What the World Should Be: Woodrow Wilson and the Crafting of a Faith-Based Foreign Policy (review)

Woodrow Wilson has been one of the most studied presidents in U.S. history. Many historians have been interested in the impact religion had upon Wilson. In particular, scholars have debated over the extent that religion influenced his personal life and political career. For example, historians such as Niels Aage Thorsen and John A. Thompson have acknowledged that Wilson was influenced by his religion but that its influence was limited to “cultural evangelicalism” (2). Other scholars have opposed this interpretation by asserting that Wilson’s foreign policy was inspired primarily by his secular interpretation of the world (4). In this book, Malcolm Magee attempts to expand our understanding of Wilson by asserting that he was profoundly inspired by his religious upbringing. Magee claims that Wilson’s religious cultivation was significant to the point that his reasoning could not be separated from his faith (2). Ultimately, it was this cosmology that informed Wilson’s decision making as president.

Magee has utilized an interdisciplinary approach that has combined historical methodologies with religious/political philosophy to help determine his findings. In addition, he has utilized a variety of records housed in the Library of Congress at Washington, D.C. and the U.S. Department of State at the University of Chicago. These primary sources include speeches, personal letters, and official correspondences that have aided Magee to conclude that religion was integral to Wilson’s interpretation of the world.

Magee believes that President Wilson’s immersion in a Southern Presbyterian tradition influenced his political trajectory. Specifically, he subscribed to two concepts that shaped both his presidency and foreign policy. First, he believed in the “theological principle of antinomy: that two principles could both be right even when others, looking at them in the light of logic rather than faith, found them mutually contradictory” (5). Wilson’s belief in this principle was evident in his intervention with Mexico’s Revolution of 1913 and in the formation of the League of Nations. Second, Wilson also believed in the general notion of providence, which is the divine guidance of God over humankind. In the case of Wilson, he believed that God had chosen him to lead the United States and the other nations of the world to democracy and freedom.

The Mexican Revolution was the first major international event that demonstrated Wilson’s belief of antinomy. According to Magee, Wilson’s approach to foreign policy was to “fight systems rather than people, he personalized conflict in his own mind, focusing on national leaders whom he considered evil” (52). Since Wilson believed that it was his duty to bring freedom to the nations and people of the world, Mexico was a perfect testing ground for his mission. On April 1914, the U.S. State Department had been informed that a German vessel was going to deliver a shipment of arms for the Victoriano Huerta government. President Wilson ordered U.S. troops to seize the customs house at Veracruz. This action could be perceived as contradicting his previous statement that the United States would not engage in territorial conquest. According to Magee, Wilson believed “his motives were pure and unselfish. The United States was not conquering Veracruz, it was protecting the interests of the Mexican people, which were threatened by their own government” (61). Ultimately, President Wilson perceived his actions as bringing order to the chaos of the Mexican conflict.

President Wilson also used World War I, the Fourteen Points, and the formation of the League of Nations as another opportunity to obtain his goal as the moral leader of the world. Throughout the negotiation process, Wilson became independent in his decision-making process and referred less and less to his advisors. Since he believed that he was chosen to lead the world’s nations to freedom, his decisions would eventually come to fruition. His goal was to create...