Empire of Sacrifice: The Religious Origins of American Violence

By Jon Pahl
(New York University Press, 2010)
Reviewed by Ernesto Aguilar

From Regeneration Through Violence to Settlers, many sobering works have given attention to the unusual relationship religion has served in undergirding oppression and the passive as well as active support among keepers of the faith for brutal policies. Christian faiths especially have played a crucial role in United States history. Though progressives are wont to talk up the religious community’s activism in the abolition movement, far more extensive writings, including Rodolfo Acuna’s Occupied America, paint a horrid picture of Christian complicity and what leads to same. Indeed adherents who see themselves as a special people whose ordinance is God-given are hard to thwart. When those involved in settling indigenous lands hold fast to the opinion non-believers are worth sacrificing in the name of heaven, any number of crimes are permissible.

Enter Jon Pahl’s Empire of Sacrifice: The Religious Origins of American Violence, a text that gives contemporary grounding for words by the likes of J. Sakai.

By the pen of author Pahl, a seminary instructor, Empire of Sacrifice is more than some anti-religious rant. Rather, Pahl puts forward a nuanced analysis that is far more complicated than the television preachers, the extremist Religious Right and Sarah Palinesque hollow quotes on piety that normally populate our consciousness when it comes to forceful insertions of religion and society. Pahl argues religion is more than purely a belief in morality and a greater reward. Faith, particularly Christianity in the United States, has become a cultural pillar that permits acolytes a pass into the halls of power. By latching onto a subcultural opinion of what unites members of the religious community, those with optimal relationships, it is argued, can successfully unite in ways that do not seem religious at all. No truer examples of this can be witnessed when the Palins on the far right and Mitt Romneys on the moderate right can all talk about religion without actually ever saying something unambiguously about religion. The result is a sort of Wal-Mart fundamentalism, popular because it is generic but insidious because it defies description. From such ghastly roots, Pahl implies, can only bitter fruit come.

Pahl’s understanding of religion is one in which reverence is but a part, but rather where supporters ascribe to old time fire-and-brimstone fantasies of a tough and vengeful God. Such a God stands with the fight against infidels who bomb and green lights their obliteration, torture and torment. Collateral damage in such a scenario is the mathematics of acceptable losses, the price of exacting God’s will as well as the punishment for those who willfully live among the enemies of God. Even for the worst of crimes, forgiveness is possible and can be obtained after the fact. Yet in the moment, all is fair in war for the Lord. Pahl’s scholarship in Christian history is impeccable as it is chilling. Justifications for violence abound, and Pahl lays them bare here.

For those hoping to understand today’s political movements and how closely held traditions like capital and religion evolve with the times, Empire of Sacrifice comes at the perfect time. A quick read, Pahl’s book is sure to give even the most religiously resolute something to consider in endeavoring to a brighter future.