Just how sincere and strong is Bush's Christian faith? Part 2: Ayelish McGarvey makes a strong case that it is weak--and I am adding to the case.

On October 19, 2004, the online version of The American Prospect published an article by Ayelish McGarvey entitled "As God Is His Witness." That title seems rather innocuous, but the line under the title really tells what the article is all about: "Bush is no devout evangelical. In fact, he may not be a Christian at all." So much for subtlety.

Who is Ayelish McGarvey?

The American Prospect is what the wingers would call part of the vast liberal media that control the world. So this Ayelish McGarvey must be some sort of heathen, dope-smoking commie, right? Not so much.

Here is how McGarvey describes herself in a response to an online criticism of her article:

I am a Bible-believing evangelical from small town Illinois, and the daughter of a conservative pastor. Right now, I attend the same church as Michael Cromartie and Michael Gerson, though at other times I have shared a pew with John Ashcroft, among others. Sadly, I often find it necessary to flash my Christian creds; most conservative readers can’t fathom that I know the first thing about Scripture, Red America, etc.

Thus, it would seem that McGarvey has what we call in the lawyer bidness personal knowledge about evangelicals.

Overview of McGarvey's article

In the opening section of the article, McGarvey comes out strong:

Like no president in recent memory, George W. Bush wields his Christian righteousness like a flaming sword. Indeed, hundreds of news stories and nearly half a dozen books have evinced a White House that, according to BBC Washington correspondent Justin Webb, “hums to the sound of prayer.” Yet for the past four years the mainstream press has trod lightly, rarely venturing beyond the biographical to probe the depth, or sincerity, of Bush's Christian beliefs.

*******

[W]hen judged by his deeds, an entirely different picture emerges: Bush does not demonstrate a life of faith by his actions, and neither Methodists, evangelicals, nor fundamentalists can rightly call him brother. In fact, the available evidence raises serious questions about whether Bush is really a Christian at all.

Ironically for a man who once famously named Jesus as his favorite political philosopher during a campaign debate, it is remarkably difficult to pinpoint a single instance wherein Christian teaching has won out over partisan politics in the Bush White House. Though Bush easily weaves Christian language and themes into his political communication, empty religious jargon is no substitute for a bedrock faith. Even little children in Sunday school know that Jesus taught his disciples to live according to his commandments, not simply to talk about them a lot. In Bush’s case, faith without works is not just dead faith -- it’s evangelical agitprop.

*******

For George W. Bush does not live or govern under the complete authority of the Bible -- just the parts that work to his political advantage. And evangelical leaders like Land who blindly bless the Bush White House don’t just muddy the division of church and state; worse, they completely violate Scripture.

(emphasis added). It should come as no surprise that I agree with all of the above. And, as shown by Part 1 (Bush and the Bishops), I have already provided evidence that Bush is not a good Methodist. The rest of the article provides details for her claims, and I urge everyone to read it in its entirety. Another reason to read the entire article is to put all of it in context. I am highlighting the portions I want to discuss, and in so doing, I might use those portions to convey meanings not intended by McGarvey. With that in mind, let's look at some of those details...

Is Bush "born again" or an evangelical?

Based on my personal experiences and beliefs, I do not consider myself to be either born again or an evangelical, but that discussion is beyond the scope of this post. I will say that I do not deny that people have "born again" experiences, nor do I reject what I understand to be evangelical practices. Despite the conviction I have for my beliefs, I try to live by this rule: As long as someone follows Jesus's instructions to "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and soul and strength and love your neighbor as yourself," I don't care what that person believes or practices. In other words, what might work for one person to achieve that goal might not work for another. The born again/evangelical route does not work for me, but I cannot say the same for others. In part what I am trying to say here is that I am not an expert on evangelicals, so I am relying on McGarvey's analysis here.

So what is McGarvey's answer to the question?

Once and for all: George W. Bush is neither born again nor evangelical. As Alan Cooperman reported in The Washington Post last month, the president has been careful never to use either term to describe his faith. Unlike millions of evangelicals, Bush did not have a single born-again experience; instead, he slowly came to Christianity over the course of several years, beginning with a deep conversation with the Reverend Billy Graham in the mid-1980s. And there is virtually no evidence that Bush places any emphasis on evangelizing -- or spreading the gospel -- in either his personal or professional life. Contrast this to Carter, who notoriously told every foreign dignitary he encountered about the good news of Jesus Christ.

