God and Hillary Clinton
Read God and Hillary Clinton Online
Authors: Paul Kengor
and
HILLARY CLINTON
a spiritual life
H
.D.
My prayer for you is that you come to understand
and have the courage to answer.
âMother Teresa
Writing a book on the faith of Hillary Rodham Clinton has been a fascinating but frustrating process. On the latter, many of the sources contacted or consulted in the course of researching and writing this book had some type of problem. With my previous two faith-based subjects, Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush, I found that while pastors commonly respected a level of confidentiality concerning their congregation and were often unwilling to share personal material on the subjects, friends and associates were typically happy to talk. For Reagan in particular, many were eager to finally get the word out and set the record straight on the man's deep, unappreciated faith. As a man who is quite open about his faith, George W. Bush was also an easier subject.
Since I began writing this spiritual biography of Hillary Clinton, however, I encountered a real reluctance among some who knew her through church to talk about their experiences with her, fearing the information would be used against Hillaryâeven in instances when it was positive. Secondary sources were likewise problematic, as many
biographers lionize or demonize Hillary and her husband, sometimes reporting sensational stories thatâeven when seemingly plausibleâare based on unnamed or flawed sources. Much of this problematic research often does not use endnotes and frequently repeats the previous writers' unsourced material.
Moreover, many sources, as the Clintons themselves have complained, report explosive sexual innuendoâmaterial that in certain cases has been confirmed, at times through the controversial work of official government investigators. This means that a biographer of the Clintons is sometimes forced to delve into the lurid in explaining themâuncharted waters to a college professor like me. Unfortunately, one cannot talk about the Clintons and their relationship, and particularly their spiritual relationship, without discussing this elephant in the bedroom, since it has been a dominant element of their marriage, their faith, and their very public lives.
And then there are the most problematic sources of all: the Clintons. Like them or not, the fact is that Hillary and Bill Clinton may be the most thoroughly political first couple in the history of American politics. More, they are leftists, once radical leftists, who have learned to campaign to the middle and to moderate stances on key swing issues in order to get elected. Of course, many politicians do this, but the Clintons do so more frequently than any politicians on the left or right, and as a result, they are not always fully forthcoming about what they believe, which makes reporting on them so sticky and, for the biographer, risky.
This was a hurdle I faced when teaching my students about President Bill Clinton. For most presidents I lectured on, whether Democrat or Republican, writing their beliefs on the chalkboard was a fairly straightforward process. With Bill Clinton, that was always a struggle because of that unique political element.
What does he truly believe?
It was a question similar to that famously expressed by an exasperated James Carville, Clinton's colorful “ragin' Cajun” political adviser, who banged the table and asked of his boss, “Where's the
sacred ground?!” Or, as
Washington Post
reporter and talented Clinton biographer David Maraniss has put it, the “perpetual question” that hangs over Bill Clinton is the question of “what he really stands for.”
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While Bill and Hillary are truly distinct politicians, what applies in this regard to Bill partly applies to Hillary as well. Indeed, Hillary often advised her husband to adopt this political approach and honed the tactic herself at the side of the master. Now she, too, holds elected office and seeks the highest office in the land, looking to position herself as a moderate, just as her husband did.
This challenge regarding the Clintons becomes even more difficult when trying to address the subject of religion. The 2004 election reaffirmed what many DemocratsâHillary foremost among themânow understand: A modern liberal campaigning for president must appear at least partly religious, or at least not unreligious or antireligious. The Democratic Party responded astutely, employing an impressive example of correctly reading the electorate. In 2006, the Democratic Party leadership captured the Congress in large part by running moderate, religious, at times even pro-life candidates, embodied by the likes of Bob Casey Jr. in Pennsylvania.
Hillary and her husband recognized the political potency of religion long before religiously minded voters helped George W. Bush win consecutive presidential elections. Both have unapologetically campaigned in churches more brazenly than politicians in either party, and at times (in Mrs. Clinton's case) in racially polarizing ways. The secular pressâin an example of striking hypocrisyâhas winked at the behavior, allowing the Clintons full immunity in pursuing this integration of church and state, in a manner that George W. Bush would not have been able to get away with, even if he so desired.
These Clintonian dashes to the middle for political positioning are a real problem for a biographer. Time and time again in researching and writing this book, I was left to conclude that on certain religious questions, the only sources who truly know the answer are God, Hill
ary, and possibly Bill Clinton. One source would say one thing while another source would say something else. Finally Hillary (or Bill) would weigh in with yet another version of an idea, creating a vague gray area of truth and leading to treacherous ground for a biographer.
