Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly . EXCERPT . An Interview with Three Scholars . December 14, 2001

Following are edited excerpts from Kim Lawton's conversations with three scholars and experts on religion, the presidency, and the spirituality of President Bush.

Tony Campolo is a professor of sociology at Eastern College in St. David's, Pennsylvania.

On being a spiritual advisor to the President of the United States:

You really have to say to the president things that the president may not want to hear. Your role is to speak what the Scripture says, what Jesus would say. Every time I went to see President Clinton, I always would pray this very simple prayer: "Jesus, if you were in my place, what questions would you ask the president? What verses of Scripture would you quote? What things does the president need to hear that the president may not want to hear but, if you're going to be faithful to Scripture, he should hear?" That creates a certain nervousness as you go into the Oval Office, because a lot of times the conversations are going to be pleasant; a lot of times they may not be pleasant.

It's important that whoever advises the president get to know him on a very personal and friendly basis. The first few times you go into the Oval Office, you're awestruck. You brace yourself and say, "I'm not going to be impressed by this." But when you get in there, you are impressed. But after about the 20th time in there, all of that glamour wears off, and you suddenly are in a relationship with a brother and not so much with the President of the United States. And when you make that transition from advisor to friend to brother, everything changes, and then you can be frank; then you can be direct; then you can say the hard things that need to be said. But it's very important that that transition be made. To bring somebody into the office for a one-time shot creates an artificiality that leads to a certain amount of unplanned dishonesty.

I was a friend to President Clinton prior to his asking me to serve in this special role. I had visited the president maybe 20 times before being asked to step in during the Lewinsky scandal and actually take over the role of a pastoral advisor. I'm sure that one of the reasons the president did ask me is because we were friends, and he did not want to get involved with somebody he didn't know. I don't know how President Bush will be able to handle that, and how he will choose the people who will speak to him and let him know what needs to be said from Scripture.

On a president's need to receive spiritual support:

It is very important to have a spiritual advisor, if you want to use that term (someone who will pastor the president), for a very simple reason. Let us assume, and I believe it's true, that President Bush has a deep spiritual commitment. All of us tend to remake God and create a spiritual mindset, a theology that's very subjective. We read into the Bible our own values, our own attitudes. We interpret the Scripture in ways that please ourselves. We need somebody coming in from the outside to challenge our personal interpretation, our subjective perspective on what God is all about and what the Scriptures are saying. There is an ability for everyone to read into the Bible what he or she already believes. Somebody needs to come in from the outside and say, "You're looking at it one way. I think you need to look at it another way,"and give another perspective on those same passages so that one's interpretation of Scripture can be challenged.

If it doesn't happen, the president can be left with the opinion that what he is doing is ordained by God. The president can almost get a kind of "divine right" mindset: "I am here because God put me here. I am here because I am God's person for this job." It's very easy, I think, for any person in such a position of power to be deluded into the idea that he or she speaks for God. There needs to be somebody coming from the outside who says, "Back off here a minute. Some of the things that you're doing and some of the things that you're saying as president don't really jibe with the way I understand Scripture." In short, we must never allow a president to feel that he or she is legitimated by God in the role that he or she assumes as president; that all of us must recognize -- and certainly the president -- that we are prone to error, to shortcomings, and we need to be challenged in what we do and say in accordance with what Scripture teaches.

On the tradition of spiritual direction:

If you go to the scriptures, you'll find this verse: "Confess your sins one to another." You will find that the Christian church calls people into an interactive relationship with other believers so that their faith may be tested. I'm thinking particularly of the First Epistle of John: "Test the spirits to see whether they be of God." Do you have a particular spiritual perspective on things? It needs to be challenged. It needs to be tested. The Bible calls us to this personal critiquing by other brothers and sisters. That's very important, because it's so easy for any of us to think that his or her interpretation of Scripture or his or her interpretation of the will of God is the right one. The Scripture calls us to allow ourselves to be challenged and questioned so that we have some idea of what other people think of what we are thinking.

