Clinton' s Debt to God

It has been frustrating to hear the talking heads speculating about why President Clinton made his "confessional" last week at Willow Creek Church, the famous evangelical megachurch in suburban Chicago. Clinton did it, one pundit said, to allow Gore to distance himself from the Monica Lewinsky scandal. No, said another, he was just trying to grab headlines from Gore. No, it's simply another case of "Clinton's incredible self-absorption," said another.

I was there at Willow Creek. This is the second year in a row I have attended the Leadership Summit. Soon I will sign up for next year--the 5,000 slots for this annual conference fill quickly. I go because it is a good refresher course.

The Rev. Bill Hybels, Willow Creek's founder, is the main attraction. He is a brilliant church leader who speaks with insight and passion about the challenges and tensions that come with Christian leadership. He also brings in an assortment of experts--management gurus, motivational speakers, academics, psychologists, and others who address the kinds of issues that Hybels thinks his audience needs to hear. And he interviews leaders such as the CEOs of Motorola, Servicemaster, and Amway, for example. Most he knows personally; some are Christians who have sought him out for counsel, and others are non-Christians to whom Hybels has gone for his own education.

Hybels is a skilled interviewer, and he asks very personal questions: When did you first realize you had leadership abilities? Who have served as your models of leadership at various points in your life? How do you handle defeats? Victories? Temptations? Bill Clinton was an obvious choice to be interviewed at one of these conferences. Hybels has been a pastoral adviser to Clinton for eight years. His answers to Hybels' typical questions about influences, models, defeats, victories--and temptations!--would certainly be interesting.

But there was also an obvious obstacle. The folks who attend Willow Creek conferences are evangelicals, and they are overwhelmingly Republican and conservative on matters of public policy. Even if they don't exactly fit that image (as I don't), by now they are greatly disappointed by the way Clinton behaved. I certainly am.

Before the whole sexual escapade business, I had been his defender in evangelical circles. With 11 other evangelical leaders, I had breakfast with him a few years ago. He clearly wanted to talk theology with us, and we all agreed afterward that he was good at it. He had read some of our books. He knew our organizations. He quoted Scripture with ease. (Martin Marty, the American church historian, tells the story of a similar breakfast meeting where a well-known pastor told Clinton about a sermon on presidential leadership that he had preached--based, he said, on a verse in the seventh chapter of 1 Chronicles. Marty was sitting next to Clinton and heard him mumble under his breath, "That's 2 Chronicles." Back at his hotel, Marty took the Gideon Bible out of the desk drawer and checked. The president had it right.)

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