The Muslim warrior Saladin called on the Almighty with the same fervor as King Richard's Christian crusaders. The jackbooted Nazis wore a belt buckle that said, roughly, "God is With Us." The Ku Klux Klan had religious overtones.
Various Ukrainian leaders invoke God at the drop of a hat, and summon Holy men to bless whatever suspect construction project that, one can conclude, a few people are making a lot of dough out of a lot of cement, glass and steel.
In the strictest sense, it bothers me not that "one nation, under God" is in America's Pledge of Allegiance, or that the same God the Nazis trusted is engraved on U.S. coinage. These are rather trivial and symbolic.
However, if America were to make an official holiday of the Friday before or the Monday after Easter Sunday, as does Ukraine, I would be disappointed. I am proud of my country's secularism, which neither makes me an atheist nor an agnostic.
There is a certain hypocrisy here, of course, since Christmas is an official U.S. holiday, and, some would say, it is the holiest of days. But don't mess with my Christmas holiday. I can withstand the criticism of having a double standard.
My big worry, however, is that our leaders will take religiosity to a level not seen since Saladin's time.
This is dangerous, even scary, in a tinderbox world. We're not talking about ancient armies, large for the time at several thousand, lining up with clubs and spears. We are talking about dirty bombs and chemical weapons.
A manifestation of this religious jingoism, in my view, was President George W. Bush's recent remark: "Freedom is the Almighty's gift to every man and woman in the world." The word Almighty is stressed.
Did he really believe that God gives freedom as a gift?
If Bush were right, then God doesn't much care for much of Eastern Europe and the Central Asian republics, where freedom of the press is rather restricted. Actually, I think it is rather impractical for God to choose sides in these matters.
Many years ago, when I played American football, the coach would gather us in the locker room to huddle just prior to game time, and lead a prayer that we would stomp the living daylights out of the cross-town opponent.
"Make 'em bleed," he said in his deep southern drawl. "Make 'em hurt."
When the season ended, we had prevailed in about half our games, so one could surmise that God either sat on the bench, or was actively pulling for the opposing team at least part of the time.
But the same people who grew up praying to God for their Uptown Bulldogs to cold-clobber the Crosstown Pirates took this spiritual mentality to the White House, the Pentagon, the State Department, Congress and beyond.
Hence, you have an institutionalized God Squad, where Congressional Prayer Breakfasts and photo ops of presidents toting their bibles in and out of various churches are common. This is not bad. It is a Norman Rockwell painting. It is Americana.
Bill Clinton, in the mist of the Monica Lewinsky scandal, conferring with preachers, is harmless. Jimmy Carter, telling Playboy magazine that yes, he had "lusted in his heart" is charming. Clinton was a lovable rouge, and Carter genuinely pious, but not radical.
Bush, however, has a certitude about him that is scary. He really believes, with Bin Laden fervor, that God gives freedom, that God smites enemies and, most likely, that God will be on side of his beloved Texas Rangers when they take the baseball field.
Elsewhere in the world, you have a demented Arab who took his fundamentalist religious beliefs to the caves of Afghanistan, and somehow orchestrated the most devastating terrorist attack on U.S. soil on Sept. 11, 2001.
It was in the name of the Almighty. As was the Madrid train bombing. As was the bombing in Bali. As was the U.S.S. Cole incident.
The fact is that God doesn't give freedom. People win freedom, sometimes with bloodshed.
I think God rejoices in that. It means he is on the winning team.
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