Letter from America

Perhaps the most surprising turn of events in recent months has been the re-surfacing (in a positive light) of the idea of 'empire.' A new book has come out assessing the history of the British Empire non-pejoratively and, indeed, daring to suggest that America should embrace 'empire' as its new manifest destiny.

Few agree. The history of empire, domination, however you cut it, by another power, has little innate marketing appeal. And as President Bush indicated in his recent speech atop a massive aircraft carrier, while some nations had stayed and conquered they had come and now they were going home.

Yet, though the book going the rounds in New York has become well known mostly because it is inevitably controversial, issues of neo-empire are bound to force themselves upon America. In a world of interlocking economies, where a bomb is only a plane flight away, and where, conversely, America is able militarily to do pretty much whatever it wants, America is going to dominate.

Is the question of whether America is an Empire or not purely a matter of semantics? The word empire has had a checkered history. Originally connected to the 'emperor' of Rome, and thereby to the empire, it is based upon the more simple idea of 'leader'. It now means the colonial rule of a certain country by a foreign country. America may dominate in the world, but can it possibly become an 'empire' in this sense? Can one imagine people from Idaho being trained at school to run organisations and colonial departments in the Middle East? I can't.

Unlikely

America, with its own history of independence and 'freedom' from the colonies, is highly unlikely to become a colonial empire itself. Could America, though, see its strange present combination of near-total military domination combined with fearful vulnerability to terrorism as an opportunity and a necessity for international control? While Americans may not want to live and rule in the Middle East, they may well want to make sure that American control is established by some means or other throughout the Middle East, if only to minimise the threat of terrorist bombs emanating from that region.

And is this a bad thing? Does democracy by force become dictatorship? Is it a bad thing to force people to be free? And what is freedom? Would a truly democratic process in many Middle Eastern countries not lead to a secular democratic government but some kind of Islamic fundamentalist regime, as in Iran? And would that be acceptable to America, or are the Middle Eastern countries free to choose any government they want as long as it's the kind of government that America wants? And should Iraq be free to choose a fundamentalist Islamic regime? Donald Rumsfield has indicated that option would not be allowed. And is that freedom? If it is democratic to enforce a democracy is it freedom to be allowed to elect religious or political slavery?

Turning of the tide?

One suspects, that with all this ebb and flow in ideology and politics, we stand these days at the turning of the tide. For many a year now, liberal (in the sense of atheist) agendas have dominated the western sense of fairness and democracy. Now with President Bush in power and America all-powerful, we find Christians at the reins of government. And I, for one, find the prospect frightening. The last time a truly Christian emperor rose to power his name was Constantine. And his rule for the peace and harmony and prospects of Christianity was undoubtedly beneficial. It also led to thousands of years of confusion about the relation between the church and the state, and caused the gospel to founder in the Middle East even today on the shores of the term 'Crusade.'

The shoulders of one whom God calls to power must ever be strong. For that person himself to be a believer in the God of the Bible is a cause for trembling. While President Bush is unlikely to be confused about the distinction between church and state in theory, the issues of what it is right for a Christian in power to enforce as defender of justice and truth and righteousness and what it is wrong to enforce as defender of the peace necessary for the gospel to flourish are not so soon decided. We need to pray for America today as never before.

Josh Moody, Connecticut

© Evangelicals Now - June 2003
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