Posted on 02/12/2003 8:35:27 PM PST by rwfromkansas
In the spring of 1999, as George W. Bush was about to announce his run for President, he agreed to be interviewed about his religious faith -- grudgingly. "I want people to judge me on my deeds, not how I try to define myself as a religious person of words."
It's hard to believe that's the same George W. Bush as now. Since taking office -- and especially in the last weeks -- Bush's personal faith has turned highly public, arguably more so than any modern president. What's important is not that Bush is talking about God but that he's talking about him differently. We are witnessing a shift in Bush's theology – from talking mostly about a Wesleyan theology of "personal transformation" to describing a Calvinist "divine plan" laid out by a sovereign God for the country and himself. This shift has the potential to affect Bush's approach to terrorism, Iraq and his presidency.
On Thursday (Feb.6) at the National Prayer Breakfast, for instance, Bush said, "we can be confident in the ways of Providence. ... Behind all of life and all of history, there's a dedication and purpose, set by the hand of a just and faithful God."
Calvin, whose ideas are critical to contemporary evangelical thought, focused on the idea of a powerful God who governs "the vast machinery of the whole world."
Bush has made several statements indicating he believes God is involved in world events and that he and America have a divinely guided mission:
-- After Bush's Sept. 20, 2001, speech to Congress, Bush speechwriter Mike Gerson called the president and said: "Mr. President, when I saw you on television, I thought -- God wanted you there." "He wants us all here, Gerson," the president responded.
In that speech, Bush said, "Freedom and fear, justice and cruelty, have always been at war, and we know that God is not neutral between them." The implication: God will intervene on the world stage, mediating between good and evil.
At the prayer breakfast, during which he talked about God's impact on history, he also said, he felt "the presence of the Almighty" while comforting the families of the shuttle astronauts during the Houston memorial service on Feb. 4.
-- In his State of the Union address last month, Bush said the nation puts its confidence in the loving God "behind all of life, and all of history" and that "we go forward with confidence, because this call of history has come to the right country. May He guide us now."
In addition to these public statements indicating a divine intervention in world events, there is evidence Bush believes his election as president was a result of God's acts.
A month after the World Trade Center attack, World Magazine, a conservative Christian publication, quoted Tim Goeglein, deputy director of White House public liaison, saying, "I think President Bush is God's man at this hour, and I say this with a great sense of humility." Time magazine reported, "Privately, Bush even talked of being chosen by the grace of God to lead at that moment." The net effect is a theology that seems to imply that God is intervening in events, is on America's side, and has chosen Bush to be in the White House at this critical moment.
"All sorts of warning signals ought to go off when a sense of personal chosenness and calling gets translated into a sense of calling and mission for a nation," says Robin Lovin, a United Methodist ethicist and professor of religion and political thought at Southern Methodist University in Dallas. Lovin says what the president seems to be lacking is theological humility and an awareness of moral ambiguity.
Richard Land, a top Southern Baptist leader with close ties to the White House, argues that Bush's sense of divine oversight is part of why he has become such a good wartime leader. He brings a moral clarity and self-confidence that inspires Americans and scares enemies. "We don't inhabit that relativist universe (of European leaders)," Land says. "We really believe some things are good and some things bad."
It's even possible that Bush's belief in America's moral rightness makes the country's military threats seem more genuine because the world thinks Bush is "on a mission."
Presidents have always used Scripture in their speeches as a source of poetry and morality, according to Michael Waldman, President Clinton's chief speechwriter, author of "POTUS Speaks" and now a visiting professor at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government.
Lincoln, he says, was the first president to use the Bible extensively in his speeches, but one of the main reasons was that his audience knew the Bible -- Lincoln was using what was then common language. Theodore Roosevelt, in his 1912 speech to the Progressive Party, closed with these words: "We stand at the edge of Armageddon." Carter, Reagan and Clinton all used Scripture, but Waldman says their use was more as a "grace note."
Bush is different, because he uses theology as the guts of his argument. "That's very unusual in the long sweep of American history," Waldman says.
Bush has clearly seen a divine aspect to his presidency since before he ran. Many Americans know the president had a religious conversion at age 39, when he, as he describes it, "came to the Lord" after a weekend of talks with the Rev. Billy Graham. Within a year, he gave up drinking and joined a men's Bible study group at First United Methodist Church in Midland, Texas. From that point on, he has often said, his Christian faith has grown.
