Bush: Doing God's Work

There has been quite a lot of negative commentary on President George W. Bush's recent press conference. Even some of Bush's supporters were disappointed by his lackluster performance. One thing that should be of particular interest to atheists and skeptics, however, is Bush's apparent insistence that he and America are doing God's own work in Iraq. Matthew Rothschild writes for The Progressive:

In his Manichaean worldview, Bush lumped the Iraqi insurgents in with the terrorists of 9/11. They are all "enemies of civilization," he said, and they share "a fanatical political ideology." But many of those who are fighting against the U.S. occupation are not Al Qaeda members who want to destroy America and are not subscribers to the "ideology of terror." Rather, many are Iraqi nationalists who want to expel America from their own country because they have seen the brutality of the U.S. occupation.

In one of his most emphatic moments, he said, "I also have this belief, strong belief, that freedom is not this country's gift to the world; freedom is the Almighty's gift to every man and woman in this world. And as the greatest power on the face of the Earth, we have an obligation to help the spread of freedom." This is Bush saying that he is doing God's work in Iraq. That is a particularly inappropriate claim to make, leaving aside the obvious leaping of the church/state wall. Given that Bush has chosen to wage war in an Islamic country, it is unlikely that there are many Iraqis who are anxious to hear Bush's theological justifications.

Just who is George W. Bush that he thinks he can speak for God? This is a perfect example of arrogance - but, unfortunately, it is an arrogance which afflicts a significant number of conservative evangelicals in America. They won't even recognize it as arrogance anymore, so convinced are they that they are right and righteous.

Bush is wrong, though - very and tragically wrong. Freedom wasn't given to anyone by any gods, it had to be won by people determined to throw off the shackles of repression (often religious in nature) and establish a new political order which protected basic liberties. That's a more accurate description of what happened in America than anything Bush has managed to come up with. Conservative evangelicals have tried to re-write history and portray things as though American freedom came from their god rather than the blood, sweat, and tears of American patriots. That's a vile thing to do to their memories and legacy.

Read More:

• Fundamentalism
• Religious Right
• Christian Extremism
• Christian Nationalism
• Religious Intolerance & Bigotry
• Evangelicalism