that war because it was clear the U.S was responding to an attack and that it was responding to a terrorist group and a regime which pro-actively supported those terrorists.

Defining “terrorist groups” is best left to a wide consensus of governments and peoples. One person’s terrorist is another person’s freedom fighter. But I think a broad consensus can be achieved, particularly with nations so aware now of the threat of mass terrorist violence.

Pre-emptive violence against terrorist states may be necessary in those rare instances when long-term and serious attempts to solve the problem non-violently fail, though even in those situations the moral consequences of taking such a step should be made clear and discussed publicly. There must be a very wide agreement of states and peoples, as was the case in Afghanistan. That wasn’t the case in Iraq. That kind of wide agreement is particularly important when the chief instigator for a potential war is hyper-power like the US.

That kind of moral discipline would demonstrate that the U.S. recognizes the moral ambiguity of its situation (armed to the teeth and able to destroy the world many times over, but working to disarm other nations “for their own good”), as well as the dangers inherent in possessing such overwhelming relative power. As I mentioned in my last essay, there has been a lot of knee-jerk anti-Americanism over this whole thing, but I believe firmly that much of the unprecedented opposition and hostility to our present Administration is a result of a failure to demonstrate more clearly that we understand the moral issues that our immense power creates. Most assuredly, most of the world’s peoples and cultures understand those issues very well.


What should we have done in Iraq? I think that U.N.-imposed economic sanctions and enforced isolation devastated Iraq. It was no immediate threat, and therefore did not require the use of immediate, pre-emptive, and unilateral violence. I agree with the Bush Administration that it was a longer term threat as long as Hussein stayed in power. Sanctions should have been tightened and continued. And if eventually the majority of the nations of the world agreed that invasive violence was necessary because Iraq had become a real and imminent threat, a united approach patterned after the first Gulf War might have been considered reasonable and moral, in the tentative way those terms must always be used when dealing with fallen nations and powers and their affairs.

My own guess is that Hussein’s regime would have collapsed within a few years had we been a bit more patient and had we done a better job of working with our natural allies. And had we taken that approach and given ourselves time to create a rational approach to rebuilding Iraq along with our allies afterwards, my guess is we would have seen a much smoother and much more effective occupation of Iraq. Even staunch supporters of the war like the Economist regularly castigate the Bush Administration for its astonishingly poor job of planning and executing the occupation. There was an excellent and fair article a couple of months ago in The Atlantic entitled, “Blind Into Baghdad,” which chronicled this failure in detail. And a better job of occupying, had the situation come to war, would have saved many lives and a lot of suffering, which are not unimportant moral considerations.


And of course, making positive efforts to create greater conditions of justice in the world, and particularly in the Middle East, is critical. I think the present Administration has made some good efforts, such as their AIDS policy in Africa, but it seems to me that for every dollar and minute invested in seeking positive solutions to issues like the Palestinian conflict or the repressive regimes of the Arab world, ten dollars and ten minutes have been spent on violent solutions and on cleaning up the mess in Iraq.


Finally, I’d love to see Christians, and the country as a whole, begin to examine seriously the moral and practical implications of our immense and new-found relative power in the world. It seems to me that the overwhelming majority of thinking and discourse has been to examine the meaning of the rise of radical Islam, the spread of weapons of mass destruction, and the rise of rogue nations and regimes. I’m still looking for a reasonably good article in any of the leading Christian or mission periodicals which asks the questions, “How should Christians respond to the overwhelming power the U.S. has in the world?” or “What does it mean for mission and our everyday faith lives that we live in possibly the greatest worldly superpower in history?” or “When does support for U.S. policy begin to become idolatrous?” I would guess folks would draw somewhat different conclusions based on the Christian traditions they come from, but what’s been surprising so far is the silence. Is the evangelical church so captive to U.S. nationalism, and perhaps to a particularly narrow version of Republicanism, that we’ve lost our ability to be prophetic? I hope not, but the response we’ve made so far does make me wonder.

Faith, Culture and Politics--A Voting Guide Fall 04

Here’s my take on Kerry vs. Bush on an issue by issue basis.

As for my biases:

I consider myself a progressive Christian. I’ve been influenced strongly by the historical Anabaptist and peace church traditions. That means I’m not very enthusiastic about expansive political visions, military crusades (however well meaning) and near-religious forms of nationalism.

I’m committed to what I consider to be a consistent pro-life ethic which includes strong support for practical alternatives to abortion, war, capital punishment, hunger, and poverty.

I tend to favor individual freedom, creativity and innovation which take place within the healthy restraint and support of community contexts. I tend to assume that unusually strong and hierarchical concentrations of power normally hinder individual freedom, creativity, and innovation.

Concentrations of worldly power are a social necessity that can help free people to do what they do best. When those constellations of coercion get too much power, and when they begin to believe they are God’s instruments on earth, well, at that point I think we should all probably start paying more attention to what’s going on.

I’ve voted for both Republicans and Democrats over the years and I’ve decided not to vote too when I felt it was pointless.

Now that I’ve done the obligatory post-modern self-disclosure, on to the issues.

Human Life

Kerry

Opposes abortion from a personal point of view but believes the state shouldn’t dictate that choice for individual women.
Supports stepped up stem cell research
Questions capital punishment, but won’t push for major changes in current laws.

Bush

Opposes abortion and supports federal law and Supreme Court decisions that will severely restrict its practice.
Severely restricted stem cell research by denying American scientists access to adequate stem cell sources.
Enthusiastically supports capital punishment


Summary Comments

In terms of abortion, Bush is clearly the evangelical choice. I think he’s sincerely committed from a spiritual point of view.

Personally, I think abortion is a very substantive issue that has been elevated by many to the status of the only issue.

The Democrats still don’t get it that most Americans dislike abortion. What’s worse is that they won’t admit that many religious people and many political conservatives are sincere and thoughtful in their rejection of abortion. After a century of unique global violence and the introduction of mass murder and industrial killing, it seems clear to me that most people of conscience would want to restrict the taking of potential human life.

On the other hand, I believe evangelicals and Republicans have lost their sense of just proportion in elevating this issue to the level of “defeating slavery.” Maybe an honest discussion about abortion is more complicated than that.

Conservative Christians have felt overwhelmed and discriminated against for so many decades that I truly understand the anger and intensity in their political rhetoric and their relentless and impressive political organization.

But I wonder if some honest self-evaluation is in order. Is the extreme polarization and hostility really of God?

I’d personally prefer to see a more restrictive legal environment for abortion than exists right now. So score one for Bush, though I fear the religious far right will insist on restrictions that will become another failed social experiment like Prohibition.