Less well known is that, in 1995, soon after he was elected Texas governor, Bush sent a memo to his staff, asking them to stop by his office to look at a painting entitled "A Charge to Keep" by W.H.D. Koerner, lent to him by Joe O'Neill, a friend from Midland. The painting is based on the Charles Wesley hymn of the same name, and Bush told his staff he especially liked the second verse: "To serve the present age, my calling to fulfill; O may it all my powers engage to do my Master's will." Bush said those words represented their mission. "What adds complete life to the painting for me is the message of Charles Wesley that we serve One greater than ourselves."
By 1999, Bush was saying he believed in a "divine plan that supersedes all human plans." He talked of being inspired to run for president by a sermon delivered by the Rev. Mark Craig, pastor of Bush's Dallas congregation, Highland Park United Methodist Church.
Craig talked about the reluctance of Moses to become a leader. But, said Mr. Craig, then as now, people were "starved for leadership" -- leaders who sacrifice to do the right thing. Bush said the sermon "spoke directly to my heart and talked about a higher calling." But in 1999, as he prepared to run for president, he was quick to add in an interview: "Elections are determined by human beings."
Richard Land recalls being part of a group of about a dozen people who met after Bush's second inauguration as Texas governor in 1999.
At the time, everyone in Texas was talking about Bush's potential to become the next president. During the meeting, Land says, Bush said, "I believe God wants me to be president, but if that doesn't happen, it's OK." Land points out that Bush didn't say that God actually wanted him to be president. He said he believed God wanted him to be president.
During World War II, the American Protestant thinker Reinhold Niebuhr wrote about God's role in political decision-making. He believed every political leader and every political system falls short of absolute justice -- that the Allies didn't represent absolute right and Hitler didn't represent absolute evil because all of us, as humans, stand under the ultimate judgment of God. That doesn't mean politicians can't make judgments based on what they believe is right; it does mean they need to understand that their position isn't absolutely morally clear.
"Sometimes Bush comes close to crossing the line of trying to serve the nation as its religious leader, rather than its political leader," says C. Welton Gaddy, president of the Interfaith Alliance, a clergy-led liberal lobbying group.
Certainly, European leaders seem to be bothered by Bush's rhetoric and it possibly does contribute to a sense in Islamic countries that Bush is on an anti-Islamic "crusade."
Radwan Masmoudi, executive director of the Washington-based Center for the Study of Islam and Democracy, worries about it. "Muslims, all over the world, are very concerned that the war on terrorism is being hijacked by right-wing fundamentalists, and transformed into a war, or at least a conflict, with Islam. President Bush is a man of faith, and that is a positive attribute, but he also needs to learn about and respect the other faiths, including Islam, in order to represent and serve all Americans."
In hindsight, even Bush's inaugural address presaged his emerging theology. He quoted a colonist who wrote to Thomas Jefferson that "We know the race is not to the swift nor the battle to the strong. Do you not think an angel rides in the whirlwind and directs this storm?" Then Bush said: "Much time has passed since Jefferson arrived for his inauguration. The years and changes accumulate, but the themes of this day he would know, `our nation's grand story of courage and its simple dream of dignity.'
"We are not this story's author, who fills time and eternity with his purpose. Yet his purpose is achieved in our duty, and our duty is fulfilled in service to one another. Never tiring, never yielding, never finishing, we renew that purpose today; to make our country more just and generous; to affirm the dignity of our lives and every life.
"This work continues. This story goes on. And an angel still rides in the whirlwind and directs this storm."
The "good guys" can do what they desire in opposing the "bad guys" because the "ridding-the-world-of-the bad-guys" end justifies the "War of agression" means.
The world is a very complicated place and we all are burdened with original sin yet listen to our dufus Dubya (yes, I do think he is dumb) trying to convince us the mantle of God is upon his shoulders and he was chosen to liberate the entire planet. This is pure madness. In better days, someone would have thrown a net over the loon.
