Task Force Claims "God Gap" Impedes U.S. Foreign Policy

Teresa Neumann : Mar 1, 2010
David Waters - The Washington Post

"It's a hot topic. It's the elephant in the room. You're taught not to talk about religion and politics, but the bummer is that it's at the nexus of national security. The truth is the academy has been run by secular fundamentalists for a long time, people who believe religion is not a legitimate component of realpolitik."

(Washington, D.C.)—The Washington Post reports that, according to a two-year study by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, American foreign policy is handicapped by a narrow, ill-informed and "uncompromising Western secularism" that feeds religious extremism, threatens traditional cultures and fails to encourage religious groups that promote peace and human rights.

The Council's recommendation to President Obama? Make religion an "integral part of our foreign policy," or suffer a serious "capabilities gap."

Of the nation's "God Gap" in foreign policy, Chris Seiple, president of the Institute for Global Engagement and a Council on Foreign Relations member, said: "It's a hot topic. It's the elephant in the room. You're taught not to talk about religion and politics, but the bummer is that it's at the nexus of national security. The truth is the academy has been run by secular fundamentalists for a long time, people who believe religion is not a legitimate component of realpolitik."

Among some of the recommendations the task force proposed was to "Address and clarify the role of religious freedom in U.S. foreign policy [because] some parts of the world—the Middle East, China, Russia and India, for example—are particularly sensitive to the U.S. government's emphasis on religious freedom and see it as a form of imperialism."