President George W. Bush and Religion

I, of course, do not have any private information for an expose on the religious beliefs of the current President, nor do I have any desire to make up any. The NY Times, though, posted an AP wire story detailing some of the Q&A with the President for an ABC News report. So, this is a report about a report about an excerpt of an interview.

There are several things relating to religion that the President affirms ...

Asked about creation and evolution, Bush said, ''I think you can have both. I think evolution can -- you're getting me way out of my lane here. I'm just a simple president. But it's, I think that God created the earth, created the world; I think the creation of the world is so mysterious it requires something as large as an almighty and I don't think it's incompatible with the scientific proof that there is evolution.''

He added: ''I happen to believe that evolution doesn't fully explain the mystery of life.''

Interviewer Cynthia McFadden asked Bush if the Bible was literally true. ''You know. Probably not. ... No, I'm not a literalist, but I think you can learn a lot from it, but I do think that the New Testament for example is ... has got ... You know, the important lesson is 'God sent a son,''' Bush said.

The president also said that he prays to the same God as those with different religious beliefs. ''I do believe there is an almighty that is broad and big enough and loving enough that can encompass a lot of people,'' Bush said.

When asked whether he thought he would have become president had it not been for his faith, Bush said, ''I don't know; it's hard to tell. I do know that I would have been -- I'm pretty confident I would have been a pretty selfish person.''
Bush said that he is often asked whether he thinks he was chosen by God to be president.

''I just, I can't go there,'' he said. ''I'm not that confident in knowing, you know, the Almighty, to be able to say, Yeah, God wanted me of all the other people.''
He also said that the decision to go to war in Iraq was not connected to his religious believes.

''I did it based upon the need to protect the American people from harm,'' Bush said.

So, based on this exchange, President Bush could be classified as a theistic evolutionist and not a young earth creationist, as one who does not believe the Bible is inerrant and infallible and not as one who believes the Bible is the very Word of God, as one who would affirm the religious beliefs of those who are not Christian and not as one who thinks God will not hear the prayers of any but Christians, who does not believe that he was specifically chosen by God to be President for these times and not that God placed Bush in office to deal with the aftermath of September 11, and as one who does not see the current war in Iraq as a holy war and not as one who sees the conflict as between our God and their god.

Without citing chapter and verse of earlier interviews in which his answers might have been different because, while it seems that he has given different answers before, I do not have access to that information, I would make one comment. Most of these answers are at odds with the belief system of most of the conservative Christians that the GOP has turned to for political gains since the days of Ronald Reagan. I wonder how all of those loyal religious supporters of the GOP will respond to these remarks?