Captain America and the Crusade against Evil: The Dilemma of Zealous Nationalism

Robert Jewett John Shelton Lawrence

Captain America and the Crusade against Evil
Wm B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2003, xv1 + 392pp

A Review for Anvil

This book is scary. Its thesis could be summed up in a question: Is it conceivable that American foreign policy is in some way shaped by the comic book heroes its leaders read about when they were little boys? In February 2002, the cover of Der Spiegel depicted “the Bush Warriors” (die Bush Krieger). Dick Cheney was portrayed as the Terminator, Colin Powell as Batman, Donald Rumsfeld as Conan the Barbarian and Condoleezza Rice as Xena, the Warrior Princess. George W. Bush was depicted as Rambo with a bandoleer draped across his chest. When Daniel Coats, the U.S. ambassador to Germany saw the cover he asked Der Spiegel to supply poster-sized copies for the White House. Have America’s leaders become inoculated against the irony by the sheer success of their own pop culture?

In Captain America, Robert Jewett and John Shelton Lawrence claim that we have indeed got a Rambo in the West Wing. But more disturbing, they trace the roots of this superhero myth and what they term ‘zealous nationalism’ which increasingly shapes America’s dealings with the rest of the world, back to the Bible. Well documented and illuminating chapters address issues such as the ‘world redemptive impulse’, the growing popularity of zeal and jihad, the danger of stereotyping enemies, the worship of national symbols like flags and the crusade against terrorism.

The author’s provide a compelling analysis of the religious roots of American culture, arguing that at various times, one of two competing and incompatible political traditions rooted in Scripture has dominated, namely, prophetic realism (epitomised by the emphasis on justice and tolerance in Hosea and Jeremiah) and zealous nationalism (illustrated in the redemptive violence of passages in Deuteronomy and Revelation).

They show how the tradition of Zealous nationalism, now dominant in American civil religion, perceives America to be a chosen nation raised up by God with a sacred calling or ‘Manifest Destiny’ to redeem the world. Political complexity and moral ambiguity are subservient to the simple biblical dualism of good verses evil, in which redemption is achieved by destroying those we identify as our enemies.

Intrinsic to this world view is a moral absolutism which divides the world into two peoples – true believers who will be rescued and the rest who will suffer. Jewett and Lawrence note, “This sustains the popular feeling that Americans are innocent while their adversaries are full of malice, that political opponents are evil and should be opposed on principle.”

The authors show how the apocalyptic religious zeal, now dominant in America, is also ironically a mirror image of both Islamic jihad as well as Israeli militancy witnessed in the settler movement. The parallels are both striking and worrying. They note the inherent contradiction of America progressively distancing itself from any accountability to the United Nations or international law, in order to fulfil its unilateral crusade to impose Pax Americana and, to use the words of George W. Bush, “rid the world of evil”.

Like Captain America, it seems, its leaders justify circumventing the law in order to protect the innocent, but in so doing, deny the human rights of those they want to save. As the events in Guantanamo Bay post 9/11 and more recently in Abu Ghraib reveal, despite the heroic exploits of Captain America, the purest of motives do not ensure immunity from corruption.

In Captain America, Jewett and Lawrence clearly major on the bad news and probably give insufficient space to the prophetic realism strand within American civil religion. It is also something of an oversimplification to suggest that the competing and contradictory dualism they observe in America is intrinsic to the biblical narrative itself. The Bible is not the cause of this conflict but rather, as in the case of Christian Zionism, a convenient source of authoritative proof texts to sacralise political colonialism and racism.

The authors insist, “It is not our adversaries alone who must change: it is ourselves. But we cannot accomplish this alone.... Its calls for a creative rechanneling of Captain America’s impulse to ‘fight for right’ toward a religious commitment that is shaped both by self critical questioning and a sense of hope about the possibilities of peace.”

The publication of Captain America and the Crusade against Evil could not be more timely or relevant, as much for the survival of American democracy as for the peace process in the Middle East. Through the literary tactics of shock and awe, the book will hopefully provoke internal debate within America and, God-willing, soul searching will lead to change. For, if we are to avoid the apocalyptic eschatology of fundamentalism, Jewish, Christian and Muslim, becoming a self fulfilling prophecy, we must break the cycle of violence by peaceful means. Jesus said “Blessed are the peacemakers for they shall be called the children of God.”

“The worst vice of a fanatic,” Oscar Wilde once noted, “is his sincerity.” The sincerity of American religious zeal is clearly not in doubt. Nevertheless, the question Captain America leaves unanswered is this: “Who will save the world from those who want to save America?”