Original Article

Religion, identity and American power in the age of Obama Lee Marsden Faculty of Arts and Humanities, School of Political, Social and International Studies, University of East Anglia, Norwich NR4 7TJ, UK. E-mail: [email protected]

Abstract US foreign policy owes much to a malleable religious identity, shaped by foundational myths, and that this religious dimension has, until recently, been largely neglected in the US foreign policy literature to the detriment of our understanding of how America’s status as global hegemon is formed, sustained and expanded. This article explores the role of the foundational myths of manifest destiny, exceptionalism and innocent nation. These foundational myths are explored as they develop into a civil religion espoused by successive presidents from George Washington to the present day. The article considers how Barack Obama has utilised civil religion to maximise domestic support for a foreign policy agenda, which seeks to maintain US hegemony through a more conciliatory and multilateral approach than his predecessor in the White House. Examples of the use of soft power through missionary endeavour and the evangelicalisation of military hard power beginning during the George W. Bush presidency are detailed in order to reveal an Obama presidency that continues to define itself in religious terms while providing opportunities for religious actors to continue to play a role in representing US interests beyond its shores. International Politics (2011) 48, 326–343. doi:10.1057/ip.2011.8 Keywords: US foreign policy; identity; religion

The far-reaching, the boundless future will be an era of American greatness. In its magnificent domain of space and time the nation of many nations is destined to manifest to mankind the excellence of divine principles, to establish on earth the noblest temple ever dedicated to the worship of the Most High – the Sacred and the True. Its floor shall be a hemisphere – its roof the firmament of the star-studded heavens, and its congregations a Union of many Republics, comprising hundreds of happy millions. (John O’Sullivan quoted in McDougall, 1998, p. 77) r 2011 Macmillan Publishers Ltd. 1384-5748 International Politics www.palgrave-journals.com/ip/

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Introduction Twenty years after the end of the Cold War America stands pre-eminent as the world’s only superpower unrivalled militarily, economically, politically, culturally and ideologically. The regularly predicted demise of American power has yet to be fulfilled despite the rise of China and India, the expansion of the European Union and the current global financial crisis. While those weary of US primacy eagerly await an emergent China to replace a unipolar world with a familiar bipolarity and resurgent realism the United States appears able to overcome all setbacks, including devastating attacks on its home territory, two ongoing wars, widespread anti-Americanism and a global financial crisis of its own making. Reports of America’s imminent decline make for good editorial copy but have tended to embarrass far more writers than just Paul Kennedy (1989). Rather than speculate on the prospective longevity of US hegemony, however, this article seeks to explore the ideational underpinnings of American primacy. American identity is malleable, a social construct that has undergone numerous transformations as it absorbed successive waves of immigration and attained greater power and influence in the world seeing off ideological challengers including colonialism, fascism and communism. Identity is partly a product of how people see themselves at home and abroad and in opposition to a socially constructed ‘other’, which changes over time and circumstances. Identity and ideas are mutually reinforcing as what America ‘is’ in the world is determined by notions of what America ‘thinks it is’. If America believes it is exceptional, that it is the guardian of freedom and liberty, that it has a special role to fulfil in the world then such beliefs inform not only identity but also those interests that it will pursue (see Schmidt, 2008). This article seeks to establish that US foreign policy owes much to a malleable religious identity, shaped by foundational myths, and that this religious dimension has, until recently, been largely neglected in the US foreign policy literature to the detriment of our understanding of how America’s status as global hegemon is formed, sustained and expanded. In the sections below the article explores the role of the foundational myths of manifest destiny, exceptionalism and innocent nation. These foundational myths are explored as they develop into a civil religion espoused by successive presidents from George Washington to the present day. The article considers how Barack Obama has utilised civil religion to maximise domestic support for a foreign policy agenda, which seeks to maintain US hegemony through a more conciliatory and multilateral approach than his predecessor in the White House. Examples of the use of soft power through missionary endeavour and the evangelicalisation of military hard power beginning during the George W. Bush presidency are detailed in order to reveal an Obama r 2011 Macmillan Publishers Ltd. 1384-5748

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presidency that continues to define itself in religious terms while providing opportunities for religious actors to continue to play a role in representing US interests beyond its shores.

