Bush and God

[Guest Jobber of the Week]

http://www.msnbc.com/news/878520.asp?0dm=B23IN

 

George W. Bush rises ahead of the dawn most days, when the loudest sound outside the White House is the dull, distant roar of F-16s patrolling the skies. Even before he brings his wife, Laura, a morning cup of coffee, he goes off to a quiet place to read alone.

 

HIS TEXT ISN’T news summaries or the overnight intelligence dispatches. Those are for later, downstairs, in the Oval Office. It’s not recreational reading (recently, a biography of Sandy Koufax). Instead, he’s told friends, it’s a book of evangelical mini-sermons, “My Utmost for His Highest.” The author is Oswald Chambers, and, under the circumstances, the historical echoes are loud. A Scotsman and itinerant Baptist preacher, Chambers died in November 1917 as he was bringing the Gospel to Australian and New Zealand soldiers massed in Egypt. By Christmas they had helped to wrest Palestine from the Turks, and captured Jerusalem for the British Empire at the end of World War I.

Now there is talk of a new war in the Near East, this time in a land once called Babylon. One morning last month, as the United Nations argued and Washingtonians raced to hardware stores for duct tape amid a new Orange alert, the daily homily in “My Utmost” was about Isaiah’s reminder that God is the author of all life and history. “Lift up your eyes on high,” the prophet of the Old Testament said, “and behold who hath created these things.” Chambers’s explication: “When you are up against difficulties, you have no power, you can only endure in darkness” unless you “go right out of yourself, and deliberately turn your imagination to God.”

Later that day, the president did so. At Opryland in Nashville—the old “Buckle of the Bible Belt”—Bush told religious broadcasters that “the terrorists hate the fact that ... we can worship Almighty God the way we see fit,” and that the United States was called to bring God’s gift of liberty to “every human being in the world.” In his view, the chances of success were better than good. (After all, at the National Prayer Breakfast a few days before, he’d declared that “behind all of life and all history there is a dedication and purpose, set by the hand of a just and faithful God.” If that’s so, America couldn’t fail.)

After his speech in Nashville, Bush met privately with pastoral social workers and bore witness to his own faith in Jesus Christ. “I would not be president today,” he said, “if I hadn’t stopped drinking 17 years ago. And I could only do that with the grace of God.” The prospect of war with Iraq was “weighing heavy” on him, he admitted. He knew that many people—including some at the table—saw the conflict as pre-emptive and unjust. (“I couldn’t imagine Jesus delivering a message of war to a cheering crowd, as I just heard the president do,” one participant, Charles Strobel, said later.) But, the president said, America had to see that it is “encountering evil” in the form of Saddam Hussein. The country had no choice but to confront it, by war if necessary. “If anyone can be at peace,” Bush said, “I am at peace about this.”

Bush believes in God’s will—and in winning elections with the backing of those who agree with him. As a subaltern in his father’s 1988 campaign, George Bush the Younger assembled his career through contacts with ministers of the then emerging evangelical movement in political life. Now they form the core of the Republican Party, which controls all of the capital for the first time in a half century. Bible-believing Christians are Bush’s strongest backers, and turning them out next year in even greater numbers is the top priority of the president’s political adviser Karl Rove. He is busy tending to the base with pro-life judicial appointments, a proposed ban on human cloning (approved by the House last week) and a $15 billion plan to fight AIDS in Africa, a favorite project of Christian missionaries who want the chance to save souls there as well as beleaguered lives. The base is returning the favor. They are, by far, the strongest supporters of a war—unilateral if need be—to remove Saddam.

Now comes the time of testing. The war is controversial, more so every day, and the nuclear crisis in North Korea intensifies. The president hasn’t played his diplomatic hand well, and is tied down by the likes of Hans Blix, the Philippine military and the Turkish Parliament, which late last week denied American troops transport rights through the country. Bush advisers know that many Americans—and much of the world—see him as a man blinded by his beliefs (and those of his most active supporters) to the complexities of the world as it is. He makes a point of praising Islam as “a religion of peace.” But to many Muslims, especially Arabs, he looks sinister: a new Crusader, bent on retaking the East for Christendom.

