In the lead commentary in this week’s New Yorker, David Remnick compares President Bush and President-elect Obama. He wrote (emphasis mine):
During the campaign, Obama embodied novelty and a broader American coalition, and everything we heard about his temperament–as a community organizer in Chicago, as a president of the Harvard Law Review, as a legislator, as a campaigner–spoke of someone who, in contrast to the outgoing, faith-based President, possessed a gift for rational judgment and principled compromise.
The assumption is that President Bush is irrational and unwilling to compromise because of his faith. And the logical next step is to conclude deeply religious Christians don’t usually possess a “gift for rational judgment.” A zillion Christians possess that gift. U2 singer Bono is a Christian and pretty rational. So is Pastor Rick Warren or, for that matter, Obama.
From everything I read, President Bush was cocky and way too sure of himself long before he became a born-again Christian. Maybe Bush believing God had placed him in the presidency added more hubris, but it’s unfair to equate, in this case, faith with irrational, on-the-job decisions.
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1 response so far ↓
1 Tim Stroud // Jan 13, 2009 at 3:11 am
I think you’ve got your logic backwards. Usually you argue from the general to the specific:
i.e., No Christian possesses a gift for rational judgement. President Bush is a Christian, therefore President Bush does not possess a gift for rational judgement.
Not from the specifc to the general:
President Bush is a Christian. President Bush does not possess a gift for rational judgement therefore no Christian possesses a gift for rational judgment.
And, anyway, as I understand it Obama and Bush share the same Christian faith. In fact, I am hard pressed to name any American President that was not Christian.
Christianity and Christians have been quite successful in history and could not have done so without quite a bit of rational judgement.
You mention Rick Warren as having rational judgement. Perfect example. He was quite successful in backing Proposition 8. (Score one for Pastor Rick!) Also, he will give the invocation on Inauguration Day. (Score another for Pastor Rick! - Game, Set, Match) Nothing succeeds like success!
But that thing that specifically marks them as Christian, I would argue, is an irrational faith (as opposed to a rational faith, I guess) in an unseen, and possibly non-acting, person.
Dichotomies make me smile.
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