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The statement was almost completely ignored by the media in America, although we were front-page news in German and French newspapers. In the United States, those who did comment domestically rose up and vocally denounced the statement as a jingoistic pro-war celebration. There are, of course, many reasonable ways to debate these matters, including the argument that the United States, on prudential grounds, should not have committed itself to armed conflict. But to make a false claim about what happened—as, for example, the common claim that the United States "rushed into war" after 9/11—is not a legitimate point of departure for debate.

The same inflammatory rhetoric has been employed throughout the war in Iraq and its aftermath. Once again we hear it said that America is intolerant of political dissent. But if there is something missing from our public discourse, it is not the voices of those who—like Duke University's Frank Lentricchia—argue that "America is threatened by the most powerful enemy in its history, the administration of George W. Bush." Those voices are coming through loud and clear. What we hear far too little of is serious reflection on religion. Religion is epiphenomenal to Marxism and its various offshoots still powerfully influential in the academy. Religion is "false consciousness" par excellence. Osama bin Laden's talk of infidels is thus a quaint rhetorical turn; the "real" reasons for his murderous ideology must lie elsewhere.

With many others, I am convinced that Islamism owes at least as much to the totalitarian movements and ideologies of the 20th century as it does to any version of Islam. But the religious claims are not just a cover for some deeper materialistic imperative. As a result of the suppression of serious discourse about religion in many activist circles, we grow less able to appreciate what is going on in the war on terrorism. Issues of religious liberty, separation of church and state, the possibility that one might have a secular state in a society in which religions flourish, the dignity and status of women—all these matters and more can be seen clearly only if we take religion seriously, on its own terms.

Jean Bethke Elshtain is Laura Spelman Rockefeller Professor of Social and Political Ethics at the University of Chicago. This column is adapted from her book, Just War Against Terror: The Burden of American Power in a Violent World, recently published by Basic Books.

Copyright © 2003 by the author or Christianity Today International/Books & Culture magazine.
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