"God told me to..."

Is language like this from an evangelical, born-again, Christian surprising? If so, I think we should ask ourselves whether it should be.

Don’t we often ask for God’s guidance or say that we want to follow God’s will. If God doesn’t impress His will upon us, how are we to know if we are following it? If he doesn’t lead us, how do we know how to follow?

I doubt very seriously that the President would say that he has audibly heard God’s voice, but I’m sure that he feels led by God. If he doesn’t, we all need to be very concerned.

Certainly nothing that he says in the article is inconsistent with the nature of God or things that God has had world leaders do in the past.

“Evangelical Christian language” is not a phrase that I used, but if I had used it I would have been referring to language that is often used by evangelical Christians.

As someone who, for better or worse, has been around evangelical Christians my entire life, this language is not unusual or concerning to me—especially in the context of the life of this President.

If he had said that he had a vision or an out of body experience or that he had audibly heard God speak to him, I would have some concerns.

Initially I thought that he was a little off-base by saying that he was supposed to be working for peace in the Middle East—especially since Scripture is abundantly clear that this will never happen. But then I was reminded that David charged his readers to pray for the peace of Jerusalem and that just because something will not ultimately happen doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t work toward a betterment of the situation.

Do I wish that President Bush were better spoken, or came across as more intelligent, or had more fully considered the cost of the war? Of course. But he is the leader of our country — an awesome responsibility which we could argue fairly convincingly was ordained from eternity past — and I think we should give him the benefit of the doubt on these remarks.

And although I don’t think that God speaks audibly to people anymore, I would hope that if He did make exception it would be for the leader of the free world.

> sorry for my strikethrough

Fixed.

I, surprisingly again, side with Tim more. Though Todd has made good points in reference to how evangelicals speak. I’ve been around it enough to know what he’s talking about. However, these types of statments warrant such scrutiny when it effect the entire country and others as well. I think he is clearly saying he’s receiving post-canon statments from God but i can see how it can be misunderstood.

Is GWB the anti-Christ? On another note, God can speak audibly today if he so chooses. Who decided and when that God can’t speak audibly today? Why would God have a servant kill people? What about Grace, love and mercy? And don’t give me the answer, “well, it’s in the Bible” crap, because some of the Bible are stories that tell truths and some are contextual to that time and not meant to make a doctrine out of. Just stiring the pot up!

Well, EP, let me ask: What scriptures are limited to time and place? What you’re talking about is called hermeneutics. How you read the Bible. “It’s in the Bible” isn’t a sufficent answer, but its a correct answer. There are numerous reasons and scripture that lead us to believe that God does not speak audibly to us today. Yes, some disagree and typically they wind up leading cults, making false predictions or are just plain nutty. You could argue otherwise, but i think that view has less validity by scripture. I can get you websites to study the arguments for yourself if you like.