Please remember that the question in this section is whether Bush is born again or an evangelical, not whether he is Christian. McGarvey also explains why she believes that Bush's refusal to admit mistakes also shows he is not a born again Christian:

Judging him on his record, George W. Bush’s spiritual transformation seems to have consisted of little more than staying on the wagon, with Jesus as a sort of talismanic Alcoholics Anonymous counselor. Bush came to his faith through a small group program created by Community Bible Study, which de-emphasizes sin and resembles a sort of Jesus-centered therapy session.

But sin is crucial to Christianity. To be born again, a seeker must painfully acknowledge his or her innate sinfulness, and then turn away from it completely. And though today Bush is sober, he does not live and govern like a man who “walks” with God, using the Bible as a moral compass for his decision making. Twice in the past year -- once during an April press conference and most recently at a presidential debate -- the president was unable to name any mistake he has made during his term. His steadfast unwillingness to fess up to a single error betrays a strikingly un-Christian lack of attention to the importance of self-criticism, the pervasiveness of sin, and the centrality of humility, repentance, and redemption. Indeed, it is impossible to imagine George W. Bush delivering an address like Jimmy Carter’s legendary “malaise” speech (in which he did not actually say the word “malaise”) in 1979. Carter sermonized to a dispirited nation in the language of confession, sacrifice, and spiritual restoration. Though it didn’t do him a lick of good politically, it was consonant with a Christian theology of atonement: Carter admitted his mistakes to make right with God and the American people, politics be damned. Bush, for whom politics is everything, can’t even admit that he’s done anything wrong.

(emphasis added). Remember the comments about Carter. They will be relevant to a discussion of something Ted Haggard told McGarvey.

Faith language is good politics; acting in accordance with that language is not.

• The purpose and use of language
  

In her online response in which she gives her religious credentials, McGarvey says that Bush "prizes politics over piety." One example she cites is Bush's use of language that is specifically designed to appeal to evangelicals, and she quotes from a GQ article by Guy Lawson. Here is how Lawson describes Bush's skill:

The genius of George W. Bush for dealing with the conservative clergy first became apparent in 1987, when he moved to Washington to help with his father's run for the White House. Bush became the point man on wooing the evangelical vote. Doug Wead, a political adviser to the elder President Bush at the time, had been writing a series of memorandums on the best ways to communicate with evangelical Christians. Wead told me that the younger Bush understood the ways of evangelicals intuitively, viscerally, and that he was able to reassure them directly about his father's beliefs.

*******

Wead, who now works as a motivational speaker, came to know the younger Bush well in the years Bush was first learning the code for communicating with evangelicals. "George would read my memos, and he would be licking his lips saying, 'I can use this to win in Texas,' " Wead told me. "Signal early and signal often" was Wead's motto.

(emphasis added). The way I read the Gospels, Jesus was not in favor of proclaiming piety in order to win political power. McGarvey illustrated this point with a passage from Luke 18:9-14.

But in the Bible, Jesus Christ disdained insincere religious posturing. In the famed parable of the tax collector and the Pharisee, the penitent taxman prayed in a far corner of the temple and wept, hiding his face from God in shame. The Pharisee stood up, front and center, and exalted himself, thanking God that he was better than other men. Christ was unequivocal: “I tell you that [the tax collector], rather than the other, went home justified before God. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.”

Personally, I think Jesus put the matter more succinctly in Matthew 6:1: "Beware of practicing your piety before others in order to be seen by them; for then you have no reward from your Father in heaven."

But has Bush lived up to his words? Has he chosen politics over piety?

• McGarvey's example of polictics over piety
  

The example McGarvey uses is stem-cell research.

On the campaign trail, Bush himself bandied about Catholic “culture of life” lingo while siding with religious conservatives who unequivocally opposed embryonic stem-cell research. "During the campaign, President-elect Bush ... said that as president he would oppose federally funded research or experimentation on embryonic stem cells that require live human embryos to be discarded or destroyed," spokesman Ari Fleischer told reporters in early 2001. The message was clear: Opposing embryonic stem-cell research was a matter of conscience for the new president.

