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{"id":1059,"date":"1998-12-30T08:00:00","date_gmt":"1998-12-30T13:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tmatt\/1998\/12\/30\/judgment-day-for-clinton\/"},"modified":"2013-01-30T13:32:32","modified_gmt":"2013-01-30T18:32:32","slug":"judgment-day-for-clinton","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/tmatt\/1998\/12\/judgment-day-for-clinton\/","title":{"rendered":"Judgment Day for Clinton?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

After the altar call urging sinners to come find salvation, the Rev. Rex Horne read an urgent appeal from a long-time member of Little Rock\u2019s Immanuel Baptist Church.<\/p>\n\n

In his handwritten letter, Bill Clinton \u201cexpressed repentance for his actions, sadness for the consequence of his sin on his family, friends and church family and asked forgiveness,\u201d said a two-sentence press release issued after that Oct. 18 service. Worshippers later declined to say if he named specific sins and the pastor refused to release the two-page text, even to church members. The audio engineer also turned off the church\u2019s tape recorder while the letter was read.<\/p>\n\n

And that was that. Responding to outside calls for Clinton to be disciplined, Horne told the Arkansas Baptist newspaper that Immanuel always approaches \u201cthe work of the Lord as an autonomous church.\u201d<\/p>\n\n

One Arkansas Baptist State Convention official did say that the crisis created \u201can odd in-between time between forgiveness and justice.\u201d But the Rev. Mike Seabaugh said Immanuel\u2019s positive response to Clinton\u2019s letter showed that \u201cthis issue has been dealt with on a spiritual level.\u201d<\/p>\n\n

Maybe it did and maybe it didn\u2019t, according to \u201cJudgment Day at the White House,\u201d an unusual book rushed into print by an ecumenical group of theologians, historians and ethicists, including many outspoken Democrats. It opens with a \u201cDeclaration Concerning Religion, Ethics and the Crisis in the Clinton Presidency\u201d (www.moral-crisis.org<\/a>) which, as of this week, has been signed by 157 scholars.<\/p>\n\n

The declaration includes this stinging critique: \u201cWe believe that serious misunderstandings of repentance and forgiveness are being exploited for political advantage. The resulting moral confusion is a threat to the integrity of American religion and to the foundations of a civil society. \u2026 We fear the religious community is in danger of being called upon to provide authentication for a politically motivated and incomplete repentance that seeks to avert serious consequences for wrongful acts.\u201d<\/p>\n\n

The result is what Democrat Jean Bethke Elshtain of the University of Chicago calls the \u201cpolitics of forgiveness\u201d in which spiritual confession kicks in after efforts to defeat prosecutors and crime labs. Plus, \u201cthere is something suspect about a dynamic of forgiveness-seeking that takes place only after various forms of polling \u2026 have gone forward to determine how this strategy will \u2018play\u2019 with the public,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n

In addition to seeking his home church\u2019s forgiveness, the president has confessed his sins at an interfaith prayer breakfast, publicized a tag-team of friendly clergy counselors and allowed his lawyers use \u201csinful\u201d as one of their main adjectives describing the Monica Lewinsky affair.<\/p>\n\n

The White House has baptized a political and legal crisis in religious images and language, said theologian Gabriel Fackre of the United Church of Christ, who edited \u201cJudgment Day at the White House.\u201d The bottom line: the confession of \u201cprivate\u201d sins trumps a trial for \u201cpublic\u201d crimes.<\/p>\n\n

\u201cThis denial that the private and the public spheres of life are connected is especially troubling,\u201d said Fackre. \u201cIn reality, it\u2019s impossible to separate the two. If you don\u2019t have honor, fidelity, honesty and integrity in your personal life then, sooner or later, the causes you work for in public life are going to be imperiled.\u201d<\/p>\n\n

On top of that, many people seem to be radically editing centuries of doctrine on repentance and forgiveness, he said. After all, \u201ceven the process of religious confession is incomplete without some evidence of amendment of life and a willingness to accept the consequences for one\u2019s actions.\u201d<\/p>\n\n

Then again, perhaps Clinton represents today\u2019s Christian mainstream. After all, it\u2019s hard to define \u201clying\u201d in an era in which so many churches keep debating whether there are any eternal truths and doctrines, argued theologian Stanley Hauerwas, another Democrat who teaches at Duke University. Perhaps the president \u2013 like most Americans \u2013 truly believes the purpose of faith is to provide \u201cmeaning\u201d in his \u201cinner life\u201d and any personal problems should be absolved through Christianized therapy, called \u201cpastoral counseling.\u201d<\/p>\n\n

\u201cIt is not just that President Clinton has no sense that a public sin requires public penance,\u201d said Hauerwas, \u201cbut that American Protestantism has no sense of it either. \u2026 The question before Christians is not whether Bill Clinton should be impeached, but why he is not excommunicated.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"