On privacy and the president's spiritual life:

It certainly is true that a president is entitled to a private life. It's certainly true that the spiritual dimensions of that person's life should be kept private. That's why I can't tell you anything that has ever gone on in the conversations between President Clinton and me. That has to remain sacrosanct. That has to remain secret. But every individual -- president or mailman or college teacher -- needs to have friends with whom he or she can be open, can be honest. And that should be part of the personal life. There's a difference between being personal and being individualistic. An individual who is all shut up in himself and never shares with other people is in serious danger. The president is entitled to a personal life, but what President Clinton was really doing was inviting us advisors in to be part of his personal life. I would hope that President Bush has someone whom he can have in that role for him.

On exploiting the role of spiritual counselor to the president:

You know, there were all kinds of people writing to me and publishers saying, "Do you want to write a book?" I would love to be on GOOD MORNING AMERICA or THE TODAY SHOW, and they were calling and saying, "Would you come and talk to us about what's going on between you and the president?" And the answer is "No." You can't do that. You can't talk to the president and about the president at the same time. You have to make a choice. I've chosen to talk to the president rather than about him. I can't talk about anything that goes on in his life. That would be exploiting the relationship. Vice versa, the president could easily make a photo op out of every encounter that he has with the clergy. Some of that, I guess, is necessary, because the public needs to know that the President of the United States is meeting with spiritual leaders and that he has gotten their input. When President Bush did that recently with some of the leading spokespersons of Christianity and other religions, I think he was making a statement to the American people that needs to be made. Every once in a while a photo op like that is necessary to communicate that the president is a spiritual person. But after that, the real conversations that go on, the meaningful conversation, must never be exploited by the president, must never be used to say to the American people, "See how spiritual I am? See how good I am?" A one-time shot now or then to remind the people that, hey, this president is looking to God, is looking to spiritual advisors -- that's good. But to use that as a means of somehow sanctifying an administration would obviously be wrong. During my time, I constantly had to ask myself, "Am I being used?" I was praying about that. I was constantly scrutinizing the situation. I myself do not think that was the case -- but hey, only time and eternity will answer that question.

On criticism of spiritual advisors:

A number of my evangelical brothers and sisters said, "Why are you dealing with a man who has been involved, as he has been involved, with Monica Lewinsky?" My answer has to be that this is the role of Christians. If somebody called you and says, "I need help. I've messed up my life," what do you say? "I only pray with Republicans"? You pray with whomever is in need. If Jesus is the model, and I believe Jesus is the model, then we must be available to anyone who reaches out to us in times of spiritual crisis, because that's what Jesus did. My evangelical brothers didn't understand that. I think they were more political about this than I was. They saw this as somehow lending evangelical credibility to the President of the United States at a time when his reputation was very much in question. I did take a lot of flak. It was a very difficult time, indeed. But I learned certain things. First of all, never be sure of yourself. That question --are you being used? -- should never be asked once and then dismissed. It must be asked over and over again. I'm never sure what the answer is. The Book of Philippians says, "Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling." I think that all of us, when making decisions in life, day in and day out, have to do so with a certain amount of fear and trembling. I learned that I might be wrong, and therefore I took criticism very seriously. I learned to take criticism that was well meant and think about it, and evaluate it. The second thing I learned was this: everyone has to be entitled to service by a fellow Christian, regardless of what it costs that Christian. Not just pastors or spiritual leaders but every Christian has to be ready to say, "I'm willing to risk my reputation, I'm willing to pay a price in order to do what I feel Jesus is calling me to do."

On advice for the president's spiritual counselors:

I would ask whether or not the spiritual advisor is reminding the president of certain things that are in the Bible. For instance, when we're bombing Afghanistan, you may not want to ask, "What would Jesus do?" That may be an uncomfortable question, but we have to ask it. Whether you're a college teacher, as I am, or President of the United States, every moment of every day should be a day and a moment in which you are asking, "If Jesus were in my place, what would Jesus do?" That's what it means to be a Christian -- not just believing in certain doctrines, but living out the life that Jesus would live.

