Spring 2008

Mr. Wooldridge deserves kudos for a thoughtful, provocative, and generally balanced approach to widespread neglect of religion as a key factor in international relations. However, concluding comparison of Frank Rich and George Weigel strikes a moral equivalence that dignifies the bigoted anti-Christian rantings of the former and demeans the informed, reasoned, genuine scholarship of the latter.

Posted by Dr. Alexander F. C. Webster | May 17, 2008 11:44:12 AM EDT

What a great article. As a Canadian pastor who works with irreligious young adults and has been involved in national and global peace work, I dialogue with and observe many types of people. Your piece captures the varied sentiments of so many of them. I particularly like your exploration of the important nuances found in Faith communities (although further consideration might be warranted of the nuanced spiritual perspectives which influence so-called "non-believers"). You also capture the underlining sentiment of "if we can't move the trunk than perhaps we can shake some important branches" that is held by many Christians doing international relief/restorative work. I sincerely hope that this article challenges and broadens thinking in this area.

Posted by S. Mealy | May 17, 2008 12:39:43 PM EDT

Kind of an unfocused article. The problem is the religious ignorance of political decision makers, and the article may have more impact if it had focused on their lack of perspective and knowledge. The treaty of Westphalia (and subsequent international law) may in fact be now obsolete, not because of religious ignorance, but because the arena of political interaction and its assumptions and understandings have left West and Christian world. And Mr. Wooldridge misreads, imho, several of the commentators he dismisses.

Posted by pashley | May 17, 2008 4:29:00 PM EDT

An excellent article, but I disagree strongly with parts of it. Adrian Wooldridge wrote: "A recent survey of Muslim opinion by Gallup, culled from face-to-face interviews with tens of thousands of people over the past six years, demonstrates plainly that the majority of Muslims view the world through an entirely different lens than the extremists who kill in their name." What Wooldridge fails to mention here: Though it's true that polls of Muslims, for example in the UK, find that 'only' about 1% of them are willing or eager to participate in terror against the UK (recall that 1% of UK Muslims means, very roughly, about 16,000 people), and while it's true that 'only' another 5% to 9% of UK Muslims agree with terror against the UK, but would not wish to take part themselves in terror, what is really a matter of concern is that 40% to 60% of UK Muslims say they want to replace Western legal systems with Islamic law. The fact that most of them want to do that through the ballot box is hardly much consolation, given the rapidly changing demographic realities of the UK and Europe.    Wooldridge also says: "...majorities endorse democracy in the abstract. They also support the requisites of liberal governance. Huge majorities say that, if they were designing a constitution, they would guarantee freedom of speech (93 percent in Egypt, 93 percent in Iran, 90 percent in Indonesia)." I'll bet dollars to donuts that what many of those supposedly liberal Muslims were saying, is that they believe in free speech so long as it does not contradict Islam or the Koran. That is the arrangement one finds in the new "liberal" constitutions of Iraq and Afghanistan. No doubt many will remember how an Afghan convert from Islam to Christianity was given a death sentence for apostasy. Hardly anyone in Afghanistan objected. He was only let off after a huge international outcry, and once the judiciary saved face by saying he was mentally ill or some such nonsense. He then had to leave the country for fear of his life.

Posted by traeh | May 17, 2008 5:42:46 PM EDT

It would've been nice if Wooldridge had discussed precisely why "the borders of Islam are bloody." His TME (tiny minority of extremists) storyline would apply equally to any political cause: Only a small number of Communists actually participated in violent revolution, only a tiny number of Irish planted bombs during the Troubles, only a tiny number of Americans fought during the War for Independence. So a key question in political revolution, including the global Islamic revolution is: How does one change a culture so that it can't support a TME? After all, a TME can only get its job done if it lives within a supportive environment: You need a safehouse to store weapons, people to carry money, neighbors who won't rat you out to the police. That was true during the American Revolution, and it's true during the global Islamic revolution. The post-modernists are right: Culture matters, and it frames the way people view their world. Examples: Anti-gay hate-speech by the many leads to gay-bashings by the few. A culture that tolerates casual verbal racism creates an environment for racial lynchings. So a key way to get the TME to dissolve is to find out how to change the broader culture that it thrives in. I'm not holding my breath waiting for the social science profession to rise to the task of dismantling the culture that supports Islamic extremism.....They're busy critiquing Western culture to critique anyone else's....

