Not a holy war as fundamentalists of any stripe mean but rather a war inspired and created by a fundamentalist vision? Believe it or not, I thought President Bush was just a religious man (regular churchgoer, etc) not an evangelical Christian. Shows how much attention I paid to his election. I completely skipped the Republican debates--where I would have seen signs of this.
He is reported to have given up drinking (and presumably his cocaine habit) seventeen odd years ago. Did he "accept Jesus Christ as his personal savior" then?
I was made aware of this whole issue by the first part of a recent broadcast of 60 Minutes (02/08). This was scary as hell to me.
I find the sort of religious and social intolerance advocated and practiced by most evangelical christians terrifying. The belief in the content of the Bible (word for word) leads them to condemn those who haven't "accepted" Jesus Christ as their personal savior. I don't even know what that means. Why are Baptists, Catholics, Anglicans and Protestants not included in their list of those who will be saved when "the Rapture" (an ascent to heaven of the godly, leaving those who haven't accepted JC behind to face Satan on earth) occurs?
The arrogance of this approach is very disturbing, all the moreso because an evangelical is running the country right now. This is what brings to mind the title of my article.
Was this a "holy war"? We now know that President Bush already had plans to invade Iraq before September 11th occurred. Is his conviction that there should be "regime change" in Iraq related to his fundamental religious beliefs that they were somehow lesser because they weren't evangelical. Does this make it allowable to invade and occupy on a pretext?
How do we make a deal with or negotiate with those we don't respect? Answer: we don't. I fear that as long as our President has no respect for those who don't share his beliefs that we are living in very dangerous times. We have already seen that these fundamentalist attitudes exist high in the military and in law enforcement.
It's not just Muslim fundamentalists that I fear these days. Someone tell me that I'm wrong...
Posted by artandscience at February 14, 2004 07:16 AMIf the King's English was good enough for Jesus, it's good enough for me! Governor of Texas (circa 1920)
So when you have people who think the Bible was written in English and others who maintain a close personal relationship with Jesus, where's the common ground for those of us who don't hold with A or B?
cf my earlier comment on the Enlightenment: do we need to go back to the days of public burnings and banned knowledge before we realize what the founders had in mind?
Posted by: paul at February 14, 2004 01:55 PMIndeed, this is one of the most disturbing things I've learned about the president. I have no problem with a religious person, even in a seat as powerful as President of the United States, but when they seem to build policy around their own religious views, I get scared.
The hardline view that some (if not many) Christians have is the largest factor that has caused me to distance myself from the church. The simple arrogant view that your doctrine is the truth, and all other beliefs are null and void, is one that has troubled me since my youth.
Like you said, the hardliners will not even consider the words of someone outside of their circle. A truly dangerous and disturbing trait of the current administration.