Christianity, the US and hegemony

Events converge and get one’s attention. That is the case of the timing of a recent book by Paul Kivel and the observance of the 50th anniversary of the assassination of John F. Kennedy. The whole nation has been aware of the 50th anniversary of President Kennedy’s assassination, but few have yet to take notice of Kivel’s book, “Living in the Shadow of the Cross.” Even fewer will tie Kennedy and Kivel together.

Kivel’s book plays heavily on the word “hegemony.” Hegemony is not in my everyday vocabulary. As I began reading Kivel’s book, I was compelled to ponder the word and do a little homework. The simplest one-word definition is dominance. Kivel gives a bit longer definition. Hegemony is the predominance and pervasive influence over one state, religion, region, class or group. Hegemony is so powerful that the perspective of those in control becomes the unthinking standard of a whole group and accepted as common sense.

The subtitle of Kivel’s book is “Understanding and Resisting the Power and Privilege of Christian Hegemony.” The author traces the history of the establishment of dominance over the Western world by Christianity from the fourth century to modern America. He rightly points out that we date time from the birth of Jesus of Nazareth, celebrate the resurrection of Jesus every seventh day, and have made Christmas and Easter the great national holidays for the entire nation. His list of evidences is much longer, but the reader gets his point very quickly.

I have not yet finished the book. I suspect that I will write a commentary after completing and digesting the book. My first reaction is that it is a very important book that should be read by the many, not just the few.

President Kennedy was assassinated in November 1963. Kennedy’s presidency is a part of my own history. JFK and I were of the same generation. His aristocratic attitudes and lifestyle I found distasteful. The disaster of the Bay of Pigs was disillusioning. His support of civil rights for all was lukewarm to say the least. His confrontational style in foreign policy I saw as unwise. In 1961 and 1962, President Kennedy significantly increased the number of U.S. troops in South Vietnam. President Kennedy was a masterful speaker and left the nation with memorable lines. But I was not impressed with the direction in which he was leading the nation.

When he was shot, he was carrying a copy of a speech that he planned to deliver later in the day. The undelivered speech is now a matter of public record. I decided to read the 50-year-old document.

I have come to deplore killing. It is truly tragic when one human being denies another human being the privilege of living. The assassination of President Kennedy was a horrible tragedy. Each death at the Bay of Pigs and Vietnam also was tragic. The death of President Kennedy prevented the nation and the world from listening to what I believe possibly would have been the worst speech ever delivered by a U.S. president.

President Kennedy had bought into the rightness of U.S. hegemony in the world. He believed that communism, led by the Soviet Union, was truly a threat to the world and to America in particular. The body of the never-delivered speech was a statement of U.S. hegemony through military strength. I quote the core of his prepared statement.

“The strategic nuclear power of the United States has been so greatly modernized and expanded in the last 1,000 days by the rapid production and deployment of the most modern missile systems, that any and all potential aggressors are clearly confronted now with the impossibility of strategic victory — and the certainty of total destruction — if by reckless attack they should ever force upon us the necessity of a strategic reply.”

Kennedy continued with his list of expansions of U.S. arms. The number of Polaris submarines was increased by 50 percent. The purchase of even more Polaris subs was scheduled. Kennedy’s administration increased the purchase of Minutemen missiles by 75 percent, boosted the number of bombers on strategic alert by 50 percent, increased the deployment of nuclear weapons by 60 percent, upped the number of U.S. Army divisions at combat ready by 45 percent, doubled weapons procurement for the U.S. Army, and increased special forces units by 600 percent.

This is only a partial list of Kennedy’s boasting of U.S. military expansion and power. Kennedy was committed to maintaining U.S. hegemony no matter the cost to America or to the world. The U.S. had attained the status of hegemony in World War II, and JFK was not about to share the power of hegemony with any other nation.

There are two distinct traditions that are found in the Bible. One is a God who tramples every perceived enemy, even women and children. This God was not only all-powerful, God did not hesitate to use that power to kill and destroy. The second tradition is the tradition of influence by love, kindness, mercy and deeds of generosity. Jesus from Nazareth was clearly a part of the second tradition. He carried the argument for the second tradition to the halls of power and was brutally killed. In his own day he lost big time.

A new pope has been crowned. He has declared himself to be of the second tradition and has challenged all Christians to make that same commitment.

Be it by religious conviction or by secular wisdom, U.S. needs graciously to share its leadership with the world from the least to the greatest. Hegemony leads only to greater and greater tragedies.

The Rev. Howard Bess is a retired American Baptist minister, who lives in Palmer. His email address is hdbss@mtaonline.net.

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