{"id":1570,"date":"2004-10-19T11:14:45","date_gmt":"2004-10-19T15:14:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/nateptest\/2004\/10\/19\/george-w-bushs-faith\/"},"modified":"2004-10-19T11:14:45","modified_gmt":"2004-10-19T15:14:45","slug":"george-w-bushs-faith","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/2004\/10\/19\/george-w-bushs-faith\/","title":{"rendered":"George W. Bush’s “faith”?"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a><\/p>\n

Ron Suskind’s article in the Times on Sunday<\/a> will likely set off some people — those who can’t stand seeing Bush’s faith at all questioned.<\/p>\n

But since every idea and issue remotely touching on the facts of faith
\nhave been fair political game this time around, perhaps more than
\nusual, it’s fair to ask, as Jeff Sharlet does, whether George Bush is
\nout first “New Age” president<\/a>.  (A heresy that I am sure will
\noffend crystal wavers and Bible thumpers alike, so I’m happy to bring
\nit up.)<\/p>\n

What’s
\nsurprising about Suskind’s summary of Bush’s “walk,” to borrow an
\nevangelical term, is how small a role Jesus Christ seems to play in it.
\nGod gets a few cameos, but even he’s a supporting player. Front and
\ncenter, though, is faith.
\n…<\/p>\n

Believing, it seems, is more important to the President than the
\nsubstance of his belief. Jesus Christ’s particular teachings — well,
\nthose are good, too. But what really matters is that if you believe you
\ncan do something, you can.<\/p>\n

What Suskind misses, and what Bush’s more orthodox Christian
\nsupporters seem to dodge, is that this is not Christian doctrine by any
\ndefinition. It is, in fact, a key element of the broad, heterodox
\nmovement known as New Age religion. <\/p>\n

A common aspect of many New Age schools of thought (though not all) is a gentle disdain for perceived reality. \n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ron Suskind’s article in the Times on Sunday will likely set off some people — those who can’t stand seeing Bush’s faith at all questioned. But since every idea and issue remotely touching on the facts of faith have been fair political game this time around, perhaps more than usual, it’s fair to ask, as […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":709,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[46],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1570","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politicks"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5G3PH-pk","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1570","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/709"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1570"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1570\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1570"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1570"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1570"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}