Bush appears to value the term "Christian" and the name "Jesus," but does he? Is Bush "Christian" in any Biblical sense, or only under a vague, irreligious sense - a sort of "secular" Christianity which requires no humility, piousness, or reverence for any sincere religious faith?

Honor thy father? Bush once returned from a drinking spree with his then-under-aged brother Marvin, crashed into trash cans, and threatened to attack his father. Bush claims he changed, that Jesus changed his heart, but is that true or politically convenient mythology? After deciding to attack Iraq on false pretenses, Bush disrespected his father George H. W. Bush saying he disdained his father's advice on the topic. Perhaps Bush the Elder - like Colin Powell and several action and retired Generals - cautioned his reckless son not to "break" Iraq?

Al Franken poked holes in the story of how Bush supposedly cured himself of alcoholism at a Bible retreat focused on the Book of Luke. Neither Bush nor his purported companion at this supposed retreat could hold a basic conversation about Luke - or even identify a key precept from that Gospel. After lies, evasions and cover-ups failed, Bush admitted drug abuse, drunk driving and other crimes.

In their books Shrub and Bushwhacked, Molly Ivins and Lou Dubose listed several of Bush's morally questionable - if not criminal - actions before and after becoming Texas Governor. This was after Bush supposedly shed his past life of sin and degradation. These include insider trading of Harken stock and participation in other shady deals. Lucky for Bush his father selected the investigators who included his former attorney to aid in the cover up.

In Austin and Washington, Bush led his party dividing Texans and Americans by accusing rivals of treason and fanning the flames of racism and anti-gay hate. The "Bush Doctrine" - attacking helpless nations based on known lies - turns on its head the fundamental Christian tenant "blessed and the peacemakers." His budgets slashed support for the young and old, the poor and the ill to lavish generous gifts on elite special interests, inside corporations, and the idle rich.

During the same vacation, I read a letter to the editor in which a woman attacked Christians for supporting Bush because of his decidedly less-than-Christian actions and policies. Are Bush and pro-Bush right wing Christians giving Christianity a bad name? Apparently Bush's faith is a "Get out of Hell Free Card" and nothing more, and that's all it has to be to satisfy his supporters. But should it?

Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported, "According to [Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud] Abbas Bush said: 'God told me to strike at al Qaida and I struck them, and then he instructed me to strike at Saddam, which I did, and now I am determined to solve the problem in the Middle East. If you help me I will act, and if not, the elections will come and I will have to focus on them.'"

See: Arnon Regular, 'Road map is a life saver for us,' PM Abbas tells Hamas: 06/24/2003 http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=310788&contrassID=2&subContrassID=1&sbSubContrassID=0&listSrc=Y

Professor Chernus notes: "First, let's give [Bush] some benefit of the doubt. Maybe he never said it. The quote could be fabricated - though it is hard to see who would gain by making it up. Maybe he did say God told him to make war, but he doesn't really believe it. He might have made it up for effect, trying to score some political points in the Middle East. Whatever benefit he got should be far outweighed by the price he has to pay here at home. This is no little incident that can slip away and be forgotten."

Chernus also wonders how Bush's priorities stack up because, "If the quote is accurate, Bush cares more about getting re-elected than bringing peace to the Middle East." This incident did "slip away" and was "forgotten" because the mass media refuse to hold Bush to even the lowest level of scrutiny. Most Democrats fear Bush's dirty tricks squad would misrepresent any discussion of Bush's questionable theology into "Democrats hate Christians." With good reason.

We've seen Karl Rove and other right wing operatives unrelentingly demonize Democrats as "supporting terrorism" for taking seriously their constitutionally required advice and consent role regarding war, national defense and even drilling in a pristine wilderness preserve. Some aren't afraid to question Bush's religiosity, however. Professor Chernus argues that secular Americans should question Bush on his faith and help religious Americans:

[U]nderstand that it is not only dangerous to let God tell the president when and where to strike. It is just plain un-American. When the president lets God tell him what to do, it violates the spirit of democracy. In a democracy, it is the people, not God, who make the decisions. The president is supposed to represent the will of the people.... That means relying on facts, intelligent analysis, and rational thought - not divine inspiration. Once the president lets God's voice replace the human mind, we are back in the Middle Ages, back in the very situation our revolution was supposed to get us out of.