I prefer Kerry’s position on stem cell research. The potential for remarkable medical breakthroughs through this kind of research is clear, and the cells can be harvested from fetuses that will never become human children. Though I understand and appreciate the caution that religious conservatives want to exercise with this issue, and particularly the nuanced decision made by the Bush Administration to allow existing stem cells lines to be used while restricting new lines, I believe both of their positions are unnecessarily restrictive and cautious. Score one for Kerry.

I’m torn on capital punishment. I do believe there are rare instances when people should be executed because of the nature of their crimes.

On the other hand capital punishment has been doled out in such an unfair way—with the poor and ethnic minorities bearing the brunt of the injustice—that it’s hard to support the policy from a practical point of view.

Kerry seems to be the candidate with the deepest understanding of the complexities.

Bush seems to represent a more unreflective position that isn’t willing to come to grips with the historical and actual injustices in our justice and execution system.

I’d score one for Kerry on this specific issue.

Overall, I’d give Bush a slight nod here because of the importance of the abortion issue, which clearly has a huge direct and practical impact on so many people’s lives, and the lack of widespread impact on most people’s lives of capital punishment and the mostly future impact of stem cell research.

Economic Justice

Kerry

Has a longstanding record of supporting efforts aimed at empowering the poor.
Promises to reverse Bush’s tax cuts to the richest 10% in order to reduce the current budget deficits and use that money for programs that will support efforts for better health insurance for the poor and middle class.
Rejects the conservative idea of relying on consumption taxes and slashing taxes on investment income because this would make taxes fall more heavily on the poor and middle class. Believes in the idea of distributive justice. That means he thinks that those who benefit most from a society and make the biggest bucks should contribute disproportionately in relationship to those who make the small change. It’s a very basic New Testament concept.

Bush

His tax cuts have mostly benefited the richest 10% of Americans and his policies have slanted strikingly toward the rich. He promises to make these cuts permanent.
Believes that by cutting taxes on wealthy peoples investment will increase and “all boats will rise”
Promises an “ownership society” where everybody can own property and control their own retirement accounts. Is committed to significantly cutting taxes on all investment and salary income, but will do it incrementally tax by tax (since doing it all at once would create intense opposition). Is committed to shifting the burden of taxes to consumption taxes (sales taxes, etc.).

Summary Comments

Bush sincerely believe that giving even greater federal policy advantages to the wealthy will result in good things for all. America now has income disparities between the rich and poor that make it more at home among third world economies than among developed nations, and I believe his policies will simply increase that gap.

His repeated public comments that “the rich will figure out a way to avoid taxes anyway” as a justification for cutting their taxes seems so cynical to me that I’m not sure how to respond.

I really like the idea of an ownership society. This is the path out of poverty for hundreds of millions around the world. This concept of an ownership society is closely related to some important biblical teachings and principles, including the ideas of personal responsibility, stewardship, etc.

The problem with Bush—along with almost all economic conservatives--is that his efforts seem to be focused on helping the haves to own even more. I’d love to see some results and not more rhetoric in helping the have-nots own and invest. Bush blows the right kind of hot air on the ownership issue, but I think we’d do better with a political leadership that not only understands the advantages of investment and ownership but also has a true commitment to helping the poor. I’ve seen no clear evidence from Bush or the current Republican Party that they have an honest commitment to do that.

Getting past campaign rhetoric and looking at actual decisions and actions, Bush and the Republicans have eliminated or crippled a number of the most important programs that benefit poor Americans over the past few years, including cutting housing credits for the poor when more and more working poor families can’t afford housing.

The Administration’s most recent innovation is an attempt to exempt the majority of banks from the federal laws governing “redlining.” Basically, these laws have been some of the most successful in our nation’s history in helping minorities get loans to own a home because they effectively restrict banks from denying home loans on the basis of racial and ethnic identification.

But they don’t fit in with conservative ideology, and it appears the new laws are meant to correct what many European-Americans consider to be an unjust prejudice against them over the past few decades.

The logic here seems to be a conservative version of “tough love” where we “encourage” the working poor by making it harder for them to attain home ownership and other basics in order to “inspire” them to greater efforts.

Consumption taxes fall most heavily on the poor and middle class. A 5% sales tax on buying a particular car, for example, would cost the same for both a wealthy person and a poor person. But it would have far less impact on the wealthy person, and require far less contribution to the social good (proportionally speaking) than it would for the poor person.

Income taxes that are higher for the wealthy are based on the idea of economic fairness and distributive justice, where those who benefit most from society pay more in taxes.

It is this idea of distributive justice that Bush and the religious conservatives want to severely limit or even overturn. They believe, in an interesting twist of logic, that everyone will be better off if the investment class (the upper middle class and the wealthy) pays little or no income or investment taxes, and if the burden of taxes falls on the middle class and poor through consumption taxes. Again, what they are really rejecting is the Christian idea of distributive justice, which is based on the idea that the wealth and income of a society should be more fairly distributed in order to help everybody do better.

The deeper logic of distributive justice is rooted in the traditional Christian idea that economic success is a gift from God. The Bible says that the biological and social accidents of high intelligence or marketable talents or family wealth (which is the greatest predictor of economic success) are gifts. What that means is that our own efforts have far less to do with our position in life than we like to believe. That’s a fundamental Christian teaching, and most every other religion teaches the same thing. The idea of life as a gift—or in some cases, a fortuitous accident--is one of the most basic teachings of all religious and spiritual points of view.

The biblical idea of distributive justice claims that those who have been given great and unmerited advantages should invest their gifts for the benefit of the community and do it gladly and gratefully.

The religious conservatives (basically, the evangelical and fundamentalist church) want to replace distributive justice with doctrine of economic opportunity, which they see as an important kind of justice in itself. The conservatives tend to see distributive justice and greater freedom of opportunity in conflict, so if one is going to prosper the other must be sacrificed.

I’ve never understood this tendency to polarize these things. It seems that a balance must be struck between the two, and that there is no reason that much greater economic opportunity for the poor can’t go hand in hand with a fair and equitable tax code that doesn’t put the burden of taxes primarily on the middle class and poor, which is what consumption taxes will do.

The tax cuts for the wealthiest, in my view, must be reversed as a matter of responsible fiscal policy (more on fiscal policy later). And the idea of shifting our tax code, tax by tax, to a system based on consumption taxes must be resisted even more strongly in my view out of moral and economic decency.

The idea that economic justice is served by favoring the rich in the tax code and cutting historically useful social programs for the poor is questionable at best. This is simply more overdone—though probably honestly felt--conservative ideology in my opinion.

As a side comment from a very personal point of view, it’s interesting to me that many of the religious conservatives seem so strangely attracted to social Darwinism. These are some of the same people who want to drive biological Darwinism out of the text books. Life is full of ironies.

