NEWS: "Bush gets mixed reception at Christian college"

[Bluebear]

"YOUR DEEDS DO NOT ECHO THE FAITH WE LIVE BY" - a protest sign

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (Reuters) - President Bush on Saturday championed faith in American society, but ran into some criticism as courted his Christian base in a commencement speech at a Michigan college.

"We need to support and encourage the institutions and pursuits that bring us together. And we learn how to come together by participating in our churches and temples and mosques and synagogues," Bush told graduating seniors at Calvin College, a Christian liberal-arts college.

But anti-Bush ads that ran in the local newspaper, protests outside the event and buttons worn on graduates' robes made clear that many students and faculty objected to Bush's policies.

"We believe your administration has launched an unjust and unjustified war in Iraq," said a letter signed by about one-third the college's 300 faculty members and published in Saturday's Grand Rapids Press.
"As Christians, we are called to be peacemakers and to initiate war only as a last resort," it said.

edit to include:



http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20050521/ts_nm/bush_religion_dc

[Stephanie]

1. OMG that photo!

Is that from today? Gruesome!

[Bluebear]

5. Unfortunately no

But it's timeless :)

[unblock]

2. LOVE that pic! HA HA HA HA HA!!!!

:rofl:

[ET Awful]

3. The way I see it, if 1/3 were willing to sign, there were more that

agreed, but weren't willing to sign, even more that were undecided, and probably 1/3 or less that fall in lockstep with the Chimperor.

[Bluebear]

8. The magical 33%

You notice every poll that is in lockstep favoribility with this monkey seems to hover around that 33% mark?

[Wapsie B]

4. Cool.

He gets a reception like this in one of the hotbeds for conservatism.

[kliljedahl]

10. Evangelical is not necessarily fundamental

I'm an agnostic, but still interested in the spiritual. I suggest "God's Politics" by Jim Wallis. He's an Evangelical who's 180° from these fundamentalist assholes. I agree with his ethics, if not his religion.
GO HAWKS!!!


Keith’s Barbeque Central

[chelsea0011]

6. What, he couldn't get a hand-picked crowd for a graduation?

If he gets out more to real America, things will get real ugly really quick.

[Bluebear]

11. That's why I am surprised!

I know Rove has connections at Calvin but I am surprised the monkey handlers weren't more careful. There will be some real discipline scenes going on at the WH tonight!

[Poiuyt]

13. I would have thought that Calvin College would be as close to hand picked

as Rove could get. Maybe next time he'll go to Bob Jones Univ.

[amandabeech]

20. Hope College may be more "Christian," since it really sits

in the belly of the Christian conservatibe beast in Michigan--Holland.
Didn't Hope just fire a prof for opposing Bush and the war?

Actually, for ultra-conservatism, but not necessarily of the fundie variety, Hillsdale is supposed to be the Michigan Mecca.

Of course, some of us, when we're in Michigan, bow in the direction
of the real Mecca--Ann Arbor.

[NWHarkness]

7. Calvin College

Is where the GOP recruited their little racist thugs to intimidate voters in Detroit in November. If Bush's support is waning there, the tide is truly turning against him.

[gollygee]

17. Yeah - on the national news someone called Calvin a "moderate Christian"

college.

Uh, no. This is a serious stronghold for conservative Christians and hardline Republicans. Or it was.

[knitter4democracy]

18. Calvin's never been super-conservative.

I had a couple friends from there in college. We were all on the Coalition of Christian Colleges and Universities Russian Studies Program together. Trust me, Calvin isn't nearly as conservative as many other "Christian" colleges. I went to Mt. Vernon Nazarene College in Ohio, and our school was much, much more conservative. Calvin doesn't even make chapel attendance mandatory. :eyes:

On the other hand, reports from the protestors saying people driving by were mostly sympathetic gets my attention. We may have won Kalamazoo County for Kerry (worked darn hard for that, too!), but this is a very conservative area of the state. If the others in the area were also against Bush, he's in trouble.

[LibDemAlways]

9. Chimp comes up against real Christians

who have an understanding of the tenets of Christianity. Someone is going to have a sore ass at the WH tonight. Next year watch for him to give his one and only commencement address at Bob Jones U.

[undeterred]

12. Not only can he divide liberal from conservative Christian,

now he's even setting the conservative Christians against each other. What a guy.

[nytemare]

14. Sharpie marker: $2, Christian made Anti-Bush/Anti war protest sign, $3

Picture of Dubya looking like he stubbed his toe, priceless!

[Lannes]

15. Bush said..

"Soon you will collect your degrees and say good-bye to a school that has been your home, and you will take your rightful place in a country that offers you the greatest freedom and opportunity on Earth," Bush told the graduates."


Well it did before you took office chimpie.

[Bluebear]

16. All this and Pickles booed too.

Is there a sudden awakening?

[globalvillage]

19. Where's he sending them? n/t