A Reflective President Bush Says He "Remains in Need of Continuing Religious Guidance"
"I'm still a person seeking redemption. I recognize that, of all the people in the world, I need spiritual comfort and guidance and strength gained from prayer. But it's like life itself —life is a journey. It requires a lot of work and a lot of discipline and a lot of prayer. And therefore I view it as an incomplete journey— to be completed only upon death."
(Washington, DC)—President Bush was recently interviewed by The Examiner for Bill Sammon's newly released biography, The Evangelical President. In the interview, the President is quoted as saying his spirituality has deepened throughout the Iraq war and that he is "seeking redemption" for "moments in my life when I rejected prayer."
In the interview, the President also shares his reluctance to publicly label himself as a particular type of Christian, saying he feared opponents would only try to muddy up his testimony by politicizing his faith. (Photo: Gerald Herbert/AP)
As an example, agreeing with President Bush, White House Chief of Staff Josh Bolten said: "The misperception is that he is essentially an intolerant bigot, which is the cartoon view that [some] have of fundamentalist Christians. I can speak as a Jew on his staff. For many years, this was an enormous shock to many of my Jewish friends, because the cartoon of the President was as a fundamentalist, intolerant, born-again Christian. And he and Mrs. Bush couldn't be more tolerant."
The Examiner stated that the President says he remains in need of continuing religious guidance. "I'm still a person seeking redemption. I recognize that, of all the people in the world, I need spiritual comfort and guidance and strength gained from prayer. But it's like life itself—life is a journey. It requires a lot of work and a lot of discipline and a lot of prayer. And therefore I view it as an incomplete journey—to be completed only upon death."
