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THE PRISM

December 1998
January 1999

Stories Columns

Real Scandal in the Halls of Washington:
Lewinsky Affair Obscures Serious Injustices

Commentary by Rev. S. Collins Kilburn


From the rivers of commentary about the Clinton sex and cover up scandal, three streams, from religious sources, have evoked a hearty "Amen!" from me.

The first is from the lead editorial of The Christian Century for October 7. It says that the president's conduct as revealed in the Starr report was appalling and indefensible. It also says that the probe of politicians' sex lives is itself appalling and the scope of the Starr investigation hard to defend. The writer asks, "Are we any better off knowing about Bill Clinton's relationship with Monica Lewinsky? If we grant that Ken Starr was only doing his job, we must ask: Was it a service to the nation? The answer to such questions is likely to be no."

As I see it, the question we face now is: Will it serve the nation to continue this preoccupation and to keep the silly, sad, and sordid mess at the center of national attention? Given the decision of the House of Representatives to proceed with an impeachment inquiry, it appears that we will have to endure the topic further, despite the judgement of most people. Are we captive to some demonic, self-destructive obsession? Some force we created but cannot control? In the near future, we will wonder how we, as a nation, allowed this to happen.

A second statement worth attention is from the three top leaders of The Presbyterian Church (USA). In strong words they criticize the president, saying that he violated the nation's "sacred trust." They also caution us, however, to keep personal immorality in perspective: "Our particular faith tradition suggests that public officials who fail to tend the 'widows and orphans' under their care are under at least as a great a condemnation as any who err in their personal behavior. Let us not forget to hold all our legislators to God's standard of corporate morality, even as we hold the president to God's standard of personal morality."

The Presbyterian leaders might have strengthened their good point by noting that the God of Hebrew and Christian Scriptures is more exercised by our treatment of the orphans and the widows than by sexual sins. Sex is our cultural obsession. Justice for the poor is God's urgent and passionate obsession. Ezekiel articulated this theme, central to prophetic tradition, when he identified the fatal sin of Sodom: "She and her daughters had pride, surfeit of food, and prosperous ease, but did not aid the poor and the needy" (Ezekiel 16.49). And Jesus gave much more attention to the sins of greed and indifference than to concupiscence.

The third word comes from the National Catholic Reporter: "As we worry whether Clinton is impeachable or not, a small percentage of our population is getting obscenely rich at the expense of thousands or millions of poor people at home or abroad - the pornography of greed...the people in public life...have never stigmatized injustice the way they stigmatize the sins of the flesh."

Who noticed that in the wake of the revelations about sex in the White House, words like "repentance," "forgiveness," and "sin" became prominent in the media? Journalists rushed to solicit the views of clergy persons for front-page news stories. And, virtually without precedent, TV cameras and reporters appeared at Sunday church services to catch comments from the pulpit or the pew on sex and duplicity.

Why was there no talk of sin and the need for repentance when the US Senate killed a campaign finance bill that would have reduced the influence of money in our politics, which surely has reached an obscene level? Why did the media not seek responses from the religious sector when the president signed a welfare reform bill in 1996 which, according to the best knowledge available, would increase misery and poverty among those already miserable and poor? If we saw with the eyes of an Ezekiel or a Jeremiah, these would have been occasions for talk of sin and repentance.

Recently, the US Senate voted down a bill to raise the minimum wage from $5.15 to $6.15 an hour. Meanwhile, the typical CEO of a large corporation earns 173 times the wage of an average worker. The richest fifth of the population gets nearly 50% of the total national income, compared to 3.7% for the lowest fifth. Twelve million full time workers earn only $10,700 annually. And we are insisting that welfare mothers go to work regardless of their level of skill and education. These matters are scarcely noticed as we carry on about the Washington sexcapades. Is there no scandal here? No sin?

This session, the NC state legislature reduced funding for low income housing, despite increasing and obvious need. We were also treated to the spectacle of legislators engaged in a lottery about welfare policy, revealing their contempt for the poor. The number of Americans without health insurance has grown by about one million each year since 1987 and now stands at 41 million, roughly one out of every six persons. These are the sins that should push our moral outrage buttons.

If we could take all of the attention, energy, money, and brain power devoted to Monicagate, and direct it toward the ocean of social needs and injustices that are drowning us—O happy day!


Rev. Kilburn is the Executive Director of the North Carolina Council of Churches.

 

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