Just how religious is George W. Bush?

I've mentioned the much-discussed Ron Suskind article in a previous post, in which the Bush White House is described as being scornful of the "reality-based community."  And Bob McElvaine's article on "Christianity and the Election" also takes a look at Republican misuse of religion in this election.

While there's such a focus on Suskind's article, it's worth asking, just what do we know about George W. Bush's religious beliefs and practices?

Today, we have this testimony from one of God's closest buddies: Robertson: I warned Bush on Iraq casualties CNN.com 10/20/04.

Pat Robertson, an ardent Bush supporter, said he had that conversation with the president in Nashville, Tennessee, before the March 2003 invasion U.S.-led invasion of Iraq. He described Bush in the meeting as "the most self-assured man I've ever met in my life."

"You remember Mark Twain said, 'He looks like a contented Christian with four aces.' I mean he was just sitting there like, 'I'm on top of the world,' " Robertson said on the CNN show, "Paula Zahn Now."

"And I warned him about this war. I had deep misgivings about this war, deep misgivings. And I was trying to say, 'Mr. President, you had better prepare the American people for casualties.' "

Robertson said the president then told him, "Oh, no, we're not going to have any casualties." ...

"I mean, the Lord told me it was going to be A, a disaster, and B, messy," Robertson said. "I warned him about casualties."

More than 1,100 U.S. troops have died in Iraq and another 8,000 troops have been wounded in the ongoing campaign, with the casualty toll significantly increasing in the last six months as the insurgency there has deepened.

Let's see, God talks directly to Bush and tells him to invade Iraq and that there won't be any American casualties.

Meanwhile, God talks directly to Pat Robertson and tells him that the Iraq invasion was going to be a messy disaster.  Or a disastrous mess.

So this must mean ... God if a "flip-flopper"!!  Come on, now, how is God going to lead the universe if he's going to be changing positions all the time like this?

Perhaps a less theologically problematic explanation would be that these two Republican worthies are just full of unwholesome waste matter.

I would interject at this point that I understand what people mean when they talk about God speaking to them to provide comfort or encouragement or consolation.  Though I normally don't express myself in that way, I don't see that kind of thing as inherently problematic.

But with the kind of thing that Bush and Robertson are apparently into with claiming they get clear divine messages directly, for religious believers that does raise a theological issue of how to handle "private revelations."  The Catholic Christian tradition, for instance, holds that private revelations, such as visions of the Virgin, can be entirely valid.  But they have to be tested against the standard of Scripture and Church teachings.  If not everyone would consider that a "reality" check, it's at least a doctrinal and ecclesiastical check.  And private revelations don't carry any religiously binding authority for others, in the view of the Catholic Church.

When a religious leader like Robertson starts claiming the authority of private revelations, there is reason for his potential followers to worry.  Because that kind of claim of authority in a religious leader can easily lead to all kinds of abuses.  It's an irony of religious cults that they so often point to the failures and shortcomings of "organized religion," while claiming for themselves and their chief leader a spiritual authority far beyond that that organized Christian churches claim for individual ministers or officials.

(I referred a year ago to one example of Robertson's type of Christian advice on public matters, when he proposed that the answer to the problems of the State Department was, "We've got to blow that thing up."  He emphasized the point by saying, "If I could just get a nuclear device inside Foggy Bottom [the State Department], I think that's the answer.")

And when a political leader like Bush starts claiming divine authority for military action, watch out.  The Iraq War is an ongoing example of what that kind of thing can produce.

Laura Rozen's reaction to this story is a good lead-in to the questions that she and others are raising about just what is the nature of Bush's religious beliefs?  In her War and Piece blog posting of 10/20/04, Rozen writes:

I think it's time for some sort of gentle intervention. How could anyone be so deluded that he would have thought with an invasion force of a couple hundred thousand people there would be no casualties? What in the world is the diagnosis here? Is he mentally unbalanced? Does he really think he is the Lord's Chosen? What is his reaction that the Lord apparently lied to him about how it would be in Iraq? What kind of Congressional oversight can we hope for here?

Amy Sullivan, who is carving out a good niche for herself as an analyst of politics and religion, observes on the Political Animal blog in More Than Words 10/20/04:

But it's simply a fact that many voters cast their lot with the guy they believe is led by a moral power greater than himself. I've heard countless voters say they disagree with Bush on the war, the economy, his environmental record, his education agenda, you name it--but they're voting for him "because he's a good Christian man." The press has accepted uncritically that this is so. Maybe that was a mistake.

Amy Sullivan has published a couple of articles lately on Bush and Christianity.  One is online: Faith Without Works Washington Monthly Oct 2004.  That piece focuses more on his "faith-based" programs efforts.

