I’ve been reading over George W. Bush’s inauguration speech he gave on Thursday. After reading it, I think I’m starting to understand why so many evangelicals like him, and why he really grates me the wrong way. Over and over, Bush used words like “freedom” and “liberty” (27 and 15 times, respectively), yet he never really defines them. This allows the listener to define the words however they choose.

For example, in the following quote, “human freedom” is described as a “force”:

There is only one force of history that can break the reign of hatred and resentment, and expose the pretensions of tyrants, and reward the hopes of the decent and tolerant, and that is the force of human freedom.

Elsewhere, “liberty” is equated with “peace”:

The survival of liberty in our land increasingly depends on the success of liberty in other lands. The best hope for peace in our world is the expansion of freedom in all the world.

Many of his comments simply reflect the deistic statements in the Declaration of Independance. For example, we are told that it is “self-evident that all men are created equal”, and that they are “endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights”. However, many of the rights that the authors of the Declaration of Independance claimed were self-evident are not at all so. The right to life is not “self-evident”… we only have this right because it is granted to us by God in His revealed word.

Evangelical Christians can embrace Bush because they hear the words he uses, and interpret those phrases according to their own definitions. But it’s rather hard to interpret the following statement by our president in any evangelical light:

In America’s ideal of freedom, the public interest depends on private character – on integrity, and tolerance toward others, and the rule of conscience in our own lives. Self-government relies, in the end, on the governing of the self. That edifice of character is built in families, supported by communities with standards, and sustained in our national life by the truths of Sinai, the Sermon on the Mount, the words of the Koran, and the varied faiths of our people.

Where do we see a Christian concept of freedom in the Koran? When a person says the Koran promotes freedom and liberty, I would hope that Christians would being to realize that the word is being used in a novel way. When Clinton advanced these synchronistic ideas from the Oval Office, Christians were able to see the falsehood of his statements, and speak up to his hypocracy. Sadly, the evangelical Christians have embraced Bush as our guy, and therefore, we can’t speak ill of his words or his actions.

How else does the President redefine words? How about this quote?

In America’s ideal of freedom, citizens find the dignity and security of economic independence, instead of laboring on the edge of subsistence. This is the broader definition of liberty that motivated the Homestead Act, the Social Security Act, and the G.I. Bill of Rights.

So, the President has now equated government handouts with “freedom”. As long as the people are prosperous, they must be free. There are no principles… simply a regurgitation of the mantra. “Freedom”, “Liberty”, “Rinse and Repeat”. It doesn’t matter whether you defending capitalism or socialism… war or peace… just repeat the mantra.

So, next time all you think that Bush is out there spreading Christianity to foreign lands, and reclaiming America for Jesus, make sure you and he are reading the same playbook, and using the same dictionary. You may find that his goals are not Gods. Bush referred in his speech to the Liberty Bell… remember the words that are written on that bell… “proclaim liberty throughout all the land to all its inhabitants.” Like the Bell itself, Bush and Devil both quote scripture to suit their purposes.