I would ask, if I were advising President Bush, "What do you do with verses like, 'Love your enemy'; 'Do good to those who would hurt you'; 'If your enemy hungers, feed him; if he's thirsty, give him to drink; if he's naked, clothe him'; and 'Return good for evil'?" To his credit, I think that to some degree President Bush is endeavoring to hear some of that, so maybe he's getting some good advice. In addition to the war that's going on, there is a serious attempt to drop food to the Afghanistan people and to provide some help for them, and there are promises that as this war winds down -- I believe it will wind down -- that we're going to do as a people what is necessary to rebuild this nation and bring it back to life again.

But I would remind the president that those who live by the sword die by the sword, according to Jesus. The hard sayings of Jesus need to be articulated in the Oval Office. He doesn't need to hear just comforting words and encouraging words. He needs to hear the challenging words from Scripture.

On the difference between spiritual and political advice:

Spiritual advice and political advice are all intertwined together. When you say, "Love your enemy," that's not only a personal thing, it's a policy thing. Sooner or later, what is spiritual has to permeate every area of your life and affect every decision that you make. When I was advising the president, that's one of the things that I felt obligated to do -- to point out how spiritual commitments and biblical truth impact policy. Those who are talking to the president now have to ask serious questions: What are you doing with the poor? What are you doing about the environment? These are spiritual, religious questions. Those kinds of questions have to be asked.

On the influence of spiritual commitments on public policy:

I don't really see President Bush crossing any dangerous lines in this respect. He has made it known that he is a Christian. But he's been very sensitive to the fact that he is the president of all the people -- of Jewish people, of Muslim people. During this crisis, his going to a mosque barefooted to pray was a great message to this country. It's very important for the president to have a personal commitment on the one hand, but to have deep respect for all religious traditions and to show the American people that he does not favor one faith over another in policy making. There is a kind of civil religion that emerges in America, and a lot of people get upset with that. I don't. I think there are two religions in America. There is personal religion, the personal faith of the individual, and the president is a Methodist. There is also civil religion, a religion that all Americans share in common -- certain beliefs about what is right and what is wrong, a belief that there is a God, a belief that there is a common value system out of which Americans operate that is somehow spiritually infused. President Bush has done that very well and needs to be commended on it.

On advising President Clinton:

When President Clinton left office, he very much wanted to continue the relationship, feeling that whether you're president or not, there is a need for friends to come and talk to you about the Bible, about Jesus, and about how life should be lived.

On how a president meets his spiritual needs:

I would make it clear that some kind of regular worship of God with other believers is crucial to anybody's spirituality. However, I want to point out that this is a no-win situation for the president. If he has a private worship service, as President Nixon did, he will be criticized for doing it privately, and not doing it in a normative church. Nixon took a lot of static on that. I have a feeling that George W. Bush will take a lot of static on that: "Well, why aren't you going to a regular church? Why aren't you participating in normative worship?" On the other hand, Bill Clinton did do that. He went to Foundry Methodist Church with great regularity, with his Bible under his arm. The net result was what? That he was making a show of his religion. In short, you can't win when you're the President of the United States. What you do, even for God, will be critiqued in a negative fashion by members of the opposite party. I think you've got to do what's right. Given the times in which we live right now, with terrorism so much a part of the American scene, probably the president is doing well not to go to a regular church on a Sunday morning. I know that sounds terrible, but I think that's probably the right thing. You can't even take a tour of the White House because of the security responsibilities. If President Bush goes to church the security risks are enormous, and he has to make the decision.

Let me point out that President Reagan made that decision. He did not go to public services when he was president. He did have a great deal of spiritual counseling. After leaving office and until his present illness completely overtook him, he regularly attended Bel-Air Presbyterian Church in California. To me that shows a certain degree of consistency. This is what I believe a president should do. Worship is important, and having left office, Reagan then pursued the course that every Christian should pursue, of regular worship.

