The End of Faith (19 page)

tyranny to liberalism is unlikely to be accomplished by plebiscite. It seems all but
certain that some form of benign dictatorship will generally be necessary to bridge the
gap. But benignity is the key and if it cannot emerge from within a state, it must be
imposed from without. The means of such imposition are necessarily crude: they amount to
economic isolation, military intervention (whether open or covert), or some combination of
both.52 While this may seem an exceedingly arrogant doctrine to espouse, it appears we have no
alternatives. We cannot wait for weapons of mass destruction to dribble out of the former
Soviet Unionto pick only one horrible possibilityand into the hands of fanatics.

We should, I think, look upon modern despotisms as hostage crises. Kim Jong II has thirty
million hostages. Saddam Hussein had twenty-five million. The clerics in Iran have seventy
million more. It does not matter that many hostages have been so brainwashed that they
will fight their would-be liberators to the death. They are held prisoner twice overby
tyranny and by their own ignorance. The developed world must, somehow, come to their
rescue. Jonathan Glover seems right to suggest that we need “something along the lines of
a strong and properly funded permanent UN force, together with clear criteria for
intervention and an international court to authorize it.”53 We can say it even more simply: we need a world government. How else will a war between
the United States and China ever become as unlikely as a war between Texas and Ver- mont?
We are a very long way from even thinking about the possi- bility of a world government,
to say nothing of creating one. It would require a degree of economic, cultural, and moral
integration that we may never achieve. The diversity of our religious beliefs constitutes
a primary obstacle here. Given what most of us believe about God, it is at present
unthinkable that human beings will ever identify themselves merely as human beings, disavowing all lesser affiliations. World government does seem a long way offso long that
we may not survive the trip.

Is Islam compatible with a civil society? Is it possible to believe

what you must believe to be a good Muslim, to have military and economic power, and to not
pose an unconscionable threat to the civil societies of others? I believe that the answer
to this question is no. If a stable peace is ever to be achieved between Islam and the
West, Islam must undergo a radical transformation. This transfor- mation, to be palatable
to Muslims, must also appear to come from Muslims themselves. It does not seem much of an
exaggeration to say that the fate of civilization lies largely in the hands of “moder-
ate” Muslims. Unless Muslims can reshape their religion into an ideology that is basically
benignor outgrow it altogetherit is difficult to see how Islam and the West can avoid
falling into a con- tinual state of war, and on innumerable fronts. Nuclear, biological,
and chemical weapons cannot be uninvented. As Martin Rees points out, there is no reason
to expect that we will be any more successful at stopping their proliferation, in small
quantities, than we have been with respect to illegal drugs.54 If this is true, weapons of mass destruction will soon be available to anyone who wants
them.

Perhaps the West will be able to facilitate a transformation of the Muslim world by
applying outside pressure. It will not be enough, however, for the United States and a few
European countries to take a hard line while the rest of Europe and Asia sell advanced
weaponry and “dual-use” nuclear reactors to all comers. To achieve the neces- sary
economic leverage, so that we stand a chance of waging this war of ideas by peaceful
means, the development of alternative energy technologies should become the object of a
new Manhattan Project. There are, needless to say, sufficient economic and environmental
justifications for doing this, but there are political ones as well. If oil were to become
worthless, the dysfunction of the most prominent Muslim societies would suddenly grow as
conspicuous as the sun. Muslims might then come to see the wisdom of moderating their
thinking on a wide variety of subjects. Otherwise, we will be obliged to protect our
interests in the world with forcecontinually. In this case, it seems all but certain that
our newspapers will begin to read more and more like the book of Revelation.

