Weekly Shredder 18:
The Theology of President Bush
by J. Daniel Janzen
with J. Gerald Janzen

It's a delicate matter to talk about another person's faith. But when that faith serves as a central tenet of that person's job, and that job is to lead the American people and the free world, inquiry becomes not only appropriate, but essential.

The faith of President George W. Bush has drawn much attention from supporters, critics and columnists, particularly as the election draws near. For those concerned about the separation of church and state, having a born-again Christian in the White House can be a source of anxiety; but in truth, almost every American president has been a practicing Christian, including those who have fought hardest to maintain this separation. Strong religious belief can provide a moral and ethical foundation for a leader's work. The belief in a higher power can keep earthly rulers humble; in seeking divine guidance, they acknowledge that they themselves are fallible and don't have all the answers. That's the theory, anyway.

The outlines of president's conversion story are well-known: Never one to turn down a drink, by the early 70s he was getting increasingly sloppy. Following a particularly embarrassing incident, his family staged an intervention at Kennebunkport starring none other than Billy Graham. On a long walk with the legendary preacher, Bush kicked the bottle and accepted Jesus. Soon afterwards, he rose from failed wildcatter to baseball owner to governor to president of the United States. It's safe to say Christianity has worked out well for W. But what kind of Christianity?

The president has spoken of his wish to act as a messenger of God's will, and of his conviction that God wants him to be president. In times of crisis, he turns to prayer in lieu of policy analysis. Still, for all his biblical language and professions of faith, Bush doesn't speak much about his specific beliefs. His church attendance is said to be spotty (though in fairness, his regular presence could present logistical nightmares for a parish). Some have speculated that Bush's Christianity is a ploy to appeal to the religious right, while others accuse him of speaking in code to the faithful, making calculated biblical allusions undetectable to the unsaved. But faith is like the death penalty: an unjust condemnation would be too deplorable an error to risk.

Instead, we should take Bush at his word, and see what we can learn about the faith he professes and how it informs his worldview.

For archives, audio, and background about the column, click here.

Many critiques of Bush's Christianity have played on the apparent disparity between his profession of the importance of good works and comforting the afflicted, and his reluctance to back his faith with policy when it comes to such people as uninsured workers, disenfranchised blacks or those affected by industrial pollution. While the quality and quantity of Bush's good works might be questioned, as could be said of any president, his faith-based initiatives are squarely in the spirit of Matthew 5:16: "Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven." Whether Bush is a hypocrite or merely a selective and inept do-gooder is a matter of perspective, but in no sense is he a blasphemer — not on this point, anyway.

A more significant and troubling line of inquiry lies in the way Bush recruits scriptural support for America's role in the world. In his inaugural address on January 20, 2001, Bush quoted a letter that a Virginia statesman named John Page had written to Thomas Jefferson following the signing of the Declaration of Independence. Page wrote, "We know the race is not to the swift nor the battle to the strong. Do you not think an angel rides in the whirlwind and directs this storm?" For Bush, this pairing of Ecclesiastes 9:11 with Nahum 1:3 spoke of our nation's courage; ever the underdogs, we nonetheless prevail over evil by the grace of God, who rides with us in the vanguard of righteousness (no terrestrial grand alliances needed). If he felt this way even before Sept. 11 of that year, imagine how he sees things now.

Page wasn't the first person to misinterpret "We know the race is not to the swift nor the battle to the strong" as a cheer for the little guy. The fact that these words are found in Ecclesiastes should have tipped off Page and Bush alike that its original context isn't so sunny. What Ecclesiastes is actually saying is, despite our wish that the deserving would always get their due — may the best team win, may the smartest candidate get elected — as would be the case in a world that made sense, our lives are more arbitrary than that; "time and chance happens to them all," as Ecclesiastes goes on to say, and nice guys finish last. It's a counsel of pessimism, and an acknowledgement that fate catches up with everyone no matter what we do. That might not be such an inappropriate creed for the republic after all — but it's hardly what Bush had in mind.

"And an angel still rides in the whirlwind and directs this storm" is a great line — divine intervention as imagined by Jerry Bruckheimer. But Bush might want to be careful about the contemporary analogies of the verses he cites. The prophet Nahum was speaking out against the world-imperial power of Assyria, proclaiming its downfall by the hand of God at the helm of history. Iraq may now sit where Assyria once did, but who's the one building world empires now? Although Nahum was referring to a specific situation, his vivid imagery subsequently found favor with apocalyptic writers, who applied it more broadly in the kind of "end times" contexts so compelling to fundamentalist Christians, who doubtless caught Bush's allusion. (Tinfoil-hat types might see significance in the pairing of apocalyptic imagery from one book with a verse numbered 9:11 from another, but there is such a thing as coincidence.)

Apocalyptic language made another appearance in the State of the Union address preceding the invasion of Iraq, when Bush said that Saddam Hussein could unleash "a day of horror like none we have ever known." This brings to mind, for example, Mark 13:19, in a chapter scholars call a "little apocalypse": "For in those days there will be such tribulation as has not been from the beginning of the creation which God created until now, and never will be." By thwarting the apocalypse, Bush would presumably be forestalling the second coming of the Messiah many so eagerly await, but this kind of stuff sets fundamentalist hearts racing like toddlers in the presence of a fire truck. Amid the special effects and the booming soundtrack, what's easily lost is the true nature of the struggle. There's a difference between a spiritual struggle and a military conflict, though this distinction has been consistently blurred by leaders since the time of the First Crusade.

