Kuo: That Phony, Bush Seduced the Religious Right and then dumped them

[Reposted in response to Obama's intention to expand on the bogus Bush initiatives]

In his best-selling book, "Tempting Faith: An Inside Story of Political Seduction," David Kuo accuses members of the Bush administration of courting evangelical Christians and of simultaneously mocking them behind their backs.

Mr. Kuo ought to be wary. He and all Good Christians should have learned their lessons by now. The bedrock lesson of Christian narrative is clear. Your lord stands up to Roman politicians and gets crucified.

A few centuries later, Constantine made Christianity the religion of his empire because what better message to send than to have his subjects worship a god who was crucified by the Roman authorities.

Knowing this narrative, reading Holy Scripture, Christians time and again are destined to repeat the story. It is their script.

They will come to the seat of power to negotiate. They will believe in all that is moral and good. They will misunderstand the needs and goals of political power. And then they will be crucified once more.

The stories of religion sometimes are merely scripts. Believers act them out thinking they must to validate their faith.

David Kuo is one good and sincere man who grew up with the Christian script and decided to star in one of its roles. He was going to be a man of faith who negotiated with the politicians in power to provide the means to do good and moral deeds.

He worked hard and succeeded at getting into the corridors of power. Kuo worked for high profile men like William Bennett and John Ashcroft. He then served as special assistant to the president from 2001 to 2003 as deputy director of the White House office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives.

He then tells the rest of the story as if it was his own. He discovered that the governors do not want to do good and moral deeds. They use the faithful to promote their own goals and to seek obsessively more and more power and control.

Mr Kuo tells how the politicians tricked him and his comrades. They promised him billions of dollars for faith based programs and then ignored him and gave him a pittance. They mocked the faithful calling them the nuts.

Kuo was crestfallen from his lofty ambitions, demoralized from his moral mission, disenchanted from his enchantments of power.

Kuo wrote a beautiful authentic book about his valiant struggle. And to this moment he is shocked at how the politicians use and abuse the faithful.

He has the script. I hope he goes back and studies it. It will tell him that if he keeps up his crusade against power, if he becomes a danger to the state, they will not just laugh at him, use him and abandon him. If he becomes a threat, no matter how pure and moral he is, even if he is the lord god incarnate, they will crucify him. This is at the core of the Christian message.

I recommend this book most highly. It is written by a literate and dedicated soul who has not yet become hardened and cynical. Kuo is a smart man. So he will soon enough raise his shields.

For now you can read a few innocent chapters here Book Excerpt: David Kuo's 'Tempting Faith' - and here - second excerpt.

And P.S. Those of you who think you will be reading a book that teaches you how to bravely stand up as a moral man to corrupt and powerful politicians will be surprised.

Mr. Bush wants you to read this book to know that there is no avail. They have the power. The faithful can serve at the White Temple or they can leave.

- original post from 11/5/06