Garrison Geller on G.W. Bush and Republican faith:

Calvinism, as all of you Calvinists know, is based on five points of doctrine, which spell out the word “TULIP” — total depravity (everybody is sinful), unconditional election (God chooses who’ll be saved, it’s not up to you), limited atonement (Jesus didn’t die for everybody, just for the chosen), irresistible grace (if God chooses you, you’re saved, you can’t resist) and perseverance of the saints (once saved, always saved, no matter what you do).

It’s a chilly theology with big winners and losers, nothing like the feel-good thank-you-Jesus-for-making-me-beautiful uplift of the megachurches, and it draws clear lines. Either you are one of the elect or you are in the darkness, grinding your molars. Undoubtedly it’s an excellent thing to be chosen from the depraved and to be atoned for exclusively and be able to do dreadfully dumb things, burn down the house, start a war, appoint dopes, with no danger of ever losing your chosenness. (When you’re a Jet, you’re a Jet all the way.) But it’s not a good platform for a political party that has to be elected by a majority of the depraved.

Clearly the Current Occupant sees himself as a chosen president, though his theology is simpler than Calvin’s: really just four points — blindness as vocation (if you don’t remember it, you’re not responsible for it), unquestionable authority (the president is the president is the president), sustenance of faith (God has ordained you and it doesn’t matter what anybody else thinks) and heckuva job (never admit a thing, let a smile be your umbrella). If you ran a business on those principles, you’d be in big trouble. Just look at General Motors.