Hillary Clinton: I Believe in the "Atoning Death of Jesus"
March 9, 2007
My guess is Brody File readers would be interested in Hillary Clinton's past statements about her faith. I've uncovered some. The Brody File research room has found the following: In a Newsweek magazine article from October of 1994, Hillary was asked:
"Do you believe in the father, son and Holy Spirit?
Hillary: "Yes"
"The atoning death of Jesus?"
Hillary: "Yes"
Later in that same article, Clinton a lifelong Methodist had this to say about salvation:
"I think that the Methodist Church, for a period of time, became too socially concerned, too involved in the social gospel and did not pay enough attention to questions of personal salvation and individual faith.”
In 1998, Richard Dujardin with the Providence Journal-Bulletin wrote an article detailing how Philip Yancy, the famous Evangelical Christian author had the following encounter with Hillary Clinton:
"Yancey, then went on to relate a story about Hillary Clinton and her experience when she was invited to a Bible study group hosted by Susan Baker, the wife of former Secretary of State James Baker, and various congressional wives.Hillary, he said, confided later that she came with her guard up, expecting that her hosts were going to try to "get" her on abortion and gay rights. As she put it, "I was ready for anything." But what transpired in the first few minutes was nothing she had anticipated. Susan Baker, he said, told Hillary, "Thank you for gracing us with your presence, but before we begin, we'd like to say there are a lot of Christians who haven't acted much like Jesus toward you and your husband. We've told jokes about you. We've slandered you. There are a lot of policies we differ on, but we haven't acted like Jesus . . . Mrs. Clinton, would you please forgive us?" Yancey said Mrs. Clinton ended up asking if there was another group "like this" to which she could bring her daughter Chelsea, because she hadn't met many grace-filled Christians before.
And finally, this one from The Boston Herald in November of 2004. Clinton was referring to Evangelical voters when she addressed a crowd at Tufts University:
"I don't think you can win an election or even run a successful campaign if you don't acknowledge what is important to people,'' she said at a speaking engagement at Tufts University. ``We don't have to agree with them. But being ignored is a sign of such disrespect. And therefore I think we should talk about these issues.''
What say you? She may not see eye to eye with Evangelicals on abortion and gay rights, but she will make the case (like many Democrats do) that biblical values run deeper to include poverty, the environment, the war in Iraq, stopping the genocide in Darfur, etc.
A caring friend will be there to pray with you in your time of need.