That said, some things regarding Hillary Clinton and her faith are clear: Although no one can profess to know any individual's heart and soul, there seems no question that Hillary is a sincere, committed Christian and has been since childhood. The same applies to her husband, who admits that he is a sinnerâas are all Christians, which is why they are Christians. Surely not even the most cynical right-winger would insist that Hillary and Bill were playing politics when they eagerly attended Sunday school as eight-year-olds. Hillary is a very liberal Christian, and would be categorized as part of the religious left, along with millions of Christian Americansâa designation that seems to have disappeared from the media's lexicon now that the secular press is obsessed with fears over the religious right.
The faith of both of the Clintons affects their lives and their politics. Mrs. Clinton has not been shy about incorporating her faith into the policies she advocates, and probably does so as much as well-known religious politicians on the right, such as the current president. If ever confronted with the charge from the usually vigilant church-state-separation media, she (and her husband) would be hard pressed to dodge the obvious assertion that they have at times exploited their religious faith for political purposes.
The greatest paradox of Mrs. Clinton's faith, the one that will hurt her most in her bid to attract those “values voters” she needs in 2008âincluding even a sliver of the churchgoing Catholics and Protestants who overwhelmingly went for Bushâis the way her Christian faith has reinforced her commitment to human rights when it comes to civil rights and children's rights and gay rights, but not the rights of unborn children, where her faith has given way to her ideology. There is no issue more impassioning to Senator Clinton than abortion rights, meaning that any serious analysis of her political-religious
thinking is forced to devote a significant amount of attention to the subject, as she does herself in her own personal and professional life.
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Among those religious voters, the Reverend Jerry Falwell remarked at the September 2006 “Values Voters Summit”: “I certainly hope that Hillary is the candidate [in 2008]. Because nothing will energize my [constituency] like Hillary Clinton. If Lucifer ran, he wouldn't.”
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Falwell's assessment is a measure of the uphill battle that Mrs. Clinton faces. She will not win Falwell supporters, but hopes to attract just enough religious moderates.
The faith of Hillary Clinton is a subject that requires close examination, featuring a lot of drama and twists and turns, conventional and unconventional, from her studies of the classic theologian John Wesley to strange moments of imaginary conversation with a deceased Eleanor Roosevelt. And though one's personal relationship with God is privateâman or woman and his or her Makerâthe subject in Hillary's case is of interest to all Americans because of its prominent place in her private and public life and because she has already begun to campaign vigorously for president as a religious Democratâmore so than any Democrat since Jimmy Carter.
What follows is a spiritual biography of this leading political figure, a chronology of the story of her complicated yet intricate Christian faith.
Hugh Ellsworth Rodham was tough as nails. Born in 1911, he grew up in the mining town of Scranton, Pennsylvania, and managed to get himself educated during the Great Depression by winning a football scholarship to Penn State University, where he studied physical education. Phys ed looked like a good choice for Hugh, and had he chosen that path he might have matched the image that many young men have of a high school gym teacher who barks out instructions and calls them “ladies,” generally questioning their manhood until they successfully bean a classmate or two in the head with a dodge-ball.
Hugh, however, did not follow that road. Instead, he graduated from Penn State with his bachelor's degree in education in 1935 and went to work in the minesâthe expected course for the Rodhams of Scrantonâbefore later joining his father in the notably less dismal Scranton Lace Company. Still not content with the gray mining and manufacturing town, he packed his bags and began hopping on and off freight cars all the way to Chicago, where he found employment
selling curtains at the Columbia Lace Company. It was in that capacity that he spotted a young lady named Dorothy.
Eight years younger than Hugh, Dorothy Emma Howell had a disturbing childhood. Born to a fifteen-year-old mother and a seventeen-year-old father in Chicago in 1919, little Dorothy saw her parents divorce in 1927. Her mother, Della, sent eight-year-old Dorothy along with her three-year-old sister across the country by train on a four-day trek, reportedly with no adult accompaniment, to a small town near Los Angeles, where the children lived with a badgering, cruel grandmother who criticized the innocent girls' every move.
By the time Dorothy turned fourteen, she had found life in her grandmother's home intolerable. Without much ceremony, the young woman grabbed her one blouse, one skirt, and one sweaterâher entire wardrobe at the timeâand sought employment as a mother's helper for two children at a nearby home. The job paid $3 a week, but it also gave her room and board, an experience that gave Dorothy the chance to discover what love between parents and their children was supposed to look like. It was a literally life-changing experience for Dorothy, and years later Hillary would say that her “mother often told me that without that sojourn with a strong family, she would not have known how to care for her own home and children.”
