Military Review English Edition March-April 2015 | Page 85

FORCE AND FAITH

This article provides a broad context for military
leaders to understand the complicated relationship
between religion and politics, both domestically and
internationally. We first discuss the contemporary
scene and the evidence of a resurgence of religion as
a force in domestic and international politics. With
these contemporary relationships as the backdrop, we
examine America’s own often fitful journey of balancing the City of Man and the City of God to provide
a lens to examine the challenges presented in the
new international order.2 The interaction of religious
organizations and the military in the dispensation of
humanitarian relief, in many ways a relatively new
phenomenon, is one of the contemporary challenges
that we argue demands a framework for incorporating
religious considerations in foreign policy. We suggest
that understanding the political history of religion as
an integral shaper of America’s domestic and foreign
policy will better equip military leaders with a set
of principles to approach the challenges of religious
extremism in strategic and campaign planning.

The Contemporary Scene: Religion
and State since the End of the Cold
War
The current struggle between the so-called
Christian West and Muslim East can trace its roots
to Moriah, a mountain range considered to be the
land inhabited by Abraham, the father of the monotheistic tradition in Christianity, Judaism, and Islam.
At Moriah, God reputedly commanded Abraham to
offer his son as a sacrifice. Abraham was willing to
do so up until the point that God provided an animal
for the sacrifice as a substitute for Isaac or Ishmael,
depending on the religious tradition through which
you read the story. Abraham’s devotion to God’s
commands is held as an example in each tradition of
the blessings bestowed upon Abraham and his descendants because of his unflinching obedience to God.
While the Christian and Muslim worlds can point
to Moriah as a common scriptural foundation for
monotheism, the two religions markedly diverged in
their approach to politics in the seventeenth centur