I'm a Baptist and I'm ordained, but that doesn't mean much to me, because I believe that every Christian is ordained for ministry. That's a great Baptist tradition. I would hope that the president would find those Christians in the Senate and the House who would meet with him regularly for prayer and Bible study. It doesn't have to be a clergyperson in order to be a spiritual advisor. I would love for the president to have four or five intensely committed Christians meeting with him on a regular basis for prayer, for study, and for spiritual reflection. I think that would be the best course for the president to take at this particular point of time. But hey, who am I to tell the President of the United States what is best for him to do?

Shaun Casey is an assistant professor of Christian ethics at Wesley Theological Seminary in Washington, D.C.

On religious themes in the speeches of President Bush:

If you look at the dozen or so speeches since September 11, you see religious themes emerging along a pretty consistent pattern. You have to say that his spirituality has in fact shaped his response to the crisis since September. If you look at those speeches there are three themes that are noteworthy, I think, and one that perhaps is noteworthy because of its absence. First, he consistently invokes the presence of God with the people who suffer, mourn, and grieve. In that sense he is continuing the role that Bill Clinton pioneered, of the national pastor in the midst of these crises. President Bush has really done a very credible job in reaching out to the people who are suffering and in mourning and has invoked God's name in the process.

Second, he always talks about the importance of prayer, and I think that is the most direct connection between his own personal religiosity and his public life -- that he constantly talks about the need to pray, to pray for relief, to pray for healing. That has been a constant theme. And surprisingly, the third thing that emerges is ... the relationship between the West and Muslims across the world. Prior to September 11, I'm not sure this administration was particularly sensitive to the fact of pluralism in our own country, much less the rest of the world. But his constant iteration of the theme, "Muslims are not our enemies," has really been the dominant religious theme, and I think it is one that he has had to confront personally.

What is missing in the speeches is [a] real, explicit moral discussion of the just war ethic, for instance. There doesn't seem to be any attempt to give a systematic moral expression to what we are doing in Afghanistan at this time. And that is in contrast to what his father did during the Persian Gulf War, interestingly enough. He did take the time and dedicated really an entire speech to showing how the ethics of the West were in fact being observed in the conflict in the Persian Gulf.

On the president's statements about evil:

There has been an interesting evolution on that point. Very early on when he talked about eliminating evil in the world, he sounded almost as if he was invoking [a] crusade kind of language, and in fact he used the word "crusade." There was a fair amount of public outcry against that kind of rhetoric, and it was at that point that he began to talk about "evildoers" rather than evil incarnate. It was also at that point that he began to talk about the Muslim faith -- the need to distinguish between this small set of terrorists and the overwhelming majority of Muslims in the world. So there has been an interesting shift from the language of evil to the language of evildoers. The Hebrew Bible talks about evildoers specifically -- the people who are against me or against my own people. So it's far more specific and less of a blanket term than simply saying, "We are going to eliminate evil in the world." That kind of rhetoric makes people in my profession very uncomfortable, because it sounds like corporate guilt. It sounds like you are actually indicting whole groups of people. The president has backed away from that type of rhetoric, and that is a good thing.

On meetings with religious leaders:

It has been very interesting that his meetings with religious leaders, at least to my knowledge, have been private gatherings. There have been no real photo ops, no formal statements from the White House itself. Some of the participants in those meetings have written about their experiences. And again, the focus seems to be on President Bush's personal piety, how he is doing through this crisis, how prayer sustains him, how his relationship with God provides him sustenance and helps him to do his job. There hasn't been a connection necessarily from his private, personal piety to his public policy, at least that you can see from the outside looking in. As far as I can see, there are no public religious figures that are going into the White House and coming out and then talking about some kind of conversation with the president. So if there is a circle of counselors it is very personal, it is very private; we simply don't know who they are. But looking at the speeches, you cannot necessarily detect the influence of a particular group of people or a particular individual.

