Bush Rejected by Methodists 844-20
The Bush Library is set to be located at Southern Methodist University, but nobody asked the Methodists outside of SMU, and they are not approving, by a vote of 844-20. At the same time, almost exactly, a Baptist Minister confronted John McCain at a townhall meeting about his treatment of his wife. McCain ducked the question.
No, it wasn’t even a close race. At the quadrennial General Conference of the United Methodist Church they decided to reject Mr. Bush by condemning the placement of the George Dubya Bush Library on the campus of SMU. Clearly this is more than a denunciation of “My Pet Goat.” What an astounding vote. I’m sure those 20 people must be completely embarrassed. The story is on OpEd News and Pegasus News. Of course, this isn’t binding as yet, but it sure is a shocking rebuke. Here’s the language of the measure that passed yesterday, from the people of the United Methodist Church web site:
Submitted Text:
SMU Bush Presidential Library Rejection (80089-MH-NonDis)
I hereby petition the UMC General Conference to prevent leasing, selling, or otherwise participating in or supporting the presidential library for George W. Bush at Southern Methodist University.
Rationale: We should support separation of church and state and if the Bush library goes on the SMU campus or property it will appear to the country and the world as an endorsement of that president by the United Methodist Church. Texas is a big state; surely there are other venues…
These folks aren’t just making idle votes to repudiate Mr. Bush. I’m wondering a bit when they will get around to repudiating Mr. McCain, who is now on record answering questions from the audience about his referring to his wife using the “C” word. Seems a Baptist Minister is the one who asked that question. From the DeMoines Register:
PARRISH: This question goes to mental health and mental health care. Previously, I’ve been married to a woman that was verbally abusive to me. Is it true that you called your wife a (expletive)?
MCCAIN: Now, now. You don’t want to … Um, you know that’s the great thing about town hall meetings, sir, but we really don’t, there’s people here who don’t respect that kind of language. So I’ll move on to the next questioner in the back.
The audience gasped at the question and applauded at McCain’s handling of it. Parrish was escorted from the event and questioned by Secret Service, but not charged. Parrish had checked in to the event as a member of the press.
Parrish, a 45-year-old Baptist minister and technology business owner, said he attended the event specifically to confront McCain about the rumor.
“This is about character,” Parrish said, when reached by telephone afterward. “And in a moment of intemperance, he called his wife the most despicable name a person can call a woman.
Of course, Mr. Parrish was removed from the audience and questioned by the Secret Service, in a move reminiscent of how Bush himself handles dissent. It goes without saying that the supposed straight talker John McCain ducked the question. You can see it on the video from YouTube, posted there by Firedoglake.
So the Methodists are taking on Bush, and a Baptist clergyman took on McCain. Hmm. I’m thinking the Republican religious coalition might be falling apart just a little bit.
So, it’s okay for a rich woman at Hilton Head to call Hillary a bitch without a peep from McBush, but not okay to confront McBush about his demeaning language to his own wife. That does speak to his character.
I grew up as a Methodist. Heck, it was in a lily white suburb, Hudson, OH. But I knew through my Minister that social just\ce and such was important. I am now in a marriage where my wife and I are adopting a child, and we’re going to raise him or her Jewish. I’m very interested in ersity and it is a viital issue to me. Still, I am proud of my fellow Methodists.
I’m with Steven. Grew up in the Methodist church, in Kansas no less. Went to Baker University, a small college version of SMU. It was there as a freshman the “The Autobiography of Malcom X” was required freshman reading. In 1970! Weren’t Methodist ministers among the first to condemn BushCo’s aggression in Iraq. This whole library business has made me damn proud of being a Methodist again. It seems that while Rove-style right-wing political operatives may have hijacked the faces of many churches, the church body has kept true to the faith. Say Hallelujah!
The United Methodist Church, Torture and President Bush
On April 11, three days after Southern Methodist University President R. Gerald Turner sent a letter to all the delegates to the South Central Jurisdictional Conference of the United Methodist Church (UMC) extolling the supposed financial advantages and other virtues of the Bush library and partisan think-tank, George W. Bush announced to the media that he has been deeply involved from the beginning in the details of the use of torture that he authorized.
ABC News reported: “President Bush says he knew his top national security advisers discussed and approved specific details about how high-value al Qaeda suspects would be interrogated by the Central Intelligence Agency.” According to White House sources, the discussions about torture techniques were so detailed that some of the “interrogation sessions were almost choreographed” (1-2).
A month earlier, on March 8, Bush vetoed legislation banning waterboarding and other methods of torture used by government employees. The legislation would have limited CIA agents to 19 less-aggressive tactics outlined in the U.S. Army field manual. The president stated that the government “needs to use tougher methods than the U.S. military to wrest information from terrorism suspects” (3). It has been highly documented that at least 19 prisoners have been tortured to death by the U.S. military (4).
Waterboarding has a long and sickening history. It was used as a means of torture and coerced baptism during the Protestant Reformation and Spanish Inquisition to convert Jews, Mennonites, witches, and other suspected heretics. It consists of immobilizing an individual on his or her back with the head inclined downward and pouring water over the face to force the inhalation of water into the lungs. As the victim gags and chokes, the terror of imminent death is pervasive.
Torture is a crime against humanity and a violation of every human rights treaty in existence. It represents a betrayal of the deepest values of the UMC that founded and built SMU. In the supposedly “less enlightened” 18th century, John Wesley explicitly preached against the torture of prisoners of war:
War itself is justifiable only on principles of self-preservation: Therefore it gives us no right over prisoners, but to hinder their hurting us by confining them. Much less can it give a right to torture, or kill, or even to enslave an enemy when the war is over (5).
Bush, who claims to be a “proud Methodist,” shows no sign of contrition or regret or repentance for his unchristian behavior. To the contrary, he continues to try to justify himself and protect those in our government who have used and continue to use torture. Lutheran pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer in Nazi Germany rightly called the cowardliness of Christians to make evil-doers accountable for their wicked deeds “cheap grace.” Building a monument to this torturer-in-chief on a UMC campus to “celebrate this great president, celebrate his accomplishments” (6) is a defilement of our church that will permanently damage our credibility to share the good news of Jesus Christ.
(1) http://abcnews.go.com/TheLaw/LawPolitics/Story?id=4635175&page=1
(2) http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/041908Y.shtml
(3) http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/03/08/AR2008030800304.html
(4) Oath Betrayed: Military Medicine and the War on Terror by Steven H. Miles
(5) http://new.gbgm-umc.org/umhistory/wesley/slavery
(6) Statement by Don Evans, the Chair and a chief fundraiser for the George W. Bush foundation on Feb. 22, 2008, New York Times
Andrew J. Weaver, Ph.D., is a United Methodist minister and research psychologist living in New York City. He is a graduate of The Perkins School of Theology, SMU. He has co-authored 14 books including: Counseling Survivors of Traumatic Events (Abingdon, 2003) and Reflections on Grief and the Spiritual Journey (Abingdon, 2005).