Christian sacrifice - Letters

Washington Monthly, Jan-Feb, 2002 by Stanley L. Swart

Joshua Green's account of the "God's Foreign Policy" movement (November 2001) is brilliant--as far as it goes. But Green downplays the two most important factors in the growth of what he labels "Christian Solidarity."

First, this group's national leadership consists of radical-right Republicans who have cynically betrayed the rank-and-file Christian membership. Proof? Their failure to work with President Bill Clinton in the 1998 Sudan crisis. By 1998 Clinton had proven his willingness to use military force in the pursuit of humanitarian goals. In that year the match was perfect--Christian solidarity working with the Clinton administration to save Christians while also punishing the Sudanese government for hosting a little-known terrorist named--what was his name, anyhow?!

The leaders' betrayal of this movement was open, and it is explicitly acknowledged by Michael Horowitz in Green's article. Horowitz and other insiders abandoned Christian victims of Islamic persecution in order to stab Clinton in the back. It is ironic that the Christian solidarity movement now has the Republican president it dreamed of--one who gives them words, but not the actions they might have received from Clinton.

STANLEY L. SWART, PH.D. Associate Professor of Criminal Justice University of North Florida