LAKE FOREST, Calif. (RNS) — Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., reached out to conservative Christians on Nov. 29 at a church-run AIDS conference where the presidential candidate fused her faith with the event's push to combat HIV and AIDS.
“It's not a sin to be sick,” Clinton told some 1,700 people at the fourth annual Global Summit on AIDS and the Church at Saddleback Community Church, the megachurch pastored by “Purpose-Driven Life” pastor Rick Warren. “AIDS remains a plague of biblical proportions.”
Clinton sprinkled her 30-minute speech with biblical references as she outlined her campaign's plan to combat global AIDS. “Just as in my life I need both faith and works to be whole,' she said, “healing the world takes both faith and works as well.”
Warren and his wife, Kay, invited all the presidential candidates to the conference but only Clinton appeared. Republicans John McCain, Mike Huckabee and Mitt Romney all sent video messages, along with Democrats Barack Obama and John Edwards.
The video from Obama, Clinton's chief Democratic rival, was most telling. Obama did not let this year's conference forget that he headlined last year's gathering, where he took an HIV test. Obama praised the event “even though I couldn't attend like last year.”
While the purpose of Clinton's visit was to speak about AIDS, the political overtones of the occasion were hard to ignore, especially since her solo appearance allowed her to directly tackle the deep suspicion many evangelicals harbor about her.
“I've often been asked if I'm a praying person,” Clinton, a United Methodist, said in her speech. “And I have always responded that I was fortunate enough to be raised to understand the power and purpose of prayer but had I not been, probably one week in the White House would have turned me into one.”
That line got a good laugh, part of the overall polite reception she received. The audience greeted her with a standing ovation, and broke into intermittent clapping when Clinton touched on certain issues, such as the growing HIV infection rate among African-American women. She received another standing ovation and slightly louder applause when she finished.
“She really integrated what we'd been speaking about,” said one attendee, Carolyn Holland of Bay Area Community Church in Annapolis, Md.
“How she proposes to deal with things are a bit lofty.”
When asked if the Clinton appearance swayed her independent vote for next year, Holland said no. “I have other issues besides HIV.”
Joan Miller, a 35-year-old Republican from a Foursquare gospel church in Torrance, Calif., said she was “extremely impressed” with Clinton.
“I like the fact that, number one, she's here with Rick Warren,” Miller said. “I like the fact that she's taken the time to see exactly what he's doing. My spirit leaped when I heard her talk, and normally I wouldn't say that about a Democrat, or even have the inclination to go vote for her. I just kind of felt she, like, was on the same page in some way.”
Lewis Brown Sr., pastor of the New Beginnings Cathedral of Worship in Aurora, Colo., came to the conference with his grown son. The two black men found common ground with African immigrants there learning to cope with HIV infection rates in the U.S. and in their homelands.
“I sense that she was genuine today,” said Brown, an undecided Democrat. “I think that there is politics, but I do believe that she's genuine about her concern about AIDS and HIV.”
Before Clinton spoke, she toured an exhibit created by World Vision of AIDS as seen through the life of an HIV-positive African child.
During her speech, she praised the Warrens' leadership on AIDS among evangelicals.
“Here in what you're doing, faith and works come together,” she said. “Or as Rick might say, ‘creed and deed.' ”
Warren's fight against AIDS at home and abroad is part of his broader view that the world suffers from what he calls five “global giants”: spiritual emptiness, self-centered leadership, extreme poverty, illiteracy, and pandemic diseases including AIDS and AIDS-related malaria.
“Health care should be part of foreign policy, it makes friends,” Warren said before Clinton spoke. “Does God have favorites? Yes he does; he loves the poor.”