FaithWorld

U.S. President George W. Bush’s focus on religious freedoms while attending the Olympic Games in Beijing is sure to please the conservative evangelical base back home which brought him to power.

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Bush on Sunday worshipped at a Beijing church and had frank talks with the country’s Communist leaders as part of his effort to press for wider religious freedom in China – a  potent mix of sports, politics and religion which should go down well in the U.S. heartland.

A key pillar of the Republican Party, U.S. religious conservatives are in a restive mood at the moment.

Many are lukewarm at best on the presumptive Republican presidential nominee John McCain. 

The movement also faces divisions as some evangelicals seek to broaden its agenda beyond (while not excluding)  issues like abortion and gay marriage.

But Bush’s push on religious freedoms in America is a reminder that the conservative Christian movement in  the United States has not always been focused just on domestic affairs.

Some scholars of the movement have noted that its only major policy success to date has been in foreign affairs. (After all abortion remains legal, pornography remains widespread, and gay rights continue to advance on some fronts.)

This success came in the form of the 1998 International Religious Freedom Act, which was passed to promote religious freedom as a key aspect of U.S. foreign policy. There is even an Office of International Religious Freedom within the U.S. Department of State.

It lists China as a “country of particular concern” – though given its economic power U.S. policy on this front is unlikely to move much beyond diplomacy and talking.

Still, Bush’s emphasis on religious freedom has deep roots in his political base — and is a reminder to them of their past and present influence on some aspects of U.S. government policy.

(Photo Credit: REUTERS/Larry Downing, August 10, 2008, China)