President Bush – Big Circumstance

In today’s issue of The Times Camilla Cavendish wrote an opinion column entitled Preaching Is No Prophylactic. Her basic thesis is that the only way to reduce unwanted pregnancies is contraception, not a crusade for abstinence outside marriage. One of her more vehement quotes is this:

‘Aid organisations say that roughly half of the $10 billion that President Bush promised two years ago to fight Aids will be wasted on futile abstinence programmes that go against human nature.’

On one level Cavendish is right: abstinence does go against human nature – sinful human nature. Jesus said some Old Testament laws were given because the people were hard-hearted, and maybe sometimes (often?) that’s how governments have to be.

However, while I’m hardly Dubya’s biggest fan, it’s supremely ironic that the same edition of the paper carries an interview with President Yoweri Museveni of Uganda which notes that his nation has had some success in fighting Aids. Now just remind me, didn’t the Ugandan campaign include a big emphasis on abstinence?

I forgot an excellent post from Christianity Today, which takes an ‘Iraq plus’ interpretation. Here is an extract:

But two other factors were probably in play. Al Qaeda undoubtedly borrowed its strategy from the Madrid train bombing. There was another symmetry. Just as President Bush was absent from the U.S. capital during 9/11, so Blair was absent from the U.K. capital during (what may now be called) 7/7. Moreover, happening at the same time as the G8 summit, with Bush, Blair, and Putin present, it humiliated world leaders. The message being that they were trying to solve the world’s problems, and they can’t even solve this one. Moreover, Blair’s argument for invading and staying in Iraq-to give us security from terrorists-will look hollow as the dust settles.

Tag: President Bush

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