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A mighty fortress is his God
President Bush's form of American Evangelicalism enjoys massive popular appeal and, arguably, influences policy.


07/18/04 "Miami Herald" -- George W. Bush is a deeply religious man, and the United States remains a very religious country. Last February, Luis Lugo, director of the Pew Trust's Religion Program, wrote that in a recent poll, '85 percent of respondents stated that religion was either `very' or 'fairly' important in their lives, and nearly 60 percent reported that they attend religious services at least once or twice a month.''

If religion matters in general, the particular religion that President Bush avows matters all the more. Bush and many of his closest advisors are evangelicals, a variant of Christianity that non-Americans scarcely comprehend and Americans in the large urban centers rarely encounter.

According to The Economist in its ''American Survey'' of last November, evangelical Christians make up the largest single religious group in the United States. Thirty percent of all Americans in 2003 -- up from 24 percent in 1987 -- belong to the group. Evangelicals generally agree on the absolute authority, and literal truth, of the Bible, the redemptive power of Christ, the importance of missionary work and the centrality of a spiritually transformed life.

Bush became an evangelical in 1985 by being ''born again.'' Being born again transforms the believer, and Bush makes no secret that God transformed his life. Asked at a televised debate during the Iowa primary in 2000 to name his favorite philosopher, he said instantly, ''Christ'' -- explaining how, through Christ, he had become a new man.

Here he shares his identity with a very large number of his fellow citizens. According to the World Christian Encyclopedia, about 35 percent of Americans have been ''born again.'' In a survey carried out in April for the Public Broadcasting Service, 71 percent of evangelicals polled said they would vote for Bush if the election were held at the time of the poll.

No wonder the White House calls them ''the base,'' that bloc of voters in ''Middle America'' whose unstinting loyalty to the Republican party and willingness to turn out to vote give the president a built-in core of support, a support strengthened by the way the Electoral College magnifies the distribution of votes in the South and Southwest, areas of evangelical predominance....