WASHINGTON, Sept 13: President George Bush believes the United States has embarked on the latest great religious awakening of its history. Mr Bush, who counts on religious conservatives as a key base of political support, was quoted as saying on Tuesday that the United States appeared to be undergoing a cultural change on the scale of that seen in the 1950s and ‘60s.

“There was a pretty stark change in the culture of the ‘50s and the ‘60s. I mean, boom. But I think something is happening here,” Bush said at a roundtable with conservative columnists. His words were reported by the National Review magazine.

“I’m not giving you a definitive statement — it seems like to me there’s a Third Awakening with a cultural change,” Bush said.

Historians have pointed to periods such as the early 1700s and early 1800s, as times in which religious movements were particularly significant.

Those eras are referred to as Great Awakenings. In one such period, in the 1730s and 1740s, religious revivals in the United States coincided with similar movements in Germany and England.

An awakening in the 1800s is credited with helping to inspire the movement to abolish slavery.

Bush, a Methodist, often talks about the importance of faith in his life. Some critics seeing this as crossing a line between religion and politics, and his frequent references to religion are viewed with particular unease abroad.

Amid growing US concerns about the Iraq war, The National Review article linked Bush’s rejection of a pullout to his religious faith.

“I know it upsets people when I ascribe that to my belief in an Almighty, and that I believe a gift from that Almighty is universal freedom. That’s what I believe,” Bush said.—Reuters