Chernus asks, "If Bush lets God make foreign policy decisions, is he violating not just the spirit but the letter of the law?" and other important questions:

If we do indeed have a president who lets God tell him to go to war, [religious] voters must share a big chunk of the responsibility. They also pose a big problem for Bush. Suppose he denies that the quote is accurate, or admits he said it but claims it was a mistake? Can he apologize for letting God's will determine his most important decisions? How will that go down with his political base, the Christian right?

See: Ira Chernus, "Did Bush Say God Told Him To Go To War?" CommonDreams, June 30, 2003: http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0630-04.htm

Those are good questions. I'd also like to know whether Bush really thinks he's answerable only to a "higher power" and not international treaties, US laws, and the Constitution. This is a serious problem not just for secular Americans who wonder if Bush believes he is uniquely empowered to violate laws, ethics and even Biblical measures of morality because he - like our extreme Islamicist enemies - thinks he can make up and break secular laws and religious commandments as he goes along.

Is Bush Really Christian?

Observant Christians should wonder if Bush really is one of them, or if he's using and abusing their faith for political advantage. Contrasting Bush's statements and actions to any concept of Biblical Christianity raises doubts about Bush as any kind of Christian under any meaningful sense of the term.

John Dear - a Jesuit priest and the author/editor of 20 books including most recently, "The Questions of Jesus" and "Living Peace" (Doubleday) - discusses the gulf between Bush's statements and his actions regarding his religious faith, and examines the faith of Christians who endorse Bush's anti-Christian policies:

"Jesus says, 'Blessed are the peacemakers,' which means he does not say, 'Blessed are the warmakers,' which means, the warmakers are not blessed, which means warmakers are cursed, which means, if you want to follow the nonviolent Jesus you have to work for peace, which means, we all have to resist this horrific, evil war on the people of Iraq." Dear explains:

I was not at all surprised that George W. Bush was reelected president.... I see many people consciously siding with the culture of war, choosing the path of violence, supporting corporate greed, rampant militarism, and global domination. I see many others swept up in the raging current of patriotism. Since most of these people, beginning with the president, claim to be Christian, I am ashamed and appalled that they support war and systemic injustice, that they do it in the name of God, and that they feign fidelity to the nonviolent Jesus who gave his life resisting institutionalized injustice.

What kind of "Christian" is Bush, and what kind of "Christian" can support Bush? Father Dear ticks of the problematic aspects of popular assumptions about piety in Bush's America: "Instead of practicing an authentic spirituality of compassion, nonviolence, love and peace, we as a collective people have become self-righteous, arrogant, powerful, murderous hypocrites who dominate and kill others in the name of God. The Pharisees supported the brutal Roman rulers and soldiers, and lived off the comforts of the empire...."

"We side with the rulers, the bankers, and the corporate millionaires and billionaires. We run the Pentagon, bless the bombing raids, support executions, make nuclear weapons and seek global domination for America as if that was what the nonviolent Jesus wants. And we dismiss anyone who disagrees with us."

This is not just about American Christians who support Bush, according to Dear. It's about our so-called Christian "president" and his political operatives and supporters who denounce "certain personal behavior as immoral, in order to distract us from the blatant immorality and mortal sin of the U.S. bombing raids which have left 100,000 Iraqis dead, or our ongoing development of thousands of weapons of mass destruction."

This although "the early Christians had big words for such behavior, such lies. They were called 'blasphemous, idolatrous, heretical, hypocritical and sinful.'" Dear explains the interconnection between violent and cruel Bush policies and paradoxical support from Christians, "the empire needs the church to bless and support its wars, or at least to remain passive and silent. As we Christians go along with the Bush administration and the American empire, we betray Jesus, renounce his teachings, and create a 'Church of Christ without Christ,' as Flannery O'Connor foresaw."

How Can Christians Support Bush?

