We sang The Battle Hymn of the Republic at the end of the Memorial Service in the National Cathedral on September 14, 2001, and I thought it was pretty cool.
Mine eyes have seen the glory
Of the coming of the Lord;
He is trampling out the vintage
Where the grapes of wrath are stored;
He hath loosed the fateful lightning
Of His terrible swift sword;
His truth is marching on.
Chorus:
Glory! Glory! Hallelujah!
Glory! Glory! Hallelujah!
Glory! Glory! Hallelujah!
His truth is marching on.
I have seen Him in the watchfires
Of a hundred circling camps
They have builded Him an altar
In the evening dews and damps;
I can read His righteous sentence
By the dim and flaring lamps;
His day is marching on.
Chorus
I have read a fiery gospel writ
In burnished rows of steel:
"As ye deal with My contemners,
So with you My grace shall deal":
Let the Hero born of woman
Crush the serpent with His heel,
Since God is marching on.
etc.
This was not quite the same thing with respect to Shintoism. Consider if President Bush declared himself to be God and declared everyone not believing in him to not be Christian. That's along the lines of what the Showa Emperor did. He was always considered divine, but emperor worship coopted what had used to be Shintoism.
Going back sixty years to diss someone's religion in order to attack a current President is below the belt in my opinion.
Agreed, it was an unbelievably cruel article. I think though, that the comparison the author wanted to draw was the parallels between kamikazi and the suicide bombers and get in a dig at the religion of peace. Clever, but in extremely poor taste.