Glory, glory hallelujah

If you want an acerbic taste of what might be called Niebuhrian irony, see the gallows humor of American soldiers in Chris Collins' front-line* McClatchy report from Iraq, "South of Baghdad, U.S. troops find fatigue, frustration":

Standing in a small room in the Iraqi home they'd raided an hour earlier, a dozen soldiers from the 3rd Heavy Brigade Combat Team of the Army's 3rd Infantry Division were trading jokes when 1st Sgt. Troy Moore, Company A's senior enlisted man, shouted out.

"We're bringing democracy to Iraq," he called, with obvious sarcasm, as a reporter entered the room. Then Moore began loudly humming the "Battle Hymn of the Republic." Within seconds the rest of the troops had joined in, filling the small, barren home in the middle of Iraq with the patriotic chorus of a Civil War-era ballad.

The "Battle Hymn of the Republic" embodies exactly the kind of naively revolutionary, millennial optimism that Reinhold Niebuhr made a career out of shouting down. Due to my preoccupation with the scatological eschatology of our friends LaHaye and Jenkins, I've tended to spend a lot of time here with the errors and oddities of premillennial dispensationalism. But that is only one form, and not even the dominant one, of the millennial fervor that has, periodically, played such a large role in American Christianity and American history. The "Battle Hymn" is the almost-official theme song of that millennial fervor.

When performed well, the song can give you a sense of the attractiveness of that millennial spirit. That allure, and its influence in our culture and history, is reflected in the many echoes of Julia Ward Howe's lyrics in our literature and political rhetoric. It is a beautiful song,** but it is also, explicitly, a crusader's hymn. It is a distillation of the Civil War minus all of Lincoln's doubt, sorrow and humility. (Look again at his Second Inaugural, which serves almost as a rebuttal of this song.)

The arrogant, vainglorious dreaming of the Project for a New American Century -- the people who pitched and promoted, but never planned for, this war -- is the latest expression of this millennial optimism. That implicit millennial vision has at times been stated explicitly, as when Condoleezza Rice spoke of the recent fighting in Lebanon as the "birth pangs" of democracy in the Middle East (an allusion to the mini-apocalypse of Matthew 24). The dreamers of PNAC preached a "fiery gospel writ in burnished rows of steel," but the soldiers of Company A know better. The Lord hasn't been seen in their hundred circling camps.

American millennialism needn't be as explicitly religious as the "Battle Hymn," although even in its most secular forms it remains a kind of religious faith. One of the most memorable portrayals of this secular millennialism is that of Alden Pyle, the title character in Graham Greene's The Quiet American, of whom Greene's narrator, Fowler, says, "I never knew a man who had better motives for all the trouble he caused."

In an astonishing speech last month*** President Bush attempted to cite The Quiet American -- including that very description of Pyle -- as part of some sort of argument for why the American occupation of Iraq must never end. I've been too flabbergasted by the perverse audacity of that to comment on it (Greg Mitchell does a good job of responding), but here's a bit of a post I wrote on all of that back in mid-December, 2003:

Greene's most important novel today has to be The Quiet American, in which he tells the tragic story of two unlikely friends: Thomas Fowler and Alden Pyle.

Fowler is world-weary, disillusioned and, if not exactly corrupt, thoroughly compromised. Pyle is in many ways his opposite -- young, naive, idealistic. Pyle, Fowler tells us, semi-reliably, was "determined ... to do good, not to any individual person, but to a country, a continent, a world." He was innocent, and therefore dangerous: "Innocence always calls mutely for protection, when we would be so much wiser to guard ourselves against it; innocence is like a dumb leper who has lost his bell, wandering the world, meaning no harm."

The two men are presented as opposites -- one disillusioned, the other illusioned. If you read the novel -- and the world -- convinced that Pyle and Fowler represent the only available options, then you are left with despair. Surely there is some option available to us other than inhuman detachment and the violent idealism of plastic explosives.

