[1] John Carlson (an ethicist) and Jonathan Ebel (a historian) have brought together a rich collection of essays examining the intersection of religion and violence in America. An early goal of this book was \u201cto show that September 11th was not the United States\u2019 first experience with religion and violence,\u201d through the expertise of scholars writing from within their own disciplines. They discovered that this multidisciplinary approach also brought \u201cnew and compelling insights into the complex historical and moral legacy of the United States\u201d (xvi). The book consists of an introduction by the editors and fifteen chapters by several authors, including the editors. These are divided into three parts: 1) Religious Origins and Tropes of American Violence, 2) Religion and America\u2019s \u201cOthers,\u201d and 3) The Ethics of Violence and War.<\/p>\n
[2] The idioms of jeremiad<\/em> and jihad<\/em> are used to explore ambivalence surrounding religion and violence, as evident in the unresolved character of American thinking about John Brown\u2019s legacy and its lessons. Jeremiad<\/em> features prominently in American discourse since the colonial era; it is \u201ca biblically rooted, sustained lament about a nation or people and their failure to live up to divinely ordained ideals.\u201d Jihad<\/em> is the Arabic term for \u201ceffort\u201d or \u201cexertion\u201d to \u201cfollow the path of God;\u201d it refers to \u201ca struggle that can involve \u2026 violence or resistance against perceived enemies of Islam\u201d (10). Carlson and Ebel assert that \u201cthe reality is that jeremiad and jihad have more in common than first meets the eye.\u201d Their hope is that \u201cmaking the seemingly familiar strange\u201d will contribute to \u201ca fresh reconsideration and evaluation of their meanings\u201d (11).<\/p>\n [3] The five essays in the first part explore how the religious tropes of jeremiad, covenant and providence have given meaning and purpose to different understandings of America. Together, they cover American history from the colonial period through the present, and discuss figures including John Winthrop, Cotton Mather, the Founding Fathers, Abraham Lincoln, Woodrow Wilson, John Foster Dulles, Martin Luther King, Jr., and President Obama. Each chapter is absorbing and perceptive, although not necessarily persuasive.[1] The first chapter is particularly useful in addressing the themes of the section. Andrew Murphy and Elizabeth Hanson examine the jeremiad from King Philip\u2019s War to September 11 as \u201cpart of a longstanding American rhetorical tradition, one that understands the nation as existing in a special, covenanted relationship with God, with special purposes to accomplish in the world\u201d (29). Two special claims ground the jeremiad: the epistemological<\/em> involves a claim that humans are able, with a degree of certainty, to read God\u2019s purposes in earthly events, which, \u201cproperly interpreted, provide a way to assess the spiritual health of a given community;\u201d the ethical-theological<\/em> presumes \u201cthat God\u2019s purposes encompass the use of violence in the pursuit of religious and divinely ordained political ends.\u201d Later variations of the jeremiad emerged; for instance, Lincoln questioned the epistemological pillar. Martin Luther King, Jr., offers a jeremiad beyond violence; he connected the civil rights movement, rooted deeply in the American, African American, and Christian tradition, to the overcoming of violence \u2013 thus rejecting the \u201csacralization of violence\u201d of the ethical-theological pillar (43).<\/p>\n [4] The second chapter is of particular interest because, in contrast to most other chapters, it examines two iconic films \u2013 D.W. Griffith\u2019s 1915 Birth of a Nation<\/em> and Anderson\u2019s 2007 There Will Be Blood<\/em> \u2013 rather than historical events, texts, or figures. S. Brent Rodriguez-Plate argues persuasively that \u201cfilm has become critical to and even constitutive of the founding mythologies of U.S. history, expressing more clearly than any other medium the centrality of violence in the American character, consciousness, and cosmos.\u201d Film can not only narrate stories of origin, but pose \u201cpenetrating critiques\u201d of our society and its moral dimensions. What is particularly valuable, he argues, is that Blood and other films provide \u201ca more subtle \u2026 altogether more powerful way to approach myth: violent myths retelling violent myths as a cautionary tale of American violence\u201d (60).