NP? President as pastor

[pynchonoid]

<http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/comment-kengor030503.asp>
National Review Online
March 5, 2003, 8:30 a.m.
God & W. at 1600 Penn.
How his faith defines the 43rd president.

By Paul Kengor

[...] A concerned citizen spoke up. Mr. President, he
began earnestly, how could he and others help their
commander-in-chief in this difficult new war on
terror? Bush had a simple answer: prayer.

He said he knew the American people were already
praying for him. "I can just feel it," he said. "I
can't describe it very well, but I feel comforted by
the prayer." He asked that Americans pray for "God's
protection," a "shield of protection" — a "spiritual
shield that protects the country."

The response is a metaphor for the religious Bush. The
dominant theme in Bush's religious faith is his belief
in "the power of prayer" and the transforming force of
it and God in his life and presidency. He regularly
seeks prayer for himself and his country.

"I want to tell you," he lectured a frenetic May 2002
audience at the National Hispanic Prayer Breakfast,
where he again spoke both English and Spanish, "the
greatest gift that people can give to a president or
people in positions of responsibility — anybody else,
for that matter — is prayer. I work the rope lines a
lot, and people say, 'Mr. President, I pray for you
and your family.' I turn to them, I look them in the
eye, and say, that's the greatest gift you can give….
I mean it with all sincerity."

THE REAL DEAL
George W. Bush has never been conventional. Fittingly,
his intense piety hasn't run a straight, uninterrupted
line begun on the lap of a parent — the modern
presidential tradition. Rather, his spiritual journey
came late, taking flight as an adult in the mid-1980s.
He spent the 1970s and 1980s searching for meaning in
the oil fields of Texas. His company, Arbusto, missed
black gold everywhere it poked earth. Rival drillers
began referring to Arbusto as "Ar-busted." Bush did,
too. He started drinking.

A number of encounters with certain friends and
pastors — including a life-changing conversation in
Maine in 1985 with Billy Graham, who, according to
Bush, "planted a mustard seed in my soul" — set him on
the road to the Tarrytown United Methodist Church in
Austin. A bellwether of his seriousness was the
evening he and his buddies gave up Monday Night
Football for Monday-night Bible study.

At one point in that journey, he gave up the bottle
for the Bible. "I quit drinking in 1986 and haven't
had a drop since then," he now explains. "It wasn't
because of a government program in my case. I heard a
higher calling."

And so he did. By the end of the 1980s, his life
changed noticeably. When, in the 2000 presidential
debates, he used phrases like "born again" to describe
himself, and said things such as Jesus Christ is the
political philosopher or thinker he most admired
"because he changed my heart," those who knew him were
not surprised. He committed to something higher and
charted a new direction for his life and career.

We live in a cynical age where a politician's
expression of faith is eyed skeptically. In Bush's
case, however, it is not an exaggeration to say that
his faith became his compass. Looking back at that
transformation and ahead to the future, he tellingly
titled his pre-presidential memoir A Charge to Keep,
the title of a church hymn by Charles Wesley, which
underscores a Christian's need "to serve the present
age" and "to do my master's will" — that is the
"calling to fulfill." Bush interprets it as an ode to
determination, direction, and divine purpose. A
painting inspired by the hymn hung on the wall in his
office at the state capitol in Austin.

He brought that sense of obligation to the Oval
Office. From day one, according to aides, he has begun
each day praying on his knees. Each morning he reads
the Bible and studies from a guide that features a
daily Bible lesson. It is nothing for him to turn to a
Cabinet member and request a prayer before kicking off
a Cabinet meeting.

Faith and prayer achieved a heightened importance to
Bush after September 11, 2001. It was the pivotal
point in his presidency. The events on that day
summoned his faith more acutely. At the National
Prayer Breakfast in February 2002 — to Bush, those
breakfasts truly are about prayer — he spoke openly
about how the events six months earlier had driven him
to "bended knee." He maintained that the many prayers
that rang out across the nation since the dread day
were a part of "the good that has come from the evil
of September 11."

The religious community noticed. "President Bush, from
the day of the attacks on the World Trade Center, has
led the nation with a deft spiritual presence that
radiates solidarity with people of all faiths," began
a cover feature in mainstream Christianity Today two
months after the attack. "After the September 11
attack, Bush displayed great skill at expressing his
spiritual and moral convictions." One aide said the
events were "spiritually defining" for Bush.

Aides and observers speak of Bush's post-9/11 sense
that he has been called for a purpose. He has an
almost sureness, and a corresponding contentedness,
that he has been placed in office at this grave moment
in history — a divine appointment; a destiny.

This is not unlike how Ronald Reagan's brush with
death inspired him with a sense of divine mission, a
commitment to slay the Red Menace — the global
challenge he saw confronting him and his nation. The
Reagan analogy is apt. Though his father's son, Bush,
in many ways, is the spiritual heir to Reagan, minus
the astrology rap and lack of church attendance — a
crucial difference. He has appealed to conservative
Christians, including even Catholics, in ways not seen
since Reagan and surpassing Reagan. 

[...]  In short, Bush believes that God "has a plan"
for him. He maintains that he could not be president
if he didn't believe in a "divine plan that supersedes
all human plans."

There was a defining moment in his path to the
presidency. One January Sunday in 1999, just before
his inauguration for his second term as Texas
governor, he sat in a pew and listened to a sermon by
Pastor Mark Craig at his Methodist church in downtown
Austin. The governor had been carefully contemplating
a White House run. He wasn't sure. Then, Craig spoke.
He talked of the reluctant Moses in those first pages
of Exodus, uneasy over whether he was the one to heed
the call and lead the Israelites to the Promised Land.

The Old Testament story spoke to Bush. He felt
convicted. He began telling friends he had "heard the
call." God was calling him to seek the Oval Office. It
was the summit in his spiritual sojourn, which would
lead him to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.[...]

— Paul Kengor is associate professor of political
science at Grove City College. His forthcoming book is
Reagan, God, and the Evil Empire.




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