Nineveh was saved by fasting and prayer. Put down your forks and hit your knees....This nutball already has us bogged-down in Afghanistan (how many thousands of innocents were killed in that Unjust War?) we are about to launch an UnJust War in Iraq (Our sanctions have already accounted for over 500,000 deaths of innocent Iraqis and we have 200,000 disabled Vets from Daddy's first Gulf War), the War Criminal Sharon wants us to take out Iran after Iraq (any bets we won't?)and we have a president that struts about as though he were mini-Mussolini and he personalises disagreements with other world leaders (Saddam and Korea's Kim)and I listen to Dubya talk trash to them and about them and I think, "What the Hell is this, the World Wide Wrestling Federation?"
Dubya READ THE CONSTITUTION you one-termer. You have NO authority to do what you are doing. (The Congress has NOBODY with a lick of courage to stand-up to this madman and tell him to go to Hell. Congress has the duty to declare war))You are ruining the economy, (Nice budget, what about the war? Think that'll cost a few dollars?) dragging us up to the gates of Hell and while you are too puffed-up with pride to notice Cerebus nipping at your heels, your soldiers are slowly sinking in the quagmire in Afghanistan (What, you thought we'd "win" there? Russia, right next door couldn't) and you are about to endanger both Iraqi and American souls with this foolhardy war for oil and currency (which will prevail, the dollar or the Euro? Follow the money...).
"War President" my ass. When YOU were in the National Guard (to duck Vietnam), you were AWOL for over a year. Chickenenhawk. The same goes for your entire damn cabinet, 'cept Powell. Same goes for Rush and the rest of the war-rabid, chickenhawk,neo-cons
And why was it ok for V.P. Cheney to do businesss with Saddam up until 1998 if Saddam is Hitler? And why was it ok for Daddy Bush and The Carlyle Group to be doing business with the Bin Laden Family in Saudi Arabia even after 911? Why did you, Dubya, squash the CIA's investigation into the Bin Laden Family as soon as you became president?
Where did all those pilots/terrorists come from? Saudia Arabia and Egypt. Not a SINGLE one from Afghanistan or Iraq, yet, we bomb and attack them...
Speaking of Bin Laden (remember him? He was our NUMBER ONE PRIORITY,DEAD OR ALIVE right?), why did you, Dubya, do business with his brother in your first overseas business venture? A Christian cannot even publicly pray in Saudia Arabia yet you, the instrument of God,and your Dadddy, not only did business with them, you invited the Saudis to your ranch in Texas after 911. (I won't even mention your family raking in the cash while doing business with Hitler)Instrument of God? Yeah, and Rosie O'Donnell is spokeswoman for Weight Watchers. Hypocrite, liar, phony, dufus. "Our foreign policy must be humble..." Yeah, right.
You can instruct Powell to go and lie to the United Nations but you are not fooling the world. The next day his lies were unmasked. In citing "new information" about Saddam's chemical weapons, Powell was quoting from a TWELVE YEAR OLD THESIS WRITTEN BY A GRAD STUDENT. Good Lord. That was even easier to unmask than his lies leading-up to Daddy's First UnJust War in the Gulf. He said "Our Satellite intelligence, (sorry,can't show you, it is classified), shows over 1000 tanks and tens of thousands of Iraqi soldiers massed on the Saudia Arabia border." One little woman, at the St. Petersburg Times, purchased satellite photos from a commercial satelite and proved that was a lie.
Powell musta been promised the V.P. spot the next time around as the price for his public lies in support of your duplicitous actions.
You have been President for less thsan three years and look at what the hell has happend to our country....I can't fly without being harassed as though I were a criminal, our economy has gone to hell, our liberties have been reduced, you put the criminal Poindexter in charge of reading my Emails and listening to my phone calls, your crackpot Atty General puts a cloth over the Statue of Justice to hide her "nudity" while at the same time trying to lift the veil of the lawyer-client priviledge and he has already prepared a second "Patriot Act" ready to Goose-step through the craven Congress the next time we suffer a terrorist attack, and we are told to buy duct tape and plastic. This is madness...our country is being dragged into the pit and there is not a single conservative alive who can truthfully respond "Yes" in answer to Reagan's famous question; "Are you better off today than you were four years ago?"
Saddam has been boxed-in for more'n nine years with "no-fly" zones in the north and south. A Threat to the world? Puhleeze. We are the Death Star and Saddam is a guy on a goat with a grenade in his jock.
You know, when I read that Helen Thomas said Bush is the worst President we have ever had, I laughed. I ain't laughing any longer...<>
I disagree, vehemently, with almost everything your wrote.
