Abstract
[T. Walter Herbert]'s central concern is what he calls the "religious catastrophe" of the 2003 invasion of Iraq and the "catastrophic success" U.S. forces encountered there. But his book is about much more than Iraq. Herbert's quirky literary and theological exploration of American foreign poUcy takes him aU the way back to the first colonial settlements in New England. The Puritans' "city on a hill," and its subsequent career as a cultural trope, dominates at least the first half of his book. But Herbert's task is not to undermine America's identity as that city. Rather, he sets out to unmask the alleged perversion of that identity - or, more accurately, to present an alternative city on a nul, one equally authentic to the American past but largely submerged throughout the nation's history. Herbert doesn't hesitate to call on his feUow citizens "to make our country a 'city on a hill' worthy of emulation, and worth fighting for ..." But performing that rehabilitation requires the rejection of a deeply embedded "Christian Americanism" in favor of a "counter-tradition" of tolerance and social justice. Herbert sees George W Bush and his "faithbased" war in Iraq as the culmination of a progressively degenerate tradition that combines the worst of the chosennation "delusion" with all the swagger and violence of the frontier gunslinger. Herbert begins his story conventionally with the Massachusetts Bay Colony - a parochial perspective that ecUpses the rest of English North America but one that keeps his schematic treatment of American history tidy. The two cities descend from [John Winthrop] and Roger WiUiams. Winthrop heads the equivalent of Cain's "ungodly" line and WiUiams the equivalent of Abel's "godly" Une (or "g*dly" Line, I suppose). Winthrops city loves its chosen-ness, wages imperial wars against the not chosen, and is religiously authoritarian. Williams's city, in contrast, loves "freedom of conscience," cultivates goodwill with native tribes, and practices communitarian values. Winthrop's city becomes predatory while Williams's becomes exemplary. A silhouette of the "hooded man" in the posture of the crucified Christ graces the front cover of Herbert's book. Never mind that this is a prisoner of war. The author leaves no doubt about his meaning: this innocent "victim," this modem Man of Sorrows, "is an icon that reproaches the religious perversion at stake in the invasion of Iraq, in particular the misconception of America as a 'city on a hill' that is entitled to seek limitless material abundance at the expense of others, and is exempt from judgment against any standard beyond itself." "'Hooded Man,'" he sums up, "represents the shame and disgrace that have accrued to the nation from following this version of America's exemplary status, a model for other nations to abhor."