Is Bush an Evangelical or fundamentalist Christian?

[Metacom]

@Reeder

If there is a God. Bush will burn hotter than most of us.

Nah. He’ll just talk some sense into him before he grants eternal piece.

[Reeder]

@JThunder

Not true. He doesn’t have an official home congregation, but that doesn’t mean that he never attends church. There’s a big difference between the two.

Yep…either you go to church or you don’t.

Or are you telling me there are no Methodist Churches in DC?

[vanilla]

He probably went to the Bible studies with Ashcroft, also a christian; apparently more of my stripe_AoG.

[Guinastasia]

@Reeder

Yep…either you go to church or you don’t.

Or are you telling me there are no Methodist Churches in DC?

Or he could, you know, have services held at the White House. They can do that, you know.

[uglybeech]

Thanks also, Martin Hyde. Great post.

Here’s a great link with a lot of documentary evidence on Bush’s faith from PBS - Frontline’s The Jesus Factor

Two comments:

1. It may be a distraction to ask whether the President is technically a fundamentalist. He does support and is supported by the “Christian Right”, which is so strong a political force precisely because it is a coalition based on shared political interests, not shared theological tenets. But the driving force behind the Christian Right is largely fundamentalist Christianity. Seems to me the Muslims who were complaining about Bush’s fundamentalism were correct in the spirit of their argument if not literally correct.

2. You can’t generalize about Methodists. While the denomination as a whole may be slightly more liberal than others, it’s also very diverse. I grew up as a Methodist and my church went from being a more progressive church to a (more) fundamentalist church sometime in the 80s.

[Martin_Hyde]

Also, the religious right supports Bush because they have to. They don’t have a choice. And just because group Y supports candidate X doesn’t mean X = Y. John Kerry isn’t gay nor does he think abortion is morally acceptable, yet pro-choicers and gays voted overwhelmingly for him.

As for their increased importance, his campaign told him he could get more of them out to the polls if he said a few things and pretended to pass some laws (because none of the crazy things like the anti-gay marriage Amendment ever passed), so he did it. He’s a politician.

Democrats have gladly accepted the votes of unsavory people in the past and will do so again whenever it is prudent.

[Martin_Hyde]

And also the spirit of the argument is completely invalid.

Even if Bush was a Christian Fundamentalist that wouldn’t make him “as bad” as Osama or X Islamic terrorist.

The only real terrorist groups we have that are home grown are militia movements that aren’t really related to fundamentalist Christianity or any “real” form of Christianity out there.

Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson are demagogues and despicable men but they don’t kill people and they don’t to my knowledge have any remote ties financially or politically to groups that carry out terrorism on the United States or any other country.

I may be wrong, but I certainly don’t think Falwell and Robertson lead a multinational terrorist group that has killed thousands worldwide.

The worst thing a Christian fundamentalist has ever done to me is pollute my windshield with insulting leaflets, the worst thing an Islamic terrorist has ever done to me is kill my niece.

See how maybe Pat Robertson isn’t as bad as the people that flew planes into our buildings?

[uglybeech]

You’re right, Martin. I was misremembering the argument that this was a clash of fundamentalisms which have a lot in common (a defensible position, but for another thread) but I reread the op and the argument was very extreme - that there was no difference. So no, they’re wrong in both literal fact and entirely wrong in spirit.

I’m sorry to hear about your niece.

[JThunder]

@Reeder

Yep…either you go to church or you don’t.

Or are you telling me there are no Methodist Churches in DC?

You’re missing the point. Repeatedly, I might add.

Bush does not officially belong to a congregation, but this does not mean that he never attends church. In fact, I took great pains to point out the difference between those two statements. Do you need someone to explain what this difference is?

Bush does, in fact, attend an Episcopal church in Washington D.C., according to the New York Times.

[clairobscur]

@Guinastasia

However, one also takes a new name at Confirmation (added to your middle name-in case you wondered, mine was Brenda), a Saint’s name or variation of, to become a “new person”, technically, in Christ and receive the Holy Spirit.
.

That’s not universal in catholicism. I didn’t take any new name at Confirmation, and never even heard about this custom before joining the SDMB. I assume it’s a local tradition.

[astorian]

@Reeder

The man is neither. He doesn’t even go to church. Even Clinton went to church upon occasion. Carter taught sunday school.

If there is a God. Bush will burn hotter than most of us.

It may be repellent to hear fundamnetalist Christians saying God is on their side.

But it’s RIDICULOUS to read posts that say “If God existed, he’d be on my side.” And yet, I see SDMB regulars trying to make variations on this argument all the time.

Pathetic!

[Horatio_Hellpop]

I don’t have any insights into Bush’s soul or actual beliefs, but there was a passage in Al Franken’s Lies and the Lying Liars who Tell Them where Bush’s familiarity with the New Testament was revealed to be pretty damn spotty. If he were an authentic Evangelical or Fundamentalist, I suspect he’d be able to quote chapter and verse a little more correctly.