American Identity Americans compared to most Europeans are a peculiarly religious people, and although this is acknowledged by all commentators, this religious foundation has until recently been largely neglected, as a dimension in analysing US foreign policy (Leo Ribuffo and Walter Russell Mead being two notable exceptions). For most commentators religion was not considered worthy of comment until the Bush presidency, and his close association with the Christian Right, forced academics back to re-evaluate religion’s specific contribution. The foundational myths of manifest destiny, American exceptionalism, ‘innocent nation’, the America Creed and Civil religion have been acknowledged by many as being instrumental in forging an identity that has been able to bring together Michael Lind’s ‘3 American nations’ of seventeenth-century ‘Anglo- Americans’, nineteenth-century ‘Euro-Americans’ and late twentieth-century ‘Global-Americans’, following successive waves of immigration (cf Deudney and Meiser, 2008). John O’Sullivan’s proclamation at the head of the article that America was ‘destined to manifest to mankind the excellence of divine principles’ provides an ideal starting point to reflect that many of the early settlers were fleeing religious persecution in Europe and sought to create an earthly paradise in the new country where they would be free to practice their religion without hindrance or persecution. John Winthrop’s vision of a ‘city on a hill’ (from Matthew 5:14) that would cause God’s glory to shine on the rest of the world by the new nation’s godly example has become deeply ingrained within the American psyche and frequently quoted by presidents and politicians across the ages and political spectrum. Manifest destiny implied a ‘morally superior nation chosen by God’ with a special obligation to redeem at least the continent, converting the heathen and savages, while providing moral justification for the expansion of America’s borders (Gentile, 2008, p. 93). In such a mindset the ethnic cleansing of the native peoples of the continent was justified by appeal to the higher calling of God and the seeds are sown for world domination by the transformative ideas of freedom, liberty, free markets and human rights. Intimately bound up with manifest destiny is the notion of American exceptionalism that because, according to Deudney, ‘more than any other state in history it has embodied and advanced an ideological vision of a way of life centred upon freedom’ (Deudney and Meiser, 2008, p. 25). This exceptionalism 328

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is based partly on the claims of manifest destiny and partly on the evidence of a nation that is abundantly rich in natural resources and became the hemispherical hegemon before becoming the global superpower. Many nations claim a degree of exceptionalism without the geopolitical, economic and military credentials to support such claims. America’s claims to be an exceptional country are well made on economic and military grounds, but such claims are under girded by a religious claim that such primacy is both inevitable and the outworking of divine blessing. Trevor McCrisken (2003) discovered after extensive archival research that belief in exceptionalism by police makers is not only a rhetorical devise but is also used by the policy makers among themselves. McCrisken considers that this exceptionalist belief ‘provides the framework for discourse in US foreign policy making’ (McCrisken, 2003, p. 187). Seymour Martin Lipset in his classic work American Exceptionalism: A Double-edged Sword describes this exceptionalism as a double-edged sword that works in America’s interests and also holds it to account for its actions (Lipset, 1996). As one of the leaders of the present day Christian Right in America, Richard Land of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics and Liberty Commission explains: ‘For whatever reason this county has been uniquely blessed, and most evangelical Christians will argue that it is not fortuitous, it’s providential – that, for whatever reason, God uniquely blessed this country and that imposes certain obligations and responsibilities: “to whom much is given, much is required” ’ (Marsden, 2008, p. 108). The idea that America is special, has been chosen by God and has ideals that are the envy of the world is supplemented by a further myth that portrays it as an ‘innocent nation’, more sinned against than sinning. An ‘innocent’ nation cannot conceivably be an empire. An ‘innocent’ nation’s best intentions are misunderstood. Critics of colonialism as the American state expanded westward and colonised the continent, the occupation of Hawaii and the Philippines, and the numerous military interventions into other states, fail to appreciate this innocence. In all such interventions the United States, in its innocent nation guise, seeks to liberate and bring freedom to these countries bringing them universal values, US national interests are coterminous with the unacknowledged interests of the people of these countries if not their leaders. A mythical identity emerges that proclaims moral superiority while cultivating a succession of ‘immoral’ enemies that must be violently defeated in perpetuity in order to maintain the myth (see Hixson, 2008). In such thinking the Soviet Union had no need to fear the United States, rather the latter and its allies were threatened by the former. Instead of naked US imperialism and support for Israel being a contributing factor in jihadist violence in the Middle East the real cause must be envy of the values of r 2011 Macmillan Publishers Ltd. 1384-5748

