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The United States is the most religious and wealthiest of nations, in contrast to an increasingly skeptical and somewhat agnostic Europe. Bush cited the role of faith in the life of his countrymen, saying, "Here in America, you'll find a nation of prayer."
But do jobless Americans from small towns which were once economic success stories feel bitter resentment against immigrants who are not like them? Do they take to guns and religion as an antidote to their miseries, as Obama suggested?
Bob Herbert wrote in The New York Times on April12, "Other nations can provide healthcare for everyone. The United States cannot. In an era in which a college degree is becoming a prerequisite for a middle-class quality of life, we are having big trouble getting our kids through high school. And despite being the wealthiest of all nations, nearly 10 percent of Americans are resorting to food stamps to maintain an adequate diet, and 4 in every 10 American children are growing up in families that are poor or near-poor."
Who do they direct their ire against? Many first and second generation immigrants from Asia and other developing regions worked their way up to attain a higher education. Sometimes whole families dug in to see a fledgling business prosper. Most of them are relatively better positioned economically than some of the descendants of the early U.S. pioneers and settlers.
Barack Obama was raised by a single mother with help from his grandparents. Not too long ago he finished paying off his student loans. He is now in the race for the nation's top office, hoping to help change his country.
In their book "The Next Attack," Daniel Benjamin and Steven Simon wrote: "As a society that is becoming more religious, we are increasingly inclined to look at our jihadist enemy from a theological perspective, grounded in a particular Christian identity…The more we see this as a conflict between two faiths, the more likely we are to approach the battle emotionally rather than strategically."
The Americans that Bob Herbert wrote about do turn out in great numbers to vote Republican and impact public policy to take on a religious sheen.
Brian Anderson pegged "born again" Christians at 50 percent in his 2004 book "Secular Europe, Religious America," while Michael Hout, Andrew Greeley and Melissa J. Wilde observed in "The Demographic Imperative in Religious Change," in the American Journal of Sociology, that conservative Christian families produce more children than those belonging to mainline groups.
And the population of the Christian right is increasing. Otherwise Bush could not have begun his marauding War on Terror on theocratic lines before better sense prevailed. And wasn't he brought back to power for the second time on the strength of "born again" votes?
Addressing U.S. Catholic bishops, the pope warned against dropping their guard against relativism, since faith played an ever larger role in public life in the United States than it did in secularized Europe.
Urging the nation to shun secularism and spurn materialism, the pope left room for more heurism in future debates on the humane treatment of immigrants from all over the world who practice a myriad of faiths and the prospect of unimpeded economic growth as opposed to some redistribution of wealth.
MSNBC's Kevin Corke's remark that there was "a special bond" between President Bush and the Pope can also be seen as a shot in the arm for conservatives in an election year. Having seen the U.S. moral position slip steadily downhill with the treatment of prisoners at Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib, it was imperative for Bush to borrow a trademark Benedict phrase: "In a world where some no longer believe that we can distinguish between simple right and wrong, we need your message to reject this dictatorship of relativism."
Is it possible for a pluralistic, increasingly multi-religious society to shun catholicity -- the belief that all faiths are true -- at the altar of the Catholic faith? Will the Pope's concern for only the suffering Christians in Iraq help assuage some of the miseries of innocent Iraqis and Afghans?
Does lack of relativism keep secular concerns also outside cardinal limits? Relativism does not mean you change your faith or stretch it to your advantage. It also means empathizing with others so you can relate to them from their perspective.
One couple, friends of mine from their India days who recently became U.S. citizens, told me they wanted to vote for Obama because his mother's family -- full-blooded Americans -- had the Bible, the Koran and the Gita on their bookshelves.
That is the kind of relativism that the world associates with and expects from the United States, where non-Christians are still misunderstood and lumped with those who perpetrate violence in the name of Islam. Why then is Obama's name "accidentally" mispronounced as Osama, and why does his middle name raise doubts about his Christian faith?
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(Susenjit Guha is a freelance writer living in Kolkata, India. He can be contacted at sguha60@yahoo.com. ©Copyright Susenjit Guha.)
