But he tried. Recent history suggests that he got it right when he waxed theological: “I believe that God has planted in every heart the desire to live in freedom.” … and when he waxed providential: “The momentum of freedom in our world is unmistakable — and it is not carried forward by our power alone. We can trust in that greater power who guides the unfolding of the years. And in all that is to come, we can know that his purposes are just and true.” … and when he waxed geo-political: “Everywhere that freedom stirs, let tyrants fear.”
He mixed with the rich and powerful, whose privilege can corrode character and breed oppression. But he kept enough in touch with the liberationist yearnings of the oppressed to claim that those hopes are experienced worldwide.
Pundits mocked as insincere the conservative president’s flights into such empathetic oratory.
Today’s Egyptians, Libyans, Tunisians and Yemenis are proving his observations correct, as freedom erupts in those unexpected places.
Christian Iosso has seldom promoted the wisdom of George W. Bush. Iosso, the coordinator of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)’s Advisory Committee on Social Witness Policy, tilts in different directions than many of the former president’s policies. But the two do share a common faith in the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Each treats the Bible as his primary guide to life. Both uphold the central convictions of Christian orthodoxy.
And when it comes to this matter of freedom, Iosso and Bush sing in harmony. Iosso discerns the Holy Spirit as prime impetus for the God-inspired yearnings Bush identified (see pp. 15).
That’s not to suggest that freedom comes as an unqualified good. The Middle Eastern liberationist uprisings have cost many lives. And the voids created by the toppling of tyrants being filled by noble-sounding populists may repeat the age-old pattern of new-found power corroding character and breeding oppression.
Power continues to corrupt, so freedom is always tenuous at best.
Our American freedoms remain contested. We argue on the one hand for the freedom of earners to enjoy the fruits of their labors. Exhibit A: minimal taxation. On the other hand, we counter that the earners have accumulated their wealth on the backs of others, and that the profits should be shared freely with all. Exhibit B: graduated taxation.
The Bush presidency sought to bridge that debate by positing the model of “compassionate conservatism” — a rhetorical appeal to the highest ideals of all. But many challenged its selective interpretation and application.
As that presidency neared its completion, Iosso sought to fuel a churchwide discussion of such longings by helping formulate the language of the Social Creed for the 21st Century. This brief ecumenical document begins by stating a simple intention: “We Churches of the United States have a message of hope for a fearful time.” It then paints a picture: “we offer a vision of a society that shares more and consumes less, seeks compassion over suspicion and equality over domination, and finds security in joined hands rather than massed arms.”
It stands together with the hopes of others: “We do so as disciples of the One who came ‘that all may have life, and have it abundantly’ (John 10:10), and stand in solidarity with Christians and with all who strive for justice around the globe.”
This creed was affirmed by a vote of more than 80 percent by the PC(USA) General Assembly in 2008, 100 years after the approval of the original Social Creed.
Iosso’s assessment of recent eruptions of demands for freedom prompts us to consider again the social implications of our faith, the call to break chains of injustice and the application of the Great Commandment in visible, tangible, measurable ways.
I suspect that, on his more oratorically compassionate and theologically freedom-promoting days, George W. Bush might have wanted to borrow a line or two.
—JHH
