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Bush the Infallible
by Jeffrey A. Tucker
It is slowly dawning on people that to understand George W., one must
understand his religious impulses, which all evidence suggests are intensely
important to him. His views are no different from that of the typical
evangelical who absorbed his faith from the American Baptist culture. But
they merit closer attention when they are held by an arrogant man with
his finger on the button and who is contemplating total war.
Concerning this arrogance, Richard Cohen writes that "Bush's rigidity can
come across as smugness. This has always been his least appealing quality,
and it was on display, or so I was told, at a lunch he had for network
anchors before the State of the Union message. He reportedly came
across as cocky, not so much sure of himself as too sure of himself�.
Maybe this single-mindedness of the president's is the product of his deep
religious belief � the conviction that he has been chosen for the task of
decking Hussein."
I don't watch television so I hadn't seen this aspect of Bush on display �
until the other day when I watched a video feed from MSNBC. Bush was
holding a press conference with economists who had endorsed his stimulus
plan. He took questions after. None of the questions concerned
economics. There was a question on Iraq, a question on race quotas, and
one other I can't remember. They were all reasonable. What struck me the
most was Bush's demeanor.
As the questions were being asked, he looked down at the table and
around the room, not at the questioner. He impatiently drummed his
fingers on the table, as if he knew in advance that nothing could be asked
that was really worth asking. His attitude was that if it needed to be
known, he would have already have said it. All inquiries were just an
imposition on him, an insult to his own sense of certainty. His answers
consisted of barking back the stated position, along with a reminder that
the position had already been stated. There was no attempt to charm, no
attempt to inform, no attempt to hide his disdain.
How does he get away with it? The White House holds all the cards. All the
reporters present were there at the permission of the White House. Any
reporter who wrote to denounce Bush's stonewalling, or raise questions
about his state of mind, would be quickly barred from future events. The
news organization that published that story would be punished as well.
The press needs access, and so plays along to prevent reprisal. There's
another element too, namely that most of these reporters have an
ideological admiration for the executive state. They may disagree with
Bush's politics, but they adore the power of the office he inhabits.
Bush's behavior that day probably qualifies as routine, but because I hadn't
seen Bush in action recently, I found it startling. What gives a person that
sense of certainty, that swagger that no one but himself ought to be in
charge of what is known and what is not known? Power, certainly. Maybe
that explanation is enough. And yet, Cohen is right to bring Bush's religious
sensibility into it. There is something recognizably regional and sectarian in
his religious way, a product of a doctrinal sensibility that thrives in the
Southern region of the United States. It is woven into the culture in
myriad way. Bush has adopted it as his own.
In the state of the union address, Bush said the following: "There is power
� wonder-working power � in the goodness and idealism and faith of the
American people." His cadence in these lines come from the hymn by
Lewis E. Jones, a revival hymn from 1899 once sung in the streets to whip
up religious frenzy for prohibition (which Gary North calls the "'last hurrah'
in politics for American fundamentalists").
"There is power, power, wonder working power," go the words, "In the
precious blood of the Lamb." The sentiments are classically revivalist. All
Bush did was replace Jesus as the source of the wonder- working power
with the idealism and faith of the American people. He said this as if
everyone should recognize the hymn and the meaning, though Europeans
couldn't possibly, and few even in the West and East Coast of the US could
have any idea what he was referencing. It was code designed to liven the
hearts of the faithful � the tribe of evangelicals who constitute his
strongest support base.
Bush is by birth a member of the Episcopal Church, but because he is
"born again" as an adult � long past the "age of accountability" of 10�13
years old when a person born into this religion is supposed to be saved �
his religious sense was shaped by a gripping personal experience and an
uncritical embrace of evangelical doctrine. This holds to the Calvinist idea
of the security of the believer ("once saved, always saved") but rejects the
corollary Calvinist idea that God has predestined all men to salvation or
damnation in favor of the view that all must make a choice to accept
Jesus's invitation to salvation. Once the choice is made, salvation is
assured.
The faith is classically low church. As for sacraments, there are only two
(called ordinances): Baptism and the Lord's Supper. They are purely
symbolic, social statements by believers designed purely for purposes of
public profession. All grace is imparted by the choice of Jesus, after which
all sins are cleansed and your permanently valid ticket to Heaven is issued.
The obvious question presents itself: if one is assured of salvation by one's
personal choice, and one thereby becomes constitutionally incapable of
committing sins that separate the soul from God, what reason is there to
avoid a fall into complete lawlessness? The Presbyterian religion has
managed to avoid this fate by placing a strict emphasis on obedience to
the law as part of religious obligation, not for purposes of salvation, but to
display deference to God's word. It is precisely the mix of the belief in
predestination, combined with the emphasis on strict behavioral controls,
that gave Presbyterians the reputation of being "the frozen chosen."
