Bush and God Again: "senses a "Third Awakening' of religious belief"

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Wed Sep-13-06 11:17 AM
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Bush and God Again: "senses a "Third Awakening' of religious belief"

Edited on Wed Sep-13-06 11:40 AM by bigtree

President Bush said yesterday that he senses a "Third Awakening" of religious devotion in the United States that has coincided with the nation's struggle with international terrorists, a war that he depicted as "a confrontation between good and evil."

Bush told a group of conservative journalists that he notices more open expressions of faith among people he meets during his travels, and he suggested that might signal a broader revival similar to other religious movements in history. Bush noted that some of Abraham Lincoln's strongest supporters were religious people "who saw life in terms of good and evil" and who believed that slavery was evil. Many of his own supporters, he said, see the current conflict in similar terms.

"A lot of people in America see this as a confrontation between good and evil, including me," Bush said during a 1 1/2 -hour Oval Office conversation on cultural changes and a battle with terrorists that he sees lasting decades. "There was a stark change between the culture of the '50s and the '60s -- boom -- and I think there's change happening here," he added. "It seems to me that there's a Third Awakening."

The First Great Awakening refers to a wave of Christian fervor in the American colonies from about 1730 to 1760, while the Second Great Awakening is generally believed to have occurred from 1800 to 1830.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/12/AR2006091201594_pf.html

excerpts of the interview from Lowery at NRO: (http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=NDdiZGNlMjgxMzUxYTI1OTdmMWFiMTE4ZmZiMzc2ZDM=)

"Bush�s faith in the rightness of his strategy in the broader war is deep-seated � it is, indeed, a product of faith. �Freedom is universal,� Bush says. �And I recognize there�s a debate around the world about the kind of � whether that principle is real. I call it moral relativism, if people do not believe that certain people can be free. I mean, I just cannot subscribe to that. People � I know it upsets people when I ascribe that to my belief in an Almighty, and that I believe a gift from that Almighty is universal freedom. That�s what I believe.�

So it is somehow appropriate that a wide-ranging conversation on the war and the capacities of cultures to change swings around toward the end to the role of faith in our own culture. �Cultures do change,� Bush says. �Ideological struggles are won, but it takes time. It just takes time. You look back at the �50s, I don�t know how evident it was that � I guess there was � when you think about it, there was a pretty stark change in the culture of the �50s and the �60s. I mean, boom. But I think something is happening here.�

�I don�t know,� he continues, �I�m not giving you a definitive statement � it seems like to me there�s a Third Awakening with a cultural change. And it would be interesting to get your observations if that is accurate or not accurate. It feels like it. I�m just giving you a reference point, if this is something you�re interested in looking at. It feels like it to me. I don�t have people coming in the rope line saying, �I�d like a new bridge, or how about some more highway money.� They�re coming to say, �I�m coming to tell you, Mr. President, I�m praying for you.� It�s pretty remarkable.�

My answer:

"Faith shows us the reality of good, and the reality of evil," President Bush said at a prayer breakfast shortly after 9-11. "Some acts and choices in this world have eternal consequences. It is always, and everywhere, wrong to target and kill the innocent. It is always, and everywhere, wrong to be cruel and hateful, to enslave and oppress."

Abraham Lincoln spoke to the notion of divinity's mandate to vigilance when he remarked on the violence of the abolitionist, John Brown in his Cooper Union address.

He said, "An enthusiast broods over the oppression of a people till he fancies himself commissioned by heaven to liberate them."

"Human action can be modified to some extent, but human nature cannot be changed," he continued. "There is a judgment and a feeling against slavery in this nation, which cast at least a million and a half of votes. You cannot destroy that judgment and feeling - that sentiment - by breaking up the political organization which rallies around it."

Lincoln suffered for the success of his war at the point of a terrorist's gun. It would be impossible to argue that he died merely for the defense of territory. The surrender of the southern army brought freedom for the majority of slaves. And, no matter how we judge the immediate impact of Lincoln's proclamation, the victory led to the emancipation and the subsequent empowerment of Africans in America.

Yet, Lincoln believed that adherence to the principles of democracy would distinguish any victory in a manner that would provide for the durability of the Union and foster a national affirmation of the rights of the individual.

"It was that," he said, "which gave promise that in due time the weight would be lifted from the shoulders of all men."