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125 NOTES PREFACE 1 The author has supplied all biblical translations from the Greek original. 2 The usage of the term empire to describe the United States’ position within the world order will more than likely make conservatives and liberals bristle. Such a description of the U.S. is usually dismissed as hyperbolic rhetoric, the common parlance for the “blame America first” crowd. Yet, if we recognize that the concept of empire is no longer limited to physically possessing foreign lands forced to pay tribute to a militarily superior nation, then the term is appropriate. Empires of old were defined by how much land their armies could control; today, control is not measured by boots on the ground but by economics. The term has evolved to encompass the globalization of the economy by one superpower to provide multinational corporations with economic benefits, with capital gains secured and protected by a military might depicted as necessary for justice and peace. Like the Roman Empire of old, the United States Empire secures a pax americana so that the elite leaders of the empire, and their counterparts within dominated countries, can reap benefits, usually at the expense of the vast majority of the world’s marginalized. Modernday empires can arise only through the existence of foreign and domestic disenfranchised groups that provide both raw material and cheap labor. The wealth, prosperity, and power of the center were dependent on the exploitation of the groups of people that existed on their margins. Economic structures and relationships create and heavily influence societal power relationships. Those who resided in what is commonly called the “Third World,” with its enormous human and natural wealth, provided the material resources necessary to transform the United States, whose economy was anemic at the start of the twentieth century, into the sole superpower at the close 126 NOTES TO PP . 8–21 of that century. Non-European land, resources, and labor, obtained through exploitation of those who lacked military and technological superiority, existed to enrich the center. Unfortunately, military or technological superiority has come to be confused with cultural, intellectual, and religious supremacy. CHAPTER 1 1 According to Gary Dorrien (2003), the phrase “blacks of the South and the seething yellow flocks beyond the Pacific” appeared in an 1895 pamphlet titled What Shall We Do with the Germans? 2 It is interesting to note that when the Teutonic races fought each other during the First World War, Rauschenbusch was less militaristic in his views. 3 It is important to note Edward W. Said’s elucidation of how the term Orientals has historically been used to portray Asian men as feminine and weak and as known for their sensuality, cruelty, and despotic nature. See his classic text Orientalism (1979). 4 Although Rauschenbusch accepts and supports the initial actions of American imperialism, by the time of the First World War he moves away from the jingoism he initially advocated, even to the point of calling for the Philippines’ independence. 5 In his final book, A Theology for the Social Gospel, published during the First World War, Rauschenbusch, disheartened and demoralized by the war between his beloved Germany and the United States, calls for the social gospel to move beyond national injustices and inequality toward international issues like imperialism and nationalism. “All whose Christianity has not been ditched by the catastrophe [of the Great War] are demanding a christianizing of international relations. The demand for disarmament and permanent peace, for the rights of the small nations against the imperialistic and colonizing powers, for freedom of the seas and of trade routes. . . . Before the War the social gospel dealt with social classes; to-day it is being translated into international terms” (1917: 4). 6 Thistlethwaite argues that women are particularly tempted to submerge their individuality, their self, to the needs and desires of others—a temptation facilitated by the Niebuhrian private/public dichotomy. 7 One last personal note: in 1959 Niebuhr wonders if Cubans would have been “better served by our continued sovereignty over the island” (24–25). As a Cuban, I must respond that our dilemma is a direct result of the U.S. physically invading our country four times to set up governments friendly to U.S. business interests that controlled the vast majority of the Cuban economy and wealth; two covert operations to overthrow the Cuban government—not to mention the infamous Platt Amendment—have also contributed to our problem . He admonishes Latin America for its inability to establish stable [3.138...

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