Is Bush a Universalist?

Marcia

Your quote is correct.

What I think is probably irrelevant, so, when you can't say something nice, say nothing at all.

Hope it helps.

 

Mr. Bush is president of the USA, and when he speaks he speaks for all citizenry, including those who are not evangelical Christians. I think he might answer differently in a personal conversation, and when pressed with the issue of conversion.

Just my opinion. What he says doesn't trouble me one way or the other. He is not a theologian nor a preacher of the gospel truths.

Cheers,

Jim

 

It is troublesome to me. Regardless if you represent a country which has more than one view of God, it is inappropriate to further a lie that will send you to hell. The God of Islam is not the God of creation. there is only one wya to get to the Father and that is through the Son.

 

Yes, in my opinion, he is a universalist. A number of his quote have been posted in these threads before. I will hunt for them and then you can read them for yourself.

 

But they say you have an unfortunate ending because you reject the One Allah as taught in their holy book. The USA is NOT a Christian nation. At best the early founders were mostly deist who talked in generalities about religion.

At any rate, I am not American, so I can only speak in generalities as well.

Cheers,

Jim

 

The problem, though, Jim, is that his strongest base of support, the evangelical Christian community in the US, has based its support of him on an image that he allowed them to continue to believe, that he himself is a conservative, evangelical, born-again believer in Christ.

If he believes that Christ is just one way to the almightly, Mohammed is another, and Judaism is yet another, then he isn't what a lot of people think he is.

The conservative, evangelical Christian political right rode hard on President Clinton the whole time he was in office. They blamed problems in the culture related to moral choices wholesale on his presidency, prefacing it with statements like, "What can you expect people to do, when you look at who is in the White House." You can't give Bush a pass by excusing his public statements as having to be representative of all the American people, but allowing for the fact that he might say something different in his "private" conversation.

There are some things about most "evangelical" conservative Christians that I have observed, that I don't see in Bush. They are not meant as judgements and are certainly not measures of his spirituality per-se, but they are things that I have observed carry a high value with a lot of people who post on this board:

Regular church attendance is highly valued by most evangelical conservative Christians. Bush hardly attended church from the time he claims he was "converted" to the time he assumed the presidency. The church where he holds membership, the Highland Park United Methodist Church in Dallas, sits next to the campus of SMU and is also the home church for some of the UMC's most liberal theologians and professors at the adjacent Perkins School of Theology. HPUMC, compared to other United Methodist congregations, is far to the left of most. In Austin, when he was governor of Texas, Bush rarely attended church, preferring to have the minister from the Tarrytown United Methodist Church come to the governor's mansion once a month or so. When he did attend, he went to Tarrytown, which is one of the most liberal UMC congregation in Austin.

When Bush attends church in Washington, he usually goes to St. John's Church, an Episcopal church just across Lafayette Park from the White House. Obviously it is convenient, but if you are trying to create an image of being a conservative evangelical, why would you attend a liberal Episcopal congregation that has had gay and lesbian clergy on its staff, and supports the ordination of gays and lesbians to the ministry?

Combine that with his public statements about how one has a relationship with God, and I think you can probably conclude that Bush is a universalist. Why would his personal view be differerent than that of the clergy he considers to be his advisors and the churches he chooses to attend?

 

No, President Bush is not a universalist of any stripe. As far as I know, he has not stated that he believes that eventually everyone will end up in Heaven.

 

I haven't heard of universalism proper (as KenH described). Theologically, though, he appears to be fairly liberal.

 

Maybe the American people are wrong in how they vote. Perhaps they should vote for what is right for the country, and how "right" the man or woman is "churchwise".

I know in Canada, our Prime Minister is a twice-born man and loyal to his church. He is being criticized by the Canadian people for what he believes. Maybe these blokes should keep quiet about any religion and just get on with the job.

I don't know anymore what is right for these poor blokes who must serve a crucifying public.

Cheers,

Jim

 

Bush on Religion & God - ABC News:

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/story?id=193746&page=1

http://politics.guardian.co.uk/iraq/story/0,12956,1089465,00.html

From WH Web site - 09/17/2001
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2001/09/20010917-11.html

Bush quotes on Islam from WH web site:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/infocus/ramadan/islam.html

 

Here is some info on Christian universalism:

www.tentmaker.org

www.auburn.edu/~allenkc/univart.html

I figure if Bush is a Christian universalist that it would be noted on one of these websites, and it isn't.

 

I'm inclined to agree with this. I believe he said it out of a misguided notion of not desiring to put Muslims in an evil light. It is not an honest thing to do but I prefer this scenerio to the one stating his belief in the statement.

 

The quote in the OP is accurate - in that he says Muslims get to heaven a different way.

Does it bother me? No, I don't really expect a politician to have his theology straight.

Apparently it didn't bother too many other people in the last election either.

 

No, he's not a universalist. He's a compromiser.

 

Can you imagine what Carter or Clinton would have said in the same situation? Probably fallen all over themselves praising Islam.

 

Criticising people for what you imagine they would probably do, says more about you than them.

 

What do Bush's theological views have to do with anything? He is speaking as our political leader, not as our pastor. He is a politician, not an evangelist.

With a nation of almost 300 million, he will not be in line with many, if not most, Americans' views of God.

 

I didn't imagine Jimmy Carter writing a letter to Ayatollah Khomeini in which he praised him as "a man of God".