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As she worked to help the family, Dorothy continued to attend high school. The young girl loved to read and hoped somehow to attend college, but shortly after Dorothy's successful completion of high school, Della got in touch with her daughter. Della, who was still living in Chicago, had remarried, and according to Della, her new husband promised to pay for Dorothy to attend college back in Illinois. Eager to learn and aspiring to be a part of a family like the one she had worked for, Dorothy arrived “home” to find that Della, a weak basket case of a woman, had lied. The whole situation had been a cruel hoax to try and lure Dorothy back to Chicago so that she could work as a housekeeper for Della. Sadly, her mother could not have cared less about giving her an education.
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Despite her mother's attempt to put Dorothy to work, the young woman refused to be ensnared, opting instead to go off on her own once again. It did not take her long to find an apartment, and soon after she began searching for a low-paying office job to pay her rent. She was in the middle of her search, filling out an application for a position as a clerk-typist at a textile company, when she caught the eye of a traveling salesman named Hugh Rodham. That one glance was all it took, and the couple courted for a while before marrying in early 1942.
Hugh continued his sales job through the war years, but contributed his part to the war effort, serving his country as a trainer for navy recruits sent abroad to fight in the Pacific theater. In these efforts, he applied the same tenacity that had made him a successful competitor on the football field, barking orders at young men and forcing them to push their bodies to the brink. Hugh took great pride in this form of military service, and though he did not see combat or ever travel abroad to fight, he rose to the rank of chief petty officer in the navy.
When World War II ended, Hugh started a drapery-fabric business called Rodrik Fabrics in the Merchandise Mart in Chicago's Loop. By 1950, his company was thriving, and he was suddenly able to give Dorothy the comfort and stability she never had and much deserved. He paid cash for a two-story brick house situated on a corner lot between Elm and Wisner streets in the affluent Park Ridge suburb of Chicago. It was a defining move for the young couple, one that offered them the perfect opportunity and location to start raising a family.
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Hillary Rodham was born on October 26, 1947, and three years later her mother gave birth to Hugh Jr., who was followed four years later by Anthony (Tony). Once she gave birth to Hillary, Dorothy became a full-time wife and mother, never working outside the home, and never treating her children or grandchildren the way her mother and grandmother had mistreated her and her siblings. Dorothy showered them with the care and love that had evaded her for much of her
adolescence, while Hugh helped to provide a stable and dependable environment for the kids to grow up.
From the start, Hillary seemed born with a strong, determined personality, full of confidence and certitude and tenacity, much like her father. While Dorothy was an influential force among her children, it was Hugh who dominated the family and always made his presence felt within the Rodham household. His parenting was governed by many of the traits that had made him an effective leader on the field and an effective trainer in the navy. He possessed a tenacity and unrelenting competitivenessâa constant drive for perfection that came to have a profound impact on the personalities of his children.
The Gospel According to Hugh
Hugh brought his tough approach to life into his child-rearing practices. The Rodhams, Hugh preached, were self-reliant and self-sufficient. The only help that could be requested was from God alone. To that end, he routinely held himself up as a model of self-reliance that he expected his children to follow. After all, he had managed to put himself through college during the Great Depression; if he didn't need help then, why should anyone?
To Hugh, the purpose of the government was not to be a nanny, and in that respect, Hugh Rodham embodied the Republicanism that rejected FDR and the New Deal. Individuals should not look to the government for a handout; they should look to themselves and to the Lord. It was this thinking that made Hugh a Hoover Republican during the Depression and beyond. “Hugh always voted Republican,” said a friend, “and not just voted, but he could be downright righteous and rabid about it.”
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This doctrine of self-reliance and faith in God was one that Hugh employed in every aspect of his life, and he went to great lengths to instill the same set of core values in his children. For the most part,
it was not this order in and of itself that was problematic for his family; it was more that he failed to soften his rigid value system to accommodate the love and warmth that children require. One Hillary biographer, Gail Sheehy, claims: “Pop-Pop, as the children called the authoritarian drillmaster at the head of the family, neither offered nor asked for nurturing. Matters of the heart were a fickle distraction in the Rodham household. Life was seen as combat.”
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There were practical explanations for Hugh's philosophy, much of which could be traced to his rough-and-tumble youth, having been nurtured in the mines, having decked opponents on the football field, having hitched rides on railroad cars, having belted his way through the Great Depression, having made boys into men in the atmosphere of a boot camp. He emerged from those experiences with his mind and his views on God fully developed, and he was not afraid to let those around him know it. Says Sheehy: “[H]e gave a good imitation of General Patton in raising his children.” He would turn to his little girl and ask, “Well, Hillary, how are you going to dig yourself out of this one?”
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For her part, Hillary has portrayed her father as not quite so Patton-like, and by her own accounts, including those in her memoir,
Living History
, he is portrayed as a kind, loving father, contrary to the biographical sketches that frame him as a cold, stern Republican taskmaster.
