Reflections: A Few Idol Thoughts

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Consider this brief excerpt from Simone Weil’s First and Last Notebooks:

For Protestants, who no longer have the Church, religion has become to a great extent national. Hence the revived importance of the Old Testament.

What Weil had in mind when she penned these thoughts, may mostly likely have been such institutions as German Lutheranism, the Church of England, and their importance in the Nazi-era struggle for dominance of Europe and the world. But it occurs to me that the essence of her point can be translated, with regard to both time and place, so as to comment on our current plight in 21st century America.

While the constitution of the United States of America specifically forbids the establishment of a formalized national religion, that constitution has not served to prevent a de facto national religion—demonstrably Protestant at its core—from emerging out of the swamps of history; namely—American Exceptionalism.

Because of American Exceptionalism, for instance, the genocide of the original inhabitants of this continent was not really a genocide, or an "ethnic cleansing," but a feature of “Manifest Destiny”—God’s will that His people should be given this Promised Land, to have and to hold in perpetuity. The “Indians” were in the way. Though we have uttered weak proclamations of repentance for perpetrating this slaughter (as we have with regard to the race slavery that accompanied its accomplishment), we have done little—and that reluctantly—to make amends for either. God does not require it of His new Chosen People. That is so Old Testament.

Because of American Exceptionalism, throughout the 20th century, and yet today, the American invasions of sovereign nations, from Latin America to Asia, back to Latin America, thence to Asia again, and currently, on to the Holy Land itself, are not understood to be conducted in the service of greed enforced by power, but rather to be launched in the service of Truth, Justice, and the American Way: Look! Up in the sky! It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s—Superman! Americans, you see, are a Super-race descended from the heavens, and endowed with all the extraterrestrial rights and privileges pertaining thereto: Old Testament, am I right?

The bullying of a Superpower, isn’t really bullying, you see—it’s God’s Will in the form of geopolitical pragmatism: as American as apple pie. Not “national,” then, but “nationalist.”

That major fundamentalist Protestant figures such as Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell have delivered tremendous political clout; that their heirs have come to dominate the most conservative of our two major political parties; and that “Religious Conservatism” is dominated by Old Testament imagery and the morality of “an eye for eye” needs no elucidation here. If you don’t already know that for a fact, then you haven’t been paying attention.

But just about the best thing ever concerning our national religion is that anyone can play! In the service of “life,” Roman Catholics can bemerde themselves carrying water for the war-mongering, propagandizing, neocon, AIPAC lobbyists, who in turn can anoint (with Old Testament oil) the heads of such Protestant worthies as Ronald “Bitburg” Reagan, and George W. “Burning” Bush—with Sarah “Voodoo Doll” Palin waiting in the wings: Exceptionalists all. From God’s lips to their ears, and on to Abu Ghraib. Mine eyes have seen the Glory—and it is us’ns!

Just a few idol thoughts.X