Bush: The Destroyer of Christians
Australian mercenaries working for Americans recently gunned down two innocent women who were members of the Christian minority in Iraq. The meaning of this fiasco should not be lost on us. The fact that the Christian women were shot is part of an underreported "small" tragedy within the gigantic tragedy of the destruction of Iraq. (Full disclosure; my son was a Marine from 1999 to 2004 and was deployed several times to the Middle East.)
Bush is an evangelical Christian. And without the evangelical vote he would not have become president. So it might seem ironic that Bush is personally responsible for the persecution, displacement and destruction of the one million, three hundred thousand-person Christian minority in Iraq. (They fared much better under the secular regime of Saddam Hussein and, along with a handful of Christians in Lebanon and Syria, represented one of the last ancient non-Islamic communities left in the Middle East. According to the Times the community has been almost completely displaced and driven from Iraq following the American invasion and the civil war we unleashed.) But actually Bush's destruction of his fellow Christians is not ironic, because to Bush the Iraqi Christians (including those killed women) weren't "real Christians." According to the theology that has shaped Bush they, like their Muslim counterparts, were part of the "other."
Theology matters. And the theology of the President matters when it comes to trying to understand his behavior. Perhaps you have to have been there, done that in order to understand.
I was raised by evangelical missionary parents (Francis and Edith Schaeffer) who also happened to have quite a bit of personal interaction with the Bush family and other Republican leaders. Mom and Dad often met with presidents Ford, Reagan and Bush Sr. and stayed in the White House several times in their capacity as evangelical gurus to the powerful.
Evangelical theology is inextricably linked to the Bush presidency. And evangelicals hold to a born-again world view. To Bush-the-evangelical those murdered Christian women and all the other non-evangelical Christians in Iraq (Armenian, Syrian Catholics, Orthodox and others), are not "saved" because they aren't born-again. Rather they belong to a tradition that sees salvation as a journey undertaken within a liturgical community of faith, not a one time magical individualistic experience.
In public Bush would never call all non-evangelicals lost, nor would many media-savvy evangelical leaders, but the outlook of evangelicals is one of dividing the world into "us" and "them." And non-evangelical Christians are "them" just as much as any other "lost." How could it be otherwise when the bedrock of evangelical theology is to regard anyone who has a different theology than you -- even within the competing historic Christian traditions -- as "unsaved"?
Pat Robertson expressed the evangelical Bush-type theology a few years ago when he dismissed Eastern Orthodox Christianity as just so much "mumbo-jumbo." To the born-again only a Billy Graham-type of one-time salvation experience counts. People who merely continue practicing the ancient traditions of the Church, people just like those Armenian women the mercenaries carelessly shot down, aren't like "us." That belief explains why evangelicals are busy trying to evangelize Greek and Russian Orthodox, Roman Catholics and "liberal" Christians with the same vigor they apply to proselytizing Hindus or Muslims. And that explains why there has not been a massive evangelical outcry against Bush's destruction of the Iraqi Christian community.
According to Bush's theology he has in fact not destroyed fellow Christians. To Bush and other evangelicals the word "Christian" refers only to evangelicals. In the common parlance within the evangelical subculture, "becoming a Christian" is just another way to say that someone has become an evangelical.
The "us" and "them" mentality is instilled in every born-again believer. To evangelicals there are actually two human races; the "sheep" and the "goats" in other words us and them. And the "them" includes all non-evangelical Christians.
Evangelicals may have given up most traditional formal sacraments in favor of a personalized faith but they have developed their own "sacraments." One bedrock sacrament is the aggressive evangelism of the "lost," including all non-evangelical Christians.
The fact that Bush has managed to complete the work of radical Islam, and smash one of the last bastions of Christianity in the Middle East, is just fine with evangelicals: the destroyed people weren't real Christians, just more of those mumbo-jumbo types. It isn't as if we hired those Australians to shoot our fellow believers at some Billy Graham crusade! The murdered women were on their way to see their priest and they wouldn't have needed all that "priest stuff" if they only had accepted Jesus into their hearts and become real Christians like us.
Frank Schaeffer's memoir, "CRAZY FOR GOD -- How I Grew Up as One of the Elect, Helped Found the Religious Right, and Lived to Take All (or Almost All) of It Back," will be in bookstores on October 26 and was reviewed by Jane Smiley in The Nation (Oct 15, 2007).
