Clinton reviews moral failures

Interview with Bill Hybels connects president with pastors

EP News Service
— South Barrington, IL —

The scandals that rocked his presidency have made him a better person, President Bill Clinton told a group of church leaders August 10. Discussing the aftermath of his affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky, Clinton said, “I feel much more at peace than I used to. As awful as what I went through was, sometimes when you think you’ve got something behind you and it’s not behind you, this sort of purging process, if it doesn’t destroy you, can bring you to a different place.”

Clinton continued, “I had to come to terms with a lot of things about the fundamental importance of character and integrity. And integrity to me, means—it’s a literal term. It means the integration of one’s spirit, mind and body; being in the same place at the same time with everything, doing what you believe is right, and you believe is consistent with the will of God.

“It’s been an amazing encounter ... and it took a lot of effort that I’ve never talked about, and probably never will, because I don’t really think it’s anybody else’s concern.”

“I wake up everyday, no matter what anybody says or what goes wrong or whatever, with this overwhelming sense of gratitude, because it may be that if I hadn’t been knocked down in the way I was and forced to come to grips with what I’ve done, and the consequences of it, in such an awful way, I might never have had to really deal with it 100 percent.”

Clinton’s remarks came as he spoke for more than an hour to 4,540 church leaders at the annual Leadership Summit Conference sponsored by Willow Creek Community Church. Thousands more conference participants were listening via satellite hook-ups beamed into 14 U.S. cities, as well as to Calgary and Toronto.

Pressures of presidency

Clinton discussed the spiritual pressures of the presidency and the comfort he’s found in meeting regularly with pastors. “This kind of job, it can overtake you. You can believe it’s even more important than it is. You can let it take up even more time than it should. And it can crowd out all that other stuff inside you that keeps you centred and growing and whole.

“And it’s very important that everybody in public life has somebody who’s talking to them who either has no interest in either playing up to them and telling them what they want to hear, no interest in getting something from them, and no interest in attacking them...and a pastor can do that.”

Bill Hybels, pastor of Willow Creek, has acted as an informal spiritual advisor to Clinton during his presidency. Clinton said he has benefited from his sessions with Hybels and ministers Gordon McDonald, Tony Campolo and Phil Wogaman.

Clinton shared his own story of faith, recalling that he became a Christian at age nine while listening to a speaker in a Baptist church in Hot Springs, Arkansas. “He touched my heart. He convinced me that I needed to acknowledge that I was a sinner and that I needed to accept Christ in my heart, and I did,” he recalled.

Clinton also recalled a Billy Graham crusade in Arkansas in 1957. Desegregation battles were raging in the state and some civic leaders asked Graham to conduct a segregated crusade. Graham refused, noting that people of all races are God’s children.

“And all of a sudden to have Billy Graham validating this, based on his Christian witness, had a profound impact on me,” said Clinton. “And it got me to thinking at that early age about the relationship between your faith and your work ... and for a long time after that I would send a little bit of my allowance money to Billy Graham. You know, I’m still on somebody’s list somewhere....”

In and out of church

Clinton said he fell away from the church in college, but his wife, Hillary Rodham Clinton, encouraged him to go again and now he and his family regularly attend a Methodist church in Washington. Asked if his church attendance was just an act, Clinton joked, “Well, at least it’s a consistent act.” Still joking, he added, “I think I have given evidence that I need to be in church.”

But taking a more serious tone, Clinton explained, “I don’t do it for anybody else. I do it for me. It helps me to go.... I’m sitting there in church, just like everybody else, except needing it maybe more, and it’s one of the best hours of the week for me. I just let everything else go, take my Bible, read, listen and sing. I don’t know, why does anybody go? It means something to me. It’s a way of not only validating my faith but deepening it and basically replenishing it.”

Cinton shared his thoughts on what it takes to be a successful leader. “I think vision is the most important thing,” he said. “The Scripture says where there is no vision, the people will perish.”

Clinton also spoke about the role of the church in America. “I think basically America works best when it’s really strong at the grassroots. And that means that the role of community churches is pivotal,” he said. “I think every church needs a mission that goes beyond its members. I think that the words of Christ in Saint Matthew’s gospel, about how we’re all going to be judged in part by how we dealt toward the least of these, is very important, especially in a time of extraordinary prosperity like this one.”

Some criticized Hybels for inviting Clinton to speak to church leaders, saying Clinton has not really apologized for his wrongdoing. “He hasn’t even asked for forgiveness and he’s lied to the American people, committed adultery against his wife and disgraced the office,” Willow Creek member John A. Noverini told the Chicago Daily Herald.

Other church members supported the Clinton invitation, including former Chicago Bear Mike Singletary. “So many of us are quick to condemn and judge,” he said. “So many times we miss the point. If we think about what Jesus was all about, he always was somewhere where there was controversy.”

In a question and answer session with Clinton, Hybels rejected the notion that Clinton hasn’t apologized. “You gave one of the most clear confessional statements that I have ever heard,” he said to Clinton, who responded, “I finally realized it would never be all right unless I stood up and said what I did is wrong.”

Willow Creek Community Church, located in suburban Chicago, is one of the nation’s largest congregations with 17,000 members.