Obama and american exceptionalism
I caught the second half of Obama’s speech last night after I arrived back in West Virginia for a long weekend visit. There was certainly much to be impressed with, but theologian James K. A. Smith is right to point out the degree to which Obama’s “new politics” includes the same old americanism and american exceptionalism that should make Christians in america cringe (but, of course, doesn’t). He zeroed in on many of the speech’s passages that troubled me:
More significantly, despite all the talk of newness and change, the rhetoric and religion of Americanism still sounds the same from where I sit. In language that could have just as easily appeared in Bush’s second inaugural or the National Security Strategy of the Bush administration, Obama promised to “restore our moral standing, so that America is once again that last, best hope for all who are called to the cause of freedom, who long for lives of peace and who yearn for a better future.” And immediately following this, he ramps it up a notch, associating America with the proverbial “ultimate sacrifice,” spilling blood for the flag:
I love this country, and so do you, and so does John McCain. The men and women who serve in our battlefields may be Democrats and Republicans and Independents, but they have fought together and bled together and some died together under the same proud flag. They have not served a Red America or a Blue America – they have served the United States of America.
So I’ve got news for you, John McCain. We all put our country first.
[...]
To put the question starkly: Can any Christian really say that they put their “country” first? Both Republican-speak and Democrat-speak remain committed to the god of Americanism.
Of course Obama doesn’t think he is the Messiah, and neither do his supporters. Anyone with an ounce of media literacy can tell the way in which the McCain camp dreamed up and promulgates that lie. The deeper problem is that Obama, like McCain, does believe that america has a messianic role. But this is the criticism we will never hear from the McCain camp, Catholic or otherwise, because making that criticism will expose their own hypocrisy and their own idolatrous tendencies.
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I don’t know anyone who says Obama IS the messiah. The ridicule is due to the quasi-religious nature of the adoration, his language etc.
I do believe America is exceptional. The USA could hold the Olympics all by itself. We have people from every corner of the world and still make it work. Because of the lack of an ethnic commonality, the nation has to be emphasized more, for the sake of cohesion. There is no other country like it. My neighbors include Sikhs, Filipinos, white ‘mutts’, I get my organic fruits and veggies from an organic Afghan farmer, my chiropractor is Afghan, I’m from Austria and so is my governor.
Imagine for a second becoming Japanese as a white guy. In its diversity, the USA is much like the Catholic Church, actually. I don’t attribute any ‘manifest destiny’ or ‘divine intervention’ etc. to America. But it is the most astonishing country in the world.
word. but new “american” politics will almost always be full of americanism. to do away with americanism is essentially to wean ourselves from the need to be america in order to restore moral standing and all that neato stuff. so, while i “get it” and am sympathetic to it, speaking truth to power of this kind shouldn’t be too huffy, since, after all, it is asking for the demise of the very thing we confusedly think we need to go on.
As Gerald notes, the criticism is that Obama’s supporters are excessive in their enthusiasm to the point that they use language which is quasi-messianic. To object that this is caricature of Obama supporters is fine. But it seems to me that MM or MI generally themselves caricature those critical of the hyperbolic Obama rhetoric, saying that rather than attacking the rhetoric, they are accusing his supporters or (still worse) Obama of literally (to borrow a phrase of Joe Biden’s) thinking Obama is messianic. A caricature of those accused of caricaturizing, if you will.
Then again, in an election year, both sides are apt to say any number of silly and/or malicious things, so it’s probably best just to move on rather than cataloging every slight. This may be news to MM, given that his take is that the pro-abortion party is as pure as the driven snow in their campaign tactics, but it’s common-sense to everyone else. http://vox-nova.com/2008/08/27/conventional-thoughts/#comments
I’m sorry, I missed the part where you explain why we should cringe? Sure it would be nice if his speech was about how we should put Christ and the Church the center of our lives, but … well… that wasn’t going to happen was it? What would you have preferred?
“Of course Obama doesn’t think he is the Messiah, and neither do his supporters. Anyone with an ounce of media literacy can tell the way in which the McCain camp dreamed up and promulgates that lie.”
Obama is certainly the object of messiah-lite-like adoration in a way that few Americans are. There was a similar mystique around Ron Paul. I don’t know why you and others get so defensive about it. I don’t see it as a negative and it isn’t McCain who “dreamed” it up. It’s been the butt of jokes for far longer.
I prefer the traditional hierarchy of allegiances:
God, Family, Country
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I was certainly educated, as a Catholic, to believe that the Catholic Church was the “one true Church” and that America was extraordinarily special among nations. As much as possible, both themes were woven through all academic subjects. For example, I was taught to read with the Faith and Freedom Readers (published by Ginn). We sang patriotic songs in glee club. History and geography classes were used to promote both Americanism and Catholicism. Math and spelling were the only two subjects I can remember that didn’t promote Americanism and Catholicism. (It would have been so easy to have a “Faith and Freedom” type speller. I wonder why we didn’t.)
I would suspect that most Americans, myself among them, believe in some version of exceptionalism, if that means we think of America as the greatest country on earth and the leading promoter of freedom and democracy and the “last best hope.” And all of this even in spite of the terrible things George Bush and some of his predecessors did.
David,
I think the term “American Exceptionalism” has a specific meaning among evangelical eschatology. I could be wrong, but I think it emerges during Reconstruction. So, believing that America is the greatest country on Earth doesn’t mean you ascribe to American Exceptionalism.
Actually, the country wherein I’m now living is the only one I’ve ever known that is largely free from the dangerous fault of “exeptionalism” or “ultra-nationalism.”
Almost all of the Germans I’ve so far met are quite frank in proclaiming their country guilty of terrible, terrible crimes and and in labeling it as historically “dangerous.”
I think this awareness of past crimes serves as a counter to the blasphemy of nationalism, and I’m beginning to suspect that this may be the most “Christian” country I’ve ever lived in, as a result of the modern Germans’ detestation of nationalism.
I’m sorry, I missed the part where you explain why we should cringe? Sure it would be nice if his speech was about how we should put Christ and the Church the center of our lives, but … well… that wasn’t going to happen was it? What would you have preferred?
Actually, no, I don’t think it would be nice if he told americans to put Christ and the Church at the center of our lives. Obama surely wouldn’t be a very credible bearer of that message, considering he left his truth-telling church because of the political pressure, and that he was quoted as saying “I don’t go to church to have my core values challenged.” I would prefer if presidential candidates (and americans in general) stopped speaking of america as the “last best hope of the world” and that garbage. I don’t expect that to happen in general because americanism is the strongest religion in america, but I do think american Christians should oppose that language fiercely.