Miguel
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Religion gives Bush strength, perspective
President Bush bows his head in prayer at the opening of the 51st National Prayer Breakfast.
WASHINGTON - As President Bush nears a gut-wrenching decision about whether to send U.S. troops to war in Iraq, friends and advisers say he is finding strength in a source more powerful than any military: his deep religious faith.
"I believe in prayer. I pray. I pray for strength, I pray for guidance, I pray for forgiveness," Bush said Thursday at the National Prayer Breakfast, an annual gathering of top Washington officials.
Few presidents have been so openly devout. Bush says he starts every day "on bended knee" praying "for guidance and for comfort." He also reads the Bible daily and says he often prays at his desk.
By the president's own account, his religious conviction gives him comfort, perspective and a sense of peace amid the stress of his job. But some critics worry that it also has convinced him that he is serving a higher cause, blinded him to the risks of war with Iraq and led him to believe that religious institutions are better able to care for the needy than government.
Religious language and imagery flows through Bush's public comments on terrorists and Iraq. David Frum, the former White House speechwriter credited with the "axis of evil" phrase in last year's State of the Union address, called it "axis of hatred" in his initial draft. The change to "evil" was an attempt to invoke theology.
One of Bush's favorite hymns is "A Charge to Keep I Have," which speaks of the need to "do my Master's will" on earth. He titled his autobiography "A Charge to Keep."
More recently, the president used the "charge to keep" theme in telling troops at Fort Hood, Texas, that his goal goes well beyond disarming Iraq and defeating terrorists.
"We seek the advance of human freedom in a world at peace. That is the charge history has given us," he said, "and that is the charge we will keep."
He has cited his religious beliefs in describing his commitment to Israel.
"I am a Christian. But I believe with the Psalmist that the Lord God of Israel neither slumbers nor sleeps," he told the American Jewish Committee early in his White House term. "We will stand up for our friends in the world. And one of the most important friends is the state of Israel."
When Macedonian President Boris Trajkovski, a fellow Methodist, visited the White House two years ago, the two leaders knelt side by side in prayer in the Oval Office. On his first visit to China as president, Bush shared his religious convictions with Chinese President Jiang Zemin, an atheist.
"I told him how faith has shaped my own life, and how faith contributes to the life of my country," Bush said after the meeting.
Many of the president's friends and advisers share his deep convictions. The sense of a divine calling is hard to miss in the White House.
Frum recalled that the first words he heard when he went to the West Wing to interview for a job were, "Missed you at Bible study," a gentle admonishment from one White House aide to another.
It was an unsettling moment for a self-described non-observant Jew, but Frum said he had no qualms about the role of religion in the White House.
"You always have a sense with him that he's going to do his best, but that ultimately, (Bush believes) it's according to Thy will, not mine," Frum said in an interview. "It makes him brave. It makes him confident that if you do the right thing, the right thing will succeed."
The president's faith is a sensitive issue at the White House, where aides want to avoid any impression that Bush views himself as an agent of God.
"He is a man who has great faith, but he is a secular president," said White House chief of staff Andrew Card, whose wife is a Methodist minister. "He is not imposing his faith in how the government does its job."
Karen Hughes, a longtime Bush confidante, downplayed the impact of the president's religious views on his foreign policy.
"His decisions on issues such as Iraq are based on his judgment of the facts, and analysis, and intelligence, and all the information that he has at his disposal," said Hughes, who shares Bush's religious devotion.
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Romans 9:11-24
Our Eschatology may vary even our Ecclesiology may be disputed among us but our Soteriology most assume a singularity and exclusivity which in biblical term is known as Quote; "The Narrow Way" and Quote!
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