 

Aides say the president’s quiet but fervent Christian faith gives him strength but does not dictate policy. He’s only seemed like preacher in chief, they say, because of what one called “a confluence of events”: the horrors of 9-11, the terror alerts and the Columbia shuttle explosion. Still, belief gives him something more than confidence, says his closest friend, Commerce Secretary Don Evans: “It gives him a desire to serve others and a very clear sense of what is good and what is evil.”

How did he get that way? Consider this a “faith portrait” of the president, the story of the power of belief to save a life and a family—and to shape a political career and a national government.

 

GROWING UP—‘God’s Frozen People’

The story begins in Connecticut. Protestants there long ago were a fiery breed, with Jonathan Edwards’s (Yale ’21—as in 1721) warning sinners to avoid the wrath of an “angry God.” But by 1946, when George W. Bush was born there, the old-line Episcopalians—Bushes among them—spoke in quieter voices. His dad was a “duty, honor, country” guy, a World War II hero and a punctilious churchgoer. But he was uncomfortable with public testimonies of faith, especially his own. The hoary joke among Episcopalians seemed apt: we’re “God’s Frozen People.”

The Bible belt was another story, but not for the Bushes. Moving in 1948 to the oil patch of west Texas, they joined other Ivy League immigrants from back East at the Presbyterian church in Midland. (Barbara Bush had been reared in the denomination.) It was staid compared with other churches there, more madras than denim. Dad raised money for the building fund, and taught in Sunday school. “Georgie” was a dutiful son and churchgoer. Years later, in an excess of spin, his mother claimed that he’d always shown an interest in reading the Bible. George smilingly said he was unable to remember such a fact. Sent back East to prep at Andover, he became a school “deacon.” But that role had long since lost any true religious significance; Bush used it to engineer pranks, not minister to the student flock.

Come-to-Jesus stories are more dramatic if the sinner is a pro. Bush was a semipro, a hardy partyer—his Triumph convertible was famous in Houston—until he married Laura in 1977. They joined her Methodist church. In most respects, he became what his father was, a respected member of the congregation. But he was a drinker, and a serious one. Only after work and at night, he told himself. But sometimes the nights were long. He could be famously obnoxious at parties, and, worse, a bore to his patient wife. The birth of his twin daughters in 1982 brought him joy. But, friends say, Laura grew increasingly fed up with his drinking. By 1985, as he approached 40, he needed to fix his relationship with the women in his life. “Nothing was broken,” Evans said. “But he wanted it to be better.” Mostly, he had to leave alcohol behind.

 

BORN AGAIN—Walking ‘The Walk’

In campaign biographies, ghostwriters highlight the role that Billy Graham played in launching Bush on what he and Evans call his “Walk.” The truth is more prosaic, and explains far more about Bush’s evolving views, not only of faith but of government. Evans, married to a Bush elementary-school chum, was the key. He had been the golden boy of Midland, a handsome straight arrow, a “Cowboy” at the University of Texas (the Skull and Bones of Austin). He had gone home to climb the ladder of Tom Brown Oil Co., a booming concern in a booming economy. But in 1984 the oil business caved in. “It was the worst industrial collapse in the history of the American economy,” says Evans, who was left with the task of plowing through piles of corporate debt. Personal life was hard, too. By that time, he’d learned that a daughter, born severely handicapped, would need lifetime care.

As a west Texan, Evans did what came naturally in a storm: he joined a nondenominational Bible-study group. He coaxed his friend George to come along. The program was called Community Bible Study—started, ironically, in the Washington, D.C., area in 1975 by a group of suburban women. By the time it got to Midland, it was a scriptural boot camp: an intensive, yearlong study of a single book of the New Testament, each week a new chapter, with detailed read-ing and discussion in a group of 10 men. For two years Bush and Evans and their partners read the clear writings of the Gentile physician Luke—Acts and then his Gospel. Two themes stood out, one spiritual, one more political: Paul’s conversion on the road to Damascus, and the founding of the church. Bush, who cares little for the abstract and a great deal for people, responded to the conversion story. He liked the idea of knowing Jesus as a friend.