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freedom and liberty benevolently proffered throughout the world by an innocent nation. The foundational myths provide a religious framework in the social construction of identity. Although America was settled by Christian dissenters, there were also economic migrants and entrepreneurs seeking opportunities in a new land. The transformation into a noticeably Christian country comes in Thomas Jefferson’s and James Madison’s decision to press for a separation of church and state in the first amendment to the constitution. In order to prevent the establishment of one particular church as an official national religion the founding fathers succeeded in privatising individual faith while collectivising a hybrid all-encompassing national religion. In several strokes of the pen they were able to cause both politics and religion to prosper in perpetuity as they were each able to compete for votes or souls. Deists such as Jefferson, Franklin and Paine could as easily embrace such a separation as Christians such as Adams and Jay. Although white Anglo-Saxon Protestantism in its myriad manifestations has dominated the American religious scene since the earliest settlers, the first amendment allowed subsequent generations of Catholics, Jews, Muslims, Hindus and Buddhists to feel equally part of America’s special providence (Mead, 2002). They were included in an America overseen by the ‘Creator’ and ‘Divine Providence’ rather than the more divisive Jesus Christ, while allowing Christians to believe that they were de facto a Christian nation. This inclusivity achieved by privatising religion also sought to reconcile God and mammon as the new nation embraced modernity with competing religions, businesses and industries. The American creed of antistatism, individualism, populism and egalitarianism found its counterpart in a civil religion that sacralises symbols of the nation and reifies the United States in such a way as to include all its citizens with a national, spiritual identity that draws from religious tradition without challenging or denying individual religious belief expressed through church, synagogue, mosque and temple. Civil religion is based on a protestant belief system of morality and values and the need for a religious foundation to life (Gentile, 2008, p. 112; see also Wilson, 1979; Bellah and Hammond, 1980). Divine characteristics are ascribed to the United States itself, while the president, rather than any religious leader, in times of crisis becomes pastor-in-chief. The Stars and Stripes or ‘Old Glory’ is venerated becoming a sacred object to be handled with care and to have allegiance sworn to it, taking the place of the cross in civil religion. The holy places become Lincoln’s memorial, Mount Rushmore, Arlington cemetery and the battlefields of the Civil War rather than Jerusalem or Mecca. The sacred writings are not the Bible or Qur’an but the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States of America. The Lord’s Prayer becomes the pledge of allegiance and civil religion fulfils 330

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the role of uniting the nation in a shared identity while enabling presidents to draw from a Christian heritage, and often individual Christian belief, without alienating believers of other faiths and non-believers. Alex de Tocqueville attributed America’s success to being able to combine the ‘distinct elements’ of ‘the spirit of religion and the spirit of freedom’ (de Tocqueville, 1988, p. 47). The spirit of freedom led to the creation of the most developed economy in human history, while the spirit of religion permeated much of American society with an abiding faith in God shared by in excess 85 per cent of Americans today, two-thirds of whom consider that religion is an important part of their daily life (Pew Forum, 2008; Gallup, 2009). Successive religious awakenings in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries under Jonathon Edwards and George Whitfield in the 1740s, Charles Finney in the 1840s and Dwight L. Moody and Billy Sunday in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries have provided a rich religious narrative that in addition to preaching and converting millions to Christianity reinforced the sense of being called for a higher purpose by individuals and the nation. A calling that in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries would lead hundreds of thousands of Americans to go beyond their own shores and proselytise American values and myriad versions of the Christian faith, which would provide the cornerstone of America’s ascent to global hegemon.

Barack Obama and Civil Religion In the twentieth and twenty-first century presidents have increasingly presided over an ethnically diverse and multicultural nation where assumptions of Christian belief can no longer be taken for granted. Rather, presidents from FDR to Barack Obama have sought to unify their people by appealing to an all-embracing civil religion regardless of their personal commitment to a particular strand of Christian belief. This desire to appeal to civil religion is highlighted particularly with the first African-American presidency of Barack Obama. Throughout the presidential primaries and election campaign Obama sought to define himself by his Christian faith in opposition to claims by his political opponents that his unorthodox background and African/Muslim sounding name made him un-American and possibly a closet Muslim. Whereas George W. Bush was closely identified with conservative evangelicals, Obama sought to build a broader religious and indeed non-religious constituency to get elected and restore the reputation of the United States in the world, considered by Obama and many others to have been damaged by the unilateral actions of the Bush presidency. Obama’s Christian faith, while undoubtedly genuinely felt and experienced, was used to allay suspicions that he would represent a radical departure from the 43 presidents who had preceded him r 2011 Macmillan Publishers Ltd. 1384-5748

