Posted on 06/14/2004 9:51:29 AM PDT by dano1
George W. Bush is a deeply religious man and the US remains a very religious country. In February 2004, Luis Lugo, director of the Pew Trust's Religion Programme, wrote that in a recent poll, "Eighty-five per cent of respondents stated that religion was either 'very' or 'fairly' important in their lives, and nearly 60 per cent reported that they attend religious services at least once or twice a month."
If religion matters in general, the particular religion that President Bush avows matters all the more. Bush and many of his closest advisers are Evangelicals, a variant of Christianity that non-Americans scarcely comprehend, and Americans in the large urban centres rarely encounter.
According to The Economist in its "American Survey" of November 2003, Evangelical Christians make up the largest single religious group in the US, larger than Roman Catholics. Thirty per cent of all Americans in 2003 (up from 24 per cent in 1987) belong to the group, which, according to Professor George Marsden of Notre Dame University in Indiana, includes "holiness churches, Pentecostals, traditionalist Methodists, all sorts of Baptists, Presbyterians, black churches in all these traditions, fundamentalists, pietist groups, Reformed and Lutheran confessionalists, Anabaptists such as Mennonites, Churches of Christ, to name only the most prominent types". In spite of this bewildering variety, Evangelicals generally agree on the absolute authority, and literal truth, of the Bible, the redemptive power of Christ, the importance of missionary work and the centrality of a spiritually transformed life.
George Bush became an Evangelical in 1985 by being "born again". Being born again transforms the believer. As the Gospel According to St John puts it, "Except a man be born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God" (John, 3:5). Bush makes no secret of the fact that God transformed his life in just that way. Asked at a televised debate during the Iowa primary in 2000 to name his favourite philosopher, he said, instantly, "Christ" - explaining how, through Christ, he had become a new man.
Here, too, he shares his identity with a very large number of his fellow citizens. According to the World Christian Encyclopedia, about 35 per cent of Americans have been "born again". In a survey carried out in April 2004 for the Public Broadcasting Service, 71 per cent of Evangelicals polled said they would vote for George W. Bush if the election were held at the time of the poll. No wonder the White House calls them "the base", that bloc of voters in "Middle America" whose unstinting loyalty to the Republican party and willingness to turn out to vote gives the president a built-in core of support, a support strengthened by the way the Electoral College magnifies the distribution of votes in the south and south-west, areas of Evangelical predominance.
Thanks to some recent books, we know quite a lot about the governing style - and the fervent faith - of the president. Both Paul O'Neill, the treasury secretary fired by bush in 2002 (profiled in Ron Suskind's The Price of Loyalty) and Richard Clarke, the former White House counter-terrorism officer and author of Against all Enemies, noticed Bush's refusal to consider alternatives. Bush told O'Neill that, "I will not negotiate with myself," when the then treasury secretary questioned the wisdom of vast tax cuts. Clarke heard him say, "you are either with us or against us" and wrote that the president "looked for simple solutions, the bumper-sticker description of the problem".
Bob Woodward, in Plan of Attack, writes that when he asked the president whether he consulted his father, Bush seemed surprised by the question. "There is a higher father that I appeal to." And, when replying to a question about the failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, Bush said to Woodward: "But you run in different circles than I do. Much more elite."
(Excerpt) Read more at news.ft.com ...
Very astute observation of the ground rules.
I am not sure if I understand what Steinberg is talking about. He seems to have some of the facts right about President Bush's faith, but why?? It really isn't anyone's business than W's. Steinberg is a big academic,so I have my doubts about his real interests here.
Maybe it's because most people can understand a horn dog chasing women around, but they're suspicious about a man who professes something as foreign as faith. They fear what they don't understand.
Funny. I am a evangelical Christian, and I didn't recognize myself at all in his description.
Either I am incredibly self-deceived, or he really doesn't understand Evangelicals as much as he thinks he does.
"But W's personal religious faith is everybody's business."
If it (his faith) influences his political decisions, then yes, it most certainly is.
"Evangelical Christians......Americans in the large urban centres rarely encounter."
What? The largest and most influential of evangelical churches in America are ALL in major urban centers. This is some secular New Yorker who's so narrow and provincial...who thinks since he knows no evangelicals, it must be something odd out in hicksville.
Speaking of religion, government officials and the laws in the US, DID YOU KNOW???........
