Election or Deification?
The Second Term Begins to Look Like the Second Coming
His speeches are suffused with phrases familiar to evangelicals. Once
asked who is his favorite "political philosopher", he answered
"Jesus". He told a Rev. Land, of the Southern Baptist Convention, "God
wants me to be president".
PBS's "Frontline" reported that, before the 2000 election,
Dallas television evangelist James Robison heard a personal revelation
from George W Bush: "I feel that I'm supposed to run for president. I
can't explain it, but I believe my country's going to need me at this
time."
He has told gatherings that he felt "called" to run for
president. Campaigning in Amish country in July, he made the chilling
statement, "I trust that God speaks through me. Without that, I
couldn’t do my job”.
The Faith-based Presidency
That gives the Christian fundamentalists their dream president. To
nail down the vote with those who think the church should run the
state, we now have "George W. Bush: Faith in the White House", a
$14.95 DVD being distributed free to 300,000 churches. "Our
documentary reveals this is the most faith-based presidency since
Abraham Lincoln", says its producer. The film "clearly shows a caring,
compassionate, faith-based President that the world has not seen
before this documentary".
Frank Rich, a New York Times columnist who got an advance look,
wrote, "Bush is not merely a sincere man of faith but God's essential
and irreplaceable warrior on Earth. The stations of his cross are
burnished into cinematic fable: the misspent youth, the hard drinking
(a thirst that came from 'a throat full of Texas dust'), the fateful
40th-birthday hangover in Colorado Springs, the walk on the beach with
Billy Graham."
The evangelical right is presenting Bush as the anointed one,
sent to save us from Saddam and Gomorrah, a latter day son of God,
whose stumbling malaprops are perhaps just speaking in tongues. This
is a part of the world where writer Thomas Frank, in his book "What's
the Matter With Kansas", tells us that callers to the Christian radio
network condemn liberal politicians for throwing off the Lord's
timeline for the Rapture by trying to make peace between Israel and
the Palestinians. Where, to hurry that schedule along, ranchers have
developed red heifers for Israel, because they are essential to the
Jewish side of the prophecy, the building of the Third Temple. Where
the 17 percent of Americans live who expect the world to end in their
lifetime, according to a Newsweek poll.
Without a Doubt
If Bush's belief that he is the instrument of God doesn't trouble you,
then consider its effect.
George W. Bush exhibits a certitude that supporters admire as
strong leadership. Detractors worry that it is dangerous for the
nation that its leader is so convinced of his rectitude that he is
impervious to complexities or differing points of view.
After all, if that's God's voice you hear, what need is their for
human rationality or discourse?
George Tenet spoke of “an absence of doubt at the top”. Bob
Woodward said the same. On "Frontline" he recounted this dialog with
Bush about his war policy in Iraq. Woodward asked:
“'Do you have any doubt?', and I asked it in the starkest terms.
Because Tony Blair had said that...he gets hate mail saying 'my son
died in your war and I hate you'. Blair said publicly, 'you can't get
letters like that and not have doubt'. I read that to President Bush
in the Oval Office, thinking he might say 'Well, Blair's got a point'.
He just ignited and said, 'no doubt. I have no doubt'."
The Infallibility Complex
President Bush famously never admits to making mistakes. George W Bush
is certainly not blessed with great intellect; every step of his
entire life owes to family connections. What, then, makes Bush so
convinced that he is right? The answer, in our view, and a troubling
answer at that, is that Bush believes himself to be the instrument of
God. He has said as much above. So whatever his decision, it must be
right. A presumption of infallible guidance goes a long way toward
explaining why Bush admits to no mistakes.
All presidents ritualistically genuflect to religion to placate
that element of the electorate that finds it reassuring — "a courtesy
that reason pays to superstition" as Lewis Lapham of Harper’s puts it
— but George W. Bush represents a commingling of church and state that
is unsettling. The program to channel federal aid funds through
“faith-based” institutions, namely churches. The stifling of stem cell
research.
BBC correspondent Justin Webb reported that, "Nobody spends more
time on his knees than George W. Bush. The Bush administration hums to
the sound of prayer. Prayer meetings take place day and night. It’s
not uncommon to see White House functionaries hurrying down corridors
carrying Bibles."
The Knight Templar Complex
In "The Bushes", a book by Peter and Rochelle Schweizer, a Bush family
member reveals that George W. Bush views the war against terrorists
"as a religious war", explaining, "his view...is that they are trying
to kill the Christians. And we, the Christians, will strike back with
more force and more ferocity than they will ever know". The terrorists
surely view their mission as religious — a restoration of Islamic
fundamentalism — but should we want our mission to be a renewal of the
atrocities of the Christian crusades? It is this biblical worldview
that led President Bush to call our retaliation after 9/11 a
"crusade", a detonator word that confirmed to the Arab nations, for
whom the Crusades seem like yesterday, that America was embarking on a
religious war. The gaffe was quickly muffled, but it has returned — in
a direct-mail fund-raising letter, in a speech in Alaska.
The Messiah Complex
Conservative columnist David Brooks says that George W. Bush
“fundamentally sees the war on terror as a moral and ideological
confrontation between the forces of democracy and the forces of
tyranny”. Bush has said, "I believe, firmly believe, that freedom is
the almighty God's gift to every person". To rework a Newsweek
observation, this “double helix of faith and” politics suggests a
future under Bush of unending pre-emptive wars to convert the world.
Evangelicals are reared on the Book of Revelation. Should we be
worried whether this president would face down a protean nuclear power
of the "Axis of Evil" — Iran or North Korea — as merely God's plan for
the Apocalypse and "End Times"?
http://www.thebushpresidency.org/Character.htm#TGT_SecondComing
I'm George W. Bush, and I approve of this message.
.
|
