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George W. Bush: Man of God - By Jon Eekhoff

April 12, 2004

Remember President Bush's favorite philosopher? As I recall the philosopher was a Galilean carpenter, born about 2000 years ago. His name was Jesus and for those of us profess the Christian faith, he was the son of God.

Yes, that is right; I am including myself in this group, a liberal, Birkenstock-wearing-tree-hugging-granola-eating-PBS-watching Christian. Oh the paradox! But let me clarify ever-so-slightly, I am not a part of the Christian body I will call, for lack of a better term, the right-wing Christian wackos. These are the Christians that seem to have forgotten the New Testament and the message of Bush's favorite philosopher: Love and Peace.

The right wing has managed to capture most of the Christian vote, and their method is anything but madness. The Bible belt votes not as much with their heads as their hearts. Issues like abortion have been used for years to swing votes for the Republican Party. What has the party done about abortion? They managed just this year (even though they have controlled a majority in the Senate and House) to ban late term abortions. This apparent progress will accomplish little except continue the idea that the Republicans are the party of God fearing Christians.

President Bush has said that he starts each day praying "on his knees". Maybe a better use of his time would be reading about his favorite philosopher. I wonder what Bush thinks of Matthew 5:9 where Jesus says, "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called sons of God." Jesus constantly calls on Christians to lead peaceful lives and to "turn the other cheek". Jesus asks us to leave the smiting up to God.

Bush manages to separate his Christian-self from his role as President when it is convenient. He is all about school prayer, using public funds for religious education, fighting abortion and keeping marriage "sacred", but when it comes to asking, "What Would Jesus Do?" Bush instead asks "What Will Get Me Re-elected", or "What Would Enron/Halliburton Do?"

James 2:14 asks, "What good is it, my brothers, if a man claims to have faith but has no deeds?" Maybe the answer to this question is that he gets elected to be President. Bush uses his faith as a political tool and not as a guide to decision making or policy. He places the surface issues of abortion, school prayer and marriage above real Christian issues like poverty and war.

Oh, I can see the steam rising out of the ears of you Moral Majority fans out there. Be careful, the steam may mess up your big hair and three piece suits. Yes, it sure sounds like I am "picking the speck out" of Bush's eye and "judging" another Christian. Maybe I should just sit back and allow Bush to continue a proud tradition of hypocrisy within the Christian faith. Maybe all Christians should all stand aside so TV evangelists can collect money to fleece their pockets further, but what does more damage to the Church than hypocrisy? (Well, there is pedophilia.) One of the truly maddening aspects of belonging to any group is to see idiots represent that group as the norm. There are a great number of Christians who put "love thy brother" above all of the rest of the nonsense proselytized by the Christian right.

Bush's "compassionate" conservative slogan certainly sounded good to those people out there scraping by on minimum wage with no health care for their families, but what has this compassionate man done for the poor? Well, he cut funding for programs, funneled money to a war on terrorism and provided tax cuts for the rich. What a humanitarian! In Proverbs it says, "If a king judges the poor with fairness, his throne will always be secure." Although I am not quite ready to give the Bush family a throne, the message is clear: biblical leaders have always had an obligation to help the poor and if they don't, they will soon be on their way out.

I realize that conservatives think anyone who is poor is just lazy, and I am not going to defend that point. I am not advocating a welfare state where we reward people who do nothing, too often my liberal friends want to "bubble-wrap " the world and provide funding for a black hole of government programs where you get something for doing nothing. I do think a "compassionate" person would not reward the rich and punish the poor, but a truly "compassionate" person might use a few billion dollars to provide jobs to rebuild our crumbling infrastructure, or possibly fully fund educational programs like head-start instead of cutting them.

Maybe George will wake up one morning and recall what his favorite philosopher would do about the state of the world. Maybe George will rise up and become a compassionate conservative. Maybe George will tell us we all misunderstood him when he said Jesus was his favorite philosopher. Maybe there was a guy from Texas named Jesus who screwed the poor, started a war by lying, used public funds to reward his friends and turned a country into a complete mess. Then Bush's actions would make more sense.

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Jon Eekhoff is a teacher in Western Washington, and one of the 5 greatest basketball players to hail from Lemoore, California.