November 18, 2007
Toilet Baptism - How Bush Came to Jesus
I think it is evident to most of us that George W. Bush is a liar. Our esteemed President has told whoppers about issues great and small throughout his tenure, but this lie unearthed by Craig Unger is truly fundamental:
Conventional wisdom has it that George W. Bush became a "born-again" Christian in the summer of 1985, after extended private talks with Reverend Billy Graham. As recounted by Bush himself in "A Charge to Keep: My Journey to the White House," a ghostwritten autobiography prepared for the 2000 presidential campaign, one evening at Walker's Point, the Bush compound in Kennebunkport, Maine, Graham, spiritual confidant to Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, and Ronald Reagan and a close friend of the Bush family, sat down by the fireplace and gave a talk. "I don't remember the exact words," Bush wrote. "It was more the power of his example. The Lord was so clearly reflected in his gentle and loving demeanor.".........There's just one problem with Bush's account of his conversion experience: it's not true. For one thing, when Billy Graham was asked about the episode by NBC's Brian Williams, he declined to corroborate Bush's account. "I've heard others say that [I converted Bush], and people have written it, but I cannot say that," Graham said. "I was with him and I used to teach the Bible at Kennebunkport to the Bush family when he was a younger man, but I never feel that I in any way turned his life around."....
There is yet another reason why the episode in Maine could not possibly have been the first time George Bush gave his soul to Christ. That's because Bush had already been born again more than a year earlier, in April 1984 -- thanks to an evangelical preacher named Arthur Blessitt.
Whereas Billy Graham was a distinguished public figure whose fame grew out of frequent visits to the Oval Office over several decades, Arthur Blessitt had a very different background. His evangelicalism was rooted in the Jesus movement of the sixties counterculture. To the extent he was famous it was because he had preached at concerts with the Rolling Stones, Janis Joplin, the Jefferson Airplane, and others, and had run a "Jesus coffeehouse" called His Place on Hollywood's Sunset Strip during that turbulent decade. His flock consisted of bikers, druggies, hippies, and two Mafia hit men. The most celebrated ritual at Blessitt's coffeehouse was the "toilet baptism," a rite in which hippies announced they were giving up pot and LSD for Jesus, flushed the controlled substances down the toilet, and proclaimed they were "high on the Lord."
If you want the rest of the story, you'll have to read the whole article. Unfortunately, one is left to wonder what substances Bush flushed down the toilet for his conversion. Maybe it was cocaine and alcohol (or maybe not). It's been a lot harder to get him to deal with his addiction to power. He's flushing the whole country down the toilet instead..
WikiHow has a number of related articles which you might find edifying of a Sunday morn.How To Persuade An Atheist To Become A Christian (which the military is using with a heavy hand) or, conversely, How To Make A Christian Not Try To Convert An Atheist
That's enough -- I'm burned out on the god beat too.
Or just about - The Evolution of Creationism and the the Creation Museum. Phew!
Photo noet: A metaphorophoto -- A tattered flag hanging limply over a flimsy cross
Posted by Dakota at November 18, 2007 07:59 AM