Saturday, September 19, 1998

Clamor over Clinton's indiscretions divides Baptists

By Jim Jones

Knight Ridder Newspapers

The Rev. Paige Patterson, the recently elected president of the Southern Baptist Convention, has joined the ranks of religious conservatives calling for the resignation of President Clinton.

That's not surprising. Neither is it surprising that other, less-conservative Baptists disagree with Patterson.

Clinton's own minister, the Rev. Rex Horne, pastor of Immanuel Baptist Church in Little Rock, Ark., called the president's admitted sexual indiscretions with former White House intern Monica Lewinsky "indefensible and inexcusable."

But those actions, he added, are not unforgivable.

"I pray the president will find the grace of God which comes upon confession of sin and the peace which comes from a restored relationship with our Lord," he said.

Patterson, the former Texan who spearheaded a conservative revolution among Baptists and now is president of Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in Wake Forest, N.C., said Clinton should resign for his own good and the good of the nation he serves.

"Here is a man whose personal life and home and spiritual life are in disarray," he told Baptist Press, the denomination's news service. "And no man walking through those kinds of things is in a position to lead anything."

President Clinton, who used to sing in the choir and play the saxophone at the Little Rock church where he is a member, has been increasingly asking for forgiveness for his admitted wrongdoing.

His pleas even extended to a group of religious leaders he invited to a White House breakfast Friday.

But Patterson and other religious conservatives, including Richard Land, head of the Southern Baptist Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, say Clinton can no longer be an effective president or a good role model for the nation.

Stirring more controversy, Albert Mohler, conservative president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky., even urged Clinton's church to publicly discipline him.

"How can President Clinton claim to be a Southern Baptist and persist in this public display of serial sin? Only because the congregation which holds his membership has failed to exercise any semblance of church discipline," Mohler wrote in a column for Religious News Service.

Mohler's words caused Mark Wingfield, editor of the Western Recorder, the Baptist news magazine for Kentucky, to reply that Mohler is interfering with the affairs of a local Baptist church.

"Al Mohler apparently thinks he knows more about how a certain Arkansas church ought to handle its business than that church itself knows," Wingfield wrote.

One of the most revered Baptist traditions has been the principle that local congregations are autonomous and govern their own business without interference from a church hierarchy.

Ken Hemphill, president of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, also says Clinton should resign so that he can repair the damage done to his family.

"I care for President Clinton as an individual, and he needs to have the time and seclusion to deal with these critical issues," Hemphill said.

More moderate religious leaders say the calls for Clinton's resignation have a political base.

The Rev. C. Welton Gaddy, a Southern Baptist and former Fort Worth pastor who now is executive director of the Interfaith Alliance, a Washington-based organization formed to combat religious conservatives, said those asking Clinton to resign are using "personal tragedy to advance partisan political agendas."

Joan Brown Campbell, general secretary of the National Council of Churches, called for forgiveness of the president.

"In such a painful time, the Clinton family deserves our quiet support. Our churches invite all people to join us in private and caring prayers," she said.

The prayers and the criticism fall along distinct political lines. And that's not surprising, either.

(Jim Jones is religion editor of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. Write to him at: the Star-Telegram, P.O. Box 1870, Fort Worth, TX 76101, or send e-mail to: jimjones(at)star-telegram.com )

(c) 1998, Fort Worth Star-Telegram

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