Religious Leaders Urge Bush To Redeem 'Shameful' Legacy

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http://www.usatoday.com/news/religion/2008-01-25-bush-morals_N.htm?csp=34

Religious leaders urge Bush to redeem 'shameful' legacy

By Matthew Streib, Religion News Service

WASHINGTON — Catholic and evangelical social justice leaders on Thursday urged President Bush to use his upcoming State of the Union address to turn around what they called his faltering moral legacy.
Frequently referring to the state of American public policy as "shameful," the representatives of five major religious organizations said Bush has sidestepped pressing religious concerns, despite his recurrent religious rhetoric.

Specifically, they said the White House has failed to deal with growing poverty at home and abroad, turned a blind eye to torture, ignored climate change, and neglected the human suffering from the war in Iraq.

"We have yet to fully sort out the legacy of an explicitly evangelical president, who sadly has had such a truncated vision of what a moral leadership looks like," said the Rev. David Gushee, president of Evangelicals for Human Rights.

"I am hopeful that the evangelical community as a whole has been chastened by that and is open to reconsidering what we think a truly evangelical moral leadership would look like."

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