On spiritual support and community:

I think at the heart of the Christian faith is the notion that it propels you into community, and as a believer you gain your sustenance, you get spiritual guidance from your brothers and sisters. At the heart of the Christian faith is this notion that you don't live the life of discipleship in isolation. If you take a job as important as President of the United States, you would hope, if he is a practicing Christian, that he has a community of discourse, a community of fellowship, a community of support and inquiry. I would say, yes, it is fundamental, it should be there. But on the other hand, it is very difficult to do that because if people see a public link between the president and a particular religious group, that creates potential problems in the wider politics. There is a lot of tension between those needs.

On public participation in religion:

If you look at the presidency, say, from the middle of the twentieth century to the end, you see a variety of models, both good and bad. At one extreme you see the Nixon model, I would call it, where religion really seemed to be something that was cynically manipulated purely for political gain. On the other end of that continuum you have someone like Jimmy Carter who was very devout and was a member of a specific congregation in the Washington area. He taught Sunday school on a regular basis at one point, he was very public and very clear about his piety, and he tried to draw connections between that piety and his policies.

Trying to locate President Bush on that continuum is a fascinating process, and we really don't have enough information to make a precise location. But a number of questions do arise. It is very clear that this man has a deep personal piety. He has a prayer life. He reads Scripture, and that has been part of his political life for many years. What is not clear is whether that piety is connected to community. Is it sustained by membership in a larger community, or is it something that he simply cultivates privately? And is this piety connected then to society? Is it connected to public life? Or is it simply a commodity that you show glimpses of to cultivate certain religious groups on the outside? I don't know the answers to those questions, but I think they are very important. And it would be good to have answers at some point, particularly for a president who has, at least during the campaign, said that he was a believer and that Jesus Christ was his favorite political philosopher. A president who makes that kind of public confession, I think, needs to show in a deeper way exactly what the connections are. Who are the influential people, and where does he get his spiritual sustenance?

If candidates present themselves as [people] of faith and claim on the stump that God and their relationship with God sustains them, then they owe a debt to the country to explore that and to explain why that is the case. What difference does your personal faith make for your politics? If we had a president who had no particular religious faith, I don't think they would have that burden upon them to answer those types of questions. But at least in recent memory, most candidates for the job have displayed their faith in some form, and having done that, they owe an explanation to the American people of what the consequences of that faith are.

On the risks of mixing religion and politics:

A century ago, the German sociologist Max Weber wrote, "If you want to save your soul, don't go into politics." There is a real danger, I think, to the person's soul who is seated in that office if they are tempted to use religion as simply another way of cultivating specific votes. You will always be tempted to do that whether you are the most pious, pure-hearted person or the most corrupt. You will always be tempted to pander to the religious impulses of people around you. For the country itself, it is dangerous because religion can be coopted; religion can be used to reinforce ideology, and the twentieth century was full of examples of national leaders (not in our country but around the world) who used the invocation of religion to pursue immoral ends. Religious groups are threatened when they become too comfortable and too cozy. They lose their independence; they forfeit their role in society. They are the ones that are supposed to hold up moral values and call us to justice; if they have a permanent relationship with the president they lose that critical distance, and they lose their souls in a very real way, too.

On presidential relationships with spiritual advisors:

It is particularly hard if you are trying to cultivate a new relationship after you have gotten to the White House. I think ideally you rely on spiritual mentors who have been with you for a long time, who know your strengths, who know your weaknesses. That way you neutralize some of the effects of the publicity that might come with that relationship.

I think it would be important for the president to sustain forms of devotion -- sustain the Bible reading, the life of prayer. But in addition to that, I think it would be helpful to talk to religious leaders who are good at working with public figures and helping them connect their personal beliefs to the issues of the day. That is very difficult to do. But there are, in fact, spiritual counselors, theologians, and ethicists who have spent time thinking about how you move from your particular faith to a pluralistic world, and often to a secular polity. How you do that in a way that preserves the particularity of your faith but also acknowledges the fact of pluralism? Those are the kinds of people who might be very helpful in a situation like this.