As you walk up the steps to the building which houses the U.S. Supreme Court you can see near the top of the building a row of >the world's law givers and each one is facing one in the middle who >is facing forward with a full frontal view ... it is Moses and he is >holding the Ten Commandments! > > > > > . > > > DID YOU KNOW? > > As you enter the Supreme Court courtroom, the two huge oak >doors have the Ten Commandments engraved on each lower portion of >each door. > > > > > > DID YOU KNOW? > > As you sit inside the courtroom, you can see the wall, right >above where the Supreme Court judges sit, a display of the Ten >Commandments! > > > > > > DID YOU KNOW? > > > > There are Bible verses etched in stone all over the Federal >Buildings and Monuments in Washington, D.C. > > > DID YOU KNOW? > > > > James Madison, the fourth president, known as "The Father of >Our Constitution" made the following statement: > > "We have staked the whole of all our political institutions >upon the capacity of mankind for self-government, upon the capacity >of each and all of us to govern ourselves, to control ourselves, to >sustain ourselves according to the Ten Commandments of God." > > > DID YOU KNOW? > > > > Patrick Henry, that patriot and Founding Father of our >country said: > > "It cannot be emphasized too strongly or too often that this >great nation was founded not by religionists but by Christians, not >on religions but on the Gospel of Jesus Christ." > > > DID YOU KNOW? > > Every session of Congress begins with a prayer by a paid >preacher, whose salary has been paid by the taxpayer since 1777. > > > DID YOU KNOW? > > > > Fifty-two of the 55 founders of the Constitution were members >of the established orthodox churches in the colonies. > > > DID YOU KNOW? > > Thomas Jefferson worried that the Courts would overstep their >authority and instead of interpreting the law would begin making law >... > an oligarchy ... > the rule of few over many. > > > DID YOU KNOW? > > The very first Supreme Court Justice, John Jay, said: > > > "Americans should select and prefer Christians as their >rulers." > > > How, then, have we gotten to the point that everything we >have done for 220 years in this country is now suddenly wrong and >unconstitutional? That's easy...the Dems had control for short times along the way.
"According to The Economist in its "American Survey" of November 2003, Evangelical Christians make up the largest single religious group in the US, larger than Roman Catholics. Thirty per cent of all Americans in 2003 (up from 24 per cent in 1987) belong to the group..."
Now lets see.... making up nearly 1/3 of the population, but not known in "large urban centers." Rubbish. Since something less than 10% live outside of large urban centers, this guy contradicts himself.
In the article, the author says ... In a recent press conference, the president asserted that the real objective of the war in Iraq was freedom. "Freedom is the Almighty's gift to every man and woman in the world." The Philadelphia Inquirer, in its May 2 2004 edition, asked two theologians, one Evangelical and the other Catholic, what biblical foundation there was for this doctrine. Neither could find any.
I guess we are lucky the commies never pointed that out to us before.
I always viewed freedom as sort of implicit, in the Bible.
According to scripture, no one is really entitled to anything - it is all a gift, from a loving God.
But the implication is that every person has worth in God's eyes, who judges us all with a criteria totally divorced from man's valuations of worth. As a result, we are all equal, and no man has any right to rule over another "without the consent of the governed".
As a result, impediments to freedom are erected by men who are in violation of God's principles.
All human decisions of all kinds are the combined results of many, many different influences. So what? What influences your decisions? Something better than religious faith? What? I am getting really tired of this notion that it's somehow illicit for faith to influence decisions. Why shouldn't it? What would be a "better" influence, according to you?
I have two graduate degrees and have taught business on the university level for more than 20 years. I am also an Evangelical, and my decisions are profoundly based on my faith. If you think that makes them somehow inferior or less rational than they would otherwise be, then you are mistaken. In fact, my decisions are much better than they would be without my faith as an influence.
Not so. Evangelical Churches in urban areas are thriving. Mostly among the middle class but also among the poor where "mainline" churches now fear to tread.
The funny thing is that he probably knows several and has no idea because they don't fit his preconceived notions. i.e. they don't walk around with Bible in hand calling down fire and brimstone on the wicked.
"What? I am getting really tired of this notion that it's somehow illicit for faith to influence decisions. "
Who said anything about it being 'illicit'? I simply said that, for an elected official whose decisions are heavily influenced by his faith - a faith which is not shared by 100% of the populace - his faith is everybody's business. Don't be so defensive.
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