Idolatry of the American Way

Quotations out of context by the Protestant Theologian Reinhold Niebuhr(1892-1971) are often employed by neo-conservatives to justify their foreign policy of violence and great power hegemony. But Niebuhr was sharply critical of nationalism and an advocate of genuine democracy, which meant that people would participate in making the decisions that affect their lives. Todays neo conservatives use the words democracy and freedom as code words for rule by the corporations and trade without restrictions such as labor standards and ecological safeguards. And Niebuhr spoke out against the great power chauvinism of the United States and the tendency of American Protestants to justify this misuse of power. Niebuhr wrote:

If the ministers of our great urban churches become again the simple priests and chaplains of this American idolatry, subtly compounded with a few stray Christian emphases, they will merely add one more dismal proof in the pages of history that a religiously sanctified self-idolatry is more grievous than its secular variety. This is how the gospel becomes a salt that has lost its savor.

The gospel cannot be preached with truth and power if it does not challenge the pretensions and pride, not only of individuals, but of nations, cultures, civilizations, economic and political systems. The good fortune of America and its power place it under the most grievous temptations to self-adulation. If there is no power and grace in the Christian church "to bring down every high thing which exalteth itself against the knowledge of God," the church becomes not merely useless but dangerous.

We Protestants speak critical words about the idolatrous pretensions of the Roman Church. But some of these pretensions are actually more plausible than this miserable identification of the "laws of God" with a particular form of democracy....

Christianity and Society, Spring 1950, in Love and Justice, p. 97.