The CBS program was a turning point for the future president in several ways. It gave him, for the first time, an intellectual focus. Here was the product of elite secular education—Andover, Yale and Harvard—who, for the first time, was reading a book line by line with rapt attention. And it was ... the Bible. In that sense, Bush is a more unalloyed product of the Bible belt than his friends, who may have deeply studied something else in earlier days. A jogger and marathoner for years, Bush found in Bible study an equivalent mental and spiritual discipline, which he would soon need to steel himself for his main challenge in life to that point: to quit drinking.

Bush says he never considered himself to be an alcoholic, and never attended an AA meeting. But it turned out he didn’t have to. CBS was something akin to the same thing, part of what has since come to be called the “small group” faith movement. It’s a baby-boomerish mix of self-help, self-discipline, group therapy (without using what, for Bush, is a dreaded word) and worship. Whatever, it worked. As the world knows, Bush did quit drinking in the summer of 1986, after his and Evans’s 40th birthday. “It was ‘goodbye Jack Daniels, hello Jesus’,” said one friend from those days.

 

THE POLITICS—Making New Friends

Bush turned to the bible to save his marriage and his family. But was he also thinking of smoothing his path to elective office? We’ll never know for sure. But he knew the political landscape of his near-native Texas. He knew that, by 1985, the South had risen to take control of the GOP, and that evangelical activism and clout was rising with it—indeed had been instrumental in making it possible. He also knew that his father’s way—Episcopalian reserve, moderation on cultural issues, close ties to back East—was a tough sell, to say the least. Bush the Younger had experienced it firsthand, in 1978, when he impetuously ran for Congress in Midland. He was a proud alumnus of Sam Houston Elementary and San Jacinto Junior High. But he had been clobbered as an Ivy League interloper nonetheless.

When Bush moved to Washington in 1987 to help run his father’s campaign, he seized the main chance: to take over the job of being the “liaison” to the religious right. He quickly saw that he could talk the talk as well as walk the walk. “His father wasn’t comfortable dealing with religious types,” recalled Doug Wead, who worked with him on evangelical outreach. “George knew exactly what to say, what to do.” He and Wead bombarded campaign higher-ups with novel ways to reach out. Wead slipped Biblical phrases—signals to the base—into the Old Man’s speeches. Dubya, typically, favored a direct approach. He wanted to feature Billy Graham in a campaign video. Dad nixed the idea.

Bush and Rove built their joint careers on that new base. Faith and ambition became one, with Bush doing the talking and Rove doing the thinking on policy and spin. In 1993—the year before he ran for governor—Bush caused a small tempest by telling an Austin reporter (who happened to be Jewish) that only believers in Jesus go to heaven. It was a theologically unremarkable statement, at least in Texas. But the fact that he had been brazen enough to say it produced a stir. While the editorial writers huffed, Rove quietly expressed satisfaction. The story would help establish his client’s Bible-belt bona fides in rural (and, until then, primarily Democratic) Texas. As a candidate, Bush sought, and got, advice from pastors, especially leaders of new, nondenominational “megachurches” in the suburbs. His ideas for governing were congenial to his faith, and dreamed up in his faith circles. The ideas were designed to draw evangelicals to the polls without sounding too church-made. “Compassionate conservatism”—mentoring, tough love on crime, faith-based welfare—was in many ways just a CBS Bible study writ large. The discipline of faith can save lives—Bush knew it from personal experience—and undercut the stale answers of the left.

