Exegesis Update

A Forum Encouraging Moral Excellence
Published Worldwide from Washington

December 27, 1996
"God Will Hold You To Account, Mr. President."

Just last week, Matthew Schenck, the teenage son of our good friend, Reverend Robert Schenck, General Secretary to the National Clergy Council, was lamenting that nothing exciting ever seemed to happen. That was then. This is now. On Christmas Eve, your editor invited a small group of friends, including the Schenck family, to a service at Washington's National Cathedral, which was also attended by the President and his family. The service provided a rare opportunity to share a few words with the Churchgoer-in-Chief, and as we made our way up to communion, several people offered him Christmas greetings. Concerned for the President's spiritual well-being, Reverend Schenck's Christmas gift was in the form of eight well-chosen words. In a scriptural admonition referring to the President's veto of the partial-birth abortion ban, he said quietly and respectfully: "God will hold you to account, Mr. President."

The President appeared shocked at hearing this truth and activated his eager Secret Service. As the choir made their way down the center aisle singing "What Child Is This", the Reverend was accosted and prevented from leaving the Cathedral. One Secret Service agent reached inside the minister's jacket, pulled out his wallet and started rifling through it in a 15-minute spectacle which left eyewitnesses, including your editor, wondering whether they had been suddenly transported not to Bethlehem but to Beijing. The Secret Service apparently observe no boundaries once they decide, in their own unique interpretation of reality, that the President's life is threatened. By the time we left the Cathedral, the Reverend's Drivers License had not been returned, and out on Wisconsin Avenue, eight members of the Secret Service, having taken a shortcut, blocked the sidewalk in a tactic your editor had not seen since a 1981 visit to Moscow.

This was neither Beijing nor Moscow but Washington, Capital of the Free World, yet these actions were those of a paranoid regime in an advanced stage of terminal decay, reminiscent of the final days of the Soviet Union. If the President feels threatened by God's word, it is not because his life is under threat, but because his Eternal Life is under threat, and that is beyond the jurisdiction even of the Secret Service.

The White House refused to acknowledge that these events had taken place. Would they say that planting three rows of black people immediately behind the President was a coincidence? It is an insult to anyone to be used as a stage prop. It has often been reported that President Clinton is a showman who lacks substance. These events witnessed with our own eyes support that theory and also illustrate his ruthlessness. If this was his reaction to a scripture, can one imagine what he does to someone who really threatens his political or physical life? The Reverend was right: in His own perfect time, God will hold Bill Clinton, and all of us, to account for what we do and for what we fail to do. ~ Steve Myers

© Exegesis 1996. All Rights Reserved. Reproduced with permission.


Following the publication of this week's Update, the Secret Service stated they had acted appropriately. Here is Reverend Robert Schenck's response to them:

Statement By The Reverend Robert Schenck,
General Secretary to the National Clergy Council
Friday, December 27, 1996

The Secret Service have today described their actions in accosting and detaining me during a Christmas Eve service at Washington National Cathedral as "appropriate". I beg to differ.

President Clinton describes himself as a Christian and certainly enjoys being seen frequently with a Bible in his hand. The Scriptures tell us that: "If someone is caught in a sin, you who are spiritual should restore him gently" (Galatians 6: 1). That is precisely what I was doing. Reminding the President that he is accountable to God is nothing more nor less than the truth.

Indeed, as has been pointed out in the media, the Pope, Mother Teresa and Billy Graham have rebuked the Presisdent for his actions. Would the Secret Service treat them in the same way as they treated me?

The Secret Service have no business interfering in matters between two brothers in Christ, especially inside a church and during a service, assuming that President Clinton is sincere about his Christian faith.

As Exegesis pointed out in their Update of today's date: " If the President feels threatened by God's word, it is not because his life is under threat, but because his Eternal Life is under threat, and that is beyond the jurisdiction even of the Secret Service."