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despite the colour of his skin. In office he has sought to be a unifying force through emphasising the shared heritage and values summed up in the foundational myths and civil religion that all Americans are invited to subscribe to. Religion and US foreign policy is not a new phenomenon that suddenly sprang to life under the Bush administration; rather, it is the constant theme of American history, particularly in its post-1945 manifestation. Religion and politics were major factors in the elections of 1896, 1928, 1960, 1972, 1976, 1980, 1992, 2000, 2004 and 2008 (Gentile, 2008, pp. 44–45). Billy Graham was a frequent visitor to the White House and counsellor for all presidents from L.B. Johnson to George H. Bush, and was instrumental in leading George W. Bush to faith. In the post-war period every president has made a point of mentioning his faith. Truman’s early recognition of the state of Israel was due in no small part to his Christian faith. George Kennan and John Foster Dulles, the architects of foreign policy at the start of the Cold War were motivated by their own Christian faith, which fuelled an anti-communist absolutism. Eisenhower was the first president to be baptised in office and to pray at his inauguration. He introduced the National Prayer Breakfast, set up an office in then White House to coordinate religious affairs, introduced ‘In God we Trust’ on the currency and inserted ‘under God’ in the pledge of allegiance. He introduced prayer at cabinet meetings long before George W. Bush decided to do so. And yet, although ostensibly a Christian, Eisenhower’s concern was first and foremost as a religious man who equated religious faith with patriotism famously urging Americans to have a ‘religious base and I don’t care what it is’. Eisenhower embodied the principles of civil religion that have been followed by each successive president regardless of their personal religious conviction. When Reagan spoke of an ‘Evil Empire’ or Bush about an ‘Axis of Evil’ they consciously used religious imagery to cast America as an innocent nation with the mission to make the world a better place by defeating such foes. Each inaugural address reinforces the mantra of civil religion, manifest destiny, exceptionalism and innocent nation. Obama’s inaugural address reminded Americans that they ‘have remained faithful to the ideals of our forbears and true to our founding documents’. The United States is portrayed as an innocent nation ‘at war against a far-reaching network of violence and hatred’ whereas America is ‘a friend of each nation, and every man, woman and child who seeks a future of peace and dignity’. He invoked the memory of the Founding Fathers again as he reminded his audience that they had ‘drafted a charter to assure the rule of law and the rights of man – a charter expanded by the blood of generations. Those ideals still light the world, and we will not give them up for expedience sake’. The exceptionalism of the United States is emphasised by its remaining as ‘the most 332

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prosperous, powerful nation on Earth’. For Obama, the position of the United States as a global hegemon had weakened under Bush but in rediscovering American values they are ‘ready to lead once more’. The issue for Obama is not whether the United States should continue to play the role of world hegemon, but how to achieve this through consent rather than resort to force. He asserts that the lesson of earlier generations who established America as the preeminent nation was that ‘our power grows through its prudent use; our security emanates from the justice of our cause, the force of our example, the tempering qualities of humility and restraint’ (Obama, 2009a). This shared legacy and conviction based on the foundational myths provides a rallying point to continue to advance US foreign policy objectives. Obama recognises that although he is a Christian many of his fellow citizens are not and so he acknowledges that America is ‘a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus, and non-believers’. All Americans are encouraged to unite around a civil religion that maintains US values, its role in the world, and appeals to a sense of divine destiny accomplished through commitment to American values so that they might say ‘we did not turn back nor did we falter; and with eyes fixed on the horizon and God’s grace upon us, we carried forth that great gift of freedom and delivered it safely to future generations’ (Obama, 2009a). Through civil religion Americans have a sense of unity that informs expectations beyond their shores. There is a deeply held conviction that the United States has a divine entitlement to lead the world that informs the rhetoric of successive presidents. During the final days of the Bush presidency there was much discussion about change and continuity in US foreign policy after his departure (see Lynch and Singh, 2008); such arguments operate under a false premise that change and continuity are in opposition to one another and that debates over structure, agency and contingency (whether foreign policy institutional practices dominate or constrain presidential decision making and the ability to effect change, or whether events can bring about a shift in this balance) are all important in determining whether or not US foreign policy is unilateral or multilateral, isolationist or internationalist. I suggest that US foreign policy, because of its foundational myths underpinned by civil religion, seeks to maintain global hegemony by any means necessary. Commanders-in-Chief will use hard power, soft power or smart power depending on which is more effective in maintaining hegemony. When, as in the case of the Bush presidency, unilateralism and hard power cease being effective an incoming president, such as Obama, will use multilateralism and combinations of soft, smart and hard power to achieve the same objectives of US power maximisation and the universalisation of its values. In his first national security speech in May 2009, Obama announced the renewal of US diplomacy ‘so that we once again have the strength and standing r 2011 Macmillan Publishers Ltd. 1384-5748

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to truly lead the world’. He again emphasised the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and Bill of Rights as ‘a light that shines for all who seek freedom, fairness, equality, and dignity around the world’ (Obama, 2009b). When offering to work in partnership with the Muslim majority world or the rest of the world, an Obama presidency is still as determined as its predecessors to be the lead partner and achieve its primacy objectives by all means. Recalling Thomas Jefferson, in his Cairo speech to Muslims worldwide, Obama quoted the founding father ‘I hope that our wisdom will grow with our power, and teach us that the less we use our power the greater it will be’ (Obama, 2009c). One way seemingly that Obama seeks to grow US power is through religious actors, following in a well-established tradition. In the following sections I highlight the missionary tradition, as a form of soft power, continued and funded by the Bush and Obama administrations, before examining the evangelicalisation of the US military as an expression of religious hard power.