The presidential campaign was Texas on a grander scale. As he prepared to run, in 1999, Bush assembled leading pastors at the governor’s mansion for a “laying-on of hands,” and told them he’d been “called” to seek higher office. In the GOP primaries, he outmaneuvered the field by practicing what one rival, Gary Bauer, called “identity politics.” Others tried to woo evangelicals by pledging strict allegiance on issues such as abortion and gay rights. “Bush talked about his faith,” said Bauer, “and people just believed him—and believed in him.” There was genius in this. The son of Bush One was widely, logically, believed by secular voters to be a closet moderate. Suddenly, the father’s burden was a gift: Bush Two could reach the base without threatening the rest. “He was and is ‘one of us’,” said Charles Colson, who sold the then Governor Bush on a faith-based prison program.

For his public speeches, he hired Michael Gerson, a gifted writer recommended to him by Colson, among others. A graduate of Wheaton College in Illinois (“the Evangelical Harvard”), Gerson understood Bush’s compassionate conservatism. More important, he had a gift for expressing it in stately, lilting language that could appeal, simultaneously, to born-agains and to secular boomers searching for a lost sense of uplift in public life.

The Bush campaign conducted its more-controversial outreach below radar, via letters and e-mail. Only once was it forced to reach out in a raw public way. After John McCain won the New Hampshire primary, Bush made his infamous visit to South Carolina’s Bob Jones University, the ultrafundamentalist and officially anti-Roman Catholic school. Strategists were opaque in public, unapologetic behind the scenes. “We had to send a message—fast—and sending him there was the only way to do it,” said one top Bush operative at the time. “It was a risk we had to take.” Bush won.

 

THE RECKONING—Forged in the Fire

Faith didn’t make Bush a decisive person. He’s always been one. His birthright as a Bush gives him a sense of obligation to serve, and a sense of an entitlement to lead. West Texas, where dust storms and the gyrating economy buffeted the locals, left him with a love of straight shooters and a come-what-may view of life. A frat man at Yale in an increasingly radical time—the late 1960s—he came to loathe intellectual avatars of complexity and doubt—especially when they disparaged his dad. He is a Pierce, too: a quick-to-judge son of a quick-to-judge mother.

 

Still, faith helps Bush pick a course and not look back. He talks regularly to pastors, and loves to hear that people are praying for him. As he describes it, his faith is not complex. In recent weeks he has added a new note to his theme of the personal uses of faith, drawn from CBS. Now there is a sense of destiny that approaches the Calvinistic. “There is a fatalistic element,” said David Frum, the author and former Bush speechwriter. “You do your best and accept that everything is in God’s hands.” The result is unflappability. “If you are confident that there is a God that rules the world,” said Frum, “you do your best, and things will work out.” But what some see as solidity, others view as a flammable mix of stubbornness and arrogance. “No one’s allowed to second-guess, even when you should,” said another former staffer.

The atmosphere inside the White House, insiders say, is suffused with an aura of prayerfulness. There have always been Bible-study groups there; even the Clintonites had one. But the groups are everywhere now. Lead players set the tone. There is Gerson, whose office keeps being moved closer to the Oval. Chief of staff Andrew Card’s wife is a Methodist minister. National-security adviser Condi Rice’s father was a preacher in Alabama.

The president is known to welcome questions about faith that staffers sometimes have the nerve to share with him. But he’s not the kind to initiate granular debates about theology. Would Iraq be a “just war” in Christian terms, as laid out by Augustine in the fourth century and amplified by Aquinas, Luther and others? Bush has satisfied himself that it would be—indeed, it seems he did so many months ago. But he didn’t do it by combing through texts or presiding over a disputation. He decided that Saddam was evil, and everything flowed from that.

The language of good and evil—central to the war on terrorism—came about naturally, said Frum. From the first, he said, the president used the term “evildoers” to describe the terrorists because some commentators were wondering aloud whether the United States in some way deserved the attack visited upon it on September 11, 2001. “He wanted to cut that off right away,” said Frum, “and make it clear that he saw absolutely no moral equivalence. So he reached right into the Psalms for that word.” He continued to stress the idea. Osama bin Laden and his cohorts were “evil.” In November 2001, in an interview with NEWSWEEK, he first declared—blurted out, actually—that Saddam Hussein in Iraq was “evil,” too.

