Category: American Empire

American warism

~ Ted Grimsrud ~ 6 Comments

Ted Grimsrud—September 12, 2025

One main characteristic of the US during my lifetime has been the centrality of “warism” to the nation’s sense of itself. By “warism” I mean war as central for the nation’s identity. Signs of the US as a warist society may be seen in all the money that the nation spends on preparing for war and the war-related priorities in the operation of our government. American warism may also be seen in the bipartisan consensus on miliary spending, one area where Democrats and Republicans always agree. Most of our government spending goes for war and war preparation. And the US spends way more on military-related items than anyone else in the rest of the world.

The myth of redemptive violence

What I will call the “myth of redemptive violence” grounds American warism. This myth is the quasi-religious belief that we gain “salvation” (that is, a sense of security and of meaning and purpose) through violence. People throughout history have put tremendous faith in using violence for such “salvation.” The amount of trust people put in such instruments may perhaps be seen most clearly in the amount of resources they devote to the preparation for war.

Theologian Walter Wink described how this myth works. His book Engaging the Powers asserts “violence is the ethos of our times. It is the spirituality of the modern world. It has been accorded the status of a religion, demanding from its devotees an absolute obedience to death.” This myth remains invisible as a myth. We assume violence to be simply part of the nature of things. We accept violence as factual, not based on belief. Thus, we remain unaware of the faith-dimension in accepting violence. We think we know as a fact that violence works, is necessary and inevitable. We do not realize we operate in the realm of belief in accepting violence.

This myth operates on many levels. Americans assume the need for violent state power to sustain order. We willingly subordinate ourselves with few questions to this power and regularly encounter the myth on the level of popular culture. The books we read, the movies and TV we watch reiterate the story of creation as grounded in violence and chaos. Thus, we need military and police violence to subdue chaos and dominate enemies. We must subordinate ourselves to people in authority who exercise this necessary and redemptive violence. We join in the exercise of violence against our nation’s enemies when called upon. We accept one of the world’s most powerful police systems and one of the world’s largest prison systems.

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On being a proud American

~ Ted Grimsrud ~ 2 Comments

Ted Grimsrud—September 9, 2025

An essential part of the expected disposition that characterizes citizens of the United States, it seems to me, is pride in being an American. This sense of pride characterizes Americans going back to the origins of the country. Perhaps such a sensibility reached its highest peak in the years of my youth in the afterglow of the victory in World War II and prior to the major stressors of the 1960s Civil Rights conflicts, war in Vietnam, and other challenges to the nation’s self-satisfaction. Though the prideful sensibility faced disruptions in the 1960s and ever since, it remains a significant element of many people’s senses of identity: “I am proud to be an American.” Certainly, that feeling of pride shaped my sense of identity during the 1950s, 1960s, and early 1970s. However, I came to see such pride as problematic when I learned more about the actual character of the American Empire.

Pride in America as a factor in warism: The impact of World War II

This sense of pride, I suggest, has fostered a kind of false consciousness among many Americans. We assume (our embedded theology tells us) that we should be proud to be Americans, an assumption that can lead us to believe that we have something to be proud of. That is, we seek to justify the feelings of pride rather than considering that perhaps we should not be so proud. A big part of the hostility that greeted the social change movements of the 1960s surely stemmed from perceiving those movements as threats to the sense of pride.

Along with the push toward false consciousness, the pridefulness also makes people susceptible to being manipulated to support war. One of the main justifications for pride in America, especially for those raised in the afterglow of World War II as I was, is the perceived American record of fighting in just wars and winning them. As a child, I found it important to believe that the US had never lost a war—and never been involved in an unjust war. In a kind of vicious cycle, many Americans uncritically believe that we show our country’s worth by going to war. We tend to recognize the wars by definition as just simply because our country fights in them.

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Blank check nationalism?

~ Ted Grimsrud ~ 5 Comments

Ted Grimsrud—September 5, 2025

How is it that Americans so easily devote so many resources for war? We spend almost as much on war as the rest of the world combined each year. This does not make the US military particularly effective. Since 1945, few US military interventions achieved their objectives (for example, Korea in the 1950s, Vietnam in the 1960s and 1970s, Afghanistan and Iraq in the early 2000s, and Ukraine in our present moment). Yet failed interventions have not much hindered the growth of military spending or the continued willingness of the American Empire to intervene.

My own experience growing up in this country may offer a clue about such seeming contradictions. I had a pleasant youth. Yet, when I turned 18 I without thought registered for the draft and expected to end up in Vietnam killing our “enemies.” I expected to act in ways contrary to the pleasantness of the first 18 years of my life. Though the Vietnam War violated what I believed about the goodness of the US and about how I should live my life, I would have gone.

Though I lived with moral seriousness and cultivated living justly and peaceably, I unquestioningly accepted the state’s right to take me from such a life and train me to kill on command. I accepted the state’s right to demand that I contradict my morality. I would take this path to unjustly deny the rights of people our leaders call “enemies” mainly.

Central to this big contradiction are the ways we are shaped from early on in life. Our environments condition us to accept certain values, obligations and orienting principles about life. The beliefs and practices of our families and the interests and pressures that come from the various institutions and cultural assumptions that surround us shape us toward warism.

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Is pacifism relevant in the American Empire?

~ Ted Grimsrud ~ 2 Comments

Ted Grimsrud—September 2, 2025

For the past fifty years, it seems, I have lived in increasing despair as an idealistic citizen of the United States. I have tried to think my way through what seems to be an irresolvable and terminal problem. As a child, I accepted that the US was a model society, guided by God to be a force for freedom and democracy in the world. This message formed a core part of my identity. Increased knowledge disabused my idealistic view of the US. I reached adulthood at the same time our military withdrew from Vietnam amidst many revelations of extraordinary injustices.

However, my idealism about freedom and democracy did not diminish. I turned my focus from the American nation to Christian communities. As I turned from blank-check nationalism (the willingness unquestioningly to let the state turn us toward war—what I call “warism”), I turned toward a strand of Christianity that understood the message of Jesus to be central for our social ethics. In the nearly half-century since those two decisive turns, I have struggled endlessly with a central dilemma. How do I live as an American citizen in the context of learning evermore of the injustices and idolatrous violence of the American Empire? I have developed a strong critique of this Empire based on Christian theology and a pacifist reading of the Bible. However, such work has placed me in the midst of another wrenching dilemma. I draw heavily on the convictions of a religion that is itself deeply implicated in the dynamics of the Empire.

I do not write in hopes of actually resolving these dilemmas. In offering a progress report, I mainly want to continue the struggle. I hope for more conversation on the issues I raise. I will present the case for Christian pacifism as a lens through which to view the Empire and the Christian faith. How does that make sense?

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