Michele
02-07-2005, 11:28 AM
Not since Abraham Lincoln has the United States felt itself to be a "nearly chosen" people, with a religious mission like that of ancient Israel. The US may stand at the threshold of a religious self-awareness in Lincoln's mold. I have read Wyschogrod's new book with astonishment, and espy a chance that the US might return to the world view of its founders: that of a Chosen People in a Promised Land. If that occurs, the world will be a different place.
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Not until I read Michael Wyschogrod's new book Abraham's Promise did it occur to me the long-departed spirit of American Puritanism might once again become flesh. US evangelicals might awaken one morning as a New Israel not merely in metaphor, but self-aware as a New Chosen People in a New Promised Land. The most paranoid imagining about the Christian Right pales beside this prospect. We are talking about the real thing, not a Straussian imitation: a politicized Protestantism in the mold of the 17th-century Separatists. A "Judaizing heresy" made the United States of America possible to begin with, I have argued on other occasions, and Professor Wyschogrod argues a strong case for the evangelicals to Judaize yet again. I do not know whether Wyschogrod anticipates the strategic consequences of his theology, and rather doubt that this is the case, but it is no less radical for absence of intent.
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What does this imply for US politics? It is a commonplace that theology now plays a central role in strategic affairs. Washington's hopes in Iraq come down to a wager that Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani will mosque-and-state differently from his Iranian co-religionists. But the religious dimension of Iraq's elections on January 30 was no less decisive than in America's elections on November 2. Theology is a more important variable in US politics than in the Middle East, precisely because it is more of a variable. Theological responses in the Muslim world are preconditioned. In the United States they are in upheaval.
Even the casual reader of US newspapers notes that the cutting edge of political punditry takes into account theological influences upon the White House. In The Weekly Standard, Bill Kristol claimed President George W Bush's second Inaugural Address as a victory for Leo Strauss, while Joseph Bottum claimed the president got it all from St Thomas Aquinas. Catholic conservative Peggy Noonan, a former speechwriter for president Ronald Reagan, worried that Bush had put too much religion into the speech, while the non-conservative Norman Podhoretz averred that the speech contained just the right amount of religion. A few years ago this debate barely would have passed for parody.
No one is more astonished at the mass of political analysis devoted to them than US evangelicals themselves, who busy themselves with school board elections, recovery from substance abuse, supporting troubled families, and other worthy ventures. Evangelical Christianity is not a political movement, quite unlike the 17th-century Protestant Separatism that set out to found a New Israel. The present "Great Awakening" cares about pornographic fare on cable television, not elections in Afghanistan.
more..
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Front_Page/GB08Aa01.html
snip
Not until I read Michael Wyschogrod's new book Abraham's Promise did it occur to me the long-departed spirit of American Puritanism might once again become flesh. US evangelicals might awaken one morning as a New Israel not merely in metaphor, but self-aware as a New Chosen People in a New Promised Land. The most paranoid imagining about the Christian Right pales beside this prospect. We are talking about the real thing, not a Straussian imitation: a politicized Protestantism in the mold of the 17th-century Separatists. A "Judaizing heresy" made the United States of America possible to begin with, I have argued on other occasions, and Professor Wyschogrod argues a strong case for the evangelicals to Judaize yet again. I do not know whether Wyschogrod anticipates the strategic consequences of his theology, and rather doubt that this is the case, but it is no less radical for absence of intent.
snip
What does this imply for US politics? It is a commonplace that theology now plays a central role in strategic affairs. Washington's hopes in Iraq come down to a wager that Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani will mosque-and-state differently from his Iranian co-religionists. But the religious dimension of Iraq's elections on January 30 was no less decisive than in America's elections on November 2. Theology is a more important variable in US politics than in the Middle East, precisely because it is more of a variable. Theological responses in the Muslim world are preconditioned. In the United States they are in upheaval.
Even the casual reader of US newspapers notes that the cutting edge of political punditry takes into account theological influences upon the White House. In The Weekly Standard, Bill Kristol claimed President George W Bush's second Inaugural Address as a victory for Leo Strauss, while Joseph Bottum claimed the president got it all from St Thomas Aquinas. Catholic conservative Peggy Noonan, a former speechwriter for president Ronald Reagan, worried that Bush had put too much religion into the speech, while the non-conservative Norman Podhoretz averred that the speech contained just the right amount of religion. A few years ago this debate barely would have passed for parody.
No one is more astonished at the mass of political analysis devoted to them than US evangelicals themselves, who busy themselves with school board elections, recovery from substance abuse, supporting troubled families, and other worthy ventures. Evangelical Christianity is not a political movement, quite unlike the 17th-century Protestant Separatism that set out to found a New Israel. The present "Great Awakening" cares about pornographic fare on cable television, not elections in Afghanistan.
more..
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Front_Page/GB08Aa01.html