But, authentic Evangelicals and Fundamentalists seem to like the guy just fine.

[Kimstu]

MH: Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson are demagogues and despicable men but they don’t kill people and they don’t to my knowledge have any remote ties financially or politically to groups that carry out terrorism on the United States or any other country.

Not true in the case of Robertson, whose business connections with the Liberian president, war criminal and “blood diamond” supporter Charles Taylor, are thought to be a major reason for his defense of the despicable Liberian regime. Robertson also maintains that Charles Taylor wishes to lead Liberia as a “Christian nation” and that the US should support him in putting down Muslim insurgents (actually, Liberia’s civil wars don’t divide neatly along religious lines).

I think it’s pretty fair to say that Robertson’s political and financial ties with Taylor have helped kill people and support terrorism.

[Martin_Hyde]

@Kimstu

MH: Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson are demagogues and despicable men but they don’t kill people and they don’t to my knowledge have any remote ties financially or politically to groups that carry out terrorism on the United States or any other country.

Not true in the case of Robertson, whose business connections with the Liberian president, war criminal and “blood diamond” supporter Charles Taylor, are thought to be a major reason for his defense of the despicable Liberian regime. Robertson also maintains that Charles Taylor wishes to lead Liberia as a “Christian nation” and that the US should support him in putting down Muslim insurgents (actually, Liberia’s civil wars don’t divide neatly along religious lines).

I think it’s pretty fair to say that Robertson’s political and financial ties with Taylor have helped kill people and support terrorism.

That sounds more akin to corruption that terrorism. And support for people like Taylor isn’t any worse than things the U.S. government (both Democrats and Republians) have done in the past decades.

And of course Charles Taylor, although at one time a leader in the civil war was elected in an election that observers found to be fair. Taylor’s dealings in Liberia and in Sierra Leone both before and after becoming President are shady, but he’s certainly not even on the top 5 list of “African bad guys.”

[Kimstu]

MH: * And support for people like Taylor isn’t any worse than things the U.S. government (both Democrats and Republians) have done in the past decades.*

That doesn’t prevent it from being support for terrorism, though.

[Guinastasia]

@clairobscur

That’s not universal in catholicism. I didn’t take any new name at Confirmation, and never even heard about this custom before joining the SDMB. I assume it’s a local tradition.

Hmmm, it seems pretty standard for US Catholicism, going back as far as my great-grandparents and the like.

[cichlidiot]

Like others, I looked up The Jesus Factor from Frontline, too. From other pieces I’ve seen on the topic of Bush’s religious stance, I found the interview with John Green to be the most interesting. From an exerpt under the question, "What is the president’s religious background, and how would you describe his kind of religious belief? "

It’s a difficult thing to do, because President Bush, in many respects, partakes of a number of different religious traditions. He’s a member of the United Methodist Church. He’s very closely connected to the Wesleyan tradition, and that leads him to lean a little bit towards mainline Protestantism. On the other hand, he’s had a personally transforming experience.

He talks about how his faith changed his life and how he’d like faith to change other people’s lives, and that puts him a little bit more in the evangelical camp. President Bush hasn’t actually told us where he stands; perhaps because he isn’t entirely sure himself, because he draws from a variety of different perspectives, but also because it may not be the best thing to do politically – to identify with one or another religious tradition when, in fact, he can identify with several. In his political activity, he often strides across different religious boundaries and can, therefore, appeal to people from different religious backgrounds.

I looked up Wesleyan Tradition sounds like it might lean a bit toward Evangelical. From there -

Development of Wesleyan Thought
The emphasis on justification by faith as the foundation and sanctification as the building upon it kept the people called Methodist moving perpetually toward God. Even entire sanctification as an instantaneous experience was never cause to sleep. Not to improve it was to lose it. One was to grow in love. Perfect love continually plumbed some new depth of the human experience. These distinctives of the Wesleyan tradition were powerful tools for the perpetuation of the Evangelical Revival.

A little further down in the Green interview, he responds to, “Evangelicals claim him as one of their own. They feel they have an ally in the White House.”

There’s no question that the evangelical community has an ally in President Bush on a number of different issues, and in terms of basic values. There is a great deal of commonality between President Bush and evangelicals. Technically speaking, though, President Bush is a mainline Protestant, from the more conservative or traditional, or, if you will, evangelical wing of mainline Protestantism, but not really part of the core of the evangelical community, as scholars tend to understand it.

So there is a sense in which evangelicals are claiming somebody who really isn’t part of their religious community, but someone who shares many of their values, who certainly understands them well, and shares a number of their religious beliefs.

I think it is difficult to categorize anyone’s religious beliefs, since to me, a lot of people seem to pick and choose what works for them. I also should note John Green’s descripton says he “has done extensive research and polling on the demographics and politics of evangelicals,” so you may want to take that into account when considering his opinions.