© 2001
by Liam Wescott
George Bush is not a Christian. He professes to be a believer, but his words and actions are not those of a true Christian. Let us examine his life, his record, and his words for any evidence of his purported belief in Jesus Christ. I believe that once you do, you will see that despite his professed belief in Jesus Christ, George W. Bush does not actually believe in or follow the teaching of Jesus. Once you come to that viewpoint you will also see why genuine Christians should have nothing whatsover to do with nor support him. He is a fraud, plain and simple and I believe the evidence shows that. I am not the only one who has spoken out about Mr. Bush’s alleged faith and how the manner in which he secured the presidency reflects upon that. See this editorial from a Mormon webmaster. Or this commentary from another writer.
I make no special claim to virtue or to godliness. I try to follow the example set by Jesus Christ as best I can. I am not perfect; not one of us is, but I believe in Jesus Christ and He is my Lord. I accept that George W. Bush is also a child of God. It is not my place or purpose here to judge him, but only to present the evidence I believe shows he is not who he claims to be. God will judge Bush’s life and my own. Only God can judge him and only he can repent for his misdeeds. He cannot, however, escape the consequences of the wrongful deeds he has done.
A central theme of those pious people among us who claim to be Christian is that they follow the Ten Commandments. This is a good thing. The Commandments basically tell us we should worship God, honor our parents, don’t lie, don’t steal, and don’t covet. If he really is a Christian, then George Bush would adhere to all of those commandments, right? Well, he seems to have violated at least one of them.
George Bush did not win the presidency. He stole it, a fact which will be borne out in due time. He stole it because the election in Florida was fixed for his benefit. He wanted the White House in the worst way and it looks like he got his wish. Stealing is specifically prohibited by one of the Commandments, yet this is exactly what George Bush’s campaign did in Florida.
The best evidence that Bush’s campaign stole the election in Florida is what happened on the night of November 7th. Shortly before 8pm EST, the networks projected Florida and its 25 electoral votes as going into Al Gore’s column. Those projections were based on comprehensive exit polls and extremely precise statistical models. In all the years that they have been doing this, the company that does these projections for the networks has only gotten it wrong a handful of times out of thousands of projections. The chances that they called Florida wrong are in the trillions-to-one. They got it right and it was only because of bullying and fraud that George Bush “won” the state of Florida.
During his campaign, he said repeatedly that he “trusts the people” and that he would be a “uniter, not a divider” but never explained exactly what these phrases meant. Since the election, he has demonstrated precious little trust towards the people of this country and in Florida. His operatives there repeatedly demanded that recount efforts stop and his surrogates came before the media to attack those who wanted to see the recount efforts go to completion, as the law requires.
In short, his campaign did everything it could to ensure that the true will of the people of Florida was never heard. This is not the action of a Christian. At a minimum, George Bush’s “win” in Florida is tainted by the disenfranchisement of thousands of people who mistakenly voted for Pat Buchanan and/or were unable to vote for Al Gore, their clear choice. At worst, as I and others believe, his campaign stole Florida. No genuine Christian would accept a “victory” colored by such dishonorable and tainted circumstances, yet George Bush struts around like he won by a landslide.
He has named people to cabinet positions who hold beliefs that are far outside the mainstream of American society, yet he seems little perturbed that these people might be divisive rather than unifying. In short, George Bush says one thing and believes something else. This is called hypocrisy and Jesus had no use for such people and rightly condemned them for their hypocrisy (Matt. 23: 1-36). In addition to that, his campaign had planned, prior to the election, to incite a popular uprising if he had won the popular vote but lost in the Electoral College, according to this New York Daily News article from November 1st.
George Bush claims that he is a “compassionate conservative” without giving much in the way of an explanation of what that means. Time and time again in the Bible, we see Jesus speaking to and ministering to the poor, the beggars, the dispossesed, the homeless. Quite clearly Our Lord cared about these people. He cared about them and ministered to them to set an example to us. We should care about those less fortunate than us. In Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus clearly states what fate shall befall those who do not help the poor (Matt. 25: 41-46).
Jesus has little good to say about the rich and the well-off. He lambastes them for their riches and finery while at the same time there are people in the gutters, dying of starvation and disease. I think Jesus has little use modern American culture with its emphasis in acquiring material wealth. Bush’s tax cut plan would benefit the very rich, yet as a Christian, he is called upon to show compassion to those in our society least able to provide for themselves. No true Christian would propose or support anything that benefits the rich at the expense of the rest of us. Yet this is exactly what George Bush is planning on doing.
We are told that the love of money is the root of all evil (1 Tim. 6:10). I believe that this passage refers not just to money, but to power. Money is equivalent to power. Those who have the gold make the rules, as the saying goes. But power is a dangerous thing, like a drug. In moderation and used wisely, it can be a force for good. Power for the sake of power is bad indeed. Yet this is what George Bush seems to want. He cares only about attaining power and exhibits dangerously little regard for using that power wisely. This is not a healthy attitude for a Christian to have. God wants us to be loving and compassionate and not to be seduced by power, yet this is exactly what seems to have happened to George Bush.
If George Bush is really a Christian, then he should believe in Jesus Christ to the absolute exclusion of all other false gods, prophets, and anything else that would stand between him and the Kingdom of God as revealed by His Son. The evidence suggests otherwise. He has a history of substance abuse and I strongly suspect that he is still abusing drugs and/or alcohol. His unwillingness to discuss that abuse frankly does not lend confidence that it has ceased. As Christians, we are told that our bodies are a temple of God and we are not to abuse them (1 Cor. 6:19). Drug and alcohol abuse is not in keeping with this restriction.
Bush claims to have sobered up and become responsible when he reached forty in 1986. However, in 1992 on a videotape made at a boisterous wedding reception, Bush can be seen drinking a dark liquid from a glass. See the clip for yourself. In that clip, he ridicules people who don’t drink and his behavior in the videotape suggests intoxication. Other people have noted that his appearance and demeanor during the campaign and since the election are not those of a man who has completely sobered up or committed to sobriety.
The single greatest virtue (outside of love) that Jesus taught us is that we should be humble in all things and demonstrate humility before God. Those who do so demonstrate an attitude that is much closer to genuine Christianity than the attitude displayed by many of the professed followers of Christ. Ever since the election and his assumption of the office, George W. Bush has displayed remarkably little of either humility or humbleness. He struts around like a swaggering bully, asserting that he has a "mandate" to whatever he wants just because he sits in the White House, the people be damned. Setting aside for the moment the many questions about his legitimacy, how does this attitude square with that of Christ? Tell me, would Jesus Christ act this way?
Finally, shortly after the Electoral College met, Governor Bush went on vacation in Florida. His daughter had to have an emergency appendectomy the day he left for vacation. Instead of rushing to his daughter’s side, he laughed it off and said she’d better be up and around by the next day to clean her room. This is an incredibly callous attitude for a father to take toward his daughter’s illness and recovery. This is not the attitude of a genuine Christian. Compare that to Al Gore’s reaction to when his son was hurt in a car accident; he put everything else on the back burner to be at his son’s side. So I ask you, does George W. Bush truly have “Family Values” or is he a hypocrite?
No, George Bush is not a Christian and those of you who are Christian and are supporters of his need to take a good hard look at who you are supporting and why. He did not win the presidency, he does not deserve to be president, and his life does not reflect the life and teachings of our Lord, Jesus Christ. He does not deserve our support, only our prayers.