About 3 years ago a book was published called The Faith of George W. Bush. It refers to the fact that George says he believes God chose him to lead this country. The way he is leading this country into one disaster after another says a lot about his perception of God’s guidance. The God I worship would never condone torture, lying into war, leaving people to die on rooftops as Katrina hit, and then more lies.
That is not the God I know. 
The Observer UK had a good article about Bush and his religion. It was published in late 2003.
Bush says God chose him to lead his nation
President George W. Bush stood before a cheering crowd at a Dallas Christian youth centre last week, and told them about being ‘born again’ as a Christian.
‘If you change their heart, then they change their behaviour. I know,’ he said, referring to his own conversion, which led to him giving up drinking.Behind Bush were two banners. ‘King of Kings’, proclaimed one. ‘Lord of Lords’, said the other. The symbolism of how fervent Christianity has become deeply entwined with the most powerful man on the planet could not have been stronger.
The book also shows that in the lead-up to announcing his candidacy for the presidency, Bush told a Texan evangelist that he had had a premonition of some form of national disaster happening.
Bush said to James Robinson: ‘I feel like God wants me to run for President. I can’t explain it, but I sense my country is going to need me. Something is going to happen… I know it won’t be easy on me or my family, but God wants me to do it.’
I had forgotten this article, but it really let him off light back then. He has committed what I consider crimes to humanity, this so-called Christian man. I don’t profess to be a very religious right now, our church’s hijacking by Falwell types drove us away. But I know in my heart that though I have not been in church for a while, that I have acted more the way God would expect than this man named Bush has acted.
And these two paragraphs make me most uneasy.
In another incident, Mansfield recounts how, on Palm Sunday last year, Bush was flying back from El Salvador aboard the presidential jet Air Force One and seemed to be destined to miss church.
However, knowing that Bush hated to miss a service, some officials suggested they worship in the air. Bush agreed, and soon 40 officials were crammed into the plane’s conference room. The service was led by National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, while the lesson was read by close Bush aide Karen Hughes.
Maybe God needs to save the country and world from Christian presidents like this one.
There are just so many ways that people will look at this:
Some will see Bush as something akin to the false prophets. (or mentally impaired, or as just a liar)
Others will believe that god is dormant, seeing all that is going wrong in the world (and here) as proof of same. (worldwide suffering, evironmental change, pandemics, etc.)
Others will see this whole time period as further proof that there is no god, again, so many things going so terribly wrong and all at one time.
And still others will say that this is all part of god’s plan, the suffering across the world included.
For me, well, I have wrestled with this for some time. And I can’t stop wondering why a supreme being would let so many suffer for such extended periods of time. (here and elsewhere) So, I guess that takes me out of the “all part of god’s plan” camp.
I was raised to see God’s hand in everything, but now he think he probably just shrugs and says see what you have wrought. Since Bush took office we have found ourselves totally unable to even go to our church. He represents so much that is so wrong with the extremists with whom he allied himself.
It began to show in an alarming manner in our churches here after he took office. The ministers preached from the pulpits about supporting the Iraq War, and some churches gave out yard signs supporting it. They were empowered when he took office.
It will take a long time for us to get back where we were before.
I have never been big on church but neither have I shunned going to church. A couple of Sundays of Onward Christian Soldiers though and I was out of there fast and haven’t been back.
I read that Bush quote and it makes me think that, like the Puritans who had to wipe out the people they encountered when they first got here so that there really would be the “wilderness” they were seeking to create God’s little perfect society, Rove and Bush created the conditions where Dubya could think the country needed him. Make of this what you will. Bush family, Saudis, 9/11, Reichstag fire??………..?
We are given life and death in uncertain circumstances. In between we have freedom of choice, then we get to live with those choices.
I believe george will live with his choices someday. Perhaps too many of us have chosen to do nothing.
The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing. – Edmond Burke
succeeded in getting me to discuss theology, thanks to your comment the temptation is considerably lessened, since you have so succinctly hit the main point:
Almost every religion, even Hindus and Presbyterians, believe that God gave humans free will or something like it.
And the quote you chose as your sig should please sbj’s affinity for cause and effect. ;->
You can visit any state hospital psych unit and find men talking amd acting exactly like this President (in as much as they can get by with, before the psychotropics kick in.) Now we’ve got them running the country.
I can’t bear to watch Bush on TV, because he reminds me of a man i had to confront once, on one of those psych units: a man who had just beaten an older female patient to death. He said God told him to. Just like God had told him to kill both of his parents some years before that.
But if you didn’t know this man’s history, he could charm your socks off.
I’m a lot like you; not been to church in a very long time but act more like God would want me to. Is he sure it was really God who chose him? And perhaps he got the message wrong. Perhaps his country would have really needed him…to NOT run for president.
but we have yet to hear from God about that.
definition of words. Somehow in America we granted the word faith meanings that the word really doesn’t have. According to Princeton Wordnet the definition of faith is: a strong belief in a supernatural power or powers that control human destiny. Even the Aztecs had faith when they carved out the hearts of their captives. Faith is believing in something that can’t be proven…..but W makes other people take meds for the same thing and calls them insane and mentally ill. The title of this book is The Strong Belief in a Supernatural Power that Controls Human Destiny which Governs George W. Bush. I think God is right on the money with George today….and about to really begin handing “W” his earned Destiny now. He broke every fucking rule and every single universal law that the Supernatural Power has laid out to all of us? I think God stopped thinking about the way W did anything about the same time W started thinking he was God! God just handed a fresh spit to the other guy and mumbled, “He’s Yours!”
the actions don’t match the words, it’s a pretty strong indication that it is all BS.
I’m very angry.
The bigots, hatemongers and power lords who justify their actions in the name of whatever God, have triggered a very negative reaction in me.
To me God is first and foremost about love, yet I most often find myself cringing when “He” is spoken of in the public arena. I hate having that reaction, but hearing most people talk about God any more really makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.