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Bush Running to be National Pastor
by Haroon Siddiqui
Common Dreams News Center
America is a secular state. But Americans are the most religious people in the industrialized world. A born-again Christian leads them. Their presidential election seems driven by religion.
Question: Is American secularism in danger? More precisely, is the neutrality of the state guaranteed by a constitutional separation of church and state in jeopardy?
The problem is not that George Bush is religious. So was Jimmy Carter. Others who weren't, pretended to be.
It also does not matter that Bush turns to God often:
"I pray a lot. I pray for strength. I pray for wisdom. I pray for our troops in harm's way. I pray for my family. I pray for my little girls ... Prayer and religion sustain me. I receive calmness in the storms of the presidency," Bush has said. Fine. Many people pray, more so in times of trouble.
Bush also has a right to his positions on abortion, gay marriage and stem-cell research.
He is also entitled to promote funding for faith-based institutions to deliver social and other benefits, an initiative that has proven popular, beyond his evangelical base, across denominations.
Whether or not the move is constitutional should government be in the business of funding churches? will be decided by the U.S. Supreme Court. It remains the ultimate arbiter of how much religion is too much in the public square.
Hence the endless speculation south of the border, which Canadians can't quite relate to, over what might happen if George W. Bush is re-elected and gets to replace two of the nine judges who are in their 80s and two more in their 70s.
Rather, the relevant issue of religion and state, I think, boils down to this: Bush seems to believe that he is God's instrument in the White House. And most of his backers agree.
He has been quoted as having recently told a group of Amish in Pennsylvania: "I trust God speaks through me."
He is on record as having earlier said this of Iraq: "I'm surely not going to justify the war based upon God. Nevertheless, I pray to be as good a messenger of His will as possible."
The issue is elaborated in an article in last Sunday's New York Times Magazine, as my colleague Richard Gwyn noted on this page yesterday.
Its author, Ron Suskind, quotes Bruce Bartlett, a Republican sage, as saying that the president is said to talk about the "weird, Messianic idea of what he thinks God has told him to do."
Suskind also quotes Jim Willis of the Sojourners, an advocacy group for social justice, as saying this: "When I first met Bush in Austin (in 2000), I saw a self-help Methodist very open, seeking." But post-9/11, "what I started to see ... was a messianic American Calvinist. He doesn't want to hear from anyone who doubts him."
That the president draws strength and confidence from his faith is fine by me.
That he does not listen to others is a matter of management style.
But if he feels infallible because he thinks he is carrying out God's will, we do have a problem. Several, in fact.
He is echoing Osama bin Laden.
He is fusing church and state.
He may think of the death of more than 1,100 American soldiers in Afghanistan and Iraq as a necessary sacrifice in a virtuous cause. He certainly seems blasé about the killing of the nearly 30,000 Afghans and Iraqis, two-thirds of them in an illegal war not approved by the United Nations and opposed by just about the whole world.
We think of his Iraq venture in terms of statecraft, the unilateral move of a superpower. What if it also has been a messy manifestation of his faith?
Not that he might dispatch an army of evangelical missionaries to American-conquered lands for mass conversions.
Even if he were to, as his favourite pastor, Rev. Franklin Graham, would like, it would not matter much. Muslims are never easy to convert, even less so now, because Bush's policies have made them more Islamic.
Rather, the issue is: What's happening to America itself?
The question is valid, unless we think Bush does not mean what he says but is merely striking clever election poses for his large Christian constituency.
But there is too much evidence to the contrary.
Take, for example, his recent intimation that he may be in command of supernatural powers.
In last week's televised presidential debate, he said: "I love the fact that people pray for me and my family all around the country. Somebody asked me one time, `Well, how do you know?' I said, `I just feel it.'"
Spooky.
Suskind's second point is that evangelical Christians, "the core of the energetic `base' that may well usher Bush to victory, believes that their leader is a messenger from God."
"They have faith in him." They "feel he is divinely chosen."
Lincoln Chafee, Republican senator from Rhode Island, has made a similar point: The issue of Bush "announcing that `I carry the word of God' is the key to the election."
