Religious Roots of American Foreign Policy: the Origin of the Consciousness of the “Mission of America”

This article seeks to find the origin of the “mission of america”, which liesat the root of the nation’s global strategy, in a feature of puritanism and itseschatology. at the same time, this article considers elements found inamerica’s global strategy that hinder co-existence and how to overcomethem. global strategy pursued by the bush administration after 9/11, to thepoint of arrogance, was not based just on practical diplomatic decisions to pursue national interests. what lay behind these decisions were america’ssense of mission, an awareness that is ideological as well as religious. if we look at the state of religion in america today, it is hard to see prominentacts of criticism against the global strategy of the current administrationfrom transcendental, self-critical american awareness. however, this consciousness has not disappeared from the american religious tradition.what is needed is an awareness once again that another religious traditionexists, and to assist this tradition from a position of empathy.