I had some really good conversations with friends last night. Inevitably President Bush made his way into our discourse and specifically Bush's use of the terms "absolute truth" & "faith" in his speeches. Brett referred to an article/book that was recently published by the Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright. She challenges the President's usage of such terms and voices concerns as to the visibility of his faith in general during his time in the office.
A staff member sent me an article today in regards to this issue. An article from the conservative right side of the issue.
I suggest reading the article before continuing.
It's pretty interesting. The idea of compartmentalizing our faith is ridiculous of course. If one holds to a Faith you would expect that to influence a person thoroughly. Influence every action and position. Politically, socially, economically, privately, publicly etc. etc. If this wasn't the case then I would seriously question whether the individual believes what he says he does. Whether you're talking to a Christian a Muslim or a Nazi. I would expect these individuals to be influenced thoroughly and inseparably by what they believed if they truly believed them.
I don't believe however that President Bush's call to war comes anywhere close to resembling "absolute truth" however. Just because someone tells you they were called to do something doesn't mean they were. Or that we should blindly except what ever that calling was as being true.
I also have a problem believing that God is universally on America's side. The whole idea is skewed. We're supposed to be on God's side...not the other way around.
Wether Albright would agree or not, I believe that Bush's faith should be visible in the actions he takes in leading this country. But I don't believe that the President should be able to use ideas like absolute truth to back up his actions without them being challenged by the church and/or anyone else.
Truth isn't a club you beat someone over the head with. It's not a manipulative tactic to be used to enforce a view or stance. Truth does not legislate well. I'm concerned that our use of truth has led to a certain arrogance in the church. A "we're right and you're wrong so deal with it" or "come over to our side" types of things. Truth isn't a weapon of mass intellectual dominance. It's a reflection of who God is and what he's told us in the past and continues to do so today.
When we divorce truth from love we will surely fail to fulfill Jesus' charge to "speak the truth in love." Further more if we wind up divorcing truth from Truth...that is to say separating the words spoken by God from the very nature and quality of God then we have clearly missed everything.
1 comment:
i think this post has about five posts worth of substance.
one thought i have on all of this is the risk of being thoughtless. we must live thoughtfully. we have to be thoughtful followers (of a president, pastor- male or female ;) ...etc) we can't risk being mindless, it's too dangerous.
i also don't think that pres. bush needs to compartmentalize his faith, but i wonder if people (specifically the evangelistic conservative-right) are expecting him to use his position for their religious purposes, maybe trying to use him to fulfill duties that the church might be lacking in? i don't know..just a thought
God always defends and takes on the cause of the weak, the Bible usually says something like, 'the poor, the widow, the orphan, the defensless, those who have been treated unjustly'. It seems to me that america is NOT any of these, that could change our idea of whose side God is on...
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