This is the second of a thirteen part retrospective on the book, Anxious About Empire: Theological Essays on the New Global Realities.  You can read the overview here. 

The second essay, On Getting past the Preamble, is written by Wes Avram, the editor of the book.  Dr. Avram has taught at the Yale Divinity School and now currently pastors a Presbyterian church in Arizona.  He also has a few articles and videos on Beliefnet.

Avram starts out his essay by comparing The National Security Strategy of the United States of America to a “Protestant confession of faith.”  He has a very strong point, one that shows that Robert Bellah’s idea of America having a “civil religion”  is very arguable. (I would tend to agree with Bellah on that point.)  Avram notes that each section of the document is headed by a terms that could be considered “charges to be followed.”  But then he does what so many apologists do, he tries to find something positive, some sort of common ground, some area that can be praised, so as to lessen the reprimand, or critique:

…[O]ne should give credit to the White House for offering the public such a document to ponder and critique.  that itself remains a testimony to American strength.

Are we the reader to believe that, even 5 years ago, if the public decried this document as foul, it would have been rescinded?!?

The National Security Strategy of the United State of America document wasn’t “offered” to the public, it was thrust upon the American public.

Hindsight is 20/20 and Avram’s questioning of vagueness on certain areas reads prophetically:

Are more potentially controversial applications of this broad strategy hidden behind generalities and couched underneath less controversial affirmations?

Um, like torture and indefinite confinement?  Rendition?  Drone and missile attacks across sovereign borders into Pakistan?  Yes, and this is why Avram and the other authors shouldn’t have been “anxious” about empire, but vocally denouncing empire.  I could understand being anxious in say, late 2001.  But 2004?  Did they want to make sure America was empire-building before speaking out, because I’m sure there are many people from other nations who could answer that question quite authoritatively.

Five years later, and I’m asking why Avram didn’t follow his essay up with stronger language, with more force to wake up his congregations and possibly the Church.  When he speaks about the Security Strategy proclaiming both economic opportunities for other countries, but defending America first, he points out that the two ideals are not compatible.  Why not follow that idea up and put it forth to the American Church at large?

Avram even adds in that being a member of the global body of Christ  puts him at odds with this policy for America.  But he doesn’t go so far as to say you can’t have two allegiances.  Which of course cuts the legs out from which he could have stood on.

Avram also brings up a great point about the document not defining terrorism:

…[M]ilitary and government officials are quick to label roadside bombs targeting military convoys as terrorism, so the presence of civilians must not be a necessary condition for something to be terrorism…

Sounds like the perfect setup for unending war to feed the military-industrial complex to me. 

Avram’s definition of terrorism makes America’s actions complicit to the acts of terrorism worldwide:

…[T]he attempt to manipulate people or policy through the cultivation of terror among those considered either directly or indirectly responsible for a harm against the persons, people, or cause of those sowing the terror.

So why not use that as the focus of his essay?  There are many good ideas in his essay, yet Avram for some reason, chooses not to pursue them.

Also, Avram does and excellent job of picking apart the policy that says “terrorists are organized to penetrate open societies and turn the power of modern technologies against us” by noting that 9/11 was carried out via box cutters, not dirty bombs, biological warfare, and other WMDs.

Avram brings up another point, but fails to drive it home when he says governments, but moreso Christians should “pay…attention…to the claims [our] enemies would make on us.”  He says:

…[I]t takes a great deal of courage… to listen to those who hate you and… admit they may have an argument…

To say that, but then list several example prefaced by the phrase, “perhaps we should” only goes to enforce the indifference of world events by a majorityof those who claim to be Christians, let alone Americans.  Looking back after 5 years, Avram was correct, but he was not forceful enough about these issues.  Had his language been stronger and cut a clearer picture, his anxiety about an American empire, could have been used to awaken Christians to pull back from the brink, especially those who staunchly supported the marriage of neo-conservatism and evangelical Christianity, and brought us to this point to begin with.

I am reminded of a quote by Martin Niemöller after reading this essay:

In Germany, they came first for the Communists, And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Communist;
And then they came for the trade unionists, And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a trade unionist;
And then they came for the Jews, And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Jew;
And then… they came for me… And by that time there was no one left to speak up.

-mike