The world, and the Bush administration, are focused on Iraq. But as a matter of politics and principle, the president knows that he needs to deliver on his faith-based domestic agenda, especially since his party controls Congress. The wish list compiled by Rove is a long one. It includes conservative, pro-life judicial nominations; new HUD regulations that allow federal grants for construction of “social service” facilities at religious institutions; a ban on human cloning and “partial birth” abortion; a sweeping program to allow churches, synagogues and mosques to use federal funds to administer social-welfare programs; strengthened limits on stem-cell research; increased funding to teach sexual abstinence in schools, rather than safer sex and pregnancy prevention; foreign-aid policies that stress right-to-life themes, and federal money for prison programs (like the one in Texas) that use Christian tough love in an effort to lower recidivism rates among convicts.

While Rove and Hill leaders work the domestic side, Bush is dwelling on faith-based foreign policy of the most explosive kind: a potential war in the name of civil freedom—including religious freedom—in the ancient heart of Arab Islam. In the just-war debate, he has strong support from his base. Leading advocates for the moral virtue of his position include Richard Land, the key leader of the Southern Baptist Convention’s political arm. Another supporter is Michael Novak, the conservative Catholic theologian. Novak recently journeyed to Rome to make his case at the invitation of the U.S. ambassador to the Vatican, Jim Nicholson, a former chairman of the Republican National Committee. All politics is local.

But the president is facing a mighty force of religious leaders on the other side. They include the pope (Bush will meet with a papal envoy this week, NEWSWEEK has learned), the Council of Bishops, the National Council of Churches, many Jewish groups and most Muslim leaders. “People appreciate his devotion to faith, but, in the context of war, there is a fine line, and he is starting to make people nervous,” says Steve Waldman, the editor and CEO of Beliefnet, a popular and authoritative Web site on religion and society. “They appreciate his moral clarity and decisiveness. But they wonder if he is ignoring nuances in what sounds like a messianic mission.”

Muslims are especially wary. Bush has gone to great lengths to reassure them that he admires their religion. He has hosted Ramadan dinners, and periodically criticized evangelicals, including Franklin Graham, who denounce Islam as a corrupt, violent faith. Still, evangelical missionaries don’t hide their desire to convert Muslims to Christianity, even—if not especially—in Baghdad. If one of the goals of ousting Saddam Hussein is to bring freedom of worship to an oppressed people, how can the president object?

For Bush, that’s a nettlesome question for another time. If he’s worried about it or other such weighty matters, it wasn’t obvious at dinner upstairs in the private quarters of the White House the other week. He and Laura had invited close friends and allies such as Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. Bush, as usual, was a genial, joshing host. Also, as usual, he didn’t want the evening to last too long. “He tends to rush through cocktail hour,” says a friend. “One quick Coke and he wants to eat.” The president asked Rumsfeld to say grace. (“Can you help us out here, Mr. Secretary?”) As 10:30 p.m. approached, the commander in chief seemed eager to turn in. Knowledgeable guests understood that he wanted to catch at least a few minutes of his beloved “SportsCenter” on ESPN. But he also needed to get up early, very early. He had some reading to do.

[Guest NoCalMike]

ermm....ok. That was a long ass article to read.

[Guest SP-1]

Long, yes, but it made me smile and respect the man a little more. Oswald Chambers is a good read, generally. And as a believer in Reform Theology myself, the Calvanistic approach is nice to see.

[Guest NoCalMike]

Long, yes, but it made me smile and respect the man a little more. Oswald Chambers is a good read, generally. And as a believer in Reform Theology myself, the Calvanistic approach is nice to see.

Well ok, I am glad it made you smile. I was just wondering why Jobber posted it. I wish he would have commented on it after the posting just to see what he thought of it and/or why he posted it in the first place.

