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Democracy

is approaching the month of November and, therefore, is getting closer the day of the election of next president United States of America, who will guide the future the four largest Western democracy and that, even if indirectly, will determine how our lives. For this reason, the next Monday literature, I decided to draw the "tracks" for a pPaese understand that, as Europeans, deeply love and hate at the same time, which attracts us and reject us and which can not always do well to understand the internal dynamics, because, although they resemble our nation is at once far other features.

The issue becomes even more complex for an evangelical who feel more connected to the United States for religious reasons (they are the nation with more evangelical in the world) and even politicians (this is the first place where religious tolerance has been applied in a almost complete).

To start this trip I decided to talk about a text is not new, but he has seen in this month its reissue in paperback. This is an essay written by an Italian, a historian of great renown who, just like the Italians, trying to understand some key issues in American politics. This volume is titled Democracy of God American religion of the Empire era of terror and A. Emilio Gentile is, for the types of the publishing house Laterza. For those who have never heard the name of the Gentile must be said that this is one of the greatest living experts of totalitarian regimes in Italy and his writings on fascism can be compared in importance to those of Renzo de Felice. Less well known is that Gentile, as well as deal with totalitarianism, had already addressed the relationship between politics and religion in a text entitled Religions policy. Between democracy and totalitarianism, trying to show how characters and religious nationalism can go hand in hand . The essay here is a kind of second look volume of this research, which applies the general principles of a particular case: that the United States after the September 11, 2001.

Try to write a "history" of a past so close is a difficult task, but we must now say that the Roman historian succeeds very well with moving skills , In a game increasingly difficult for one who interprets the past to remain fairly balanced in their assessments, while showing clearly and honestly what are your views on this subject, without an objectivity that lurk in historical interpretation never ha, but offering an interpretive framework dense and well documented.

The text, in the edition out this month, has a new preface of A. in which he explains how he considered it appropriate to re-issue on the eve of U.S. elections starts from a comment and an analysis of what has happened after the attack on the Twin Towers. In the first chapter, in fact, Gentile examines the reactions were primarily those that attack seen as the beginning of a new understanding on the part of a nation, especially after the collapse of the Soviet regime, he thought not to have more & # 249; no enemy that could threaten directly on his own land and its soil was not directly invaded or violated by at least two centuries. In the same chapter hints at the belated reaction of President Bush, whose advisers while he was visiting a school in Texas, they realized only with a lag of gravity of the situation and aroused the same day of the attacks some perplessit & # 224, which was later put down later.

Just because the U.S. felt, since their founding, a nation blessed by God, in the second chapter Gentile trying to figure out what was the reaction to "religious" Ac. To do this we start from the famous debate that, in the eighteenth century, there was about the Lisbon earthquake, when several Enlightenment philosophers (including Voltaire, Rousseau and Kant) intervened to comment on the incident to try to understand how the death of innocents could be justified, for understand if you live in the "best of all possible worlds" or how God could allow this. The discussion that there was after the Sept. 11, according to Gentile, has implications similar to that of the eighteenth century with the necessary distinctions (the attack on the Twin Towers is not a catastrophe natural, but a carefully planned terrorist act) He has raised a series of responses that range from the religious right which, like the Islamic fundamentalists, the beginning saw the attack as a sort of divine retribution against the American people who had moved away from a moral purity which had been gradually weakened, those who, instead, sought an interpretation of greater complexity of the issue trying to figure out whether there was any fault by the U.S. or, rather, if you were faced with a manifestation of absolute evil with which we must always fight.

Just this discussion leads to the. to ask what relationship there was between the highest representative of the American politics, the president of the United States and religiosity. Gentile says that the connection between religion and the Presidency, in a nation that professes to lay and where the division between church and state is clear, it remains very strong, and it was even more during the period of President George W. Bush. Subsequent chapters, in fact, try to analyze the character and Bush before his political career, both during his years as president until the beginning of the second Iraqi conflict. The A. believes that faith in Bush as a born-again Christian is sincere and that this has been merged with the cult of civil religion that has tried to interpret in a manner to be ecumenical that exclusive.

The Roman historian also wonder if the awakening of civil religion (which includes the worship of the flag, the community of values, the chosen people, and feel protected by God) has paid to a religious awakening in general. The answer, in his opinion, is no, because analyzing data from both the Pew Forum that the Barna Group (two groups of social scientists in recent decades, have analyzed the different influences of social relgione in the U.S.) we find that the level of participation in religious services, one year after the attacks, is once again the old one (which is always one of the highest in American history) and, conversely, the cult of the nation (remember that Gentile is an expert on nationalism) has been reborn and has taken new force from the crisis that there had been after the Vietnam War. The role of Bush as "Pontifex Maximus" of this cult has worked until there was intervention in Iraq and, especially, has begun to play a worship Ecumenical (which covered the whole country) irrespective of the political spectrum, as authentically only used by the Republicans (at the expense of Democrats) and, in particular, the evangelical Christian conservatives, whose front (Unconditional consent of the Bush administration) has started to fall apart after the intervention in Iraq. The concept of civil religion (which dates back to the Genevan philosopher Rousseau) and its interpretation applies to the United States are covered by a fundamental study of the late sixties of the sociologist (liberal Protestant), Robert Bellah, and the text of Gentile is liable for his performance in this study.

The conclusions of the text (the same A. says provisional) are those where the civil religion was reborn (in a secular and nationalist) and if this idea is not to deny that the U.S. is the most & # 249; important Western democracies, the future president in the wake of the criticism came also from the religious sphere, should attempt to return to a regime more bipartisan and less part of what the Administration, especially in ' last four years, he has had.

The text reads easily and should compliment the A. for the seriousness with which he confronted the subject and the abundance of materials. Only a careful reader of this may lead the reader to understand the various facets of the interpretation Gentile that here we have only touched on briefly. Unlike many books written by Italian authors (where ignorance about the religious divisions in America is sometimes embarrassing), Gentile shows to know the partitions of American Protestantism, which are the most authoritative bodies ( Christian Century and Christianity Today are mentioned several times) and also its exponents. There are still some small notes to do that are forgivable in a great overall effort. It is not always clear about the Gospel and sometimes is confused with that of fundamentalism. If, without a doubt, leaders like Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell should be counted among the neofundamentalist (which should not be not confused with the original authors of the Fundamentals the early twentieth century), Billy Graham, surely one of the leaders of the conservative evangelical world, can not be considered as such. Also on Billy Graham, although he probably always voted Republican, showed his bipartisan attitude participating in the inauguration of Bill Clinton (who is in his own name) and also with the speech done at the National Cathedral ceremony two days after Sept. 11. Even more confusion (understandable after all) is done when it comes to Jim Wallis. Gentile calls it Liberal evangelical Protestant, three terms in the U.S. would be in contradiction with each other, as the term is also used liberal in theology. Wallis, who was trained in conservative evangelical seminaries, has remained so for his theology, but it has a political agenda that may seem liberal, although God ' ; s Politics, its position is also critical towards the Democrats. In fact, the evangelical world is far less monolithic than is believed in the political field and, within it, different locations that should be evaluated as such.

Despite these assessments can lead to misunderstanding of (and, in all likelihood can only be understood by a person who is inside the world of which we speak) should read the text to search to understand and to have a record on the last decade of American history that, in Italian, from those that are my knowledge, is the most valuable and most readable.