What do Evangelicals think of him now?

Submitted by Roy Weinberg (United States), Jan 14, 2008 at 10:23

Eight years ago, the conservative Christian base of the Republican Party, of which evangelicals make up a sizable number, touted George W. Bush as the great evangelical emancipator. Bush, they promised, would help fight off the onslaught of radical secularism that had poisoned our culture and of course, he would be a staunch friend of Israel who would help protect the Jewish nation from her hostile Islamic neighbors that sought her destruction.

Now however, Bush has sold out Israel by coercing that nation into giving up land to a people specifically created by the Islamic world for the annihilation of the Jewish state. There never existed a Palestinian people whose lineage traced back thousands of years, at least not until 1948 when Israel came back into existence as a sovereign nation after nearly 1,900 years of diaspora. The "Palestinian" people are nothing but human pawns put in place by the greater Islamic world to provide for propaganda against the Jewish state and the convenient proximity of attack from a sworn enemy.

Certainly, many Palestinians (who are the descendants of Arabs, Turks, Persians, Bedouins, etc.) see the duplicity of a "Palestinian" state and want no part of it. They enjoy the type of freedoms in Israel they would never be afforded in a Palestinian state or in any other Arab nation. However, their voice is silenced by a liberal, secular media that is predominantly anti-Semitic and sympathetic to almost anything that is opposed to Israel and the Jewish people worldwide.

It's possible that Bush is trying to extend an olive branch to the Arab world by taking up the Palestinian cause. And it's possible that he's trying to isolate Iran in the process by painting the Iranians as the true enemies of peace. But if these are Bush's motives, he's going about it the wrong way by playing right into the hands of the devil. If Bush desires to "dance with the one who brung yah" then this dance is going to get him burned.

If Christian conservatives and evangelicals really want to make a difference, then go back to your churches, preach the gospel and stay out of politics. You got George Bush and he was a miserable failure, and your latest political "messiah" Mike Huckabee won't be any different if he's elected president. If you really want to change the culture and support Israel, then do it with the gospel instead of the ballot box.

Note: Opinions expressed in comments are those of the authors alone and not necessarily those of Daniel Pipes. Original writing only, please. Comments are screened and in some cases edited before posting. Reasoned disagreement is welcome but not comments that are scurrilous, off-topic, commercial, disparaging religions, or otherwise inappropriate. For complete regulations, see the "Guidelines for Reader Comments".