<\/p>\n [5] The fifth chapter is an examination of the crucial role of the doctrine of providence \u2013 the \u201ccontention that God has chosen America to play a special role on the global stage\u201d – in the formation of American identity (91). Its author, Stephen Webb, contends that \u201cprovidential rhetoric is especially useful in time of political and moral crisis involving violence and war\u201d (similar to the role of jeremiad discussed in chapter one). However, he thinks that these crises \u2013 particularly the Vietnam War, have challenged and undermined confidence in this belief. Although it has served to unify diverse ethnicities, is has also motivated Americans \u201cto exclude and persecute others, to expand boundaries at the expense of other peoples, and to intervene in the affairs of other nations and communities.\u201d However, Webb concludes that the doctrine of providence is \u201ccentral to America\u2019s most ethically coherent understanding of its place in the world\u201d (92), and properly understood and applied, \u201cis an essential ingredient in the responsible use of power\u201d (104).<\/p>\n [6] The five essays on religion and America\u2019s \u2018others\u2019 in Part Two are also absorbing and perceptive, although somewhat more sobering. In my judgment, they call into question earlier assertions about the beneficial use of religious tropes of jeremiad, covenant, and providence in American self-understanding. The most disturbing is perhaps the sixth chapter, where author John Corrigan explores biblical exhortations to religious violence that conceive of Anglo-Americans as the \u201cNew Israel\u201d and Native Americans, Catholics, and Mormons as the \u201cNew Amalek\u201d (whom God ordered the Israelites to destroy, according to two passages in the Old Testament.) In his iconic \u201ccity on a hill\u201d sermon before landing in Massachusetts in 1630, John Winthrop spoke of the Amalekites. These references were, according to Corrigan, \u201cimportant less for their illustrating the necessity of obedience to God than for their encouragement to genocide\u201d (112). During the next three centuries, non-Christian Native Americans came to be viewed as religious opponents, who deserved extermination, in a land that rightfully belonged to the Euro-American population (116).<\/p>\n [7] In chapter seven, Eddie Glaude, Jr., analyzes religion and violence in black and white. He begins with violent attacks by a mob of angry merchants in July of 1834 against two churches in New York City: the first burnt to the ground for holding an integrated Fourth of July gathering, the next an African Episcopal Church, whose pastor was accused of officiating at an interracial marriage. He contends that these attacks were fueled by a belief that \u201conly white Protestant men could be Americans\u201d[2] (128). Not surprisingly, the notion of America as \u201ca shining city on a hill\u201d has been problematic for African Americans. He suggests that all Americans must work to expose \u201cthe violence that undergirds so much of American life today \u2026 as a check of national hubris and a rejection of the illusion of American innocence\u201d (140).<\/p>\n [8] In the last chapter in this section, Grace Kao explores \u201cthe search for religious meaning in the shootings at Virginia Tech.\u201d (Kao was a professor there at the time of the shootings.) She first analyzes how some commentators quickly suspected that Seung-Hui Cho was a Muslim acting in the tradition of \u201cIslamic terrorism.\u201d There was absolutely no evidence to support these suspicions \u2013 Cho had a Christian upbringing, had not converted to Islam, and used Christian symbols and beliefs in his manifesto. Kao insightfully argues that \u201cthe attempts to dissociate Cho from the dominant culture and religion in America were expressly made to assure a stunned nation that \u2018real\u2019 Americans do not commit such horrific acts.\u201d Cho was transformed \u201cinto a racial and ethnic \u2018other\u2019 by drawing upon existing prejudices and stereotypes about Asian Americans\u201d (180-1). The second way of infusing religious meaning into the shootings was through the use of the rhetoric of jeremiad: Fred Phelps of the Westboro Baptist Church said that \u201cGod is punishing America for her sodomite sins;\u201d Phyllis Schafly identified the root cause as the prevalence of liberal arts education, particularly feminist pedagogy (182-83). Kao notes that these messages were not well-received. Finally, she examines \u201cmore responsible and widely embraced ways of responding religiously to the tragedy\u201d \u2013 the student-initiated makeshift memorial to the dead (originally thirty-two stones, but a controversial thirty-third added for Cho) and the official Virginia Tech Convocation (which was ecumenical and inclusive of other faiths). Kao concludes that \u201cwe should be heartened that the majority of those \u2026 who turned to religion \u2026 did so as a source of unity and healing, and not intentionally as a way to exclude, other, or condemn\u201d (190) \u2013 thus ending this section on a hopeful note.