Religious Diversity and Technology: Traditional Enemies Made Friends for Leaders

Background

Religion, which in part comprises the individual and societal human response to the divine, in all its complexity and variety (Otto, 1923), exists as an integral, even primary, cultural element and a leading source of personal and collective identity (Geertz, 1973; Bellah, 2006). The last decade of the twentieth century and the first decade of the twenty-first have afforded U.S. citizens – and members of the U.S. armed forces – evidence of the power of religious and humanist belief, adherence, practice, and allegiance in national, international, and local circumstances. In the shocked aftermath of the 11 September 2001 bombings, religious rhetoric was used to inform American public opinion as the Bush administration engaged in militaristic moves, helping to “shape American responses toward both the issues of Iraqi disarmament and an invasion of Iraq” (Smidt, 2005, p. 260).