Post by Detas on May 12, 2004 1:10:29 GMT -5
www.odt.co.nz/cgi-bin/getitem?date=12May2004&object=JAJ21J6517TM&type=html
(Is there no way to shorten links?)
'Ignorant' Bush dismays lecturer US theologian visiting to present talks
By Tom McKinlay
Visiting American theologian Prof Richard Hays is dismayed at President George W. Bush's use of religious language to justify military campaigning, but must be careful how he says so in the United States.
"[Mr Bush] seems to think that the . . . Bible authorises uncritically the assumption that the United States is good and righteous and has the right to use violence in whatever way it sees fit," Prof Hays said in an interview.
"That is a tragically shallow and distorted understanding of how Christians have historically interpreted the Bible."
Prof Hays, who is in Dunedin [New Zealand] to deliver the Thomas Burns Memorial Lectures at the University of Otago, said the recent exposure of torture by US soldiers had underlined the president's ignorance of both theology and history.
"When you take up violence against evil, you get sucked into the downward whirlpool of evil and you become the thing that you thought you were opposing," the Duke University New Testament professor said.
However, such views were difficult to air in the US.
"I have experience of preaching in a church in Washington DC not long ago, in which I said something much milder . . . simply pointing out that Bush stood on the deck of an aircraft carrier and said hostilities in Iraq were over. And some of the people in this particular congregation were very angry, because they didn't think it was appropriate for me to be critical of the president at a time we were at war. That is a very, very widespread view."
That was not to say Christians opposed to Mr Bush's actions had been silenced.
Prof Hays, like Mr Bush, is a Methodist, and has joined many others in the church in challenging the basis on which the US attacked Iraq.
"You write papers and sign statements and go to the occasional march, and it seems to have no effect."
Prof Hays said Mr Bush had bordered on the blasphemous in his selective use of the Bible, on one occasion misappropriating words from John's Gospel describing Jesus Christ to apply to the US.
"It is idolatrous. It places the American Government in the place of the Gospel of John assigned to Jesus Christ, as the saviour of the world."
Americans were divided on such language, with the dismay of some Christians set against the enthusiasm of others, such as the evangelical Protestant Right, he said.
Prof Hays' series of lectures in Dunedin do not discuss Mr Bush, but rather look at the different ways the authors of the gospels viewed the Old Testament.
All thought it important to draw upon the Israeli scriptures, but did so in different ways, Prof Hays said.
Wednesday, 12-May 2004 (NZ time)
(Is there no way to shorten links?)
'Ignorant' Bush dismays lecturer US theologian visiting to present talks
By Tom McKinlay
Visiting American theologian Prof Richard Hays is dismayed at President George W. Bush's use of religious language to justify military campaigning, but must be careful how he says so in the United States.
"[Mr Bush] seems to think that the . . . Bible authorises uncritically the assumption that the United States is good and righteous and has the right to use violence in whatever way it sees fit," Prof Hays said in an interview.
"That is a tragically shallow and distorted understanding of how Christians have historically interpreted the Bible."
Prof Hays, who is in Dunedin [New Zealand] to deliver the Thomas Burns Memorial Lectures at the University of Otago, said the recent exposure of torture by US soldiers had underlined the president's ignorance of both theology and history.
"When you take up violence against evil, you get sucked into the downward whirlpool of evil and you become the thing that you thought you were opposing," the Duke University New Testament professor said.
However, such views were difficult to air in the US.
"I have experience of preaching in a church in Washington DC not long ago, in which I said something much milder . . . simply pointing out that Bush stood on the deck of an aircraft carrier and said hostilities in Iraq were over. And some of the people in this particular congregation were very angry, because they didn't think it was appropriate for me to be critical of the president at a time we were at war. That is a very, very widespread view."
That was not to say Christians opposed to Mr Bush's actions had been silenced.
Prof Hays, like Mr Bush, is a Methodist, and has joined many others in the church in challenging the basis on which the US attacked Iraq.
"You write papers and sign statements and go to the occasional march, and it seems to have no effect."
Prof Hays said Mr Bush had bordered on the blasphemous in his selective use of the Bible, on one occasion misappropriating words from John's Gospel describing Jesus Christ to apply to the US.
"It is idolatrous. It places the American Government in the place of the Gospel of John assigned to Jesus Christ, as the saviour of the world."
Americans were divided on such language, with the dismay of some Christians set against the enthusiasm of others, such as the evangelical Protestant Right, he said.
Prof Hays' series of lectures in Dunedin do not discuss Mr Bush, but rather look at the different ways the authors of the gospels viewed the Old Testament.
All thought it important to draw upon the Israeli scriptures, but did so in different ways, Prof Hays said.
Wednesday, 12-May 2004 (NZ time)
