Judgment Day for Clinton?

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's Immanuel Baptist Church.

In his handwritten letter, Bill Clinton "expressed repentance for his actions, sadness for the consequence of his sin on his family, friends and church family and asked forgiveness," 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's tape recorder while the letter was read.

And that was that. Responding to outside calls for Clinton to be disciplined, Horne told the Arkansas Baptist newspaper that Immanuel always approaches "the work of the Lord as an autonomous church."

One Arkansas Baptist State Convention official did say that the crisis created "an odd in-between time between forgiveness and justice." But the Rev. Mike Seabaugh said Immanuel's positive response to Clinton's letter showed that "this issue has been dealt with on a spiritual level."

Maybe it did and maybe it didn't, according to "Judgment Day at the White House," an unusual book rushed into print by an ecumenical group of theologians, historians and ethicists, including many outspoken Democrats. It opens with a "Declaration Concerning Religion, Ethics and the Crisis in the Clinton Presidency" (www.moral-crisis.org) which, as of this week, has been signed by 157 scholars.

The declaration includes this stinging critique: "We 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. ... 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."

The result is what Democrat Jean Bethke Elshtain of the University of Chicago calls the "politics of forgiveness" in which spiritual confession kicks in after efforts to defeat prosecutors and crime labs. Plus, "there is something suspect about a dynamic of forgiveness-seeking that takes place only after various forms of polling ... have gone forward to determine how this strategy will 'play' with the public," she said.

In addition to seeking his home church's 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 "sinful" as one of their main adjectives describing the Monica Lewinsky affair.

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 "Judgment Day at the White House." The bottom line: the confession of "private" sins trumps a trial for "public" crimes.

"This denial that the private and the public spheres of life are connected is especially troubling," said Fackre. "In reality, it's impossible to separate the two. If you don't 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."

On top of that, many people seem to be radically editing centuries of doctrine on repentance and forgiveness, he said. After all, "even the process of religious confession is incomplete without some evidence of amendment of life and a willingness to accept the consequences for one's actions."

Then again, perhaps Clinton represents today's Christian mainstream. After all, it's hard to define "lying" 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 - like most Americans - truly believes the purpose of faith is to provide "meaning" in his "inner life" and any personal problems should be absolved through Christianized therapy, called "pastoral counseling."

"It is not just that President Clinton has no sense that a public sin requires public penance," said Hauerwas, "but that American Protestantism has no sense of it either. ... The question before Christians is not whether Bill Clinton should be impeached, but why he is not excommunicated."

Religion News '98 – The Bible, sex & perjury

There were only two people in the office, so historians may never know the truth about some of the most important meetings in William Jefferson Clinton's life.

No, this isn't about the Oval Office.

These pivotal talks would have taken place in the Rev. W.O. Vaught's office at Immanuel Baptist Church in Little Rock, or at the Arkansas governor's mansion. The young Clinton claimed the feisty Southern Baptist as his spiritual father and constantly sought his wisdom about complex moral issues. Vaught died just as Clinton rose to national prominence.

It was Vaught who told Clinton that the Bible didn't forbid the death penalty. He also said that personhood begins with the first breath, because the Bible says life was literally breathed into man at creation. This helped the governor decide that abortion wasn't murder.

Still, it's impossible to know if the future president ever asked his pastor what the Bible does or doesn't say about adultery and the moral status of sexual acts other than intercourse. But somewhere along the line, according to Monica Lewinsky and others, Clinton became convinced this was another complex issue on which he was going to have to read the Bible and, claiming his doctrinal freedom as a Baptist, make up his own mind.

The rest is history. Thus, members of the Religion Newswriters Association have voted the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal - with its undercurrents of sin, confession and forgiveness - as 1998's top religion news story. The president also was named Religion Newsmaker of the year, finishing in a tie with Pope John Paul II, who marked the 20th anniversary of his pontificate with ``Fides et Ratio,'' another encyclical on faith, reason and moral absolutes.

Debates about Clinton, the Bible and sex are sure to continue. After all, the president's biblical exegesis is the linchpin for his claim that he didn't commit perjury by denying under oath that he had a "sexual relationship" with Lewinsky. How could he knowingly have lied if he sincerely believes the Bible doesn't teach that oral sex and masturbation equal "sexual relations" or sexual intercourse?

