Is Bush a Christian?
  by Jitske Hart

  Personally, I've been a Christian for a long time. This has been hard,
because I'm not a rightwing Christian (as I like to say, his Name is not,
Jesus Adam Smith Capitalist Christ) and just like Jesus I tend to despise
the rich as the most evil thing in the world who will never get it, so that
leaves me well outside the mainstream, which, if ever in discussion with me,
calls me "vile" and "closet feminist" and "commie." So, I guess that makes
me a Leftwing Fundamentalist.

   So anyway, I think that with over thirty years of personal experience
with the fundamentals of our faith and the teachings of one Jesus of
Nazareth and his apostles, I am eminently qualified to discuss Bush's claims
to being Christian. Is this judgmental of me? No, it isn't. Judgmental would
be, Bush is going to hell because he's a big fat liar. I do think these
judgmental thoughts, yes (slaps self for judgmentalness), but that is not
the kind of judgment I'm making here.

  This article just means to contrast some claims and some facts about
Christianity and being a Christian, from an expert (well no official
diplomas or anything) on the subject. The only thing it "judges" is Bush's
claims, not Bush's personal sins or crimes, although they do come up to
illustrate the point. And that is totally fair, because Jesus too judged
people as either having faith, or not, and told us to diagnose this also,
saying "by their works you will know them" and "not all those who say, Lord,
Lord, but those who do the will of the Father."

   There are other passages saying the same thing, don't just take people's
word for their being a Christian, but test them, see if it's true, check if
their deeds line up with their words, listen to what they say about God and
whether it lines up with what Jesus Christ says on the same topic. If it
doesn't, they're not a christian, regardless of what they call themselves.
Of course we don't need to get snippy or mean about it, telling them, but we
sure are fully allowed to show the contrasts between what the original
Christian teaching is, and the ways in which they are too different to call
themselves one of us. In which case we have been warned against them, they
are "wolves in sheep's clothing" who will eat up their fellow Christians
instead of being a nice fellow sheep (who never bite each other).

   And so we have the claim which pays huge election benefits, namely the
grand "I'm a Christian" which makes all Christians get all warm fuzzy and
uncritical. It shouldn't, it should immediately sound red alert, red alert
in your brain -- because if people have to SAY it you know it's not genuine
right off the bat, or at least it is a major clue something is wrong. That's
like finding a broken lamp and three kids standing by it and you know the
one who did it is the one who first says, I didn't do it, HE did! pointing
fingers. So that is clue number one, Bush is not a Christian. If he were
that would be somewhat obvious and he wouldn't have to announce it.
Kind of like it was obvious with ex-President Carter, and still is.

   Next, I'll let you in on a bit of a secret about Christians. Some of us
do more with it than others, but we all get a dose of inner peace and love
and kindness and goodness and gentleness and more of the kinds of character
traits that make us total wusses in life. Rest assured, nobody thinks of me
as a wuss; nonetheless I'm a pushover, a true bleeding heart liberal, I care
for people, I care about people. Nobody ever needs to beg to get me to do a
favor for them, especially if they're helpless, anyone friend or foe who
needs my help can get it. I told you I was a Leftwing Fundy. I don't see
howcome other Christians aren't, it's in the book for Pete's sake.

   Whereby we see Bush, again, is not a Christian. Joy, love, kindness,
goodness, patience, self control -- all these things he lacks. Former
President Clinton had a much bigger dose, you could tell. He never bragged
he was a Christian, but I knew it the minute he signed the Family Leave Act
and then I was totally sure when he tried to get Americans affordable health
care. Looking after the sick and the less fortunate are supremely loving
Christian acts and things that they should be more prolific at than boy
scouts.

   Contrasting this with Bush, both as Governor of Texas and now that he is
President, he has been on a mission to deprive the poor and needy of what
little they had left after Reagan got done with them. He and his crowd
denounce the very idea that the government, the nation as collective, should
support anyone poor, let alone make sure they can afford a doctor when their
children are sick. The hardness with which both Bush Jr. and Reagan took
away food, clothing, shelter, and medical care from poor people and their
children, to give the resulting profits to the rich in tax benefits, shows
clearly there is inside Mr. Bush a heart of cold granite, that has never
heard of love or goodness.

  Which brings us to another big difference between the real Christian and
the Pretender. Because Jesus Christ himself is emphatic on this point,
Christians tend to spend a lot of time reading their Bible to find out what
God wants from them. Technically Christians are all servants of God, so it
behooves us to know our orders, we have to know what He says, in order to be
able to do it, and do what He says and not someting else. No human boss puts
up with your doing your own thing on his dollar, and neither does the Lord
God, of course.

  And you cannot get through the Old Testament, the same Law Bush uses to
denounce gays and abortion (more on his judgmentalness in a bit), without
noticing that God *really* wants rulers, the government, to take care of the
poor and needy. And not "oppress the worker in his wages" either. Then there
are prohibitions against lying, against bribe taking, against unequal
justice systems where the rich are excused, and round, ringing denunciations
of rulers who have failed to realize that in neglecting to serve their
poorest citizens, they have insulted God himself. And let's not mention
God's distaste for bloodshed. War is sometimes necessary; but one never is
supposed to war or kill just for the heck of it, just for conquest, just to
be mean, just to gain your neighbor's property which you covet.

