[Fresh Ink] [Review] For God's Sake: The Christian Right and US Foreign Policy

[Richard Menec]

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or: http://tinyurl.com/5v4bkf

Suffolk & Essex Online

14 August 2008 | 13:16

Religious Right 'threat to world peace'

For God's Sake: The Christian Right and US Foreign Policy
Zed Books
£17.99 paperback (ISBN 9781842778852)
£55 (9781842778845) hardback.

STEVEN RUSSELL

Controversial one, this. Is the Christian Right a threat to world peace
because of its influence on American foreign policy? East Anglian academic
Lee Marsden - a former evangelical preacher - sought to find out. Steven
Russell reports

WITH Iran, Israel and America involved in a high-stakes "game" of
who-blinks-first, Dr Lee Marsden's book could not be better timed - even if
its findings are enough to keep us awake at night.

He claims that since 9/11 the Christian Right has enjoyed a better chance
than ever before to influence US foreign policy on issues from the war in
Iraq to global warming - and not for the better.

The book, For God's Sake, argues that the religious core values of Middle
America have potentially disastrous consequences for both the United States
and the planet. For example: the Christian Right "seeks to prevent any
resolution of the Arab-Israeli conflict on anything other than Israeli
 terms". Utterances by presidential candidates John McCain and Barack Obama
fit "exactly with the Christian Right agenda and effectively destroys
prospects of a peaceful resolution of the conflict".

Both candidates have been equally aggressive towards Iran, Dr Marsden says,
and conservative evangelicals are disproportionately represented in the US
military and private security contractors. "This presents a problem in terms
of cultural sensitivity and Muslim perceptions of the US military being a
Christian army engaged in a crusade against Islam."

The Christian Right movement has also been behind the Bush administration's
anti-abortion, anti-gay, pro-nuclear family stance, he adds.

What makes the book particularly intriguing is that its author became a
born-again Christian in 1981 and spent 16 years as a conservative
evangelical with Pentecostal and renewalist churches in Suffolk. He was
ordained in a Word of Faith church in Lowestoft - part of an American
fellowship of churches - and served as pastor.

"During this time I taught, preached and believed in the Bible literally,
including creationism."

It was only after becoming a mature student in the mid-1990s at the
University of East Anglia, that he started to question his beliefs and
eventually lost his faith.

Now a lecturer in international relations at the university where he
studied, he feels the passage of 10 years or so has allowed him to write
with academic objectivity. But even if critics rail, he's convinced it's a
discussion the world needs to have. "The issue has become one of the most
important and divisive in global politics today."

He travelled to America to interview leading figures from the Christian
Right - including some from the Bush and Clinton administrations - attended
conferences and listened to sermons and speeches.

Dr Marsden concludes that, in less than three decades, right-wing Christians
have become such influential players in American politics that no
politician, Republican or Democrat, can fail to take heed. Conservative
evangelicals now form part of the base of the Republican Party and occupy
senior positions from local level to the presidency itself.

The movement "flexes its muscles through an efficient lobbying machine honed
over three decades. The mobilization of tens of thousands of activists and
supporters to email, lobby, write and telephone politicians in Congress and
the administration on specific foreign policy concerns constantly raises the
profile of issues of concern to the movement".

The Christian Right has been most effective as a supporter rather than a
shaper of US foreign policy, however ­- "largely pushing at an open door" -
and Dr Marsden points out that George Bush hasn't been a pushover.

For instance, evangelicals have been unable to persuade the president to
move the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, and could not stop support
for a unilateral Israeli withdrawal from Gaza. The movement could not,
either, get Bush to change his view of Islam as a religion of peace.

"They have also, at the time of writing, failed to persuade Bush to attack
Iran over its nuclear power programme . . . Should such an attack occur
before the end of Bush's term, the Christian Right will rally support and
offer legitimation for it, in much the same way as they did before and after
the Iraq conflict."

All in all, however, the movement has been very successful during the Bush
II era - though "their influence is damaging to US interests in the short,
medium and long term".

Dr Marsden says the president has committed considerable funding towards HIV
and Aids initiatives - "but a third of it is restricted to abstinence-only
programmes, which slightly defeats the object: organisations not allowed to
work with prostitutes, for example, or give out condoms, which seriously
affects the chances of success".

Other Christian Right standpoints restrict women's rights, he argues.

