Thursday, April 22, 2004
(12:30 AM) | Adam Kotsko:
Heresy
Bob Woodward reveals this:
Having given the order, the president walked alone around the circle behind the White House. Months later, he told Woodward: “As I walked around the circle, I prayed that our troops be safe, be protected by the Almighty. Going into this period, I was praying for strength to do the Lord's will. I'm surely not going to justify war based upon God. Understand that. Nevertheless, in my case, I pray that I be as good a messenger of his will as possible. And then, of course, I pray for forgiveness."I know Luther says to sin boldly -- but come on. We're all very fond of pointing out, when discussing practicing homosexuals, that Jesus forgave the woman caught in adultery but told her to "go and sin no more." Well, how about when you've been caught starting an illegal war, based on lies, that has cost thousands of lives? Do you just get a pass for that kind of thing, since it's non-sexual?
Did Mr. Bush ask his father for any advice? “I asked the president about this. And President Bush said, ‘Well, no,’ and then he got defensive about it,” says Woodward. “Then he said something that really struck me. He said of his father, ‘He is the wrong father to appeal to for advice. The wrong father to go to, to appeal to in terms of strength.’ And then he said, ‘There's a higher Father that I appeal to.’"
Even assuming that Bush is "sincere," which I guess we have to do, what he's saying here and in so many speeches is not Christian theology: it's heresy. President Bush should be denounced and condemned every Sunday, from every pulpit in this nation, until he stops blaspheming the name of God, and he should be denied communion at every church until he repents of his grevious sins and makes a good-faith effort to mend his ways. After all, Jesus did not die on the cross to give us access to cheap, Band-Aid grace to apply to our troubled conscience in between sins. Christ calls us to obedience, and whatever else George W. Bush may be, he is not obedient to the will of God.
As a brother in Christ, I call on George W. Bush to repent, and I call on my fellow Christians on the right to use their vast media empire to do the same.