West of Eden

COMPARED with the theocratic terrors of medieval Europe, or those that persist in much of the
Muslim world, the influence of religion in the West now seems rather benign. We should not
be misled by such comparisons, however. The degree to which religious ideas still
determine government policiesespecially those of the United Statespresents a grave danger
to everyone. It has been widely reported, for instance, that Ronald Reagan perceived the
paroxysms in the Middle East through the lens of biblical prophecy. He went so far as to
include men like Jerry Falwell and Hal Lindsey in his national security briefings.1 It should go without saying that theirs are not the sober minds one wants consulted about
the deployment of nuclear weaponry. For many years U.S. policy in the Middle East has been
shaped, at least in part, by the interests that fundamental- ist Christians have in the
future of a Jewish state. Christian “support for Israel” is, in fact, an example of
religious cynicism so transcen- dental as to go almost unnoticed in our political
discourse. Funda- mentalist Christians support Israel because they believe that the final
consolidation of Jewish power in the Holy Landspecifically, the rebuilding of Solomon's
templewill usher in both the Second Coming of Christ and the final destruction of the Jews.2 Such smil- ing anticipations of genocide seem to have presided over the Jewish state from
its first moments: the first international support for the Jewish return to Palestine,
Britain's Balfour Declaration of 1917, was inspired, at least in part, by a conscious
conformity to biblical prophecy.3 These intrusions of eschatology into modern politics sug-

gest that the dangers of religious faith can scarcely be overstated. Millions of
Christians and Muslims now organize their lives around prophetic traditions that will only
find fulfillment once rivers of blood begin flowing from Jerusalem. It is not at all
difficult to imag- ine how prophecies of internecine war, once taken seriously, could
become self-fulfilling.

The Eternal Legislator

Many members of the U.S. government currently view their profes- sional responsibilities
in religious terms. Consider the case of Roy Moore, chief justice of the Alabama Supreme
Court. Finding himself confronted by the sixth-highest murder rate in the nation, Justice
Moore thought it expedient to install a two-and-a-half-ton monu- ment of the Ten
Commandments in the rotunda of the state court- house in Montgomery. Almost no one
disputes that this was a violation of the spirit (if not the letter) of the
“establishment” clause of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. When a federal
court ordered Justice Moore to remove the monument, he refused. Not wanting to have an
obvious hand in actually separating church and state, the U.S. Congress amended an appropriations bill to ensure that federal
funds could not be used for the monument's removal.4 Attorney General John Ashcroft, whose sole business is to enforce the nation's laws,
maintained a pious silence all the while. This was not surprising, given that when he does
speak, he is in the habit of saying things like “We are a nation called to defend free-
domfreedom that is not the grant of any government or docu- ment, but is our endowment
from God.”5 According to a Gallup poll, Ashcroft and the Congress were on firm ground as far as the
Amer- ican people were concerned, because 78 percent of those polled objected to the
removal of the monument.6 One wonders whether Moore, Ashcroft, the U.S. Congress, and three-quarters of the Amer-
ican people would like to see the punishments for breaking these

WEST OF EDEN 15 5

hallowed commandments also specified in marble and placed in our nation's courts. What,
after all, is the punishment for taking the Lord's name in vain? It happens to be death
(Leviticus 24:16). What is the punishment for working on the Sabbath? Also death (Exodus
31:15). What is the punishment for cursing one's father or mother? Death again (Exodus
21:17). What is the punishment for adultery? You're catching on (Leviticus 20:10). While
the commandments themselves are difficult to remember (especially since chapters 20 and 34
of Exodus provide us with incompatible lists), the penalty for breaking them is simplicity
itself.

