Posted on 10/27/2001 4:03:19 PM PDT by Pokey78
Everyone who knows him will tell you the same thing. George W Bush is a deeply religious man. That's not to say he's pious. His easy nicknames for journalists, his tangled baseball analogies, his constant outbursts of chuckles do not connote a man of solemn devotion. Compared with the ostentatious sanctimony of Jimmy Carter, Bush seems urbane, even sassy.
But this shouldn't fool you. Bush believes that he was personally saved by God from a life of heavy drinking and irresponsibility. From the day Billy Graham took a walk with him and urged him to start his life anew, Bush has been a different man. And since September 11, he has been a different man altogether.
Nobody seems to doubt the spiritual context for this. The day of his speech to Congress on September 20, Bush did not spend the afternoon conferring with aides or even speech-writers. He spent it with religious leaders of all denominations. And at the end of the day, a telling moment occurred. James Merritt, the president of the Southern Baptist Convention, told the president: "I believe you are God's man for this hour. God's hand is on you." The president nodded. "I accept the responsibility," he replied. Whatever others think, this is what Bush believes; not in a messianic way but as one of those odd occurrences that the Almighty sometimes decides to bestow on the unlikeliest of people.
He was like this before September 11. His inaugural speech, when you look back on it, was full of religious imagery. He spoke of an "angel riding in the whirlwind". He invoked "a power larger than ourselves, Who creates us equal in His image". He spoke of "history's Author, Who fills time and eternity with His purpose".
These words come naturally to him. Bush begins most days reading the Bible and is as regular with his private prayers as with the treadmill. "I don't think anyone out there truly understands how important his faith is to this man," one of his aides told me a few months back. Perhaps part of this is due to Bush's life story. He was the first son, but he wasn't the first child in his family. His elder sister died of leukaemia when he was a child, thrusting him into the first-child role he never sought, while his mother grieved and leant on him. He never expected to be in public life and goofed off for years. His younger brother, Jeb, was supposed to be the next president, not W.
And from then on, surprise after surprise. He was not expected to beat an incumbent vice-president at a time of unparalleled prosperity. He did not win the popular vote, and asked himself what it meant that he had become president in such awkward circumstances. He carried on as if the riddle of his good fortune and awesome responsibility would at some point be solved for him.
September 11 solved it. "I think, in his frame, this is what God has asked him to do," a friend of his told The New York Times. "It offers him enormous clarity." Another friend opined that Bush had "begun a new life that is inextricably bound to September 11 and all that it implies". Look at the language Bush has employed. He uses the word "evil" with constant emphasis. Osama Bin Laden is an "evil man", the "evil one".
As Fred Barnes, the political journalist, noticed, the September 20 speech was also an exercise in psychological projection. "In our grief and anger we have found our mission and our moment," Bush said. "The country is called to defend freedom." Nobody needs to ask who had done the calling. Or who, apart from the country, had been called.
Nobody should confuse the faith of George W with more conventional Christian right belief. There are times when Bush seems almost embarrassingly ecumenical. One of his most beloved policy initiatives is the creation of "faith-based" social policy. But, apart from his campaign disaster of giving a speech at the uber-Protestant Bob Jones University, he has bent over backwards to avoid denominational edge. He has insisted that the focus of pro-life work (a view he shares) should not be imposing laws but changing hearts. His early insistence after September 11 that American Muslims deserved respect and protection was not merely good politics and good policy. It was heartfelt.
Like Tony Blair, we ignore this man's spiritual core at our peril. Its main consequence right now has been what insiders are calling a laser-beam concentration on the war on terrorism. Bush believes this is now his mission. It is not a job; it is not an adventure. It is a vocation. Bush seems determined to avoid any hostility with the Democrats. This has many conservatives worried, and it may indeed mean more public spending than is prudent. All this, in his mind, must be subjugated to what God has called him to.
And this, I think, explains the uncanny composure of the man. No president since John Kennedy in 1963 has been put under such intense stress in a national emergency. Yet Bush seems calm and happy. He doesn't stay up all night; he exercises and plays with his dog. His underrated wife plays a part in this. And so, too, do Bush's well-honed executive skills. He knows how to delegate. Above all, like many former drunks, he knows psychologically how to delegate to a higher power.