When one reads the audacious plans of the PNAC ... in the light of Greene's novel, what's striking is the way its authors seem to combine the worst elements of both Fowler and Pyle. It exhibits both Pyle's unbridled, hubristic idealism and Fowler's cynical regard for the naked power of imperial hegemony. ...

What's particularly annoying -- and offensive -- is the habit that the PNACes have of treating all of us who disagree with their destructive Pylesque idealism as though we are defenders of Fowler's cynical views (the old "you're objectively pro-Saddam" sophistry). This accusation reveals a despairing failure of imagination, as well as a refusal to listen to what is actually being said. ...

That failure of imagination and refusal to listen -- to critics, to reality -- were on full display in Bush's speech, which concluded with this starkly millennial assertion:

So long as we remain true to our ideals, we will defeat the extremists in Iraq and Afghanistan. We will help those countries' peoples stand up functioning democracies in the heart of the broader Middle East.

Glory, glory hallelujah. Let's loose the fateful lighting of "our ideals." But yet, as tends to happen, the terrible, swift sword has come to supplant the ideals we claimed it served. The soldiers of Company A appreciate that, even if Bush doesn't.

- - - - - - - - - - - -

* The front-lines, in this case, being the living room of a private home. The purveyors of the stabbed-in-the-back myth of Vietnam like to say that war was really fought in the living rooms of America, as the public watched it unfold on their televisions. These same revisionists, hoping to escape accountability for the current unwinnable war, are pitching the same lie about the conflict in Iraq. It turns out the lie is partly true, though, since this war is literally being waged in living rooms, just not in American ones.

** The "Battle Hymn of the Republic" was quite probably the first music I ever heard. It was playing on every radio and television in the hospital the night I was born. I don't remember this, of course, but I have since seen footage of that rendition. The song was sung by two choirs at the Lincoln Memorial, accompanied by the brass section of the U.S. Marine Band and all the residents of Resurrection City. It was the end of a long day, a day that began with a funeral in New York and ended with the only night-time burial in the history of Arlington National Cemetery. That grave context made the song something other than a shallow expression of millennial optimism. It became instead, as it was in the speeches of the man buried two months earlier, an expression of millennial hope. And hope and optimism are not the same thing. I sometimes even think they may be mutually exclusive.

*** Read that speech and you'll see what I mean about the dolchstosslegende.

Comments

[Jeff]

It helps to remember that there are two versions of the Battle Hymn:
"As he died to make men holy, let us die to make men free" and
"As he fought to make men holy, let us live to make men free".

As Sarah Vowell pointed out on This American Life, "This is one instance where we know EXACTLY what Jesus would do. Die!"

[Jesurgislac]

Does anyone actually sing

"Let the Hero, born of woman, crush the serpent with His heel"?

or are there unsung verses?

(I feel that "Oh, be swift, my soul, to answer Him! be jubilant, my feet" is likewise a bit, um, problematic.)

[cjmr's husband]

Most people only know the first verse.

All I can remember at the moment is the one that goes

Glory, Glory Hallelujah!
Teacher hit me with the ruler!
Met her at the door with a loaded .44
And she ain't my teacher no more!

(We used to sing that all the time round about third grade; there were several verses. Undoubtedly would get you kicked out of school now)

[LL]

I wonder if Greene felt anything like Bruce Springsteen probably did when Reagan co-opted his song "Born in the USA" as a patriotic anthem when in fact, if you listen to the words, it most certainly is not (at least that's not how I interpret the words). I guess politicians are like regular people, after all, in that they listen to what they want and disregard the rest.

"The Quiet American," BTW, was made into a pretty good movie starring Michael Caine and (if I'm remembering correctly) Brendan Fraser. By all means, read the book, but the movie's good, too.

And I've always thought the Battle Hymn of the Republic to be one of the most mediocre songs ever written or sung. Fred's obviously entitled to his opinion that it is beautiful, but I've never thought so. I don't particularly like "America the Beautiful" either. I think "This Land Is Your Land" should be the national anthem, but that's just me.

[cjmr]

It helps to remember that there are two versions of the Battle Hymn:

At least. The hymnal I have that uses the most gender-neutral language says, "As he died to make us holy, let us die that all be free". (Which I think is grammatically silly, but that's me.)

