Tipping the Balance: Religious Rhetoric and the U.S.-German Dialogue
By Dr. Kathleen Dow Magnus

"The nations in our great alliance have many advantages and blessings. We also have a call beyond our comfort...."

"Spreading liberty for the sake of peace is the cause of all mankind.... And our alliance has the ability, and the duty, to tip the balance of history in favor of freedom." 

--George W. Bush, February 21, 2005, Brussels, Belgium.

It has been widely recognized that many of George W. Bush's speeches are replete with references to religion. During his recent trip to Europe, however, the president was careful to curb his recourse to religious rhetoric, appealing to it only indirectly through references to religiously-derived concepts that are widely used in secular contexts. With the exception of his frequently used closing statement: "God bless you all," Bush avoided all references to "God" and spoke instead of the "great duties" and the joint "calling" of the United States and Europe to shape the "course of history."

Given the very different ways in which religious commitments are articulated and manifested in the civil societies of t he United States and Germany, Bush was well-advised to speak of shared moral values, rather than to refer to common religious traditions. However, when his European speeches are read in the context of the political discourse Bush uses on American soil--speeches which Europeans also follow--even the less obvious references to religion recall a religious fervor that makes many Europeans uncomfortable. This is particularly true in the case of Germany, whose public remains skeptical of the Bush agenda, despite Chancellor Schröder's assurances that the transatlantic friendship remains solid.

Why, then, this discomfort? Is it simply because Germans tend to be less religious than Americans, as a number of studies have suggested? 1 Or is it because the particular kind of religious rhetoric used by Bush intimates certain principles which are at odds with the moral values of German civil society and even with some of the very principles professed by the Bush administration?

There are no simple answers to these questions, but it seems clear that Bush's use of religious rhetoric contributes to the tension in current U.S.-German relations. Although this speaking-style appeals to a wide spectrum of the American public, including many who are not Christian fundamentalists, Germans tend to interpret Bush's religious language as a reflection of fundamentalist commitments. To those who are not American, his religious rhetoric appears to imply a belief that he has a special relationship with God or privileged knowledge of God's will. 2 In other words, it suggests an exclusivity that is not wholly democratic. Indeed, in the context of a fundamentalist rhetoric, even the traditional and apparently innocuous "God bless America" begins to take on new weight. To those not accustomed to hearing "God bless Germany" or "God bless the European Union," the continued repetition of "God bless America" may seem to suggest the belief that God favors American interests. Indeed, since the public performance of this prayer occurs within the context of a historical narrative in which God is in fact believed to bestow a special blessing upon the United States, the utterance of the expression "God bless America" reinforces the very narrative which lends these words their force.

Read in the context of his domestic speeches, Bush's recent references to "the call" to spread freedom around the world and "the duty" to shape history are likely to be identified as implicit allusions to the "plans" of "Providence" (February 3, 2005). T his might not pose a problem, were it not for the accompanying perception that Bush sees himself as authorized to interpret the meaning of these plans for freedom as well as the method of their propagation. Germans can easily assent to the value of "freedom" and many may even share in the hope that freedom is history's " visible direction, set by liberty and the Author of Liberty" (Second Inaugural Address, January 20, 2005). Germans remain, however, reluctant to consent to the president's particular interpretation of what freedom is and how it is to be spread around the world. This is most obvious in the German refusal to understand the war in Iraq as a mere act of "liberation," but it is evident with respect to other issues as well. Many Germans would link the notion of freedom to a high level of social and economic equality at exactly the point at which Bush and other Americans believe freedom to denote "free trade" and "free enterprise." Germans, too, might have trouble understanding how the president can so steadfastly insist upon the importance of the freedom of the press in Russian democracy precisely as he addresses a limited, hand-picked German audience permitted to ask him only pre-screened questions.

Above all, perhaps, is the fear that "freedom" might just be another word for U.S. interests. One thing Germans are all too familiar with is how the rhetoric of freedom ["Arbeit macht Frei"] combined with the belief that God is on "our" side ["Gott mit uns"] can lead to absolute horror. Their own history has taught them how easily claims to know the meaning of history can be used as an excuse to pursue an arbitrary, immoral agenda.

Bush, however, has no qualms about asserting that " America's vital interests and our deepest beliefs are now one" (Second Inaugural Address, January 20, 2005). The spreading of democracy is what this second-term president sees as his clear mandate, and he has come a long way in his recognition that he needs to have Europe on his side if he is to accomplish this goal. But if he is to make any real headway in repairing the transatlantic relations damaged by his first-term politics, he must do more than invite Europeans to share in the call to spread freedom on his terms. He must become genuinely open to European interpretations of freedom and to European ideas about how to make freedom a reality in the world. He must, in other words, relinquish the idea that he already knows what freedom is and "tip the balance" in favor of genuine dialogue.  

Whether this kind of liberation is likely to occur is another question altogether.

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Endnotes:
1 See, for example, Pippa Norris and Ronald Inglehart. Sacred and Secular: Religion and Politics Worldwide. Cambridge University Press, 2004.

2 It is this sense of privileged knowledge and exclusivity which distinguishes "fundamentalist" religious traditions from other religious traditions. See Harold Perkin, "American Fundamentalism and the Selling of God," in Marquand, David and Ronald L. Nettler (Eds.). Religion and Democracy (Political Quarterly Special Issues). Oxford: Blackwell, 2001.
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This essay appeared in the March 24, 2005, AICGS Advisor.