Some voice concern over president's religious rhetoric

Boston Globe ^ | February 16, 2003 | John Donnelly

[Cincinatus' Wife]

WASHINGTON - In the midst of a war on terrorism and before a war in Iraq, two combatants are not shy about invoking the name of God.

And both President Bush and Osama bin Laden fervently assert that God is on their side.

[Cincinatus' Wife]

Who The Real Ogres Are ***Perhaps surprisingly, part of the extensive pro-Castro support network in the U.S. is the National Council of Churches (NCC). This "religious" group has a long history of pro-Castro activities. Kenneth Lloyd Billingsley, the editorial director of the Pacific Research Institute in San Francisco and author of From Mainline to Sidelines: The Social Witness of the National Council of Churches, says about the NCC for wanting to send Elián back to Cuba, "This should come as no surprise since the NCC does not represent American Protestants and has long served as a lobby for the Marxist dictatorship of Fidel Castro."

Billingsley, explains that the NCC remained silent about Castro's crimes from its beginning in 1959. In 1968 the NCC issued their first statement about Cuba urging the U. S. to recognize the Castro regime. This despite the fact that one of the first casualties of Castro's revolution was organized religion.

Billingsley says that in 1977, a year before his election as NCC president, Methodist bishop James Armstrong "led a delegation of American church officials to Cuba, where they supported the regime's repression." After this first NCC official delegation visit to Cuba, they declared to be "challenged and inspired by Cuba and flatly denied that the Cuban regime persecuted Christians." However, in 1977 Amnesty International stated that Cuba had "the longest-term political prisoners to be found anywhere in the world." He points out that "In 1980, the NCC published a book claiming that "Cubans are the only Latin Americans who have broken with dependent capitalism and its accompanying dehumanization of the common people."

According to former imprisoned poet Armando Valladares, "Cuban officials used pro-Castro statements of American clergy to torment prisoners. That was worse for the Christian political prisoners than the beatings or the hunger. Incomprehensibly to us, while we waited for the embrace of solidarity from our brothers in Christ, those who were embraced were our tormentors." ***

[BenLurkin]

Here's the type of person who would find fault with the President's remarks:

[Cincinatus' Wife]

Marxism is all the religion the masses need. - Excerpted from Hillary Clinton and the Radical Left (Hillary Clinton and the "Third Way")… Ever since abandoning the utopian illusions of the progressive cause, I have been struck by how little the world outside the left seems to actually understand it. How little those who have not inhabited the progressive mind are able to grasp the ruthless cynicism behind its idealistic mask or the fervent malice that drives its hypocritical passion for "social justice."

No matter how great the crimes progressives commit, no matter how terrible the future they labor to create, no matter how devastating the catastrophes they leave behind, the world outside the faith seems ever ready to forgive them their "mistakes" and to grant them the grace of "good intentions." ***

[meenie]

Sadaam in his latest pep talk to the Iraqi people even invokes Allah repeatedly. Religion and faith is so prevalent, even in authoritarian countries, rulers use this means to rally the masses.

[Cincinatus' Wife]

Bush rallies Americans of all faiths. How may faiths are tolerated in Iraq?

[cricket]

"Still, the president's reliance on faith and his expressed confidence that God blesses America, especially in speeches that deal with the need to confront Iraq, greatly concern some scholars."

. . .these 'scholars' never miss an opportunity to try and advance their scholarly idealogical agenda.

[Thomas1066]

Unless Bush has a direct line to God, I too wish he would leave God out of his speeches. Even the angel of the Lord who appeared to Joshua refused to say God was on anybody's side.

[Cincinatus' Wife]

. . .these 'scholars' never miss an opportunity to try and advance their scholarly idealogical agenda.

And they religiously preach it to our American youth.

[Cincinatus' Wife]

There needs to be right and wrong, black and white, good and evil and a higher authority to judge us. If we don't recognize that and rally together for good, we'll slide into the base kind of caring world the Bill Clintons' of the world inhabit.