[Guest SP-1]

Yeah, when I was reading it I was kinda looking forward to Jobber's comments on it.

[Guest JMA]

I don't like the fact that he told a Jew "only believers in Jesus go to Heaven." That was a pretty asshole thing to say. I don't like the people who support him, either. Christianity's true message has been warped by fundies like Falwell and Robertson.

[Guest DrTom]

I don't like the fact that he told a Jew "only believers in Jesus go to Heaven." That was a pretty asshole thing to say.

He expressed a core belief of the Christian faith. I'm sure Jews have heard it plenty of times before, from many different people. Of course, a clever response could have been, "Jesus? Who the fuck is that? Never heard of 'im," which would have been consistent with the Jewish faith. While this kind of my-God-can-beat-up-your-YHVH stuff is silly, it doesn't make someone an asshole for saying it.

 

Christianity's true message has been warped by fundies like Falwell and Robertson.

I don't think that's true. The core message is the same as it's always been. What's changed is the way that message and the faith in general are perceived. Demagogues like Falwell and Robertson do both a disservice, and when you factor in things like the Catholic priest scandals, the perception of Christianity becomes a little more negative. The message is still the same, and even an atheist like me has to admit that it's a good one. The faith's problem is with its more visible ambassadors being blowhards and fundie assholes.

[cawthon777 0]

What, a President with strong religious convictions? Can't have that, it would offend too many people!

 

Listen, America's national religion is Christianity. That's why we don't have to go to school or work on Christmas and Easter. Yes, we're all about religious freedom - and we have that in this country more than anywhere else - but I don't like when people that don't buy into Christianity or don't have the same perspectives rag on those that do. To each their own. Bush is not Falwell.

 

When Bush blames 9/11 on gays, then bash him for his asshole remarks.

[Guest SP-1]

I don't like the fact that he told a Jew "only believers in Jesus go to Heaven."That was a pretty asshole thing to say.

 

Why? Is the man, a Christian, supposed to lie and dodge his core beliefs simply to appease someone else? That's not integrity, it's the kind of political BS, regardless of the issue involved, that makes men forget about integrity. His faith is that Christ and only Christ is the way to salvation from sin, and he isn't going to sit back and lie and dodge that issue. I commend him for being honest about it.

 

I don't like the people who support him, either. Christianity's true message has been warped by fundies like Falwell and Robertson.

 

If you're going to base an entire people group around the antics of a few of their more vocal, hardline members, then you're gonna have a very hard time relating to people in general on down the road. Falwell and Robertson do not run the majority of the programs and certainly are not singlehandedly responsible for every church in America and how it presents the gospel. The message of Jesus Christ is one of Grace. People should look into that before basing opinions on the actions of a vocal few.

[Guest Spicy McHaggis]

What, a President with strong religious convictions? Can't have that, it would offend too many people!

 

Listen, America's national religion is Christianity. That's why we don't have to go to school or work on Christmas and Easter. Yes, we're all about religious freedom - and we have that in this country more than anywhere else - but I don't like when people that don't buy into Christianity or don't have the same perspectives rag on those that do. To each their own. Bush is not Falwell.

 

When Bush blames 9/11 on gays, then bash him for his asshole remarks.

If you mean the de facto national religion, I agree... but it isn't the official one.

[Guest Spicy McHaggis]

I don't like the fact that he told a Jew "only believers in Jesus go to Heaven." That was a pretty asshole thing to say. I don't like the people who support him, either. Christianity's true message has been warped by fundies like Falwell and Robertson.

By that logic, all Jews would be assholes to me for refusing Christ as our Savior.

[Guest JMA]

Ever heard of messianic Jews? I don't buy in to things said by Paul/Saul or people after Joshua died. I just find it offensive when someone says a lot of good people will burn forever for no other reason than not believing something. It just seems like a way to scare people into believing. I like Jesus Christ, but only as a philosopher and in a secular way.

