"God Has A Plan"

The Guardian's Gary Younge is driving from Massachusetts to Texas, filing stories along the way.

He wrote Saturday (from Oil City, Pennsylvania) about someone he met that is a supporter of Bush.

I'm surely not the first person to claim befuddlement with the near 50-50 split in the polls between Bush and Kerry (skeptical though I am), but as stories like this come to light, I suppose it's easy to assume that there are, quite simply, plenty of Burton Kepharts across this land.

While I honor the man's right to his views, I remain stymied by such fervent, staunch "Christian" beliefs that run contrary to the teachings of Christ. I suppose, though, that if hardcore fundamentalists are able to live in denial with regard to these contradictions, it explains why they are able, too, to live in denial about the reasons for the war in Iraq, the lies of the Bush administration and, consequently, the loss of innocent life.

Burton Kephart asks me for 10 minutes to see if he can save my soul. Opening his Bible to Matthew and Romans he tells me that I was born a sinner, God gave his only son for my sins and if I accepted Jesus into my heart I could be saved.

I ask him what will happen if I don't. "Eternal judgment," he says. "Hell."

Mr Kephart gave his first-born son, Jonathan, to the American army. In late March the 21-year-old went to Iraq to serve with the 230th Military Police Company. Ten days later he was killed in an ambush in Baghdad.

[...]

Among those who knew him, Jonathan's death hasn't changed anybody's views on the war in Iraq. They still support it. In fact if anything, they support it more now than ever. Burton believes that those who oppose it are "un-American".

"It makes me mad, very mad," he says about those who question the war. "Jonathan believed so strongly in what he did in Iraq. I want to see it accomplished because that's what he died for. You'll never convince me that there's no connection between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaida. Never."

[...]

"I fear for this country if Kerry wins," he says. "God has a plan for the ages. Bush will hold back the evil a little bit. He is a God-fearing man. He believes in praying to a God who hears his prayers. He's a leader."