The weather here in Washington is unseasonably cold, with the temperature hovering around zero. Yet people on the street seem cheerful, with the sound of Merry Christmas ringing down Massachusetts Avenue. The cheer is partly to do with the fact that Congress is long gone, work schedules are very light, and consumerism as only America can do it is in full gear. But there is something more - the major religious holiday of the year is upon us. And this is something most Americans care about in a very personal way.
When I lived in the United Kingdom I used to look forward to a certain type of article, bound to occur at least twice a year. Some overly-earnest senior member of the Church of England was bound to say something doubting the divinity of Christ (which from the American perspective would seem to be biting the hand that feeds you), uttering that Christianity is all just symbolism, to be taken with a grain of salt, if that. The cleric would then be forced to make torturous retractions for having made the mistake of saying what so many in his immediate entourage felt. I thought the point of many Easter services in the UK was to look at the fun and outrageous hats ladies were wearing - at best it was largely what the unfortunate C of E notables had said, more a cultural observance than anything approaching a religious feeling. As a good friend said to me, Im Church of England, meaning Im agnostic.
This is perhaps the largest contrast between the UK (and much of the rest of the European continent) and the United States. By all standards measuring religious fervour church-going, beliefs, and the role of religion in ones everyday life the US seems to hail from a different planet from that of its European allies. In terms of the advanced industrial societies, the United States is by far the most religious. Nor does this trend show any signs of abating. While polling has Europeans becoming ever less connected to religion in their daily lives, America, if anything, grows more devout. This is particularly true of evangelical Christians, whose numbers are increasing at the fastest rate in the country. It is this group who give secular Europeans the willies. Evangelicals tend to be confident in their faith, express their religious feelings (here is the crux of the matter) freely, and are eager to have you adopt their religious orientation. In terms of Christianity, evangelicals are the neo-cons of the movement.
This is a point Javier Solana, former secretary-general of Nato and European commissioner for foreign affairs acutely commented on earlier this year. Differences regarding religion are a major part of the values divide between America and Europe. This has obvious foreign-policy ramifications. It is little wonder that evangelicals in the Republican base from the first supported neo-conservative impulses in the Bush administration. Both groups have a messianic streak not common to standard conservative thinking. Both, as with Wilsonians in the Democratic party, see moralism as a key component of international relations. And both see the world largely in terms of good and evil, right and wrong.
Nor is any of this new. This is a time-honoured part of the American political discourse. While American troops were literally freezing to death at Valley Forge, an early American patriot, Thomas Paine (who ironically was an avowed atheist) was writing that with victory in the revolution, America could truly remake the world again.
It is easy to laugh at evangelical moral certitudes from the safety of a European café. It does help explain many differences animating the transatlantic rift. And indeed, to put it bluntly, this is not the part of the movement I come from. But underestimate evangelicals and other American utopian movements at your peril. For in many ways, Thomas Paine is not that far off. Certainly in the latter days of 1918, at Normandy, and during the cold war, American exceptionalism was a vital factor in motivating Washington to do what would have seemed hopelessly naïve to harder-eyed realists. In 1918, why should America intervene in a European war? In the dark days of 1940-41, why should it support the UK economically and with material when such largesse was bound to fall in the hands of a victorious Hitler? In the post-1945 world, why should the US risk nuclear annihilation to buttress our resentful impoverished allies (the UK and France) and our erstwhile enemies (Germany and Italy)?
Yes, in each case I as a realist think it was in Americas interests to behave as we did. But you understand little about the country if you dont acknowledge that because it was the right thing to do was also part of the answer lying behind American foreign-policy initiatives. Europeans may be uncomfortable with moralism (goodness knows I am) and the deep wellsprings of religion such views emanate from in American society. But there is little doubt we have all benefited from the naïve optimism that has enabled America to do amazing, beneficial things not just for itself, but also for all mankind. What makes things so very hard now, must be seen to have been a blessing to much of the world, at least in the recent past.
And on this oddly hopeful note, I wish you all a very politically incorrect Merry Christmas.