 

I just don't feel people who think everyone who disagrees with them will burn in hell should be called "Christians." People who follow the example set forth by Jesus are the only ones who deserve the title of Christian. And let me say this, I have Christian friends and none of them think gays are evil or that pagans go to hell. Hell, some of them don't even believe in Hell.

 

I disagree with them about Christ being YHWH incarnate, but I respect their beliefs.

[Guest Jobber of the Week]

I don't have a problem with Bush talking religion, that's fine, but his Faith Based Initiative is one of the worst things he's done... and I'm of the opinion that he's done a whole lot of really bad things.

 

However, I do think talking Christianity in your speeches is probably a bad thing. It alienates people who aren't Christians. The President DOES have a right to be Christian and all that, but the President also has a right to be a White Supremacist, and I doubt anyone who put that kind of chatter in their speeches would be very well liked. Some will say you don't need to be Christian to believe in god, (sarcasm) and I bet all of the Muslims think he's talking to them when he quotes scripture, and all of the Hindus assume he's talking about Kali when he says "God".

 

I'm not arguing that he should stop though, I said as much, it's pretty much presidential tradition, I just think it's counterproductive in some ways. It alienates non-Christians.

[Guest Silence]

For all those who think G. dubya is wrong:

 

- but certainly your words imply, that, with Epicurus, you consider the Word of God and a future life, to be mere fables. For, in your instructions, you would have us, for the sake of the Popes, the heads, and the peace of the community, to put off, upon an occasion, and depart from the all-certain word of God: whereas, if we put off that, we put off God, faith, salvation and all Christianity together. How far different from this is the instruction of Christ: that, we should rather despise the whole world!

Martin Luther 'The Bondage of the Will' Sect. XVIII

[Guest JMA]

For all those who think G. dubya is wrong:

 

- but certainly your words imply, that, with Epicurus, you consider the Word of God and a future life, to be mere fables. For, in your instructions, you would have us, for the sake of the Popes, the heads, and the peace of the community, to put off, upon an occasion, and depart from the all-certain word of God: whereas, if we put off that, we put off God, faith, salvation and all Christianity together. How far different from this is the instruction of Christ: that, we should rather despise the whole world!

Martin Luther 'The Bondage of the Will' Sect. XVIII

Fables, eh? I'd say that's accurate. I would consider most stories in the Bible to be "mere" fables. I'm starting to question how much of the REAL Jesus Christ is in the Bible. I think it would be much better if he wrote some texts himself.

[cawthon777 0]

I think it would be much better if he wrote some texts himself.

He couldn't find a publisher willing to pay his price so he's sitting it out until the 2nd coming.

[Guest Austin3164life]

Religion and faith should never pour into the political spectrum. Not everyone shares the same morals and beliefs. I, myself, am a devout Orthodox Christian, but I rarely proclaim my faith and I keep it as far away from politics as possible.

[Guest DrTom]

I don't remember people raising a fit when Bill Clinton was seen in a church...

[Guest Agent of Oblivion]

Because they shouldn't, and shouldn't raise a fit about Bush being religious. The guy's a christian, big fucking deal. So are a couple billion other people.

[Guest Ronixis]

There raising this issue because of Clinton. Not to say anything against any ones believes, but Bush comes as fresh air to most that live in the Biblical Southern Belt, and the middle of the country. The "White Trash" as The Dreamer would put it. They see him as the guy that does not talk all the politcal trappings of Washinton DC, a guy that fumbles and stumbles like them, that will hold there beliefs up against the Pope's and those that are Roman Cathoic (Even though Bush's Church is going against this war).

 

I dont nessarly see this as a bad thing. The Founders wanted a person that believes in a creator to lead. So boo-hoo to the athiests.

[Guest JMA]

There raising this issue because of Clinton. Not to say anything against any ones believes, but Bush comes as fresh air to most that live in the Biblical Southern Belt, and the middle of the country. The "White Trash" as The Dreamer would put it. They see him as the guy that does not talk all the politcal trappings of Washinton DC, a guy that fumbles and stumbles like them, that will hold there beliefs up against the Pope's and those that are Roman Cathoic (Even though Bush's Church is going against this war).

