wfn.org | George W. Bush will become third Methodist president

[NewsDesk@UMCOM.UMC.ORG]

Dec. 14, 2000   News media contact: Joretta Purdue ·(202)
546-8722·Washington    10-21-28-71B{570}

By Joretta Purdue*

WASHINGTON (UMNS) -- When George W. Bush takes the oath of office as the
43rd president of the United States - as is expected on Jan. 20 - he will be
only the third Methodist to do so.

Methodists who have served previously were William McKinley (1897-1901) and
Rutherford B. Hayes (1877-1881). (Bush's father, George Bush, attended
Episcopal churches in Maine and Washington during his presidency.) Bush's
similarities with McKinley and Hayes are greater than church membership: All
three were or are Republicans who had served as governor of their home
state. In the case of McKinley and Hayes, that state was Ohio. 

President Ulysses S. Grant, who immediately preceded Hayes in office, was a
close friend of Methodist Bishop John Phillip Newman, serving as a trustee
of Newman's church. But, according to Mark Shenise at the denomination's
archives, Grant never joined the church. Newman was present when Grant died
of cancer in 1885.

Having a United Methodist in office does not mean the president's policies
will reflect those of the church. Moreover, United Methodists often differ
among themselves and from the official positions expressed by the church's
highest legislative body, the General Conference.

Bush, 54, is a member of Highland Park United Methodist Church in the Dallas
area and regularly attends Tarrytown United Methodist church in Austin,
Texas, when he is at the governor's mansion there. Vice President-elect Dick
Cheney is also identified as a United Methodist in his biographical
material, but his campaign office has not answered queries from United
Methodist News Service regarding his local church membership.

Bush's first calendar item as president-elect was a Dec. 14 church service
at Tarrytown in Austin. The day before, Bush had emerged as the winner in
the presidential election, more than a month after the Nov. 7 vote. Democrat
opponent Al Gore conceded the election after losing a key Supreme Court
decision regarding controversial vote counts in Florida.

Though Bush becomes only the third Methodist to take the White House, the
denomination's leaders have been active throughout the nation's history in
working with presidential administrations. However, the denomination
officially supports the separation of church and state.

"Since Bishop Francis Asbury, with a delegation of Methodists, visited
President George Washington, Methodists have had a history of support and
prayer for our nation's presidents," said Bishop William B. Oden, president
of the Council of Bishops and leader of the church's Dallas Area.

Oden said that both Bush and wife Laura, a lifelong United Methodist, taught
Sunday school at Highland Park and actively supported the Wesley-Rankin
community center in Dallas, with which their church has been involved.

"Gov. Bush has been innovative in partnerships of faith-based communities
and government programs while always respecting the separation of church and
state," Oden observed. In accepting the Republican Party's nomination, Bush
himself said that he expects religious groups "to serve" and that
government's role is "helping the helper."

During the campaign, several news reports noted that Bush's opinions more
closely match those of the Southern Baptist Convention, the denomination in
which Al Gore holds membership, and Gore's views are more like those of the
United Methodist Church, traditionally regarded as "more liberal" than the
Southern Baptists.

The death penalty, gun control, education, abortion and Social Security are
some of the issues on which Bush's expressed views differ in some measure
from official positions of the church as contained in its Book of
Resolutions. In other areas, there is agreement. 

For example, both the Republican Party, for which Bush is the most visible
speaker, and the United Methodist Church favor a ban on human cloning. Both
the Republicans and the United Methodist Church express support for the
right to participate in labor organizations and to bargain collectively. 

Capital punishment is one area where clear differences exist. United
Methodism's official pronouncements condemn the death penalty while Bush
upholds it. 

"I support the death penalty because I believe it saves lives," Bush has
said. "I believe that individual states should make every effort to ensure
that their criminal justice systems are fair and impartial, and that every
defendant has full access to the state and federal courts. Any time DNA
evidence, in the context of all the evidence, is deemed to be relevant in
the guilt or innocence of a person on death row, I believe we need to use
it." 

In regard to gun control, Bush has said, "We need to have laws that keep
guns out of the hands of people who shouldn't have them." However, the gun
laws in Texas have been liberalized during Bush's governorship there,
according to a gun control advocate. 

"As governor, he signed a law allowing citizens to carry concealed weapons,"
noted Desmond Riley, spokesman for the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence. He
added that Bush also signed into law a bill that prohibited Texas cities
from suing gun companies to recover the costs associated with treating
gunshot victims.

Moreover, Bush was the candidate of choice for the National Rifle
Association, which made no secret of its expectations for favorable
treatment when the candidate takes office. The church advocates reducing the
number of guns in communities, including banning ownership of handguns,
assault weapons, automatic weapon conversion kits and weapons that cannot be
detected by regular metal-detection devices.

Some people see a similarity in the United Methodist stance on homosexuality
and Bush's position. United Methodists prohibit same-sex unions and will not
ordain practicing homosexuals into its clergy. Bush and his party have said
that they are against same-sex unions. However, Bush also believes that
homosexuals should not serve in the military, while the United Methodist
Church has advocated just the opposite.

Both Bush and the denomination define marriage in similar terms. The
church's Social Principles "affirm the sanctity of the marriage covenant
that is ... between a man and a woman." In the second presidential debate,
Bush said, "I think marriage is a sacred institution between a man and a
woman. ... I feel strongly that marriage should be between a man and a
woman." 

The denomination's statement on abortion expresses reluctant support for the
availability of legal abortions for women who choose them on the basis of
their situations, while Bush holds a pro-life stance with exceptions only
for cases of rape or incest, or if the life of the mother is in danger. At
the General Conference held in May, the church added a prohibition against
"partial birth" abortion except to save the life of the mother or in cases
where severe fetal anomalies exist that are incompatible with life. Bush
supports banning the procedure.

In discussions about education, Bush has expressed support for giving
parents vouchers that may be used to send their children to private and
religious schools, and he proposes increased funding for charter schools.
The United Methodist Church officially opposes the use of vouchers for
sending children to private schools in the belief that vouchers take support
away from public schools and could create possible entanglements between
church and state.

Bush has said he believes that younger workers should be allowed to divert
money from the Social Security tax on their wages to private savings and
market accounts. However, in a new resolution adopted last May on Social
Security and women, the church rejected privatization of any part of the
Social Security tax, observing that such changes endanger the system's
ability to provide benefits, especially for elderly women who rely heavily
on income from Social Security to meet their needs and who constitute the
majority of recipients. This resolution also urged keeping the disability
and survivor's benefits, inflation adjustments, and benefits for divorced
and widowed spouses. 

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*Purdue is news director of United Methodist News Service's Washington
bureau

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United Methodist News Service
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