An Angel Directs The Storm: Apocalyptic Religion And American Empire

208 Pages·2004·1.83 MB·English

by  Michael Northcott

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An Angel
Directs the Storm
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An Angel
Directs the Storm
Apocalyptic Religion
and
American Empire
Michael Northcott
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Published in 2004 by I.B. Tauris & Co Ltd
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175 Fifth Avenue, New York NY10010
www.ibtauris.com
In the United States of America and Canada distributed by
Palgrave Macmillan a division of St. Martin’s Press
175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY10010
Copyright © Michael Northcott, 2004
The right of Michael Northcott to be identified as the author of this
work has been asserted by the author in accordance with the Copyright,
Designs and Patent Act 1988.
All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in a review, this book, or any part
thereof, may not be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or
transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying,
recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
ISBN 1 85043 478 6
EAN 978 1 85043 478 8
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Printed and bound in Great Britain by MPG Books Ltd,
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For Ben
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Contents
Acknowledgements viii
Introduction 1
1–American Apocalypse 14
2–The Fading of the Dream 44
3–The Unveiling of Empire 73
4–The ‘War on Terror’ and the True Apocalypse 103
5–The Warrior Ethos and the Politics of Jesus 134
Epilogue 177
Notes 180
Index 197
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Acknowledgements
I want first to record my thanks to American friends who, on my
many visits to the United States, have shown me so much warm-
hearted and generous hospitality and kindness. I first flew to JFK to
join my family in Connecticut in the summer of 1969 when
Americans first walked on the moon. I came to know then the
warmth of spirit that is so much a feature of American life, which I
have wanted and often been privileged to return.
I am grateful to my American graduate student Tristin Hassell, in
conversation with whom this book first began to take shape, and to
my 2003 graduate class in Christian Ethics, who read an early draft
and offered much encouragement. Anumber of friends commented
insightfully on later drafts, including: Marcella Althaus-Reid, Timothy
Clayton, Cormac Connor, Duncan Forrester, Stanley Hauerwas,
Alastair McIntosh, Jolyon Mitchell, Kevin Reed and Wilf Wilde.
I read a paper from which this book emerged in the Department
of Theology in the University of Durham, my alma mater, and I am
grateful to the insightful comments of David Brown, Douglas
Davies, Robert Song and Stephen Sykes. That paper was published
in Political Theology in April 2004. Parts of it appear in revised form
in what follows and I am grateful to Equinox Publishing for their
cooperation.
I thank my editor at I. B. Tauris, Alex Wright, who believed in this
book before I did, and to the librarians of the National Library of
Scotland and New College Library, where most of the research and
writing was done. Finally, I am thankful to my family, Jill, Lydia, Ben,
Rebecca and Jacob, who remind me that I have no need for the wilder
forms of apocalyptic imaginary for they give me a wonderful home
in this life – though I do of course hope that God will lend me one
in the next. I dedicate this book to my son Ben as he embarks on his
own studies of politics and culture.
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Introduction
The American invasion and occupation of Iraq in 2003, aided and
abetted by the British, was seen around the world as a war without
any basis in international law, and as a war that could not be
described as just or moral. Political leaders from France and
Germany to Russia and Canada were opposed to the war and
refused to participate in either the war or the post-war pacification
and reconstruction of Iraq. Christian leaders also displayed an
unusual degree of unanimity on this point. Pope John Paul II and the
Anglican Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, both vocally
opposed the war, as did the leader of the United Methodist Church,
of which President George W. Bush is a member, together with the
leaders of world Lutheranism, most Presbyterian churches and most
other world communions including Baptists and Orthodox. But this
display of official Christian opposition to the war obscures the extent
to which millions of American Christians, including not only conser-
vative Southern Baptists but the fast-growing conservative churches
and suburban ‘megachurches’, supported the war. Analogously, the
outpouring of patriotism after September 11, 2001 was particularly
noticeable in the car parks of conservative churches on Sunday
mornings, which were replete with the plastic-masted miniatures of
the Stars and Stripes which millions attached to their automobile
windows across America.
Thanks to the effectiveness with which the Bush administration
sold their deceitful claims about Iraq to the American people – that
Saddam Hussein supported Al-Qaeda, that he was in possession of
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2 an angel directs the storm
weapons of mass destruction which he could launch against other
countries and which he intended to pass on to international terrorists,
that his regime was consequently a direct threat to the people of
America – and their uncritical adoption by the corporately
controlled American media, a majority of Americans came to believe
that Saddam Hussein was involved in the terror attacks on America’s
East Coast. I use the word ‘sold’ advisedly in relation to the
campaign for war, for Bush, Cheney, Powell and Rumsfeld hired a
brand consultant, Carolyn Beers, who had been formerly a Madison
Avenue advertising CEO responsible for selling Head and Shoulders
shampoo and Uncle Ben’s Rice, to sell the Iraq war to the American
people. The intention, according to Colin Powell, was to brand
American foreign policy.1 So long as the long-planned attack on
Iraq could be sold in terms of the new foreign policy brand – the
‘war on terror’ – they were always guaranteed American support.
I say ‘long-planned’ because plans to unseat Saddam Hussein
were discussed in the White House from the first day of the Bush
administration, and long prior to that between administration
insiders.2
Support for Bush was nowhere stronger than among the millions
of Conservative Christians who had voted for him as the chosen
candidate of the Christian Right in 2000, whose central moral con-
cerns – abortion, ‘family values’ and Israel – Bush had done much
to address in his campaign for the Presidency. This campaigning
strategy reflected his long-standing courtship of the evangelical
Christian lobby, first in relation to his father’s campaign for the
Presidency in 1988, and then in his own campaign for the governor-
ship of Texas. Bush experienced a personal conversion to evangelical
Christianity under the influence of Billy Graham, Arthur Blessitt
and other prominent evangelical figures close to the Bush family.
Subsequently as governor of Texas he pursued the agenda of the
conservative Christian right in a way no governor had done before.
He drastically cut state funding for welfare and education while
allowing for the first time state funds to be diverted to religiously
organised social services. He rewrote state tort law, making it almost
impossible for communities or individuals to take civil actions
against private companies for death or injury at work or over pollu-
tion or other negligent or harmful activities. Furthermore, he