ONE NATION UNDER GOD:

Religion a Strong Current in U.S. Wars: The nation often has invoked faith in waging its conflicts. A subtext has been a belief that we have been uniquely blessed by God. (Larry B. Stammer, March 29, 2003, LA Times)

Religious Americans are, on average, more likely to support the current war than their more secular countrymen, even though a large share of the nation's religious leaders oppose it. Scholars say the long religious tradition of seeing America as a special nation may help explain that.

A Gallup Poll this month found that 60% of Americans who say religion is very important in their lives supported military action against Iraq.

By contrast, among those who said religion is not very important, only 49% supported the war.

For those who see American civilization as superior, there is "quite often more readiness to exert ourselves in the world," said William R. Hutchison, a professor of the history of religion in America at Harvard University.

Nearly half of Americans (48%) said they think the United States has had special protection from God for most of its history, according to a poll a year ago by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press. Four in 10 took the opposite view.

That belief is strongest among white evangelical Protestants, a group that makes up about a quarter of the nation's population and that is a core constituency for the Republican party. Among that group, 71% said in the Pew center poll that they think the United States has special divine protection. Among white non-evangelical Protestants and Catholics, only four in 10 took that position.

"Evangelicals believe there is a purpose for our nation: to be good, to give, to help the oppressed, to strive for equality," said Ted Haggard, the newly appointed president of the National Assn. of Evangelicals. That belief, he said, is "the whole idea of the powerful using their strength to serve the weak."

Professor Jeffrey Walz of Concordia University Wisconsin in Mequon, Wis., said: "One tenet that many evangelicals would subscribe to is this idea of American exceptionalism, this sense that the U.S. is a city on a hill, that we have a special role and place in history, that America is a nation chosen by God to be an example to other nations."

"The question of how evangelicalism might be impacting world events would go back to American exceptionalism," he said. "I see this as well in Bush."

"We are an impatient country, and we have been historically, at least in part because of our confident view of America's role in the world. We tend to want to dive in and involve ourselves, or have historically -- and then sort out some of the details later," Walz said.

Which just goes to show what nonsense it is to think of America as a secular state. Posted by Orrin Judd at April 4, 2003 6:09 PM