The final word goes to Barry Lynn of the Washington-based Americans United for Separation of Church and State: Bush appears to be running not so much for president but rather to be national pastor.
by Haroon Siddiqui
Common Dreams News Center
America is a secular state. But Americans are the most religious people in the industrialized world. A born-again Christian leads them. Their presidential election seems driven by religion.
Question: Is American secularism in danger? More precisely, is the neutrality of the state guaranteed by a constitutional separation of church and state in jeopardy?
The problem is not that George Bush is religious. So was Jimmy Carter. Others who weren't, pretended to be.
It also does not matter that Bush turns to God often:
"I pray a lot. I pray for strength. I pray for wisdom. I pray for our troops in harm's way. I pray for my family. I pray for my little girls ... Prayer and religion sustain me. I receive calmness in the storms of the presidency," Bush has said. Fine. Many people pray, more so in times of trouble.
Bush also has a right to his positions on abortion, gay marriage and stem-cell research.
He is also entitled to promote funding for faith-based institutions to deliver social and other benefits, an initiative that has proven popular, beyond his evangelical base, across denominations.
Whether or not the move is constitutional should government be in the business of funding churches? will be decided by the U.S. Supreme Court. It remains the ultimate arbiter of how much religion is too much in the public square.
Hence the endless speculation south of the border, which Canadians can't quite relate to, over what might happen if George W. Bush is re-elected and gets to replace two of the nine judges who are in their 80s and two more in their 70s.
Rather, the relevant issue of religion and state, I think, boils down to this: Bush seems to believe that he is God's instrument in the White House. And most of his backers agree.
He has been quoted as having recently told a group of Amish in Pennsylvania: "I trust God speaks through me."
He is on record as having earlier said this of Iraq: "I'm surely not going to justify the war based upon God. Nevertheless, I pray to be as good a messenger of His will as possible."
The issue is elaborated in an article in last Sunday's New York Times Magazine, as my colleague Richard Gwyn noted on this page yesterday.
Its author, Ron Suskind, quotes Bruce Bartlett, a Republican sage, as saying that the president is said to talk about the "weird, Messianic idea of what he thinks God has told him to do."
Suskind also quotes Jim Willis of the Sojourners, an advocacy group for social justice, as saying this: "When I first met Bush in Austin (in 2000), I saw a self-help Methodist very open, seeking." But post-9/11, "what I started to see ... was a messianic American Calvinist. He doesn't want to hear from anyone who doubts him."
That the president draws strength and confidence from his faith is fine by me.
That he does not listen to others is a matter of management style.
But if he feels infallible because he thinks he is carrying out God's will, we do have a problem. Several, in fact.
He is echoing Osama bin Laden.
He is fusing church and state.
He may think of the death of more than 1,100 American soldiers in Afghanistan and Iraq as a necessary sacrifice in a virtuous cause. He certainly seems blasé about the killing of the nearly 30,000 Afghans and Iraqis, two-thirds of them in an illegal war not approved by the United Nations and opposed by just about the whole world.
We think of his Iraq venture in terms of statecraft, the unilateral move of a superpower. What if it also has been a messy manifestation of his faith?
Not that he might dispatch an army of evangelical missionaries to American-conquered lands for mass conversions.
Even if he were to, as his favourite pastor, Rev. Franklin Graham, would like, it would not matter much. Muslims are never easy to convert, even less so now, because Bush's policies have made them more Islamic.
Rather, the issue is: What's happening to America itself?
The question is valid, unless we think Bush does not mean what he says but is merely striking clever election poses for his large Christian constituency.
But there is too much evidence to the contrary.
Take, for example, his recent intimation that he may be in command of supernatural powers.
In last week's televised presidential debate, he said: "I love the fact that people pray for me and my family all around the country. Somebody asked me one time, `Well, how do you know?' I said, `I just feel it.'"
Spooky.
Suskind's second point is that evangelical Christians, "the core of the energetic `base' that may well usher Bush to victory, believes that their leader is a messenger from God."
"They have faith in him." They "feel he is divinely chosen."
Lincoln Chafee, Republican senator from Rhode Island, has made a similar point: The issue of Bush "announcing that `I carry the word of God' is the key to the election."
The final word goes to Barry Lynn of the Washington-based Americans United for Separation of Church and State: Bush appears to be running not so much for president but rather to be national pastor.