All of this makes you wonder if anybody has been teaching the American Christian flock about the economics of the Bible or historical Christian social teaching.

Having said all that, I wish Kerry and the Democrats would be more aggressive in supporting entrepreneurship and ownership for the poor. Their failure to do this more assertively is surprising and telling. They need to wake up and smell the future. This is a very important issue that will legitimately influence many people to vote against the Democratic ticket.

In my mind, Kerry has a decisive edge in this category.

On the other hand, I’d support the Republicans if they decided to support fairer tax policies, and at the same time followed through on their rhetoric about truly committing resources and real political energy toward creating an ownership society for the poor.

Bush is trotting out the same old “compassionate conservative” stuff again. The problem is that almost none of it was enacted or even attempted in his first term, and that so much of it is based on unjust ideologies and bad theology.

Americans like to say, “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.” Another older imperial culture liked to say, “Caveat emptor.” It’s a Roman expression that means, “Let the buyer beware.”


Fiscal Responsibility

Kerry

Must deal with the federal budget situation left by the Bush Administration if he’s elected. To his credit, Kerry hasn’t promised any magic solutions since the numbers are pretty grim.
Promises to eliminate the tax cuts for the wealthiest 10% of Americans in order to help pay down the deficit.
Promises to bring other nations into partnership in Iraq. Claims he can do it in a way Bush can’t because of the hatred and disrespect around the world that the present administration has created. The idea is to dramatically reduce the financial costs of the occupation of Iraq and thus help reduce the deficits.
Wants to spend large amounts of money on health care for the substantial numbers of Americans without adequate health care or insurance. The projected costs of this approach would probably cancel out any savings realized by repealing the tax cuts on the wealthy, so it’s hard to see how the deficit will be significantly reduced if Kerry’s health plan is passed. On the other hand, the health plan is desperately needed, and the pressure on the budget comes primarily from the costs of the war on Iraq which Bush is directly responsible for creating.


Bush

Bush’s idea of doing some deficit spending early in the his term was appropriate in order to help jump start the slumping economy, but he and the Republican Congress quickly got out of control. Because of ideologically driven tax cuts and huge war expenditures we’re now facing one of the largest budget deficits in U.S. history.
Dick Cheney, who clearly has tremendous influence over our current president, remarked that “Reagan proved that deficits don’t mean anything.” Draw you own conclusions. I wonder what the leaders of countries in the developing world, who are severely punished by the World Bank and International Monetary fund for running deficits and being fiscally irresponsible, think about Cheney’s comments. But then again the powerful have always lived by a different set of rules.
Bush has no clear plan for reducing the budget deficit. Even conservative commentators complain that his numbers, given the programs and approaches he is promising for his second term, simply don’t add up, especially since he refuses to consider repealing the tax cuts and actually wants to make them permanent. Bush’s projected budget is nonsense from any sober or practical point of view.
The Bush Administration has consistently and systematically misled the public and even Congress about the costs of its initiatives and programs. During 2002, the Bush Administration didn’t even include the 80 billion cost of the first year of the war on Iraq in its federal budget figures submitted to Congress! Again, I’ve gotten most of my information on these abuses from respected conservative sources (like the Economist and the National Review) who normally support conservative and Republican approaches and politicians. But if you’ve been paying attention, none of this is surprising. The present administration has never produced a budget or cost estimate that has even come close to being accurate.

Summary Comments

Bush will be supported by many millions this November because he supposedly represents the fiscally responsible conservative Republicans.

Most every bi-partisan budget projection looks for unsustainable budget deficits for many years to come under a re-elected Bush administration. .

Maybe we’ll get lucky and there will be another technological revolution that will create a 90’s style market explosion. That’s what took us out of the immense Reagan era deficits.

But maybe not. Maybe monies we could have spent on improving the country and on helping the poor will be drained for years to come because of the irresponsibility of the present administration.

Conservative ideologues in the past have actually argued for running up massive deficits by dramatically increasing defense expenditures in order to restrict new spending on social programs.

The idea is to overspend in an extreme way on tax cuts and things like war so that there’s no money left for Democrats to overspend on social programs. Perhaps that is Bush’s strategy.

I’m not confident that Kerry and the Democrats will deal aggressively with the budget deficit, though I think their ideas hold some promise, especially since they’re not ideologically opposed to rolling back the Bush tax cuts on the wealthy. And Kerry’s numbers add up better than Bush’s, though neither seem to be willing to face the difficult choices necessary because of the spending binge of the past 4 years.

And neither candidate or party is facing the huge fiscal crisis that the Baby Boom generation retirement will create in ten years. It’s predictable that no one is trying to deal with it. Most Americans don’t want to deal with bad news and will punish any candidate or party that tells them major difficulties are ahead.

All I all, I can’t imagine a Kerry administration being more fiscally irresponsible than our present leadership has been.

I believe this issue is especially important in judging a president and administration since it’s one of the few areas they can truly control, unlike things like the business cycle and local education, etc.

Kerry and the Democrats are the clear choice here on the strength of Bush’s irresponsible fiscal performance over the past 4 years.

Support for Faith Based Social Programs

Kerry

Has made no commitments to support these kinds of programs.

Bush

Has vigorously supported faith-based initiatives by executive order. For the first time in many decades, the federal government delivers social services by awarding monies and contracts to non-governmental organizations without discernable prejudice against Christian or religious groups.

Summary Comments

Bush is clearly the choice in this category. I believe this in one of the best contributions this administration has made to the well-being of the U.S. I hope this effort to remove the favoritism toward secular NGO’s will become a tradition.

On the other hand, Christian social organizations have purposely avoided government funding for many generations in the U.S. because they understood that once they took public monies and began to depend on large infusions of federal cash that they would probably lose their independence and effectiveness. So maybe Bush’s breakthrough on behalf of Christian NGO’s will turn out to be a spiritual Trojan Horse virus. I truly hope not.

The Environment

Kerry

Has one of the best environmental records in Congress
Proposes aggressive measures to cut dependence on fossil fuels
Proposes aggressive measures to develop alternative sources of energy
Will support international agreements on global warming

Bush

Proposes aggressive measures to increase exploration and drilling for fossil fuels
In spite of compelling scientific evidence regarding global warming, rejected the global agreement worked out in Kyoto to reduce fossil fuel emissions.
Has mostly ignored conservation efforts in the U.S.
Has resisted efforts to induce car manufacturers to produce more fuel efficient vehicles.
Has dramatically cut funding for national parks and wilderness areas.

Summary Comments

Bush’s environmental record is very poor.

