President Bush's use of religious rhetoric

Amid postelection hysterics about supposed American theocracy, University of Washington professor David Domke has analyzed President Bush's use of speeches to boost "political fundamentalism," fuse politics with religiously based morals and vanquish liberal Democrats.

"Such certainty about God's will ... leaves little room for doubt -- or democracy," Domke writes in "God Willing?" (Pluto); people are "either with the Bush administration or against God."

Bush skeptics will doubtless be sifting his Thursday inaugural address for signs of rhetorical excess.

At his first inauguration, Bush declared, "We are guided by a power larger than ourselves who creates us equal in his image." That assertion was theological, but merely echoed the Declaration of Independence ("endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights").

He cited the Good Samaritan parable without mentioning Jesus, since typically Bush-speak is religious and biblical but not specifically Christian.

The president also said "we are not this story's author, who fills time and eternity with his purpose. Yet his purpose is achieved in our duty, and our duty is fulfilled in service to one another."

Domke's book begins with Bush's 2003 State of the Union address: "We do not claim to know all the ways of Providence, yet we can trust in them, placing our confidence in the loving God behind all of life and all of history."

That speech included a concept Bush often repeats: "The liberty we prize is not America's gift to the world; it is God's gift to humanity."

Bush speechwriter Michael Gerson contends that this concept rejects "American exceptionalism," the idea that God chose the United States as his special instrument, and said Bush never claims God is behind his presidency or American foreign policy.

"Mr. Bush is in fact in the mainstream of recent presidents," said Britain's The Economist, which often disdains Americans' religiosity. "By and large, Mr. Bush has not associated the workings of providence with America or himself," although it said some of his religious boosters are less prudent.

U.S. presidents instinctively use religious references in times of crisis. And though his critics disagree, Bush believes America faces a serious threat that requires a "war on terror," an unconventional conflict akin to the Cold War.

Democratic presidents facing tough times have also used religious talk, for instance:

* Woodrow Wilson's 1917 prewar inaugural: "I pray God I may be given the wisdom and the prudence to do my duty."

* Franklin D. Roosevelt to Congress the day after the Pearl Harbor attack: "We will gain the inevitable triumph -- so help us God."

* Roosevelt in his 1933 inaugural address, at another fearful time: "We humbly ask the blessing of God. May he protect each and every one of us. May He guide me in the days to come."

The founding Republican, Abraham Lincoln, asserted in 1861 at the perilous moment when he left Springfield, Ill., for Washington, "Without the assistance of the Divine Being who ever attended [George Washington] I cannot succeed. With that assistance I cannot fail."

Then at his inauguration, he stated, "Intelligence, patriotism, Christianity, and a firm reliance on Him, who has never yet forsaken this favored land, are still competent to adjust, in the best way, all our present difficulty."

Lincoln concluded his Emancipation Proclamation against slavery with a prayer: "I invoke the considerate judgment of mankind and the gracious favor of Almighty God."

During his 2003 trip to Africa, President Bush said that Christian slaveholders "became blind to the clearest commands of their faith and added hypocrisy to injustice," but ultimately, the oppressors "could not crush the hope of freedom and defeat the purposes of God."