Biblical Promise and Threat in U.S. Imperialist Rhetoric Before and After September 11, 2001

Gendered Readings

There may also be other, subtler factors at work in the public’s favorable response to the Bush administration’s rhetoric, only one of which I am able to touch on here. I am interested in how prevalent understandings of gender roles become part of the equation when covenantal and apocalyptic national discourses are integrated into a particular faith perspective and taken to heart as personal truth. For example, contemporary conservative and mainstream readings of biblical covenant are often imbued with a heteronormative understanding of gender. In other words, these biblically based discourses contain an embedded conceptualization of gender as a binary set of heterosexual relations and distinctions, ¹ which, in the present context, idealizes masculinity as heroic and active, and femininity as receptive and maternal. Interpreted through this kind of thinking about gender roles, the covenantal and apocalyptic rhetoric of war is made to appear, like gender, as “natural.”

Culpability for this gendered reading of covenant lies in part with the Hebrew prophets, who more than once depict Israel as an unfaithful woman in need of rescue. The prophets consistently chastise Israel for taking political matters into her own hands (described as sexual infidelity) and suffering for it; if only she would leave things up to her male leaders (Yahweh and his approved king). Contemporary interpreters amplify this image of Israel by reading prophetic texts through gender stereotypes even when the Hebrew constructions are difficult, unclear, or ambiguous. ² Some contemporary versions of this story, built from prophetic texts such as Ezekiel and Hosea, build a whole theology around Israel, the-unfaithful-wife-turned-prostitute who must be reclaimed by Yahweh. The title of the book Whoredom: God’s Unfaithful Wife in Biblical Theology by Raymond Ortlund (1996) speaks volumes about the way that this image can get taken up in contemporary interpretations. ³ Thus, in biblical scholarship and in writing for lay people, Israel is commonly described as a damsel in distress (the distress is of course her fault for sleeping with the enemy) who must wait to be rescued by Yahweh or his divinely appointed ruler.

This language of gender in the prophetic writing and its interpretation dovetails with a particular kind of biblical colonial discourse. The hope for rescue of Israel from her sexualized sin takes the form of expectation that she will be led into triumph over – as opposed to alliance with – other nations. Israel is instructed by God, some interpreters insist, that she must not work in any way on her own terms, for to do so would be a grave sin. This gendered depiction of Israel’s hope for political dominance both condones Israel’s colonial aspirations, but disavows responsibility for it at the same time. Israel’s active, aggressive colonialism of surrounding nations is disavowed by the story of a more passive, lady-like colonialism, in which Israel must be chastised and then led into domination by the divinely appointed (masculine) ruler, who does only Yahweh’s bidding. Israel is not to take the initiative, credit, or blame for her colonialism. She is merely a conduit for Yahweh’s will; she is not responsible for these conquests, rather, Yahweh is. ⁴

When the gendered biblical narrative is transposed to the present, it also takes on an apocalyptic quality. In the prophetic narrative, when Israel suffers it is her own fault; it is the consequence for breaking covenant. Here the trope of the sexually sinful woman is a connection point between the two discourses that are easily exploited by rhetoricians. As a backslidden “harlot,” the spiritual/national Israel paradoxically becomes, for politically-minded evangelists like Pat Robertson, her own mortal enemy, the apocalyptic Whore of Babylon. In an interview, Robertson states, “I frankly think that the United States of America stands on the brink of really terrible judgment. . . . America is like Babylon, the Mother of Harlots. So that is cause, in my opinion, for a righteous God to bring His wrath against us.” ⁵ With an apocalyptic understanding of the new covenant framing the image of the United States, the negative consequences for covenant breaking through sexual transgression (metaphoric and literal) are of a cosmic order.

Such divine wrath on the sinful woman, America, was evident, for Roberston’s friend Falwell, in the events of September 11, 2001. Falwell’s belief that “the Abrahamic covenant – the promise that God gave to Abraham that he would bless those who blessed him and curse those who cursed him – is a fundamental ethic for the success of any society.” ⁶ Such an interpretation of national ethics undoubtedly led him – on Robertson’s 700 Club television show, two days after the towers fell – infamously to attribute September 11 to a God angry with those who, to Falwell’s mind, had broken the covenant. Notable in Falwell’s accusation of “the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians” was his attempt to shame alternative forms of gender expression and sexual identity. A fear of contravened gender roles thus manifests itself through an apocalyptic interpretation of covenant.

But, it is important to note that, within both old and new covenantal frameworks, punishment for sexual deviance is a precursor to repentance, forgiveness, and triumph. The only acceptable response, following a national disaster, within this logic, is to passively wait to be led into dominion over other nations by Yahweh. American international triumph – as in the devastation of Afghanistan or the deposing of Saddam Hussein – can be seen as a sign of God’s favor.