"Perhaps we should just say that Clinton is being very literal - legalistic even – about how he reads the Bible, when it serves his purposes to do so," said Baptist theologian Stanley Grenz of Vancouver's Regent College, author of "Sexual Ethics: An Evangelical Perspective." "It's true that the Bible may not clearly address each and every kind of sexual act. But if Clinton is using that as a justification to split hairs, then he has simply missed the spirit of everything the scriptures have to say about marriage and sex."

The other top stories in the 1998 Religion Newswriters Association poll were:

2. One million Cubans worship with Pope John Paul II in Havana's Revolution Square, where he calls on Fidel Castro's government to offer new religious and political freedoms. The pope also criticizes the U.S. trade embargo.

3. A United Methodist court fails, by one vote, to convict the Rev. Jimmy Creech of Omaha, Neb., of violating church doctrine by performing a same-sex union ceremony. The church's Judicial Council later strengthens the law against such rites.

4. The Southern Baptist Convention, meeting in Salt Lake City, resolves that wives should "submit graciously'' to the "servant leadership'' of their husbands.

5. The murder of Matthew Shepard, a gay student in Wyoming, leads to even more debates about homosexuality, including the work of ministries led by former gays and lesbians.

6. The Vatican expresses remorse for the cowardice of some Christians during the Holocaust. But its defense of Pope Pius XII draws criticism from some Jewish groups. The pope later canonizes Edith Stein, a German Jew who converted to Catholicism and died in Auschwitz.

7. Led by Third World traditionalists, especially from Africa, the 13th Lambeth Conference of Anglican bishops declares homosexual practice incompatible with scripture.

8. Debate about the morality of assisted suicide increases as Michigan attempts to prosecute Dr. Jack Kevorkian on charges of murder, after "60 Minutes" airs a tape showing the death of one of his patients.

9. National Baptist Convention President Henry Lyons confesses an ``improper relationship'' with an aide and is indicted on 56 federal charges, including extortion and fraud.

10. Texas executes Karla Faye Tucker – a pick-ax killer turned born-again Bible teacher – despite appeals from the pope, broadcaster Pat Robertson and others.

One holiday, many angels – on sale now

Undertakers bury people, tax collectors collect taxes and Mannheim Steamroller makes Christmas albums that bore into shoppers' psyches like the whine of a dentist's drill.

This year's offering from synthesizer-superstar Chip Davis and company, "The Christmas Angel: A Family Story," uses "Silent Night," "Joy to the World" and other classics to accompany a new fable. Here's the plot: Darth Vader plays the Grinch who stole Christmas, who is touched by an angel in a near-death light show in a Norse Netherworld that resembles a video-game arcade, or something like that.

Finally, the heroine uses nonsectarian liturgical dance to heal the troubled Gargon. The libretto states: "But the terrible mask fell away from his face, and a new, kindly visage appeared in its place. For the terrible Gargon was merely thus: An old Christmas angel, somehow villainous. The magic released the Lost Souls from their jail, and now they were transformed back into Christmas Angels."

The kids and toys live happily ever after and Jesus never shows up.

The key to this story, said philosopher Douglas Groothuis of Denver Seminary, "is that, deep down, we're all really luminous beings of natural goodness. Evil is just an illusion, or an accident, and it can be easily overcome with a mere trick or magic. There's no sense of sacrifice or struggle. This isn't the message of Christmas, to say the least."

But it's hard to be sure what "The Christmas Angel" is all about, because it offers such a bizarre blend of symbols and messages. "It's like a Rorschach test," said Groothuis. "I guess people are just supposed to see whatever they want to see."

'Tis the season to be vague – so be careful out there. Christmas has become a laugh-to-keep-from-crying holiday.

* Another strange disc was "The Ultimate Lounge Christmas," from Essential Records, a major player in the Contemporary Christian Music market. I can understand a secular label releasing a leopard-skin package of lounge-versions of Christmas classics, as an ironic toast to a post-modern holiday. Why would a Christian company do this?

"Lounge music," said singer John Jonethis, "has the unique ability to liven up any celebration, or bring a peaceful reverence to sacred classics."

