One of my favorite bloggers, Objectivist Don Watkins (who can hardly be described as an advocate of religion, much less theocracy), links to this WaPo article which sheds some important (often surprising) light on President Bush's religious views:
George W. Bush is among the most openly religious presidents in U.S. history. A daily Bible reader, he often talks about how Jesus changed his heart. He has spoken, publicly and privately, of hearing God's call to run for the presidency and of praying for God's help since he came into office.
But despite the centrality of Bush's faith to his presidency, he has revealed only the barest outline of his beliefs, leaving others to sift through the clues and make assumptions about where he stands.
Bush has said many times that he is a Christian, believes in the power of prayer and considers himself a "lowly sinner." But White House aides said they do not know whether the president believes that: the Bible is without error; the theory of evolution is true; homosexuality is a sinful choice; only Christians will go to heaven; support for Israel is a biblical imperative; or the war in Iraq is part of God's plan.
So why the constant spin about Bush being the deranged avatar of Armageddon who wants to forcibly convert the Mideast to born-again Christianity?
Despite shrill allegations to the contrary, the president doesn't claim to be "born again" or evangelical:
Because he does not claim to have embraced Jesus in a single moment, aides said, Bush does not call himself "born again." Nor does he refer to himself as an evangelical, though evangelical leaders do not hesitate to claim him as one of their own.
Nor is there evidence that Bush engages in evangelism or proselytizing:
Bush's record on evangelization is more clear. Some of his religious supporters believe that he fulfills his obligation to evangelize through his example. But there is no evidence that Bush has engaged in direct proselytizing. On the contrary, aides said Bush has joined in common prayer with Sikhs and Hindus, something many conservative Christians would not do.
According to Jay P. Lefkowitz, an observant Jew who served as Bush's chief domestic policy adviser in 2002-03, the president went out of his way to make White House visitors and staff members of other faiths feel comfortable. Religion, Lefkowitz said, is "part of who he is. But he doesn't try to push it on anyone."
Private Faith
Aides said that Bush does not discuss the content of his own faith, either publicly or with his staff. Though religion is far from a taboo subject in the Bush White House, where many workers gather for Bible study during their Thursday lunch hour, Bush rarely if ever participates in such discussions.
More amazing to me was to read President Bush shares the same concerns which are so often voiced about him:
Bush himself said in a 2000 interview with Beliefnet.com, a religion Web site: "To be frank with you, I am not all that comfortable describing my faith, because in the political world, there are a lot of people who say, 'Vote for me, I'm more religious than my opponent,' " he said. "And those kind of folks make me a little nervous."
Regarding the oft-touted claim that Bush leads a coalition of religious nuts who are deliberately provoking an apocalypse in the Mideast, not only is there no evidence that Bush believes in the premillenial Dispensationist "Rapture" stuff, but there's evidence to the contrary:
Bush has not publicly voiced any apocalyptic scenario, and aides scoffed at the notion that he holds one. Neuhaus, who has met several times with the president to discuss abortion and other issues, said that "the whole realm of biblical prophecy . . . with respect to the Middle East" is "quite alien to George W. Bush."
To that it's worth additionally noting that President Bush was raised as an Episcopalian.
So was I, and while I'm not religious in the sense of attending church, I can state from my own personal experience that Episcopalianism epitomizes mainstream, liberal Christianity. (Much to the consternation of innumerable evangelicals and fundamentalists.)
Not only is Methodism not noted for premillenial Dispensationalist views, but such thinking seems out of line with that of Methodism's founder, John Wesley.
None of this is to say that there aren't large numbers of Bush's supporters do believe in these things, but there are also a lot who don't. From what I can see, Bush's religious views are solidly within the mainstream.
(Which is more than can be said for the attempt to portray him as a religious extremist.)
Letting people hear the message of the gospel as well as the example of our works. We'll do more to change lives than any program that could passed by any legislative body. (applause)
As I look at this great gathering, I see reflected here John Wesley's words that the world is my parish, and if that be the case, then I am optimistic. Despite the headlines of the moment, and all of the difficulties we know lurk outside in this city we are in today, and every other one. I am optimistic because I see spiritual growth and action based on that. Beginning to manifest itself in so many different ways. In my book, I wrote a little chapter called "Children Are Born Believers" because I feel so strongly that we owe our children a chance for them to have a spiritual life. For them to be part of a church, and it is not only something we do for them. We do it for ourselves, and we know that in ways we might not even predict consequences can be positive.
Imagine a First Lady of the United States advocating religion!
posted by Eric on 09.16.04 at 09:50 AM
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Thanks for this interesting post. What a great zinger of a Hillary quote at the end. George Bush is the first Republican presidential candidate I have ever voted for. During the primaries, I favored McCain, and Bush’s famous/infamous answer citing Jesus as his favorite political philosopher seemed risible to me. Since then, I’ve alternated between seeing his faith as an obvious source of strength to him and wondering whether his actual views might be a little creepy in some regards. Your post puts it in a different light.