 

I dont nessarly see this as a bad thing. The Founders wanted a person that believes in a creator to lead. So boo-hoo to the athiests.

I also, regretably, live in the southern Bible belt. Jesus would rise from his grave AGAIN if he knew of these people.

[cawthon777 0]

I also, regretably, live in the southern Bible belt. Jesus would rise from his grave AGAIN if he knew of these people.

Hey Superman (re: avatar sig),

 

Yes, the uber bible thumpers are not my favorite folk either. Thankfully, they aren't running the country.

[Guest JMA]

Hey Superman (re: avatar sig),

 

Yes, the uber bible thumpers are not my favorite folk either. Thankfully, they aren't running the country.

Thank robots for small favors.

[Guest DrTom]

Because they shouldn't, and shouldn't raise a fit about Bush being religious. The guy's a christian, big fucking deal. So are a couple billion other people.

Exactly. I don't care that the President has strong religious convictions, and that he mentions it in his speeches. Big fucking deal. I was only pointing out that Bill Clinton, who was photographed in church on several occasions, never seemed to attract this inexplicable resentment. People should stop getting offended by proxy because the President expressed his faith.

 

I just find it interesting that atheists like AoO and I don't have a problem with this, but other people who aren't atheists seem to.

[Guest Jobber of the Week]

Because they shouldn't, and shouldn't raise a fit about Bush being religious. The guy's a christian, big fucking deal. So are a couple billion other people.

Ok, then I hope you respect and feel the same way if Bush started layering his speeches with racial White Supremacist dogma. I mean, he's white, and a majority of American's are white.

[cawthon777 0]

Because they shouldn't, and shouldn't raise a fit about Bush being religious. The guy's a christian, big fucking deal. So are a couple billion other people.

Ok, then I hope you respect and feel the same way if Bush started layering his speeches with racial White Supremacist dogma. I mean, he's white, and a majority of American's are white.

WTF is that, troll logic?

 

What does someone's religion have to do with hate speech? Let's work on analogies that make sense.

[Guest Jobber of the Week]

What does someone's religion have to do with hate speech? Let's work on analogies that make sense.

Everyone's saying "He has an opinion, he has a right to express it like that." So I'm saying is, you'd support his right to white supremacist crap in his speeches too, if he were to use them?

 

Racism doesn't unite America, but neither does Religion.

[cawthon777 0]

What does someone's religion have to do with hate speech?  Let's work on analogies that make sense.

Everyone's saying "He has an opinion, he has a right to express it like that." So I'm saying is, you'd support his right to white supremacist crap in his speeches too, if he were to use them?

 

Racism doesn't unite America, but neither does Religion.

Well, one (religion) is a good thing and the other (racism) is bad. We as a people like religion in general ... we don't like racism.

 

Bush doesn't go on TV and say "You have to do this, this, and this to go to heaven." What he says is broad. He talks about God. Most religions have a higher being - therefore what he says is pretty much all encompasing. He appears at all the religious ceremonies around December ... it's not like he's some holier-than-thou Christian who thinks he's better than everyone else.

 

I didn't think I'd really have to break it down like that, but there you go...

[Guest Jobber of the Week]

Well, one (religion) is a good thing

That's debatable.

 

Bush doesn't go on TV and say "You have to do this, this, and this to go to heaven."  What he says is broad.  He talks about God.  Most religions have a higher being - therefore what he says is pretty much all encompasing.  He appears at all the religious ceremonies around December ... it's not like he's some holier-than-thou Christian who thinks he's better than everyone else.

 

Of course he can do what he wants. Doesn't mean we won't critisize his stupid actions.

 

Also his religious affiliation is irrelevent, it's his mingling of religion and governing that pisses others off.

[Guest Spicy McHaggis]

Racism doesn't unite America, but neither does Religion.

That's your opinion, which you have a right to express.