Does anyone actually sing "Let the Hero, born of woman, crush the serpent with His heel"?

We don't. But it's very Revelation-y.

If you number the verses in the Wikipedia entry 1 through 6, most churches (in my experience) sing verses 1, 2, 4 and 5 or 1, 4 and 5. I'd never heard of verses 3 or 6 before.

[Raka]

I have no quibbles with this post. It states many things I already felt more eloquently than I could, and presents some interesting points and perspectives that I hadn't thought of. It makes provocative references and incisive comparisons.

Feelin' kinda out of my element, here. Someone needs to leave a comment with some minor logical flaw that I can tear apart with my usual bloviating charm and shrill pedantry.

[ako]

I think it's weirdly appropriate that Bush would try to defend Alden Pyle.

And the first time he demonstrably read a grown-up book, he has to verbally take it out on the author.

[Jesurgislac]

LL: And I've always thought the Battle Hymn of the Republic to be one of the most mediocre songs ever written or sung.

Which makes it an excellent candidate for a national anthem, official or unofficial.

In the UK, unofficial national anthems include:

England: "When Britain first, at Heaven's command" or And did those feet in ancient time

Wales: Mae hen wlad fy nhadau yn annwyl i mi (or "The land of my fathers, the land of my choice", and I gather a lot of the Welsh have a problem in that they don't actually know the words in Welsh...)

Scotland: Oh Flower of Scotland or Hark where the night is falling.

The important thing is: None of them are terribly sensible, and most of them sing very badly. (I won't cite any of the Irish ones: to the best of my recollection, they're all extremely sectarian...)

[Ian]

I've sung the Battle Hymn in Church, but not in a long while, so some alternate lyrics come to mind first. The tune seems to be everybody's favorite fight song:

When the spirit of the union through the worker's veins shall run
there can be no power greater anywhere beneath the sun
though nothing could be weaker than the feeble strength of one
but the union makes us strong
solidarity forever!
solidarity forever!
solidarity forever!
for the union makes us strong.

Or, for the engineers present,

Godiva was a lady who to Coventry did ride...

[John]

Somewhere along the way, I'm sure I've sung a conflated version: "As he died to make men holy, let us live to make men free."

[the opoponax]

The "Battle Hymn of the Republic" embodies exactly the kind of naively revolutionary, millennial optimism that Reinhold Niebuhr made a career out of shouting down.

Which is double interesting, considering that it started as John Brown's Body, the "anthem" of the abolitionist cause. Especially the abolitionists who were by no means pacifists.

[the opoponax]

Oh, and in "John Brown's Body", the "as he died to make us holy" line goes:

John Brown died so that the slave might be free.

Interesting case of the telephone game, this song...

[Ian]

Better alternate lyrics by Mark Twain:

The Battle Hymn of the Republic, Updated.

Mine eyes have seen the orgy of the launching of the Sword;
He is searching out the hoardings where the stranger's wealth is stored;
...
(five verses)

[cjmr]

As he died to make men holy, let us live to make men free.

That's the version in the Lutheran Book of Worship. (I wouldn't be surprised to find it other places.)

[the opoponax]

Though I have to triple post and admit that when I was checking my facts against wikipedia just now, it turns out that the song wasn't written by abolitionists at all, but by a Union regiment. Damn history teachers, pulling fascinating-if-totally-fictional details out their asses...

[Jos]

Is it bad that, when I heard about soldiers fighting in a living room, my first thought was about Stalingrad?

I mean, I'm not saying Bush managed to turn an entire country into another Stalingrad, but...

Ah well. I'm not sure what my point is. That I make weird mental connections, maybe.

[hapax]

No weirder than that I always mentally hear
John Brown's body lies a-molderin' at the Y
... in a long green locker at the Y

(pace Jean Kerr)

[J]

The two men are presented as opposites -- one disillusioned, the other illusioned. If you read the novel -- and the world -- convinced that Pyle and Fowler represent the only available options, then you are left with despair. Surely there is some option available to us other than inhuman detachment and the violent idealism of plastic explosives.