<\/p>\n [9] The five chapters in the last section explore and evaluate ethical justifications of collective violence, within an American context. Together the chapters cover the period from the Revolutionary War through the contemporary \u201cwar on terror.\u201d Chapters 11 and 12 complement each other, in that John Carlson focuses on the Revolutionary War and Stanley Hauerwas the Civil War. However, they reach different conclusions about the efficacy of just war thinking. Carlson argues that the Revolutionary War is more accurately characterized as a just war of independence, not a holy war \u2013 as some historians have charged (201-2). However, he contends that \u201cthe Revolution does not fit within binary just war\/holy war categories\u201d as usually understood. Rather, \u201csecular and religious elements of just war thought converge in what would later be identified as \u2018American civil religion\u2019\u201d (199).<\/p>\n [10] Hauerwas in contrast draws on historian Henry Stout\u2019s Upon the Altar of the Nation: A Moral History of the Civil War<\/em> to critique both just war and realist approaches to war. He contends that the just war presumption that democratic societies \u201cplace an inherent limit on war\u201d is not the case, at least with American democracy. \u201cAmericans are a people born of and in war, particularly the Civil War, and only war can sustain our belief that we are a covenanted, chosen people worth sacrificing ourselves and others for.\u201d This provocative claim is supported by rather compelling references to Stout\u2019s work, which examines political speeches, sermons and funeral orations, and other remarks by persons on both sides of the war. Hauerwas argues that pacifists are the realists, who learn from Augustine, Luther, and Niebuhr not to \u201ctrust those who have us make sacrifices in the name of preserving a world at war.\u201d He adds, what the Civil War has taught us is \u201cwhat happens when Christians no longer believe that Christ\u2019s sacrifice is sufficient for the salvation of the world.\u201d (229)<\/p>\n [11] The last three chapters focus on more contemporary conflicts. In chapter 13, James Turner Johnson argues that American just war reflection has contributed to efforts to limit violence (particularly against noncombatants and civilian populations), drawing in part from lessons learned in the Civil War. Turner argues that these efforts, as well as the development of precision-guided munitions, predator drones, and theater ballistic missile defense \u201ccould not have emerged from the U.S. bishops\u2019 rejection of \u201cwar-fighting\u201d in \u201cThe Challenge of Peace\u201d (245). In chapter 14, Shohail H. Hashmi presents a useful examination of jeremiad and jihad in radical Islamist discourse that ranges \u201cfrom righteous example and purely moral suasion to advocacy and acts of extreme violence\u201d (250). Hashmi persuasively concludes that \u201creligion plays as complex and malleable a role in justifying violence in the radical Islamist universe as it does in any other context\u201d (268). In the final chapter, Jean Bethke Elshtain discusses her concern \u201cthat by overusing and conflating terms such as violence, torture<\/em>, and war<\/em>, we have impaired our critical thinking about the use of force and lost our ability to distinguish \u2013 intellectually, morally, and emotionally \u2013 among uses that are permissible and forbidden\u201d (274). She draws on the just war tradition to evaluate and defend the U.S. war on terror, strongly criticizing the conflation of terror and counterterrorism \u2013 especially in \u201cAmerican pulpits and religious organizations\u201d (278).[3]<\/p>\n [12] From Jeremiad to Jihad<\/em> fulfills Carlson and Ebel\u2019s hope that this rich collection of essays will contribute to \u201ca fresh reconsideration and evaluation of their meanings.\u201d It is a valuable addition to the literature on religion and violence. I recommend it for use in advanced undergraduate and graduate courses in religious studies, history, and ethics. It should also be of interest to serious readers concerned about the intersection of violence and religion in America. However, although there are a range of perspectives represented in this volume, there are some important perspectives that are missing for any adequate discussion of the ethics of war and violence.<\/p>\n [13] Most noticeable, in my judgment, is a coherent presentation of pacifism. Three authors (Carlson, Johnson, and Elshtain) present chapters which advance just war perspectives; both Johnson and Elshtain are dismissive of pacifist positions. Although Hauerwas presents a pacifist perspective, his chapter primarily advances the position that the church is the alternative to war (229).