Follow Frank Schaeffer on Twitter: www.twitter.com/frank_schaeffer
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US vs. Them, divide & conquer, has been the policy of every tribe, nation, or empire to achieve their power and money goals. Whether they are "true believers" -be it evangelical, communist, nazi -doesn't so much matter as the affect - uniting one group of people solidly in favor of "one side" against another. The evangelical angle has served Bush II well, as it did Bush Sr and Reagan. The evangelicals weren't much use to Nixon since their movement was still in its infancy when his world came tumbling down.
Can't we grow up? When a child wants something, they might invoke the statement, "But Mom said". Those who do not have the mental capacity to make a convincing and logical argument will invoke a higher authority. Children invoke Mom or Dad, Moses and everyone since has invoked God. This whole damn world is being run by people who believe in fairy tales.
"This whole damn world is being run by people who believe in fairy tales."
Amen! (Sorry, couldn't help myself).
bush and the thugs who surround him are not christians. They are murderers. The world community should be hold them responsibie for every bit of the death and destruction they have CHOSEN to inflict on others.
Furthermore, christians are no better and no more trustworthy than the superstitious, non-thinking morons who belong to any other "religion.
Maybe thinking people will eventually stand up and begin exposing this sickening, phony, religiousity for the absurdity that it is.
This has scared me to death ever since this moron was elected President. Everything he does, from sending other peoples's children to die in a trumped up war to denying healthcare to childern, is justified by his unwavering devotion to Christ. It explains so much about him...Not wanting to talk to those countries who disagree with his views, not seeking any opposing views, not learning about his enemy before he attacked,the divisiveness with which he has governed. In George Bush's political world there is no "us". The Democrats are "them." It is impossible for him to be a "uniter." He is fundamentally incapable in working with others. And the American people twice elected him as President. I didn't vote for him, but shame on us.
And unless we have a couple of billion dollars or so there isn't a darn thing we can do about it. The sheep will continue to follow.
A Frenchman, of all people, told me exactly how it is done:
"You just have to pretend to be one".
We were talking about religion and christianity in particular. Needless to say, the guy was a backstabber.
Like anybody gives a damn about those people! What lobby do they have in Washington? What media do thery control? Some say they aren't real Christians, but that isn't the issue. Shit, they aren't even real people!
By the way, when did anyone last see my America? Where was it going? The body snatchers must have taken her. There is an imposter here in her place now.
Come judgement day, I'm going to try and stand as close to Bush as I can get. As we stand before God and the almighty looks down on everyone, anyone close to Bush will look so good, there's no way we'll get turn away. It'll also be fun to watch the trap door open and see him head to Hell!!
Willy, that's an interesting twist. Will the invisible one let Cheney in if he stands really close to W? Why won't King George W accept Jesus as his Lord and Savior on the day before judgement day? I'm just asking because some of us (Chimpy included) aren't very worried about eternal damnation.
Mr. Schaeffer, I too was raised in the Evangelical Christian world, and bizarre as it sounds to those outside that world, you are RIGHT ON THE MONEY.
This Christian jihadist crowd regards mainstream United Methodists, Episcopalians, and non-charismatic non-evangelical Catholics as little better than Muslims, or atheists, all surefire future residents of Hell. They don't want their disdain for the "others" widely known, however, because they've carefully built this moral majority political blitzkrieg machine on commonalities with those other Christian groups plus Jews, (despite their non-Christianity, God's Chosen people for whom God will make special dispensation).
When those who would oppose the NeoCons finally get that, and realize that it's imperative to reveal the true nature of this theocracy to the public AND to those who've to some degree unwittingly aided and abetted its rise to power and are enabling its continued hold on perhaps half the American votership, perhaps there will be hope for the nation.
Your piece and the comments following should be required reading for EVERY Democratic Party strategist, if not the entire country.
Hi: Frank Schaeffer here. I thank you for the comment. Thank you too for your saying that we need to get the word out on this. Very Best, Frank
thanks to the author of this post for pointing out the danger we're in in this country.
theology DOES matter. religious identity markers and 'us and them' mentalities are critical to understanding the framing of conflict and the conflict itself. we can't afford to ignore any of this anymore.
radical evangelica
bush and others have used the word 'crusade' to describe their 'mission' in the middle east, which bush claims god told him to undertake - even claiming at one point that 'i trust god speaks THROUGH me.'
after all, the crusaders were really the first christian zionists in history. now, huge numbers of evangelica
just as most muslims condemn the fanaticism of their radicals as un-islamic, i have no doubt that the majority of christians who have looked into this phenomenon see nothing 'christian' about it. but sadly, they are all silent on the matter, and continue to tolerate the most violent and intolerant among them as fellow 'christian
i cannot understand why we do not condemn this kind of radical christianity with as much fervor as we do fundamentalist islam. of the two, the evangelical ascent to power is the much more frightening and dangerous.
i cannot understand why we do not condemn this kind of radical christiani
There was recently a piece on TV about John Hagee, a Texas nut-case who runs a big church. His church is full of these extremists. They seem to be as crazy as bedbugs.
