GEORGE W. BUSH - MESSENGER OF GOD

I love that sticker. The Sojourners, led by Pastor Jim Wallis created it. They're trying to run an ad in many local newspapers to send a message that the Religious Right doesn't speak for all Christians. [Link to the PDF ad.] Abortion and gay marriage (and there is division on these subjects as well) are not the only issues that affect Christians. Larger issues, like eradicating war and poverty and protecting the environment, are Christian imperatives, and to that end, he, and most every major Christian body in the world, views the war in Iraq as a "war of choice", unnecessary and unjust.

Religion has been such a hot issue this election year, primarily because George W. Bush's campaign, and supporters, have stated that Bush was appointed by God and is a messenger of God, and as such, can do no wrong and should not be questioned. Ron Suskind reported that Christine Todd Whitman, former EPA administrator, told him that

In meetings, I'd ask [Bush] if there were any
facts to support our case. And for that, I was accused of
disloyalty!

Likewise, in Suskind's book, The Price of Loyalty, he quotes Paul O'Neill, former Bush Treasury Secretary, describing Bush as "a blind man in a room full of deaf people."

Suskind goes on to say that after that statement, politicos from both parties started calling him with similar impressions and stories.

Some were willing to talk because they said they thought George W. Bush might lose; others, out of fear of what might transpire if he wins.

More frightening is where Bush's unquestioning, thoughtless, almost cult-like faith is leading him in command decisions as President. Bruce Bartlett, a domestic policy advisor to Ronald Reagan and treasury official for George H.W. Bush, told Suskind that

Bush is so clear-eyed about Al Qaeda and the Islamic fundamentalist enemy [because] he believes you have to kill them all. They can't be persuaded, that they're extremists, driven by a dark vision. He understands them, because he's just like them... Just in the past few months, I think a light has gone off for people who've spent time up close to Bush: that this instinct he's always talking about is this sort of weird, Messianic idea of what he thinks God has told him to do.

That would explain the split-screen of Bush and Jesus in his DVD, Faith in the White House. The idea that wiping out a whole group of people because you think God told you to do it, let alone believing that you're a divine messenger of God is both heresy and insanity! His followers have even described him as being like John the Baptist, so I guess he's paving the way for Christ's Second Coming?!

"I think you have to wonder when people are so sure they know what God wants them to do," a White House aide recently told a Sojourner reporter. "I just want to ask them, 'Really? God told you that? That's amazing.' Because God seems like a pretty busy guy to me."

You would think that these statements should be abhorrent to any right-minded person, but surprisingly, they're not! I spoke with a man, who by all accounts is intelligent and fairly liberal on social issues (voted for Clinton both times), that does not believe that Islam can be reformed because violence is the nature of Islamic theology and therefore, should either be wiped out or very closely watched, with federal agents in every mosque in the US.

Bush's brand of faith elevates his statements that if you're not with us, you're not just against us, you're against God.

Politics:Religion as Oil:Water, or should be anyway.