Yeah, no, sorry, I don't accept this reading of The Quiet American as being true. Fowler and Pyle are NOT equal and opposite. The fact that Fowler likes opium and has a 19-year-old Vietnamese girlfriend DOES NOT make him "just as bad" as Pyle, who arranges for people to be blown up with car bombs and then worries about blood on his nice Italian shoes. This is as stupid as that stupid rhetorical line about "New Atheists" being "Just as bad" as religious fundamentalists. (Let's see, religious fundamentalists stone women to death and blow up cars. Atheists write occaisional books and newspaper articles. That's a pretty low threshold of equivalence.)

Fowler now. Fowler forever. Fowler for my childrens' godfather. Fowler for best man at my wedding.

[J]

BTW, it's mentioned in passing in QA that Pyle is a Unitarian. As someone with more than a passing familiarity with Unitarianism, I couldn't decide how accurate this was. Eventually, I decided it was very accurate, at least for mid-century Unitarians. Unitarians are pretty solidly anti-war people, at least nowadays, but they are not a "peace church" like the Quakers (that is, Unitarians during Vietnam didn't just flash their membership card and get instant Conscientious Objector status, no further questions asked).

That bit about "determined ... to do good, not to any individual person, but to a country, a continent, a world" rings true to me. Many Unitarians I know read too much pop sociology, not enough literature. They care a lot about The People, not so much about individual people. There's the caricature of the Unitarian who gets some high-falutin' humanitarian award for selfless work on behalf of Tibetan refugees . . . but is estranged from his children and is about to end his third marriage.

[Tonio]

I just read the complete lyrics on Wikipedia. I agree with Fred about the beauty of the language. But I find the language terrifying, and not just in the "crusader's hymn" sense. I can imagine a theocratic dictatorship's bully troops chanting that song as they march Jews, Muslims and atheists into the ovens.

[Jeff]

I won't cite any of the Irish ones: to the best of my recollection, they're all extremely sectarian

Like this?
"One bloody Sunday while on my way to Mass
I met a bloody Orange-Man and killed him for his pass."

The 'Merkan National Anthem would sound a lot better if everyone just acknowledged it as drinking song, meant to be sung and heard while half to three-quarters pissed.

[Jesurgislac]

Most patriotic songs sound better when you're drunk.

I think the world would be a better place if anyone who delivered themselves of some resounding patriotic sentiment were immediately assumed to be drunk, stoned, or silly.

[85% Duane]

LL:I think "This Land Is Your Land" should be the national anthem, but that's just me.

After watching Arlo Guthrie perform "This Land Is Your Land" at the Shenandoah Music Festival in August, I completely agree!

Of course, we had third grade lyrics for that one too:

This land is my land.
This land ain't yer land.
I got a shotgun, and you ain't got one.
If you don't get off, I'll blow yer head off.
This land was made for only me.

[Iain]

The Quiet American is really powerful- and i think the most important thing today is the same as it was in 1955(!) when it was written (and at all points in between)is that no one gives a shit about Phuong (the young Vietnamese girl). Both main characters say / believe they love her, but she doesn't have too much choice in the matter really - she just wants to stay alive, and will do what it takes to stay alive (even if it's servitude to an old washed out journalist). Each man has a great plan for Phuong, and they're both sure she will find it is the best possible outcome for her life (though there is some honest facing up to the truth that all they are interested in is their own pleasure / benefit.

Greene is of course drawing the parallel with the old colonial superpower (not French as might be supposed, but British - facing it's own colonial demons in 1955) and the new colonial superpower who both think they're doing what is best for Vietnam (insert whichever other country comes to mind here...). Vietnam's wishes and interests don't matter at all.

Reminds me of someone (Chomsky?) who talks of some villagers in rural Laos who suddenly find they're being bombed by US airplanes - they've enver seen planes before, or even cars; but now they're being bombed by America: 'they didn't even know there was a country called America; they didn't even know there was a country called Laos'

Who gives a shit about Iraq? It's the superpowers who know what's best for the world, and will make it happen to everyone else, and will never think it's worth asking what people want.

