Saturday, November 7, 1998

Religious right is wrong about Bill Clinton

By Gracie Bonds Staples

Knight Ridder Newspapers

On the eve of my birthday last week, my sister and niece showed up on my doorstep bearing gifts.

After opening the boxes and offering my thanks, we launched into a review of the day's events: the kids, school, the kids, voting, and the kids. It was much like all the other scatterbrained conversations we have, and although we didn't talk much about the gifts, it occurred to me later, after Jo and Jasmine had gone home, that they were perfect. I happen upon these -- perfect gifts, I mean -- every so often when I've done a good job of dropping hints.

OK, so I'm shameless. But this time I'd not told Jo that I was hoping for a good bottle of perfume. It is a simple thing, really, but it reminded me that all good and perfect gifts are from God.

While I was thinking about gifts like these, I couldn't help but remember a New York Times article I read recently about President Clinton's letter to members of his home church in Little Rock, Ark. In a two-page handwritten missive, the story said, Clinton expressed his repentance and asked members of Immanuel Baptist to forgive him.

That seemed like an honorable thing to do, but when I read further along in the news story, I found that in the weeks since Clinton admitted to having lied about his relationship with Monica Lewinsky, top officials of the Southern Baptist Convention have called on Immanuel Baptist to revoke the president's membership.

"How can President Clinton claim to be Southern Baptist and persist in this display of serial sin?" R. Albert Mohler Jr., president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, was quoted as saying. "Only because the congregation which holds his membership failed to exercise any semblance of church discipline."

My heart sank, but the story got even better. Or maybe I should say worse.

Turns out that Pat Robertson, the television evangelist and chairman of the Christian Coalition, said he wanted the president to resign and for Congress to begin "repairing America's moral fabric." He also wanted "Christian Americans" to send money to his politically charged organization to help it get the job done.

This is one of those columns I wish I didn't have to write. I'd like to figure that if I ignore this thing long enough, it'll just pass by. But the religious right just won't shut up.

I listen to these people and I think that those who call themselves "born again" today have simply become members of an elite, private club. I have to wonder if even Jesus could enter.

If he could, he would remind them, no doubt, "if a man be overtaken in a fault, ye which are spiritual restore such a one in the spirit of meekness, considering thyself, lest thou also be tempted."

And so Mohler's and Robertson's holier-than-thou attitude has stayed with me because I think it is so contrary to everything Christianity is. For one thing, the truly "born again" know that only God has the power to change who we are. It is no wonder that he says, and I'm paraphrasing here, that if you who are called by my name would humble yourselves and seek my face and turn from your wicked ways, I will hear from heaven and heal your land.

As a child of the "born again," one of the earliest lessons I learned was how I ought to pray and ask God to "forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us."

At 41, I am a long way from being that child, but I have not forgotten the lessons -- no, the gifts -- my parents gave me. I pray I never will.

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(Gracie Bonds Staples is a columnist for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. Write to her at: the Star-Telegram, P.O. Box 1870, Fort Worth, TX 76101, or send e-mail to gbs(at)star-telegram.com.)

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