The Temple Nation

I attended (in 2008) a conference at MIT titled “Religion and Violence”. The following is based on that conference.

We spent two days hearing four major speakers and discussing the subject after each. The speakers were James Cone, Protestant; Susannah Heschel, Jewish; James Carroll, Catholic; and Tariq Ramadan, Muslim.

After all of this I am still unsure that religion in today’s world can be blamed for organized violence, that is war, genocide, or internal armed conflict. It was in the past, as in the Crusades, the European wars as the Catholics tried to reassert dominance over Protestants, and attempts by Christians and Muslims to forcibly convert others. Today, however, violence that appears to be religious really has its roots in would-be dictators who use religion as a marker to say “my group” versus “the other”. An example is Modi of India, who leads the Hindu party and demonizes Muslim citizens of India and, by the way, is an elected dictator, among an increasing number of nations. A second use of religion is as a marker for two different groups engaged in a power struggle based on historical forces, as in Israel vs. Palestine, Northern Ireland, and India vs. Pakistan.

James Carroll’s talk, however, introduced a new element. He defined something that is not a named religion but has elements that resemble organized religions. This is the American view of American exceptionalism, The Temple Nation.

This is a dangerous impulse because most Americans are unaware of it. It began with President Lincoln toward the end of the Civil War. We are the United States, now not a plural but a singular entity. Landmarks of this collective conviction are:

• Establishment of Thanksgiving as a de facto national holiday for all
• The Lincoln Memorial anchoring the Mall as a shrine area
• Arlington Cemetery in line with the Mall across the river
• The Capitol Building at the other end of the Mall in the form of a temple
• Battle Hymn of the Republic
• Japanese and Germans as scapegoats, deserving bombings of cities in the last 6 months of World War II
• Bombing Vietnam with napalm
• Monuments to previous war dead are appearing around the Mall