A Tragic Legacy: How a Good vs. Evil Mentality Destroyed the Bush Presidency by Glenn Greenwald Page B
Authors: Glenn Greenwald
Tags: United States, General, History, Biography & Autobiography, Political Science, Politics, Case studies, International Relations, Good and Evil, Government - U.S. Government, United States - Politics and government - 2001- - Decision making, George W - Ethics, George W - Influence, Presidents & Heads of State, Presidents - United States, George W - Political and social views, Political leadership, Current Events, Political leadership - United States, Executive Branch, Character, Bush, Good and evil - Political aspects - United States, United States - 21st Century, Government, United States - Politics and government - 2001-2009 - Decision making, Government - Executive Branch, Political aspects, 21st Century, Presidents
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Christian doctrine, and that his claimed Christianity must therefore be a sham.
Those arguing for the inauthenticity of Bush’s evangelical faith often cite as inconsistencies between Bush’s conduct and Christian morality his ordering of unnecessary wars, his condoning (if not ordering) torture, his willingness to deceive, or even his general lack of personal humility. The premise of this objection is typically that if a person acts contrary to Christian dictates with sufficient frequency, it is fair to conclude that his professed beliefs in Christianity are illusory.
Just from a strictly doctrinal perspective, there are numerous flaws with that reasoning. The belief in original sin and mankind’s fallen nature, for instance, means that all humans, even the most devout and faithful, will personally sin, and do so repeatedly. Independently, many evangelicals hold that a person who truly accepts Jesus as savior is saved permanently and irrevocably, without regard to the goodness of their subsequent acts.
But for purposes of understanding the president, all of those theological issues and questions as to whether he is a “true Christian” can be set aside. What matters is the president’s own understanding of his faith, not whether by the metrics of others he falls short of being “Christian.” Put another way, whether the president’s behavior is consistent with Christianity in some objective sense is an entirely different question from whether he believes that he is acting in accordance with God’s will and pursuant to the mandates of his religion as he understands them. To show that Bush’s behavior as president is “un-Christian”—as measured against some objective barometer of piety—is not to demonstrate that Bush touts his Christianity cynically.
What is relevant for understanding the president’s mind-set is that he himself believes that he is mandated to act in accordance with God’s will, that he is able (at least with respect to certain critical matters) to discern that will, and that he is, in fact, acting in accordance with it by virtue of the course he has chosen. These subjective beliefs the president holds have guided his presidency and governed the course of his administration and our country.
To his credit, Bush has always been quite up front and explicit that there is nothing that he thinks or does that is independent of his evangelical beliefs. For example, when he identified Jesus as his “favorite philosopher” in a 1999 debate against other Republican presidential candidates, Bush evinced unabashed candor and no hesitation in declaring the central role his Christian faith plays in his life. Most presidents and those who sought to be president—particularly in modern times—have indicated a belief in God and an embrace of some form of Christian faith, but few, if any, have so explicitly and continuously emphasized the central role that religious belief plays in their decision-making.
Bush has never spoken publicly in any detail about his born-again conversion, though he has recounted that he was first “pointed to the path of God” in 1985, by the evangelical minister Billy Graham. In his 1999 campaign autobiography entitled A Charge to Keep, then-Governor Bush wrote: “Over the course of that weekend, Reverend Graham planted a mustard seed in my soul, a seed that grew over the next year.”
Moreover, Bush has spoken extensively about his religious awakening when describing the circumstances that enabled him to stop drinking. A 1999 campaign interview with the Washington Post contained this exchange:
Why did you quit drinking?
A couple of things happened. One, you know, the Billy Graham visit in 1985. I met with Billy, but it’s like a mustard seed. You know, he planted a seed in my heart and I began to change…. I realized that alcohol was beginning to crowd out my energies and could crowd, eventually, my affections for other people.
You quit drinking and you became more
Those arguing for the inauthenticity of Bush’s evangelical faith often cite as inconsistencies between Bush’s conduct and Christian morality his ordering of unnecessary wars, his condoning (if not ordering) torture, his willingness to deceive, or even his general lack of personal humility. The premise of this objection is typically that if a person acts contrary to Christian dictates with sufficient frequency, it is fair to conclude that his professed beliefs in Christianity are illusory.
Just from a strictly doctrinal perspective, there are numerous flaws with that reasoning. The belief in original sin and mankind’s fallen nature, for instance, means that all humans, even the most devout and faithful, will personally sin, and do so repeatedly. Independently, many evangelicals hold that a person who truly accepts Jesus as savior is saved permanently and irrevocably, without regard to the goodness of their subsequent acts.
But for purposes of understanding the president, all of those theological issues and questions as to whether he is a “true Christian” can be set aside. What matters is the president’s own understanding of his faith, not whether by the metrics of others he falls short of being “Christian.” Put another way, whether the president’s behavior is consistent with Christianity in some objective sense is an entirely different question from whether he believes that he is acting in accordance with God’s will and pursuant to the mandates of his religion as he understands them. To show that Bush’s behavior as president is “un-Christian”—as measured against some objective barometer of piety—is not to demonstrate that Bush touts his Christianity cynically.
What is relevant for understanding the president’s mind-set is that he himself believes that he is mandated to act in accordance with God’s will, that he is able (at least with respect to certain critical matters) to discern that will, and that he is, in fact, acting in accordance with it by virtue of the course he has chosen. These subjective beliefs the president holds have guided his presidency and governed the course of his administration and our country.
To his credit, Bush has always been quite up front and explicit that there is nothing that he thinks or does that is independent of his evangelical beliefs. For example, when he identified Jesus as his “favorite philosopher” in a 1999 debate against other Republican presidential candidates, Bush evinced unabashed candor and no hesitation in declaring the central role his Christian faith plays in his life. Most presidents and those who sought to be president—particularly in modern times—have indicated a belief in God and an embrace of some form of Christian faith, but few, if any, have so explicitly and continuously emphasized the central role that religious belief plays in their decision-making.
Bush has never spoken publicly in any detail about his born-again conversion, though he has recounted that he was first “pointed to the path of God” in 1985, by the evangelical minister Billy Graham. In his 1999 campaign autobiography entitled A Charge to Keep, then-Governor Bush wrote: “Over the course of that weekend, Reverend Graham planted a mustard seed in my soul, a seed that grew over the next year.”
Moreover, Bush has spoken extensively about his religious awakening when describing the circumstances that enabled him to stop drinking. A 1999 campaign interview with the Washington Post contained this exchange:
Why did you quit drinking?
A couple of things happened. One, you know, the Billy Graham visit in 1985. I met with Billy, but it’s like a mustard seed. You know, he planted a seed in my heart and I began to change…. I realized that alcohol was beginning to crowd out my energies and could crowd, eventually, my affections for other people.
You quit drinking and you became more
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