Lowered Expectations
American evangelicals' love affair with
their President
By Joshua Seth Anderson
07/02/03
When
George W. Bush found himself the winner of the two-month post-election
scramble in the winter of 2000, the Christian Right basked in the
light of their collective victory. Jerry Falwell commented to his
church and TV audience after returning from the inauguration of our
43rd President, “I want to stop right here and now and say thanks
and congratulations to Bible-believing Christians nationwide…I
wish all of you could have been in Washington last week. Jesus Christ
was honored.” Other vocal endorsers of W.’s presidency
included Pat Robertson, Phyllis Schlafly of the Eagle Forum, the Rev.
Don Wildmon of American Family Association and James Kennedy’s
Center for Reclaiming America. Even normally politically neutral Billy
Graham nearly endorsed Bush in an impromptu speech at a church rally.
Now, two and a half years later—after terrorist attacks, war,
and a still sluggish economy—Bush’s approval ratings among
evangelicals still hovers above 90 percent.
On the surface, the Religious Right’s overwhelming optimism
about Bush is puzzling. At times, Bush’s administration has
been aggressively conservative, but more often in fiscal and foreign
policy areas than on the social issues that normally make politically
minded conservative Christians’ wheels spin. The once highly
touted proposal regarding federal funds for faith-based charities
has seemingly disappeared in the black hole of congressional subcommittees.
It’s been a long time since anyone’s heard anything about
school vouchers, once a major part of Bush’s platform. And while
Bush has taken some symbolic measures against abortion—revoking
America’s funding of international family-planning efforts,
and pushing for a partial-birth abortion ban—in reality, abortions
in America happen in about the same way they did under the Clinton
Administration.
In any case, it seems it’s something other than politics that
is driving evangelical Christians’ fascination with the Presidency
of George W. Bush; something to do with faith and character, perhaps.
After eight years of Bill Clinton’s sexual escapades and resulting
scandals, which for many conservative Christians were at least as
embarrassing and enraging as Watergate, George W. Bush is quite literally
an answer to prayer. He seems to truly love his wife, and carries
no taint of sexual unfaithfulness. He’s had a genuine born-again
experience, spurred by a conversation with Rev. Graham. He reportedly
starts his days with prayer and a dose of My Utmost for His Highest,
the popular devotional. He says his favorite philosopher is Jesus
Christ. In addition to all this evidence of a strong private belief
in God, it’s Bush’s public demonstrations of his faith
and personal conviction that have seemed especially important for
evangelicals, especially after the terrorist attacks on the Twin Towers.
When Bush called the nation to prayer, and led in the collective mourning,
it seemed sincere and heartfelt, not merely an expected political
gesture. Indeed, after 9/11, a number of my Christian friends and
family gratefully remarked to me something along the lines of “thank
goodness there’s a man of God in the White House. Can you imagine
if Gore had been elected?” When President Bush quoted the Old
Testament prophet Isaiah after the Columbia shuttle explosion, and
assured the grieving nation that the “Creator who names the
stars also knows the names of the seven souls we mourn today,”
evangelicals applauded. Recently I got an email forwarded from a member
of my church, recounting a story of President Bush praying with and
comforting wounded soldiers from the war in Iraq, calling it “a
Christ-like example” of compassion, and urging her friends to
pray for their leader.
But if Bill Clinton was our first post-modern president ethically,
then George W. Bush must certainly be our first post-modern president
theologically. Bush has espoused a relationship with Christ that resides
in his heart, is completely personal, and by definition, is hard to
define. When asked in an election debate what it meant that Jesus
changed his heart, Bush replied, “Well, if they [the voters]
don’t know, it’s going to be hard to explain.” Replying
to an interviewer’s question about what it meant that he was
an evangelical, Bush was even harder to pin down. “I’m
not sure what the characteristics of an evangelical are in common
parlance,” Bush replied. “I think if someone prays—I
pray. I do. I believe in the power of prayer. I can’t tell you
how comforting it is to me to hear people say, ‘I pray for you’…I
think an evangelical believes in the power of prayer.” While
this definition of evangelicalism is startling on many different levels,
it reveals much about our President’s attitude toward religious
faith, which seems to have much more to do with vague internal feelings
than ascribing to a specific set of beliefs. When asked to justify
in a news interview his proposal to federally fund faith-based charities,
Bush asserted, “I think we just need to understand the power
of the church, synagogue and mosque to change people’s lives.”
