The Faith Based Initiative

It is compassionate to actively help our citizens in need. It is conservative to insist on accountability and results.[15]

Bush's conversion from wayward alcohol abuser to born again teetotaler also appears to have heavily influenced his Faith Based Initiative programme, a scheme designed to increase the share of federal social welfare resources for religious groups, and protect and revitalize the religious identity of those groups.[16] Here was Bush's 'compassionate conservatism' at work - a modus operandi he promised in his inaugural address ("compassion is the work of a nation, not just a government. And some needs and hurts are so deep they will only respond to a mentor's touch or a pastor's prayer")[17] and again emphasised at his first National Prayer Breakfast as president: "we want to encourage the inspired, to help the helper... my administration will put the federal government squarely on the side of America's armies of compassion."[18]

These "armies of compassion" had one particular weapon to offer: the ability to "change hearts". Having reduced the solutions of government social projects and economic growth to "materialism" in his earlier autobiographical manifesto,[19] the Faith Based Initiative was to "help all in their work to change hearts while keeping a commitment to pluralism", and Bush's administration would "look first to faith-based programmes and community groups, which has proven their power to change and save lives."[20]

The 'compassionate conservatism' of Bush's Faith Based Initiative has provoked considerable discussion as to the religious basis on which it might rest. Lew Daly points to the Dutch Calvinist theory of sphere sovereignty and the Catholic principle of subsidiarity, whereby the state is limited and the church extended - as Abraham Kuyper saw it, family, church, charities and confessional schools were the "natural community" acting as intermediary structures between individual and state.[21] This is certainly reflected in remarks made at Bush's second inaugural address:

Self-government relies, in the end, on the governing of the self. That edifice of character is built in families, supported by communities with standards, and sustained in our national life by the truths of Sinai, the Sermon on the Mount, the words of the Koran, and the varied faiths of our people.[22]

Or, as he wrote elsewhere, "the government... can encourage people and communities to help themselves and one another. The truest kind of compassion is to help citizens build better lives of their own."[23] Bush the "self-help Methodist"[24] was implementing his plan to "close the gap of hope"[25] on American soil. [...]

Although it is difficult to find areas of Bush's political life which were not touched by religious sentiment or appeals to Christian moral frameworks, debates over the sanctity of life and marriage are some of the more (in)famous. Opposed to same-sex marriage, his 2004 reelection campaign called for an amendment to the U.S. constitution which would ban same-sex marriage but allow for civil unions on a state level. However, he also drew criticism from certain evangelical corners for not stating his position strongly enough, or not using "anti-gay" language. His 2004 State of the Union address made clear that "the same moral tradition that defines marriage also teaches that each individual has dignity and value in God's sight;"[56] a rather more eloquent version of his statement in the leaked Doug Wead tapes that he "would not kick gays because (he was) a sinner".[57]

Moral statements came rather more easily on the topic of sanctity of life, most clearly reflected in his firm veto of stem cell research. His language on the issue was clear: it was a "violation" of "our morals", a "destruction" of "human life", and crossed the "ethical" and "moral" line of the "sanctity of human life".[58]

While his autobiography is careful to present a 'personal' perspective on abortion ("the abortion issue is difficult, sensitive, and personal. My faith and conscience led me to conclude that human life is sacred")[59] his first day in office was marked by the Mexico City Policy, preventing nongovernmental organisations from using government funds for abortion procedures or promotion. He also successfully passed the Born-Alive Infants Protection Act (2002) and the Partial Birth Abortion Ban (2003), a position which emerged from his conviction that "even the most vulnerable member of the human family is a child of God".[60] In his words, he was acting to protect a "culture of life", a phrase coined by John Paul II and adopted by the Republican Party's official platform in 2004.