Contemporary examples of governmental piety are everywhere to be seen. Many prominent
Republicans belong to the Council for National Policy, a secretive Christian pressure
group founded by the fundamentalist Tim LaHaye (coauthor of the apocalyptic “Left Behind”
series of novels). This organization meets quarterly to dis- cuss who knows what. George
W. Bush gave a closed-door speech to the council in 1999, after which the Christian Right
endorsed his candidacy.7 Indeed, 40 percent of those who eventually voted for Bush were white evangelicals.8 Beginning with his appointment of John Ashcroft as his attorney general, President Bush
found no lack of occasions on which to return the favor. The departments of Justice,
Housing and Urban Development, Health and Human Services, and Education now regularly
issue directives that blur the separation between church and state.9 In his “faith-based initiative” Bush has managed to funnel tens of millions of taxpayer
dollars directly to church groups, to be used more or less however they see fit.10 One of his appointments to the Food and Drug Administration was Dr. W. David Hager, a
pro-life obstetrician who has declared publicly that premarital sex is a sin and that any
attempt to sepa- rate “Christian truth” and “secular truth” is “dangerous.”11 Lieu- tenant General William G. Boykin was recently appointed deputy undersecretary of
defense for intelligence at the Pentagon. A highly decorated Special Forces officer, he
now sets policy with respect to the search for Osama bin Laden, Mullah Omar, and the rest
of

America's enemies in hiding. He is also, as it turns out, an ardent opponent of Satan.
Analyzing a photograph of Mogadishu after the fateful routing of his forces there in 1993,
Boykin remarked that certain shadows in the image revealed “the principalities of dark-
ness ... a demonic presence in that city that God revealed to me as the enemy.”12 On the subject of the war on terror, he has asserted that our “enemy is a guy named Satan.”13 While these remarks sparked some controversy in the media, most Americans probably took
them in stride. After all, 65 percent of us are quite certain that Satan exists.14

Men eager to do the Lord's work have been elected to other branches of the federal
government as well. The House majority leader, Tom DeLay, is given to profundities like
“Only Christianity offers a way to live in response to the realities that we find in this
world. Only Christianity.” He claims to have gone into politics “to promote a Biblical
worldview.” Apparently feeling that it is impossi- ble to say anything stupid while in the
service of this worldview, he attributed the shootings at the Columbine High School in
Colorado to the fact that our schools teach the theory of evolution.15 We might wonder how it is that pronouncements this floridly irrational do not lead to
immediate censure and removal from office.

Facts of this sort can be cataloged without apparent endto the vexation of reader and
writer alike. I will cite just one more, now from the judicial branch: In January of 2002,
Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, a devout Catholic, delivered a speech at the Univer-
sity of Chicago Divinity School on the subject of the death penalty. I quote Scalia at
some length, because his remarks reveal just how close we are to living in a theocracy:

This is not the Old Testament, I emphasize, but St. Paul.... [T]he core of his message is that governmenthowever you want to limit that conceptderives its moral
authority from God. . . . Indeed, it seems to me that the more Christian a country is the less likely it is to regard the death penalty as immoral. . . . I

attribute that to the fact that, for the believing Christian, death is no big deal.
Intentionally killing an innocent person is a big deal: it is a grave sin, which causes
one to lose his soul. But losing this life, in exchange for the next? . . . For the
nonbeliever, on the other hand, to deprive a man of his life is to end his existence. What
a horrible act! ...

The reaction of people of faith to this tendency of democracy to obscure the divine
authority behind government should not be resignation to it, but the resolution to combat
it as effectively as possible. We have done that in this country (and continental Europe
has not) by preserving in our public life many visible reminders thatin the words of a
Supreme Court opinion from the 1940s“we are a religious people, whose institutions pre-
suppose a Supreme Being.” . . . All this, as I say, is most un- European, and helps
explain why our people are more inclined to understand, as St. Paul did, that government
carries the sword as “the minister of God,” to “execute wrath” upon the evildoer.16

