James Carroll in the Boston Globe attacks the evangelical influence on US foreign policy:
The present climate is my subject. In recent years, the public realm has been invaded by a certain kind of narrow Christian enthusiasm, made up partly of triumphalistic self-aggrandizement (exclusive salvation), and partly of the impulse to denigrate other religions, especially Islam. This phenomenon has been centered in, but not limited to, evangelical fundamentalism. The United States cannot have a constructive foreign policy in religiously enflamed regions like the Middle East, northern Africa or South Asia if the American presence in such conflicts is itself religiously enflaming.
Also see this reaction.
Is rampant Christian fundamentalism really the reason the Israeli-Palestinian issue has been an intractable problem bedeviling every American president for the last four decades? Somehow I'm unconvinced by Carroll's argument that if the American public was less religious - or at least our leaders were more secular, or, by extending his logic, perhaps even atheist - we'd be much better off.
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