Daily Ramblings:
God Knows ...03/09/2005 04:52:08 pm
Proving that there is room on the web for everybody is this website: Bush Revealed.com. Revealed, that is, as a member of a cult, a fan of "vile" rap music, a supporter of abortion, a cheerleader for the homosexual agenda, an underminer of marriage, and a worshipper of Allah. (Someone tell the New York Times! They may want to retroactively endorse Dubya for Prez in 2004.)
You may well assume that this is all either a joke or a disingenuous website set up by idle MoveOn.orgers, in an effort to sow confusion in the minds of their Red State enemies. Either one is possible, but based on what I've glanced through, I tend to think that these people are serious.
Anyway, I noticed several outraged stories referring to President Bush as having stated that he believes that Christians and Muslims (and Jews) worship the same God. He has stated this opinion of his more than once, while making statements related to the war on terrorism, and it has given various people pause, and perhaps with good reason. However, I remembered reading something that Richard John Neuhaus had written shortly after President Bush had first provoked ire with his "same God" statement (which in the first instance was actually in response to a direct question):
“Islam is a religion of peace,” President Bush has said on several occasions. One fervently wishes there were more evidence to support that assertion, but I understand that there are compelling reasons for Bush to avoid any suggestion that the war on terrorism is, at bottom, a religious war between Christianity and Islam. Then, at a news conference during the state visit to Britain, a reporter asked whether “Muslims worship the same Almighty.” Bush replied, “I do say that freedom is the Almighty’s gift to every person. I also condition it by saying freedom is not America’s gift to the world. It’s much greater than that, of course.” Then there was a definite pause, as though he knew he might get in trouble for saying, “And I believe we worship the same God.” That did ruffle some Christian feathers in this country. An official of the Southern Baptist Convention said Bush “is simply mistaken.” He added, “We should always remember that he is commander in chief, not theologian in chief. The Bible is clear on this: the one and true God is Jehovah, and his only begotten Son is Jesus Christ.” The president of the National Association of Evangelicals issued a statement: “The Christian God encourages freedom, love, forgiveness, prosperity, and health. The Muslim god appears to value the opposite. The personalities of each god are evident in the cultures, civilizations, and dispositions of the people that serve them. Muhammad’s central message was submission; Jesus’ central message was love. They seem to be very different personalities.” If I understand our separated brethren, we got a competition between gods going here, with our God (upper case) being much nicer than their god, as revealed, so to speak, in the superior niceness of those of us who serve Him. Of course this is theological nonsense. It would seem to suggest a kind of polytheism. Christians confess that there is one God—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Jews worship the one God whom Jesus called Father and taught us to worship, although Jews do not recognize that the God whom we both worship has revealed himself as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Muslims worship the same God (although calling him Allah, as do Arabic-speaking Jews and Christians), believing that His definitive revelation was given through Muhammad. So also St. Paul preaching in the Areopagus: “Men of Athens, I perceive that in every way you are very religious. For as I passed along, and observed the objects of your worship, I found also an altar with this inscription, ‘To an unknown god.’ What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you. The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth.” The dispute between Jews, Muslims, and Christians is not over whether they worship the same God, but over how the one God is rightly understood and worshiped. It is true that Bush is commander in chief, not theologian in chief, but on this question he is a better theologian than some of his evangelical critics.
Though I'm no theologian, and ill equipped for a religious debate, Neuhaus's formulation seemed right to me then, and still does. (So now we've got "worshipper of Allah" out of the way, at least. Take that, BushRevealed.com!)
Neuhaus is editor-in-chief of First Things, was once a Lutheran pastor and is now a Catholic priest, and has been a prominent voice on matters of religion and public life for a long time (he also wrote a book I'd highly recommend called Death on a Friday Afternoon
- not that he needs my plug).
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