Bad behavior devalues president’s confession
Contrition proportional to imminence of next revelation
Bill Clinton went too far in his relationship with Monica Lewinsky and not far enough in his first public mea culpa. Most observers found the U.S. president’s mid-August speech defensive and insufficiently contrite. The negative reaction forced Clinton to embark on a campaign of contrition that soon developed a momentum of its own, acquiring depth and urgency with the impending release of Kenneth Starr’s report.
In the week before the damning account went public, Clinton began to invoke the "f" word, actively seeking "forgiveness" from family and friends, Democrats and donors, politicians and pastors. And it was to religious leaders at a national prayer breakfast at the White House on the very day that the federal prosecutor’s mammoth indictment of the his behavior hit the internet that a chastened Clinton delivered an apology that spoke of true repentance.
"I have sinned"
"I don’t think there is a fancy way to say that I have sinned," said the president. "It is important to me that everybody who has been hurt know that the sorrow I feel is genuine: first and most important, my family; also my friends, my staff, my cabinet, Monica Lewinsky and her family, and the American people. I have asked all for their forgiveness.
"But I believe that to be forgiven," Clinton continued, "more than sorrow is required–at least two more things. First, genuine repentance–a determination to change and to repair breaches of my own making. I have repented," he said. "Second, what my Bible calls a ‘broken spirit’; an understanding that I must have God’s help to be the person that I want to be; a willingness to give the very forgiveness I seek; a renunciation of the pride and the anger which cloud judgment...." The president also said that "if my repentance is genuine and sustained, and if I can maintain both a broken spirit and a strong heart, then good can come of this."
Clinton’s confession was well received by the religious leaders. Tears flowed. A clip on the CBC National news showed a sobbing Tony Campolo. And while it is easy to quibble with the nuances of even this confession, the air of contrition was palpable. Why, one wonders, didn’t the president come clean much earlier? It takes this level of disclosure to make talk of forgiveness meaningful.
Prodigal dilemma
Curiously, two days after Starr’s report hit the internet I led a youth Sunday school lesson on God’s unconditional love as presented in the parable of the prodigal son. The message was clear: God loves and accepts even the most degenerate among us. One young man, who was involved in a street gang before he became a Christian about a year ago, was especially adamant in his argument that God forgives and forgets. We should do the same, he insisted.
Another member of the congregation had a more skeptical and more typical response. He simply doesn’t believe the president. And, unfortunately, it is impossible to escape the feeling that Clinton’s contrition is directly proportional to the imminence of the next revelation from Starr, or Lewinsky, or Willey, or Tripp, or Jones, or....
He has been fooling around for a long time with apparently few qualms about telling lies to cover it up. Like a boy discovered with his hand in the cookie jar, the president appears to be sincerely sorry that he got caught.
Clinton truly set foot on the path to forgiveness when he acknowledged that specific actions of his were wrong, clearly identified who each offense was against, and expressed his contrition to those individuals. At that point each was given the choice to extend or withhold forgiveness. While they may well choose to do so, they must also be aware of the president’s record. He has deceived skillfully and often.
Words and deeds
More words are not what anyone needs from Clinton now. Acts of contrition must exceed lofty rhetoric. How much different it could have been for the president if he had, for example, heeded the advice of Ron Sider, who earlier this year had a constructive suggestion ("Should President Clinton resign?" Prism, May/June 1998).
"President Clinton could address the American people, admit his sin, report that he has asked God, Hillary, Chelsea, and the other women to forgive him, and pledge henceforth that he will do whatever needs to be done to honor his marriage vow. Nobody would believe him of course–unless he resigned.
"But what if he left office, promising that after an extended time of personal retreat and marital healing, he and Hillary planned to devote the rest of their lives to renewing marriage in American culture." Sider goes on to suggest a number of ways that they could do that, and observes that they would face considerable skepticism for years. But if they persevered over two decades, he maintains, "ex-president Bill Clinton and former first lady Hillary Clinton could do for marriage and the family what former president Jimmy Carter has done for human rights and housing for the poor."
Only God can read the deepest intentions of Bill Clinton’s heart. Only God can provide the forgiveness he sorely needs and plainly desires. The rest of us need more convincing. As the old saw goes: "A man of words and not of deeds is like a garden full of weeds."
Doug
Koop
Editor
