Posted on 02/09/2003 3:16:47 PM PST by Wait4Truth
Posted on Sun, Feb. 09, 2003
Nearing critical decision on war, Bush finds strength in his faith
By Ron Hutcheson
Knight Ridder Newspapers
WASHINGTON - As President Bush nears a gut-wrenching decision about whether to send U.S. troops to war in Iraq, friends and advisers say he is finding strength in a source more powerful than any military: his deep religious faith.
"I believe in prayer. I pray. I pray for strength, I pray for guidance, I pray for forgiveness," Bush said Thursday at the National Prayer Breakfast, an annual gathering of top Washington officials.
Few presidents have been so openly devout. Bush says he starts every day "on bended knee" praying "for guidance and for comfort." He also reads the Bible daily and says he often prays at his desk.
By the president's own account, his religious conviction gives him comfort, perspective and a sense of peace amid the stress of his job. But some critics worry that it also has convinced him that he is serving a higher cause, blinded him to the risks of war with Iraq and led him to believe that religious institutions are better able to care for the needy than government.
Religious language and imagery flows through Bush's public comments on terrorists and Iraq. David Frum, the former White House speechwriter credited with the "axis of evil" phrase in last year's State of the Union address, called it "axis of hatred" in his initial draft. The change to "evil" was an attempt to invoke theology.
One of Bush's favorite hymns is "A Charge to Keep I Have," which speaks of the need to "do my Master's will" on earth. He titled his autobiography "A Charge to Keep."
More recently, the president used the "charge to keep" theme in telling troops at Fort Hood, Texas, that his goal goes well beyond disarming Iraq and defeating terrorists.
"We seek the advance of human freedom in a world at peace. That is the charge history has given us," he said, "and that is the charge we will keep."
He has cited his religious beliefs in describing his commitment to Israel.
"I am a Christian. But I believe with the Psalmist that the Lord God of Israel neither slumbers nor sleeps," he told the American Jewish Committee early in his White House term. "We will stand up for our friends in the world. And one of the most important friends is the state of Israel."
When Macedonian President Boris Trajkovski, a fellow Methodist, visited the White House two years ago, the two leaders knelt side by side in prayer in the Oval Office. On his first visit to China as president, Bush shared his religious convictions with Chinese President Jiang Zemin, an atheist.
"I told him how faith has shaped my own life, and how faith contributes to the life of my country," Bush said after the meeting.
Many of the president's friends and advisers share his deep convictions. The sense of a divine calling is hard to miss in the White House.
Frum recalled that the first words he heard when he went to the West Wing to interview for a job were, "Missed you at Bible study," a gentle admonishment from one White House aide to another.
It was an unsettling moment for a self-described non-observant Jew, but Frum said he had no qualms about the role of religion in the White House.
"You always have a sense with him that he's going to do his best, but that ultimately, (Bush believes) it's according to Thy will, not mine," Frum said in an interview. "It makes him brave. It makes him confident that if you do the right thing, the right thing will succeed."
The president's faith is a sensitive issue at the White House, where aides want to avoid any impression that Bush views himself as an agent of God.
"He is a man who has great faith, but he is a secular president," said White House chief of staff Andrew Card, whose wife is a Methodist minister. "He is not imposing his faith in how the government does its job."
Bush's devotion is hardly unusual. A poll last year by the nonpartisan Pew Research Center found that 63 percent of Americans consider religion a "very important" factor in their lives. Only 12 percent said it wasn't important. More than a third of Christians described themselves as "born-again" or evangelical.
Bush, who was raised Episcopalian but switched to the Methodist Church to join his wife, Laura, credits evangelist Billy Graham for leading him to deep belief. In his autobiography, Bush wrote that Graham "planted a mustard seed in my soul" during a 1985 visit to the Bush family vacation home in Maine.
Back home in Midland, Texas, Bush began attending Bible study at the urging of his friend Don Evans, who is now secretary of commerce.
Bush credits a 1999 church sermon for his decision to seek the presidency. At a prayer breakfast before Bush's second inauguration as Texas governor, Methodist pastor Mark Craig told his audience that the country is "starved for leaders who have ethical and moral courage."
Bush took the message to heart, with encouragement from his mother, who concluded that Craig was speaking to her son.
Now, in the Oval Office, one wall features a Western painting titled "A Charge to Keep." It shows a determined horseman charging up a rocky, tree-strewn hill.
In a memo to his staff shortly after he became governor, Bush said the phrase was a reminder that "we serve One greater than ourselves."
Although some White House aides have suggested that God selected Bush to lead the nation through the trauma and aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, he has rejected that idea.
"I don't believe God picked who was going to be president. I do believe that in God we can find great strength and great solace and great comfort, and I feel the prayers of the American people," the president told ABC a few months after the attacks. "It's hard to define faith, but I feel it. People just have to take my word for it."
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Is this for real? LOL. Imagine someone worrying that a man of faith would not understand the horrific risks of war ( too stupid ) or that that same man would have the audacity (being blinded by faith-lol) to think that religious institutions are better able to take care of the needy than great big ol rule burdoned governmental agencies? (LOL).
Recently on talk radio (someone subbing for Rush, I believe), the guy who was talking said that he couldn't recall any President who was as spiritual as George W. Bush. Others have been religious and have been men of faith but none in his memory (nor mine) have witnessed to their faith, lived their faith, applied their faith in the way that our current President does.
Praise God that we have such a man in the White House in these perilous times!
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