There are myriad reasons why maintaining the separation of church and state is of the utmost importance. From the ridiculous to the sublime, keeping these two institutions apart just makes sense.

I, for one, don't want the religious ideology of my elected officials to influence what I'm allowed to read, watch or listen to. Nor do I want reverent politicians to legislate morality or attempt to impose their beliefs on my private life. The idea of a state religion is abhorrent.

Since President Bush took office, however, one reason to keep church and state separate has taken on heightened importance. To wit: People who believe the End Times are upon us should never be given the means to bring them about.

Much of this president's recent history - read: post-drug use - revolves around his newfound faith and how it has shaped both his public and private life. Bush's faith guides his domestic policy, his judicial nominees, his treatment of gays and women. While he claims his faith is his rock, most Americans would claim it represents the rock placed upon those different than the president.

Where Bush's beliefs pose the most ominous implications is his foreign policy. When journalist-turned-sycophant Bob Woodward asked Bush if he asked his father for advice about the Iraq war, Bush said, "He is the wrong father to appeal to for advice. The wrong father to go to, to appeal to in terms of strength. There's a higher Father that I appeal to." When Woodward asked the president how history would judge the war, he said, "History, we don't know. We'll all be dead."

Not only does Bush appeal to a higher power for foreign policy consultation, but he also thinks he's doing the Lord's work. Since the war began, the president has been fond of saying things like, "I also have this belief, strong belief, that freedom is not this country's gift to the world; freedom is the Almighty's gift to every man and woman in this world. And as the greatest power on the face of the Earth, we have an obligation to help the spread of freedom." This spread, of course, includes such righteous tools as chemical weapons and bunker-busting nukes.

When pressed on his actual beliefs, Bush stops short of making public pronouncements that would jeopardize his plans. Last month, in Cleveland, an audience member asked the president whether or not he views the war in Iraq and the rise of terrorism as signs of the apocalypse. His non-answer was as telling as the question itself. What Bush did say, however, offered little reassurance that the president sees his job as anything other than protecting Americans from an enemy that wants us dead.

That's just it: Bush doesn't need to sound like an End Times preacher to have the same effect. Not when everyone else in his party is willing to do the dirty work for him. Since he's been in office, Bush's surrogates have consistently spread the message that not only is God a Republican, but also that the Democratic Party is full of godless pagans who would just as soon take your Bible and allow immorality to reign supreme than look at you. Further, that no one other than the Republican Party can save you from a horrible fate.

When you've been primed into a rapturous frenzy by the Jerry Falwells, Pat Robertson and Tim LaHayes of the world, those right-wing refrains are music to your ears. If you think you're headed to heaven in short order, what good are the rest of us to you? Or the environment? Or diplomacy? What good is moderation and bridge building when your president can bring about the end of the world, which, to you, is a good thing?

Think of Bush's base of supporters - the 35 or so percent of Americans who have stuck with the president through the disaster in Iraq, the tragedy along the Gulf Coast, lies about both, lawlessness, scandal and a struggling economy. This percentage is roughly equivalent to the percentage of Americans Bush was able to convince that his policies were the answer in a complicated world in which the End Times were, quite possibly, nigh. You know, the people who can't tell the difference between a burning bush and George W. Bush.

When placed in that perspective, the administration's saber rattling toward Iran takes on a far more distressing tone. We're hearing the same language now that we heard before the invasion of Iraq. We were lied to then; there's little doubt we're being lied to now. Couple that with what we know about Bush, his myopic stubbornness and his belief that he's on a mission from God and we're presented with a very frightening thought: That we're all bit players in the president's apocalyptic Passion play.

A sizeable minority of Americans feel that the apocalypse is upon us. And their president is quite likely one of them. The key difference between Bush and his supporters, sadly, is that the End Timer-in-Chief has his finger on the nuclear trigger - and seems poised to pull it. In that case, God help us all.