According to WorldNetDaily's headline story on October 7, President Bush has once again displayed his lack of thoughtfulness with the statement that people of all religions pray to the same God.Posted on 10/07/2007 3:14:29 PM PDT by EternalVigilance
According to WorldNetDaily's headline story on October 7, President Bush has once again displayed his lack of thoughtfulness with the statement that people of all religions pray to the same God.
This president often seems intent on proving right the vicious critics who ridicule him as someone who simply lacks the intelligence the presidency requires. Of course their criticism, aside from smacking of the arrogant elitism all too characteristic of left wingers, misses the mark. The president's remark isn't evidence of stupidity, or even, as some Christian critics would have it, of simply theological ignorance. Rather, it bespeaks a lack of thoughtfulness, the kind of common-sense pondering that, from his youth, characterized Abraham Lincoln (also a man criticized in his day for his lack of intelligence, by the way).
In particular, it bespeaks a failure to think through the basic premises of constitutional self-government, as they were eloquently and simply stated in the Declaration of Independence.
The Declaration declares that all men are created equal and endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights. People these days, when they remember the Declaration at all, tend to focus on the rights and forget the Creator. President Bush's embarrassing remark may be the result of this myopia. If we remember and reflect on the Declaration's reference to the Creator, we realize that it invokes the authority of the Creator God as the basis for our claim to unalienable rights. It invokes that authority as governing all human beings, not just those who believe in or pray to Him.
This suggests a simple amendment in Bush's remark that would reflect the self-evident truth asserted in the Declaration. All human beings are subject to the same God. All human beings in their very nature reflect the substance of God's will. All human beings, regardless of their religion, and indeed even if they deny the existence of God or any god, have at the very heart of their being, the dictates of the Creator that make their existence possible, dictates reflected in their consciences even when they consciously mistake or deny the One whose will inscribed them there.
These statements about the universal sovereignty of God reflect the wisdom of America's Founding generation, wisdom that requires no more intelligence or sophistication than it takes to read a computer's instruction manual to learn how it works, or return it to the folks who made it for repairs. The word authority refers in the first place to authorship, a fact our common sense recognizes long before we learn the word. Whether we acknowledge it or not, we are subject to the dictates of the One who fashioned our being. We operate as He has prescribed, even when we refuse consciously to acknowledge or cooperate with His being.
I think the Christians who criticize Bush for his lack of theological understanding have therefore missed the most disturbing implication of his statement. Apparently, the President of the United States has never thoughtfully considered the premise of our existence as a nation. The man sworn to the greatest responsibility to uphold, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States apparently doesn't understand the idea that it is founded upon. How can he defend what he does not understand? How can he uphold the Constitution if he cannot defend the ground upon which it stands?
I think it would be unfair, however, to leave the impression that President Bush is somehow unique in his failure to grasp the common-sense wisdom that reveals the possibility of human liberty. In fact, he simply reflects what is now the prevalent defect of our governing elites, whose fancied sophistication has cut them off from the wisdom of America's Founding generation. They think that God has authority over people because they pray to Him. They think that He is a convenient figment of human need and imagination, conjured up as humanity creates itself out of the chaos of material evolution. This may give comfort to human pride and arrogance, but it offers none to those who seek justice when the strong survive and dominate at the expense of human life, human dignity, and human freedom.
I think President Bush is right to seek some way to make it clear that the war against terror is not a religious crusade against Islam. I only wish he had the ability to make this point without denying the difference that, in truth, distinguishes one religion from another and Christianity from all the rest. He reaches for some way to express the universal truth that America fights for in the war against the terrorists, even as we fought for it in the wars against the Communists or the Nazis. But like the rest of his elite brethren, he can no longer see this truth, or express it without shame.
Justice is not the good of the stronger. It is not the survival of the fittest. It is the universal birthright of all humanity, established not by our laws, not by our triumphs, and not even by our prayers, but by the will of the Creator. Though some may pray to Him, and others not, all are entitled to be treated according to His will. Whether they are Christians, Jews, or Muslims, pagans, agnostics, or atheists, all people are His creatures, by nature equal until, by denying His justice to others, they bring His judgment against themselves.
