By frequently referring to religion and God in his speeches, is George Bush trying to tell the world that God is on America’s side?

JOHN Donnelly of The Boston Globe observes: “In the midst of a war on terrorism and before a war in Iraq, two combatants are not shy about invoking the name of God. And both President Bush and Osama bin Laden fervently assert that God is on their side.”

In his rare interview with Dan Rather, President Saddam Hussein talked of Allah and Islam when asked about his exile, defeat and death. Likewise, President Bush in a press conference told of the divine mission he has been entrusted with to save America and chase evil from the world. Osama bin Laden in his tapes always invokes religion in his fatwas to kill infidels.

In an audiotape, a voice believed to be Osama bin Laden’s says that fighting against Americans “should be for the sake of Allah.”

In which God do they believe? There is only one God, and He must be in a fix as to whom to support. But, there is a difference. Melissa Rogers, executive director of the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life in Washington, said no one equates Bush’s stance with bin Laden’s hateful use of religion, in which bin Laden calls for the Muslim world to unite against the United States, and “abuses religion to encourage and validate the murder of innocents.”

In contrast, President Bush has sought to emphasize that Americans value all religions. He told the National Religious Broadcasters Convention recently that “faith teaches that every person is equal in God’s sight.”

Still, the president’s reliance on faith and his expressed confidence that God blesses America, especially in speeches that deal with the need to confront Iraq, greatly concern some scholars. Melissa Rogers, also opines that many theologians believe that Bush’s rhetoric undermines the notion that the war on terrorism isn’t a war between Christianity and Islam.

“It heightens the degree to which we have to be careful in our communications,” she said.

Scholars cited several recent passages from the president’s speeches. In the speech to religious broadcasters, in which he used the word “faith” 29 times, Bush said: “I welcome faith to help solve the nation’s deepest problems.”

On Feb 6, at the National Prayer Breakfast, Bush called America a “nation of prayer” and said: “We can also be confident in the ways of Providence, even when they are far from our understanding. Events aren’t moved by blind change and chance. Behind all of life and all of history, there’s a dedication and purpose, set by the hand of a just and faithful God.”

In his State of the Union address on Jan 28, immediately after citing dangers posed by Iraq, Bush called on Americans to place “our confidence in the loving God behind all of life, and all of history.”

“May He guide us now,” the president concluded his address. “And may God continue to bless the United States of America.”

David Little, a professor of religion and international affairs at Harvard Divinity School, said that when Bush uses such religious imagery over and over “in a way, he plays to Osama bin Laden’s strong suit. It’s his morals against ours, or his God against ours, which is exactly what you don’t want to get in a position of saying.”

David Little and others said they wish that Bush would talk about religion with greater humility and even with a sense of vulnerability, as a way of reaching out to people of other faiths. “I think there should be a more subdued version that we have God on our side, and we are confident of what we will do,” Little said. “I think that would change the terms a bit and help the world see that it is not a muscular America we are dealing with.”

But some American theologians disagreed. Richard Cizik, vice president for government affairs at the National Association of Evangelicals in Washington, said that Bush, a self-described born-again Methodist, has not gone too far in his use of religious language.

Instead, Cizik said, Bush was playing the presidential “role of a healer, a role of a priest in consoling the nation in the loss of lives,” both in terms of the recent deaths of the seven astronauts, as well as the expected fatalities in a war with Iraq.

“He hasn’t been narrowly sectarian about it,” Cizik said. “He has not talked about Jesus Christ. He talks about God. Even in today’s pluralistic America, I don’t find (that) Buddhists, Hindus, Muslims, or, for that matter, Christians, complain about his reverence to God in public life. I believe Americans expect and respect it. After all, the American people knowingly elected a man who said the most important influence in his life was Jesus Christ.”

Ari Fleischer, the White House spokesman, has said repeatedly that the president makes his judgments on Iraq and other issues as a “secular leader.” But many outsiders point to what they perceive as a missionary zeal and spin to some of the administration’s major decisions. Some also point to the possible influence of Bush’s speechwriter, Michael Gerson, an evangelical Christian.

The frequent use of religion in Bush’s speeches also came amid a conflict within religious circles on whether to go to war against Iraq. Pope Jean Paul II has spoken against a war and for a negotiated peace, as has the US Conference of Catholic Bishops. Most US theologians and political analysts agree that Bush is sincere when he repeatedly says the fight against terrorism is not a war between Christians and Muslims. But they also worry that many around the world will begin to interpret it as a religious war, especially when the US president uses religious references again and again in talking about a conflict with Iraq. Thus, scholars say they wish Bush would tone down his religious references.