I’ve gotten to know a number of geologists, rangers, and lawyers who work for the Department of the Interior and the National Parks Service here in Colorado, and many of them are contemplating leaving those agencies if Bush is re-elected. Many of these folks are more conservative by lifestyle and inclination. They say morale is at an all-time low and people within the agencies are shocked by the hostility that the present administration has shown toward traditional environmental concerns.

I’ve tried to understand Bush’s environmental policies from a sympathetic point of view. I’m still trying.

Their latest adventure is an attempt to eliminate federal requirements for power companies to clean up old plants and equipment, even though the rock solid scientific evidence is that such dirty power plants contribute the majority of the air pollution in many parts of the country.

Their argument is that these requirements are cumbersome and burdensome for business. But that’s always their relentless and inflexible point of view, no matter what the situation might be. At times it seems there isn’t a single environmental regulation that they wouldn’t like cripple or get rid of.

Kerry gets the clear decision here.

The Economy

I’m not sure how to rank either candidate in this category because I’m not sure how much control federal governments have over the performance of the economy. I think federal governments can influence the economy and markets, but they don’t have real power to direct markets in the same way they can control things like federal budgets and foreign policy.

Generally speaking, political instability and unpredictability effect markets negatively. From the point of view of the past 30 years, the economy did its best under Clinton and the Democrats’ stewardship. The economy is mediocre right now and Bush has the worst record since the Depression in terms of creating jobs.

But I think most of this is due to global economic trends. America is going to lose lots of jobs in the years to come because we now have some real competition around the world. Neither candidate can honestly address this issue with the broader public because Americans usually punish—in the short run--any political leader who is honest and describes things the way they are.

I do think the government can affect and influence the economy through its policies on international trade. Basically, every government has to choose how much it will support free trade and how much it will seek to “protect” its own economy through tariffs on foreign goods and subsidies for its own industries and businesses.

My own take is that everybody is philosophically a free trader today, but that everyone has to deal with political realities too. For example, American government subsidies for American farmers distort free trade around the world and hurt farmers in the developing world. Poor farmers in Africa, who can grow and sell crops much more cheaply because of their low production and labor costs, are in fact cut out of world markets because American and western governments subsidize their own farmers and enforce high trade tariffs on African agricultural goods. These kinds of western subsidies and tariffs in a number of industries help keep very poor countries very poor because they assure that those countries can’t take advantage of their lower production and labor costs in the global market.

From a moral and economic point of view, I think that kind of protectionism is indefensible. The most important thing the west could do to help the economies of Africa—and help the poorest of the poor--would be to open agricultural markets and stop these kinds of dubious subsidies.

But that would be very costly politically since American farmers--and the folks in other industries who get subsidies--would be up in arms.

Bush and the conservatives talk big on free trade but often act like protectionists. Bush has supported and even increased subsidies for many American industries, including agriculture. The Democrats tend to give more lip service to protecting American industries and jobs, but in fact they strongly support most free trade policies. Kerry certainly has and does.

Who you favor over this issue depends on how you want government trade rhetoric to sound—both are going to do pretty much the same thing. In fact, Clinton’s government was one of the most oriented toward free trade in our history. Stereotypes are usually nothing but, well, stereotypes.

Foreign Policy

Kerry

Has been unclear on what he thinks of the war on Iraq. Sometimes he seems to believe the war was a mistake from the start. Other times he thinks the invasion was understandable and just given the knowledge at the time but that the occupation has been botched big time. In either case, he’s very clear in the belief that Bush has handled the whole thing exceptionally poorly.
Will aggressively attempt to repair the immense damage to our international relationships and to our image around the world that Bush has created. Believes that a new start and new leadership will make it much easier for foreign governments to cooperate with the US—even in helping rebuild Iraq--since virtually all of their populations, and most of their leaders, are very negative and even hostile to the Bush administration. Believes his election would given many foreign governments and people the political flexibility to become our partners again.
Is committed to a relentless war against Islamic terrorism, but wants to focus that war on terrorist organizations rather than on national governments who have no demonstrable connection to terrorism. Believes the US is engaged in a war on terror, but believes the terrorists are motivated primarily out of specific grievances against the US and the West (primarily their hostility over US incursions in Muslim lands and the unquestioning support the US gives to Israel and the complete lack of any serious attempts on the part of the Bush administration to deal with the Palestinian situation).
Believes that the war in Iraq has diverted the US from a real war on terrorism and has wasted vast resources that could have been used to deal with real threats like Al Queda, Iran and North Korea. Believes that because the US is now tied down in Iraq for many years to come that our political flexibility and military resources are so limited that we will have a hard time dealing with the real threats we’re going to face, and is committed to doing everything he can to extract us from Iraq as quickly as possible without creating chaos.
Believes the Bush administration has been remarkably incompetent in handling the occupation, that virtually every assumption the administration made about the post invasion situation in Iraq has proven to be false, and that the situation is grim because of a long litany of mistakes and miscalculations.
Believes in building and maintaining alliances around the world and using those as a basis of projecting American power and influence.
Rejects most of the ideas of neo-conservatism, which has been the basis of Bush’s foreign policy The neo-conservatives—who in fact have little to do with real conservatism--argue that America should feel free to pro-actively compel the world to change for the better at gunpoint wherever and whenever it is feasible to do so and whenever “soft power” approaches don’t seem to be working. Believes that using American military might more sparingly and relying primarily on American economic, diplomatic, and political pressure in the context of strong alliances and partnerships is a wiser, less destructive, and less risky approach.
Believes that supporting reasonable international treaties and participating in the world community as a supportive member will produce better results than rejecting international treaties and acting in a hostile and overtly arrogant manner that humiliates other nations.
Believes that dealing with nuclear proliferation is the most important practical way to deal with terrorism