"The irony is they'll work with whoever will agree with their position; will
criticise some Islamic regimes for their human rights records or the way
they apply Sharia law, but will vote with them and enlist their support when
it comes to anti-gay measures, issues of abortion and stem-cell research."

Dr Marsden also warns against "religious imperialism".

"The Christian Right's proselytizing in the Muslim world, evangelization
within the US military, and criticism of Muhammad and of Islam as a religion
of peace, and unequivocal support for Israel despite its appalling treatment
of Palestinians in the Occupied Territories, all create the impression
within the Muslim world that America is leading a crusade against them."

But is the movement undemocratic or insidious? These groups are very
upfront. The Christians United for Israel web site, for instance, lays out
its case clearly: ". . . as Christians we have a Biblical obligation to
defend Israel and the Jewish people in their time of need . . . There is a
new Hitler in the Middle East - President Ahmadinejad of Iran - who has
threatened to wipe out Israel and America and is rapidly acquiring the
nuclear technology to make good on his threat . . ."

Dr Marsden feels the Christian Right uses the democratic system better than
most other people - communicating well and campaigning effectively. "They
may not be the majority, but they come out and vote," he tells the EADT. The
Left, meanwhile, "have generally fallen asleep on a whole heap of issues".

He acknowledges the vast majority of evangelicals are acting on genuine
motives, wanting to save at-risk souls. "I think what they're saying is
actually very dangerous, but I don't doubt they're sincere in what they're
saying. They see nothing wrong with their approach; they see everyone else
as being out of step. But it (the book) allows other people to weigh that
and consider whether they're a threat or not."

His evidence-gathering across the Atlantic wasn't without its lighter
moments.

One of the people he met was Janice Shaw Crouse, from Concerned Women for
America, which seeks to bring Biblical principles into all levels of public
policy. She has twice served the president as an official delegate to the
United Nations, and during the first Bush administration was a presidential
speech writer.

"We had this interview in her office, and she's got this reputation of
getting UN officials cowering. She leaned forward, touched me on my knee and
said 'Before we start this interview, could I just say I love your dimples.
You remind me of my son.' What can you say?!"

Here's a provocative question: is America, influenced by the Christian
Right, the greatest current threat to world peace?

"It is provocative!" He weighs his words carefully. "Who's more likely to go
to war? Is Iran more likely to attack Israel, or is Israel more likely to
attack Iran? Is America more likely to attack Iran than Iran is likely to
attack America?"

The former evangelical preacher stresses his criticism is not inspired by
his own religious re-conversion.

"What I am concerned about is the 'rogue element', if you like. What people
do in church is fine; it's when it starts to impact on what you and I can
do, and our prospects of going to war, and how we respond to people of other
faith, and no faith . . ."

Some of the rallies he attended left him decidedly uncomfortable, such as
the Christians United for Israel conference in Washington DC - a three-day
jamboree "presented brilliantly with big flags, video screens and marching
bands".

"What was scary for me was a seven-year-old boy behind me with his family.
Every time they had some anti-gay rhetoric, he was whooping and jumping up
and down and really getting carried away.

"For me, that was really so insidious and dangerous - that people were
growing up in this environment that's so hostile to anyone who's different.
I found that very threatening."

HE might be a liberal-leaning academic, but Lee Marsden hasn't ever been
afraid to challenge the status quo. He remembers writing a school magazine
article at Northgate Grammar for Boys in Ipswich in which he called for a
Christmas-time invasion of the neighbouring but out-of-bounds girls' school.

Lee was brought up in the Belstead Road area. After leaving Northgate in
1976 he went to university in Sussex at 18, to read English and American
history, but dropped out after a year. Back in Ipswich he worked in
factories and as a Co-op milkman.

There was also a spell as a Labour councillor in the early 1980s - he was
the youngest at the time - but politics proved something of a disappointment
in terms of changing the world.

Lee switched jobs to become an estate agent, worked in Ipswich and
Lowestoft, and had a young family. At 23 he became a born-again Christian -
evangelicals "seemed to have answers to life's problems" - and he was later
ordained in a Word of Faith church. His life became wrapped up in religion.

"You want to bring people into a relationship with Jesus, but the reality is
that your focus becomes very narrow," he reflects. "I was finding I didn't
read anything other than Christian literature and the Bible for 16 years.
Your world view becomes very limited."

(continues)

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