A week into the U.S. war in Iraq, I walked by a Baptist church covered in pro-war placards, one of which proclaimed: "Jesus, The Supreme Commander." That sign unintentionally summed up the actual situation: Never before in our nation's modern history has the White House so thoroughly mixed politics and religion.

President Bush does this by proposing that social problems can be ameliorated most efficiently through organizations that are faith-based. And that America's task in the world is to spread freedom because liberty "is God's gift to humanity."

In both cases, the rationale for action is God and faith. Why is this a problem? It poses serious risks not only for democracy and sound policy, but for the very religious groups that tend to be the most enthusiastic audience.

One of the remarkable cultural facts of the 20th century is that American evangelicals won the religious competition. We now know that one-third of adult Americans — more than 50 million — claim a born-again status. Nearly a majority of American Christians can be broadly called evangelical.

But what is more remarkable is that more than three out of every four white evangelicals voted for George W. Bush in the 2000 election. As has been widely reported, Bush political counselor Karl Rove thinks that Bush can win the White House in 2004 with white evangelicals alone. They are the new Protestant establishment. Their religion is the new American civil religion.

So why might Bush's policies, in the long run, be counter to their interests? The starkest reason is that Bush has subtly made his faith (a Christian evangelical Methodism) the center of his domestic and foreign decisions. And the relation of religion and the state has a bloody history. If absolute power corrupts absolutely, then mixing religion in merely glorifies this corruption.

Is it possible to name one empire or government which, partnered with religion, did not end by using religion to rationalize human suffering or human-rights abuses? One simply needs to think of the Mesopotamians, the Christian Crusades, and various Islamic regimes. Also, observe state Buddhism in medieval and early modern China and Japan.

The partnership of religion and the state is an equation for tragedy not just for enemies of the state but for the religion that is the state's partner.

Domestically, when the federal government funds religious organizations to do social service, they become arms of the state. They give up their independence and compromise their ability to fulfill their specific charitable missions.

When foreign actions are sanctioned, however subtly, on the dubious idea that a liberal democracy is a gift from God and that somehow the United States should be an instrument of that gift, where will our gift-giving end? Who will end it? Religion says that God is in charge; democracies say that the people rule. Who will adjudicate this debate?

Bush proclaimed after 9/11 that it is the U.S.'s calling, led by his sense of moral leadership, to rid the world of evil. How can we decide who and what is evil? Moreover, what makes us think that we can rid the world of evil? This injection of black-white thinking into the international sphere has created more enemies than it has overcome and alienated friends as well.

Again, where does Bush get his calling? It seems he gains it from his own prophetic sense of authority. This kind of religious charisma trumps normal political debate and veers toward the very mixture of state and religious power our Founding Fathers tried to prevent.

Many evangelicals outside the country have expressed concern at the arrogance of the U.S. role in the world; neither do they believe that it is helpful to their Christian cause. Even U.S. international missionaries feel that their cause and their safety are compromised by the melding of religion and politics in Bush's foreign policy.

There is no doubt that Bush's rhetoric of fighting evil and of overcoming evildoers with democracy and freedom is a potent rhetorical brew that appeals to the central cords of evangelical theology. Nonetheless, evangelicals should refuse to be co-opted by Bush and his team. For their Lord said, "My kingdom is not of this world."

When religious people begin to believe that they are the kingdom, this is the beginning of the end.

James Wellman is an assistant professor of comparative religion at the University of Washington's Jackson School of International Studies.

Copyright © 2004 The Seattle Times Company

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