Religion and US Hegemony Mission as soft power Joseph Nye describes soft power as ‘getting others to want the outcomes you want’ through co-opting rather than coercing them (Nye, 2004, p. 5). For Nye: Soft power uses a different type of currency (not force not money) to engender cooperation – an attraction to shared values and the justness and duty of contributing to the achievement of those values. (Nye, 2004, p. 7) US Christian missions have been an instrument of US soft power throughout the last 200 years. The missionary tradition, according to Walter Russell Mead, is ‘part of the “lost history” of American foreign policy’ (Mead, 2002, p. 139). The missionary endeavours of American citizens surpassed even those of their British forbears as they sought to promote the Christian gospel through word and deed. US missionaries played a major part in providing educational, medical and relief assistance across the globe. In the late nineteenth century the Presbyterian Church in the USA and the Central American Mission began missionary work in Central America, the latter seeking exclusively to win souls rather than engage in social reform (see Koll, 2000). By 1900, over a quarter of all Protestant missionaries engaged in missionary work came from North America (almost 5000 out of a total of just over 18 000). By 1952, over half of the 35 500 missionaries haled from North America, and by 1992 was 334

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estimated to be in the region of 44 000, which is around 59 per cent of the 76 000 missionary population (Hearn, 2002, p. 37). Many hundreds of thousands of church members across America will either volunteer to work in the mission field for a short time, know somebody who does and provide financial support to mission efforts overseas. Missionaries were an indispensable factor in broadening the American’s worldview, which for many is parochial at the best of times. Churches felt honour bound to take the gospel to the third world and help feed the poor and the hungry, heal the sick and to proclaim the good news of salvation and American largesse. Americans who had no intention of visiting Africa, Asia or Latin America could spread their faith and values vicariously through missionaries they sponsored. The reports back from the mission field in letters, books, pamphlets, public presentations and personal appearances engaged the attention of congregations across the country. The work of Wycliffe Bible Translators and United Bible Societies translated the Bible into almost every native language and dialect across the world. The translation skills and direct lines of communications with indigenous populations throughout the world would prove invaluable to successive US administrations during the Cold War and the rise of US economic power. Just like the religious map of America, missionary organisations are very diverse and represent different denominational perspectives. However, it is possible to generalise based on empirical evidence that up until the 1960s the majority of Protestant missionaries represented mainstream, ecumenical churches, thereafter evangelical organisations predominate outnumbering mainstreamers by 10:1 (Hearn, 2002, p. 39). Ecumenical organisations began by mainly concentrating on soul-winning but later gave greater emphasis to promoting social reform. Evangelicals, however, are motivated primarily by evangelism and good works are a means to the primary objective of conversion to the faith. Both groupings, however, reflect American values abroad and gather converts for both the United States and the church. In the period before the Second World War the missionaries turned thoughts of Americans outward and gave practical expression to the idea of a chosen nation making an impact on the world stage. According to Mead, the fact that the United States ‘was prepared for world leadership after World War II is largely as a result of the missionary movement’ (Mead, 2002, pp. 153–154). The ecumenical movement among US Protestant denominations in the first part of the twentieth century helped advance liberal objectives of international institutions and grand visions of a pacific world order. Wilsonian impulses to advance the cause of democracy and create a more peaceful world through the League of Nations and later through the United Nations have their roots in ecumenical Protestantism: the idea that doctrinal differences should be acknowledged but put to one side in order to find out and pursue what unites r 2011 Macmillan Publishers Ltd. 1384-5748

