Bush's God talk: to a born-again theology of individual salvation, Bush has added a providential view of America's role in world history

Christian Century, Oct 5, 2004 by Bruce Lincoln

WHEN THE TIME CAME to make his case for another war, Bush returned to this idea. In his third State of the Union address, after rehearsing charges about weapons and terrorist ties and portraying Saddam Hussein as evil incarnate, the president lifted his argument to the grandest of terms.

   We go forward with confidence,
   because this call of history has
   come to the right country ...
   Americans are a free people, who
   know that freedom is the right of
   every person and the future of
   every nation. The liberty we
   prize is not America's gift to the
   world, it is God's gift to humanity.
   We Americans have faith in ourselves--but
   not in ourselves
   alone. We do not claim to know
   all the ways of Providence, yet we
   can trust in them, placing our
   confidence in the loving God behind
   all of life, and all of history.

Ten months later, when the situation in Iraq had turned ominous and sour, he reaffirmed these views in an address to the National Endowment for Democracy (November 6, 2003). He began by observing that between the 1970s and the present, the number of democratic governments in the world had grown from 40 to 120. "Historians in the future will offer their own explanations for why this happened," he said, and went on to anticipate their speculations. Such human factors as American leadership or the rise of a middle class paled, however, in comparison to the hand of the unmoved mover. "Liberty is both the plan of heaven for humanity and the best hope for progress here oil Earth," he announced. These are no secular matters.

   The advance of freedom is the calling of our time. It is
   the calling of our country.... We believe that liberty is
   the design of nature. We believe that liberty is the direction
   of history. We believe that human fulfillment and excellence
   come in the responsible exercise of liberty. And
   we believe that freedom, the freedom we prize, is not for
   us alone. It is the right and the capacity
   of all mankind. And as we
   meet the terror and violence of the
   world, we can be certain the author
   of freedom is not indifferent to the
   fate of freedom.

Much the same language was recycled last month in the speech with which Bush accepted his party's nomination. The sole major addition was the passage with which he concluded the address and moved to his benediction.

   Like generations before us, we
   have a calling from beyond the
   stars to stand for freedom. This is
   the everlasting dream of America,
   and tonight, in this place, that
   dream is renewed. Now we go forward--grateful
   for our freedom,
   faithful to our cause, and confident
   in the future of the greatest nation
   on earth. God bless you, and may
   God continue to bless America.
   (Text from the New York Times,
   September 3.)

All of these texts convey a sophisticated theology of history that rests on five propositions: 1) God desires freedom for all humanity; 2) this desire manifests itself in history; 3) America is called by history (and thus, implicitly by God) to take action on behalf of this cause; 4) insofar as America responds with courage and determination, God's purpose is served and freedom's advance is inevitable; 5) with the triumph of freedom, God's will is accomplished and history comes to an end.