How the Republic of Reason Was Replaced by the Theology of Empire

The tragedy of America is not that it lost its wars. It is that it lost its mind. A republic founded on reason has turned itself into a church of conquest. The Constitution has become a sermon; foreign policy, a crusade. America no longer argues — it excommunicates.

The transformation did not happen overnight. It began when faith was smuggled back into politics through the back door of patriotism. Every nation has myths; America made its myths mandatory. The republic of Jefferson, Paine, and Madison — secular, skeptical, experimental — was baptized by Truman, Eisenhower, and Reagan into a holy order of divine exceptionalism. The laboratory of democracy became the cathedral of destiny.¹

The Founders declared independence from kings and priests. Their descendants recreated both — a crown called “the free world” and a pulpit called “freedom.” In the new theology of empire, America is God’s last instrument, chosen to redeem the planet through war, markets, and media. Its flag became the new cross. Its soldiers became missionaries of democracy. Its wars became acts of faith.

No empire calls itself an empire. Rome called itself a republic. America calls itself a defender of liberty. But its moral vocabulary betrays its theocratic soul. The “axis of evil” was not a geopolitical term — it was a sermon. “Manifest Destiny” was not a policy — it was a prophecy. The rhetoric of empire is always written in the grammar of revelation.²

In Jefferson’s republic, the citizen was sovereign. In the new America, belief is sovereign. The measure of loyalty is not reason but faith — faith in the market, in the flag, in the myth of innocence. The secular trinity has replaced the divine one: capitalism, militarism, and nationalism. Each demands sacrifice. Each promises redemption. Each insists it is freedom.

The republic of reason once demanded argument. The theology of empire demands obedience. Dissent has been redefined as blasphemy. To question foreign wars is to be “anti-American.” To criticize capitalism is to be “ungrateful.” To expose hypocrisy is to be “unpatriotic.” The language has changed, but the logic is biblical: thou shalt have no other gods before the nation.

America’s wars abroad are reflections of its theology at home. When the republic was rational, its strength came from ideas. When it became theological, its strength came from weapons. The faith that once built universities now builds drones. The gospel of democracy has become the gunboat of morality. The Pentagon has replaced the Parthenon as the symbol of Western civilization.³

What Jefferson and Madison separated, modern America has reunited: God and Government. The line between belief and policy has vanished. Presidents now end speeches with “God bless America,” as if divine endorsement were a constitutional right. Foreign invasions are justified by prophecy; domestic oppression by scripture. It is the Old Testament with nuclear weapons.

The theology of empire thrives on fear. It needs enemies the way religion needs sin. Without heretics, there is no faith. Without foreign threats, there is no unity. So new demons are invented — communists yesterday, terrorists today, China tomorrow. Each enemy plays the same theological role: the infidel who must be subdued for the salvation of civilization.

The republic of reason produced citizens. The theology of empire produces believers. The citizen asks why; the believer asks when. The citizen demands evidence; the believer demands certainty. The citizen respects diversity; the believer demands conformity. America’s descent is not merely political — it is epistemological. It forgot how to think in the conditional.

And yet, the irony remains historical. America was discovered while looking for India — the land of multiplicity. It could have learned pluralism from that accident. Instead, it chose monotheism as its destiny: one God, one truth, one nation under heaven. The same theological architecture that justified ancient conquest now governs modern capitalism.

When America bombed Iraq, it said it was liberating the people. When it sanctioned Cuba or Iran, it said it was defending democracy. When it arms one theocracy while condemning another, it calls it “balancing interests.” But beneath every justification is the same divine assumption — America is right because America is chosen. The deity has changed from Yahweh to “freedom,” but the logic remains scriptural.

The theology of empire is not merely military. It is moral theater. It needs sin to stay alive. It feeds on confession and punishment — not of itself, but of others. Its foreign enemies justify its domestic hypocrisies. It condemns dictators while funding monarchies, preaches liberty while surveilling citizens, and calls capitalism the natural law of creation.

The ultimate victim of this theology is the American mind itself. It can no longer distinguish between truth and affirmation. Debate has been replaced by slogans, morality by marketing, liberty by branding. The republic has not been conquered by foreign powers — it has been conquered by its own sanctimony.

Reclaiming the Republic of Reason will require a second revolution — this time, against the empire built in its name. America must rediscover that secularism was its strength, not its shame. It must replace faith with fact, and exceptionalism with humility. It must learn that moral superiority is not a policy but a pathology.

The republic can still be saved. The First Amendment was written precisely for this moment — to remind America that thought is sacred and belief is optional. If Jefferson’s words still mean anything, they mean this: liberty is the right to doubt your own gods.

When America reclaims reason, it will stop needing enemies to define itself. It will no longer measure its virtue by the number of nations it saves or destroys. It will remember that greatness was never divine; it was human.

The republic of reason once illuminated the world. The theology of empire darkens it. To choose between them is not a question of politics. It is a question of civilization.

Citations

George Washington, Farewell Address (1796); Dwight D. Eisenhower, Inaugural Address (1953).
John L. O’Sullivan, “Annexation,” United States Magazine and Democratic Review (1845); George W. Bush, State of the Union Address (2002).
Chalmers Johnson, The Sorrows of Empire: Militarism, Secrecy, and the End of the Republic (2004).