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If you missed Zell Miller's speech yesterday, here's a summary: Vote for Bush because he'll send us into war.

But Miller's speech wasn't all about promising that Bush will "grab terrorists by the throat and not let them go." It was also the convention's most direct in saying that Americans should vote for Bush because of his religion.

"I can identify with someone who has lived that line in 'Amazing Grace,' 'Was blind, but now I see,' and I like the fact that he's the same man on Saturday night that he is on Sunday morning," Miller said. (Well, says a Beliefnet reprint of an Amy Sullivan blog posting, that's true in that he doesn't attend church at either time … )

But without a doubt, Miller's most shocking line was this:

I am moved by … the fact that he is unashamed of his belief that God is not indifferent to America.

Expect many pundits to make a comparison similar to that of Beliefnet editor Steven Waldman:

Kerry took a different approach in his speech by quoting Lincoln: 'I don't want to claim that God is on our side. 'As Abraham Lincoln told us, I want to pray humbly that we are on God's side.'"

Yeah, but one might as well quote Bush, too. Weblog has never seen a quote from the president that says, "God is not indifferent to America." But he has seen Bush make the same Lincoln reference that Kerry made. Here's Bush at this year's National Day of Prayer:

It was Lincoln who called Americans "the almost chosen people." [And] that word, "almost," makes quite a difference. Americans do not presume to equate God's purposes with any purpose of our own. God's will is greater than any man, or any nation built by men. He works His will. He finds His children within every culture and every tribe. And while every human enterprise must end, His kingdom will have no end. Our part, our calling is to align our hearts and action with God's plan, in so far as we can know it. A humble heart is not an indifferent heart. We cannot be neutral in the face of injustice or cruelty or evil. God is not on the side of any nation, yet we know He is on the side of justice. And it is the deepest strength of America that from the hour of our founding, we have chosen justice as our goal. Our greatest failures as a nation have come when we lost sight of that goal: in slavery, in segregation, and in every wrong that has denied the value and dignity of life. Our finest moments have come when we have faithfully served the cause of justice for our own citizens, and for the people of other lands.

Miller may have been trying to reference Bush's address to Congress after September 11, but what Bush actually said was:

The course of this conflict is not known, yet its outcome is certain. Freedom and fear, justice and cruelty, have always been at war, and we know that God is not neutral between them.

Bush repeated the remarks in his Easter 2002 address:

Justice and cruelty have always been at war, and God is not neutral between them. His purposes are often defied, but never defeated.

But surely Bush believes that God is with him on the war on terror? Not necessarily. Here's his response to that question from the Irish media:

I think that God—that my relationship with God is a very personal relationship. And I turn to the good Lord for strength. And I turn to the good Lord for guidance. I turn to the good Lord for forgiveness.

But the God I know is not one that—the God I know is one that promotes peace and freedom. But I get great sustenance from my personal relationship. That doesn't make me think I'm a better person than you are, by the way. Because one of the great admonitions in the Good Book is, don't try to take a speck out of your eye if I've got a log in my own.

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August (Web-only) 2004, Vol. 48