But as Bush’s political viability waned, so, too, did his Christian conviction. By August of 2001, he had finally located the political sweet spot: The president ultimately approved federal financing for research on 60 stem-cell lines that had already been harvested, but prohibited the creation of any new ones. The resulting policy is neither scientifically nor religiously defensible. If the destruction of embryos is the moral equivalent of murder, it should be banned; if it is not, there is no reason to restrict federal funding to already extant stem-cell lines. The decisive ethical issue here concerns the status of the embryo and the legitimacy of its destruction. Bush's position amounts to saying that murder is OK as long as it isn't done with federal funds. But while there may be little that can be said in favor of Bush's position from a moral or research point of view, it's the perfect answer to the president's political program. His base gets messages like “[embryonic stem-cell research] leads down a slippery slope [toward] designer clones,” while a general audience recently received a communiqué from the Bush campaign bragging that he "delivered the first funding ever for embryonic stem-cell research."

Recent events have provided an even more telling example.

• The faith-based initiative
  

On February 15, 2005, Belief.net published a column by David Kuo, who was deputy director of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives for much of Bush's first term. The title of the column and its summary line read as follows:

Please, Keep Faith
Former Bush Aide: 'Minimal commitment' from the White House plus Democratic hostility hinder the faith-based plan

Kuo's column begins by describing Bush's bold faith-based initiative:

Four years ago, while visiting a small urban charity, President Bush launched the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives. He called it "one of the most important initiatives" of his administration.

It was hard evidence of the "compassionate conservatism" that Texas Governor George Bush embraced in his first major policy speech of the Presidential campaign, "It is not enough for conservatives like me to praise [compassionate] efforts. It is not enough to call for volunteerism. Without more support and resources, both private and public, we are asking them to make bricks without straw." That day a conservative Texas governor promised more than $8 billion during his first year in office to help social service organizations better serve "the least, the last, and the lost." More than $6 billion was to go for new tax incentives that would generate billions more in private charitable giving. Another $1.7 billion a year would fund faith-based (and non-faith-based) groups caring for drug addicts, at-risk youth, and teen moms. $200 million more would establish a "Compassion Capital Fund" to assist, expand and replicate successful local programs. Legislation would ensure that reported government discrimination against faith-based social service organizations would end. A new White House Faith-Based Office would lead the charge.

It was more than a bunch of promises. It was a new political philosophy of aggressive, government-encouraged (but not controlled) compassion that simultaneously rejected the dollars-equal-compassion equation of the "War on Poverty" mindset and the laissez-faire social policy of many conservatives. It was political philosophy of the heart as much as the head.

This was a dream come true for me. Yes, I actually dream of social policy. But since the early-1990s I've been what columnist E.J. Dionne termed a "com-con" or "compassionate conservative." I worked for William Bennett and John Ashcroft in the mid-1990s on issues like immigration, welfare, and education as they tried to promote a more compassionate Republican approach. While pure com-cons were never terribly powerful in Republican circles, Bush's endorsement of this progressive conservatism was exciting. And when he became the president, there was every reason to believe he'd be not only pro-life and pro-family, as conservatives tended to be, but also pro-poor, which was daringly radical. After all, there were specific promises he intended to keep.

I did not vote for Bush in 2000 as I never would have voted for him for President. However, I did vote for him when he ran for re-election as Texas Governor. The reasons for my vote largely relate to the role and function of the Governor in the Texas system (the Lt. Governor, Speaker of the House, and others actually have much more power, and there is a huge difference between being Texas Governor and President), but even I had to admit that ol' George had done a pretty good job as Governor. He really made an effort to be bi-partisan and get the two parties to work together. I remember thinking that I could live with his winning in 2000 if he would just behave the way he did in his first term as Governor. I took a similar approach to his plans for a faith-based initiative. I had concerns about it from a separation of church and state perspective, but in some ways the initiative made sense. Well, to say that George did not behave as he did as Governor is a gross understatement. So, what Kuo goes on to say does not surprise me in the least.

