Daily coverage of the 211th General Assembly President's pastor calls Clinton a 'moral man' By Parker T. Williamson The Layman Online Sunday, June 20, 1999 Rev. J. Philip Wogaman, pastor to President Bill Clinton's family FORT WORTH – Rev. J. Philip Wogaman, pastor to the Bill Clinton family, told a group of Presbyterians today that while he didn't approve of everything that the president has done, he respected the fact that Clinton repented of some of his misdeeds. "That's a lot more than his opponents have done," he said. Wogaman said that he would call Clinton "a moral man." Wogaman was speaking to a luncheon sponsored by the Witherspoon Society, an independent organization of Presbyterians that promotes liberal causes among denominational policy makers. He was introduced by Rev. Herbert Valentine, who worked with Wogaman to found the Interfaith Alliance, a blend of religion and politics that was initiated with a $20,000 grant from a national committee of the Democratic Party. Valentine, a executive presbyter of Baltimore Presbytery, quipped that among the things that he and Wogaman had in common was the fact that they had both "been lanced by The Presbyterian Layman." 'Faith, Politics and Morality' Speaking on the topic "Faith, politics and morality," Wogaman addressed the importance of people of faith participating in the political arena. The state, said Wogaman, is nothing more than "society when it is acting as a whole." He reminded his audience that one is not given the luxury of choosing to identify with state policies. "If you are engaged in any economic activity," he said, "you are contributing to the resource base for the state. There is no way that a Christian who lives in a society can avoid being implicated in what the society is doing." Politics and religion Drawing heavily from Machiavelli's political philosophy, Wogaman said that politics is the art of influence. "Anything that affects the human will is inherently political," he said. Wogaman observed that people make decisions on many bases, including economics, values, fear, and religion. "Anything that influences the will is politicizable," he said, pointing to the influential role that religion often plays. Wogaman said that people often use religion to manipulate others, making them feel good about having chosen a course of action, even if it was not decided on religious grounds. Religion, in this sense, is used as a legitimizer. Christians can use religion to support policies that "will make the state better, not worse," he said. Private and public morality The Washington pastor said he had a real problem with Christians who assumed a facile connection between private and public morality. He quoted President Clinton's statement of Aug 17, 1998, during the midst of the impeachment crisis, in which the president "claimed a zone of privacy for himself and his family." Some people say you can't separate private and public morality, said Wogaman, specifying William Bennett as an example. But "personal piety is no guarantee of social wisdom," he said. Wogaman recalled knowing a California politician whose personal life was "in great disarray," but who was an effective civil rights activist. He said he "grieved" over the man's moral situation, but supported him because he did good things in the body politic. Conversely, he recalled knowing a self-professed Christian who failed to vote responsibly on civil rights issues. Politics over principle Wogaman said that he regretted having to choose between the two - that he would prefer to follow a combination of personal piety and right politics - but if he had to choose he would not choose the exemplar of personal morality. On the subject of sex, Wogaman said that he thought the church was obsessed with it, and that the proper issue is not sex but love. He said he was "concerned that some moralists are eager to reintroduce a sense of shame into our culture." 'Being prayed for viciously' He complained about the "acrimony, maligning, and misquoting" that often occurs when church councils discuss sex, "as though somehow by being hateful enough we will be moral." He said that he gets lots of letters that are full of hate, but end with the assurance "we're praying for you." He recalled the comment of a colleague: "We are being prayed for viciously." Wogaman lamented recent actions of the United States House of Representatives to take the teeth out of proposed legislation to further regulate gun ownership while at the same time approving the posting of the Ten Commandments on school room walls. Those who argue for the Ten Commandments say that this will make people more moral and that this will take care of the violence problem, he said. "But what shred of evidence is there that the posting of religious materials makes any difference?" Wogaman ended his presentation calling for the church to affirm the rights of homosexual persons to engage in sexual relations.

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