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rather than divides them. If the churches with their huge doctrinal differences could be reconciled and make common cause to promote the faith then so it was argued, with actual lives at stake, countries could do the same through international institutions. Ecumenical and evangelical missionaries were able to assist US foreign policy during and after the Second World War. They were willing to put their local knowledge and logistical information to the service of Uncle Sam. Philip Dow reveals the close relationship that existed between America and Ethiopia during the war and up until 1960. Presbyterian missionaries worked in the country from 1918, living among the people, speaking the language and understanding the cultural and political trends within the country. In particular they developed a deep friendship and close working relationship with Haile Selassie, of great value to the United States in the horn of Africa, an increasingly strategic asset as the Cold War developed. Dow reveals that missionaries were virtually the only source of strategic intelligence for the US government in Ethiopia and were instrumental in the favourable relationship between the two countries, which placed Ethiopia in the US camp during the Cold War until the Marxist revolution of 1974 by which time the missionaries influence had been eclipsed (Dow, 2009). Similar collaborations between missionary organisations and the CIA and US business interests took place around the world but especially in America’s backyard. Gerard Colby and Charlotte Dennett catalogue over seven decades of collusion between missionary activity, capitalism and the CIA (Colby and Dennett, 1995). Wycliffe Bible Translators and the Summer School of Linguistics (SIL) are particularly singled out as being implicated in the conversion of indigenous peoples in the Amazon rain forest and their introduction to a Western culture aimed at enabling the exploitation of their natural resources by US corporations. Others have pointed to close connections between the CIA and SIL during the 1970s and 1980s (Aaby and Hvalkof, 1982; Hvalkof, 1984; Perkins, 2006). Missionary organisations, by now largely evangelical, made full use of American foundational myths to justify combining their evangelical mission with working to achieve US foreign policy objectives. In the face of the communist threat the manifest destiny of the United States was to share its values with the rest of the world. An exceptional and innocent nation was required to use its resources to resist godless communism. The city on a hill had to let its light shine in order to overcome the evil empire. Missionaries, regardless of any higher calling, were prepared to play their full part in defeating communism by advancing American values in their field of activity. After the end of the Cold War missionary activity continued apace with over a thousand US Protestant missionaries in each of Brazil, Philippines, Mexico, Japan, Kenya and Papua New Guinea, and hundreds more in Zaire, 336

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Nigeria, South Africa, Tanzania and Zimbabwe in 1992 (Hearn, 2002, p. 41). The US evangelical missionary had an estimated income of US$2 billion per annum and had made the leap from missions to non-governmental organisations, receiving hundreds of thousands in income from supporters and throughout the 1990s from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) as it provided the largest evangelical relief and development agencies such as World Vision International, CARE and Food for the Hungry with lucrative contracts to deliver US foreign aid. By 2001 it was estimated that approximately 350 000 Americans had worked abroad with Protestant missionary organisations, and donations had increased to $3.75 billion (Clarke, 2007, p. 83). Following George Bush’s election victory in 2000, the evangelicals were rewarded for turning out and voting overwhelmingly for him by the creation of an Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives to encourage religious organisations to apply for grants to deliver welfare and relief projects at home and abroad. The foreign assistance faith-based office was situated within USAID and busily set about soliciting and offering assistance projects to overwhelmingly Christian organisations to the detriment of more experienced secular organisations (see Marsden, 2008). Effectively, tax dollars were used to enable evangelical organisations to proselytise abroad while delivering foreign aid services. The first amendment was circumvented by pretending that the educational class or hospital treatment was funded by the taxpayer, but the prayer, evangelistic tracts, film of the life of Jesus, the ‘witnessing’ and church service surrounding the service provision were funded by voluntary donations. For many in the developing world the first point of contact with the United States is courtesy of the assistance efforts of USAID covering infrastructure building, conflict resolution initiatives, clean water, anti-malaria and HIV/ AIDS programmes, business start-ups, building and equipping schools and hospitals. Although domestically Americans United for the Separation of Church and State and People for the America Way may baulk at flagrant disregard for the first amendment, the Bush and previous Clinton administration had no problem providing funding for faith-based organisations they could rely upon to promote American values abroad. Under President Obama the Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives has transformed into the Office of Faith-Based and Neighbourhood Partnerships domestically and is in transition within USAID. Religious organisations are being actively encouraged and courted to apply for government funding to deliver the same range of services targeted under the Republican administration. The central White House Office of Faith-Based and Neighbourhood Partnerships has 12 satellite offices in other government agencies, including USAID. Obama has also established a 25-member advisory r 2011 Macmillan Publishers Ltd. 1384-5748

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council that provides members for six task forces to advise on economic recover and fighting poverty; inter-religious dialogue and cooperation; fatherhood and healthy families; reform of the Faith-Based Office; environment and climate change; and global poverty, health and development. The task force consists of eight mainstream protestant Christians, six evangelicals (although only three Frank Page, Richard Stearns and possibly Joel Hunter could be regarded as conservative), three Catholics, three Jews, two Muslims and a Hindu. Only two members of the advisory council, which is supposed to comprise of faith-based AND neighbourhood partnerships, claim to be secular (Pew Forum, 2009). Obama has expanded the mission of Bush’s faith-based initiative programme to include ‘reducing the need for abortion, promoting responsible fatherhood, and facilitating interfaith dialogue, particularly with the Muslim world’ (Gilgoff, 2009). Rather than reducing the role of religion in US domestic and foreign policy the Obama administration has greatly increased religion’s role causing the American Civil Liberties Union to express concern that the advisory council will be able ‘to advise the president and the White House faith-based office on how to distribute federal dollars, and also advise on a range of other issues, such as AIDS and women’s reproductive health care’ (Segura, 2009).

