Bill Clinton's Sermon

I found this speech or sermon while reading a blog. I thought it fits today just as well as it did when it was first given.

Some highlights

• Now, I disagree with them. I disagree first of all because I remember how I felt [when I heard] the promise of the scriptures in Isaiah, where God says to Isaiah "Fear not for I will redeem thee. Call me by thy name. Thou art mine." I didn't read that I had to join one party or another to get that promise.

• I'll never forget the conversation in 1993 with the then president of the Southern Baptist Convention, a man I like very much and whose sermons I still watch on TV when I get a chance. He's a great pastor but he belongs to the `values voter' crowd. He looked at me and said, "I just want an answer, not a political answer. A straight yes and no answer. Do you believe the Bible is literally true or not." I said, "Pastor, I think it is completely true. But I don't think you or I or anyone else on earth is smart enough to understand it."

• I supported the president and Senator Kennedy in the Leave No Child Behind Act because I believe that poor children in inner city schools should have to meet certain standards. And I think it is a form of racism and arrogance and elitism to say that kids can't learn because they came here from another country or because the color skin is black or brown or yellow. I think that's ridiculous. But we were promised that if they held them to higher standards that their school would get their money. We left over 2 million of those kids behind - but I got my tax cut. That bothers me.

• Nobody's got all the answers to all these challenges facing America today. All we can do is take our values into the public arena and remember the basic things that our religious heritage teaches us. It is wrong to exalt the rich over the poor. Why are we all running to the head table? It is wrong to exploit the environment when you can save it and actually improve the economy. It is wrong to continue to let people continue to aggregate enormous sums of money by raising health care premiums and leave one in six Americans without health insurance. And it's wrong to believe that we can solve all the problems with the world with a security military-only when we plainly can't whup everyone who might ever disagree with us so we've got to make some friends along the way, too.