A lunatic Christian cult has the run of the White House and the ear of the president. What do they want? The end of the world. Be afraid.
My mother-in-law attends chapel every Sunday. She prays quietly to herself before bed, serves on the committee that oversees the church's daycare center, and practices with the hand-bell choir. She's humble, pious, and unobtrusively dedicated to good works. Now that's a Christian.
President Bush prays every night as well, and sometimes during the day. David Aikman's book, A Man of Faith: The Spiritual Journey of George W. Bush, tells the story of a courier making an important delivery to the Oval Office only to find the president "lying prostrate on the floor in prayer." The very image gives me the chills, but if you're a true believer, you might find it warming.
Allow me to invoke the rhythms of my favorite Jewish holiday song here. If President Bush had been an alcoholic who needed Jesus to get sober and be a better family man, it would have been enough. If he'd used his faith to help the Republican Party coalesce the important evangelical Christian vote, it would have been enough. If he'd made Christian values the cornerstone of his time in the Texas governor's mansion, it would have been enough. If he'd declared Christ as his favorite political philosopher during a Republican presidential primary debate, it would have been enough.
But when he starts invoking church doctrine in a holy war against "evildoers," well, that's enough. If, like me, you happened to have seen the Frontline documentary The Jesus Factor, then you saw the president speak in coded language to his evangelical followers. You saw the president say that the Bible is the "guidebook" for federal social policy. You realized that Bush really does believe he's God's right-hand guy. When you were through shivering with fear in your bedroom closet, you knew for certain that President Bush is a fanatic who will get us all killed if he isn't stopped.
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I do declare! We have a state religion! Why, that's not in the Constitution at all!
The Bible is being used to justify our policies, not to call them into question. When Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz and Dick Cheney talk about the necessity of American power and supremacy, military supremacy in the world as the only way to peace, I understand that as a foreign policy. I think it's not a wise foreign policy, but I understand it.
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Color me even more unsettled when you consider that this is a country where, according to a recent ABC News poll, 61 percent of the people believe that the world was literally created in seven days, where public schools are teaching evolution as "just another theory," and where churches fill theaters with audiences dying to watch a nasty snuff film about Jesus. Americans, like people everywhere, are mostly good. But they're also quite susceptible to manipulation by charlatans. How many of you, in the last year, have had a conversation where someone casually threw out the funny suggestion that "Bush is the Antichrist"? I see a lot of you raising your hands. Well, it's no joke, sister.
Millions of Americans believe that Armageddon is coming soon. Revelation states that the first stage of the apocalypse will be a battle where four angels, "which are bound in the great river Euphrates," will be unleashed to "slay the third part of men." Then Israel and its allies must occupy the rest of its "biblical lands," which happens to encompass most of the Middle East, and then they have to build the Third Temple where the Dome of the Rock and the al-Aqsa Mosque now stand, and... well, you see where this is going.
Wake up, people! It's worse than you imagined! The United States of America has been hijacked by religious nutballs who are trying to bring about the end of the world! We have to stop them now! The sky is falling! The sky is falling! Wolf! Wolf!
But how, you ask, do we pull the brakes on this steaming train of holiness? The answer isn't simple, but it is righteous. You beat them at their own game.
Perhaps you've heard of the Presidential Prayer Team. This is a nonprofit group that's registered 2.8 million people to "pray daily for the president." Bill McCartney, the founder of the Promise Keepers, is on the board of directors, along with such cultural figures as Christian singer Michael W. Smith, "Painter of Light" Thomas Kinkade, Phoenix Suns and Arizona Diamondbacks owner Jerry Colangelo, and Ricky Skaggs. So obviously, if you're reading this essay, it's not the group for you. The Prayer Team likes to circulate an image of President Bush bowed in reverence with an illumined cross behind him. On one side of Bush, the ghost of Abraham Lincoln lowers his head while grasping Bush's shoulder. On the other, a spectral George Washington does the same. Jesus Christ, that's creepy!
A sample prayer goes: "Pray for the president as on Monday he begins a series of speeches detailing the handover of power to the Iraqi interim government. Pray for godly wisdom and protection as Mr. Bush delivers Monday's speech at the Army War College which will be followed by a speech each week at other sites."
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Even more recent breaking news: Last weekend, the Texas Republican party approved a platform that refers to the "myth of the seperation of church and state," and proclaimed America a "Christian nation." The platform also declares that the Ten Commandments are "the basis of our Freedoms."
I'm certain I speak for many people of faith who feel strongly about the president when I say that I'm deeply offended that religious belief and the awesome power of prayer have been hijacked for no higher end than the furtherance of one man's political career, particularly when that career is buttressed by a base of support whose political agenda is closer to the Taliban than to the Founding Fathers. Despite what George W. Bush might think, God does not want him to be president. God does not speak to him directly. At least my God doesn't.
Before Bush came to office, I was essentially an atheist who liked Passover food. But the past three years have changed all that. I, like many of you, pray every day for the moment that George W. Bush is no longer president. So it's time to call to prayer all people of faith who agree with this principle, who don't like seeing their precious faith used for strange and bloody military ends. I implore Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, Wiccans, Protestants, Catholics, and even evangelical Christians to pray for a new president. Why should George W. Bush supporters hold a monopoly on prayer?
To that end, I call for the establishment of an informal coalition of reasonable people of faith everywhere. Please assume whatever prayer position is appropriate for you, and pray along with me: "Dear [Higher Power of Choice], give us the will to restore religion in this country, as our Founding Fathers intended, to an abstract guiding principle, not the theologically unsound justification for a twisted foreign policy. Let us fight our enemies with peace and wisdom, not anger and indiscriminate force. Allow our country to serve as a symbol of what's good in humankind, not what's corrupt. Most of all, grant us the strength and wisdom to remove President George W. Bush from office. In your name, we say: Amen."
Say that prayer every day from now until November 2. Say it twice a day if you want, or four times. Say it all day on Saturday, if that's your preference. I'm not going to get all MoveOn.org on your butts, but I've set up a website to make the praying easier. Go to www.prayforreason.org, sign the guest book, and join the true moral majority. People of faith who believe in secular government, unite!