Sadly, four years later these promises remain unfulfilled in spirit and in fact. In June 2001, the promised tax incentives for charitable giving were stripped at the last minute from the $1.6 trillion tax cut legislation to make room for the estate-tax repeal that overwhelmingly benefited the wealthy. The Compassion Capital Fund has received a cumulative total of $100 million during the past four years. And new programs including those for children of prisoners, at-risk youth, and prisoners reentering society have received a little more than $500 million over four years--or approximately $6.3 billion less than the promised $6.8 billion.

Unfortunately, sometimes even the grandly-announced "new" programs aren't what they appear. Nowhere is this clearer than in the recently-announced "gang prevention initiative" totaling $50 million a year for three years. The obvious inference is that the money is new spending on an important initiative. Not quite. The money is being taken out of the already meager $100 million request for the Compassion Capital Fund. If granted, it would actually mean a $5 million reduction in the Fund from last year.

This isn't what was promised.

(emphasis added). Lest you wingers think Kuo is just engaging in Bush-bashing, think again, for he next writes "I have deep respect, appreciation, and affection for the president. No one who knows him even a tiny bit doubts the sincerity and compassion of his heart." He then describes some of the accomplishments of the Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, but adds

But they are a whisper of what was promised. Irony of ironies, it leaves the faith-based initiative specifically, and compassionate conservativism in general, at precisely the place Gov. Bush pledged it would not go; it has done the work of praising and informing but it has not been given "the resources to change lives." In short, like the hurting charities it is trying to help, the Initiative has been forced to "make bricks without straw."

(emphasis added). You mean George said one thing and did another? I am oh so shocked! Shocked, I say!

Kuo then gives three reasons for the shortcomings in the program. The first is "Republican indifference couldn't overcome knee-jerk Democratic opposition." The third is "Liberal antipathy magnified the Initiative's accomplishments," in which Kuo states that "Secular liberal advocacy and interest groups attacked every little thing the faith initiative did."

However, the second reason is the most relevant for this post. Here is Kuo's analysis in its entirety:

2) There was minimal senior White House commitment to the faith-based agenda.

Capitol Hill gridlock could have been smashed by minimal West Wing effort. No administration since LBJ's has had a more successful legislative track record than this one. From tax cuts to Medicare, the White House gets what the White House really wants. It never really wanted the "poor people stuff."

Not only were the tax items dropped from the 2001 tax relief bill, they were also ignored on numerous occasions when they could have been implemented. In December 2001, for instance, Sen. Daschle approached the Domestic Policy Council with an offer to pass a charity relief bill that contained many of the president's campaign tax incentive policies plus new money for the widely-popular and faith-based-friendly Social Services Block Grant. The White House legislative affairs office rolled their eyes while others on senior staff yawned. We had to leave the offer on the table.

They could afford to. Who was going to hold them accountable? Drug addicts, alcoholics, poor moms, struggling urban social service organizations, and pastors aren't quite the NRA. Charities haven't quite figured out the lobbying thing yet. More significantly, over time it became clearer that the White House didn't have to expend any political capital for pro-poor legislation. The initiative powerfully appealed to both conservative Christians and urban faith leaders - regardless of how much money was being appropriated.

Conservative Christian donors, faith leaders, and opinion makers grew to see the initiative as an embodiment of the president's own faith. Democratic opposition was understood as an attack on his personal faith. And since this community's most powerful leaders - men like James Dobson of Focus on the Family - weren't anti-poverty leaders, they didn't care about money. The Faith-Based Office was the cross around the White Houses' neck showing the president's own faith orientation. That was sufficient.

At the same time, the White House discovered urban faith leaders had been so neglected for so long that simple attention drew them in. Between 2002 and 2004 more than 15,000 white, Hispanic, and African-American religious and social service leaders attended free White House conferences on how to interact with the federal government. The meetings, held regularly in battleground states, were chock-full of vital information and gave thousands of groups invaluable information about government grants. They were hardly pep rallies for the President. But the conferences sent a resounding political message to all faith-oriented constituencies: President Bush cares about you.

