Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, April 10, 1994 TAG: 9404100023
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: B6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MARY OTTO KNIGHT-RIDDER NEWSPAPERS
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Long
In this case, the guests were "people who take their faith seriously," said Dunn, who is executive director of the Baptist Joint Committee on Public Affairs. And the film was a preview of the made-for-television Bible story "Abraham."
Dunn recognized Jews, Muslims and a number of Christians around small tables set up in the state dining room, noshing and chatting. "People without political power," he said. "Not face cards.
"I have never been in the White House since [President Lyndon] Johnson's time when the groups have been so mixed. There's an affinity of faith, not of political position."
In much the same way that President Clinton has sought the cooperation of business leaders, inviting them to the White House in small groups for a meal and a talk, he is methodically seeking out the country's religious thinkers and leaders for agreement, argument, discourse.
Clinton initiated his efforts with a large interfaith breakfast held at the White House last summer, said Flo McAfee, the White House's liaison to religious groups.
Now, she said, every four to six weeks he's having smaller, more intimate gatherings, "kind of along the lines of the business lunches."
The meetings should come as no surprise. While Presidents Ronald Reagan and George Bush won the following of leaders from the religious right, Clinton is earning the reputation as the most overtly religious president since Jimmy Carter.
He's a Southern Baptist who regularly attends church on Sunday. In speech after speech, he has called for a return to spirituality in everyday life and government.
"It is high time we had an open and honest reaffirmation of the role of faith," the president said late last year, "not so that we can agree, but so that we can argue and discourse and seek the truth and seek to heal this troubled land."
During a recent segment of ABC's "World News Tonight," Clinton described himself as "an honest struggling believer . . . a person who has sinned as a child of God," and he spoke about his personal beliefs, saying, "I know God through Jesus."
The president's meetings, though ecumenical, in some ways also reflect a certain Baptist sensibility, said Rex Horne Jr., the pastor of the president's home church in Little Rock, Ark. Every believer has direct access to God, so everyone's opinion is important.
Horne has served as a bridge in the outreach effort, organizing a meeting that tried to heal a rift between the president and the more conservative leaders of the Southern Baptist Convention. He sees the work continuing in "keeping groups coming - different people from different parts of the country."
Some gatherings have focused on particular groups or topics, such as AIDS. Other future meetings could deal with inner-city problems or crime legislation, Horne said.
Clinton, Horne insisted, is "not looking for support, just an exchange of ideas."
A few months ago, Robert Seiple, the president of the Christian relief organization World Vision, joined 11 other evangelical leaders for breakfast with Clinton.
They didn't talk about abortion or other issues on which many evangelicals disagree with the president. Instead, they sought common ground and talked about surviving "the rough and tumble" of this city as people of faith, said Thomas Getman, World Vision's director of government relations.
"It's a matter of personal Christian friendship," said Getman. "The president is a person, too. He needs people's best insight into how to grow as a Christian person."
"I know for a fact the president and Mrs. Clinton have people who love them unconditionally and don't use access to beat up on them," said Getman, whose wife, Karen, regularly visits with Hillary Rodham Clinton, sharing spiritual support, he added.
To Getman, a seasoned mediator between the sacred and the secular, there will always be certain protocols to be observed, a certain separation of church and state.
But such a separation does not sit comfortably with Richard Cizik of the National Association of Evangelicals.
"You can't divorce your spiritual life from the policy implications," said Cizik, who attended the White House gathering of ministers on AIDS.
"My advice to evangelical leaders," he said, is to "go with your policy concerns to your meeting with the president."
He used his time with Clinton to stress his belief in the need for expanded AIDS testing. But so far, he says, he has been disappointed with the administration's response.
"I have no illusions about the value of going to the White House," Cizik said.
James Smith, a Washington representative of the Southern Baptist Convention, takes a cynical view of these quiet meetings. Though the talk is of faith, Smith believes Clinton's motives are political.
Others are convinced that Clinton really cares about what is said at the meetings. His speeches sometimes contain small acknowledgements that refer to the spiritual gatherings, "a phrase or word or expression peculiarly tuned to that kind of group," said Dunn of the Baptist Joint Committee, which represents Baptist denominations in Washington.
"It shows he was listening. It's more than that he sits there with his eyes open and his mouth closed. . . . He's actually listening."
It might be a buzzword such as "secularization" or the name of an attendee who particularly impressed him. One recent reference was to his friendship with evangelical Tony Campolo, who, unlike many more conservative evangelicals, has publicly supported Clinton.
Ronald Sider, president of Evangelicals for Social Action and a professor at Eastern Baptist Theological Seminary in Philadelphia, was invited to the big initial breakfast at the White House last summer along with nearly 100 other religious leaders.
They lined up to shake hands with the president and listened as he ruminated about the book "The Culture of Disbelief," Yale Professor Stephen Carter's analysis of the place for God in a secular society.
"I don't suppose anybody is naive enough to suppose the president is unaware of the political implications of what he does," said Sider, yet he added, "It would be wrongheaded to dismiss it as a cold, tactical move.
"I don't agree with him on a number of points, but there's no question his faith is a genuine, personal one," he said.
Sider has been impressed by some of Clinton's gestures, such as his including church activities in the legislation forming the National Service Corps.
"Society must take a new, hard look at the partnership of religion and government," Sider said. "I think Clinton understands that."
by CNB