ABSTRACT
On March 11, 2003, the eve of the Iraq war, Larry King hosted a live debate among a group of Christian pastors and authors, posing the question: ‘What would Jesus do in Iraq?’ The group included a Catholic priest and a theologically diverse group of Protestants who were invited to spar with each other and the audience over the relationship between faith and politics. The question they were asked – ‘what would Jesus do?’ – referenced a pop culture phenomenon among younger evangelicals, who in the 1990s had taken to wearing bracelets and T-shirts with the (then) insiderish moniker: WWJD? The WWJD movement was perhaps a particularly evangelical gesture, invoking the presence of Jesus as so immediate, so accessible, that a believer could ask herself in any situation, ‘what would Jesus do?’ – and then presumably do likewise. But by 2003, the WWJD questions had a new urgency, as religious people in the United States, leaders and ordinary lay people alike, debated the Iraq war.