President Bush is wrong to imply that Americans can believe that all religions are equal. (After all, those who deny the authority of the Creator deny the truth that makes our freedom possible.) We do believe that by God's will, His justice applies to all, even those who are mistaken in their beliefs. This is the American creed, in view of which all humanity may live without fear, so long as they give to the rights of others the respect it offers to their own.
President Bush would be well advised to think upon and even borrow these reflections. America will be better off when we have a president who borrows them from our Founders and thinks of them on his own.
Click here for more articles by Alan Keyes
free dixie HUGS,sw
Sorry, but Allah is not the Christian God.. this blanket statement that if you are monotheist you pray to the same god as every other Monotheist is nonsense.
Whether he becomes the President or not,he must be in the cabinet in perhaps a new position such as “Navigator.”
That does not translate into qualifications for national leadership though.
Having voted for him in 1996, I have now come to believe he is the modern-day William Jennings Bryan...
Those who think Alan Keyes’ foremost quality is his speaking ability are just plain wrong. To believe that is to completely misunderstand and miss the source of his speaking power. Jesus said, “Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks.” Alan has devoted his entire life to deeply internalizing the founding principles of this country, and the philosophy that drove its founding, more than anyone else I know of in America. That’s why he can talk the way he does. It flows out of him like water from an artesian well. Do you know of anyone else in American politics who can speak eloquently from his heart about the deep principles on which our country was built for hours, if necessary, without notes or teleprompter?
But this is a man with extensive foreign policy experience. One of the jobs he did for Ronald Reagan was to fight the forces of state-sponsored terrorism. He fought the racist Soviet “Zionism is racism” propaganda ploy and defeated it. He had a big part in writing and negotiating the Mexico City Policy. Etc., etc., etc.
And his work on behalf of the entire conservative agenda across America over the last decade or so is unparalleled.
He’s far more than just a good talker. In fact, it’s kind of insulting. Kinda like Joe Biden calling Obama “clean” and “articulate.”
I am well aware of his abilities--I wouldn't have supported him for president in the '96 primary if I weren't.
But he is more like a John the Baptist than Abraham Lincoln--he needs a skill set like the latter IMO...
What the hell are you doing bringing common sense and intelligence into a thread like this? Are you sure you aren’t going to some other thread?
Thank you. Your post is a much needed reprieve from the stupidity surrounding this issue.
The reactions I have witnessed are, shall we say, less than Christian. I love the part where these religious midgets question the faith and sincerity of the man who TAUGHT BIBLE CLASSES back in his home state. I KNOW that he can run rings against any of these holier-than-thou trolls in his theology and Biblical knowledge.
With “christians” like the people I see here, I’m more comfortable with the “infidels” and “heretics”. Bin Laden and his murdering hirabists and the “kill em all/everyone is going to hell except me and my groupies” are just two-side of the same ugly, bigotted, and hateful coin tainting the name and doctrine of the Almighty Lord.
Only God can give Dr Keyes the discernment he has, none else!
hello, SW. thanks for stopping by and reading the article.
PING
My understanding is that Republican people in MI strongly favor Romney because some remember his father, the liberal former governor who once ran American Motors.
I just love this man!
Hey, when we make him the nominee, he will definitely give the keynote speech! :-)
Me too. He is without peer.
free dixie HUGS,sw
Agreed. He is a good man.
Dr. Keyes spoke to the Texas Alliance for Life annual banquet last night and did so eloquently, without attacking our President.
I came away with the impression of a man who is not only brilliant with a gift for simply speaking the most elegant logic, but one filled with the knowledge of the love and hope as a gift of the Lord.
However, this discussion about the President is not as loving or hopeful.
Well, he’s simply saying that the President lacks the quality of thoughtfulness, the life-long habit of deeply thinking through the most important things. I find it hard to disagree, all things considered. He’s not a stupid man.
Sounds like it was a truly great event.
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