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Is Bush an evangelical?

Posted: Friday April 15, 2005 8:34 PM EST

President doesn’t use the term, but most observers think so

Washington—The influence of U.S. evangelicals is almost everywhere — from the halls of political power like Congress and the Supreme Court to cultural status markers such as the New York Times’ best-seller list, where titles like The Purpose Driven Life make regular appearances.

But the person many evangelicals consider the most prominent member of their fold — President George W. Bush — doesn’t use the term to describe himself publicly, and neither does the White House.

So, is he or isn’t he?

Evangelical leaders, including speakers at recent mini-courses for news media on “What Is an Evangelical?” generally concur that the president is one of them. But some observers of religion and politics say his outreach to Muslims and his attendance at a mainstream Protestant church demonstrate that he may not neatly fit the definition.

The Rev. Bob Wenz, vice president of national ministries of the National Association of Evangelicals, says he doesn’t mind that Bush doesn’t embrace that particular word.

“From an analysis of what the man does believe, I think we can categorize him in-house as an evangelical, but if he chooses not to use the term, I don’t think it’s an affront to evangelicals,” Wenz said during a seminar at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary in South Hamilton, MA. 

Amy Sullivan, an editor of Washington Monthly, says Bush has positioned himself in a “nice set-up” that allows him to be accepted by evangelicals while not offending people less comfortable with the label. 

“He can be all things to all people by not explicitly defining himself as evangelical,” said Sullivan, a former evangelical who sometimes attends the same Episcopal church Bush does. 

Bush — a baptized Episcopalian, former Presbyterian Sunday school teacher, and now a United Methodist — has several attributes that most evangelicals think put him in their fold. In interviews, evangelical and other experts on religion ticked off key evangelical characteristics that define Bush.

• He has had a “transformation.”

Evangelicals believe in “personal transformation,” a spirit-driven change in behavior. The National Association of Evangelicals’ statement of faith says, “For the salvation of lost and sinful people, regeneration by the Holy Spirit is absolutely essential.” Evangelicals cite Bush’s cold-turkey end to his drinking habit, which occurred within a couple of years after he had key encounters with well-known evangelist Billy Graham and lesser-known evangelist Arthur Blessitt

“I think it’s true, and not just part of a kind of political myth, that he did have a significant turning point in his life that in some ways reallyhelps him get in his gut the power of religious conversion,” said Ron Sider, president of Evangelicals for Social Action. 

• He talks like an evangelical.

The president speaks like other evangelicals, but often in ways that non-evangelicals might miss. He occasionally ends speeches with the colloquialism “God bless.” And he cited the “wonder-working power” of the American people in his 2003 State of the Union speech — an allusion to a hymn about the “wonder-working power in the precious blood of the Lamb.”

Says Charles Haynes, senior scholar at the Freedom Forum’s First Amendment Center: “I think there are signals in the president’s speeches to those folks. He is, of course, of that group, so it’s not as though he’s pandering.”

• He spends time with evangelicals.

“His friends are evangelicals. He likes evangelical preachers. He started his faith in a community that was unquestionably evangelical, the Community Bible Study of Midland, Texas,” said David Aikman, author of A Man of Faith: The Spiritual Journey of George W. Bush. “He’s got all the vital statistics of an evangelical, even if he doesn’t call himself that.”

• He sets aside some devotional time, as some evangelicals do.

The president says he prays “all the time,” sometimes in the Oval Office. Authors speak of his regular readings of the Bible and devotional books, including Oswald Chambers’ My Utmost for His Highest.

Once or twice a month when he is in Washingon, Bush attends St. John’s Church, an Episcopal congregation across Lafayette Square from the White House. That raises some eyebrows because Episcopalians elected their first openly gay bishop in 2003, prompting opposition from evangelicals. Others point to Bush’s past church attendance as more telling. 

He often attended what Aikman called the “resolutely evangelical” Highland Park United Methodist Church in Dallas in the 1990s. 

Further evidence of evangelicalism — such as belief in the authority of the Bible and the need to “accept” Jesus for one’s salvation — is scarcer. 

The White House declined to comment. 

Aikman said in an interview that administration officials have not been comfortable with calling the president an evangelical. 

“Theologically, I think he believes some things that disqualify him as an evangelical,” said Shaun Casey, an associate professor of Christian ethics at Wesley Theological Seminary in Washington. 

Casey recalled how Bush rankled some evangelicals when he declared in 2003 that Christians and Muslims “worship the same God.” Some evangelicals, such as Southern Baptist executive Richard Land, flatly said he was wrong. 

“The Bible is very clear about this,” Land wrote in a column on Beliefnet.com. “There is only one true God, and his name is Jehovah, not Allah.”

David Neff, the editor of Christianity Today, said Bush’s openness to Muslims may be unusual among evangelicals but reflects his personality. 

“He’s a person with a very generous spirit ... who sees this as a way of affirming something fundamental about a faith stance in the public square,” Neff said. “I would say that’s not typical of evangelicals, but it’s not contrary to being an evangelical.”

The Rev. Richard John Neuhaus, a Catholic priest whom the president credits for advising him on abortion and other issues, says he suspects there always will be questions about who fits the definition of an evangelical. 

“There’s a great deal of dispute and frequently rancorous debate over who is and who is not an evangelical,” said Neuhaus, editor in chief of the Catholic journal First Things. “And certainly among some unapologetic fundamentalists, I’m sure you would find people who do not think that President Bush — or a good many others — are evangelicals. But this has been going on for centuries and is likely to continue until our Lord returns in glory.”

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