Bush

Is very clear on what he thinks about Iraq. Believes that America is now engaged in an epic war against terror in which America has a call from God to rid the world of evildoers who hate America and the west for our freedom and goodness. Doesn’t believe the terrorists are primarily motivated by the continuing injustice in Palestine or by other U.S. and western policies in the Arab world. In effect, he believes the overwhelming opposition to his policies and the growing number of terrorists in the Islamic world are due primarily to their hostility to modernity and their fundamental hatred of freedom and democracy. Or in short, they’re bad people.
Embraces neo-conservative thinking and wants to lead a global revolution. Wants to break the power of Islamic fundamentalism by speaking loudly and carrying a very big stick. Has announced a new and unprecedented policy of ‘pre-emptive war’ in which the U.S. will strike first at any perceived potential enemy when such an action is politically feasible in the U.S and militarily practical, whether or not our allies or friends are supportive. Believes in projecting American military violence in a pro-active way in order to force the people of other countries to do the political will of the U.S.
Has announced a new doctrine of perpetual American global dominance in the world. Basically, he’s extended out the old Monroe Doctrine in which the U.S. claimed supremacy in the Western Hemisphere and threatened the European powers with war and violence if they messed around in “our backyard.” President Monroe staked that more local claim to dominance about 200 years ago. For Bush, the whole world is now our backyard, and he’s willing to do everything it takes to defeat all attempts to usurp American supremacy.
Believes Iraq is the main front against terrorism. Led the US into the war by claiming that Iraq was intimately tied to terrorism and that it was bristling with weapons of mass destruction. Both claims turned out to be false. Also argued that Hussein was an evil ruler with great potential to do harm to the US. The evil part was very accurate, but the other part has turned out to be dubious at best.
Invaded Iraq and broke the power of Hussein.
Invaded Afghanistan and toppled the Taliban regime which clearly had ties to Al Queda and to global terrorism.
Sincerely believed he was doing God’s work in freeing the peoples of Afghanistan and Iraq from vicious dictatorships
Continues to insist that the situation in Iraq is getting better and that Afghanistan is not falling back into the power of warlords and drug dealers, in spite of strong evidence and recent intelligence and Defense Department reports to the contrary. Decided that invading both countries with relatively small numbers of soldiers and doing nation building on the cheap would work. That strategy turned out to be a major miscalculation.
Continues to repeat that he will be tough on nuclear proliferation, but has done very little in actual fact to reduce that threat since the government’s attention has been focused almost exclusively on Iraq.

Summary Comments

I think the facts speak for themselves in many respects. I don’t want to oversimplify, but if you believe that we’re in an epic war against irrational evildoers and that aggressive military projection of American power, guided by the doctrines of unchallenged American global supremacy and of pre-emptive war against any perceived threats and enemies is the way to go, you know who’s foreign policy you support. If you believe that we’re battling a hostile but rational enemy who can best be influenced by a more judicious use of American military power and a greater reliance on partnerships and America’s immense economic, diplomatic, and cultural power, you also know who you tend to support.

Bush made bold, and I believe very well intentioned, decisions to crush the cruel and repressive regimes in Afghanistan and Iraq. Millions of people who were living under vicious regimes no longer fear those governments.

Yet it has to be said that very few people in either nation asked to be liberated. That may be part of the reason they seem so strangely ungrateful for our military intervention and the resulting tens of thousands of civilian deaths among their fathers, mothers, sisters and brothers.

I visit a lot of nations around the world. Lots of ‘em are ruled by bad and oppressive types.

The question for American foreign policy is whether we should engage in serial conquest so we can kill their rulers (and huge numbers of their civilians) and “liberate” their people and introduce democracy at the edge of the sword?

In my view, that’s the kind of crusade that makes sense to folks like Napoleon and neo-conservatives, but I think there are at least some people who recognize the fatal long term weaknesses in this approach. It’s naïve, unrealistic, mostly destructive, and profoundly unchristian.

I believe Bush has done more damage than good to U.S. security and to the prospects of world stability and true change in the Islamic world. That’s the trouble with naïve and semi-religious military crusades. They sacrifice the long term good in favor of satisfying short term change and the adolescent allure of “cleansing” violence.

The future of both Afghanistan and Iraq are very much in doubt. Will they be better off for the imposition of American will and violence? Biblical teaching suggests they may not be, and that even if there are some important and true gains in those places, the cycle of violence and arrogance and dominance that plagues the relationship between nations and between the peoples within nations has simply been re-affirmed.

I wish the world weren’t fallen and I’d like it if things were simple and clear. But they’re not.

Can you help liberate oppressed people but do it in such an arrogant, incompetent and naïve way that you do more harm than good? Unfortunately, the answer is yes. I think some people will recognize the truth in what I’m talking about.

Personally, I believe the twin doctrines of perpetual U.S. global dominance and the pro-active and pre-emptive projection of American violence that support it are dangerous, politically unwise, and even immoral from a biblical point of view. I’ve gone into great detail in past messages and essays showing why the ideas of American neo-imperial pre-eminence and pre-emptive war are immoral and unacceptable from an historical and Christian viewpoint, so I won’t go back over that ground again.

But beyond those issues of basic principles, I’d argue that the Bush administration has been incompetent even by it’s own standards. The author of a recent article in the Atlantic Monthly interviewed a very wide range of national security experts of both parties, and their consensus is that the Bush administration’s practical policies and on-the-ground decisions in both Afghanistan and Iraq have been a “disaster” for the security of the United States.

Thomas Friedman, the brilliant columnist for the New York Times who wrote “The Lexus and the Olive Tree,” and who has consistently supported the war in Iraq, wrote just a few days ago about his change of mind and the very difficult task ahead in Iraq: “But here is the cold, hard truth. This war has been hugely mismanaged by this administration in the face of clear advice to the contrary at every stage…. I don’t know what is salvageable there anymore.”

We’ve done very little to slow nuclear proliferation and are now without real options in Iran and North Korea because our resources are tied up in Iraq and because we’ve lost most of our credibility around the world. No Iraqi WMD and no evidence of ties to Al Queda convinced most of those irrational and cowardly people in the rest of the world that they should think twice before trusting our government again.

George Will, who has got to be the most consistently conservative Republican commentator in America, recently asked in an article in Newsweek, “Does anyone really believe there are fewer terrorists today than there were before the invasion of Iraq?” He actually took John Kerry to task for not exposing the Bush Administration’s naïve and incompetent foreign policy more forcefully. Wow. You don’t see that kind of thing every day.

Bush is the most unpopular U.S. president overseas in the history of our country, and our standing in world opinion is at an all time low by far. Again, that isn’t Democratic spin. It’s cold fact.

Most of the conservative types seem to think this doesn’t make any difference.

From the standpoint of someone working in an international mission, I can assure our dramatic loss of support in the rest of the world makes a major difference. People around the world are very hostile to America right now. This does great damage to Christian mission in the world, particularly among Muslims, and it severely restricts our political options. As a “for instance,” we can’t get other countries to contribute to helping secure Iraq for the planned, upcoming elections, even though this would seem to be the most obvious thing these countries could do. Why? Because their people are overwhelmingly opposed to our current Administration.

Their politicians would run major political risks if they supported American policy in a straightforward way. Is this really the kind of relationship with the rest of the world that we want? When the U.S. becomes politically “radioactive” around the globe, it does make you wonder about the wisdom of the foreign policy that created that situation, or whether that foreign policy is rooted in any kind of biblical understanding.

I believe foreign policy is the key moral and practical issue in this election. From my point of view, Bush’s foreign policy vision is naïve and immoral, and his performance has been incompetent and embarrassing.

Ethnic Relations

Kerry

He’s made no clear proposal or shown a personal commitment to advancing the cause of ethnic minorities. The Democrats believe they are the party of struggling ethnic minorities but they haven’t offered anything significant in this area recently.