Military hard power While American foreign policy is advanced by the soft power distribution of aid and American values by religious actors, hard power is also exercised by religious actors. Since the early years of the Bush administration the military have become increasingly influenced by evangelical Christianity. Buoyed by the Bush presidency born-again Christians actively evangelise within the Pentagon and occupy senior positions. A video produced in 2006 by the Christian Embassy, a conservative evangelical group targeted towards converting and sustaining diplomats, government leaders and military officers, demonstrates the extent of evangelical influence in the Pentagon. The video showed interviews conducted inside the Pentagon with interviews with senior officials and high-ranking officers in uniform. The Embassy organises bible studies attended by approximately 40 generals, discipleship groups, prayer breakfasts and outreach events. The Flag Officer Fellowship provides an opportunity for fellow Christians to meet and be seen by fellow officers. The video has interviews with four generals and two colonels based in the Pentagon. Major-General Jack Catton shares his faith with fellow officers and believes this is making ‘a huge impact because you have many men and women who are seeking God’s council and wisdom as we advise the Chairman and the Secretary of Defence, Hallelujah!’1 338

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A number of scandals and investigations have revealed a military culture that is overtly religious and encourages an environment in which the evangelising of cadets and midshipmen by Christian staff and faculty members. Investigations following complaints at Virginia Military Institute, the Air Force Academy, the Naval Academy in Annapolis, MD and West Point between 2004 and 2009 reveal tremendous pressure being placed on cadets and midshipmen to conform or convert to evangelical Christianity. The Military Religious Freedom Foundation receive over 500 complaints of religious bias each month from members of the military. The influence of The Officers’ Christian Fellowship is active on 200 US military bases around the world and Campus Crusade for Christ’s Military Ministry is equally active (Banerjee, 2008; Lichtblau, 2009). Although officially the military establishment do not sanction evangelising, a religious ethos permeates the institutions with Bible quotations and prayer. At West Point during his commencement address Secretary of the Army Pete Green portrayed wars in Afghanistan and Iraq as ‘a clash between American and radical Islamic approaches to religious liberty’ (Banerjee, 2008). General Caslen, West Point’s commandant of cadets from 2006 to 2008 emphasised the spiritual training of cadets: ‘That is the leadership development model for West Point and that recognizes there is a supreme being y The value of one’s faith play an important role in moral development, and they undergird the development of ideas like duty, honor, country’ (Banerjee, 2008). The influence of the Christian Right also extends to the battlefields of Iraq. Over the past few years conservative evangelicals have taken over 50 per cent of the military chaplaincy posts, an integral part of the US military, and a ripe recruiting ground as bullets and missiles fly. One Southern Baptist chaplain at Najaf even offered soldiers the chance to swim in the swimming pool, if they were willing to convert and be baptised. Soldiers receive DVDs of their home church services, attend church services, prayer meetings and bible classes (Layklin, 2003; Beaumont, 2007; Hedges, 2007). A video aired on Al Jazeera in May 2009 showed US military chaplains in Afghanistan preparing to distribute Bibles translated into Pashto and Dari and discussing how to get round rules outlawing proselytising by giving gifts in order to evangelise.2 Jeff Sharlet reveals similar attitudes by Special Forces in Iraq entering a religious battle with ‘Jesus Killed Mohammed’ written across their Bradley armoured vehicle (Sharlet, 2009). This reflects a US military made up disproportionately of conservative evangelicals, many of whom see themselves as being a Christian army. It also feeds from the narrative of foundational myth of American Exceptionalism and manifest destiny, conducting a ‘civilising mission’ to presently Muslim countries but previously communist lands, to open up countries to democracy and American goods and values. r 2011 Macmillan Publishers Ltd. 1384-5748

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Such views are at odds with a more conciliatory tone adopted by Obama towards the Muslim majority world: I’ve come here to Cairo to seek a new beginning between the United States and Muslims around the world, one based on mutual interests and mutual respect, and one based on the truth that America and Islam are not exclusive and need not be in competition. Instead, they overlap, and share common principles – principles of justice and progress; tolerance and the dignity of all human beings. (Obama, 2009c) Whether the president’s message merely indicates a change in rhetoric or actual practice on the ground in war zones remains to be seen. The juxtaposition of missionary soft power and military hard power highlights both the difficulties of using religion as a means of advancing US foreign policy interests and the opportunities that Obama believes he can create to maximise US power by reaching out to other religious actors around the world.

