Bush Brings Faith Into Full View; A new book traces the evolution of George W. Bush's faith and illuminates the role that religion plays in the president's life, both as a politician and a private person

0 Comments | Insight on the News, May 11, 2004

Byline: Stephen Goode, INSIGHT

David Aikman's book on the Christian faith of President George W. Bush, A Man of Faith: The Spiritual Journey of George W. Bush, begins where it probably must, on the evening of Dec. 13, 1999, at the Greater Des Moines Civic Center when Bush first startled the nation with a public profession of faith.

The Republican Party's six presidential hopefuls were there to debate in front of about 1,500 Iowans in the half-full auditorium. Local TV anchor John Bachman was hosting the event along with NBC star anchor Tom Brokaw.

Several minutes into the debate, Bachman announced that he had a question that came from "the good folks of Iowa," one that he had selected from a stack of questions submitted in advance by viewers. "What political philosopher e do you most identify with and why?" he asked veteran Republican presidential candidate Steve Forbes.

"John Locke," answered Forbes. It was a reasonable response given Locke's enormous influence on America's Founding Fathers.

The next response, which came from Alan Keyes, was reasonable, too. Keyes said the political philosophers he used the plural noun, rather than the singular he most identified with were "the founders of this country." Keyes urged his listeners to "get back to their thinking."

Then came Texas Gov. George W. Bush's turn. "Gov. Bush," said Bachman, "a philosopher-thinker, and why."

Without hesitation, Bush responded, "Christ, because he changed my heart."

A moment of almost shocked silence followed. Arizona Sen. John McCain declared Theodore Roosevelt his favorite political philosopher, and Gary Bauer and Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch dittoed Bush's choice of Jesus. But to little avail. What stuck in the public's mind was Bush's declaration one that brought the Texas governor's Christian faith into full view.

When Bachman asked Bush to elaborate, saying, "I think the viewers would like to know more on how he's changed your heart," Bush at first responded with "Well, if you don't know, it's going to be hard to explain." Later, in his follow-up, the Texan gave a more complete answer: "When you turn your heart and your life over to Christ, when you accept Christ as the Savior, it changes your heart. It changes your life. And that's what happened to me."

It is what happened to Bush the change in his heart and life that came when he accepted Christ as his savior that forms the central theme of Aikman's book. It's not a terribly dramatic story, but one of grace that produced steady change and development. Aikman, a former senior correspondent for Time magazine and himself a devout Christian, is sympathetic to Bush's faith, a fact that enriches the book.

Where a skeptic might scoff, Aikman's own faith allows him to understand Bush's struggle with belief and to regard that struggle with the same seriousness that Bush himself does, as the most significant fact of his (or any) life and one that permeates and transforms all of the other significant factors of existence, from family life and responsibility toward others to attitudes toward citizenship. In Aikman's telling of it, Bush's faith was not formed by a single overwhelming encounter with God but was made out of a variety of sources: his family background, first of all, and then out of enduring encounters with several devout Christians (and men and women of other faiths), including his wife, Laura, the Rev. Billy Graham and a number of other people of faith Bush befriended through the years.

Aikman's book is not the first on the president's Christian faith. Last year another Christian writer, Stephen Mansfield, published The Faith of George W. Bush. Mansfield described to a surprised world how Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair (who had become a Christian while a student at Oxford University) prayed together privately at Camp David.

Mansfield also told the marvelous story of how Bush's aides took it upon themselves to provide their boss with worship services aboard Air Force One one Sunday morning when it looked like the president wasn't going to make it to the regular services he hates to miss. National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, a devout Presbyterian, led the services. Karen Hughes, the former White House communications director who later left Washington to return home to Texas, read the lesson for the day. Forty staff members crowded into the airplane's conference room to join in prayers.

Mansfield's book alerted readers to the big role religion plays in Bush's life. Aikman's book now helps us understand how Bush got where he is and how the evolution of his faith is an ongoing thing that deepens as time goes by, in large part because Bush himself wants it that way.

Bush's daily devotional activities, Aikman notes, include reading from The One Year Bible, a book that divides the Bible into 365 sections so a reader goes through the Old and New Testaments in one year's time. He also makes regular use of such devotional books as Oswald Chambers' My Utmost for His Highest and those of the Southern Baptist teacher Charles Stanley and of Charles Spurgeon, an English Baptist evangelist who preached among London's working-class men and women during the second half of the 19th century.