* The most recent issue of The Door ("The World's Pretty Much Only Religious Satire Magazine"), carried a Christmas greeting from the staff on its back cover. It features a painting of the Madonna and Child that had been altered, using digital editing, to depict Bill Clinton in the arms of Monica Lewinsky. The baby Clinton has his hand down the front of her dress.

* Up in Alberta, Canada, Telus Mobility quickly pulled an advertisement in which one of the Three Wise Men offers the baby Jesus a deal on the company's prepaid cell-phone service.

* Over in England, the Anglican hierarchy and the Roman Catholic Church protested a French Connection UK "XMAS" ad campaign featuring a blunt acronym of the company's name. The statement by the company said the ads were merely supposed to make shoppers "do a double-take and smile." Many did not.

* The Windham Hill music company came up with this year's perfect marketing slogan for a pluralistic holiday: "One Heaven, Many Angels, All Believers Can Fly."

* Yes, my fax machine heated up when the Levi Strauss company asked the private Makkos Organization in New York City for permission to put a Christmas tree near its Central Park ice-skating rink. The plan was to unveil the tree on Dec. 1, World AIDS Day, and to decorate it with a festive selection of condoms. The request was denied.

* Cuba's Communist Party made news by ending a three-decade effort to stifle Christmas. But while celebrations return to Havana, the seasonal culture wars here keep escalating. As pundit George Will noted, the "potential for litigation is limitless" in America. After all, those supposedly safe wreaths began as symbols representing a crown of thorns. Those sweet candy canes stand for shepherds' staffs and, later, the crosiers carried by bishops – such as St. Nicholas of Myra.

Where will it end? A lawsuit in Cincinnati is challenging the constitutionality of the law making Christmas a federal holiday.

The dilemma of the December Dilemma

It happens about the time shopping malls hire their Santas, schools schedule "Winter Concerts" and televisions start radiating even more images of children clutching trendy gadgets.

That's when Jewish groups hold "December Dilemma" forums to help parents survive "the holidays." In isolated segments of society, the season continues to be called Christmas.

Rabbi Hillel Goldberg thinks this is all really strange.

"I always feel like an outsider, but not because it's Christmas," said the veteran editor of the Intermountain Jewish News in Denver. "I feel like an outsider because so many Jews are talking about their 'December Dilemmas' and I don't have a 'December Dilemma.' In fact, I think the whole 'December Dilemma' concept is strange because it presupposes that what's going on in some other tradition is automatically going to take up a lot of space in a Jew's life."

In other words, Goldberg believes Jewish groups actually need to hold forums asking why so many Jews feel such strong conflicts this time of year. Ironically, the true "December Dilemma" is that Jews need to talk about a "December Dilemma" in the first place.

It's especially poignant, said the rabbi, that so many Jews fear that their children will "feel deprived" if they miss the commercialized and quasi-religious parade that dominates popular culture in December. He said this usually means there is a "hollow place" in the lives of these families, a place that should be filled with Judaism's own daily, weekly and seasonal cycle of traditions and teachings.

A child in a family that enjoys Jewish life and faith is less likely to crave a Christmas tree. Here's another irony: children who have, December after December, been taught the true meaning of the modest holiday called Hanukkah are also less likely to try to coerce their parents into turning it into a Jewish super-holiday. This year, the eight-day "festival of lights" begins at sundown on Sunday (Dec. 13).

But if a family's life is dominated by television, pop music, movies, shopping and other activities that have little or nothing to do with their faith, then it will probably feel tension during these media-mad and highly secularized holidays.

"I don't deny that many people truly feel conflicted and confused during this season," said Goldberg. "But I believe that this is evidence that something is radically wrong in the lives of many Jews. This is very sad."

Truth is, millions of Jews no longer practice Judaism and many others blend elements of other religions - such as Buddhism - into their faiths. Of America's 4 million to 6 million Jews, a 1990 poll found that 1.1 million claim no religious faith at all and another 1.3 million actively practice another faith. Researchers found only 484,000 American Jews who regularly attend synagogue or temple services.

Obviously, the "December Dilemma" also affects millions of homes in which one parent is Jewish, to one degree or another, while the other is Christian, to one degree or another.

Here's how Ellen Harris of Palo Alto, Calif., described December with Santa Claus and a menorah: "My husband and I aren't sure about faith, but we do feel that cultural and moral educations are important for our kids. They don't identify themselves as Jews or Christians, although they talk about both faiths openly. I think it is healthy for them to know the differences and for them to know about things that don't have answers." She offered her views on "Melding The Religions" in Disney Online's "December Dilemma" pages.

