Evangelicals For War (Again)

In a recent Takimag essay, the estimable Paul Gottfried explained that the neoconservative movement consists of two factions he describes as “ill-mannered, touchy Jews” and their “groveling or adulatory Christian assistants." In the former category, Gottfried includes the Frum-Kagan-Podhoretz-Kristol axis of evil. Occupying the “servants’ quarters” are Bill Bennett, Michael Novak, Cal Thomas and other lesser lights of the “conservative movement.”

Among conservatives of the Religious Right variety, Israel and her neocon hirelings find unqualified support among Dispensational fundamentalists and Hagee-style Pentecostals. In my denomination, the SBC, Richard Land provides political cover for neocons and supporters of Israeli policy vis-a-vis Arab states and the Palestinians.

Land is one of America’s most influential evangelicals, trolling the corridors of power armed with a huge rolodex filled with the names of Washington insiders, not to mention an educational pedigree that includes stops at Princeton and Oxford.

Prior to the Iraq war, Land organized an open letter to President Bush from leading evangelicals blessing the coming storm with the imprimatur of Just War Theory. Now Land is at it again. In December and earlier this week Land teamed up with approximately 40 Christian and Jewish leaders, sending letters to Congress urging the imposition of new sanctions on Iran.

The “tough talk” from Christians is expected but disheartening nevertheless. Christians have lost their moral compass when they endorse unbiblical and wicked means as a mechanism to bring about a good end. The goal of sanctions is to harm civilians economically and commercially so that they will pressure their government into making policy changes. In this respect, they are merely a form of state-sponsored terrorism. Sanctions, and the blockades necessary to enforce them, are acts of war according to international law. Moreover, sanctions will not work. The Iranian regime is already teetering, having lost legitimacy in the eyes of many of its own citizens. Sanctions imposed by the U.S. could entirely backfire by driving Iranians back into the arms of the mullahs.

But strategic imperatives and moral considerations are out the window. The only question on the table is, “Does Israel want it?”