Bush

Appointed two African-Americans to critical positions in his administration. Past administrations filled posts like Postmaster General or Treasury Secretary with ethnic minorities—they’ve gotten to choose how stamps look and to put their signatures on dollar bills. I’m very disappointed in Condaleeza Rice’s performance in office and I feel very sorry for Colin Powell, but it’s kind of nice to have strong opinions about ethnic minorities who truly influence federal policy. That’s a new experience. Powell has served (mostly) obediently in an administration of people that I believe would do well to sit at his feet and learn a few ethical and political lessons. Yet I’ve haven’t heard a single word of spin or boasting from the Republicans about their ethnically integrated national leadership team. That’s remarkable, especially given the unprecedented level of spin and manipulation on the part of this administration regarding almost every other topic. I’m impressed with their restraint in that area.

Summary Comments

Bush wins hands down in this area.

In the 20th century, Democrats helped birth almost every important civil rights and economic breakthrough for ethnic minorities against strong Republican opposition. Those are the facts without spin.

But more recently, the Democrats have manipulated the naïve and alienated ethnic vote as skillfully as the Republicans are now manipulating the naïve and alienated conservative Christian vote. Ethnic minorities are somewhat less naïve these days and they’re beginning to wake up and become more skeptical about the Democrats who have delivered very little lately. It will probably take another 10 or 20 years before conservative Christians realize they’re being used too.

The Supreme Court

Kerry

Promises to support moderate and liberal candidates in order to help balance the current conservative court.

Bush

Will attempt to stack the court with even more conservative candidates in order to give the conservative majority unassailable control

Summary Comments

Few people are talking about this issue, but I believe it’s one of the most important factors in the coming election.

I think our federal government does best when there is balance of power between competing ideologies and parties. When a single party becomes too dominant, bad things happen. A victory for Bush could well mean two more very conservative appointments to a Supreme Court that is already oriented in that direction. With an executive and administrative branch in conservative Republican hands, and the Supreme Court becoming a conservative stronghold, we could be in store for major social unrest. That’s because about half the country right now passionately opposes conservative Republicanism.

If half the country’s political aspirations are unduly frustrated by a stacked Supreme Court and a congressional landscape that has been ruthlessly gerrymandered into a permanent Republican majority, I wouldn’t be surprised to see civil violence in the years to come.

Supreme Court justices serve for life. Do we really want to support the creation of an extremist conservative Republican court that will likely copy the ways of the extremist liberal Democratic court that gave us divisive decisions such as Roe v. Wade?

Transparent and Honest Government

Kerry

By all accounts has a collegial and interactive decision-making style which emphasizes caution and looking carefully at all the facts.
Emphasizes that he will speak truthfully to the public and will run an administration that is far more transparent than the present one
Emphasizes that he will run an administration that seeks to cooperate with Congress rather than over-riding it or bullying it.

Bush

The Economist, which regularly supports conservative causes, recently argued that the Bush administration has run the most secretive and “imperial” administration in 30 years. Bush rarely holds news conferences and his administration is well-known (or notorious, depending on your point of view) for the immense control it exercises over information from within the government, and the extraordinary effort if puts into suppressing information and individuals who may cast a negative light on it.
Has demonstrated an individual and intuitive decision making style based on deep personal and ideological convictions that some have labeled ‘rash and unconcerned for facts” but which others admire.
Has developed a communication style which sticks tenaciously to “the message, “ while his administration has been extraordinary in its efforts and effectiveness in spinning the news and events.

Summary Comments

If Kerry becomes president, only time will tell if he keeps his promises about transparency and honesty.

But I think the Bush administration has a poor record in this area. I don’t think it’s unfair to characterize our present leaders as “ruthlessly efficient” at suppressing information that may cast themselves or their policies in a bad light and relentless about stage managing and controlling the message they send out. In many ways, they’ve led with a corporate style of leadership, with little input from anyone outside of a small inner circle. By all accounts—even the president’s interviews on the subject--Bush made the call on Iraq without any serious discussion with his closest advisors about the potential opportunity costs of invading Iraq. So even within the inner circle, information and decision-making is highly centralized and controlled.

I think any administration has to do this to some degree to be effective, and I understand that some of the senior leaders in the administration have a deep felt belief that the powers of the presidency have been eroded over the past decades. They believe they are helping restore a more balanced government in which the president can be a decisive executive leader. I actually agree that the executive branch has lost too much power relative to the courts and Congress.

But the degree to which the administration has gone about suppressing information, serious discussion, and collaboration with other parts of the government is simply inappropriate and dangerous in a democracy. It may be appropriate in certain corporate settings, but it is not when leading a democratic republic. And it’s especially not appropriate when the decisions being made are of the magnitude we’ve seen in the past few years.

Here’s just one quick example among scores. Did anyone else find it deeply disturbing that the administration threw all its considerable weight behind stopping the 9/11 Commission from ever getting off the ground? They resisted it in every way until the political pressure from the victims’ families forced them to relent. That’s simply a single example, but I think it captures very well the tone and tenor our present leaders

Looking at Kerry’s track record of transparency and collegiality, I strongly prefer him to Bush given Bush’s clear track record in office of the suppression of information, discussion, and debate.

Church and State

I’m deeply concerned about the decisive overlap now between the Republican party and the evangelical church. Most polls put the numbers of evangelicals and fundamentalists who are Republican at about 70%. If you look at the number of Euro-Am evangelicals and fundies who are Republican, the numbers go up to about 85%. As recently as 1976 the overall number was 50%. So something really significant has happened in the last 25 years.

This issue—and the Bush administration’s dangerous and morally suspect foreign policy—have motivated me to follow national politics closely and to get involved for the first time in my life.

What has me concerned is the naïve and very intense way many evangelicals have bought into the Republican agenda.

Abortion and a couple of other issues have become, at times, the only issues. Tom Sine wrote a very nice article about all this in the latest edition of Prism. He argues that American evangelicals have become very different from evangelicals in the rest of the world in the extremity and narrowness of their political views. For example, he says that many evangelicals now become enraged when anyone suggests that there are other major human life issues outside of abortion. Twenty years ago the idea that world hunger was a human life issue was commonplace among conservative American Christians. Suggesting that same thing now would create hostile responses among many American evangelicals.

I deeply appreciate that Bush has been willing to be honest and straightforward about his faith commitment.

But I’m very alarmed at the way the Republicans are “using,” to be blunt about it, evangelicalism and fundamentalism for political purposes.

However, the job of a political party is to gain power and then to hold onto it, so I expect that kind of devious and unfortunate thing from both the Republicans and the Democrats. From a Christian perspective, they are both “in the world and of it.”

