Bush Links Faith and Agenda In Speech to Broadcast Group

By: Dana Milbank

President Bush has addressed countless audiences as Commander-in-Chief. Today, he was introduced as "our friend and brother in Christ".

Appearing at the National Religious Broadcasters convention, before a backdrop that read "Advancing Christian Communications", the President was hailed as a man who "unapologetically proclaims his faith in the Lord Jesus Christ". Bush, in a strikingly religious address even for a President long comfortable with such speech, cast the full range of his agenda - foreign, domestic, and economic - in spiritual terms.

"I welcome faith", Bush said after he was greeted with rock star adulation. "I welcome faith to help solve the nation's deepest problems." Attendees called out "amen" as Bush spoke, and some waved rhythmically as they did during the hymns that preceded his speech.

About the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, Bush said: "We're being challenged. We're meeting those challenges because of our faith... We carried our grief to the Lord Almighty in prayer." Bush assigned religion a role in the economy ("There are some needs that prosperity can never meet"), in a possible attack on Iraq ("Liberty is God's gift to every human being in the world"), and in coping with the Columbia space shuttle accident ("Faith assures us that death and suffering are not the final word").

Statements of faith are standard for Presidents, and Bush, who found religion in the 1980's after a struggle with excessive drinking, thanked Jesus during the presidential primaries for changing his life. Still, the nation's modern secular leaders have generally been understated in their public expressions of faith, a tone set by Jimmy Carter, a born-again Christian. And Bush, through much of his presidency, has spoken of his faith subtly.

But with war in Iraq looming, and much of the world opposed to his position, the President in recent weeks has adopted a strongly devotional tone. In a series of speeches - a pair of remembrances for the Columbia victims, last week's National Prayer Breakfast, and today's address to the religious broadcasters - Bush has far more openly embraced Christian theology. Today's speech brought the most thorough linkage yet between Bush's worldly policies and Christian faith - including a pronouncement that an American attack on Iraq would be "in the highest moral traditions of our country".

On poverty programs, Bush observed that "Welfare policy will not solve the deepest problems of the spirit... You don't fix the crack on the wall until you fix the foundation." On justice programs, he said: "Building more prisons will not substitute for responsibility and order in our souls... That happens when someone puts an arm around a neighbor and says: 'God loves you, I love you, and you can count on us both.'" Turning to matters overseas, the President said: "[America's enemies] hate the thought [that]... we can worship the Almighty God the way we see fit."

Bush advocated vouchers for drug addicts, "especially" for programs of a spiritual nature. He said religious charities should not "compromise their prophetic role". He addressed the faith of the religious broadcasters in the hall. "I am honored to be with so many of you all who have dedicated your lives to sharing the Good News", he said.

The gratitude was mutual. "We pray for you - in fact, we pray for you daily", Glenn Plummer, the broadcasters' chairman, said in his introduction. "The United States of America has been blessed by God Himself to have George W. Bush as President."

In 1995, the group announced that President Bill Clinton was not invited to its meetings because of his views on abortion and homosexuality. By contrast, many attendees today said Bush was divinely chosen to lead the country during its trials. "At certain times and at certain hours in our country, God has had a certain man to hear his testimony", said Steve Clark, of Faith Baptist Tabernacle in Jamestown, TN.

Bush noted that the Christian pianist who performed for the broadcasters, Michael W. Smith, had played at the White House days earlier. During the program, which began with a Bush speech blending into Christian hymns, Karl Rove, Bush's top political aide, worked the crowd.

In recent speeches, Bush has read passages from Isaiah and from the hymn "How Great Thou Art". At last week's prayer breakfast, he said that when he is told by citizens that they are praying for him, he tells them "It is the greatest gift you can give anybody, is to pray on their behalf." Today, Bush thanked his listeners for their prayers, suggesting he would need them in the days ahead. "Let us pray for strength equal to our tasks", he said.

J. Mark Horst, who has a radio ministry in Breezewood, PA, said faith is what makes Bush propose seemingly unreachable goals and defy odds to reach them. "As Christians, we're commanded to be of strong courage", Horst said. "He's taking what he reads in the Word and saying: 'This is what I believe, and I'm going to go for it.'"