Contend Earnestly: "Jesus" Isn't Enough

Tuesday, December 09, 2008

"Jesus" Isn't Enough

One of the things that you have to learn early on in apologetics and evangelism is that you need to have people define their terms. You will notice this most notably with Mormons and even moreso with those who merely label themselves as Christians. I have shown some of this in previous posts which you can read by clicking here.

People love to be included with everyone, especially politicians. Most people that I know believe that because President Bush said he was a Christian and used the name of Jesus, then he must be one. What I find interesting is that now that he has no votes or people to care about, we find out what he means by the term Jesus, salvation and the inerrancy of Scripture. What we actually find is that he actually sounds a lot like McCain and Obama. We must continually ask people to define their terms so that we can understand more fully if they need to be evangelized, exhorted or admonished. This should be our first goal when speaking to people that we don't know, or want to know more about. Defining terms helps immensely. What we found with President Bush is he loved to throw around the term Jesus, but now in the below article find that he really knows very little about him or the written word of God. From my perspective and this is completely arbitrary and just a guess...he used those terms to get votes. And it worked! Who knew that Jesus was that popular?

Jesus is more than a term, He is God incarnate, the eternal One, Whose word stands forever. Not one jot or tittle will be abolished, but fulfilled by the Holy Saviour of the world. Below, in this article you will see that, not only does Bush deny creation, but he denies that Christ is the only way, that God is completely sovereign and that the Bible is literally true. How much are we to allow someone to err before we call them an unbeliever? I wonder if anything will come of this or if the conservative pundit will stand by their man so that mud will not be on their face.

Take a look below at the article and tell me your thoughts.

Bush Says Creation 'Not Incompatible' With Evolution
President says in televised interview the Bible is "probably not" literally true and that a belief God created the world is compatible with the theory of evolution.

WASHINGTON -- President George W. Bush said his belief that God created the world is not incompatible with the scientific theory of evolution.

In an interview with ABC's "Nightline" on Monday, the president also said he probably is not a literalist when reading the Bible although an individual can learn a great deal from it, including the New Testament teaching that God sent his only son.

Asked about creation and evolution, Bush said: "I think you can have both. I think evolution can -- you're getting me way out of my lane here. I'm just a simple president. But it's, I think that God created the earth, created the world; I think the creation of the world is so mysterious it requires something as large as an almighty and I don't think it's incompatible with the scientific proof that there is evolution."

He added, "I happen to believe that evolution doesn't fully explain the mystery of life."

Interviewer Cynthia McFadden asked Bush if the Bible was literally true.

"You know. Probably not. ... No, I'm not a literalist, but I think you can learn a lot from it, but I do think that the New Testament for example is ... has got ... You know, the important lesson is 'God sent a son,"' Bush said.

"It is hard for me to justify or prove the mystery of the Almighty in my life," he said. "All I can just tell you is that I got back into religion and I quit drinking shortly thereafter and I asked for help. ... I was a one-step program guy."

The president also said that he prays to the same God as those with different religious beliefs.

"I do believe there is an almighty that is broad and big enough and loving enough that can encompass a lot of people," Bush said.

When asked whether he thought he would have become president had it not been for his faith, Bush said: "I don't know; it's hard to tell. I do know that I would have been -- I'm pretty confident I would have been a pretty selfish person."

Bush said he is often asked whether he thinks he was chosen by God to be president.

"I just, I can't go there," he said. "I'm not that confident in knowing, you know, the Almighty, to be able to say, Yeah, God wanted me of all the other people."

He also said the decision to go to war in Iraq was not connected to his religious believes.
"I did it based upon the need to protect the American people from harm," Bush said.

"You can't look at the decision to go into Iraq apart from, you know, what happened on Sept. 11. It was not a religious decision," he said. "I don't view this as a war of religion. I view this as a war of good, decent people of all faiths against people who murder innocent people to achieve a political objective."

He said he felt like God was with him as he made big decisions, but that the decisions were his.
"George W. Bush has to make these decisions."


2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Bush should just be renamed Douche, the pandering son of a biscuit, running our country into the ground. Go back to your Dallas McMansion, "worship" at your McMegachurch, and go hunting on your giant ranch that used to be Native American lands.

There's a verse coming to mind. Yes, yes, something about a speck in my neighbor's eye. I better shut up.

Tim Faulted said...

This shows even more how the conservative/republican politicians are just using Christianity to get votes. The could care less about Jesus or his Church, but are using us just to get elected. I want no part of their bastardized religion.

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