And, as you point out, it makes an interesting contrast with some of his political opposites who denounce him as a theocratic goon. I believe that was Bill Clinton’s implication when he told the Democratic Convention, “Republicans believe in an America run by the right people, their people. . . .” (Uh, do the Democrats prefer an America run by the "wrong people"?)
Bush is a man who has publicly acknowledged a problem with alcohol but who, apparently aided by religious inspiration, forswore and overcame his vice. Contrast that with, say, Bill Clinton, who not only publicly and repeatedly denied that he was a philanderer (despite what we now was an extensive and exuberant indulgence of that particular appetite) but who, during the Lewinsky scandal, surrounded himself with reverends and ministers and staged obsequious photo ops of family churchgoing, bible in hand.
And yet Bush is the one accused of crassly exploiting religion for political purposes.
It's not the pre-millennialists but the post-millennialists who worry me. Pre-millennialism seems to be the traditional fundamentalist position. Pre-millennialists have held that man, being steeped in sin, could do nothing but watch as things got worse and worse and wait for Jesus to return and establish His Kingdom. Post-millennialists, more optimistic, have believed that man should work to establish the Kingdom through laws and social reforms and then Jesus would return. This latter was the doctrine of the Social (or Socialist) Gospel. Pre-millennialists, opposing the Social Gospel, argued that the church should stay out of politics and stick to bringing souls to the Cross on an individual basis. Post-millennialists regarded that as hopelessly benighted and reactionary.
That was the polarity that prevailed in the Protestant churches since at least the 1940s to the late 1970s. Today, the spectrumology is somewhat reversed. The most dangerous elements of "the Christian Right" are the post-millennialists who believe that the church should take control of politics and government, and get laws passed against pornography, homosexuality, etc., to as to make America moral and thus fit to be the Kingdom so that Jesus will be pleased when he returns. The extreme of these are the Reconstructionists, who _literally_ want to stone homomosexuals, adulterers, idolaters, etc..
Give me that old-time fundamentalism, those old-style, gloom-and-doom pre-millennialists who stayed out of politics, recognizing man's limitations, his inability to bring about a utopia by passing laws. The religious form of Thomas Sowell's "constrained vision", in other words. I like those old snake handlers out in the boonies, who obeyed Jesus's words in Mark 16:17-18, but never tried to get a politician to write that into the Constitution.
You're talking about theonomy, a more extreme version of postmillenialism. The more moderate theonomists think Christians should change people's minds through argument and through preaching the gospel. As the world (not the U.S.) becomes more Christian, the laws will reflect it. The more extreme theonomists think Christians should pursue such laws now, even when they're unpopular. Some distinguish between the law of Moses and the more general law of God that applies now. Reconstructionists tend not to do that.
There are many postmillenialists who will have none of this. They don't think political agendas are worth pursuing other than simply voting your conscience, which of course non-religious people think is perfectly fine. The non-theonomic postmillenial view just says that the world will get better as a matter of fact as the gospel spreads and people convert, not that Christians need to have some goal of making it happen. In that sense, postmillenialism need be no more extreme (politically) than historic premillenialism or amillenialism.
See Joe Carter's post just today on these views if you want more details on what they're mainly about. You won't find political matters central to any of it.
The Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler
Don?t bang your head!
Thanks for this interesting post. What a great zinger of a Hillary quote at the end. George Bush is the first Republican presidential candidate I have ever voted for. During the primaries, I favored McCain, and Bush’s famous/infamous answer citing Jesus as his favorite political philosopher seemed risible to me. Since then, I’ve alternated between seeing his faith as an obvious source of strength to him and wondering whether his actual views might be a little creepy in some regards. Your post puts it in a different light.
And, as you point out, it makes an interesting contrast with some of his political opposites who denounce him as a theocratic goon. I believe that was Bill Clinton’s implication when he told the Democratic Convention, “Republicans believe in an America run by the right people, their people. . . .” (Uh, do the Democrats prefer an America run by the "wrong people"?)
Bush is a man who has publicly acknowledged a problem with alcohol but who, apparently aided by religious inspiration, forswore and overcame his vice. Contrast that with, say, Bill Clinton, who not only publicly and repeatedly denied that he was a philanderer (despite what we now was an extensive and exuberant indulgence of that particular appetite) but who, during the Lewinsky scandal, surrounded himself with reverends and ministers and staged obsequious photo ops of family churchgoing, bible in hand.
And yet Bush is the one accused of crassly exploiting religion for political purposes.