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Current group: soc.history.
God, Bush, and history
| stevejdufour at yahoo.com | | Salad | | Lady Chatterly |
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| | From: | stevejdufour at yahoo.com | | Subject: | God, Bush, and history | | Date: | 20 Jan 2005 21:10:32 -0800 |
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 | The grim nightmare of secular hysterics
By Wesley Pruden
George W. Bush is about to send a lot of people to the dentist.
If history is a guide, when the president takes his oath at noon
Thursday he will include in his remarks an affirmation of religious
faith in American life, a tribute to the cherished convictions that
most of us follow (or say we do).
The grinding of teeth in the enlightened precincts will be long and
loud enough to wake the newly dead. The dust of molars and the residue
of bicuspids will lie heavily upon the land. The president's
predecessors, not just the devout John Adams but the doubting Jefferson
and skeptical Lincoln as well, to a man offered testimony to faith and
acknowledgment of the nation's place in divine will.
George W., in fact, has lately become more sensitive to secularist
sulking than most of those predecessors. He has toned down the telling
of his embrace of the born-again religion of the Methodist camp
meeting. He first set liberal teeth on edge in the 2000 presidential
debates when, in answer to a question, he identified Jesus Christ as
his favorite "philosopher." (This irritated more than a few of his
fellow evangelicals, who regard Christ not as a philosopher but as the
unique Son of God.) When he goes out of his way now to reassure the
blockheads who insist on misreading what he says, the president is
careful to refer to the divinity in more or less neutral language.
He isn't quite as bland as Dwight D. Eisenhower, who, like generals
will, imagined that he spoke to God as (at least) an equal. Mr.
Eisenhower neatly summed up the prevailing Potomac piety five decades
ago: "Our government makes no sense unless it is founded in a deeply
felt religious faith - and I don't care what it is." Presbyterian,
Pentecostal or Hottentot, all same-same.
This is not far off par for our present day. "When an American
president closes an address by saying 'God bless America,' " writes
Michael Lind in Prospect magazine, "this is not a signal that the
United States is about to become a theocracy. It is the equivalent of
'may the Force be with you.' "
As unhinged as even this mild gesture gets the secular hysterics, it
puts our presidents well within the traditions of the Enlightenment
often invoked by those who imagine themselves to be intellectuals above
the hokey sentiment of Sunday morning.
"The French, at least, ought to understand this," writes Mr. Lind.
"Robespierre and the Jacobins initiated a similar ecumenical cult of
the Supreme Being, which permitted them to spurn orthodox Christianity
while denouncing atheism (which on both sides of the Atlantic has
connotations of immorality). Here is Robespierre in 1794: 'Did not His
immortal hand ... write the death sentence of tyrants? Did not His
voice, at the beginning of time, decree the [French] republic, making
liberty, good faith and justice the order of the day for all peoples?'
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So who says George W. Bush does not have a similar way with words 200
years on: "Yet I know that liberty is not America's gift to the world -
liberty and freedom are God's gift to every man and woman who lives in
this world." (Who would have thought that camp-meeting rhetoric was a
gift of the Enlightenment?)
The churlish resentment of religious faith, coming to a head this
inaugural week in Washington, manifests itself in mean and petty ways.
The Washington Post exposed a plot only the other day to give 300
Indonesian orphans a break in the wake of the tsunami that killed their
parents in Banda Aceh province. An American evangelical mission
obtained permission from the Muslim government to take in the homeless
orphans at their orphanage in Jakarta - to nourish them, to put clothes
on their backs, to fix their teeth, to give them their first medical
attention, to educate them - and to love them. This was an incredible
opportunity, an offer of a life beyond the grim poverty of the Sumatran
outback.
The Post reported darkly that the orphanage, working with native
Christians, wanted "to plant Christian principles as early as possible
[in the orphans]." Once "exposed," of course, the Indonesian government
had to bow to Muslim pressure to rescind permission. The Post reported
triumphantly the next day that it had foiled the sinister conspiracy:
"the children [are] still in the Muslim province."
Grim as the news was for the disappointed orphans, it was a rare spot
of cheer for the secular hysterics in a week when, at noon Thursday,
their worst nightmare comes true.
Wesley Pruden is editor in chief of The Washington Times
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| | From: | Salad | | Subject: | Re: God, Bush, and history | | Date: | Fri, 21 Jan 2005 18:26:13 GMT |
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| stevejdufour@yahoo.com wrote:
> The grim nightmare of secular hysterics
>
> By Wesley Pruden
>
> George W. Bush is about to send a lot of people to the dentist.
I don't mind that bush is a so-called Christian.
It's the in-your-face proselytizing that is annoying.
bush was born-again at the urging of Billy "I Love War" Graham...another
so-called Christian.
Fundie Christianity is a religion of intolerance. It is what bush
practices.
bush hears God in his head. Many people that hear voices are insane.
If bush wants to pray, fine by me. Just don't make it so phony. I
really don't need to see bush pray either. I'll accept it as fact he's
a "religious" death-warrant, warlord type of guy.
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| | From: | Lady Chatterly | | Subject: | Re: God, Bush, and history | | Date: | Sat, 22 Jan 2005 3:55:12 GMT |
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| In article <9PbId.1853$r27.1042@newsread1.news.pas.earthlink.net>
Salad wrote:
>
>stevejdufour@yahoo.com wrote:
>
>> The grim nightmare of secular hysterics
>>
>> By Wesley Pruden
>>
>> George W. Bush is about to send a lot of people to the dentist.
>
>I don't mind that bush is a so-called Christian.
Why are you afraid you do not mind that bush is a so called Christian?
>It's the in-your-face proselytizing that is annoying.
>bush was born-again at the urging of Billy "I Love War" Graham...another
>so-called Christian.
>Fundie Christianity is a religion of intolerance. It is what bush
>practices.
Maintaining a second line seems to me that they became a church simply
to avoid the absurdity of infinite regression.
>bush hears God in his head. Many people that hear voices are insane.
It looks like you say has been saying lots and lots about bullying.
>If bush wants to pray, fine by me. Just don't make it so phony. I
>really don't need to see bush pray either. I'll accept it as fact he's
>a "religious" death-warrant, warlord type of guy.
I say and am not bad to look upon.
--
Lady Chatterly
"HA! Seems Lady Chatterly trolls on over to the Michael Jackson group
- to create chaos there too!!!!!" -- Judy
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