As Bill Clinton tells the story, it wasn\u2019t your typical Baptist prayer breakfast.<\/p>\n\n
The guest of honor at the White House was the Rev. Ed Young, the Southern Baptist Convention\u2019s new president. The two men went jogging near the National Mall and had breakfast on the Truman Balcony with Vice President Al Gore. The three Southern Baptists didn\u2019t agree on everything, but the atmosphere was friendly \u2014 in large part because the president admired Young\u2019s preaching so much.<\/p>\n\n
But the crucial exchange in that 1993 meeting centered on a question about the Bible, said Clinton, speaking to last week\u2019s New Baptist Covenant Celebration in Atlanta. This unprecedented summit drew about 10,000 Anglo, African-American, Asian-American and Hispanic Baptists from 30 North American conventions and organizations linked to the Baptist World Alliance.<\/p>\n\n
Continuing a lengthy story that he turned into a parable, Clinton claimed that Young \u201clooked at me and he said, \u2018I want to ask you a question, a simple question, and I just want a yes or no answer. I don\u2019t want one of those slick political answers. \u2026 Do you believe the Bible is literally true? Yes or no.\u2019<\/p>\n\n
\u201cI said, \u2018Reverend Young, I think that it is completely true, but I do not believe that you, or I, or any other living person, is wise enough to understand it completely.\u2019 He said, \u2018That\u2019s a political answer.\u2019 I said, \u2018No, it\u2019s not. You asked a political question.\u2019 \u201c<\/p>\n\n
The audience in the Georgia World Congress Center cheered, which isn\u2019t surprising since the New Covenant gathering served as a rally for Clinton and other Baptists anxious to build a progressive network to stand opposite the conservative Southern Baptist Convention.<\/p>\n\n
Also, it isn\u2019t surprising to learn that Young has a radically different take on what happened that morning. He agrees it was a friendly meeting, but doesn\u2019t remember eating breakfast. However, the preacher said the logistical details are beside the point.<\/p>\n\n
\u201cThe main thing is that I have never asked anyone on this earth that question,\u201d said Young, who continues to lead Second Baptist Church in Houston, which draws about 25,000 worshippers to services each week on five campuses throughout that giant metroplex. \u201cI have no doubt that someone, somewhere has asked Bill Clinton if he thinks the Bible is literally true, but it wasn\u2019t me.<\/p>\n\n
\u201cThat isn\u2019t a question I ask. I mean, Jesus says, \u2018I am a door.\u2019 \u2026 How do you claim something like that is literally true?\u201d<\/p>\n\n
In fact, Young doesn\u2019t remember mentioning \u201cbiblical inerrancy\u201d during that White House meeting, the theological term at the heart of 30 years of conflict in the 16-million-member Southern Baptist Convention, America\u2019s largest non-Catholic flock.<\/p>\n\n
However, the men did discuss the divisions in their church, Young added, and Clinton offered an articulate defense of his more liberal approach to the Christian faith. They also talked about specific moral and political issues, the kind of hot-button issues that are causing splits in many mainstream churches these days.<\/p>\n\n
\u201cI agreed not to make any public statements after that meeting,\u201d said Young. \u201cSo what we talked about was off the record then and I\u2019ll keep it that way today.\u201d<\/p>\n\n
But Clinton and other New Covenant speakers \u2014 including Gore and former President Jimmy Carter \u2014 talked openly about the SBC\u2019s fault lines, including abortion, gay rights, the ordination of women, clashing accounts of creation, global warming, the death penalty and the separation of church and state.<\/p>\n\n
For Baptist conservatives, Clinton insisted, the theological foundation for their public activism was the \u201cproposition that the Bible was literally true and that, once you understood its literal meaning, it was possible to know what God intended us to do about every conceivable political question alive in this day. And, that knowing God\u2019s will, if we did not do it, we had committed not just a political error, but a religious heresy.\u201d<\/p>\n\n
But when it comes to politics, the former president said Baptists should focus on the verse in the Apostle Paul\u2019s first letter to the Corinthians in which he stresses that it\u2019s impossible to understand everything about God\u2019s will because, in this life, \u201cwe see through a glass, darkly.\u201d<\/p>\n\n
Therefore, Clinton stressed, \u201cit almost doesn\u2019t matter whether the Bible is literally true, because we know in part, we see through a glass darkly. Humility is the order of the day. The reason we have to love each other is because all of us might be wrong.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
As Bill Clinton tells the story, it wasn\u2019t your typical Baptist prayer breakfast. The guest of honor at the White House was the Rev. Ed Young, the Southern Baptist Convention\u2019s new president. The two men went jogging near the National Mall and had breakfast on the Truman Balcony with Vice President Al Gore. The three […]<\/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":[95,117,223,476,565,772],"class_list":["post-1476","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-baptists","tag-bill-clinton","tag-church-state","tag-jimmy-carter","tag-moderates","tag-sbc-war"],"yoast_head":"\n