The evangelical strain, however, has no stodginess deriving from a strong
emphasis on law and obedience. The culture of the evangelical religion
includes standards for behavior, but they center on pietistic tropes
condemning drinking, cursing, gambling, and other sins of the flesh.
Rather, the emphasis is on the need to make a one-time choice for good,
after which point all struggle is over. In the case of Jimmy Carter's brand of
the Southern Baptist religion, this impulse leads to Progressive politics of
using the state to do good works to improve society. For Bush, it works
itself out through the arena of foreign policy.
The common element here � and here is where evangelicalism dovetails
with Puritanism � is a firm conviction in the purity of the individual believer
who has been saved by choice and then by faith alone. The spirit, after all,
has been saved, so the believer has little need to police himself on
whether he is committing sins of the spirit (despair, presumption, envy,
obstinacy, and the like). The spiritually penetrating writings of St. John of
the Cross or Thomas � Kempis do not resonate at all because, in the words
of the hymn Bush quoted, the believer is permanently "free from the
burden of sin." Any remaining impieties are bound up with observably bad
behaviors which do not finally impact on the soul. One can "backslide," but
one cannot lose salvation. To do one's duty as a Christian means not to
save oneself � to work out one's salvation in fear and trembling � but to
convince others to assist in crushing the evil that is roaming freely out
there in the world.
What this produces is, in the first instance, a notably unreflective faith.
Apart from the initial choice to embrace Jesus, there is no spiritual
struggle at work, no questioning at the heart of prayer, no self- criticism,
no internal moral drama taking place in one's life. In fact, to doubt at all is
to bring into question not only one's salvation but the entire apparatus of
religious doctrine, the core tenet of which is the surety of salvation once
it is chosen. The greatest insult one can deliver to one who holds this view
is to question the likelihood that someone is going to shoot straight to
Heaven when he dies.
Christianity once clearly taught that a king who kills innocents and
squanders the people's money is endangering his immortal soul. By raising
this prospect, bishops and priests and theologians have restrained the war-
like behavior of princes from the 4th century on. But what if the prince
believes that he is assured of salvation because of his own choice,
regardless of what the church says? We have here an entirely different
constellation of incentives at work. Might Bush believe there is no eternal
price to pay for killing thousands, even millions, in a good cause, since
there is nothing he could do to endanger his immortal soul?
There is another trait of the evangelical religion with some bearing on
understanding Bush's cockiness. It is the belief in direct revelation from
God. Most evangelicals accept this idea without question (polls suggest 2
out of 3). Before every decision in life, they believe, one must "pray about
it." Now, praying is a great thing. But what we have here is not prayer
designed to focus the mind and heart on the things of God. The purpose
of the prayer in this case is to seek guidance from God directly, in
whatever form in which it may be given. God has a will for your life, and it
is your job to discover it through direct, one-on- one communication.
Because God doesn't actually talk in direct words as he does in the Bible,
one must look for signs or find a feeling of some sort to discover the
messages God is trying send. It is hardly surprising that many people who
pray this way come away with messages from God that accord remarkably
with what they want to do in any case. The difference is that the
evangelical often walks with the conviction that his own subjective
impressions and choices have been blessed by God Almighty. It's hard to
argue with that.
Now, I say all this not to ridicule anyone's religious faith. Of course, it
should be clear that these views depart substantially from orthodox
Christian doctrine. It is enough of a refutation to note that the
combination of important doctrines here (that a person is implacably saved
for all eternity from the moment of choosing, combined with the necessity
of direct revelation from God) have never been believed by Christians in
any part of the world until they became the core of revivalist doctrine in
19th century America. To this day, it is utterly unknown in Europe, which
is one reason Europeans find Bush so alarming.
Socially, there is no great harm to these teachings. They have produced
good people and good, productive communities. It can be a beautiful faith,
but, nonetheless, it is a faith unbound from tradition, unleashed from
scholarship, and thoroughly tied to individual experience. That is why it
begins to matter when a person who holds these views has his finger on
the button, a person who believes that he was personally transformed by a
born-again experience, a person who is obviously transfixed by the
personal power he possesses. This combination can be dangerous. We may
soon find out just how dangerous. Free from the burden of sin, and
hearing messages from God, George W. Bush may use his power not to
work wonders, but to bring about great harm.
February 14, 2003
Jeffrey Tucker [send him mail] is vice president of the Mises Institute.
Copyright � 2003 LewRockwell.com
Jeffrey Tucker Archives
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