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Not only have presidents regularly addressed the annual convention of the National Religious Broadcasters, those speeches are sometimes important to presidential agendas. It was at the 1983 convention, for example, that President Reagan gave his famous "Evil Empire" speech. (One major exception was the NRB's refusal to invite President Clinton to address the convention.)

Most of these speeches are political in nature, as one would expect from the President of the United States, but President Bush's address yesterday was deeply religious in tone. Much of his speech touched on ecclesiological matters that have little to do with public policy. "Christian media outlets like yours reach 141 million people every year. That's a huge audience, and it's a responsibility that I know you take seriously," he said (audio | video | photos).

This nation has got a lot of wealthy and caring congregations, and we've got a lot of churches in low-income areas that need help, too. Your voices reach them all; you can communicate with them, rich and poor, alike; suburban church and urban church, alike. And you can help bring them together to serve those who hurt, so we can achieve a more just and generous society.

It's been said that 11:00 a.m. on Sunday is the most segregated hour in America. We all have a responsibility to break down the barriers that divide us. In Scripture, God commands us to reach out to those who are different, to reconcile with each other, to lay down our lives in service to others. And he promises that the fruits of faith and fellowship, service and reconciliation will far surpass the struggles we go through to achieve them.

Suburban churches are often just a short drive away from brothers and sisters who are facing great need, and doing God's work. There's an opportunity here to end artificial divisions and join together in fellowship and service. There's also an obligation. The poor and suffering are the responsibility of the whole church, even when they're not members of any church.

Of course, President Bush also had much to say on the standoff with Iraq and his faith-based initiative. Before the speech, he met with local faith-based organization leaders to promote the initiative and his opening up of federal grants to more religious groups.

"We don't want to lose our tax-exempt status because we preach Christ, but we don't want to stop what we're doing that works," one of the attendees told The Tennessean.

The NRB welcomed Bush as "our friend and brother in Christ" and someone who "unapologetically proclaims his faith in the Lord Jesus Christ," The Washington Post reports.  In his introduction, NRB chairman and CEO Glenn Plummer quoted Proverbs 29:2: "When the righteous thrive, the people rejoice; when the wicked rule, the people groan." "Mr. President," he said, "As you can see, we are rejoicing."

Bush's speech "again displayed the prominent role that his faith plays in his thinking," said The New York Times, which added that his speech "allowed him to court voters in Tennessee … to display an interest in dealing with poverty, addiction and other social issues as Democrats step up their criticism of him as primarily concerned with cutting taxes for the wealthy … [and] showed him to be advocating racial healing at a time when Republicans remain concerned about a backlash from Senator Trent Lott's comments."

Other reports don't put the speech in quite so many political (or cynical) terms. The Washington Post's Dana Milbank, for example, sees the speech as an example of how Bush sees his politics as religious, not how he's using his religion for political means.

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February (Web-only) 2003, Vol. 47