On what is missing from the president's religious rhetoric:

The theme of "God is with us in our suffering" appears in so many of President Bush's speeches. Potentially it is very fruitful if we can ask, "Where is God in the suffering of all the people in the world, not just those who were the victims of September 11?" That opens up bridges across national lines, across religious boundaries, if we can put ourselves in the shoes of the masses of people who are suffering today. What impact will that have on our public policy? Can the president or any believers in the world today press the boundaries of the question, "Where is God in the suffering not only of Americans but [of] the billions of people in the world today who live lives of deprivation?" That is a very fruitful line of inquiry, I think.

On the public display of presidential religion:

I think there is a middle ground between a purely private life of devotion and a public life where spiritual counselors are coming through. That middle ground would be membership in some form of ongoing Christian community. I think that is vital to sustaining somebody as they are going through a period of great stress and maybe even great suffering themselves as they are wrestling with huge decisions. I do believe presidents can be members of those kinds of communities, and if they are not doing that, then they are vulnerable, I think, to suffering themselves. It is very dicey business having public religious figures coming through the White House, because when the media see that, inevitably people are going to say, "You are manipulating religion for your personal advantage."

On White House outreach to religious groups:

What is fascinating to me is to see the people who have been present at the White House and the people who have not been present in some of these gatherings. It is fascinating that President Bush continues to reach out to conservative Protestant sources as he did very skillfully during the campaign. He is reaching out to conservative Catholic leaders as well, which is part of his reelection strategy, if we can say that. What is interesting to me is that his outreach to mainline Protestantism, even to his own denomination, has been minimal or nonexistent. It doesn't appear that President Bush has reached out to Methodists or to mainline Protestantism, more broadly drawn, and it is very interesting that this whole huge section of American religious life is seemingly not an active player in the spiritual life of this White House. At the same time, there hasn't been any outreach that I can see to Jewish groups or progressive Catholic voices. It is a fairly limited set of people who do seem to be coming into the White House.

On the president's church-going:

He was an active member at a Methodist church in Texas. His wife has a deep history in the United Methodist Church. In a sense I think she has been very influential on him and where they have gone. Since they have gotten to Washington, they don't seem to have joined any particular congregation or worshipped regularly with any particular congregation, and that, I think, is noteworthy.

On presidential worship at Camp David:

In essence that doesn't count. That is not real church. Private devotions with a military chaplain and with the staff at Camp David is not true theological community. It is not clear how often, in fact, the president has attended chapel services there, and I would argue that military-led chapel services at Camp David are not the equivalent of a permanent membership in an ongoing community of faith. It is a rotating community; it is not a community that has gathered around a specific confession. It is simply a community that has gathered there out of assignment, out of inconvenience, actually. Chaplains are there to service the needs of military people who have been separated from their own communities for a period of limited duration. They are perhaps analogous to church, but I would say they are not fully church.

On religion in the Bush White House:

The White House has had a very interesting learning curve when it comes to religious diversity. Early on, there was a deep ambivalence within the Bush White House about simply the presence of Muslim clerics there. Post -September 11, they have had to reach out to both American Muslims and Muslims worldwide. I see that as a good thing. I think they are still learning how to do that, how to have an interfaith presence in the White House when, in fact, some of their bedrock constituencies are probably very uncomfortable with that form of religious pluralism within the Oval Office itself. I think they are still struggling to find a balance there, and they have got a ways to go.