“The more I listen to him, the more truly worried I become about the vision for this country in the world,” said Hurst Hannum, a professor of international law at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University. “It’s so American-centric, so Christian-centric. It’s so certain. I guess I worry about anyone who is that sure he is right.”

When Bush told the religious broadcasters that he welcomes faith to solve the nation’s problems, C. Welton Gaddy, president of the Interfaith Alliance in Washington, said he asked himself: “Whose faith? Is it the president’s faith or the Muslim faith, or is that the Jewish faith? Whose faith is it?”

Although Bush talked about the “highest moral traditions of our country,” Gaddy pointed out that many historians say Christians refused to serve in the military for the first four centuries. He said he worries about the impact of politicizing religious language.

“Unfortunately, if you polled a lot of people on the street in America, I fear that because of bin Laden’s words they would tell you that most Muslims support terrorism. That is so wrong and so unfair,” Gaddy said. “By the same token, if you walk on the streets of Baghdad, or in some European cities, you will find the person on the street with the perception that evangelical Christians support a war on Iraq. That is not true, either. But those are real perceptions.”

 

As safe as it gets IT was a predictably frigid Boston morning and my Turkish friend, Evren, and I had decided to share a cab to the train station for a weekend trip to New York City. It was, after all, a long weekend. “Why aren’t you people flying?” blurted out the cabbie, “No one should be afraid of flying any more. We Americans are safe now. Those bad guys are out. And if they are not, then they can do nothing because they know we will get them. We will get each and every one of them. We will make them do a DNA test when they enter the country and then if we see anything wrong with them, then we will send them back. I don’t care what they do in their countries. They can blow themselves up all over the place. I don’t care. But they dare not blow themselves up in my country. So you ladies, please remember that you are safe. You are Americans and you are safe. Don’t be scared to fly.” At this point, the cab driver realized that I was being a little less than enthusiastic about his joyous sentiments. Not to mention that I had already informed him that I was not an American. “Where are you from then?” the cabbie asked me and without waiting for a reply he started talking again. “Pakistan? Oh, then you are OK. You have a lot of those terrorists in your country. You know what they are like. My advice to you is to not fly anywhere near your country. I tell you, if someone paid me a million dollars and told me to fly out of the US, I would say ‘No thank you, never in this life’. Here, in the US, we are safe. It is in countries like yours that you should be scared.” I decided that the best option was silence. But the cabbie was in a talkative mood. He said: “Why only the other day they found some Turkish man who wanted to buy a crop duster plane and spray biological weapons on our people. Ha! ha! They got him and they locked him up. I tell you I have nothing against those Turkish suicide bombers but I want them to blow themselves up in their own country. Not in my land.” At this comment, my Turkish friend, who had pretended to sleep earlier on, jumped into the conversation: “Oh no, that was a long time ago. And there are no Turkish suicide bombers to begin with, so you should not worry about the Turks,” she coldly informed the cabbie. “No lady, I am not worried. That is what I am telling you. No one living in the United States should be worried. It should be people living in countries like Iraq who should be worried. Look at what we did with Al Qaeda. They should know that you don’t mess with our country.” There was a little pause as he navigated the car over a sharp bend and then he continued his chatter in the same self-assured style: “There should be a war. We have to show Saddam Hussain that he will not be tolerated. It is the duty of every country to side with us in this. Not like those sissy Europeans who don’t have the guts to stand up for themselves. When I think of what big cowards they are, it makes me so angry. “Saddam is an evil man who is a threat to the world and we all have to go get him — with or without the support of other countries. We have to stop him from carrying out his plans. We have to make sure that he is stopped.” I could not keep quiet any more and told him curtly: “Why get Saddam? His country is open. The UN inspectors are there. They have not found any weapons. He is no threat to the US. So why attack now?” “There are weapons all right. Do you think that the man is stupid enough to keep them in the open where they can be found? He hides them. And he hides them well. No one will ever find them. We all know that Saddam is an evil man, he cannot be trusted. Would he all of a sudden change overnight? The man has to be eliminated. I feel sorry for the children of Iraq but a war is the only answer.” “Don’t you think that the US has the ability to detect any hidden weapons?” my friend inquired. “Lady, we could not find Bin Laden in the mountains of Afghanistan. Do you think that we can find weapons of mass destruction hidden in Iraq? Who knows where they are. Besides, I hear that country is full of rocks, caves and underground tunnels. Blowing everything up is the only answer. Then we can all be safe. We can all get on with our lives. Of course, we are also safe right now. We are the safest country on the planet. Nothing can happen to us. It is just that after the war we will be even safer,” the cabbie added with an air of arrogance as our journey, mercifully, came to an end. So, George W. Bush does have an audience, his rhetoric riddled speeches do find a home and people do believe those dodgy videos on CNN. Amazing. — Ayesha Khan