[4] I recommend Biblical Pacifism<\/em> (Second Edition), by Dale Brown, a useful presentation from the perspective of historic Peace Churches. In addition, I recommend the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America\u2019s social statement, For Peace in God\u2019s World<\/em> and the World Council of Churches \u201cAn Ecumenical Call to Just Peace.\u201d<\/p>\n [14] There is also no discussion of just peacemaking in the section on the ethics of violence and war. This is a new paradigm that moves beyond the traditional dichotomy between just war and pacifism. It was developed in the 1980s by proponents of both just war theory and pacifism, who identified ten practices of just peacemaking as part of an important additional theory. This perspective is represented in the two statements just mentioned. I also recommend Just Peacemaking<\/em> (New Edition), edited by Glen Stassen, and Interfaith Just Peacemaking: Jewish, Christian, and Muslim Perspectives<\/em>, edited by Susan Brooks Thistlethwaite.[5] Any exploration of the ethics of violence and war will be significantly enriched by consideration of this theory.<\/p>\n [1] Although I found Ned O\u2019Gorman\u2019s chapter on \u201cFrom Jeremiad to Manifesto: The Rhetorical Evolution of John Foster Dulles\u2019s \u2018Massive Retaliation\u2019\u201d (78-90) quite interesting, I thought that most anyone who more carefully examined Dulles\u2019 conduct of U.S. foreign policy (including support of the overthrow of democratically elected governments) would not find it persuasive. In discussing the influence of economic power over American foreign policy, Stephen Kinzer writes that John Foster Dulles \u201cmost perfectly embodied this merging of political and economic interests.\u201d Dulles spent decades working for some of the world\u2019s most powerful corporations before becoming Secretary of State. He ordered the 1953 coup in Iran, \u201cwhich was intended in part to make the Middle East safe for American oil companies.\u201d In 1954, he ordered another coup in Guatemala, where a nationalist government had challenged the power of United Fruit, a company his old law firm represented.\u201d Overthrow: America\u2019s Century of Regime Change from Hawaii to Iraq, (Henry Hold & Company, 2006), 4.<\/p>\n [2] In chapter nine, author Lynn Neal examines how Bishop Alma White\u2019s (1862-1946), \u201cendorsement and defense of the Ku Klux Klan cannot be separated from her Protestant faith and her belief in a Christian America.\u201d This is an important correction to a perception of women as only victims of violence, rather than perpetrators playing \u201cvital roles in the dissemination of religiously intolerant ideology and in the performance of religious violence in U.S. history\u201d (159-61).<\/p>\n [3] My critical response to Elshtain\u2019s work is beyond the scope of this review. See \u201cA Critique of Jean Bethke Elshtain\u2019s Just War Against Terror and an Advocacy of a Constructive Alternative,\u201d Pamela Brubaker, Glen Stassen, & Janet Parker, Journal of Religion, Conflict, and Peace, Fall 2008, 2(1), http:\/\/religionconflictpeace.org\/vol_2_issue_1.<\/p>\n [4] Some feminist theologians and ethicists would disagree with Hauerwas\u2019 claim that \u201cChristians believe a sacrifice [that of Christ] has been made that has brought an end to the sacrifice of war\u201d (229). They argue that this Christian sacrificial theory of atonement becomes a model for sacrifice in war. See Lutheran theologian Kelly Denton-Borhaug, U.S. War-culture, Sacrifice, and Salvation (Sheffield, UK: Equinox Pubishing, 2011).<\/p>\n [5] I have contributed to both these volumes, but was not among the original group who developed the paradigm.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" John Carlson (an ethicist) and Jonathan Ebel (a historian) have brought together a rich collection of essays examining the intersection of religion and violence in America. An early goal of this book was \u201cto show that September 11th was not the United States\u2019 first experience with religion and violence,\u201d through the expertise of scholars writing from within their own disciplines. They discovered that this multidisciplinary approach also brought \u201cnew and compelling insights into the complex historical and moral legacy of the United States.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,77],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1570","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-book-review","category-violence"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n
\nNOTES<\/p>\n