Another is "Empty Pew" in the 10/11/04 edition of the New Republic (posted online for subscribers 10/05/04).  In that one, she focuses on his spotty church attendance as a way of asking just what Bush's religious views are really about.  As an example of the kind of reporting that's all too typical of our sad excuse for a press corps, she notes:

[I]t could be that Bush's faith, while sincere, is not terribly deep.  [David] Aikman [author of A Man of Faith: The Spiritual Journey of George W. Bush], who had significant access to Bush confidantes while writing his book, has said that he "could not get from anybody a sort of credot of what [Bush] believes."  Nevertheless, Aikman pressed on by "intuit[ing]" Bush's faith and presenting as evidence of the president's deep spiritual commitment his fondness for carrots and jogging (apparently a response to the scriptural admonition to treat the body as a temple for God) and the politeness of White House staffers ("though manners are not specifically connected to George W.'s personal religious faith, it was as though the discipline he brought to his own life of prayer and Bible study filtered down into the work habits of everyone who worked with him").

Laura Rozen in a 10/19/04 blog post builds on Suskind's account to observe:

[E]asy certainty such as that demonstrated by Bush is not a sign of genuine faith, but rather evidence of a total perversion of religious values, which, in one more thoughtful, breeds reflectiveness, moral deliberation, and the capacity for humbleness and doubt (qualities more reflected in fact in Bush's opponent). Bush practices religion the way he exercises on the treadmill and the way he used to drink - automatically, thoughtlessly, as a way to escape something deeper and absolve himself of responsibility for his own conduct and its consequences. He cheapens it.

Aylish McGarvey takes a skeptical look at Bush's religiosity in As God Is His Witness American Prospect online 10/19/04.  The article is mainly a polemic questioning whether Dubya actually qualifies as a "Christian," in the way that term is commonly understood among conservative Protestants in America.  But it also has some observations of more than strictly polemical value:

Ironically for a man who once famously named Jesus as his favorite political philosopher during a campaign debate, it is remarkably difficult to pinpoint a single instance wherein Christian teaching has won out over partisan politics in theBush White House. Though Bush easily weaves Christian language and themes into his political communication, empty religious jargon is no substitute for a bedrock faith. Even little children in Sunday school know that Jesus taught his disciples to live according to his commandments, not simply to talk about them a lot. In Bush’s case, faith without works is not just dead faith -- it’s evangelical agitprop[.]

Save for a few standout reporters, the press has done a dismal job of covering the president’s very public religiosity. Overwhelmingly lacking personal familiarity with conservative Christianity, political reporters have either avoided the topic or resorted to shopworn clichés and lazy stereotypes. Over and over, news stories align Bush with evangelical [conservative Protestant] theology while loosely dropping terms like fundamentalist to describe his beliefs.

Once and for all: George W. Bush is neither born again nor evangelical. As Alan Cooperman reported in The Washington Post last month, the president has been careful never to use either term to describe his faith. Unlike millions of evangelicals, Bush did not have a single born-again experience; instead, he slowly came to Christianity over the course of several years, beginning with a deep conversation with the Reverend Billy Graham in the mid-1980s. And there is virtually no evidence that Bush places any emphasis on evangelizing -- or spreading the gospel -- in either his personal or professional life. Contrast this to Carter, who notoriously told every foreign dignitary he encountered about the good news of Jesus Christ.  

This doesn't mean there isn't a distinct religious element of Bush's famous self-certainty.  It certainly seems to be there.  But without being an active part of a practicing religious community, and without a meaningful understanding and appreciation of at least basic Christian religious concepts, a sense of being given a mission by God can easily lend itself to fanaticism and megalomania.

And to a dangerous isolation from practical reality:  'One Guy in a Bubble' by Harold Meyerson Washington Post 10/20/04.

With the presidential race coming down to its final two weeks, the Bush campaign has all but made a virtueof the bubble in which Bush resides and presides. This presidency is a triumph of the will, of resolve. Facts are for flip-floppers; data, for girlie-men. Kerry commands the facts and it breeds vacillation. The force is with Bush, and that is all he, and the nation, need. Bush has fused anti-empiricism and cultural resentment -- and that, should he ride it to victory, will truly be a catastrophic success.

It's also important to keep in mind in looking at Bush's religious beliefs that there's a "chicken and egg" question here: do his religious beliefs make him more self-righteous and arrogant, or do his self-righteousness and arrogance incline him to be attracted to certain religious beliefs?  It's not the case that Bush is unable or unwilling to change his mind.  In Iraq, he's changed his particular plans for the postwar period  more than once.

Ivo Daalder recently noted, "For all the rhetoric to the contrary, there has been nothing steadfast, resolute, or unwavering about Bush's policies toward postwar Iraq. The only thing consistent about these policies is that they have been consistently wrong."  (Consistently  Wrong on Iraq, Center for American Progress, 10/05/04.

The problem is more the one noted by Meyerson.  Bush's self-certainty in the short term makes him inclined to isolate himself from criticism and even from serious questioning.  Which in the case of the Iraq War has led to a dangerous and destructive arrogance in policies and assumptions.