{"id":1572,"date":"2004-10-20T11:25:23","date_gmt":"2004-10-20T15:25:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/nateptest\/2004\/10\/20\/bushs-christianity-redux\/"},"modified":"2004-10-20T11:25:23","modified_gmt":"2004-10-20T15:25:23","slug":"bushs-christianity-redux","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/2004\/10\/20\/bushs-christianity-redux\/","title":{"rendered":"Bush’s Christianity, redux"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

This piece, by Ayelish McGarvey<\/a>, perfectly explains why Bush’s faith proves so frustrating.<\/p>\n

\n

This is a huge mistake, because when judged by
\nhis deeds, an entirely different picture emerges: Bush does not
\ndemonstrate a life of faith by his actions, and neither Methodists,
\nevangelicals, nor fundamentalists can rightly call him brother. In
\nfact, the available evidence raises serious questions about whether
\nBush is really a Christian at all. <\/font><\/p>\n

Ironically for a man who once
\nfamously named Jesus as his favorite political philosopher during a
\ncampaign debate, it is remarkably difficult to pinpoint a single
\ninstance wherein Christian teaching has won out over partisan politics
\nin the Bush White House. Though Bush easily weaves Christian language
\nand themes into his political communication, empty religious jargon is
\nno substitute for a bedrock faith. Even little children in Sunday
\nschool know that Jesus taught his disciples to live according to his
\ncommandments, not simply to talk about them a lot. In Bush’s case,
\nfaith without works is not just dead faith — it’s evangelical agitprop….
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

Judging him on his record, George W. Bush’s
\nspiritual transformation seems to have consisted of little more than
\nstaying on the wagon, with Jesus as a sort of talismanic Alcoholics
\nAnonymous counselor. Bush came to his faith through a small group
\nprogram created by Community Bible Study, which de-emphasizes sin and
\nresembles a sort of Jesus-centered therapy session. <\/font>
\n <\/font><\/p>\n

But sin is crucial to Christianity.
\nTo be born again, a seeker must painfully acknowledge his or her innate
\nsinfulness, and then turn away from it completely….
\n<\/font><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

From what I know, McGarvey professes an
\nevangelical Christian faith, so he’s quite adequately positioned to
\nmake a criticism of the president on thiese grounds.  Furthermore,<\/p>\n

\n

Just who will boldly hold the president
\naccountable to Scripture? Sycophantic religious conservatives are
\nheavily invested in politics; they dare not rock the boat. Religious
\nliberals are cast aside as partisan. And as Amy Sullivan noted recently
\nin The New Republic<\/i>, Bush does not regularly attend church —
\nhe doesn’t even have a pastor or fellow congregants to keep him on the
\nstraight and narrow. <\/font><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

I’e wondered about this for years.  Bill Clinton, the anti-moral
\nexemplar of the Republican Party, at least went to church pretty
\nregularly, if not every week, then three of four weeks.<\/p>\n

I’ve heard the argument from a variety of people, including some of the
\nmembers of the Red Sox watching party I’m at, have noted that it’s hard
\nfor the President to go to church every Sunday, with all the security
\nrequirements and such.  But one could certainly have a pastor in
\non a regular basis.  And with the Bush family’s vaunted ties to
\nBilly Graham, it shouldn’t be hard to have your pick.<\/p>\n

On a more serious note, however, it’s a fairly serious thing that Bush
\nmakes so much of his faith but does not attend a regular service. 
\nOne of the key commitments of Christianity is that the believer does
\nnot individually engage with God and the world; the community is a key
\naspect of the Christian experience.  Even Protestant individualism
\nstill acknowledges the key role for the corporate body of believers;
\nwithout the Church, “one, holy, catholic, and apostolic” (a line of the
\ncreed that even evangelicals sunscibe to, if not in the same fashion as
\nthe Orthodox, Roman Catholics, and Anglicans), without the corporate
\nengagement with God, the believer cannot grow to his or her fullest
\nmeasure in the faith.<\/p>\n

We’ve heard quite a bit of late on Bush not being able to admit his
\nmistakes, about him not taking advice outside the small coterie of is
\n“war council”, about his stubbornness.  And what we know about
\nGeorge Bush’s religious conviction, as evidenced by his unwillingness
\nto engage with his fellow believers (sic)* in the hard process of
\nrelating to God, demonstrates this further.  Bush does not think
\nhe has any need to engage with other believers because I don’t think he
\nunderstands that God is greater than the flexible leanings of his own
\nconscience.  He doesn’t understand that “conscience” can be wrong
\nand that the corporate body exists to ensure that conscience does not
\ngo off too far in the wrong direction.<\/p>\n

Which I guess shouldn’t be surprising.  From what we know about
\nBush’s politics, it’s not surprising to see that the purportedly deeper
\nbeliefs of his life betray an amazing hubris — the very opposite of
\nwhat all faiths teach that true faith consists of.  Humility, not
\nhubris, lies at the core of Christianity, which indicates that George
\nW. Bush lies quite far from the heart, soul, and core of the faith he
\nso vociferously claims.<\/p>\n

* A common trope in my evangelical youth was to tell people about their
\nfaith, “You are sincere in what you believe, but you’re sincerely
\nwrong.”  I think GWB is sincere about what he thinks he believes,
\nbut I wonder if it’s orthodox Christian faith.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This piece, by Ayelish McGarvey, perfectly explains why Bush’s faith proves so frustrating. This is a huge mistake, because when judged by his deeds, an entirely different picture emerges: Bush does not demonstrate a life of faith by his actions, and neither Methodists, evangelicals, nor fundamentalists can rightly call him brother. In fact, the available […]<\/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_feature_clip_id":0,"_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":[47],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1572","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-rayleejun"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5G3PH-pm","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1572","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=1572"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1572\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1572"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1572"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1572"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}