{"id":1108,"date":"2008-12-09T17:25:18","date_gmt":"2008-12-09T17:25:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/news\/2008\/12\/bush-talks-faith-wont-say-god.php"},"modified":"2008-12-09T17:25:18","modified_gmt":"2008-12-09T17:25:18","slug":"bush-talks-faith-wont-say-god","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2008\/12\/bush-talks-faith-wont-say-god","title":{"rendered":"Bush Talks Faith, Won’t Say God Chose Him to Be President"},"content":{"rendered":"

(RNS) President Bush says he prays in the Oval Office and his faith has changed his life but he can’t say if God chose him to be president, ABC News reports.
\n“I just, I can’t go there,” Bush said in an interview that aired Monday (Dec. 8) on “Nightline.” “I’m not that confident in knowing, you know, the Almighty, to be able to say, `Yeah, God wanted me of all the other people.”‘
\nSpeaking at length about his beliefs, the president said he’s “not a literalist” when reading the Bible and he “would have been a pretty selfish person” without his faith. He also thinks belief in God and evolution are not mutually exclusive.
\n“I happen to believe that evolution doesn’t fully explain the mystery of life,” he said.
\nThe president said he thinks he prays to the same God as others with different faiths, but that doesn’t include terrorists.
\n“I think anyone who murders to achieve their religious objective is not a religious person,” he said. “They may think they’re religious, and they play like they’re religious, but I don’t think they’re religious.
\nThey are not praying to the God I pray to … the God of peace and love.”
\nHe also said that going to war in Iraq “was not a religious decision.”
\nBush hopes President-elect Barack Obama will continue aspects of his White House Office of Faith-based and Community Initiatives.
\n“I think he knows that in certain communities, in order to help achieve a national objective there needs to be something more powerful than government, and you can find that there’s something more powerful than government on nearly every street corner, in a house of worship,”
\nhe said.
\nAs he looks beyond the presidency, he said he would strive to stay on the Christian walk, endeavoring to continue to learn about his faith.
\n“I’ve come to this conclusion — maybe I’m wrong, I don’t know — that the full understanding of Christianity is going to take a full lifetime of study,” he said.
\nBy Adelle M. Banks
\nReligion News Service<\/em>
\nCopyright 2008 Religion News Service. All rights reserved. No part of this transmission may be distributed or reproduced without written permission.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(RNS) President Bush says he prays in the Oval Office and his faith has changed his life but he can’t say if God chose him to be president, ABC News reports. “I just, I can’t go there,” Bush said in an interview that aired Monday (Dec. 8) on “Nightline.” “I’m not that confident in knowing,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":43,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fbia_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1108","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nBush Talks Faith, Won't Say God Chose Him to Be President<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2008\/12\/bush-talks-faith-wont-say-god\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Bush Talks Faith, Won't Say God Chose Him to Be President\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"(RNS) President Bush says he prays in the Oval Office and his faith has changed his life but he can’t say if God chose him to be president, ABC News reports. “I just, I can’t go there,” Bush said in an interview that aired Monday (Dec. 8) on “Nightline.” “I’m not that confident in knowing,…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2008\/12\/bush-talks-faith-wont-say-god\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Beliefnet News\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2008-12-09T17:25:18+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"nsymmonds\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Bush Talks Faith, Won't Say God Chose Him to Be President","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2008\/12\/bush-talks-faith-wont-say-god","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Bush Talks Faith, Won't Say God Chose Him to Be President","og_description":"(RNS) President Bush says he prays in the Oval Office and his faith has changed his life but he can’t say if God chose him to be president, ABC News reports. “I just, I can’t go there,” Bush said in an interview that aired Monday (Dec. 8) on “Nightline.” “I’m not that confident in knowing,…","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2008\/12\/bush-talks-faith-wont-say-god","og_site_name":"Beliefnet News","article_published_time":"2008-12-09T17:25:18+00:00","author":"nsymmonds","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2008\/12\/bush-talks-faith-wont-say-god","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2008\/12\/bush-talks-faith-wont-say-god","name":"Bush Talks Faith, Won't Say God Chose Him to Be President","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#website"},"datePublished":"2008-12-09T17:25:18+00:00","dateModified":"2008-12-09T17:25:18+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/f960b23e9c3a51222269c557a209b4f2"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2008\/12\/bush-talks-faith-wont-say-god#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2008\/12\/bush-talks-faith-wont-say-god"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2008\/12\/bush-talks-faith-wont-say-god#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Bush Talks Faith, Won’t Say God Chose Him to Be President"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/","name":"Beliefnet News","description":"Top Religious News From Around the World","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/f960b23e9c3a51222269c557a209b4f2","name":"nsymmonds","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/13d\/13ddfa3407d6847bc2fbd32a13b67708x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/13d\/13ddfa3407d6847bc2fbd32a13b67708x96.jpg","caption":"nsymmonds"},"description":"Nicole Symmonds is Beliefnet\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Prayer editor and also covers Christianity. A New Yorker by birth but a Floridian by tenure, Nicole graduated from Florida A&M University with a B.S. in Public Relations and a minor in Sociology. She moved to NY to pursue a career in journalism which started at In Style magazine. There she learned the ropes of magazine reporting, researching, and writing\u00e2\u20ac\u201dand became exponentially more stylish. But what seemed like a deep interest in fashion and entertainment would soon be revealed as merely the vehicle that moved her closer to discovering her purpose, writing and covering matters of the Christian faith. While in her purpose-driven vehicle she can be found traveling between Brooklyn, Manhattan and Queens for life, work and worship, respectively. From fashion to faith and the journey isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t over yet\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/author\/nsymmonds"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1108","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/43"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1108"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1108\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1108"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1108"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1108"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}