From Professor Cornel West, 2004 Essay on
contemporary Christianity and politics:
...This same religious schizophrenia has been a
constant feature of American Christianity. The early American branch of the
Christian movement-the Puritans-consisted of persecuted victims of the British
empire in search of liberty and security. On the one hand, they laid the
foundations for America’s noble antiimperialist struggle against the British
empire. On the other hand, they enacted the imperialist subordination of
(Native Americans/Indians). Their democratic sensibilities were intertwined
with their authoritarian sentiments. The American democratic experiment would
have been inconceivable without the fervor of Christians yet strains of Constantinianism
were woven into the fabric of America’s Christian identity from the start.
Constantinian strains of American Christianity have been on the wrong side of
so many of our social troubles, such as the dogmatic justification of slavery
and the parochial defense of women’s inequality. It has been the prophetic
Christian tradition, by contrast, that has so often pushed for social justice.
When conservative Christians argue today for
state-sponsored religious schools, when they throw their tacit or more overt
support behind antiabortion zealots or homophobic crusaders who preach hatred
(a few have even killed in the name of their belief), they are being
Constantinian Christians. These Constantinian Christians fail to appreciate
their violation of Christian love and justice because Constantinian
Christianity in America places such a strong emphasis on personal conversion,
individual piety, and philanthropic service and has lost its fervor for the
suspicion of worldly authorities and for doing justice in the service of the
most vulnerable among us, which are central to the faith. These energies are
rendered marginal to their Christian identity.
Most American Constantinian Christians are
unaware of their imperialistic identity because they do not see the parallel
between the Roman empire that put Jesus to death and the American empire that
they celebrate. As long as they can worship freely and pursue the American
dream, they see the American government as a force for good and American
imperialism as a desirable force for spreading that good. They proudly profess
their allegiance to the flag and the cross not realizing that just as the cross
was a bloody indictment of the Roman empire, it is a powerful critique of the
American empire, and they fail to acknowledge that the cozy relation between
their Christian leaders and imperial American rulers may mirror the intimate
ties between the religious leaders and imperial Roman rulers who crucified
their Savior.
I have no doubt that most of these American
Constantinian Christians are sincere in their faith and pious in their actions.
But they are relatively ignorant of the crucial role they play in sponsoring
American imperial ends. Their understanding of American history is thin and
their grasp of Christian history is spotty, which leaves them vulnerable to
manipulation by Christian leaders and misinformation by imperial rulers. The
Constantinian Christian support of the pervasive disinvestment in urban centers
and cutbacks in public education and health care, as well as their emphatic
defense of the hardline policies of the Israeli government, has much to do with
the cozy alliance of Constantinian Christian leaders with the political elites
beholden to corporate interests who provide shelter for cronyism. In short,
they sell their precious souls for a mess of imperial pottage based on the
false belief that they are simply being true to the flag and the cross. The
very notion that the prophetic legacy of the grand victim of the Roman
empire-Jesus Christ-requires critique of and resistance to American imperial
power hardly occurs to them.
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