They're lobbying Congress in order to influence decision making with a view to attacking Iran. How nutty is that? What an incredible waste of space they are.
Sadly, each repugnican politician they met was shown enthusiastically nodding his head--like a cheap plastic cow in the back window of a '63 Chevy
The depth and breadth of what the Bush/Neocon regime has pre-meditatedly wrought in Iraq and the larger ME is astonishing. The destruction of community, displacement of millions, the deaths of a million, the maiming of hundreds of thousands more, the utter devastation of the relatively stable secular Iraq under the admitted dictator Saddam (he was a sonofabitch, but when it suited us , he was OUR sonofabitch!)and the empowerment of the most depraved and extreme of "Islamic" criminals and extremists. Who has now committed the most hideous acts of agression war and killing; The "Christian" Bush or Saddam? Which "leader" has perpetrated the most depraved crimes against humanity? Who has, through ignorance, hubris, lies, deceit, and phoney religion, caused this killing of two innocents and the tens of thousands of other crimes and corruption take root?
The plan of the PNAC, AIPAC Neocon traitors for "war without end" has become reality through the perfidy of George W Bush/Neocon regime. The vast profits from war and conflict for the few already super-rich cronies, which the rest of us pay for, has become reality. The collusion of many of our elected representatives, prez candidates and press to allow this horror through failure or pressure from lobbyists is manifest, and their clients; those who believe they will profit from this continued conflict, have as much blood on their hands as the Great Perpetrator, George W Bush, himself.
George W Bush and his handlers have led America down the path of greed, corruption, dishonor, and crimes against humanity, and allowed, through their acts, other dictatorial regimes around the world to feel "covered" in their own excesses and brutality.
The dock at The Hague welcomes these despicable creatures and it only waits for the eyes of Americans and the rest of the world to open fully to the enormity of the crimes and treason of the Bush/Neocon regime. Hopefully a short fall and rope dance will end this ugly chapter for ALL of them!
Positive proof that he is not an evangelical is the fact that he and his predecessors stuffed the Supreme Court with Catholics.
Christians are the most un-christ like people I have ever met.
W is the Anti-President.
His followers are trained like dogs. Instilled (and INSTALLED) with pride, so that no truth can get in and restore their humanity. These are "Demonic" people.
Amen!
I was turned off on organized religion for years, but a few years ago I had occasion to be surrounded by evangelicals, something which totally turned me off! Recently, I received correspondence from a born-again from my past. This is a person who has destroyed the lives of everyone in her wake, destroying marriages and families, and leaving devastation in her wake for over 30 years. Yet, she was busy labeling sinners and proclaiming her reserved seat at the foot of God because she has taken Jesus Christ as her Lord and Master, on and on ad infinitum. This is so disturbing.
The difference between the us and them in Christianity, is no different that that in the Muslim Community.
We are a global community of man, all children of God. I can't imagine a segregated Heaven anymore than I can imagine such an angry, narrow-minded, judgmental, terrifyingly evil God. There is certainly insanity attached to this.
If we don't change our beliefs, it is destruction for us all. Thanks to this artical for pointing out that we are like God in that we have brought God down to the level of man and then behaved exactly as that horrid God.
It's time to learn that "All Good is of God; All evil is of man."
"I can't imagine a segregated Heaven anymore than I can imagine such an angry, narrow-minded, judgmental, terrifyingly evil God."
Read the Old Testament.
Or, maybe it's time to learn that "both are of man" and stop attributing to the guy in the sky.
"By their fruits will ye know them," said Jesus. Bush is obviously an anti-Christ. Many evangelicals and supporters of Bush are also anti-Christ. God is pure and holy. Bush is death and destruction. This is very simple to see.
Bush considers his invasion of Iraq a crusade and inspired by God. Except for the level of technology expertise he can bring to bear, how is this different from the Jihaddists??
The Jihaddis aren't quite as interested in oil.
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