"God gap"--damned if we do, damned if we don't, I'd say

'God gap' impedes U.S. foreign policy, task force says

American foreign policy is handicapped by a narrow, ill-informed and "uncompromising Western secularism" that feeds religious extremism, threatens traditional cultures and fails to encourage religious groups that promote peace and human rights, according to a two-year study by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs.

The council's 32-member task force, which included former government officials and scholars representing all major faiths, delivered its report to the White House on Tuesday. The report warns of a serious "capabilities gap" and recommends that President Obama make religion "an integral part of our foreign policy."

Thomas Wright, the council's executive director of studies, said task force members met Tuesday with Joshua DuBois, head of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships, and State Department officials. "They were very receptive, and they said that there is a lot of overlap between the task force's report and the work they have been doing on this same issue," Wright said.

DuBois declined to comment on the report but wrote on his White House blog Tuesday: "The Office of Faith-based and Neighborhood Partnership and the National Security Staff are working with agencies across government to analyze the ways the U.S. government engages key non-governmental actors, including religious institutions, around the globe."

I'm not sure how the United States should go about "not being secular." This country just is. It's kind of a big deal, if you ask me. I'm not sure exactly how secularism "encourages religious extremism"--wouldn't promoting a conflicting view of religion do the same (or worse?) Also, to what extent should the US government side with religious groups in the interest of promoting peace? While I can see supporting them to the extent that we could support any NGO doing recognizable good, the problem is creating the appearance of that religious group being our puppet for propagandizing, or us just being played by some group looking for followers. I appreciate that diplomats and military personnel alike should be familiarized with some cultural and religious traditions, (I think the term "uninformed" is a troubling thing if it impedes people seeing eye-to-eye), but I don't know that we can ever actually not be secular. It seems like putting on religious "drag"--and that's not really appropriate, is it?

Part of my problem with addressing religion as foreign policy is because, well, my outlook on religion is rather obvious if you've read my blog. When addressing things as a social critic, my response to "the growing influence of Pentecostalism in Latin America, evangelical Christianity in Africa and religious minorities in the Far East" is completely secular: Won't you all tone down the dogma? There are other people trying to evolve on this planet!

As for "religious freedom as imperialism" idea--what? Wouldn't it be a bigger form of oppression to impose a religious tyranny on people? Saying to people, "You are the only officiant in the temple of your mind" isn't about imperialism. Invading and occupying countries is, but I don't see how freedom of religion is.

I don't know much about this Chicago Council on Global Affairs, but a think tank that proposes that the answer to our foreign policy shortfalls is "more God" throws up a red flag to my sensibilities. It's a big world with a wide-ranging variety of beliefs, and I don't know that we can or even should feel obliged to recognize and be sensitive to them all.

(I'm reminded of an anecdote I heard first from Hitchens regarding the British approach to the cultural practice of suttee in India. General Napier is supposed to have said:

"You say that it is your custom to burn widows. Very well. We also have a custom: when men burn a woman alive, we tie a rope around their necks and we hang them. Build your funeral pyre; beside it, my carpenters will build a gallows. You may follow your custom. And then we will follow ours."

Although that would be a sort of imperialist anecdote, wouldn't it? All the same, I'm no cultural relativist, and if I had to chose between them--I'm with the General. I think of, for example, the "kill the gays" measure in Uganda. It's been proposed by evangelicals in that country, and some of those knuckleheads supporting it are from the States. But it's only right to condemn a malicious legislation that persecutes people for nothing more than being who they are. And I can not respect the religious views that created it.)