[ncpastor]

David Little - of Little mind; of Little faith; of Little consequence. Are we not still a nation "under God" or did Congress slip by with a deletion of that precious notion?

[Cincinatus' Wife]

Little and his ilk need to be relegated to the ash heap of history.

[11th Earl of Mar]

''The more I listen to him, the more truly worried I become about the vision for this country in the world,'' said Hurst Hannum, a professor... "I guess I worry about anyone who is that sure he is right.''

This comment makes me more worried about the state of 'higher education' in America than about our President.

[Bonaparte]

"Bush rallies Americans of all faiths."

So an Iraqi monster can invoke his god of torture, brutality and murder, but an American President can't invoke a just and loving God because he might offend atheists and radical islamists. I see why Professor Little's advice is free.

[Cincinatus' Wife]

This comment makes me more worried about the state of 'higher education' in America than about our President.

Schools of Education, Schools of Journalism and Schools of Government should have everyone taking their children and running the other direction.

[Cincinatus' Wife]

I see why Professor Little's advice is free.Americans are paying through the nose to give johnny and jane this kind of education.

A CLASS STRUGGLE: Tenure of Avowed Marxist Controversy jolts College***"In a nutshell, it means I have a fundamental disagreement with capitalism," he said. "I think that capitalism is a system based on exploitation and oppression and domination and racism and war and lots of other things. "So I'm totally opposed to capitalism, and I think that the majority of the people of this country ought to get together and transform the system," he said. "I think we need to replace capitalism with some kind of democratic socialism." ***

Campus Marxists are a funny bunch--until they end up running your country ***Both of my grandfathers were exterminated by Stalinist terror. My father and mother both barely escaped the Gulag. But here I am, with PhD students, being treated to a one-hour discussion about "homophobia" on campus. My colleagues are agonizing about how "Homophobia-Free Zone" pink stickers must be put on every door in the university. "But what if a professor or a teaching assistant refuses to have one put on his door?" one of them asks indignantly. After a few seconds of silence, another answers, "Well, then a committee might just have to be set up where these people will be taken to account." Serious head-nods follow. ***

[stars & stripes forever]

Unless Bush has a direct line to God.....

He does have a direct line to God....and so would you if you believe that Christ is your Saviour.

[kittymyrib]

Yes, the Boston Globe is so worried that Pres. Bush is too religious. They never had that worry when their beloved Clinton was in the Oval Office. Liberals love hypocrits. It's a soul-mate thing.

[gaspar]

"It's so American-centric...," says Hurst Hannum of Tufts University. Wouldn't you know, old Hurst is another plague-bearing leftist rat who escaped the University of California, Berkeley and its Boalt law school. Journalists (who are now being discussed in terms usually reserved for sexual deviants) always have a Marxist or two they can call on when they need a quote for their article, but they never identify their true politics.

[Cincinatus' Wife]

Cardinal Roger Etchegaray, left, meets with Iraqi President Saddam Hussein in Baghdad Saturday Feb. 15 2003. Saddam met with the papal envoy, who brought a letter from Pope John Paul, for over an hour. (AP Photo/INA)

President George W. Bush looks down during introductory remarks before addressing guests at the National Religious Broadcasters' Convention in Nashville, Tennessee, February 10, 2003. Laying bare a split with France, Bush said he was disappointed with its role in blocking NATO from planning Turkish defenses in the event of an Iraq war and said it would hurt the alliance.(Kevin Lamarque/Reuters)

[jimtorr]

Unless Bush has a direct line to God, I too wish he would leave God out of his speeches. Even the angel of the Lord who appeared to Joshua refused to say God was on anybody's side.

Please tell me in which quote sited in the article did GW ever say that God was on his side? No, I didn't think you could. He merely asks and hopes that God would continue to bless America. As, indeed, he should.

I, for one, am happy that GW speaks of God and faith in public. This nation is founded and based on a faith in God. They wrote that the constitution depended on a faithful, religous people, and would soon fail, otherwise.