Interesting.When a Houston reporter asked Bush about the difference between the Episcopal Church he was raised in and the Methodist one he began attending after he was married, he replied, "I'm sure there is some kind of heavy doctrinal difference, which I'm not sophisticated enough to explain to you." His religion has often been best described as evangelical, but in various respects it appears not to conform to the definition. Unlike most other evangelicals, Bush blithely uses profanity and as governor would play poker. He doesn't tithe. He didn't try to convert others—one of the central obligations in most evangelical denominations—even before he resumed a political career. He didn't raise his daughters in his faith. On issues that divide evangelical Christians from nonevangelical Christians—and varieties of evangelicals from each other—Bush does not need to feign ecumenical neutrality. He isn't hiding his beliefs; he simply doesn't have many of them.
A better term for Bush's faith is Self-Help Methodism.
"In the post-meditative experience become a child of illusion" is a slogan from the Tibetan mind training tradition. We engage the world as we experience it all the while realizing that reality is not as it seems to be.
Friday, March 14, 2008
Bush and fairth
It was on Episcopal Café that I found a link to the Slate article "What Bush Believes" by Jacob Weisberg. Here's an excerpt:
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