Saturday, August 22, 1998

Clinton a likely theme in many local sermons

By LORETTA FULTON / Senior Staff Writer

If you're sick and tired of hearing the names Clinton and Lewinsky, you might want to skip church Sunday.

A sampling of ministers around town shows that the subject probably will be mentioned if it isn't the text of an entire sermon.

At Heritage Baptist Church, the Rev. Mike Schirle said the issue fits in nicely with a couple of Scriptures he will preach on - as it most likely will with a number of Scriptures.

"I'm not going to make a whole sermon of it," Schirle said, but will make reference to it at the end.

Schirle will refer to the issue when in conjunction with Hebrews 11:31 and Proverbs 28:13.

The Hebrews passage says the prostitute Rehab "escaped the doom of the unbelievers" through her faith while Proverbs 28:13 states, "Conceal your faults and you will not prosper; confess and give them up, and you will find mercy."

Referring to the Proverbs passage, Schirle said Clinton should have realized seven months ago that he would be better off confessing.

"He has spent seven months not prospering," Schirle said.

Clinton confessed, although some say halfway and without contrition, on national television Monday night to having given misleading statements about his relationship with former White House intern Monica Lewinsky.

Schirle said Clinton chose the wrong time to go on the defensive about Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr.

"True repentance is not the time to cast blame," Schirle said. Instead, the president should have said, "I messed up, I am wrong, please forgive me."

Other ministers said much the same thing, except for the Rev. K.R. White, pastor of Macedonia Baptist Church, who expressed the opinion that the $40 million reportedly spent on the investigation of the president could have been put to better use.

Although White said he probably won't talk about the matter in Sunday's sermon, he said he told a class at his church on Tuesday, "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone."

While many are saying that the president is an embarrassment to the country, White took a different slant, saying it's shameful that the $40 million isn't being spent on the homeless, and on problems caused by drug and alcohol addiction and gangs.

"It's just an embarrassment to the country to me," he said.

People already knew Clinton's history when they elected him to the presidency twice, White said, and the investigation uncovered nothing new.

"We already knew his background when we voted him in," White said. "I can think of a lot better ways to spend $40 million."

The Rev. Steven Williams, pastor at Brook Hollow Christian Church, disagreed. He said his Sunday sermon won't be on that issue specifically, but he might comment on it if he finds the appropriate place.

Williams said he is saving his strongest ammunition for a newsletter article in which he wants to address the issue from a moral and theological perspective rather than a political one.

Williams said he is concerned with the moral climate in our country that shows people still approve of the president's job performance and think the matter should be ended now that he has confessed.

"The American people have become so amoral and jaded that we have an 'anything goes' attitude," he said. "Bill Clinton is not a cause but a symptom of the moral degeneracy of the country right now."

Williams was a minister during Richard Nixon's presidency and voted for him twice. Even so, he believed Nixon had to resign or be impeached, and he believes the same is true for Clinton.

"If we give him (Clinton) a pass, what does that say about us?" he asked.

Even though Williams isn't planning a full sermon on the matter Sunday, he promises that will be forthcoming if Clinton is impeached, which he says is 99.9 percent certain to happen.

"At that point there's no doubt I'm going to preach about it from the pulpit," he said.

At Highland Church of Christ, Mike Cope said he will focus on the college students who are returning after the summer absence rather than on Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky.

"The focus needs to stay on where I intended for it to," Cope said.

He said, however, he may allude to the issue.