'Whatever
one thinks of the God idea, the big difference between God almighty and
the secular almighty is that the former is supposed to be benign,
whereas I don’t think it uncontroversial to say that the NSA is not.'
Photograph: Jim Lo Scalzo/EPA
It's nothing new, this fear that there is someone
out there watching my every move, knowing my inmost thoughts. It used to
be a fear of God. Now it's a fear of Google, the NSA and GCHQ.
In other words, we have invented a secular form of omniscience. For the
sake of argument let us bracket out the question of whether this God
actually exists. For present purposes, I am interested in how human
beings have historically reacted to the prospect of there being some
powerful agent/agency who knows everything about us. Thousands of years
ago, the psalmist had it thus:
"O Lord, you have searched me and known me. You know when I sit down
and when I rise up; you discern my thoughts from far away. You search
out my path and my lying down, and are acquainted with all my ways. Even
before a word is on my tongue, O Lord, you know it completely. You hem
me in, behind and before, and lay your hand upon me. Such knowledge is
too wonderful for me; it is so high that I cannot attain it. Where can I
go from your spirit? Or where can I flee from your presence? If I
ascend to heaven, you are there; if I make my bed in Sheol, you are
there." (
Psalm 139 vv. 1-8)
But, the psalmist concludes, if we having nothing to hide,
why worry? "Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my
thoughts. See if there is any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way
everlasting." This is not dissimilar to Barack Obama's line that in the
trade-off between security and privacy, we ought to trust the listening
spooks not to misuse information they gather about us, that they are
working in our best interests. But, whatever one thinks of (let's call
it) the God idea, the big difference between God almighty and the
secular almighty, is that the former is supposed to be benign, indeed
the very epitome of love itself, whereas I don't think it entirely
uncontroversial to say that the NSA is not.
The problem is, however, that too many Americans think of their
nation as inherently Christian, as set apart by God. For all their
supposed separation of church and state, and for all their supposed
suspicion of big government, in the end a significant proportion of
Americans believe in America in the same way that they believe in God.
They over-identify the Christian "we" with the American "we" – as Stanley Hauerwas puts it. In 1956, the USA replaced its unofficial motto, E pluribus unum(Out of the many, one), with an official motto, "In God we Trust".
Thus the state not so subtly claims for itself the same level of
trust that Christians have in the almighty – thereby answering the
initial fear that the psalmist has about absolute surveillance with the
reassurance that the powers that be are benign and have our ultimate
interests at heart. Nothing could be more dangerous than this, that the
state deserves absolute trust. Which is why it is worth stating and
restating the theologically obvious: the NSA is not God – however much
it might aspire to the absolute power of omniscience.
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