It was the right sermon to the right flock at the right time.<\/p>\n\n
\u201cMy father was certain that Cain and Abel were the first Baptists because they introduced fratricide to the Bible,\u201d said Bill Moyers, a Baptist preacher turned media guru, hours before Bill Clinton\u2019s first inauguration. Moyers was speaking at the First Baptist Church of Washington, D.C., and the congregation included Clinton and Al Gore, who are both Southern Baptists.<\/p>\n\n
\u201cAt the core of our faith is what we call soul competency,\u201d he said. \u201cCreated with the imprint of divinity, from the mixed clay of earth, we are endowed with the capacity to choose, to be ^E a grown-up before God, making my own case, accounting for my own sins, asking my own questions and expecting in good faith that when all is said and done I\u2019ll get a fair hearing and just verdict.\u201d<\/p>\n\n
To which the born-again believer in the Oval Office says, \u201cAmen.\u201d Clinton has always prided himself on being part of an unruly crowd that has few if any doctrines that cannot be submitted to a yea-or-nay vote in a local church or even a single pew. Baptists are their own priests. Each can read the Bible and make up his or her own mind. Clinton has a Bible, too.<\/p>\n\n
It\u2019s hard to understand the morality plays in this White House without understanding that Clinton is a Baptist\u2019s Baptist. His Baptist critics say he makes up his rules of faith as he goes along. Yet they have no catechism or tradition that authoritatively says he is wrong. If they do, then they\u2019re not really Baptists.<\/p>\n\n
Naturally, Baptists have been free to offer a variety of responses to the latest firestorm. Here\u2019s a sample.<\/p>\n\n
* The Southern Baptist Convention\u2019s president noted that the Bible teaches Christians to pray for their leaders \u2014 no matter what. \u201cGod is far more concerned than any of us about the character of our leaders,\u201d said the Rev. Tom Elliff, speaking at an evangelism conference in Alabama. After all, God \u201cknows more truths than we will ever know.\u201d While Elliff avoided the current scandal, he said America is in \u201cbig trouble\u201d and that \u201cevery citizen has a right to expect good character on the part of all our leaders.\u201d<\/p>\n\n
* One progressive Baptist friend of Bill stressed that he won\u2019t abandon Clinton, in part because of the president\u2019s support for the poor and the oppressed. Tony Campolo of Eastern College in St. Davids, Pa., told the Associated Baptist Press that he would treat Clinton as Jesus would treat him. \u201cI follow a man who really didn\u2019t give a hoot about his reputation. As a matter of fact, I think Jesus had the worst reputation in Jerusalem,\u201d said Campolo.<\/p>\n\n
* In Little Rock, Ark., Clinton\u2019s pastor is hearing tough biblical questions, especially about the president\u2019s reported view that sexual acts short of intercourse do not violate the Sixth Commandment against adultery. \u201cNo, I wouldn\u2019t defend his interpretation of that,\u201d said the Rev. Rex Horne of Immanuel Baptist Church, quoted in the Washington Times. \u201cI know it\u2019s too early to know or tell what\u2019s happening here, the truth from the allegations, but I feel pain and am praying for the president and his family and our country at this time.\u201d<\/p>\n\n
* Another Baptist with a unique perspective is Donna Rice Hughes, who once was trapped in a media storm with presidential candidate Gary Hart. She told World magazine that she is offering special prayers for Monica Lewinsky. It\u2019s so easy, she said, for people to label a woman a \u201cbimbo,\u201d \u201cobsessed\u201d or \u201cattention- starved.\u201d It\u2019s even easy for Christians to say, \u201cOh, I\u2019m better than that person. I didn\u2019t make that mistake,\u201d said Hughes, who is now a conservative Christian activist.<\/p>\n\n
* The president, meanwhile, simply told those at the National Prayer Breakfast that he is thankful for the prayers and \u201cscriptural instruction\u201d he has received recently. \u201cI ask also for your prayers as we work together to continue to take our country to higher ground and to remember the admonition of Micah, which I try to repeat to myself on a very regular basis. I ask your prayers that I and we might act justly and love mercy and walk humbly with our God.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
It was the right sermon to the right flock at the right time. \u201cMy father was certain that Cain and Abel were the first Baptists because they introduced fratricide to the Bible,\u201d said Bill Moyers, a Baptist preacher turned media guru, hours before Bill Clinton\u2019s first inauguration. Moyers was speaking at the First Baptist Church […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":610,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1013","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n