That's the basic Hollywood problem - many films made about the suffering and pain of soldiers doing their duty, but who cares about the many destroyed lives of 'the enemy'? So we have 'Black Hawk Down' - how many US soldiers were killed or injured? We're given hours of their story; but how many Somalis were killed? The film just about manages to squeeze in some acknowledgment of the 1000 or so who were killed that night...

Phuong has a name!! She matters! She has hopes and dreams

[Lizzy L]

Thank you, Fred, very well said. I remember "that day" very well. For one thing -- it was my birthday, too. I was 22 years old, and preparing to receive my second college degree the next day. It was a somber, somber day, and many of us in the graduation procession wore black armbands. Nothing felt good.

I enjoy singing "The Battle Hymn of the Republic," but the words are bitter-sweet, since behind them lies the terrible carnage of the Civil War. The irony of our soldiers singing in in the middle of Iraq's civil war, which our invasion generated, is stunning.

[M Groesbeck]

As I was walkin' - I saw a sign there
And that sign said - no tress passin'
But on the other side .... it didn't say nothin!
Now that side was made for you and me!

In the squares of the city - In the shadow of the steeple
Near the relief office - I see my people
And some are grumblin' and some are wonderin'
If this land's still made for you and me.

Yeah, I'd take that as an anthem.

[Vermic]

Glory, Glory Hallelujah!
Teacher hit me with the ruler!
Met her at the door with a loaded .44
And she ain't my teacher no more!

When I was in third grade, we "shot her in the butt with a rotten coconut". Go figure!

The hymnal I have that uses the most gender-neutral language says, "As he died to make us holy, let us die that all be free". (Which I think is grammatically silly, but that's me.)

Ugh. I don't like this version; it has too much of a suicide pact-y ring to me.

[Scott]

The arrogant, vainglorious dreaming of the Project for a New American Century -- the people who pitched and promoted, but never planned for, this war -- is the latest expression of this millennial optimism.

To which the left is hardly immune, if you read Edwards' latest blather on healthcare.

[J]

"...when it was written (and at all points in between)is that no one gives a shit about Phuong (the young Vietnamese girl). Both main characters say / believe they love her, but she doesn't have too much choice in the matter really - she just wants to stay alive, and will do what it takes to stay alive..."

Fowler has fewer illusions about what he offers her. Pyle generally thinks of his relationship as win-win: He gets sex with a hot Asian babe, and in return she gets to go back to America, which will be so "good for her", in the sense not merely of material comforts and safety from war but, more arrogantly, that it will "uplift" her and make her a more "real" person in Pyle's scheme of values, anyway.

Fowler is more sanguine. He doesn't for a minute think that he's doing something spiritually "good" for Phuong. He wants to get her out of Vietnam because it's dangerous--all the more so because of Pyle and his people.

[Iorwerth Thomas]

LL: "I wonder if Greene felt anything like Bruce Springsteen probably did when Reagan co-opted his song "Born in the USA" as a patriotic anthem when in fact, if you listen to the words, it most certainly is not (at least that's not how I interpret the words). I guess politicians are like regular people, after all, in that they listen to what they want and disregard the rest."

I'd be surprised and a bit worried if he did; he's been dead awhile! (Although a 'zombie Graham Greene' would be quite cool, thinking about it. It'd pump some new, uh... life? into the UK literary establishment...)

Jesurgislac: Wales: Mae hen wlad fy nhadau yn annwyl i mi (or "The land of my fathers, the land of my choice", and I gather a lot of the Welsh have a problem in that they don't actually know the words in Welsh...)

It's the official Welsh National Anthem [1], and no, very few people actually know the words in either English or Welsh (well, unless they went to a Welsh language school, where it's kind of drilled into you). There is amusing footage of a former Welsh Secretary (who was, like most Welsh Secretaries under the Tories, about as English as you could get) failing even to mouth the words convincingly at a rugby match...