What’s really sad is how much evangelicals seem to enjoy being used.

I think this trend is dangerous for the country and for the Church. When religious fervor becomes too closely aligned with a particular political agenda bad things almost always happen. This is a fundamental teaching of the New Testament and biblical politics.

Conservative Christians can now organize and mobilize politically with the best of them. But it’s not clear that the Church’s theological sophistication has kept up.

I think current conservative Christian political theology and biblical understanding of politics is mostly immature and misguided. Our grasp of the technology of politics has far outstripped our theological and moral preparation for it. And that’s why you end up with the strange sight of so many Christians fervently—even religiously--supporting so many policies and approaches that have little or nothing to do with biblical faith or a Christian worldview.

When our wisdom and discipline is weak we’re easy pickings for the governments and powers and partisans of this world.

Though I agree with the Bush administration on some important issues, it’s hard to be very supportive of the Republican party from a faith perspective when I believe Christian involvement with that party has become destructive, misguided, and imbalanced.

Balance of Power

I’m convinced that our government works best when there is a practical balance of power between ideologies, parties, branches of government, etc. The founders were deeply skeptical of too much power in anybody’s hands.

Right now the Congressional landscape has been so radically gerrymandered that only about 15 seats in the House of Representatives are actually competitive in any given election. That’s astonishing to me! Both parties have attempted to define districts for the House of Representatives that will guarantee victory for their side.

Right now the Republicans are particularly ruthless and unprincipled (and that’s saying a lot after some of the worst abuses of Democrats in the past) in twisting the definition of congressional districts to lock in a long term Republican majority. Conservative Republicans now decisively control the Executive Branch and the House of Representatives and have effective control of the Senate and very significant influence on the Supreme Court.

Historically speaking, the best policies and the best governance have come out of periods when there was a balance between ideologies and parties. The worst periods--including the fiasco of Vietnam brought to us by the overwhelming influence of the Democrats in the early to mid-60’s, for example—come out of the dominance of one ideology or party.

We’re in danger of setting ourselves up for another “dark period” in our history by putting control of every lever of government into the hands of a narrowly ideological Republican Party.

I believe in the doctrine of original sin, and I also believe in the biblical thinking that power corrupts and too much power leads to destructive ends. Though the founders didn’t base their decisions about balancing power directly on those biblical ideas, they had grasped and understood them by way of observation and experience and by their keen grasp of history. That’s why they tried to create a structural firewall that would resist attempts to put too much power into one group or party’s hands.

In many ways, the founders—though very few of them were Christians--were much more biblical and Christian in their understanding of power than current evangelicals and fundamentalists are. I can only say to conservative Christians, “be careful what you wish for, because it may come true.”

National Security, Civil Liberties and Human Rights

Kerry

Promises to strengthen the Department of Homeland Security
Promises to enthusiastically implement the recommendations of the 9/11 commission
Voted for the Patriot Act but believes some of it’s provisions were an overreaction to 9/11. Promises to repeal it’s worst excesses.
Promises to bring America back into compliance with basic international agreements on human rights and challenge the new laws and the “corporate culture” that have led to the moral and legal embarrassments of Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib.
Promises to invest far more attention and resources to securing America’s ports and infrastructure than Bush has.

Bush

Aggressively and effectively rallied the country after 9/11
Eventually created a Department of Homeland Security, but only after dragging his feet and resisting efforts at reform
Made dramatic changes in airport security
Invaded Afghanistan and Iraq in order to strike a blow against terrorism and initiated what he believes will be a multi-generational war on terror
Strongly resisted the creation of the 9/11 commission and only relented after political pressure became too intense to ignore.
Strongly supported the creation of the Patriot Act

Summary Comments

I believe Bush has the best of intentions in the area of insuring national security and that he’s done the best he could by his own lights to insure the safety of Americans. He skillfully and movingly encouraged Americans immediately after 9/11, and for a brief time, seemed to rise above petty partisanship and actually become the leader of the whole country. I still think that period of time demonstrated something important about the best of George Bush. That’s not to make any excuses for many of his misguided and destructive decisions in the ensuing years, but I think his more basic and better instincts arose at that time in the midst of crisis when things were more fluid and unrehearsed and before the relentless Republican machinery and the dark, dualistic world view of people like Cheney helped spoil his opportunity for real greatness as a leader. What a shame and what a waste. I admit that I may be looking at Bush with rose colored glasses in saying all of this, but from an intuitive standpoint I think it’s true.

I’d say Bush’s record on homeland security, civil liberties and human rights is mixed. He’s helped lead some really important improvements in our national security systems, including increased airport security, increased collaboration between the FBI and the CIA, and the introduction of laws that remove some of the most silly impediments to going after terrorists.

On the other hand, as in so many things with this president and administration, everything is taken to extremes and done in a way that seriously diminishes the positive effect of their good decisions and policies. The Patriot Act is overkill and has reduced the civil liberties of Americans in unnecessary ways. His seemingly arrogant dismissal of international norms and agreements helped lead to the disgraceful and morally disorienting events at Abu Ghraib and the dubious situation of prisoners at Guantanamo. Some will argue that Abu Ghraib was simply about a few bad apples, but most people with common sense and a little bit of savvy about the way human polities and organizations really run understand that when leaders model arrogance and impunity these kinds of outcomes are to be expected.

Bush has also done a poor job of creating a more secure situation at American ports and in the protection of key infrastructure.

As I’ve mentioned above, I think the present administration has done a very poor job of dealing with nuclear proliferation, which I believe is actually the main national security issue.

Kerry appears to support, in general, many of Bush’s moves in the area of national security. He promises to repeal and reform the worst abuses.

In terms of nuclear proliferation, I believe Kerry is offering a different approach that will actually focus on this issue instead of the current administration’s fixation on Iraq.

I also believe Kerry is deeply offended and embarrassed by our loss of moral authority as a nation over these past 4 years. He seems to be genuinely motivated to restore, if possible, our reputation as a country where no one (including presidents or nations) are above the law, and where civil liberties and human rights are deeply respected rather than questioned as “impediments” to winning the war on terror.

But what Kerry will actually do in office if he’s elected is a guess. We do know what Bush has done.

I’d give Kerry a slight edge here. Given the shock of 9/11, I understand why the present government may have gone overboard with some of its policies. The idea may have been, “better safe than sorry.” And they’ve made many significant contributions to strengthening national security.

But I can’t help but think that Kerry will be a more judicious and responsible leader in this area, and that he’ll be less of an embarrassment to us in terms of civil liberties and human rights than our present leaders have been.