Posted by Garett Jones | May 20, 2008 6:24:14 PM EDT

Wooldridge makes some important points here, but even as he excoriates secular Chicken Littles for the reductionist analysis of religion, he perpetuates his own -- continuing, for instance, his crush on Sam Brownback, first revealed in The Economist. It's true that Senator Brownback, whom I interviewed extensively, has been active around humanitarian issues. And for Wooldridge, apparently, that's enough; no need to ask further questions. But why should we be surprised that conservatives care about such matters? They always have. The question is not whether they care about suffering (they do), but how they think it should be addressed. And Brownback's solutions for suffering almost always boil down to one principle -- privatization. Conservative readers may agree with that, but let's not pretend that Brownback is offering something new, some unprecedented, faith-based approach. For better or worse, he's not. Wooldridge's reductionism is far more dangerous when it comes to the group he calls The Fellowship, about which I know a thing or two, having several years sifting through their archives and interviewing members for my recent book, "The Family." The Fellowship refers to The Fellowship Foundation, just one non-profit entity among many (the International Foundation, the C Street Foundation, the C.S. Lewis Institute, etc.) under the umbrella of the network that Doug Coe has called The Family in internal documents for the last 30 years. Wooldridge's assessment of their goals is similarly uninformed. "Reconciliation," as The Family has understood it since founder Abraham Vereide first preached the "reconciliation" of organized labor to the authority of management, does not mean peace between religions. Rather, it refers to their idea of Jesus as a figure transcending all religions, and requiring submission from members of all religions. One such was Suharto of Indonesia, whose bloody authoritarianism Doug Coe saw as a sign that Suharto, a Muslim, had nonetheless been anointed by Jesus. Coe effectively lobbied on Suharto's behalf among American congressmen and arranged for meetings between the dictator and American oilmen. Suharto surely had no illusions about the relationship on offer; his submission to the American Jesus to whom these men asked him to pray was a ritual expression of authority, power, and very pragmatic politics: those same Americans made sure that Suharto had all the guns he'd ever need to massacre the East Timorese. The nearly 600 boxes of documents in The Family's archive at the Billy Graham Center in Wheaton, Illinois, are filled with many more such tales -- self-described "Koranic Marxist" Siad Barre of Somalia agreed to pray to the American Christ with Senator Chuck Grassley and then-Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General John Vessey so long as the U.S., his new patron, satisfied his desire for guns, not butter -- wishes communicated through The Family. In 1959, a young Doug Coe, in concert with Senators Frank Carlson -- a founder of The Family's National Prayer Breakfast -- and Homer Capehart -- identified Haiti's Papa Doc Duvalier as a "man of God," worthy of all U.S. support they could arrange. They saw the Roman Catholic succession of generals who crushed Brazil in the 1960s and 70s in similar terms, and, as The L.A. Times' Lisa Getter has documented, played a key role in arranging support for some of Central America's most murderous leaders during the Reagan administration. Such relationships with strongmen -- including the Congolese killer Wooldridge calls "Kabala," (Joseph Kabila) and the Rwandan Paul Kagame -- are no accidents, nor even realpolitik, but a direct outgrowth of The Family's emphasis on a literalist reading of Romans 13:1 -- "The powers that be are ordained of God" -- and ai reading of The New Testament that emphasizes not love, or mercy, or forgiveness, or justice -- words that rarely appear in the hundreds of thousands of documents I reviewed -- but strength. It's this fetishization of strength that leads Doug Coe to perceive leadership lessons in the 20th century's worst murderers. In a representative sermon one can find online at the Navigators' website, Coe preaches that "Jesus said ‘You got to put Him before mother-father-brother-sister? Hitler, Lenin, Mao, that's what they taught the kids. Mao even had the kids killing their own mother and father. But it wasn't murder. It was for building the new nation. The new kingdom." Based on the incidents Wooldridge cites, it's clear that he's relying on D. Michael Lindsay's account of The Family in his "Faith in the Halls of Power." Lindsay, a sociologist who conducted his study as a Princeton graduate student, provides us with valuable data. But, as an honest scholar, he also provides us with the means of ascertaining the limits of his data, including appendices that reveal his lack of historical investigation or any serious engagement with archival sources connected to The Family. From Lindsay, we learn of the Albanian's admiration for Doug Coe; from Lindsay, we learn that The Family sought a truce in the Rwanda-Congo conflict. But what kind of truce? On what terms? All we know for certain on that score is that The Family's "quiet diplomacy," as Bush, Sr., described it at the 1992 National Prayer Breakfast , did not persuade Kabila and Kagame, two very dangerous men, to lay down their arms at the feet of the American Jesus. In 2002, I attended a Family meeting between former Attorney General Ed Meese, a core member, and Rwanda's ambassador to the U.S. Meese rambled on about the wonders of the Jesus that he knew, the peace to be had in His name, the business opportunities that would follow. The Rwandan ambassador's jaw nearly dropped at the shallowness of it all, an affront to real diplomacy and real faith. "It is not so simple," he said, ending the conversation.

Posted by Jeff Sharlet | June 28, 2008 3:18:03 PM EDT