I'm disappointed that, for a man who is so steeped in sound theology, you are so galactically ignorant politically.
Your paranoia suggests you're really a Bircher in disguise.
BTW, Congress declared war, back in October. The fact that you, and John Conyers, and Sheila Jackson-Lee missed it...well, that just shows you what kind of crowd you hang with.
<> No doubt others think the same. But, really, didn't you miss my perfervid polemics?<>
I disagree, vehemently, with almost everything your wrote.
<> Well, much of it is factual, so, I don't think you really mean that. I can understand you (inexplicably) disagreeing with how I deal with those facts though:)<>
I'm disappointed that, for a man who is so steeped in sound theology, you are so galactically ignorant politically.
<> That sentence was unnecessarily long. It should have stopped after thirteen words. Nevertheless, thank you for the compliment.<>
Your paranoia suggests you're really a Bircher in disguise.
<> LOL "A Bircher in disguise" would make a great song title.
I think I will post an analysis of the impending UnJust War against Iraq. It was written by a career CIA analyst. Of course, he may just be a paranoid Bircher too:)<>
This is a great article and Bush's sense of purpose is a good thing. He understands that God appoints all leaders and this gives him a heavy sense of burden.
<> Your arguement that God appoints all leaders would mean that God chose Hitler, Stalin, Mao, ect. I don't think you really meant to say that<>
As for you, you can go take a flying leap off your high and mighty cathedral windows
<> I would - except - my mental derangement includes the fear of heights<>
BTW, keep yourself safe in Texas. I pray we detect any attempt to bring terror to America and part of my, paranoia, is that Texas - prolly Dallas - would be a likely place for terrorists to strike; it being Dubya's home state, its connection with oil ect<>
Save the bandwidth. He's likely a Scott-Ritter-wannabe, anxious for some publicity.
Seriously, though, the fact that you think our action against the Taliban was also an "Unjust War" makes you a genuine peacenik. Even the Pope approved of that war.
"Peace and love" is a quaint, naive notion, unless you're in kindergarten.
Sure, the article lists "sources," but so what? How credible are they?
This train has left the station, CG. You can stamp your feet all you want, but you're going to be surprised how quickly Hussein is deposed.
Really? I saw George Tenet on TV last night, and he's fully onboard.
The CIA is full of rogues; that's why they're in the CIA! They may be crying crocodile tears that some of their "sources" are about to be blown away.
Stockholm syndrome at work.
<> I look to many sources for news. Counterpunch doesn't desire we let terrorists kill us. But they do desire to know why the terrorists attack (The intelligence communirty calls it "blowback") and they desire we stop growing enemies overseas that'll bring the terror home to us.
Do you ever think what you might be driven to do were a country more powerful than us declare publicly "We are going to take out George Bush?" and then establish "No Fly" zones over Texa, Arizona, New Mexico, and Connecticut, New York,and Massachusettes and then intentionally target and destroy municipal water supplies and withold baby formula ect ect ect.<>
Sure, the article lists "sources," but so what? How credible are they?
<> Well, the NY Times, Reuters, the BBC, the Washington Post ect used to be credible<>
This train has left the station, CG.
<> Yes, it has. And it is loaded with depleted uranium and weapons of mass destruction that will target poor, innocent folks in the Cradle of Civilisation<>
You can stamp your feet all you want, but you're going to be surprised how quickly Hussein is deposed.
<> I won't be surprised. In Daddy's first war, it was over in 100 hours and Saddam is MUCH weaker now. No, I will not be surprised. Those surprised will be the ones thinking this is all about "liberation" ect and when their granchildren are walking the line in the desolation of deserts in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Iran ect to defend the Empire's puppets,the surprise will be the sudden realisation that we were not "liberators" but, in reality, captives of a captious quagmire from which we cannot extricate ourselves .<>
I do think he is a Chiliastic cretin, a Dufus Dispensationalist who is unable to clearly discern his Constitutional Duties admist the mephitic miasma of millenialism and I do think he is, if an instrument of God, one intended to punish us for our hubris, violence, pride, desire to dominate others, ect.
Which, is why I say...put down your forks and hit your knees. Fasting and Prayer is needed to drive out the demons in the Dogs of War about to be unchained<>
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