by Doug King   [5-8-04]

As your WebWeaver, I generally try to confine my efforts to editing (OK, with a little editorializing around the edges) and managing this website.

But today I feel compelled to go beyond that, and to offer a few very sketchy reflections on the awful revelations of the past week - with more promised for the days ahead. My intent is not to offer any conclusive analysis, but to suggest a few connections with things we have posted and discussed over the past few months, and specifically to point to a few theological issues that cry out for attention.

Whose fault is it?

The blame game is well under way. The soldiers and Military Police were ill-prepared for the tasks assigned to them. They were afraid. They just didn't recognize about "the enemy" as human beings. They were just acting under orders from the intelligence personnel. Rumsfeld should resign. It's the President who is ultimately responsible.

We may want to say Yes to all of the above, but I suspect there are deeper problems. In an excellent article that we posted in March, "Christians Must Challenge American Messianic Nationalism: A Call to the Churches," Rosemary Radford Ruether says that our current wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have been depicted by the Bush administration, and most clearly by the President himself, "as if they were episodes in an apocalyptic drama of good against evil, angels of light against the forces of darkness, God's chosen people against God's enemies."

Undergirding this holy war, she says, are four false theological assumptions: That "God chooses one nation above all other nations." That "the United States is God's uniquely chosen nation." That "evil is socially located in the enemies of the United States." And that "evil can be conquered by external coercion, ultimately by military force."

Based on these assumptions, the U.S. government has operated with blithe disregard for the delicate system of rules and agreements that have been developed over the past few decades as a way to keep the world from destroying itself. So we have viewed agreements to limit global warming and nuclear arms as applying to everyone else, but not to us. We have dismissed the UN as irrelevant - at least until things start falling apart and we need to cover our tails.

Further, by drawing a clear line between good and evil, we have made it easy, if not imperative, to treat the "bad guys" as indeed evil, and therefore not just less than human, but anti-human. Inhuman treatment is justified, it seems, for those who not human.

Finally, the President seems to have seized upon the terrible acts of 9/11 as a grand political tool: an inspirer of fear in the American people that has justified many actions and policies that would probably have been rejected otherwise. So if the guards in Abu Ghraib have indeed been motivated by fear, they're just responding as we've all been taught over the past couple years.

In a culture of anxiety and a world divided into good and evil, their actions make perfect sense.

This does not mean the perpetrators of these crimes are really innocent. But it does mean that the question of guilt and responsibility is far more broad and for more complex.

If Christians are to offer any redemptive insights in this deeply troubled time, we must begin there: The real problems are deep. They are at base rooted in bad theology, as Dr. Ruether so clearly outlined it for us. We face a challenge today, to offer a prophetic witness to authentic faith and point the way toward authentic living in the world.

One final thought: In his testimony on Friday, the Secretary of Defense seemed to indicate repeatedly that for him the real issue is not what was done to prisoners completely under American control. The issue was that somebody took pictures, and showed them to the world. And for many of the congressional questioners the concern was not "How did this happen?" It was not "Why wasn't the President informed when the first hints of trouble began emerging back in January - or even earlier?" No, the concern was "Why wasn't the President told when you knew there were photos?" These are all legitimate questions, but we as a nation must finally face the deeper questions: How could we (not "they," but "we") have done such things?

And of course then, What can we do to change that culture of fear, that view of a good-vs.-evil world, to prevent those things from happening again?

School of the Americas Watch has offered some simple, immediate suggestions. We might start there.

And let's talk!

If you have comments about this little exploration I'd love to hear them.
If you have ideas of your own, or can suggest other resources, let us know!