Clearly Bush’s personal Christianity does not conflict with
his endorsement of the power of Judaism or Islam; in his statement
the three religions seem almost synonymous with each other.
This affirmation of the power and value of other religions is no off-hand
statement—rather it reflects a message the President consistently
communicates. For example, Bush saw no conflict in his faith with
attending and speaking at the post 9/11 worship and prayer service
at the National Cathedral in Washington, where prayers were offered
to the “God of Abraham and Mohammed and Father of our Lord,
Jesus Christ.” Later that year, when speaking to Muslims celebrating
Eid at the White House, the ceremony marking the end of Ramadan, Bush
encouraged them, “this year, Eid is celebrated at the same time
as Hanukkah and Advent. So it’s a good time for the people of
these great faiths, Islam, Judaism and Christianity, to remember how
much we have in common: devotion to family, a commitment to care for
those in need, a belief in God and his justice, and the hope for peace
on earth.” Even more puzzling after these statements is Bush’s
claim in an interview in 2000, speaking of our country’s philosophical
and spiritual climate, that “I don’t think [America has]
necessarily embraced a society of relativism.”
Regardless of what one believes about the benefits or dangers of relativism,
it’s undeniable that the religion Bush is spreading is largely
at odds with the one his conservative Christian supporters seem to
follow, which nearly universally holds that Islam and Judaism are
false religions, and would certainly provide a more exclusive definition
for an evangelical than someone who “believes in the power of
prayer.” So how can conservative Christians unite so strongly
behind a man whose beliefs run counter to much of their own teaching?
Some of the answers to that question may lie in an essay written by
Marvin Olasky, editor of World Magazine, the news weekly of choice
for many evangelicals. In his essay, Olasky attempts to respond to
a reader who wonders what to do when President Bush disappoints Christians
with his actions. In response, Olasky advises the reader to remember
to always “accentuate the positive, try to eliminate the negative…in
politics, we should never lower our goals, but we should lower our
expectations.” In brief, this seems to be what has is going
on with evangelical Christians—they know Bush isn’t perfect,
but he isn’t Clinton or Gore either; and if you don’t
listen too closely to his theology, he almost sounds like one of their
own.
But what are the implications for the
evangelical community embracing an overtly religious President who often
seems to veer into pluralism and theological “fuzzy math?”
Even considering that contemporary American Christians are hardly known
for their reflective thinking, it’s telling that no prominent evangelical
leader seems to be taking this question seriously. And while there was
some vocal criticism of Bush’s attitude towards Islam after 9/11—many
Christian leaders rejected Bush’s assertion that “Islam is
peace,” for example—those objections have largely quieted,
as evangelicals continue to cast their lot with a President whose brand
of theology seems to subtly undermine their own beliefs. Perhaps President
Bush isn’t the only one in denial about our society’s embrace
of relativism. But then under Olasky’s doctrine of “lowered
expectations,” it seems that the ends do truly justify the means,
and any politician can be supported—as long as he maintains an appearance
of righteousness, quotes scripture, and is amiable to the political goals
of evangelicals. This seems very far from Jesus’ radical statement
to his followers in scripture that “anyone not for us is against
us.” Indeed, Olasky’s suggestion, coupled with my Christian
friends who refer to Bush as a “man of God” or “a Christ-like
example,” evokes a sense of self-confident satisfaction that reminds
me of the theologian C.S. Lewis, who said of Christians’ expectations,
“We are far too easily pleased.” Only time will tell what
the full implications of evangelical support for our current President
will be, but another of Christ’s questions seems particularly apt
in this discussion. “What good will it be for a man,” Jesus
challenged his disciples, “if he gains the whole world, yet forfeits
his soul?”