On the president's spirituality:

It seems to be a disconnected evangelical personal piety. It is not church-based. It is not even para-church-based now. It is his individual, private, devotional life, and he cannot connect it to his broader political sphere, except maybe in only the most generic sorts of ways. There isn't a connection between that piety and his ethics of war, for instance. His own bishops in the Methodist Church have tried to engage him in conversation, and it falls on deaf ears. What will be interesting to see is if he has the capacity for making those connections and growing his faith -- seeing that to be a Christian means more than simply a twenty-minute quiet time in the morning, reading the Psalms by himself in the private study off the Oval Office. I don't think he is there yet, and I don't think he is getting counsel from people who might help him by saying, "You know, you can open up more. Your faith has deeper reservoirs and resources to connect to your political life besides just being pro-life or pro-capitalism. It is broader than that." But I don't see him trying to make those connections or bringing in people who can help him make those connections. In the end, it does look to me like he speaks in code to let certain religious people know that "I am one of you. I am on your side, and I think just like you do," without saying explicitly, "I am a Bible-believing person and therefore I am pro-life," and those kinds of things.

If you look at the interviews he did during the campaign with some very specific religious media, the sophistication is astonishing. In 30 seconds he convinced the editor of CHARISMA that all Pentecostals in America were just like him and he was just like them; they shared the same values and politically they were on the same page, even though there were no explicit promises on any issues at all. When he spoke to the Southern Baptist Press Association, the lingo was similar but a little different; he made the same kind of connections in a generic, evangelical, pious sort of way, and he did the same thing with a conservative Catholic magazine. Part of me says there is this view of religion that "It will help me connect with very specific political constituencies, and I will go there when I need to, to help me." That makes me feel uncomfortable, and it is going to be interesting to see how that continues to evolve.

Michael Cromartie is vice president of the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, D.C.

On the importance of spiritual guidance for a president:

It is important because any religious believer needs to have an accountability structure, a pastor or friends who remind him of the normative commitments he has that are rooted in his religious traditions. It is encouraging for a president to bounce off issues of great concern, of great moment, especially at a time like this, with people of spiritual depth. I think it is assuring, not only to the president but also to the American people, to know that our president has not only policy advisors around him but also people of great theological and spiritual depth to counsel him.

On President Bush's spiritual counselors:

We know that the president has a deep personal faith. But one thing we don't know is who the religious leader or leaders might be who are counseling him during this time. We don't see anything in the press that says Billy Graham visited recently, or Franklin Graham has been in, or some other prominent pastor. If they are counseling the president, they are not telling us, and so we don't know. I find that refreshing, because in the past some presidents have used some very big-name ministers to come by the White House in ways that some people felt looked a little bit like it was exploiting the religious leadership of those people in order to enhance the president's moral stature in the world.

It is refreshing not to know whom President Bush might be meeting with. I don't think the public needs to know that. I think they know that he is a man of deep personal conviction, of faith. And I think they probably know that as a result of that, he is meeting with pastors who are giving him counsel. What I think the public ought to at least be happy about is that we don't have a parade of ministers going in and out of the White House with a lot of public recognition during a time of great moral crisis and ethical urgency, namely a war. President Nixon was sometimes accused of bringing Billy Graham around during the height of the controversy over the war in Vietnam. Right now we don't see a president doing that with ministers of prominence. One would then get a little bit cynical and say, "Are you bringing them to help us feel better about the decisions you are making?"

On the danger of exploiting spiritual advisors:

From the pastors' point of view, the dangers are that you can easily forget that when you get around power, especially the power of the Oval Office, you can begin to soften your own views about what you really believe are the ethical norms rooted in your religious tradition. There have been lots and lots of books and essays written about the subtle temptations of the power of the President of the United States or the Oval Office. Being invited back again and again does something amazing to the ego of a pastor. So many pastors have come out and said, "Yes, it is true. It is a great temptation, and we need to avoid it. We need to be aware of it, be cautious about it." What is interesting is that a lot of the people who have told us to be cautious about it are people who have gone into the White House and have been seduced, it appears, by the same power.

