Sign up for our free newsletter:

How a nation discovered the soul of its leader.

by Tony Carnes

President Bush, from the day of the attacks on the World Trade Center last September, has led the nation with a deft spiritual presence that radiates solidarity with people of all faiths. "Bush's stature as a leader rose right before your very eyes," says Richard Cizik, vice president of the National Association of Evangelicals. The nation seemed to agree. A Newsweek poll taken a week after the WTC catastrophe found that 83 percent of Americans thought that the President appeared to be a strong leader. Bush administration aide Timothy Goeglein said he agrees with the widespread view that the terrorist catastrophe is "absolutely a spiritually defining moment for the country and its leader."

After the September 11, 2001, attack, Bush displayed great skill at expressing his spiritual and moral convictions. His development as a political leader took enormous strides forward as he spoke at the National Cathedral, at Ground Zero of the collapsed World Trade Center, at the White House, at a joint session of Congress, and on national television.

A few hours before his address to Congress on September 20, President Bush met at the White House with a broad spectrum of religion leaders. Twenty-seven leaders, including 13 evangelicals, attended. The group included evangelists Luis Palau and Franklin Graham, pastors Max Lucado, Bill Hybels, T.D. Jakes, and Charles Blake, and Edward Cardinal Egan of New York. Buddhist, Hindu, Sikh, and Mormon leaders also attended the meeting.

In the Roosevelt Room, the President got to the point. "I am not Pollyannish, imagining things are great," he declared. "I feel at peace, but a lot of that is due to the prayers of the American people. This is a major wake-up call for America. … Now, I need your help as spiritual leaders to be truthful with the American people without creating panic."

Bush then outlined what his speech to Congress and the nation would cover. He told the group that only religious leaders could give the comfort and handle the spiritual questions.

"Government will do some things, but you need to be praying and be prepared for questions," Bush told them.

Palau, who took notes at the meeting, said Bush drew a comparison between himself and the country. Bush told the gathering, "I was a sinner in need of redemption and I found it." The President was referring to the difficult time earlier in life when he was a heavy drinker and lacked a sense of purpose. But the gospel became clear to him through a conversation with evangelist Billy Graham.

Bush told the group that the nation was staggering and needed to get back on its feet. He said the devastation in New York challenged the nation to look deep into its heart. "I think this is part of a spiritual awakening in America," the President said.

Others who have talked with Bush said the President's disciplines of Bible reading and prayer sustain him.

Bush's faith is a vital part of his politics. "I don't think the President would consider himself an evangelical leader," says a prominent evangelical who knows Bush well. "He sees himself as a political leader and a man of faith."

At the White House prayer session, Bush referred to his Christian faith indirectly. It was "a candid, natural way of talking about the Lord and his faith," one participant said. "He was very cautious and respectful in talking with the Muslims present, and he let them talk."

One purpose of the September 20 meeting was to "get Christian leaders around non-Christians ones so that [non-Christians] would feel welcomed," says Pastor Tim Keller of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York City.

The embrace was welcomed. Bush managed to be true to his personal evangelical testimony, while also creating a tolerant and inclusive meeting.

Gerald Kieschnick, president of the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod, read aloud from Romans 13 and told Bush that he has a divine calling in this crisis: "Mr. President, I have just come from the World Trade Center site in Lower Manhattan. I stood where you stood. I saw what you saw. And I smelled what you smelled," Kieschnick said. "You not only have a civil calling, but a divine calling. … You are not just a civil servant; you are a servant of God called for such a time like this."

"I accept the responsibility," Bush said, nodding.

The President came close to tears only when he described his first thoughts after hearing that the fourth hijacked airliner may have been headed for the White House. "The White House is an old building made of plaster and brick," Bush said. "If it had been struck, it would have collapsed and many people would have been killed, including my wife."

The President paused for a long moment, squinching the side of his face as he does when he wants to hold back his emotions. "Those fellows who gave their lives—they gave their lives for freedom," Bush said. After squinching a bit more, the President said, "We need to keep people praying."

