Bush's heresy: the theology that guides Manifest Democracy

It's a soundbyte that comes up fairly frequently in connection with the Iraq: the idea of crusades, of holy wars. Bush has repeatedly given comments to the effect that he believes it's his God-given mission to evangelize the rest of the world with democracy. The sensible thing for the White House to do would be deny, and placate the millions for whom the words 'holy war' can't possibly have good connotations. But that's sort of hard to do when Bush throws off comments like this one:

The other debate is whether or not it is a hopeless venture to encourage the spread of liberty. Most of you all around this table are much better historians than I am. And people have said, you know, this is Wilsonian, it's hopelessly idealistic. One, it is idealistic, to this extent: It's idealistic to believe people long to be free. And nothing will change my belief. I come at it many different ways. Really not primarily from a political science perspective, frankly; it's more of a theological perspective. I do believe there is an Almighty, and I believe a gift of that Almighty to all is freedom.

God wants us to spread democracy, because it's his gift to everyone. Bloggers from across the spectrum get nervous when he says things like this. But is it actually true? The theology behind freedom is complicated in the Bible, but it's worth a second look, because this is the heresy that's currently guiding American foreign policy.

Before we dive into heavy scripture, a few caveots are in order. Bush is discussing political freedom here, but what sort of political freedom specifically? If the statement is read as charitably as possible (an uncharitable reading would attribute 'American-style democracy' as his reading for political freedom), he is discussing a sort of general freedom from tyrany. The best reading that I can come up with is that he believes God thinks all people should be free from oppression from their government. This does not necessarily require a democracy, as reasonably enlightened monarchs have in the past produced governments that refrain from oppressing their citizens. Nonetheless, the sort of freedom Bush discusses is notably distinct from a second sort of freedom that often comes up in these discussions (and in the scripture): freedom of will. Freedom of will is the ability of a person to make choices that reflect his own agency, rather than the agency of God.

That said, what does the Bible think about freedom, and whether we should be spreading it? Perhaps the earliest mention of some sort of freedom comes from the creation story in Genesis 5:

1 This is the written account of Adam's line. When God created man, he made him in the likeness of God.

Although it could be referring to physical likeness, a number of theologians believes that this little statement refers to the fact that God created man and gave man his own agency (free will), just as God himself had agency. The Old Testament frequently mentions that God explicitly gives man free will in the matter of worshipping the Hebrew God or other gods (Deuteronomy 30:19; Deuteronomy 30:20; Joshua 24:15; Joshua 24:18; 1 Kings 18:21). Even if a government enforces worship of a particular god (as the government of Israel at the time did), these scriptures seem to reflect the idea that compliance with that requirement is an effort of a person's free choice. The result is the conclusion that even religiously oppressive governments (Islamic governments who forbid Christianity) should not be invaded for the sake of preserving believers' free will: even if the government designates Islam as the religion of choice, following the decree is an individual's choice. Wars to preserve or spread freedom cannot be justified by claiming that a government (no matter how oppressive) is interfering with a person's God-given free will.

What of explicitly political freedom, however? Much of the Bible was written in a time period where democracy was unheard of. The Old Testament is a time of kings, emperors, and dictators. Even Israel's God-given sytem of government involved a king, and the inherit risk of a bad king (Israel famously had several runs of repeatedly bad kings). Moreover, there is a lot of Old Testament law to show that Israel in that era would be considered just as oppressive today as most of the Islamic republics. Women were required to dress in specific ways and were not allowed the same freedoms as men. Women were considered property and were bought and sold in deals between families or towns. Slavery was not only allowed, slavery of non-Jews was encouraged. Punishments for petty crimes included removal of body parts, or even loss of life in some cases. Punishments for murder and other major crimes were always capital. Furthermore, justice was often decided not by an unconcerned outsider, but by town elders, even when the families of the elders themselves were parties to the dispute. Throughout the Old Testament, God shows himself less concerned with the existance of tyrants or oppression, and more concerned with individuals and their choice to follow the laws or not as concerned religion.

If the coming of Christ represented a revolution of theology, however, perhaps the New Testament would be friendlier to Bush's brand of evangelistic democracy. Jesus himself seemed unconcerned with tyranical governments, and in fact seems to advocate a distinction between the concerns of the soul and the concerns of the government:

19Show me the coin used for paying the tax." They brought him a denarius, 20and he asked them, "Whose portrait is this? And whose inscription?"

21"Caesar's," they replied.

Then he said to them, "Give to Caesar what is Caesar's, and to God what is God's."

Caesar's was certainly what one might call an oppressive government, but Christ shows no interest in undermining that government. Later, Paul and other early evangelists emphasize compliance with state laws, even if those laws were oppressive to Christians. When imprisoned for his faith and freed in an earthquake, Paul refuses to leave the prison, and convinces the other inmates to stay as well out of respect for the laws of the (oppressive) state. Once more, early Christians seem unconcerned about oppressive governments. Nowhere in the Bible does a mandate for freedom from oppression appear.

The Biblical attitude towards governments in general (particularly in the New Testament) might best be described as apathetic. God doesn't care what the earthly government is like, he cares about the decisions of individuals. Paul goes out of his way to show that even in an oppressive regime, the oppressive laws are unimportant. The focus is on following God whatever the circumstances. The message of the New Testament is repeatedly 'love all, injure none, worship only one God'.

In my opinion, the appeal of the idea of God is that He doesn't care about politics. The draw for Christianity historically has been that earthly circumstances are irrelevant to faith, and that faith is what will matter in the grand reckoning of things. That message is what's made Christianity such a religion of hope for poor, oppressed people for centuries. It's too bad that Bush seems set on undermining it. The concept that issues of government pale before issues of faith is central to doctrine, though in complex enough ways that someone who isn't thinking very hard might miss it. Bush's idea of evangelistic democracy undermines that concept, by trying to sell freedom from governmental oppression as an issue of faith (which it's not) instead of an issue of political philosophy (which it is). Issues of political philosophy should be secondary to issues of faith for a Christian like Bush, but his evangelistic democracy puts the cart before the horse by elevating a question of government to equal status with questions of God. Bush clearly hasn't thought much on the matter, which tells me that he's less concerned with what the Almighty actually says about freedom, and more concerned with spewing talking points to convince his fundamentalist Christian base. It speaks ill of him that he cares so little for his faith, but speaks worse of the fundamentalist Christians who buy the idea, and should know better.