It is not hard for presidents to get counsel from anybody. When the call comes through that the president is on the phone and would like to have some counsel from you, the person is pretty quickly on the plane to Washington. Is it hard for the president to find a person of significant depth that he can feel will be a person who speaks to him bluntly and sincerely and strongly and almost in a peer relationship? That he can trust their judgment? That, I think, is a hard person to find because the seduction of power causes a lot of people's knees to get weak and [causes them] to become nervous in the presence of the president. I think the president, probably after meeting various ministers and pastors, can pretty well tell who the people of strength and depth are, and therefore he can have them back.

On church-going and the president:

In a situation where the president's life is always in danger, especially during wartime, it is difficult to get out to a church. My understanding is there are private services at Camp David, and that is where the president is most weekends. I think one reason they are keeping it quiet is they don't want anybody to know where the president is -- if he is in, say, a chapel at Camp David.

On presidential use of religious language:

There is a slight danger of using a lot of religious language but then giving no evidence that it means anything to you. I don't think this president runs that temptation. Most of the American people know that his faith is genuine; he is sincere about it. He doesn't talk about it all the time, but he does when asked. It doesn't look like he is wearing it on his sleeve in order to exploit controversial policies, and in that sense I don't think he has to worry. I think the American people have a lot of common sense, and when a president talks constantly about his faith, they get a little suspicious. This president doesn't do that. There is a danger, though, if you never see this person going into a church: "Well, this person talks about his faith, but we never see him there." Again, I think the American people understand that we are in a time of war and crisis, and it is very understandable that most of the president's meetings are kept very confidential until the event occurs, and one that you would want to keep confidential is a church or chapel service at Camp David.

After this crisis settles, it will be interesting to see where and how the president will find a place to worship. He tried once in Washington to go to church. I think the real issue here, and the story that has not been told, is the role of the Secret Service in all of this. They are very nervous about public appearances for the President of the United States and I do know, according to speechwriter Mike Gerson, that they have real restrictions on his mobility. The Secret Service is very aware of the fact that it is dangerous to take the president out in public, especially on Sundays when it is more difficult to protect him in those kinds of gatherings around church. Post-September 11, it is clear the president has to be very careful because it is a situation of grave seriousness. Part of the reason that we don't know what the president is doing on Sundays is because the Secret Service doesn't want anybody to know. I think it might also be true that the White House is very careful about trying [not] to look like it is exploiting his religious faith in ways that might be for political advantage. I think he really feels it is a private matter. So while he does meet with religious leaders periodically, you don't see a whole lot of news about it.

On church at Camp David:

Of course it is real church. It is a chapel, it is at Camp David, it is a navy chaplain, it is people gathered to worship. That is church. Is church the amount of people there, or the fact that they have elders and deacons or not? No, it is a worship service on Sunday, and for the president that is probably good enough.

During this time of crisis it would bother me more if we had, like some recent presidents, at least five or six spiritual advisors going in every month -- a different minister of the week meeting privately with the president. That would bother me more, especially during a time of war, because it looks like the pastor or minister or preacher is being brought in to legitimate something that could well be controversial, being in the middle of a war. President Nixon did that, and people are cynical when Billy Graham or someone of that stature comes by to authenticate a very tough ethical decision -- to send troops into harm's way, or actually dropping bombs on people. The fact that President Bush is not doing that probably works to his favor because it looks like he is not exploiting his religious tradition for a tough ethical call. He is not parading Catholic priests and Protestant ministers in to let people know, "I have people of faith around me as I make these tough decisions." No, he is making them on the basis of counsel from his advisors and staff, and people, I think, are content with that.

On the public's view of spiritual advisors:

People trust the president that his public utterances of piety have been sincere and genuine, and they trust the fact that he is probably a man of judgment about those matters and is getting theological and religious counseling about matters related to these incredibly tough calls ethically. I don't think people are saying, "I don't see enough ministers going into the White House." They probably trust the fact that he knows whom to call on the phone and whom to meet with privately about issues of great ethical and moral controversy. I have not heard, in any of my conversations, "You know, I am really concerned the president doesn't have a lot of people of faith walking in and out of the White House to counsel him on these matters." That doesn't seem to be concerning people.

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