[1] I think. England is the only part of the UK not to have its own official anthem; they get stuck with the UK one ('God Save the Queen'), complete with Elizabethan verses denouncing the evil Scots.

[hapax]

England is the only part of the UK not to have its own official anthem

A Song of Patriotic Prejudice

[Jeff]

Good grief -- I kinda agree with Scott!

"[Edwards] will also require preventive care coverage." (from his web-site) -- about halfway down the page. If he doesn't mean "mandatory" or "required" he shouldn't use those words. As it is, he sounds like the characature of a leftie the Right has portrayed him as. Yuck.

Now get some industrial strentgh disinfectant so I can get the Scott cooties off.

[Dan S.]

"complete with Elizabethan verses denouncing the evil Scots.

For a second I read that as " . . . denouncing the evil Scott . . . "

[Jeff]

For a second I read that as " . . . denouncing the evil Scott . . . "

That works for me!

[Majromax]

As it is, he sounds like the characature of a leftie the Right has portrayed him as. Yuck.

I have to agree, but I'd disagree with Scott that it's due to some naivete. More likely, it's due to the same patronizing attitude towards the poor that conservatives are often guilty of. Underlying the proposal is seemingly an assumption that the poor are too stupid/ignorant/stubborn to get preventative care, even if it were provided to them.

Short of illegal immigrants afraid of entering into -any- system, I can't think of a broad circumstance where this would be true.

[Jesurgislac]

[1] I think. England is the only part of the UK not to have its own official anthem

England has "Jerusalem" and "Land of Hope and Glory". These are as "official" as the anthems for Scotland and Wales: officially, the only national anthem for the UK is "God Save The Queen" - most versions eliminate the anti-Jacobite verse about the Scots.

[bad Jim]

[Occasionally, when we're asked to rise to sing the national anthem, I amuse myself by singing tunelessly the original words to the repurposed drinking song, the Sparse Bangled Stammer]

To Anacreon in heav'n, where he sat in full glee
A few sons of harmony sent a petition
That he their inspirer and patron would be
When this answer arrived from the jolly old Grecian

"Voice, fiddle and flute
No longer be mute
I'll lend you my name
And inspire you to boot

"And besides I'll instruct you
like me to intwi-i-i-ine
the myrtle of Venus
and Bacchus's vine."

[I get some funny looks, just because all I can produce vocally is a boring drone. I really shouldn't sing.]

[chris y]

"John Brown's baby had a cold upon its chest... So they rubbed it with camphorated oil."

Non-Welsh speaking politicians (most of them) are taught some words which make it look on camera as if they're singing along: "My hen laid a haddock, I'll have it for tea..."

[Jesurgislac]

Hapax: A Song of Patriotic Prejudice

I get a "403 Sorry, you aren't allowed here!" message from that link.

[cjmr's husband]

Your reputation precedes you?

[sapote3]

Julia Ward Howe wrote those words when she was young, fervent, and Really Truly Believed that we were fighting to liberate the oppressed and that it would all work out in the end. She was, rightfully, heartbroken by the war, and later became an ardent pacifist. It's ironic that the Unitarian hymnal is one of the only denominational hymnals that doesn't have the Battle Hymn of the Republic in it.

J, are you by chance implying that international aide work, which is stressful, sometimes dangerous, all-consuming, and a job that usually requires constant travel, might put a strain on someone's personal life?

I for one am _shocked_.

[J]

J, are you by chance implying that international aide work, which is stressful, sometimes dangerous, all-consuming, and a job that usually requires constant travel, might put a strain on someone's personal life?

I'm not implying anything; I'm directly stating that there's a certain stereotype--a stereotype with a ring of truth--of Unitarians as vastly more concerned with the well-being of "the oppressed" (nebulously defined, always distant and romanticized) than of the un-romanticizable people immediately around them.

[sapote3]

Yeah, that was pre-cup-of-coffee "rush to the defense of my church!" sarcasm. But, you know, most of my paltry work experience to date has been in an international-aid related field, and while there are a lot of people who hold up to the strain in a way that does humans credit, I am also not all that surprised when I hear tales of how such-and-such a person is supposed to be a great humanitarian but has a rocky personal life: sometimes those aren't contradictions, those are consequences.

