Wednesday, October 20, 2004
Counterfeit Christianity
All across the country, people who disagree with George W. Bush on issues like the environment and education are getting ready to pull the lever for him anyhow because they perceive he's a godly man. And in some places, the Bush/Kerry contest is being painted as one between the forces of Jesus and the forces of darkness. So over at The American Prospect this afternoon, Ayelish McGarvey examined the big question: Is George W. Bush a true Christian, or not? McGarvey's answer: No.
And now we're back where we started.
All across the country, people who disagree with George W. Bush on issues like the environment and education are getting ready to pull the lever for him anyhow because they perceive he's a godly man. And in some places, the Bush/Kerry contest is being painted as one between the forces of Jesus and the forces of darkness. So over at The American Prospect this afternoon, Ayelish McGarvey examined the big question: Is George W. Bush a true Christian, or not? McGarvey's answer: No.
Ironically for a man who once famously named Jesus as his favorite political philosopher during a campaign debate, it is remarkably difficult to pinpoint a single instance wherein Christian teaching has won out over partisan politics in the Bush White House. Though Bush easily weaves Christian language and themes into his political communication, empty religious jargon is no substitute for a bedrock faith. Even little children in Sunday school know that Jesus taught his disciples to live according to his commandments, not simply to talk about them a lot. In Bush’s case, faith without works is not just dead faith--it’s evangelical agitprop.As McGarvey and other commentators have noted, Bush can talk the talk like a True Christian--although as McGarvey points out, the rich theological language that zooms over the heads of secular Americans but hits his religious base right in the wheelhouse is actually the language of his speechwriters. What Bush doesn't do, however, is walk the walk.
But sin is crucial to Christianity. To be born again, a seeker must painfully acknowledge his or her innate sinfulness, and then turn away from it completely. And though today Bush is sober, he does not live and govern like a man who "walks" with God, using the Bible as a moral compass for his decision making. Twice in the past year--once during an April press conference and most recently at a presidential debate--the president was unable to name any mistake he has made during his term. His steadfast unwillingness to fess up to a single error betrays a strikingly un-Christian lack of attention to the importance of self-criticism, the pervasiveness of sin, and the centrality of humility, repentance, and redemption. Indeed, it is impossible to imagine George W. Bush delivering an address like Jimmy Carter’s legendary "malaise" speech (in which he did not actually say the word "malaise") in 1979. Carter sermonized to a dispirited nation in the language of confession, sacrifice, and spiritual restoration. Though it didn’t do him a lick of good politically, it was consonant with a Christian theology of atonement: Carter admitted his mistakes to make right with God and the American people, politics be damned. Bush, for whom politics is everything, can’t even admit that he’s done anything wrong.Amy Sullivan, who's mentioned a couple of times in McGarvey's article, blogged about it for Washington Monthly, and it sparked a raucous online discussion. Thanks to some strident religious know-it-alls, the discussion gets tedious after a while, but one of the posters says very succinctly something that I've believed myself for quite a while: If you are born-again, and you believe that Jesus has forgiven your past sins and will forgive any sins you may commit in the future if you just ask him, it actually opens the door for you to do any damn thing you want anytime you want to.
My brushes with fundamentalists leads me to believe that being born again is all it takes to get to heaven, because then they go on live their lives under the ends justifies the means. They use manipulation, guilt, fear, sex, money whatever is handy in our flawed "worldly" society to save all us sinners. Then they can go home and pray at the end of the day, ask forgiveness and call it night. Rise the next day and repeat.The convenience of it is astounding. The theory is that your faith in God will keep you from sinning in the first place. But many people who know in advance that they'll be forgiven no matter what they do don't bother holding back their basest impulses, because they believe their hearts are ultimately in the right place. But their "Christianity" is a counterfeit that looks and sounds like the real thing, but isn't.
And now we're back where we started.