That says it all. However, Rabbi Goldberg is convinced that a small, but fervent, minority will avoid spinning in the holiday blender by turning to quieter celebrations built on Jewish tradition. And for the majority, its sense of season schizophrenia will probably fade.

"The whole concept of the 'December Dilemma' is based on the idea that people still feel some tension between their Jewish faith and what's going on around them," he said. "One would have to conclude that, as more Jews lose any real sense of Jewish identity, we will hear less and less talk about a 'December Dilemma.' "

Texas Baptists face the sex wars

For two decades, Southern Baptists have been so busy fighting about the Bible that they've been some of the only church folks who weren't fighting about sex.

Those days are gone. A band of conservatives recently broke away from the moderate Baptist General Convention of Texas and formed a new body called the Southern Baptists of Texas. The rebels said the BGCT wasn't tough enough on abortion and homosexuality.

"We've got to get away from this thing of getting away from God's word," said the Rev. Miles Seaborn of Fort Worth, the group's president.

This convention, which currently includes 183 churches, immediately proclaimed that "all human life is sacred, specifically life in the womb" and pledged it would reject churches that condone homosexual acts or have "pastors or deacons that are practicing homosexuals."

This makes it sound like the old Texas convention, with its 5,700 churches, has openly backed abortion and gay rights. At its recent gathering, the BGCT backed laws requiring parental consent 48 hours before minors could have abortions. But it declined to vote on condemning abortion "in all cases except when the mother's life is in danger" and leaders ruled out of order a motion to deny funding to any Baptist medical institution proven to perform abortions. It also defeated a call to affirm the right of local churches to ordain gays and lesbians.

Texas is one of the last fronts in the 19-year civil war in the 16-million-member Southern Baptist Convention. The Southern Baptist right - which is weak in Texas, but runs the national body - remains united on social issues and committed to "biblical inerrancy," the belief that the Bible is without errors of any kind.

"They know who they are. They are the people who are opposed to what they see as theological liberalism and modernism," said philosopher Mike Beaty, who teaches at Baylor University in Waco, a hub for Texas moderates. "But the moderate camp includes all kinds of people with all kinds of beliefs and these people have been united more by what they're against - fundamentalism - than by what they are for."

Facing a national conservative tide, moderates have rallied around the "four fragile freedoms" of Baptist life - "Bible freedom," the "soul freedom" of individuals to interpret the Bible, "church freedom" that focuses power at the local level and "religious freedom" that strictly separates church and state. The result is what Beaty called a "tradition-less tradition" that fears any effort to coerce individual believers and congregations.

Thus, the University Baptist Church in Austin protested last spring when the BGCT said its gay-rights stands clashed with "scriptural guidelines." The Rev. Larry Bethune asked: "What could make these Baptist principalities and powers act in such an un-Baptist way, throwing aside our deepest Baptist ideals of soul freedom, liberty of conscience and local church autonomy?"

And there's another issue that won't go away - Bill Clinton. Many Southern Baptists are furious about a Newsweek article arguing that the president's moral flexibility is linked to his Baptist heritage. A key conservative, the Rev. Al Mohler of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky., even said Zippergate is an "indictment of the generation of moderate and liberal Baptist leaders who served as Bill Clinton's moral advisers, and are now his enablers in a lifestyle of gross immorality and irresponsibility."

The Texas Baptist newspaper called this "despicable demagoguery" and noted that conservatives haven't drawn similar conclusions from news accounts of scandals in their own camp. Editor Toby Druin noted that "the Bible I read says, 'Thou shalt not commit adultery' " and this sin has touched both moderates and conservatives.

Then again, that depends on how one defines "sin" and "adultery."

Once upon a time, Southern Baptists lived in a Bible Belt that seemed isolated from most troubling trends. It was easier to stress the positive, such as evangelism and missions, when only liberal churches far away quarreled over nasty, negative issues such as abortion and sex.

"It seemed like we could all read the Bible for ourselves and then we pretty much agreed on what it said, at least on these kinds of issues," said Beaty. "It seemed like the culture was on our side and we were speaking the same language. It was easier back then."