"Gog and Magog are at work in the Middle East. ... The biblical prophecies are being fulfilled. ... This confrontation is willed by God, who wants to use this conflict to erase his people's enemies before a New Age begins." ....The French revelation jibes with other known aspects of Bush's renowned evangelical certitude. For example, a few months after his phone call to Chirac, Bush attended a 2003 summit in Egypt. The Palestinian foreign minister later said the American president told him he was "on a mission from God" to defeat Iraq. At that time, the White House called this claim "absurd."
Recently, GQ magazine revealed that former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld attached warlike Bible verses and Iraq battle photos to war reports he hand-delivered to Bush. One declared: "Put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground."
Knowing the Lindsay take on Gog/Magog from years of immersion in it, I can tell you that the above is not it. They would no more say that we "erase his enemies before a new age begins", than they'd say that "we save our brothers by feeding them Big Macs."
Bush is an episcopal turned methodist: this really sounds like Wesley's post-millenialism. WE are building/preparing God's Kingdom here on earth.
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 above, from Pres Bush's 1st inaugural address quotes John Page about the angel riding the whirlwind, but it is an acknowledgement that God writes history.
I'm tempted to believe to a large degree that the Gog/Magog reference is true, but that it's meaning is lost if viewed through a dispensationalist lens. Bush, I'm betting, was a 3-4 point calvinist, post-millenialist.
Nope.
Neither was Reagan.
I met a fellow face to face who prayed with W repeatedly.
As I understand it . . . he was evidently more conventional Pentecostal/Charismatic in his theology and practices than the track you articulated.
That would include Dispensationalism . . . Reagan’s bent, too.