Photo courtesy of WGBH Boston "Frontline" examines President Bush's religiosity in tonight's segment, "The Jesus Factor." It also shows how his religious views mirror those of the country's buregoning evangelical movement.
Posted on 04/29/2004 11:04:35 AM PDT by Jagdgewehr
Photo courtesy of WGBH Boston "Frontline" examines President Bush's religiosity in tonight's segment, "The Jesus Factor." It also shows how his religious views mirror those of the country's buregoning evangelical movement.
Public television tonight takes a look at "the most openly religious president in recent times."
But don't expect an hour of diatribes against President George W. Bush and his blending of faith and politics. What you'll see tonight on "Frontline," which airs at 9 p.m. on KPBS/Channel 15 with some repeats, is an evenhanded, even cautious, examination of the former Texas governor who years ago told a group of people, "I believe that God wants me to be president."
The timing of "Frontline's" documentary, titled "The Jesus Factor," is compelling.
It comes just two weeks after Bush ratcheted up his religious language in a nationally televised conference and on the heels of journalist Bob Woodward's new book, which describes the president as "casting his mission and that of the country in the grand vision of God's master plan." (Not to mention Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry's contention that religion should not be an issue.)
And while the show doesn't get into these most-recent forays, it does a very good job of reminding us that the president's convictions did not begin in the White House – nor did his commitment to a particular brand of Christianity.
The son of the first President Bush began adulthood known more for his partying than his piety. But then he started attending a conservative Bible study with about 120 other men in Midland, Texas. As he would later tell a friend, this born-again experience changed his life – and his connections.
His growing bond with the evangelical Christian community helped get his father elected president. It also helped the son become governor of Texas, in a campaign that introduced voters to a man who wasn't going to hide his religiosity.
Bush told one reporter outright back then that if you don't believe in Jesus, you won't go to heaven. His campaign theme song was "God Bless Texas," and after he moved into the governor's mansion, he made it known that he supported faith-based programs. It was a melding of church and state that he'd later bring to the White House.
Bush's 2000 campaign for presidency unabashedly courted evangelicals, which polls showed made up a healthy portion of voters. But his message of "compassionate conservatism" also appealed to moderates. Either way, religion played a major part in his election.
"The single most reliable predictor of how a person voted in the 2000 election was whether they went to church or synagogue or mosque at least once a week," said Richard Land, president of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention. "If they went to church or synagogue or mosque at least once a week, two-thirds of them voted for George W. Bush."
But in the three years after the election, uneasiness has set in among some who are appalled by such scenes as when President Bush held up the Bible, saying that was the federal guidebook he followed.
"He was speaking as a religious leader – not worried about the constitutional implications of that rhetoric," said the Rev. C. Welton Gaddy, a Baptist minister who heads up the liberal Interfaith Alliance in Washington, D.C.
Others cite what they see as increasingly divisive religious language in the war on terrorism. "To say that 'they' are evil and 'we' are good and if you're not with us you're with the terrorists, that's also bad theology," said Jim Wallis, editor of the liberal evangelical magazine Sojourners.
But the program is judicious about including the other side, who say that the liberals just don't get it.
"The problem with the left is that some of them don't think God has a side," said Land, the Southern Baptist official.
Now it's campaign season again, and among those on his re-election team: Ralph Reed, former head of the right-wing Christian Coalition. Meanwhile, the president has reinforced his conservative religious support with domestic stands like signing the partial-birth abortion bill, appointing "common sense judges who understand that our rights are derived from God" and advocating a constitutional amendment to keep marriage between a man and a woman.
The final words from the narrator are as close as the program comes to a conclusion: "What began 20 years ago as a personal religious experience has for George W. Bush become a factor inextricably linked with his career as a politician, and now with the life of the country as president."
Some will come away from tonight's program dismayed. Others will be reassured. And maybe that's the best praise for this "Frontline" episode.
Particular brand of Christianity? He's a Methodist! Compared to Catholics like Kerry and Kennedy, he's far from being a fanatic. He just happens to believe in Christ and his teachings, while Kerry and Kennedy just stay for the free wine and free bread that gets handed out during mass!
Three hits were made, none of them, in my opinion, at all damaging:
All nonsense.
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