Granted that God would want us to resist evil, the question is how. For Bush, it's a matter of taking up arms; but Jesus and Paul, the two most prominent voices in the New Testament, both reject the concept of "redemptive violence," which posits a war between good (God, the angels and us) and evil (Satan and his minions). While the New Testament does characterize the moral and spiritual scene in terms of a struggle between good and evil, to say that God is on the side of good is a theological blunder. It implies that there is a "good side" that exists in and of itself, and that God has the good sense to be on it with us. But in theological terms, what is good is defined by virtue of its being on God's side; as Abraham Lincoln said during the Civil War, the question is not whether God is on our side, but whether we are on His.

In fact, while Bush often invokes God's support for the United States, the notion that our nation or any other could win such favor is highly suspect. At a time when state and religion were inseparable, Christianity itself dissented from both the authority and the pantheon of Rome, and both testaments of the Bible offer a consistent critique of the state as such. Long before the separation of church and state was codified in the US Constitution, Christ made clear that what matters are the faith and works of the individual. To assume for the state the role of God's agent on earth is to make the state into an idol, and that way lie blasphemy and totalitarianism. And that's exactly where Bush is headed.

Bush's acceptance speech at this summer's RNC, like his closing comments in the first presidential debate, was replete with biblical language alluding to mighty mountains, hills to climb and the valley below, echoing both Martin Luther King Jr. and Moses. Again, the premise of an escape from slavery into a promised land is awkward to reconcile with our current predicament — are we climbing a mountain to flee the terrorists? I thought we were taking the fight to them. But the smug identification of Americans as God's chosen people reinforces our divine mandate.

Bush more explicitly invoked Moses in a June 2002 address on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, quoting Deuteronomy 30:19: "I have set before you life and death; choose life." These words came on the eve of the Jews' entry to the land of Israel, at the end of Moses' book-long account of a covenant in which God had promised them life should they honor its terms — faith in Him and observance of His laws — and judgment should they break them. Stirring words for a Jew or a Christian; given the context, probably less so for a Palestinian. But as we've seen, in Bush's theology not just anyone gets to be chosen.

The covenant Moses describes in Deuteronomy had been formed in the fallout from the golden calf incident, in which the Jews had broken the newly minted Ten Commandments through blasphemous idolatry. Is there a difference between worshipping a man-made idol, and equating the Savior with a man-made polity? Bush seems to think so; in his mind, the golden calf presents no theological difficulty provided it's stamped "Made With Pride in the USA." At the RNC, Bush said, "People will look to the resurrection of New York City and they will say: Here buildings fell, and here a nation rose." No Christian uses the term "resurrection" lightly; the unmistakable implication is that New York and by extension the American people had been crucified at the hand of Al Qaeda, but would rise again. This fusion of identity between America and Christ is Bush's most profound error, and one he returns to again and again.

On the first anniversary of 9/11, with the Towers of Light rising from Ground Zero behind him, President Bush said, "And the light shines in the darkness. And the darkness has not overcome it." The original verse in John 1:5 was in past tense; by shifting it to the present, Bush emphasized that he was talking about the here and now, and referring not to the light of the long-awaited messiah, but Con Edison and the can-do spirit of the American people.

Bush speaks often of his belief that "there's power, wonder working power, in the goodness and idealism and faith of the American people." This line echoes a revival hymn written by Lewis E. Jones in 1899, when it was sung in the streets to rally prohibitionists (some things never change), and still popular among evangelicals as a communion hymn — but with a key difference. Whereas Lewis wrote of "the precious blood of the lamb," Bush shifts the source of power from the blood of Christ to the American public, once again flirting with blasphemy in equating the two. In so doing, he also fundamentally changes its meaning. "Would you o'er evil a victory win?" Lewis asked — over your own evil and sinful tendencies, that is. To exhort the faithful to combat an external evil — an enemy of the good — is another matter. Muslim fundamentalists call it jihad, ironically co-opting the more internal original sense of their sacred text as egregiously as Bush does of his. In portraying the United States as the sword in the hand of God, he treats the Bible like a CIA report to be massaged and punched up to deliver the answers we’re looking for: that the course we’ve already decided to take is indeed God’s will

St. Paul spoke of the courage to be found in the faith of Christians — not from the expectation that God will intervene and save us, but rather from the conviction that our God is true, and that we can trust Him totally no matter what happens. In practical terms, what this means is that Christians should never allow our fear to shake our faith, nor tempt us to turn to false idols. But this is exactly what Bush is doing, imparting to the American public the kind of sacred power formerly reserved to Christ, the lamb of God. As such, he suggests that we ourselves can deliver our people to the promised land, and take responsibility into our own hands for the security and prosperity that in the Bible only God could provide.

Shortly after his election as governor of Texas in 1995, Bush invited his staff to his office to admire a painting lent to him by a friend. Entitled "A Charge to Keep," by W.H.D. Koerner, the painting is based on the Charles Wesley hymn of the same name; for Bush, it represented the mission of his administration: "What adds complete life to the painting for me is the message of Charles Wesley that we serve One greater than ourselves." Since assuming the presidency, Bush has shown imperialistic hubris to rival ancient Rome, a steadfast aversion to reflection, an utter lack of humility, a preternatural inability to admit fault and an unfailing presumption that God will back him up in any decision his gut tells him to make. He would do well to ask himself whether he is truly serving One greater than himself, or expecting that One to serve him. It makes a difference.

E-mail J. Daniel Janzen at jdaniel at flakmag dot com.

— graphic by Derek Evernden (derek@ocellus.net)