Dear admits he's had to reconsider his views: "I used to think these all-American Christians never read the Gospel, that they simply chose not to be authentic disciples of the nonviolent Jesus. Now, alas, I think they have indeed chosen discipleship, but not to the hero of the Gospels, Jesus. Instead, through their actions, they have become disciples of the devout, religious, all-powerful, murderous Pharisees who killed him."

He concludes: "We have become a mean, vicious people [a]nd we do it all with the mistaken belief that we have the blessing of God," [even though] war, weapons, corporate greed and systemic injustice are an abomination in the sight of God. They are the definition of mortal sin. They mock God and threaten to destroy God's gift of creation. If you want to seek the living God, you have to pit your entire life against war, weapons, greed and injustice - and their perpetrators. It is as simple as that." See: John Dear "Pharisee Nation" Common Dreams, February 15, 2005: www.commondreams.org/views05/0215-21.htm

Dear isn't alone condemning those who mock God in the name of Christianity. Evangelical Christians contest Bush's abuse of scripture to support anti-Christian actions. Not-for-profit think-tank Ekklesia reports a group of Evangelicals "signed a statement opposing President Bush's attempt to converge God, church and nation and what they call his 'theology of war.' Glen Stassen, Fuller Theological Seminary's Louis B. Smedes professor of Christian ethics, said Bush's religious rhetoric confuses the cause of Christianity with that of a nation at war."

Ekklesia quotes Stassen: "Calling [Iran, Iraq and North Korea] the 'axis of evil' and refusing to acknowledge any errors that he has made, that sets up a dichotomy between righteous United States and unrighteous 'axis of evil,' [and] leads to a crusade in which Christians think the Christian thing to do is support war-making against an allegedly unrighteous enemy."

In their "Confessing Christ in a World of Violence," Evangelical Christian scholars question "Bush's use of scripture in a speech on the first anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Bush described the hope offered by America by saying, '... the light shines in the darkness. And the darkness will not overcome it.' These words, used in the Bible, apply only to Jesus Christ and no political leader has the right to 'twist them into the service of war.'" They added, "Jesus Christ knows no national boundaries, that Christians should have a strong presumption against war and that Christians should exercise humility, which would temper political disagreements."

See: Evangelicals slam Bush for his 'theology of war' Ekklesia, 12/10/04: http://www.ekklesia.co.uk/content/news_syndication/article_041012bsh.shtml
Other Christians challenge Bush Administration policies which advocate laying waste to the Planet Earth and forsaking the Covenant to protect all living things as good stewards of the environment. The magazine of the Mennonite Church USA reports:

"In an effort to refute what they call a 'false gospel' and change destructive attitudes and actions concerning the environment, a group of theologians convened by the National Council of Churches USA released an open letter Feb. 14 calling on Christians to repent of 'our social and ecological sins' and reject teachings that suggest humans are called to exploit the Earth without care for how our behavior impacts the rest of God's creation."

This statement entitled "'God's Earth Is Sacred: An Open Letter to Church and Society in the United States" asserts "there is both an environmental and a theological crisis that must be addressed."

The National Council of Churches warns, "We have listened to a false gospel that we continue to live out in our daily habits - a gospel that proclaims that God cares for the salvation of humans only and that our human calling is to exploit Earth for our own ends alone," and calls upon all Christians to "repent of our sins, in the presence of God and one another" to pursue "with God's help, a path different from our present course."

See: Gordon Houser, " 'False gospel' on environment challenged," The Mennonite Magazine, March 01, 2005 issue: http://www.themennonite.org/php/news.digest.php?news_digest_id=386

Bush espouses a cheap, hateful mockery of Christianity in which personal morality matters little and accusations leveled against others distract from Republican lies, failures, and abuses. Morality as Bush's Republican elite demeans it asserts blocking gay marriage as a critical concern which trumps caring for those in need. Fatal attacks on helpless innocents in unnecessary wars and laughing about executions is fine but Bush-style morality requires cracking down on dirty words on the radio and covering up breasts on statues.

No one should attack Bush for his faith. However, if he's going to base public policy and even decisions of war and peace on his religious beliefs, we should know if Bush's faith is genuine, informed and based on anything other than a sense of entitlement.