NEWS STORY: Black Baptist denomination offers support to Clinton

c. 1998 Religion News Service KANSAS CITY, Mo. _ President Clinton, politically beleaguered and facing a congressional inquiry that could lead to impeachment, has received a rare show of support as top officials of the nation’s largest historically black denomination pledged to”stand with him.”We accept President Clinton’s apology,”the Rev. Henry Lyons, president of the National […]

c. 1998 Religion News Service

KANSAS CITY, Mo. _ President Clinton, politically beleaguered and facing a congressional inquiry that could lead to impeachment, has received a rare show of support as top officials of the nation’s largest historically black denomination pledged to”stand with him.”We accept President Clinton’s apology,”the Rev. Henry Lyons, president of the National Baptist Convention, USA told an audience Wednesday night (Sept. 9) of 10,000 people attending the 8.2 million-member denomination’s annual meeting. He spoke just hours after independent counsel Kenneth Starr sent the fruits of his four-year probe of Clinton to Capitol Hill.”We love him,”Lyons said of the president.”We appreciate him. We thank God for him and Mrs. Clinton. We’re going to stand with him.” Lyons himself is an embattled leader, facing a ream of federal and state charges of financial misconduct. He has also admitted to having an”improper relationship”with a woman other than his wife.” In addition to the vocal support of Clinton, which was met with applause from the audience at a musical gala,”Christ Alive Hallelujah Night,”Lyons announced the church leaders would circulate a petition supporting Clinton.”We want … America and the American people to get off his back and let him go on and be the president that he’s capable of being,”Lyons said.

As the musical performances, which included appearances by singer-songwriter Stevie Wonder and gospel singer Cissy Houston, continued, audience members signed and circulated the petition in the cavernous Bartle Hall convention center.


The petition says the leaders and delegates at the convention”recognize President William Jefferson Clinton’s problem and accept his apology and do … go on record as forgiving him and at the same time affirm him as our esteem(ed) leader.”We further resolve to register our support of him as our president and leader. We support our President William Jefferson Clinton, his presidency and his administration,”the petition read.

The support voiced for Clinton by the black Baptists was a rare note in a political climate marked by an increasing number of calls for the president’s resignation, including from leaders of Clinton’s own denomination, the Southern Baptist Convention.

In Washington, meanwhile, the Interfaith Alliance, a generally liberal religious advocacy group, Thursday urged restraint in reaction to the Starr report.”At this critical moment, we call upon all religious and political leaders to make a truly faithful decision to be healing and constructive forces in our public life,”said the Rev. C. Welton Gaddy, a Baptist who serves as the group’s executive director.”All of us should refrain from quick judgment absent full information and abstain from using this national tragedy as a platform for promoting sectarian and partisan agendas.” Without naming names, Gaddy criticized some religious leaders who have been especially harsh on Clinton.”Unfortunately, in recent days, many religious political leaders, asserting moral authority, have used divisive and at times uncivil rhetoric that implies a lack of confidence in our judicial process,”Gaddy said.

Also in Washington, Gary Bauer, president of the Family Research Council, issued a statement urging the media to use”judgment, restraint and responsibility”in disclosing the contents of Starr’s report.

Bauer _ a religious conservative who has hinted he may seek the Republican presidential nomination in 2000 _ said he was concerned that the report contains explicit sexual details of Clinton’s behavior with former White House intern Monica Lewinsky.

Bauer appealed to the media”to carefully balance the public’s right to know and the requirement for broadcast of all details necessary for a reasoned public debate with the urgent need to protect children.”He urged broadcast journalists to”give parents adequate warnings of the graphic nature of some of the coverage before airing it.” Clinton, along with Vice President Al Gore, is scheduled to meet with a cross-section of clergy and religious leaders Friday morning (Sept. 11) at the White House.

Gaddy is among those expected at the meeting as is Richard McMillan, president of the International Union of Gospel Missions; the Rev. Joan Brown Campbell, general secretary of the National Council of Churches; and the Rev. James Dunn, executive director of the Baptist Joint Committee.


The Washington Times reported that the National Association of Evangelicals would not be represented at the meeting.”Because the presence of an NAE representative at this breakfast could easily be misconstrued … no representative would attend this year,”the Rev. Lamar Vest, the NAE board chairman, told the newspaper.

White House spokesman Mike McCurry, speaking at Thursday’s regular briefing, refused to predict whether Clinton would use the prayer breakfast meeting with religious leaders as a time to offer another apology for what he has termed his inappropriate relationship with Lewinsky.”He’ll address this matter as he sees fit,”McCurry said.

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