An Angel Directs the Storm —— Apocalyptic Religion and American Empire

----- 天使指挥风暴：世界末日的宗教与美帝国

ISBN: 9781850434788 出版年：2004 页码：209 Michael Northcott Bloomsbury Publishing

This passionate and angry book appraises two visions of religious freedom: on the one hand, the apocalyptic vision of George W Bush and the Christian conservatives who back his policies, particularly in relation to Iraq and the so-called war on terror; and on the other hand, the vision of a Christian majority elsewhere who are deeply worried and antagonised by what they view as American neo-imperialism. The authors show that the Republican-led imposition of free market values on new subject peoples represents at root the articulation of a divinely ordered mission – to globalise 'an American Christian conception of freedom and democracy – by military means.' Their starting point is President Bush's quotation in his inaugural speech of the 18th century statesman John Page, who enquired if it were not 'an angel who directed the storm' within which American came into being. Such language and conceptuality has been misused by the current administration to justify its adventurist and – as the authors see it, disastrous – policymaking. Drawing on a fascinating range of religious and secular literature, the authors show that there is a different kind of war taking place from the one of terrorism. This is a war for the heart and soul of America itself, and for what 'Christian' culture might mean in a global context increasingly administered by a pax Americana that – like the Roman Empire of old – is yet hated and mistrusted by many of the peoples it is nominally there to protect. Northcott and Hassell trace the roots of American apocalyptic to Puritan Millennialism and contemporary fundamentalist readings of the Book of Revelation. They suggest that Americans urgently need to recover a critique of Empire of the kind espoused by the founder of Christianity if their own religion is to avoid the charge of idolatry. America itself emerged out of a war against an empire. In the process, some of those amongst its peoples developed powerful resources for resisting imperialism which, as the authors show, may yet prove valuable as the child of empire becomes, both in word and deed, an oppressive empire in its own right.Michael Northcott is one of Britain's best known specialists in theology and politics, and is Reader in Christian Ethics at the University of Edinburgh. He is the author of The Environment and Christian Ethics (1996) and of Life After Debt: Christianity and Global Justice (1999). Tristin Hassell is a researcher in theology, also based at Edinburgh University. (to come from Stanley Hauerwas, Gibert T Rowe Professor of Theological Ethics, Duke University