What SHOULD be a point for deep concern among Christians in America, is instead often a “Bush-ian” hard-headeness and insistence upoin righteousness and infallibility, and the rest of the world be damned if they disagree. Americans know best, and live on some privileged plane of higher ethical evolution. The fact of the matter is, the exact oppostite is true. Evangelicals have taken their cue from the arrogance and insistence upon a particular brand of orthodoxy hoisted upon them by charismatic leaders (although I find it hard to see the “charisma” in such smug, arrogant asses like Falwell, Paige Patterson, Ralph Reed, Al Mohler , and all their ilk). The following is from the latest issue of Sojourners that was waiting in my mail when I returned from vacation today:

(Thanks also to MIke James who blogged on this before I even saw this article in my copy)

‘Divided by a Common Faith’, Sojourners Magazine/October 2004

Few Americans seem to realize that the church in other industrialized countries is not nearly as divided over this issue. In fact, most evangelical leaders in Britain, Australia, and New Zealand—in contrast to their American cousins—were opposed to the war. What accounts for this surprising difference between many American evangelical believers and their global siblings?

American evangelicals tend to subscribe to a revisionist understanding of the U.S. founding story that encourages them to view the United States as God’s unique redemptive agent in the world. Not surprisingly, this view of messianic nationalism makes it very easy for many American evangelicals to support the neoconservative doctrine endorsing the pre-emptive and redemptive use of violence to make the world a better place. Very few evangelicals around the world support either this view of American exceptionalism or this imperial use of pre-emptive violence to “improve” life on this planet.