The Anti-War Religious Left
George W. Bush, like Truman before him, knows evil, whatever the churches say.

By Ernest W. Lefever, senior fellow & founder, Ethics and Public Policy Center.
February 13, 2002 10:20 a.m.

espite domestic support for America's war on terrorism, angry opposition voices from liberal religious circles persist.

Last December, an unofficial group of 68 Catholics denounced an earlier U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops statement for declaring that "the dreadful deeds of September 11 cannot go unanswered" and that the war against terrorism was a "legitimate use of force." The bishops had also said that the U.S. military effort met the traditional "just war" criteria — which, among other things, insist that belligerents make serious efforts to protect innocent civilians. Fortunately, smart weapons have enabled our forces to minimize noncombatant fatalities.

Since September 11, liberal-left Protestant voices have been closer to the Catholic dissidents than to the official Catholic position. The National Council of Churches (NCC) has urged President George Bush to stop bombing terrorist targets in Afghanistan and to "collaborate with the international community" (meaning what, exactly?) to find nonviolent means to combat terrorists. Its invocation of the "international community" reflects the NCC's persistent and touching confidence in U.N. majority votes, which are seen to sanction U.S. behavior and blunt American arrogance.

The Episcopal Church statement, like that of the Catholic bishops, did not condemn the U.S. military response. Like the unofficial Catholic statement, however, it urged the United States to increase its efforts to ease the "crushing poverty" in "other parts of the world."

Though expressing itself in more muted tones, the NCC echoed the antiwar Left, which has suggested that American hubris and lack of compassion created the very conditions that gave rise to our murderous adversaries.

World Council of Churches General Secretary Konrad Raiser went further:

"The answer to terrorism must be found in redressing the wrongs that breed violence." Terrorism will not be overcome "as long as the cries of those humiliated by unremitting injustice... and by the arrogance... of those who possess unchallenged military might are ignored or neglected." In the same vein, the Presbyterian Church, U.S.A., seemed to excuse the terrorists, and urged Americans to "understand the pain, frustration, and sense of powerlessness" that had prompted them to lash out against us.

Surely no grievance — including poverty and allegations of American arrogance — can justify the murder of innocents that was seen in New York or Washington.

In a rambling and little-remarked speech at Georgetown University on November 7, former president Bill Clinton, who has touted his Baptist credentials, added yet another charge against America: the evil of slavery. We are "paying the price today" as a "nation that practiced slavery" and, moreover, frequently killed innocent slaves and native Americans, whom we regarded as "less than fully human." To reduce the terrorist threat, he urged America to do more to fight global poverty, forgive billions in debt, improve health care, and fund education in developing countries.

Clinton's recalling of America's past imperfections to explain a present danger vaguely reflects the self-loathing of the 1960s radicals, who blamed Amerika for poverty and oppression in the Third World.

How different from Clinton was an earlier American president who, incidentally, was also a Baptist.

On April 26, 1948 — a few days after President Harry Truman authorized the Marshall Plan and mounted a military airlift of food and other supplies for Berlin to thwart a Soviet blockade of the city — the Federal Council of Churches (predecessor to the NCC) issued a pronouncement, dubbed "A Positive Program for Peace," condemning Truman's firm moves in Europe.

Upon reading the council statement, Truman wrote on the cover page: "This is a perfectly asinine document — as full of sophistry as a communist manifesto. Let's analyze it for what it is. HST."

The simple Baptist from Missouri was right. The Federal Council, representing a small clique of liberal-left Protestants, had been giving bad advice on foreign policy since its founding in 1908. Alas, the NCC has seldom wavered in this wrongheaded practice. If Truman and successive presidents had heeded the NCC's dangerous bidding, there would have been no NATO, Soviet nuclear arms would have prevailed, and America would have lost the Cold War.

What a contrast between these two Baptist presidents — Truman and Clinton. Truman recognized evil when he saw it. He knew that America, though less than perfect, was the greatest force for freedom in the world. And he knew that we had an inescapable responsibility to fight aggression, tyranny, and terrorism.

George W. Bush is a worthy successor to Truman.