Conclusion Obama, as a committed Christian, has actively sought out religious figures to bring into the policy-making arena through regular conference calls and meetings, whereas the Christian Right, favoured by Bush, is supplemented by more liberal and mainstream Christians and those of other faiths, including Jews, Muslims and Hindus. While he is waiting for a church of his own to attend, the new president has gathered five pastors to pray with and provide counsel: Otis Moss Jr, T.D. Jakes, Kirbyion Caldwell, Jim Wallis and Joel Hunter (Goodstein, 2009). Jakes and Caldwell have both previously advised George W. Bush. None of this is new or breaks new ground; Obama, regardless of his individual religious beliefs, will make use of religious leaders to undergird support for US foreign policy from all faiths. Just as his predecessor reached out to American Muslims, in spite of opposition from his core support within the evangelical community in the Republican party, so Obama will bring other faiths into the political realm amalgamating their diverse theological views into a palatable civil religion for domestic and international consumption. Although it is unwise to make predictions, it is not too brave to suggest that Obama will continue to wage wars for freedom and US national interests though clearly these will never be for ‘selfish’ interests but for the betterment of those people warred against and warred on behalf of. Obama will preside over an American hegemony that changes as the differing pulls of structure and agency take their toll, but global hegemon it will remain throughout his tenure. 340

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This article began with John O’Sullivan’s prediction of ‘an era of American greatness’ that has surely been fulfilled, maybe beyond even his wildest imaginings. The United States despite economic turmoil, wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and rapidly changing demographics is situated as the sole super power, commanding the global commons (cf Posen, 2003), and still by some margin the world’s greatest military, economic and ideological power. I have suggested that this position of supremacy has been attained by America’s vision of itself as world leader that has its origins and sustenance in foundational myths of manifest destiny, exceptionalism and being an innocent nation. This mythology has a religious dimension that has been able to adapt with modernity, indeed some would argue shape modernity, to combine capitalism, democracy and a civil religion that is able to embrace all faiths across America, while enabling Christians, and those of other faiths, to believe that the presidential bully pulpit is directed just at them and that US foreign policy represents their religious convictions. This has been played out across the mission field, in the exporting of democracy and capitalism, in the military and through the mantra from successive presidents appealing to America’s higher self, its sense of mission and purpose, its imperative to share what God or Providence (rather than Jesus, Abraham or Mohammed) has bestowed on them to the rest of a waiting world. This driving sense of having to convert the world to freedom, liberty, democracy, human rights and capitalism is vividly illustrated in successive inaugural addresses where each president and his scriptwriters prepare a speech that reflects the highest ideals and aspirations of their nation as well as the administration. This is particularly true of one of the most gifted of those speech writers and speakers, Barack Obama. The speeches are shared narratives reflecting back what Americans have come to believe of themselves in their better moments. What Americans believe about themselves has come to reflect what they have achieved in the world. It is a global hegemon using its vast power to attempt to bring about the kind of world it wishes itself to be. Barack Obama’s presidency builds on the civil religion tradition of his predecessors, the foundational myths continue to inspire and galvanise the American people to justify and support US foreign policy actions in seeking to maintain and advance national interests and US power. Obama is using, and will continue to use, a religious narrative to frame his actions and religious actors to deliver US foreign policy objectives, whether through persuasion and co-option or coercion and military force. Rather than religion and foreign policy being confined to the Bush era this article has sought to demonstrate that religion has always played a part in US foreign policy and that under an Obama presidency that relationship continues to grow. r 2011 Macmillan Publishers Ltd. 1384-5748

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About the Author Lee Marsden is a Senior Lecturer in International Relations at the University of East Anglia. He is author of For God’s Sake: The Christian Right and US Foreign Policy; Lessons from Russia: Clinton and US Democracy Promotion and (with Heather Savigny) Doing Political Science and International Relations: Theories in Action.

Notes 1 A copy of the video was posted on YouTube, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uT2BE5RS01E&eurl=, accessed 21 December 2006; the video keeps being taken down and resubmitted. Information is also available from ‘Questionable Mission: A Christian Embassy campaign at the Pentagon test constitutional boundaries’, The Washington Post, 6 January 2007. See also Chris Hedges, ‘America’s Holy Warriors’, http://alternet.org/story/46211/, accessed 16 February 2007. 2 ‘US army “does not promote religion” ’, Al Jazeera, http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/2009/ 05/2009542250178146.html, accessed 6 May 2009.

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