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American Theocracy: The Peril and Politics of Radical Religion, Oil, and Borrowed Money in the 21st Century
By Kevin Phillips
Viking, 462 pages, $38

What motivates George W. Bush's America: God or greed? Both, according to U.S. political writer Kevin Phillips, in a distinctly unholy alliance that threatens not only U.S. prosperity and geopolitical supremacy, but American democracy itself. War and terrorism take a back seat in this characteristically erudite, breathless and unrelenting look at trends in recent U.S. politics and economics. As the book's subtitle indicates, Phillips (American Dynasty, Wealth and Democracy) believes U.S. vulnerability will come at the hands of radical religion, oil and borrowed money.

At first glance, the three would seem to have little in common. True, scholars since at least Max Weber have traced the connections between religion and capitalism, and it will come as no surprise that both play an inordinately large role in shaping the contours of contemporary American life. Neither will it shock readers to learn that the pernicious influence of oil distorts U.S. policy, both at home and abroad.

The novelty of Phillips's approach, then, lies not in his choice of threats but in his treatment of them. In three separate but loosely connected sections, he illustrates the extent to which God, oil and debt affect one another. U.S. intervention in the Middle East is obviously driven in large part by the need to maintain secure access to oil. But it is also determined by the theological imperatives of the evangelicals and fundamentalists who comprise the religious right.

For their part, religious conservatives, who now account for a large proportion of the Republicans' base, work in preparation for the "end times" of Armageddon, when Jesus will return to earth, destroy the armies of Satan and lead the faithful to live in a thousand years of peace. The catch is that the end times can only occur once the Jews have governed Israel in security and prosperity — hence evangelical Protestantism's passionate advocacy on behalf of Israel, and hence its support for the ouster of the anti-Semitic evildoer who ruled over a second Babylon from his opulent palaces in Baghdad.

In turn, the United States' oil-fuelled economy requires military expenditures and encourages consumer spending at levels that necessitate heavy borrowing and the accumulation of mountains of debt. In order to sustain such high levels of government, corporate and personal debt, Americans have to rely on foreign central banks, particularly in Asia, to maintain the dollar's role as the world's reserve currency through the purchase of U.S. currency and bonds.

The catch, as Phillips rightly portrays it, is that if oil and religion lead the United States into increasingly dangerous military adventures, or if the country's fiscal situation becomes too precarious, U.S. creditors will begin to call in debts and dump dollars, creating a precipitous economic and political slide that could signal the end of U.S. hegemony. This is a nightmare scenario not only for Americans, but for most of the world — including, most obviously, Canada —because U.S. decline will come neither smoothly nor quietly, and will claim many more victims than just Uncle Sam.

Thus, while the conclusions Phillips draws are sometimes glib and occasionally implausible, they are often startlingly, alarmingly persuasive. For all these reasons and more, American Theocracy should serve as Washington's wake-up call.

Phillips views the prevalence of government, corporate and personal debt as a "global Fifth Horseman," and believes that Americans' "fuelish" oil-dependent lifestyle, centred on booming suburbs and an enduring love affair with the automobile, has led it astray. But like many other recent commentators, from Anatol Lieven on the left to Andrew Bacevich on the right, he is most worried about the rise of conservative Protestantism and its dominant role in the governing Republican coalition.

It is easy to forget that American Protestantism, especially its evangelical wing, was once one of the nation's most progressive forces. From women's suffrage to working conditions to civil rights, it was religious politicians such as William Jennings Bryan and theologians such as Walter Rauschenbusch who led the drive to soften the harsher edges of American life. While evangelical liberals still exist — author, activist and ethicist Jim Wallis, co-founder of Sojourners, comes to mind — they are vastly outnumbered by their ideologically extremist conservative counterparts.

But though Phillips does have an alarming case to make, it often comes across as simply alarmist; that is, overstated, even exaggerated. For instance, that U.S. Christianity is generally more conservative than it was a few decades ago is beyond dispute. But is it a threat to U.S. democracy, or simply to the Republican Party? Phillips, a former Nixon White House strategist and a devotee of Eisenhower-era fiscal conservatism, unwittingly conflates the two. While the religious right is a driving force for the Republicans, it is hardly that influential in the nation at large. After all, Bush lost the popular vote in 2000 and won re-election by a historically razor-thin margin — with both victories coming against the easy prey of decidedly poor campaigners. Had Bill Clinton been allowed to run again in 2000, few doubt he would have beaten Bush handily.

In addition, creationists have lost their battle in Dover, Penn., and have even found it tougher going than anticipated in Kansas. Congressional Republicans are beginning to rebel against the extreme supply-side economics of the White House. And many from both parties agree that the U.S. military has reached the beginning of the end in Iraq.

Thus the religious right may have overreached itself. American evangelicals were traditionally the strongest supporters of the First Amendment's separation of church and state, for it left the church free from the burdens of governing to shape its own destiny. Indeed, one of the reasons organized religion has flourished in the United States is that, unlike in many European countries, the church has never had a hand in governing. When the state is periodically discredited, as is inevitable in the tricky, inherently fallible art of governance, the church escapes blame. There is little occasion for religious disillusionment when the church is protected from itself in this way.

Because American evangelical and fundamentalist Protestantism have had so deep a role in governing since 2001, it is largely on the hook for the Bush administration's many failures in domestic and foreign policy. With this political convergence of the sacred and the secular, the influence of the religious right may already have crested.

Yet even if the influence of religious conservatives does not wane, what Phillips reveals is not the perpetual dominance of any one party, but the deep polarization of U.S. political life. The ranks of Bush's opponents equal that of his supporters, and if weren't for the rallying effect of 9/11 and the so-called War on Terror, analysts might be dissecting the one-term lifespan of the second President Bush.

Moreover, the convergence of oil, money and religion in U.S. foreign policy is nothing new. The influence of oil led the Eisenhower administration to overthrow the government of Iran in 1953. Religion helped lead it to support the installation of a client state in South Vietnam the following year. Both Eisenhower and his secretary of state, John Foster Dulles, were as ostentatiously devout as Bush has been. But instead of implanting a "theocracy," the term Phillips uses to describe politics today, the pious 1950s triggered a revolution that resulted in the swinging sixties — which in turn provoked the conservative backlash that has reached its peak under Bush.

These developments may hurt the Republican Party, but the long-term damage they can inflict on the United States itself is limited. There is hope, then, for U.S. liberals. Should the Democrats ever recover their nerve, discover their voice and find their leader, we might yet witness the emerging Democratic majority.

Andrew Preston teaches history at the University of Victoria and is currently a 2005-06 Olin Fellow at Yale. His book The War Council is due out in May.