Franklin Graham and four other religious leaders were invited into the Oval Office to pray with the President. Bush pointed out a portrait of Abraham Lincoln and said it was a reminder of his own calling to extend freedom and bring the nation together.

The fusion of personal piety and civic responsibility comes from Bush's deep sense of vocation. Bush says he sensed a higher call during his second inauguration as governor of Texas. He called a friend in Fort Worth, telling him, "I believe God wants me to run for President." The President now tells friends he understands God's call with greater clarity.

"Bush believes that the Lord prepares you for whatever he gives us," says one friend who visits the White House regularly. "The President really feels that this is his mission."

Since the terrorist attacks and the subsequent military action, the change in national mood was unmistakable. Praying and going to a religious service seemed a natural, normal thing to do. As Wall Street Journal columnist Peggy Noonan, put it, "God is back."

Bush's example of coping has been a powerful tonic to the national mood. Political observers say the President seems genuine, not calculated or manipulative. Ari Fleisher, press spokesman for Bush, watched the President interact with grieving families of the missing New York firefighters and police officers three days after the attack.

"He spent time listening and talking with everybody, just one on one, hearing their individual stories of their family members. It was gut-wrenching," Fleisher says. "Watching the President throughout all of this, there was a real transformation."

At the National Cathedral service, the President revealed how carefully he selected his words to fit the nation's mood. "We are here in the middle hour of our grief," he began. "We come before God to pray for the missing and the dead, and for those who loved them." (A longer excerpt from his remarks at the Day of Prayer and Remembrance on September 14, 2001, is on page 33.)

Bush said the providence of God may not be what we expect, but we can count on the grace of God. "God's signs are not always the one we look for," he told the congregation. "We learn in tragedy that His purposes are not always our own."

Since September 11, Bush's speeches have married his informal, choppy syntax with his newly forceful vision for the country. Michael Gerson, Bush's chief speechwriter and a graduate of Wheaton College, shares similar religious convictions with Bush. Gerson crafted this elegant sentence in Bush's September 20 national address: "Freedom and fear, justice and cruelty, have always been at war, and we know that God is not neutral between them."

The Bush speech was widely praised. One political columnist wrote a favorable comparison of Bush and President Lincoln. "The yardstick on how to judge a President will always be Lincoln," says Allen Guelzo, Lincoln scholar at Eastern College near Philadelphia.

Bush has "projected an image as a determined, farsighted leader," Guelzo says, but his pieties "are still bland and conventional" compared to those of Lincoln, who was tried by the fires of the American Civil War. "Whether Bush's growth and impact lasts will depend on his resolve" as he meets further tragedies.

During White House meetings, Bush frequently shows visitors a painting inspired by the hymn "A Charge to Keep." His autobiography, released during the 2000 campaign, bears the same title as the hymn. "I still have a charge to keep," Bush tells his visitors.

Indeed, a verse from the hymn seems to fit Bush's convictions: "To serve the present age, my calling to fulfill. /Oh may it all my powers engage, to do my Master's will."

A Christian Reader original article.

Copyright © 2002 by the author or Christianity Today International/Today's Christian magazine (formerly Christian Reader).
Click here for reprint information.

	What did you think of this story?
	Please to give us your feedback.

Home  |  People of Faith  |  Stories of Hope  |  Today's Culture
Build Your Faith  |  Laughing Matters  |  Archives  |  Contact Us

				Try Today's Christian Woman Free! Name Street Address City/State/Zip E-mail Address No credit card required. Please allow 4-6 weeks for delivery. Offer valid in U.S. only. If you decide you want to keep Today's Christian Woman coming, honor your invoice for just $17.95 and receive five more issues, a full year in all. If not, simply write "cancel" across the invoice and return it. The trial issue is yours to keep, regardless. Give Today's Christian Woman as a gift Order a gift subscription!

FREE Newsletter Subscribe to the Today's Christian Newsletter    RSS Feed   RSS Help