Remember When Bush Was the Messiah? (UPDATED)
Jun 6th, 2008 by Micah Tillman | 16 Comments |
The more people talk about how messianic Obama is, the more I’m reminded of how far out in front of this I was — and how much people have forgotten that Bush used to be the one accused of having “messianic tendencies.”
The original title of my article back in January was “President X: Lord, Savior, or Messiah?” As sometimes happens, the publisher/editor in charge changed the title.
But the piece was, essentially, my argument that Bush (the only President-type accused of messianism at the time) was actually typical of all Presidents.
There are three options all leaders have: A leader can either be a Lord, a Savior, or a Messiah.
The powers and expectations which surround the American Presidency tend to push people into the latter role.
UPDATE
I’ve always thought he was shallow and over rated. It seems like Christians will fall for anyone who says “Jesus Christ” in public. He is more of a polytheist in his pronouncements.
You mean Bush? Shallow and overrated in general, or just on spiritual matters?
We Christians do often feel more comfortable when we hear our politicians sounding like us. I assume everyone’s the same way, however. Gotta know to which kinds of propaganda you’re most susceptible, I suppose.
As to Bush being a polytheist, I hadn’t considered that. In what ways does he talk like one?
He frequently says that Muslims and Christians worship the same God, things like that. The entire post 9-11 service at National Cathedral was polytheistic. No time to expand on it now!
I’d be interested to hear more later.
As far as the logic goes: “Muslims and Christians worship the same God” entails the claim, “Though there are two religions, there is only one God.”
Polytheism, however, would claim that there are multiple gods.
Bush’s claim seems like a monotheist claim to me, therefore.
The Christian God and Allah are diametrically opposite. Trinity vs. monad. To claim that they are the same God, as a Christian, is to seriously misrepresent the Holy Trinity. To conduct worship services in National Cathedral where Rabbis, Imams and Priests all pray to ‘god’ is to be polytheist.
[edited to remove post from another site. Here's the link provided: http://www.credenda.org/issues/13-4basicissues.php ]
To claim they are the same may be wrong, but claiming they are the same is still claiming they are the same. One. Mono.
It’s helpful if debates don’t go like this.
Thanks.
So if I claim that all gods including Lord Krishna and Baal are the same, am I a monotheist?
Of course! You’re claiming there is only one God.
To be a polytheist, you’d have to say X, Y, Z, etc. are all actual gods, all actually exist, and are not the same.
The Greeks, for instance, were polytheists. Christians aren’t. We believe that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are all God (i.e., one and the same).
I’m going to have to humbly disagree. As much as Tash and Aslan may be called one god, to worship such a “god” is to worship gods, plural. I’m not concerned with the claim, but the reality.
So even though there’s only one God, and you think you’re talking to one God when you worship said God, because you use two different names for that God you’re worshiping more than one God?
How can you worship more than one God if there’s only one God?
We may be getting far afield here. I am saying that Bush proclaimed more than one god when he asserted that Allah is the same as the Holy Trinity. We know that they are two entirely different gods, and proclaiming that they are one when in fact they are two, does not make them one.
But perhaps you would simply be more happy calling him a heretic or a confused Christian rather than a polytheist?
Not really. No. Thanks, though.
Whether he’s confused or a heretic would take us “far afield.”
OK, but you might consider this:
http://www.zenit.org/article-17818?l=english
Considering is usually a good thing. Thanks. :-)
Not to muddle the issue, but unless we all agree that the Trinity is the perception of different modes, rather than three distinct persons (Sabellianism), then don’t we run straight back into the so-called Arian Heresy which, in clearly delineating the three-ness, makes Christianity definitively polytheistic?
Good question. I’ve heard the Orthodox tend to put things: “Three persons in one substance,” while we in the “Western” church tend to put things: “One substance in three persons.”
Modalism is always attractive, because it helps one get one’s mind around the question of how one and three can be compatible. Like I am “son” to my parents, “husband” to my wife, and “teacher” to my students. Three different aspects, one me.
But I think that approach makes the Trinity less fun. I think it’s more fun to have to constantly remind oneself that “one God in three Persons” is not necessarily a logical contradiction.
(”One God and not one God” would be a logical contradiction. “Three Persons and not three Persons” would be a logical contradiction.)
To put it more respectably (perhaps): I think there is something more mysterious, and therefore more beautiful, about not appealing to the modal explanation.