Winning “wars” and “national security” in the 21st century is mostly about winning hearts and minds around the world. Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo—and the leadership culture that helped produce them--have severely damaged our moral credibility in the world, which means we’ll be much less able to win people over in the future. That’s a very real and concrete blow to our national security.


Conclusion

For Christians, the choices in this election aren’t easy and straightforward. There are some strong reasons to support Bush and the Republicans.

But personally, I strongly prefer Kerry and the Democrats in this particular election. I believe they will be more competent than the present administration and that they will uphold and encourage important biblical principles and teachings in a broader and more comprehensive way than will a second Bush administration.

I think Bush has demonstrated some clear patterns in his leadership and personality that are disturbing to me. In areas of the budget, foreign policy, and transparency, among others, he has shown himself to be given to extremes and to ideology at the expense of experience and facts. While he seems personally an honorable and respectable man in every respect, his administration has been one of the most ruthless in suppressing information and opposition, and frankly, one of the dirtiest in terms of using political dirty tricks and spin. I know I’m supposed to believe that both parties are equally responsible in that latter area, but I don’t believe the facts bear that out at this particular time in our history.

I will speak very personally here, but I can’t believe evangelicals enthusiastically support an administration that utilizes the political methods it does. I can understand them holding their noses and then voting for such an administration if they believe it represents some important values they feel strongly about, but I can’t understand the ‘religious devotion’ and ‘enthusiasm.’

In the end, it comes down to the following

This campaign is, or should be, a referendum on the performance of the Bush administration
I believe Bush’s foreign policy vision is both dangerous and immoral
I believe Bush has shown himself to be incompetent in the execution of both foreign policy and important domestic issues like the budget
I believe the Republicans are strongly encouraging an idolatrous union between conservative Christianity and Republicanism. This union will do significant damage—in fact, it already has done significant damage—to both the nation and the Church.
I believe Kerry’s policies are more reasonable and more rooted, in general, in biblical principles
I believe Kerry will prove to be more competent in both foreign policy and domestic issues


Basic Political Values

I haven’t explicitly discussed my basic political values in any detail. Basically, I believe in what some call “Christian Anarchy.” This is just a more polemical name for the broad political points of view that come out of the Protestant Anabaptist tradition and the historical Peace Churches.

In a nutshell, Christian Anarchy asserts that all governments are fallen and mostly concerned with exalting themselves, justifying themselves, and surviving at all costs. Governments of all kinds (schools, non-profit organizations, businesses, ideologies, religious denominations, etc, etc..) are a social necessity from a Christian anarchist perspective, but nothing more. Sometimes those governments become truly evil, but mostly they are simply human, frail, presumptuous and sometimes silly. At times they can be helpful and at times they can be dangerous and destructive—in fact, they are often these things simultaneously.

They are all caught up in a worldly system of power and dominance and falsehood that often includes violence.

The Church’s job is to avoid becoming partisan and to avoid getting caught up in various ideologies, parties, political philosophies, and intellectual fads, and to speak the truth prophetically to all these powers from a biblical point of view. The Church’s job is not to try to overthrow or reform these powers by means of worldly methods, which means that resorting to partisanship or violence or lies or any of the other normal methods of securing worldly power are acceptable for Christians.

That’s because to engage on the world’s terms is to simply affirm the way of the world and to more deeply entrench its system. In fact, to engage on the world’s terms is to be the world. Christians are to live out the truth in community, to love neighbor practically in a humble and concrete way that is different from the world’s methods, and to leave the humiliation of the powers and their redemption or destruction to God

That doesn’t mean that Christians shouldn’t be able to distinguish between various powers and find some clearly preferable. From a Christian Anarchist perspective, those differences can be practically important. For example, while peaceful and democratic governments may be fallen and weak and human, they may be clearly preferable from a biblical and practical standpoint to totalitarian regimes that rely on terror to retain power.

But overall, Christian Anarchists are very skeptical about the inflated claims and pretensions of all governments, ideologies, etc. People who make too big a deal about capitalism, or race, or whatever, are somewhat suspect from the get go from a Christian Anarchist perspective.

More positively, Christian Anarchy asserts that the Church’s main political job is to focus in the most concrete way on practically serving our neighbors in the here and now. Since Christians are not to use worldly methods and means, that means that Christians will not usually engage in worldly politics or power struggles, except for very brief periods when they believe some practical good can be done or when a power has clearly stepped over moral boundaries in a new and potentially destructive way. Normally, Christians will focus on practical and creative methods to bless their neighbors, while speaking up clearly, humbly, and prophetically on the issues of the day from a biblical perspective.

This is true, from the perspective of divine anarchy, because Jesus directed the Church to be a “counter-society” in which the truth of authentic human existence could be practiced, rather than the violence and lies and self-exaltation of the world and its systems.

Personally, I believe that voting in elections is normally a positive and constructive way to love my neighbor concretely, but I feel no particular ideological commitment to doing so and feel very free not to if I feel this would accomplish nothing practical. I’m more engaged in this election campaign because I believe the Bush administration’s foreign policy ideas are immoral and could set a very destructive historical precedent, and also because I believe the Church is dangerously close to idolatry because of its ever closer union with conservative Republicanism. I believe both of these must be challenged, though my “weapons” are simply my words and my vote. I have no great love for the Democrats and I certainly have no desire to overthrow the American government or our political system.

This description, though I think pretty accurate, is so oversimplified that it would be dangerous to take it at face value.

There are other Christian perspectives too, including Reformed Theology, which has much in common with Christian Anarchy but differs in some very important respects.

Let me encourage you to do some reading of important books then look at your bible to see if these things are so. Talk with fellow believers about it. Maybe this contentious election will help spark Christians to look at these things in a new way.

Here are some suggestions for your reading:

Christian Anarchy by Vernard Eller—Wonderful explanation of Christian Anarchy and a great contribution to Christian political thinking. He takes historical peace church thinking and updates it. His biblical exegesis is particularly striking and convincing.
The Subversion of Christianity by Jacques Ellul—Ellul is one of my heroes, and this book is all about how the church got to the sad state it’s in today. A deep analysis of where the church historically left Anarchical (gospel) principles and the destructive results for both the church and the world. Ellul also wrote a book called “Anarchy and Christianity,” but I’d start with Eller. Reading almost anything by Ellul is well worth the time, especially if you want to understand an Anarchist viewpoint.
Facing the Powers by Thomas McAlpine—A short and deep description of the various ways Christians have historically thought about politics and the powers. It’s very fair, and it covers both Christian Anarchy and Reformed thinking, as well as other options. He comes from a Reformed perspective, but generally he’s scrupulously fair.

You can get all three of these books at Amazon. Definitely read Eller and McAlpine. If you want to go deeper (and you should), you’ll find suggestions for further reading in both of them.