In this race, Bush made his most public profession of faith during a GOP debate in December when, after being asked his favorite political philosopher or thinker, Bush replied, "Christ, because he changed my heart."

But even then, Bush characterized his faith with what some took as an off-putting dis of nonbelievers. After an Iowa TV reporter co-moderating the debate pursued the question further, asking, "I think the viewer would like to know more on how he's changed your heart." Bush responded, "Well, if they don't know, it's going to be hard to explain."

"When you turn your heart and your life over to Christ, when you accept Christ as the savior, it changes your heart and changes your life," he said.

On MSNBC's "Hardball," Weekly Standard editor William Kristol said, "Governor Bush took a question about what philosopher or thinker has influenced you the most, a question everyone else answered by saying, 'Here's a thinker who's been important for us Americans,' and he answered it about himself personally. I think it's deeply revealing, actually ... of a certain kind of narcissism."

Kristol continued: "What's unnerving, I think, about Governor Bush's answer is that he took it to be entirely about himself."

The personal nature of Bush's religion can, indeed, sometimes seem a bit odd, if not narcissistic. Take what Bush calls his "defining moment" that prompted his decision to run for president.

It happened while listening to a sermon in January 1999, right before Bush was re-inaugurated as governor of Texas. The sermon "reached out and grabbed me, and changed my life," Bush writes in "A Charge To Keep."

The preacher, Bush writes, "told the story of Moses, asked by God to lead his people to a land of milk and honey. Moses had a lot of reason to shirk the task. As the pastor told it, Moses' basic reaction was, 'Sorry, God, I'm busy. I've got a family. I've got sheep to tend. I've got a life. Who am I that I should go to Pharoah, and bring the sons of Israel out of Egypt?'"

The moral, as Bush recounted it, is that "People are starved for leadership ... starved for leaders who have ethical and moral courage." Later, Barbara Bush turned to her oldest son. "He was talking to you," she said.

In the book, Bush acknowledges that "the pastor was, of course, talking to all of us." But he also "was challenging me to do more. To run for president."

Bush's relationship with his religion seems very much like his relationship with politics -- very instinctual, and not something he's particularly good at talking about. In 1994, a Houston Post reporter asked Bush about the fact that he attended a Methodist church, even though he had been raised as an Episcopalian, which is the faith of his parents.

"I'm sure there is some kind of heavy doctrinal difference, which I'm not sophisticated enough to explain to you," Bush said.

This sort of lax explanation has raised a question or two about just how seriously he takes religion -- or at least the religion of others. After the House of Representatives passed a juvenile justice bill allowing states to post the Ten Commandments in public schools, Bush said, "I have no problem with the Ten Commandments posted on the walls of every public place."

When asked which version should be posted, he replied, "the standard version."

Of course, there is no "standard version" of the Ten Commandments. Protestants, Catholics and Jews all have different versions that vary in more than one way. Jews and most Protestant sects, for instance, regard the entire "Thou shalt not covet ..." section to be one commandment, while Lutherans and Catholics separate the section into two commandments -- one addressing the coveting of a neighbor's wife, the other, a neighbor's property.

Bush's is not the religion of a theologian, or one who seems to know a lot about Scripture or other religions -- or even his own. Again, this is not uncommon in the evangelical tradition. In "A Christian Agenda: Game Plan for a New Era," published by the conservative, Texas International Christian Media, author Marlin Maddoux cites statistics showing that "only half [of evangelical Christians] identified Jesus as the person who delivered the Sermon on the Mount" and "less than half could list even five of the Ten Commandments."

"There are those who want to focus on the primacy of Scripture, but our Methodist heritage focuses on the primacy of God's grace ... and the primacy of God's love that we don't deserve," says Mayfield, Bush's pastor in Austin.

Of course, the personal nature of Bush's religion can also come across in the exact opposite manner, as humility. After Bush first visited his congregation, Mayfield visited with him to see if there were any special protocols or diplomacies that he needed to know for having the governor as a congregant.

"When I come here I come here as a child of God," Bush told him.

"He seemed very genuine about that," Mayfield says. "Being in the state capital, we get exposed to politicians and we get exposed to politicians. And after a while you get an idea of the ones who are shaking hands for the sake of a vote and those who just like people. The Bushes just like people. I'm not discounting their shrewdness or ability in politics, but it's been very clear that his participation here is for his own spiritual need." This sort of willful -- blissful, really -- ignorance of religion raises real questions about just how he would apply his faith to his governing.

Olasky first met Bush in 1993 after his book, "The Tragedy of American Compassion," prompted Bush campaign manager Karl Rove to invite him to meet with Bush. The governor's vision of a "compassionate conservatism" was born about that time.

For numerous conservatives, Olasky's book spelled out the way their version of government was not only more efficient, but more humane. (Olasky's next book, to be published next month, is called "Compassionate Conservatism," and includes a foreword by Bush.)

The tenets of Bush's political philosophy have their roots in Christian theology, Olasky says. Bush "has the view that people can change. And one reason I suspect he has that view is that he changed himself, through God's grace." When Bush visits inner-city locals dedicated to fighting alcoholism and drug addiction "he can identify because of the change he himself" went through when he quit drinking.

That means, Olasky says, that Bush disagrees with a paternal liberalism that patronizes the poor by doling out cash and allowing its ranks to live lives of sloth. Because Bush has faith that people can change means, for example, he opposes free needle exchange programs for intravenous drug users, believing the assumption behind such a program is that drug users cannot change.

"One thing that he does very well is -- in the way a good pastor will not stand in the pulpit and start yelling, saying, 'You are sinners!' -- [Bush] will say, 'We are sinners.' And that makes a huge difference," Olasky says. "He comes off as inclusively saying the same things to others than he says to himself. 'We're sinners. Whatever good things I occasionally do come from God's grace.' This is more than rhetoric. This is understanding."

But Bush's "understanding" outside of the Methodist notion of God's grace can seem pretty thin. When Fox News Channel's Bill O'Reilly asked Bush how the teachings of Christ square with his avid support of the death penalty, Bush said, "I'm not so sure he addressed the death penalty itself in the New Testament. Maybe he did."

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