If – and here I am only sketching an idea – this rather dominant interpretation of the prophetic view of Israel becomes conflated with the Israel of American civil religion, then those who put their stock in the image of the United States as Israel might identify (even unconsciously) with an image of the shameful, feminine, passive people of God. If so, they would be positioned to do nothing in the face of their nation’s imperialist mission, in fact, to welcome it as God’s favor, and to feel no responsibility for it, since it must all be left to God. Insofar as such identifications might be operating in the American populace, however, they work in complicated ways, because as I have suggested above, identification as the people of God can move toward an identification with a messianic figure (a divinely appointed leader). So on the one hand, American people, identifying as the feminized people of God, feel it is not up to them to do anything one way or another, as they ought to be passive. And on the other hand, a self-styled, divinely appointed leader and his armed forces do the masculine work of rescuing the United States, the world, and Afghan women from “evil men,” at the same time achieving control over other nations. ⁷ With the strange sort of cross identification that goes on between Israel and God, the U.S. population and its president, an apathetic authorization of imperialism sets in. Though the call to aid the rest of the world must be heeded, it is well enough to leave it up to the president to heed it. People passively wait for the president in their role as damsel in distress, but at the same time they feel that it is they who are avenging September 11, 2001, or helping Afghan women, or oppressed Iraqis, in their identity as divine leader on the world scene.

Now, as in the past, apocalypse and covenant have been represented through misogynist, gendered imagery that worked in tandem to authorize American dominance. Where apocalyptic language feeds a sense of urgency with respect to national policies and military action, covenantal understandings of American identity feed the public’s willingness to go along with the specifics of its government’s actions. Even if the present administration were not to be re-elected, the prevalence of biblically rooted discourses in American culture and politics suggests that after a brief remission they would soon resurface, given their emotional and spiritual currency. The question is, can this kind of deeply rooted rhetoric be effectively resisted? Though this essay is necessarily only one small contribution to a larger collective project of strategizing resistance, it would point to thinking about how to dismantle conscious and unconscious identifications with misogynist biblical images and discourses that may create emotional attachments to political positions in favor of war. Of course, any such attempt must also take account of how attachments to biblical images and ideas work into positions of resistance. ⁸ Those who wish to engage the rhetoric of the United States as savior and judge (and harlot) must carefully, and self-critically intercept these discourses. The challenge lies, perhaps, in creating a rhetoric and a discourse that counteracts any sense of purpose and entitlement to save a helpless world from evil.

1. Judith Butler, Bodies That Matter: On the Discursive Limits of “Sex” (New York: Routledge, 1993).[↑]
2. For the way scholars reinscribe the misogyny of the prophets, see J. Cheryl Exum, Plotted, Shot, and Painted: Cultural Representations of Biblical Women, Journal for the Study of the Old Testament, supplement series 215; Gender, Culture, Theory series, vol. 3 (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1996), 101-28.[↑]
3. Raymond C. Ortlund, Whoredom: God’s Unfaithful Wife in Biblical Theology, New Studies in Biblical Theology series (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1996).[↑]
4. Several examples of the gendering of colonial language in scholarly readings of the prophets can be taken from interpretations of the prophetic text of Micah. Delbert Hillers glosses the text of Micah 5:6-14, accounting for a strange poetic shift between Israel’s aggression and defeat, as follows: “Israel’s rights have already in the past been violated by other nations, but she cannot and should not avenge herself. Instead the supreme power will step in to vindicate her rights by punishing her adversaries.” Hillers, Micah: A Commentary on the Book of the Prophet Micah, Hermeneia (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1984), 73. Some scholars are so insistent on the point of Israel’s feminine passivity that they gloss over aspects of the text that do not quite bear out such a reading. For instance, in Micah 4:13, Zion is figured as an active, ambiguously gendered, colonizing force. Using language usually reserved for kings, Zion (modified by feminine verb forms) is depicted as having an iron horn (a rather phallic image) and copper hooves, trampling other nations. Yet scholars explain this active colonizing role away. For instance, James Luther Mays calls the image a later addition to the original prophecy, in order to amplify what he sees as the (colonial) purpose of the book: “a promise which looks for the peoples [i.e., other nations] to be brought under the reign of YHWH by the divine power of Israel.” Mays, Micah: A Commentary, Old Testament Library (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1976), 109, emphasis mine. Hans Walter Wolff interprets likewise, “the ‘daughter of Zion’ herself becomes the agent of Yahweh’s punishment of his enemies, but she is empowered and authorized to do this only by the word and deed of Yahweh.” Wolff, Micah: A Commentary, trans. Gary Stansell (Minneapolis: Augsburg Press, 1990 [1982]), 133. So also does William McKane, who writes, “the defeat of the mighty nations by the daughter of Zion is a miracle wrought by Yahweh (v. 13) and cannot be accounted for by weight of armour.” McKane, The Book of Micah: Introduction and Commentary (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1998), 12. For further detailed analysis, see Erin Runions, Changing Subjects: Gender, Nation and Future in Micah, Playing the Texts series, vol. 7 (London: Sheffield Academic Press, 2001), 182-209.[↑]
5. Pat Robertson, interview by Cal Thomas, in Blinded by Might: Can the Religious Right Save America?, by Cal Thomas and Ed Dobson (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1999), 248-58, at 258.[↑]
6. Falwell, interview by Cal Thomas, 284.[↑]
7. In my own experience after September 11, 2001, in antiwar efforts to talk to people on the street, I was astounded by the number of people who were willing to trust the president, even when they were not sure that war on Afghanistan was the best solution.[↑]
8. For instance, the apocalyptic image of “the beast,” and “the belly of the beast” is often invoked on the Left to speak of capitalism and its institutions.[↑]