wfn.org | United Methodists see repentance, forgiveness at prayer breakfast

[NewsDesk <NewsDesk@UMCOM.UMC.ORG>]

Sept. 14, 1998	Contact: Joretta Purdue*(202)546-8722*Washington
10-71B{527}

WASHINGTON (UMNS) - United Methodists who attended the annual White
House prayer breakfast for religious leaders said President Clinton's
remarks of repentance were moving and sounded sincere.

The Sept. 11 prayer breakfast was followed a few hours later by the
public distribution of Independent Counsel Kenneth W. Starr's report to
Congress, in which the special prosecutor described in detail the grand
jury testimony concerning Clinton's sexual relationship with former
White House intern Monica Lewinsky.

"We were all greatly moved by the president's statement," said the Rev.
J. Philip Wogaman. "I consider his repentance to be real." Wogaman,
senior pastor at Foundry United Methodist Church, which the Clintons
attend when they are in Washington, said the response of the more than
100 guests at the event was "almost uniformly positive and supportive."

In his remarks, Clinton said he had sinned, that he repented and that he
wants to change with the help of God.

Bishop James K. Mathews also termed the president's message moving and
spoke of the sincerity of his penitence. "There seemed to be a mood
there that morning to offer him absolution; and, indeed, when I spoke to
him personally, I did speak words of absolution to him."

Mathews, who headed the United Methodist Church's Washington Area from
1972 until 1980 and has continued to live in the city, said he believed
not one person at the breakfast would have been willing to approve the
president's admitted indiscretions and sins. "But there comes a point
where forgiveness is offered, and we did that," he said..

The president spoke from the heart, said Diana Eck, a United Methodist
laywoman who is a professor of  comparative religion and Indian studies
at Harvard University. "As important as what he said was the response.
It was a wholly spontaneous ritual of repentance and forgiveness, in a
way.

"When President Clinton finished (speaking), he invited people to sit
down to breakfast," Eck said. "But there was no way to move from his
powerful statement to breakfast without somehow receiving what he had
said. He and the first lady were immediately surrounded by people
--extending a hand, a hug, a word. For at least half an hour it went on,
the line of black ministers, Catholic and Orthodox priests, rabbis,
Muslim and Sikh leaders, a Muslim law professor, each coming forward to
speak a personal word of response to the president. 

"I have never seen anything like this in public life. It was what James
Forbes (pastor of the interdenominational Riverside Church in New York)
called in his benediction a 'holy moment,' " Eck said. "Unfortunately,
the press left after President Clinton's remarks and filed their stories
without witnessing this liturgy of receiving and responding to what he
said.

"The spirit of this gathering was far from judgment and retribution, but
one of forgiveness and love. Because this long-scheduled event came on
the very morning of the release of the Starr Report, this 'holy  moment'
was swept aside in the avalanche of press reporting, but the spiritual
magnitude of what happened there stands on its own," Eck said.

The Rev. Ed Matthews, recently retired senior minister of First United
Methodist Church in Little Rock, Ark., viewed the prayer breakfast from
the perspective of his own 30-year acquaintance with the Clintons -- the
last decade of which he served as pastor to the Arkansas home church of
Hillary and Chelsea.

"Across the years of our acquaintance, I've been concerned about the
possibilities of a problem - or an illness - that the president might
have regarding his perceived need for 'improper relationships' with
certain women." Matthews said. "I feel that this morning (at the
breakfast) I heard the voice or spirit of a truly repentant sinner."

Matthews said he learned to recognize sincerity or the lack of it in his
42-year ministry, and he recalled hearing Clinton on previous occasions
when the president did not sound truly repentant.

Arkansans are familiar with such a situation, he said, citing the life
of the late Congressman Wilbur Mills, whose career was marked by a
scandal involving a stripper known as Fanne Foxe. Mills confessed to
having a problem with alcohol abuse, repented, sought professional help
and then used every opportunity to warn people, especially students, of
the dangers of alcohol addiction.

"The president's confessed 'illness' is a very subtle one, but one
taking an enormous toll, especially in today's culture," Matthews noted.
"It wreaks havoc among my own profession of the ministry ... while
denominational treasuries are emptied as sexual harassment suits rage
on." 

It is time for all the people of this country, especially Hillary and
Chelsea, "to get in touch with God's great gift of forgiveness - which
is always totally beyond our human understanding and rationalization -
in order that we can trust President Clinton," Matthews said. He sees
Clinton as "a wounded healer" with the potential to lead a wounded
people to God's healing.

Bishop Felton E. May, who currently heads the denomination's Washington
Area, said he attended as an expression of his pastoral concern for the
president. "Political leaders are not immune from the conditions of sin
and enslavement so prevalent throughout our culture.

"All of us fail spiritually and morally," May observed. "While we as a
nation must insist that morally wrong behavior is not acceptable on the
part of our leaders, let us also send the message that healing, health
and recovery are possible." He added that any effort to use the
president's situation for political gain or to undermine administration
efforts on behalf of a just and decent society would be wrong.

The Rev. James M. Wall, editor of The Christian Century, characterized
the prayer breakfast as an emotional experience with strong expressions
of support for the president and first lady.

"Out of it came a general feeling that his confession has been made," he
said. "He's been quite contrite. He wasn't contrite enough in his
initial speech (on Aug. 17) and he has acknowledged that. Now he needs
to receive God's forgiveness, and I think he's doing that. God's
forgiveness is already there; it's just a matter of his receiving it.

"It was, I think, a very - for us at least - uplifting experience," Wall
said. "I know they are going through some very dark times and more dark
times ahead, but they were certainly sustained by the presence of the
religious leaders who came to be with them."

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