I don't think it's too great a stretch to see this war as a religious one. It's between the frenzied fanaticism of one man, and the calm, sustaining faith of another. I have no doubt which one will crack first.
That means accepting and believing that, whether God actually arranges the world (it IS a mystery) or intentioanlly created free will in order to force us to CHOOSE Him, we only control our actions, NOT the outcomes.
Outcomes belong to God. Whatever they are, if our actions are Holy the outcomes are Holy.
GWB has accepted his current circumstances as a gift from God and, knowing his actions to be founded on prayer and meditation, believes the outcomes will be Holy, whatever they are.
I think his personal humility is one of the character traits that impresses me the most...
-penny
-penny
-penny
pick pick pick...*big grin*
There are heterosexual men that target children also - therefore, all heterosexual men target children.
If all are targeting children - what is your point?
So very true - please keep on reminding us as we travel through these days. Thanks for the comment.
I totally agree with this, and I have no problem with whether or not GWB was or was not a heavy drinker years ago.
However, all I have heard supposedly "proving" GWB was a heavy drinker is circumstantial. Let me give you an example from my own life....my brother and his wife used to drink fairly regularly, but didn't abuse alcohol. They did this for years, and then at a certain point in their lives they decided to stop drinking altogether. They are not alcoholics at all, but they decided their health and their lives would be better without it and so decided to stop drinking. Using the fact that GWB quit drinking altogether is nowhere near enough to prove the case being made here.
My concern is that people know the truth, particularly when it comes to talking about other people. The issue of alcoholism or drinking in and of itself is not an issue for me. ;) But the question of the truth of a story being circulated about someone is very important. I have seen so many hatchet jobs done on people by the media that I am automatically skeptical when stories are circulated like this that have not come from the person themselves and has sketchy or in some cases completely false "evidence."
With that, I think I'll let the matter rest, because I feel uncomfortable talking about the President this way in the first place. I do appreciate your comments, particularly with your comment about the importance of how one handles a problem like this, but I'm still not convinced that the "heavy drinking" story is true... ;)
-penny
I feel that my purpose is to help my mother. It doesn't sound like much, but to me it is as important as Dubya leading our country because it is "my" purpose at this moment in time.
I have no idea what I wrote at this time because I posted earlier this morning, but it sounds like you were adding to my sentiments. The bottom line is that you gotta believe and have faith, no matter what happens here on earth.
Soli Deo Gloria!
-penny
I love this president more all the time and feel God really did put him in place at this time. Maybe the trials in his life have brought him to the place that the Lord thought he could handle the job.
Sullivan, the latest in a long line of Limey "Athenians" who view the United States as their useful little Roman--hearty, rich (far too rich -- must skim off some of that fat--for our own good, of course), naive, childish, easily flattered and even more easily led--nothing but a Roman fist that will deliver the superior British/Athenian sensibility to the solar plexus of the whole, wide world. A little flattery is a small price to pay to get someone else to rule the world for you.
Is it just my imagination or do these British boosters love the American politicians best who most eagerly ditch The Old Republic on the mission du jourto make the world safe for---safe for all the things British parasites like.
Don't you love the facile caricature of aspects of American "conservatism" which Sullivan neither understands nor approves?
Don't you love the way he "loves' George Bush? For his "simplicity", his lack of unsettling depth, his laser-like focus? (no nasty complexity to muddy the mission)
He's not like all those disturbing Americans who are so distastefully American. George Bush is a man the British can work with. He's a man on a mission. The right kind of mission.
Does anybody else wonder why Andrew finds Shoeless George's ecumenical embrace of Peaceful Islam so admirable, but deems his ecumenical embrace of Bob Jones University a "campaign disaster"?
Because Sullivan was trying so hard to mold Bush into someone of whom he could approve, he inadvertantly made Bush seem even more superficial and silly than his enemies try to portray him..
I sincerely hope it isn't because he's attended the "Bunny Slippers" School of Inconvenient Fact Avoidance.
Dan
To be honest I know nothing of this author and therefore cannot comment on him, though I see some here say he is usually questionable at best. But, for most of what he is reporting on GWB and his faith he is on target because I am up to speed on that. I also am familiar with the ministrial reputations of TD Jakes and James Robinson, which are both very good. So, basically I am speaking of the content of the article, and was responding to the previous post, not commenting on Andrew Sullivan.
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