Guest Author - Linda Sue Grimes
On December 13, 1999, the six Republican Party presidential contestants* along with national news anchor Tom Brokaw and local news anchor John Bachman gathered in Des Moines’ Civic Center for a debate featuring the presidential aspirants. The audience amounted to about half of the three-thousand-seat capacity of the center. Brokaw had earlier suggested to his fellow anchor that they should keep the discussion less formal and more “freewheeling” than debates usually run.
The first questions focused on issues such as the Columbine High School shooting, federal involvement in health care, trade with China, tax cuts; in other words, the usual fodder for political chewing. Then the local anchorman Bachman announced that he had a question that had been suggested by a local Iowan: “What political philosopher, Mr. Forbes,” he asked, “do you most identify with and why?” Forbes responded, “John Locke, because he set the stage for what became a revolution.” Then Bachman aimed the same question at Alan Keyes, who responded that his choice was the “founders of this country” because their radical thinking reminded him that we should “get back to their thinking” and even abolish income tax, funding the government through tariffs, duties, and excise taxes so people could get back control of their money.
Next Bachman turned to Governor Bush, “a philosopher-thinker, and why.” Immediately, Bush replies, “Christ, because he changed my heart.” Bachman and everyone in the center were somewhat stunned by this response, but Bachman knew he had to get more than this short reply to such a profound and perhaps politically incorrect answer coming from this Texan. So Bachman presses on: “I think the viewers would like to know more on how he’s changed your heart.”
So Bush elucidates further: “When you turn your heart and your life over to Christ, when you accept Christ as the Savior, it changes your heart. It changes your life. And that’s what happened to me.” Again the audience reacted with a stunned silence, which lasted only a few moments before it broke out in thunderous applause, this despite Brokaw’s and Bachman’s earlier warnings not to react to statements by the candidates.
The same question next was offered to Senator McCain, who claimed Theodore Roosevelt as his hero philosopher. Then Gary Bauer invoked Christ again and quoted Christ from Matthew 25:35: “I was hungry, and you fed me. I was thirsty, and you gave me drink. I was a stranger and you welcomed me.” Then Bauer added, “Christ, with these words, taught all of us about our obligations to each other, to the unborn child, to those living in poverty, the need to be together regardless of the color of our skin. There is no figure in human history who, through his life, his death and his resurrection has changed the word for millions, billions, of people. If America’s in trouble in the next century, it will be because we ignored what he taught us, Tom.”
It’s very doubtful that Bauer would have had the courage to enter such an exposition had not Governor Bush opened the door for him. Many people thought Bush had killed any hopes of achieving the highest office in the land with his invocation of Christ at a political gathering. And many have called him cynical for doing to.
Now that Governor Bush has twice become President Bush, many people are encouraged and supported in their faith that their religion contains the most important, the most vital part of their philosophy of life. President Bush has had the courage, though some might call it naïveté while his enemies call it cynicism, to make the claim that his spiritual philosophy, his faith, acts as his guide. He has offered a model to us all for living out faith, not merely talking about it.
*Gary Bauer, Governor George W. Bush, Steve Forbes, Senator Orrin Hatch, Alan Keys, and Senator John McCain
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Reference:
A Man of Faith: The Spiritual Journey of George W. Bush by Daid Aikman