Some liberal leaders have been quoted as saying the administration was looking to "buy minority votes." Nothing could be further from the truth. There wasn't enough money around to buy anyone. The conferences actually underscored how difficult it was to even get a grant. But by traveling across the country, giving useful information, and extending faith-based groups an open hand, powerful inroads were made to "non-traditional" supporters. One senior Republican leader walked into an early conference, stared wide-eyed at the room full of people of diverse ethnicities and said to me, "This is what Republicans have been dreaming about for 30 years." This is more damning of Democrats than anyone else. Where, exactly, has their faith outreach been for the last decade?

Kuo's question is a fair one, but he largely answers it himself. Apparently the answer is "the same place Bush's has been." While Kuo does not solely blame the White House, he does say "Capitol Hill gridlock could have been smashed by minimal West Wing effort"--and yet Bush did not even make that minimal effort.

Some of Kuo's assessment had been stated earlier by another former member of the Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives. As the Washington Post noted,

In August 2001, John J. DiIulio Jr., then-director of the faith-based office, became the first top Bush adviser to quit, after seven months on the job. In an interview with Esquire magazine a year later, DiIulio said the Bush White House was obsessed with the politics of the faith-based initiative but dismissive of the policy itself, and he slammed White House advisers as "Mayberry Machiavellis."

(emphasis added). And what was the White House response to Kuo? From the same Washington Post article:

White House spokesman Trent Duffy said yesterday that Kuo is wrong about the president's commitment.

"The faith-based and community initiative has been a top priority for President Bush since the beginning of his first term and continues to be a top priority," Duffy said. "The president has mentioned the initiative in every State of the Union and fought for full funding."

(emphasis added). Wow! Bush talked about the initiative in two whole speeches! That proves Kuo is wrong! Seriously, Trent, thanks for proving McGarvey right. See, her point is that Bush uses all this talk that sounds really great, but that in reality, his actions show it is nothing more than talk.

If you want to see what Scotty McClellan had to say about this, Belief.net has his comments here. In true Scotty style, he said the same thing Duffy said, only Scotty used about 10 times more sentences and threw in great catch phrases like "armies of compassion."

• Additional relevant scripture

Chapter 23 of Matthew has some particularly poignant passages. Here is Matthew 23:2-4 (from the New Rived Standard Version):

Then Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples, "The scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses' seat; therefore, do whatever they teach you and follow it; but do not do as they do, for they do not practice what they teach. They tie up heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on the shoulders of others; but they themselves are unwilling to lift a finger to move them.”

(emphasis added). There is another translation that really puts this into context for today. Andy Gaus translated first the Gospels and then the entire New Testament straight from the original Greek (read the editorial review for The Unvarnished Gospels on Amazon and this reprint of the back cover of The Unvarnished New Testament for more info). Here is Gaus's translation of Matthew 23:1-4:

Then Jesus talked to the crowds and his students, saying, “Where Moses sat, the Pharisees and the canon-lawyers now sit. So do and keep what they say to you, but don’t go by what they do, because they say things and then don’t do them. They shackle us with unbearably heavy taxes and lay that on people’s shoulders, but they let no taxes come within arm’s length of them.”

(emphasis added). Can anyone say "Tax cuts for the wealthy?"

I also like Gaus's translation of Matthew 23:28: "You likewise from the outside appear to the world to be righteous, but inside you're full of hypocrisy and ways around the law."

The Ninth Commandment

Oh, this one is good. I cannot improve on McGarvey's prose on this point, and I do not want to edit it in any way. So here is the closing section of her article:

In Exodus, the Ninth Commandment admonishes, “Thou shalt not bear false testimony against thy neighbor.” God wasn’t joking around there. But time and again, Bush and Rove have relied on repugnant lies to discredit their opponents. In the final days of the Texas governor’s race in 1994, barroom rumors swirled that Governor Ann Richards was a lesbian, and that she had appointed “avowed homosexuals” to her administration. Those rumors were lies, but Bush won the race.

In 2000, Bush squared off against John McCain in the hotly contested Republican presidential primary in South Carolina. Rather than go one on one with the war hero and popular pol, Bush let shady henchmen do his dirty work for him. In the final days before the showdown, Bush supporters waged whisper campaigns and distributed parking-lot handouts spreading the vilest of lies: that McCain was mentally unfit to serve after his long captivity in Vietnam; that his wife was a drug addict; that the senator had fathered a black daughter with a prostitute.