So on the one hand we've got the stereotype that we care only about Distant Oppressed people and not at all about the person in our congregation or neighborhood who is suffering, and on the other hand we've got the stereotype that we're just a social club that bakes cookies for our members whose puppy died but don't care enough about Darfur. I'm not saying these are unfounded, I think they do a pretty good job of marking out either end of the spectrum as far as local vs. global involvement.

I'm curious, though, why you have a specific Unitarian axe to grind: I'm really not feeling as defensive as I'm probably coming across, it's just that most people I've ever run into who have a problem with us have it on a "y'all are going to hell" level or on a "damn bleeding heart hippies, I hope you choke on a spotted owl" level. (The internal debate about whether we're being ethically consistent, of course, rages on, but I'm not used to outsiders _caring_).

[nieciedo]

Why exactly is milleniallism bad? Naive millennialism, of course, is bad. Naivete is always bad.

But what's wrong with having a dream of better things, something you believe in strongly enough to fight and die for?

I feel bad, now, because I actually like The Battle Hymn of the Republic, but I see that that is not the how the "cool popular kids" feel, so that must be wrong.

I prefer the Internationale, though. I have the chorus of the Bolshoi performing it on my computer right now.

[Jesurgislac]

Your reputation precedes you?

My reputation is cute, furry, and drinks only milk. Give it espresso after midnight and it turns into a wildcat, though.

[nieciedo]

As far an "Unoficial Irish Anthems" go, I've never heard the one that Jeff cited but that sounds like a Northern song rather than an all-Ireland one.

Before Amhran na bhFiann was adopted as the official anthem, the next runner up was God Save Ireland, a rather insipid song about the "Manchester Martyrs" of 1867 set to yet another American Civil War tune, this time "Tramp Tramp Tramp The Boys Are Marching."

Also favored was O'Donnel Abu, which IS sectarian, referring the war between Catholic Hugh O'Neil, Earl of Tyrone and Red Hugh O'Donnell, Earl of Tirconnel against the Protestant armies of Elizabeth I.

A Nation Once Again gets sung a lot and is a nice song and non-sectarian: it's author was Thomas Osbourne Davis, a Protestant and one of the leaders of the Young Ireland movement (they of the farcical 1848 "rebellion").

[Angelika]

nieciedo But what's wrong with having a dream of better things, something you believe in strongly enough to fight and die for?
Fighting (with the option to die in the process) for something usually involves to make other people die for our dream, which is something these ignorant other people tend to object to. - I prefer the harder way: To believe into something strongly enough to work and live for it.

[twig]

This is as stupid as that stupid rhetorical line about "New Atheists" being "Just as bad" as religious fundamentalists.

It's not that they're 'just as bad' in terms of current action or desire or poltical power, it's that atheism can go 'just as bad as' any other kind of human thought, with the extremism and the illogic and the killing other people for no good reason - and yes, people will continue pointing it out.

[Ian]

nieciedo, I think that most people here would agree that some degree of millenialism can be beneficial. Having a prophetic vision of how the world could be and ought to be radically different from the way it is can motivate you to do something about injustice. One problem with millennialism is that true believers often turn into Jacobins, switching from persuasion to imposition and force. Alternately, some millennialists use that vision as an excuse for inactivity -- God will do the work.

So in my mind, the problem with millennialists is not so much that their vision is naive (any millennial vision is naive, in a sense) but the damage that can be done by people who misapply that vision. The Battle Hymn represents a shift from thinking of just war as a grim duty to correct a particular injustice to thinking of war as a glorious and ongoing opportunity to impose God's kingdom (or rather, your conception of God's kingdom) on others by force, and that's scary.

[cjmr]

I'm curious, though, why you have a specific Unitarian axe to grind:

Don't worry, sapote3, there are plenty of commentors here with their axes sharpened for other varieties of Christian. That comment was mild compared to our usual discussions of One True Christianity(TM).