History has shown with tragic consistency that an intimate relationship between religion and politics does irreparable damage to both — from the crusades of medieval times to the terrorism of modern times. Constant use of the God strategy by political leaders encourages just such a relationship. When George W. Bush justifies the Iraq War by saying that liberty is “God’s gift to humanity” (2003 State of the Union) and that America’s “calling” is to deliver that gift to the Iraqi people (countless times), he is offering something quite like a divine vision for U.S. foreign policy.

It is precisely this conflation of abstract claims about God with the concrete goals of the state that led esteemed religion scholar R. Scott Appleby to call the administration’s rhetoric about spreading freedom and liberty “a theological version of Manifest Destiny.” At a minimum, this approach risks repeating the errors of the original manifest destiny: unduly emphasizing the norms and values of white, conservative Protestants at the expense of those who will not or cannot conform.

Just as important, pairing religious doctrine with public policy encourages moderate citizens to conclude that the U.S. government’s actions are the will of God — or at least congruent with such wishes — and therefore beyond question. Dogmatic political voices and hints of divinely inspired policy are not the ingredients of a robust republic; they’re the recipe for hubris, jingoism, and the decline of democracy. These are disquieting possibilities, but the words of our political leaders in recent decades have moved America toward them. Both the Gospel of John and the record of evils past teach one thing: in the beginning, always, are words.

David Domke, posting at Street Prophets about his book:  The God Strategy: How Religion Became A Political Weapon in America (with Kevin Coe). 
Domke is head of journalism in the Department of Communication at the University of Washington. 
If his words don’t grab your attention, his graphs will.