LAKE FOREST, Calif. (ABP) — Despite controversy over her appearance there, Hillary Clinton has reportedly gotten rave reviews for a speech on combating AIDS she gave Nov. 29 at one of the country's largest evangelical churches.
The Democratic New York senator and presidential candidate spoke at Saddleback Church, where Rick Warren is pastor, during Warren's third annual Global Summit on AIDS and the Church. She reportedly received a standing ovation from the crowd of evangelical pastors and non-profit activists gathered at the Orange County, Calif., church.
“One of my favorite passages in Scripture is that famous line in James that ‘faith without works is dead,'” she said, according to a transcript of the speech. “But I have concluded that works without faith is just too hard. It cannot be sustained over one's life or over the generations. And it's important for us to recognize how here, in what you're doing, faith and work come together.”
Clinton praised Warren's efforts to focus his congregation — which is affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention and attracts as many as 20,000 worshipers each weekend — and other evangelical leaders on combating the global AIDS pandemic. And she also praised Christians in general for a dramatic turn-around in the way they talk about it.
“Twenty-five years ago, when men — mostly young gay men — began dying from a disease that had no name, we could not have, and certainly did not, talk about it in church …. It would not have been polite. It would have been discomforting for so many of us,” she said.
Unfortunately, the former first lady continued, “the disease itself was not polite, and ignoring it did not make it go away. It only made the problem worse, because the disease fed on ignorance and fear and — let's be honest — on prejudice. We are taught to heal the sick. To love them as our own. But 25 years ago, too many died alone, ashamed to tell their families what had made them ill.”
But today, Clinton noted, “Not only can we talk about AIDS in church, but churches are leading the way.”
She said Christians have learned from Jesus' ministry, which was largely dedicated to healing the sick. “And if you read those moments, when Jesus is presented with someone who is ill, it becomes abundantly clear that Christ had a choice,” Clinton said. “He could have been too busy. He could have thought, ‘You know this is not the message of the day. I don't need to do this; I've already done it in Capernaum, so I don't need to do it again. But he made the choice. He never asked why someone was sick. He just healed and ministered [to] those in need.”
Clinton was the only one of six invited major presidential candidates who spoke in person at the conference. Her Democratic competitors Sen. Barack Obama (Ill.) and former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards sent in videotaped speeches. So did three GOP candidates: former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and Arizona Sen. John McCain.
But Clinton's speech — and her current position as the favorite for the Democratic nomination — garnered the most attention from media and other Christian leaders.
Some of it was negative, including condemnations from the leaders of the American Family Association and the Eagle Forum. Both are conservative Christian activist groups.
“I think it's a big mistake for Pastor Warren to invite Sen. Clinton to speak at an evangelical church,” Tim Wildmon president of the Mississippi-based AFA, told the New York Sun. “If Sen. Clinton is elected president, she will appoint ACLU lawyers to be federal judges, including to the Supreme Court. She also will press for expansion of hate-crimes laws. She will do things that will threaten the rights of Rick Warren's very church to speak and talk.”
Wildmon also criticized Clinton for her support for abortion rights. Last year, Wildmon and the AFA joined several other conservative Christian groups and leaders in denouncing Warren for inviting Obama to speak at the 2006 conference.
Similar to his response to last year's critiques, Warren issued a statement prior to the conference saying he might not see eye-to-eye with the candidates on other issues but AIDS requires a response from a broad range of Christians and government officials.
“Inviting politicians from different perspectives to the summit is not a political decision — it is a humanitarian and Christian action,” he said. “When millions are dying each year, we're interested in lives, not labels.”
But Clinton received a standing ovation in the speech, which quoted or alluded to several passages of Scripture and included a promise to provide $50 billion in new funding to fight AIDS around the world if she is elected president.
Several news reports quoted Saddleback members who heard Clinton's speech in person as reviewing it in glowing terms.
“Those partisan issues have no place when you're addressing a pandemic,” Christine Stevens, a 63-year-old Republican, told the Orange County Register. “She understands the magnitude of the problem and what it will take to address it. I was very impressed by her.”
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Read more:
Christian morality can help stop AIDS, but not alone, Obama says (12/2/2006)
Warren, Obama, other Christian leaders dismiss criticism of AIDS conference (11/30/2006)