Boykin's god
You can bet the Terrorists are watching this case. If he loses his job or is changed to another, they look upon it as another sign that we don't stick up for our Generals. It will also enrage the Religious Right and make even more of them give money and vote. Here are a couple of columns by our media elite on this subject.
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Warring with God
By James Carroll, Boston Globe 10/21/2003
I KNEW that my God was bigger than his,'' Lieutenant General William G. Boykin said of his Muslim opponent. ''I knew that my God was a real God, and his was an idol.'' That and other remarks derogatory of Islam caused a stir last week, especially because the general holds a key position in the war on terrorism. Awkward memories surfaced of President Bush's inadvertent use of the term ''crusade'' to define that war, and fears broke into the open that the war was, despite disclaimers, a religious war after all.
Boykin's Pentagon superiors did not seem to take offense, but Muslim leaders did, and so did members of Congress. Boykin's remarks can only inflame Arab perceptions. On Friday the general offered a sort of apology.
''I am neither a zealot nor an extremist,'' he said, ''only a soldier who has an abiding faith.''
The general's critics are right to deplore the denigration of the faith of Muslims, but the problem goes deeper than a crudely expressed religious chauvinism. In point of fact, the general's remarks do not make him an extremist. It was unfashionable of him to speak aloud the implications of his ''abiding faith,'' but exclusivist claims made for Jesus Christ by most Christians, from Vatican corridors to evangelical revival tents, implicitly insult the religion of others. When Catholics speak of ''salvation'' only through Jesus, or when Protestants limit ''justification'' to faith in Jesus, aspersions are cast on the entire non-Christian world.
In the past, the step from such exclusivist theology to contempt for those excluded has been small indeed, and the step from such contempt to open violence has been even smaller. Especially in relation to Islam. Last week's response to General Boykin, however, suggests a new sensitivity to the links between intolerant theology and intolerant behavior.
The danger of religious war is real. And religious war follows less from conscious intentions of warriors than from the beliefs that inspire them. Boykin makes the question urgent: What kind of God does this general -- and the nation he serves -- believe in? Boykin describes a ''bigger'' God in conflict with smaller gods, vanquishing them. Idols get smashed. The soldier's faith is braced by the assumption that God, too, can have recourse to violence, and foundational texts of Judaism, Christianity, Islam, and other religions posit just that.
''The Lord is a man of war,'' says Exodus (15:3). As violence is one of the notes of the human condition, religions often attribute it to God, and then divine violence cycles back to justify the human propensity to act violently. The omnipotent warrior God is so firmly entrenched in the human imagination that even atheists affirm it in the very act of denying that such a God exists.
The ethical dilemma facing all religions today, but perhaps especially religions of revelation, is laid bare here: How to affirm one's own faith without denigrating the faith of others? The problem can seem unsolvable if religion is understood as inherently dialectic -- reality defined as oppositions between earth and heaven, the natural and the supernatural, knowledge and revelation, atheism and theism, secularism and faith, evil and good. If the religious imagination is necessarily structured on such polarities, then religion is inevitably a source of conflict, contempt, violence. My faith is true, yours is idolatry. My God is bigger than your god. My God is a warrior, and so am I.
But there can be such a thing as an inclusivist religious faith that rejects this way of thinking. Instead of polarity, this other way of being religious assumes unity -- unity between God and God's creation, which serves in turn as a source of unity among God's creatures. This reconciling truth is what all the great religions -- certainly the three Abrahamic religions -- assert when they identify God, most basically, not with conflict but with love.
General Boykin says that his God is ''real'' because his God brings him victory in battle. But the first standard against which the reality of God is measured, even in Boykin's own Christian tradition, is not ''bigness'' or power but empathetic love. God is love, and the only way to honor God is by loving the neighbor. This is not a minor theme but the essential affirmation.
Therefore Boykin has it wrong -- but so do legions of his fellow believers, from the Vatican to those revival tents to the Oval Office. The general's offense was to speak aloud the implication of a still broadly held theology.
But that theology is dangerous now. A respectful religious pluralism is no longer just a liberal hope but an urgent precondition of justice and peace.
In the 21st century, exclusivist religion, no matter how ''mainstream'' and no matter how muted the anathemas that follow from its absolutes, is a sure way to religious war.
James Carroll's column appears regularly in the Globe.
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THE GENERAL IN HIS PULPIT
John Podoretz NY Post
October 21, 2003 -- THE war over religion is heating up. The Supreme Court is taking up the question of whether the words "under God" can appear in the Pledge of Allegiance - and who can say what firestorm will erupt if the justices say it can't. And a general who has just been elevated to the post of deputy secretary of Defense for intelligence is accused of having spoken slightingly about Islam.
Gen. Jerry Boykin spoke in June from the pulpit of his own church, wearing his uniform. Speaking of a Muslim bandit in Somalia who attacked the United States and Christianity, he said, "Well, you know what I knew, that my God was bigger than his. I knew that my God was a real God, and his was an idol."
Sounds bad, like Boykin is calling the God of Islam an idol, right? And given that he has just been given primary responsibility for tracking down Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden, his views could present a problem.
But wait. Context is everything here. Boykin was talking about an Islamic radical, not about a mainstream imam.
Respectable opinion holds that such radicals are distorting and poisoning their own religion. Accusing them of worshipping an idol rather than the true God should therefore be within the bounds of acceptable discourse. Boykin is entirely in line with conventional thinking when it comes to criticizing militant Islam.
Boykin's critics also object to the statement, "We're a Christian nation, because our foundation and our roots are Judeo-Christian and the enemy is a guy named Satan."
Boykin is an evangelical Christian. That is his right. He believes that the terrorists threatening us are working for Satan. That is also his right. It is crucial to note that he was notcalling Islam a Satanic faith.
And though the use of the phrase "Christian nation" is offensive to many non-Christians, it's hardly the sort of thing that should get a guy fired - especially when he takes care to refer to the "Judeo-Christian" tradition as well.
Unless, that is, you believe that anyexpression of religious conviction in public life is inappropriate. Which, of course, is something many in the media and elsewhere do believe.
They think there is something illegitimate about anyone on the public payroll making open and passionate professions of their faith. There's more than a hint of anti-Christian bigotry at work here.
That's made crystal clear when you take note of the offense shown by Boykin's critics at his depiction of George W. Bush as Heaven-sent: "Why is this man in the White House? The majority of Americans did not vote for him. Why is he there? And I tell you this morning that he's in the White House because God put him there for a time such as this."
Evangelical Christians and others are inclined to see the hand of the Lord working in all sorts of ways. A friend of mine once told me he believed God had answered his prayer by helping him find the downpayment for a car. I considered the idea silly, but then, I don't subscribe to the view that God is actively involved in my life.
People like Boykin do believe this, and they are entitled to express their views as they wish. The fact that Gen. Boykin wears a uniform doesn't require him to be silent. He is doing us all a service by dedicating his life to his country.
Americans are fortunate that people like Jerry Boykin are protecting the rest of us, and they deserve our thanks rather than being used as fodder for a culture war against religion in public life.
Nonetheless, there may be good reason to relieve Boykin of these specific duties and give him another assignment worthy of his formidable talents.
Newsweek's Fareed Zakaria says Boykin must go because his words will whip around the Muslim world and make it look as though we are engaged in a religious crusade. And strictly as a matter of practical politics, Boykin may be in the wrong place. His words will be used against the United States by radical Islamists out to make our task in the Middle East more difficult.
The effort to track and capture Osama and Saddam is too important for it to be led by someone who has become a lightning rod. |
