In Suskind's article, we hear yet more quotes from Bush supporters who assert without embarrassment that God installed George W. Bush in the White House, and Bush is merely acting out God's will. There are doubtless many people, perhaps millions, who agree. So here's my challenge to them: If John Kerry wins this election, will you have the courage to proclaim that God now has decided that John Kerry should be president, and George W. Bush should not? Will you devote yourself to aiding Kerry in his work, since if he wins it is God's will? Or do you only believe God has intervened in American elections when you like the result?

He shoots... HE SCORES!!!

Damn. Hit it right on the head. This is precisely what I was feebly alluding to a few weeks ago when faith reared its ugly head in the context of hurricane-battered Florida. This is exactly the question:

Do you only believe God has intervened... when you like the result?

I suspect that should Kerry win, the line will be that God's will "has been thwarted" by the faithless.

Isn't that clever? They don't have to accept Kerry as God's new chosen, nor do they have to admit that God isn't playing a role. He just suffered a setback at the hands of godless democrats. The Lord works in mysterious ways.

Amen.

As I am sure you are aware I am an active Christian. But, in my opinion, God doesn't work that way. I am always amazed at how, in many areas, Christians don't really understand their religion. Most Christians have a good handle on the basics but those Christians somehow manage not to get asked their opinion. It seems that the ones whose mouths are bigger than their knowledge always show up on the news. Their lack of knowledge shows when they claim "hand of God" when good things happen to them. It is easy to laugh at the "dumb" Christians, but I have discovered that the people I have run into making sport of the Christians know even less about the role of God than those "dumb" Christians. This is no place for a lesson in Theology so I am not going to give one ... [But] it all reminds me of one of my favorite quotes:

"Talking about music (or arguing about religion in this case) is like whistling about chickens".

Love the quote!

Now, to the point. I'm not making sport of Christians, nor do I think they're all dumb. Pascal, the mathematician and father of decision theory, thought it eminently logical to believe in God. Einstein, Werner Von Braun, the list goes on.

And as you have suggested, a television camera is an "idiot magnet". Every time crews cover a WHO protest, who do they put on TV? The guy who looks like me and can tell you in great detail that while globalization is a wonderful thing and a net gain to mankind, it has just taken a huge lunge forward and therefore perhaps we should ride the brakes for a while until certain structural imbalances correct themselves, this curve, that coefficient, and so on?

No. You get to see the seventeen-year-old with the bone in his nose and dreadlocks who just dropped ecstasy. Yep, that's how it is.

However, as I'm sure you are aware, I was forced to misspend a fair chunk of my misspent youth at Bible Study. ... And I do recall a great many biblical tales in which God was none to pleased with those who claimed to have his mandate, or otherwise threw themselves at the mercy of His wisdom and his plan when they should have instead exercised some good judgment. I agree, it is only certain people that give religion a bad name. But in my view, the president is one of those people.

I agree with you, that if one knows one's Bible one should know that God doesn't work that way. Be that as it may, many disagree, and have faith. The point that I was trying to make is the following: If one believes that something desirable was "the will of God", but one cannot truly accept an undesirable outcome as "the will of God", then it wasn't really "faith" at all which led you to conclude the former. Rather it was an attempt to color one's personally preferred outcome as divine and thereby beyond reproach or need of explanation or justification.

I suspect that many who now see Bush as "God's choice", will, should Kerry win, decline to see Kerry as "God's NEW choice." Therefore I think that what a great many people are calling "faith" in this context is mere rationalization.

I think that were I a religious person, I would be deeply offended by how often God's name is cheaply invoked in tawdry politics. But as I am, I am merely disappointed at how often this invocation ends the debate.

This, I believe, is one of the many reasons the founding fathers believed what by now should be painfully obvious: religion has no place in politics because it cheapens both religion and politics.

Though these accounts ramble on for hundreds of pages about his steadfast leadership and prayerfulness, they all curiously rely on one single event to confirm that Bush is a man transformed by a deep Christian faith: He quit drinking and took up running instead.

... But Christianity is more than teetotalism and physical fitness. Conservative believers liken a Christian conversion to a spiritual heart transplant - one that completely transfigures a person's motivations, sensibilities, relationships, and actions.

... Judging him on his record, George W. Bush's spiritual transformation seems to have consisted of little more than staying on the wagon, with Jesus as a sort of talismanic Alcoholics Anonymous counselor.

Far too often, though, the press confuses Gerson's words with Bush's beliefs. The distinction is critical, as the press, as well as many of Bush's most ardent supporters, curiously points to the president's words, not his deeds, as evidence of his deep Christian faith. In Alan Cooperman's recent Washington Post article, David Frum, a (Jewish) former Bush speechwriter, said of the president's religious beliefs, "If you want to know what George Bush really thinks, look at what he says."

That religious standard turns two thousand years of Christianity on its head. Every young Sunday School student knows it's not what you say, it's what you do. And on that score, George W. Bush has failed to act according to Christian principles and values. That shouldn't necessarily matter - that shouldn't be a requirement for our country's leader. But it's simply a fact that many voters cast their lot with the guy they believe is led by a moral power greater than himself. I've heard countless voters say they disagree with Bush on the war, the economy, his environmental record, his education agenda, you name it - but they're voting for him "because he's a good Christian man." The press has accepted uncritically that this is so. Maybe that was a mistake.