While Hugh is frequently vilified for his domineering role in Hillary's life, in many accounts, Dorothy is often portrayed as completely submissive to Hughâalmost fearful and cowering. But to paint the dynamic as that cut-and-dried is to oversimplify. Dorothy was no shrinking violet. Like Hugh, she had cultivated her own skills of independence during her years when she was forced to rely on herself. Like Hugh, she believed that her children needed to use their own strength and the strength of God to get them through their problems. Like Hugh, Dorothy could have little sympathy if she thought her children were not taking charge of their fates.
When the family moved to Park Ridge, four-year-old Hillary ran into a bully of a little girl named Suzy, a merciless toddler who regularly belted both boys and girls, including the sweet, beribboned Hillary. Each time she walloped Hillary, Suzy exulted in victory as tiny Hillary dashed home crying. Dorothy would have none of this: “There's no room in this house for cowards!” she informed her daughter. “The next time she hits you, I want you to hit her back.”
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The next time little Hillary was confronted by the brat, who had been encouraged by a pack of mocking, villainous boys there to imbibe in Suzy's cruelty, the Rodham girl shocked everyone by raising her trembling fist and punching Suzy, knocking her off her feet. The boys stood there, mouths agape, as the stunned tyrant fell to the ground. The triumphant Hillary sprinted back to the house and told her mother, “I can play with the boys now!”
It was an important moment for Hillary and one that Dorothy would later come to recognize as crucial to the development of her daughter's character. The altercation with Suzy changed the way Hillary interacted with everyoneâespecially the boys. Dorothy Rodham said with a measure of great satisfaction: “Boys responded well to Hillary. She just took charge, and they let her.” According to Sheehy, Dorothy took pleasure in molding a daughter who compensated for her own “submission to patriarchy,” a lesson that sank deep into the little girl's bones.
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Never again would Hillary submit to the will of men; she would be always ready and eager to mix it up with the boys.
Still, when it came to no nonsense, no one could hold a candle to Hugh. And his son Hughie, like his daughter, had some lessons that Hugh felt needed learning. Hughie followed in his father's footsteps onto the gridiron, achieving a local celebrity for skillânot enough, however, to satisfy Hugh. In one game, Hughie's team stomped its opponent 36 to 0, with the young Rodham leading the way at quarterback, completing ten of eleven passes. The old man felt the compulsion to at least act unimpressed, telling his boy, “You should have completed the other one.”
It was this attitude of perfectionism that Hugh forced on all his children. But though he may have been striving for perfection, the end result was often something much different. An early Hillary biographer, the late Barbara Olson, who shared this anecdote about Hughie's football prowess, noted that Hugh's motivation was surely to inspire overachievement in his children; in fact, however, he prompted feelings of longing and never being able to meet a father's fanatical expectations. In Hillary's case, writes Olson, Hugh produced an opposite but positive effect by creating in his daughter a “reservoir of resentment” that may have kindled her to later write an entire book on the value of nurturing.
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While Hillary's focus on care and nurturing was an unintended positive of Hugh's regimen, there were many unintended negatives as well that would later play crucial roles as she began her political life. His coldness, emotional detachment, stern demeanor, and lack of charm would all make their own impression on his daughter, eventually becoming the quintessential and routine criticisms of Hillary in her public life.
Hugh and the Park Ridge Church
Though some of Hugh's behavior toward Hillary clearly had some adverse ramifications, not all his contributions were bad, and perhaps the most notable of his roles in her life was how he helped to shape the foundation of her faith. Hugh came from a long line of Methodists. Hillary herself has spoken often and openly of her family's Methodist roots:
Historically my father's family was always Methodist and took it very seriously. Mine is a family who traces our roots back to Bristol, England, to the coal mines and the Wesleys. So as a young child I would hear stories that my grandfather had
heard from his parents, who heard them from their parents who were all involved in the great evangelical movement that swept England.
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But though Hugh's ancestry steadfastly connected him to Methodism, he did not attend weekly services at the First United Methodist Church in Park Ridge where he and his family worshipped. A congregation with well-established roots in the Park Ridge community, First United is housed in a prominent and wealthy redbrick building, large enough to accommodate the three thousand members of the church. Over the years, Hillary has described First United as a “big church” with a “very active” congregation, located only a few blocks from the Rodham home, so close Hillary and her mother often walked to Sunday services.
Despite the breadth of the congregation, Hugh remained fairly removed, if not seemingly altogether absent, from the parish. A typical assessment of Hugh's involvement in the church, or lack thereof, comes from Leon Osgood, one of young Hillary's Sunday school teachers, a church leader for many years, and a member of First United all his life: “He was not active in the church for many yearsâ¦. Hugh was not active at all. He traveled a lot on business, maybe that was it.”
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Most reports agree that Hugh was “seldom seen” at church.
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