   From which the safe conclusion can be drawn, that Bush has never read a
syllable in there and has no idea what it says. Which, again, means that
he's not a real Christian, because if he were, he'd know, or at least a
little better than he does, how his regime and ways of governing and ways of
warring and killing, in total disregard of all morality and law and treaties
existing, are an offense unto God, crimes for which there is literally hell
to pay. And he'd have to do either of two things, cut them out and not do
them (like Clinton), or do them and stop saying God told him. For the God of
the book says Bush is an evil man, that all are evil who delight in conquest
and gain at the cost of human suffering.

  Some other noticeably unchristian things Bush does are the already
mentioned treatybreaking (a well known character trait of white Americans,
who have never kept a single treaty they signed, just ask the Natives),
displaying inordinate pride of self without a shred of secondguessing or
humility (like Clinton and Carter), and delighting in destruction of all
good things including this lovely planet God gave us for a place to live. I
hear Bush's "side" defend this hatred of wildlife and all habitat
accommodating it, by stating that God will destroy it anyway, soon, so
there's nothing wrong with raping it in the meantime.

  But again they didn't read it very well. Heck, it's even a commandment,
honor thy Father and thy Mother -- and if God is our Father, our Mother must
be, you guessed it, Mother Earth. It sounds very wiccan and Gaia I know, but
there it is. Yes indeedy God is an environmentalist (or, as Bushies like to
call Him, an Eco Terrorist). This Earth may well be on its way to His
judgment, but it does say that part of that wrath is that He will "destroy
the destroyers of the Earth." I know for a fact God sees right through this
ploy whereby a good way to keep the forest from ever burning is to log it
and put up a mall. He gave it to mankind as a gift, He did. And to all the
other creatures too. To destroy it and pollute it in pursuit of personal
wealth is ungrateful and unthankful, and it disses Father and Mother. Big
time.

  And, given all these ways in which Bush can be seen to have gone against
explicit instructions and counter to all good things God gives and commands,
the least we can expect of him if he is indeed a Christian anyway (which can
happen, some Christians take awhile to get down to reading what it's really
like), is to know to keep his mouth firmly shut about what other sinners do.
This is a fundamental tenet of the teaching of Jesus Christ, Judge not. It's
not your place, because you are a sinner too. So if you remind God about
that by saying, Look at this OTHER sinner what a bad person, God looks at
you and says, You're a sinner too except in other ways, so you are a bad
person too then, off to hell you go. Juice for the goose, juice for the
gander. Big mistake to remind God that there are sinners who deserve to be
punished, because you're one of them. Basic stuff; says so in Matthew
chapter 7.

  But Bush doesn't shut up. Oh, no. Iraq, N. Korea and Syria are "the axis
of evil." Homosexuals are to be outcast and despised, and he openly does it.
He removed the pill from government worker benefit packages, and has done
everything he could short of issuing a law, to reduce abortion rights. He
judges the poor as lazy and irresponsible, and fully deserving of their
miserable lives. He judges "liberals" (that would be me) as unpatriotic and
unAmerican and total cretins and morons for saying we should not have war,
and that the poor and needy should be helped not cast aside, using all his
political powers against these goals.

  So let me clue you in on what kind of Christian Bush is. He's the same
kind of christian which, ten centuries ago, had monkey trials in a monkey
court called the Spanish Inquisition. He's the same kind of christian which,
two centuries ago, defended slavery by saying it was God's will. He's the
same kind of christian which, one century ago, made America the last Western
country to give women the right to vote. He's the same kind of christian
which, one half century ago, made Apartheid their creed, lynching blacks for
even being suspected of looking at a white woman. In other words, the kind
of christian who hasn't read it, who doesn't get it, and who would swiftly
nail one Jesus back on the cross for a rebel and communist. In other words,
not a christian, at, all.

   What he is, is a Pharisee and a hypocrite. And whenever I feel really bad
about that, and frustrated that he still dares to pass himself off as one of
us and gets away with it, I think about that he won't get away with it
forever, that a day will come when he has to stand before his Maker and
justify his miserable life. After which I feel nothing but pity and feel
like praying for him, because I know God does not like it, when people take
His Name in vain, calling themselves Christian when they're not, and
bragging He spoke to them and then lying about what He said.

   I have all the relevant bible prooftexts available, should you want
precise chapter or verse for all these things. But rather than make this
read like a sermon by citing and quoting all verbatim, I will just cite the
one where God tells you not to vote for Bush, as a summary of all I have
said.

   2Timothy 3:1 This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall
come. 2 For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters,
proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, 3 Without
natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce,
despisers of those that are good, 4 Traitors, heady, highminded, lovers of
pleasures more than lovers of God; 5 Having a form of godliness, but denying
the power thereof: from such turn away.
 
 
 

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