Bush won that race, too.

Little has changed this time around. When the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth emerged this summer to attack John Kerry’s admirable military service in Vietnam, veteran observers of past Bush campaigns immediately recognized Karl Rove’s handiwork. And with less than a month to go until November, the conservative Sinclair Broadcast Group abruptly preempted regularly scheduled television programming to air a propaganda film that denigrates Kerry’s war record. The media markets affected by this decision just happen to be in swing states.

Just how low will George W. Bush stoop for a victory?

For most candidates running for office, foul play is par for the course. But Bush is not like most other candidates. If he is a Christian, he is called to be the salt of the earth, the light of the world, a beacon of goodness and righteousness in a society havocked by moral depravity. In late May, Bush said as much to a group of Christian media players during a rare unscripted interview.

“I think a person's faith helps keep perspective in the midst of noise, pressure, sound -- all the stuff that goes on in Washington … ,” he explained. “It is one of the prayers I ask is that God's light shines through me as best as possible, no matter how opaque the window ….

“I'm in a world of … fakery and obfuscation, political back shots, and so I'm very mindful about the proper use of faith in this process. And you can't fake your faith, nor can you use your faith as a shallow attempt to garner votes, otherwise you will receive the ultimate condemnation.” (emphasis added)

You can't, that is, if "ultimate condemnation" is your real concern. For the purposes of winning elections, it seems to do just fine.

The closing section of this post: Ted Haggard needs to talk to Bush.

I asked the reader to remember McGarvey's comments about Jimmy Carter because they are relevant to something Ted Haggard told her (info on Haggard in Part 2 of As the W Turns). This is truly astounding stuff. In one sense it does not say anything directly about Bush. On the other hand, given that Haggard is one of the leaders of the group that gave Bush 27% of his votes (and, as I sumitted in Part 2 of As the W Turns, basically won the election for Bush), it does reflect on Bush. In McGarvey's words, here is the description of her exchange with Haggard:

For Bible-believing Christians, nothing in the entire world is more important than “walking” with Jesus; that is, engaging in a personal relationship with their savior and living according to his word. With this in mind, I recently asked Haggard, himself the pastor of a large church in Colorado, why the president, as a man of supposedly strong faith, did not publicly apologize for continually misleading Americans in the run-up to the Iraq War. Instead, Bush clung zealously to misinformation and half-truths. I asked Haggard why, as a man of Christian principle, Bush did not fully disavow Karl Rove’s despicable smear tactics and apologize for the ugly lies the Bush campaign spread over the years about Ann Richards, John McCain, and John Kerry, among others. After all, isn’t getting right with God -- whatever the political price --the most important thing for the sort of Christian Bush has proclaimed himself to be?

Haggard laughed as though my questions were the most naive he’d ever heard. “I think if you asked the president these questions once he’s out of office,” Haggard said, “he’d say, ‘You’re right. We shouldn’t have done it.’ But right now if he said something like that, well, the world would spin out of control!

“That’s why when Jimmy Carter ran, he [turned out to be] such a terrible president. Because when he [governed], he really tried to maintain [his integrity] and those types of values -- and that is virtually impossible.”

The pastor returned to my charges of Bush’s deceitfulness. “Listen,” he said testily, “I think [we Christian believers] are responsible not to lie [sic], but I don’t think we’re responsible to say everything we know.”

Un-freaking-believable. On his website, Haggard has his own personal Statement of Faith. Right at the very top is his view of the Bible:

The Holy Bible, and only the Bible, is the authoritative Word of God. It alone is the final authority for determining all doctrinal truths. In its original writing, the Bible is inspired, infallible and inerrant.

Well, Ted, then you might want to rethink your position expressed to McGarvey, for Jesus said in Matthew 5:17-19 (NRSV),

Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets; I have come not to abolish but to fulfill. For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth pass away, not one letter, not one stroke of a letter, will pass from the law until all is accomplished. Therefore, whoever breaks one of the least of these commandments, and teaches others to do the same, will be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven.

