“To do the will of God, come what may”

That’s actually part of a quote from Dr. Martin Luther King. It also pretty much summarizes the faith of George W. Bush as revealed in a recent interview about his beliefs, and sense of purpose.

ABC’s Cynthia McFadden sat down with the beleaguered and unpopular president recently for some frank talk about the role of religion in his life.

Some snips…

My relationship is on a personal basis, trying to become as closer to the almighty as I possibly can get. I have a lot of problems. I mean, I’ve got ego. I’ve got all the — you know, the things that — anxieties and all the things that prevent me from being closer to the almighty. So I don’t analyze my relationship with the good Lord in terms of, well, you know, God has plucked you out or God wants you to do this. I know this. I know that the call is to — is to better understand and live out your life according to the will of God.

McFadden asks…

People of faith throughout the ages have wondered about that. How do they know when it’s their own ego, when it’s their own desires and when it’s actually’s God’s — God’s will?

Bush replies… 

I guess that’s one of the universal questions. One way is to stay in the Bible and I’m still learning. The Bible is an amazing book.

She asks if he believes it’s literally true.

Probably not. You know,I mean — no, I’m not a literalist, but I think you can learn a lot from it.

McFadden probes another controversy…

So you can read the bible and not take it literally? It’s not inconsistent to love the bible and to also believe in evolution say?

That was a leading question, though who knows….maybe McFadden can’t square science and religion herself.

Bush’s answer:

I think you can have both. I think evolution — I’m getting way out of my lane here, I’m just a simple president, but I think that God created the earth. Created the world. I think the world — the creation of the world was so mysterious it requires something as large as the Almighty. And I don’t think it’s incompatible with, you know, the scientific proof that there’s evolution.

That’s the answer of the Catholic Church, though there’s a common cultural misunderstanding of it.

Bush has worked closely and warmly with the Church on a range of faith-based inititiatives in his two terms, and McFadden acknowledged that.

Perhaps it’s no surprise that president George Bush puts so much stock in the healing power of faith. The White House office for faith-based community initiatives, which he created, has funneled $15 billion into a wide range of programs from helping the homeless to those with AIDS. It’s been called a quiet revolution.

He has been credited and appreciated for that by even his staunchest opponents, though you’ve heard little to nothing about it in the media. Finally, this.

Global aids activist like Bono gave him unexpected support and respect. We travelled with him last week to north carolina where he was visiting a program for kids whose parents are in prison.

Next snip is Bush answering a question with a question…..good one.

So the question is can an individual make a difference in somebody’s life by giving them a little love?

Here’s what followed:

HOST: The president had promised before he left office 100,000 such kids would have mentors. Now they do. You said to them they may call it mentoring, I call it love.

BUSH: Right. I think it’s an act of love. Anybody who says I’m going to take time out of my normal schedule, i’m going to take time out of my life to help somebody, you know, make the difficult choices or somebody knows that somebody cares about them, that’s love.

HOST: But when you started all these faith-based programs eight years ago, it was very controversial.

BUSH: Yes. It was.

HOST: Obama wants to continue the same government-related programs.

BUSH: I hope so. I think he’ll find that – I think he knows that, you know, in certain communities in order to help, you know, achieve national objectives there needs to be something more powerful than government. And you can find that something more powerful than government on nearly every street corner, in a house of worship.

By the way, Dr. Martin Luther King’s full quote, one of my favorites, is this: “The end of life is not to achieve pleasure and avoid pain. The end of life is to do the will of God, come what may.”