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Despite the acute pressure on Bush to weaken his stance on capital punishment, his popularity within Texas soared, leading him to a landslide reelection in November 1998. It also boosted Bush's standing in 1999 as a strong Republican candidate for this year's presidential election and gave him a more secure platform to articulate his new trademark message of compassionate conservatism.

Bush began meeting two years ago with notable ministry leaders around the state of Texas. In early 1999, he started inviting national evangelical ministry leaders and potential donors to rehearsals of his faith declaration. He would point to a portrait of Texas hero Sam Houston and recall that Houston had wrestled with a drinking problem too. Then Bush would say he had a renewal of faith and a sense of dedication to bring God's compassion into the public arena.

He also hired campaign strategist Ralph Reed, formerly of the Christian Coalition, for Reed's extensive knowledge of evangelicals. Bush published his book A Charge to Keep, titled after the hymn by evangelist Charles Wesley that describes a Christian's determination "to serve the present age, my calling to fulfill. … to do my master's will."

Bush says that as he listened to Mark Craig, pastor of Highland Park Methodist Church of Dallas, preach before his inauguration for a second term as governor in 1999, he was deeply moved and he felt "the call." Hearing Craig comment on Moses' reluctance to lead as recorded in Exodus 3, Bush felt that God was directly answering his own wariness of running for president. Bush soon called Fort Worth televangelist James Robison. "I've heard the call," he said. "I believe God wants me to run for president."

Bush's declaration of a call resonated with African-American pastors like John Dennis, president of Guadalupe Bible College and Seminary in San Antonio. "God will bother you if you get a call and don't heed it," Dennis says. "The Lord will get on you hot and heavy. But a call is a great blessing that we pastors respect."

Bush spoke about his call at a Houston Baptist church. Ed Young, a leading Southern Baptist pastor in Houston, says Bush has a spiritual conviction that God has reclaimed him for public service. "He told me he felt a call to leadership—a really strong call."

Was this staged? For years, Bush has been struck by how the apostle Paul received his own call from Jesus on the road to Damascus. In 1999, Bush intensified his daily Bible study using the One-Year Bible. He wrote his staff that the slogan of his second term would be "a charge to keep because we serve one greater than any of us."

But the wellsprings of Bush's agenda as a presidential candidate date to the beginning of his first term as governor. He faced an imminent test of his commitment to support faith-based social ministry. In 1995 the Texas Commission on Alcohol and Drug Abuse tried to shutter Teen Challenge in San Antonio for staff training that did not reflect the state's psychiatric standards. Supporters of the evangelical ministry gathered at the Alamo and Bush listened.

He sided with Teen Challenge against his own state agency. From this moment was born Bush's efforts to enhance faith-based social outreach. He passed laws protecting faith-based groups from state interference with their religious approach; forbidding lawsuits against medical personnel who donate their services to the needy; and starting a trial voucher-aid program to private religious schools.

"Government can do certain things very well, but it cannot put hope in our hearts or a sense of purpose in our lives," Bush says.

Whether George W. Bush wins the presidency in November may depend on whether the electorate shares his vision for a more cooperative relationship between church and state. Bush personifies that relationship.

Bush, sitting governor of the nation's second-largest state, has little difficulty saying, "I am a sinner, just like you." In a few weeks, American voters will decide if that common touch should translate into a mandate for Bush to govern.

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October 2 2000, Vol. 44, No. 11