(emphasis added). Moreover, following Jesus's teachings is not a conditional or partial thing. As He said in Matthew 22:37-40 (NRSV),

“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”

(emphasis added). Jesus did not say doing something halfway is O.K. All "the law" (and that includes the Ninth Commandment) and all of Jesus's teachings are based on these two commandments, and they require 100% and nothing less. Dishonesty is dishonesty. False witness is false witness. As McGarvey said in her online response, "This isn’t exactly a nuanced point—it’s the Ten Commandments, for Pete’s sake."

Also, note that transgressions require repentance. As Jesus said in Luke 5:22, “I have come to call not the righteous but sinners to repentance.” And Mark 6:12 tells us that upon being told by Jesus to go out among the people, the Disciples "went out and proclaimed that all should repent."

And another thing, Ted. The fact that Bush is the President does not means he gets any kind of free pass. Luke 13:1-5 says that

At that very time there were some present who told him about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. He asked them, “Do you think that because these Galileans suffered in this way they were worse sinners than all other Galileans? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all perish as they did. Or those eighteen who were killed when the tower of Siloam fell on them. Do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others living in Jerusalem? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all perish as they did.”

In other words, it does not matter what you did or who you are, sinners must repent. Further Biblical evidence for this is found in general in Acts 10:34, where Peter says “I truly understand that God shows no partiality[.]” Paul is just as succinct in Romans 2:11: "For God shows no partiality." Paul gets more specific in Galatians 2:1-10. Paul describes returning to Jerusalem and obtaining the agreement of religious leaders that he should take the Gospel to Gentiles. In verse 6, Paul writes “And from those who were supposed to be acknowledged leaders (what they actually were makes no difference to me; God shows no partiality)...” (emphasis added). There you have it--God shows no partiality even to leaders, which includes Presidents of the United States. Unless otherwise noted, the scripture excerpts I quote come from the New Revised Standard Version (NRSV), to which some people have an aversion. So I decided to check other translations of Galatians 2:6:

New King James Version: But from those who seemed to be something whatever they were, it makes no difference to me; God shows personal favoritism to no man for those who seemed to be something added nothing to me.

New American Standard: But those who were of high reputation (what they were makes no difference to me; God shows no partiality)...

New Living Translation: And the leaders of the church who were there had nothing to add to what I was preaching. (By the way, their reputation as great leaders made no difference to me, for God has no favorites.)

And if there is still doubt, check out Ephesians 6:5-9. Paul discusses how slaves and masters should act, and verse 9 says “And masters, do the same to them (the slaves), for you know that both of you have the same Master in heaven, and with Him there is no partiality.” The New Living translation says “you both have the same Master in heaven, and he has no favorites.”

Bottom line: Holy Scripture says Bush is not relieved in any way of any commandment because he is a worldly leader.

And, by the way, Ted, the Bible says that you must confront Bush regarding his transgressions. Luke 17:3 says "Be on your guard! If another disciple sins, you must rebuke the offender, and if there is repentance, you must forgive." Saying that Bush does not have any responsibility to "maintain [his integrity] and those types of values" while in office misses the mark big time. In making such statements, you are giving special treatment to Bush, which violates James 2:9: "But if you show partiality, you commit sin and are convicted by the law as transgressors."

Moreover, Jesus never said anything about it being O.K. to wait to admit sin and repent. According to Haggard's Faith Statement, he believes in the Second Coming of Jesus, in which "Jesus Christ will physically and visibly return to earth for the second time to establish His kingdom. This will occur at a date undisclosed by the Scriptures." The date is not disclosed, but Jesus says repeatedly that no one knows when that day will come, so everyone should be ever awake, watchful, and ready, for those that are not will not enter the Kingdom (see, for example, Matthew 24:36-44). One cannot be ready if he waits to admit sin and repent at a later date.

In her online response, McGarvey had this reaction: "Haggard essentially told me that, while he’s president, GWB is exempt from telling the truth. (Or compromising his political success in order to do the right thing.) That rankles me. Evidently everyone else in Christendom is fine with it." Well, it rankles me, too. And, as shown above, anyone who claims to believe in the Bible should also be rankled.

And seriously, Rev. Haggard, your position on this matter violates the Scripture you claim is infallible and the only authoritative word of God. In so doing, you have chosen politics over piety. If you ever reevaluate your position, I would hope that you would discuss it with George W. Bush. Maybe then our Pesident's actions would match his words.