All of this should be terrifying to anyone who expects that reason will prevail in the
inner sanctums of power in the West. Scalia is right to observe that what a person
believes happens after death deter- mines his view of itand, therefore, his ethics.
Although he is a Catholic, Scalia differs from the pope on the subject of capital pun-
ishment, but then so do a majority of Americans (74 percent).17 It is remarkable that we are the last civilized nation to put “evildoers” to death, and
Justice Scalia rightly attributes this to our style of reli- giosity. Perhaps we can take
a moment, in this context, to wonder whether our unique position in the world is really
the moral accom- plishment that Scalia imagines it to be. We know, for instance, that no
human being creates his own genes or his early life experiences, and yet most of us
believe that these factors determine his character throughout life. It seems true enough
to say that the men and women on death row either have bad genes, bad parents, bad ideas,
or bad luck. Which of these quantities are they responsible for? Resort-

ing to biblical justifications for capital punishment does nothing to reconcile our
growing understanding of human behavior with our desire for retribution in the face of the
most appalling crimes. There is undoubtedly an important secular debate to be had about
the ethics of the death penalty, but it is just as obvious that we should be draw- ing
upon sources that show a greater understanding of the human mind and modern society than
is evident in Saint Paul.

But men like Scaliamen who believe that we already have God's eternal decrees on paperhave
been inoculated against doubts on this subject or, indeed, against the nuances of a
scientific worldview. It is not surprising that Scalia is the kind of judge that President
Bush has sought to appoint to the federal courts.18 Scalia supports the use of capital punishment even in cases where the defendant is
acknowledged to be mentally retarded.19 He also upholds state sodomy laws (in this case, even when they are applied in an
exclusive and discriminating way to homosexuals).20 Needless to say, Scalia has found legal reasons to insist that the Supreme Court not leaven the religious dogmatism of the states,
but he leaves little doubt that he looks to Saint Paul, and perhaps to the barbarous
author of Leviticus, for guidance on these matters.

The War on Sin

In the United States, and in much of the rest of the world, it is cur- rently illegal to
seek certain experiences of pleasure. Seek pleasure by a forbidden means, even in the
privacy of your own home, and men with guns may kick in the door and carry you away to
prison for it. One of the most surprising things about this situation is how unsurprising
most of us find it. As in most dreams, the very faculty of reason that would otherwise
notice the strangeness of these events seems to have succumbed to sleep.

Behaviors like drug use, prostitution, sodomy, and the viewing of obscene materials have
been categorized as “victimless crimes.” Of course, society is the tangible victim of
almost everything human

WEST OF EDEN l59

beings dofrom making noise to manufacturing chemical waste but we have not made it a crime
to do such things within certain lim- its. Setting these limits is invariably a matter of
assessing risk. One could argue that it is, at the very least, conceivable that certain
activ- ities engaged in private, like the viewing of sexually violent pornog- raphy, might
incline some people to commit genuine crimes against others.21 There is a tension, therefore, between private freedom and public risk. If there were a
drug, or a book, or a film, or a sexual posi- tion that led 90 percent of its users to
rush into the street and begin killing people at random, concerns over private pleasure
would surely yield to those of public safety. We can also stipulate that no one is eager
to see generations of children raised on a steady diet of methamphetamine and Marquis de
Sade. Society as a whole has an interest in how its children develop, and the private
behavior of par- ents, along with the contents of our media, clearly play a role in this.
But we must ask ourselves, why would anyone want to punish peo- ple for engaging in
behavior that brings no significant risk of harm to anyone ? Indeed, what is startling
about the notion of a victimless crime is that even when the behavior in question is
genuinely vic- timless, its criminality is still affirmed by those who are eager to pun-
ish it. It is in such cases that the true genius lurking behind many of our laws stands
revealed. The idea of a victimless crime is nothing more than a judicial reprise of the
Christian notion of sin.

IT is no accident that people of faith often want to curtail the private freedoms of
others. This impulse has less to do with the history of religion and more to do with its
logic, because the very idea of pri- vacy is incompatible with the existence of God. If
God sees and knows all things, and remains so provincial a creature as to be scan- dalized
by certain sexual behaviors or states of the brain, then what people do in the privacy of
their own homes, though it may not have the slightest implication for their behavior in
public, will still be a matter of public concern for people of faith.22