Kenneth Starr, Bill Clinton, and Christianity

Kenneth Starr recently stated that, if he were to meet Bill Clinton today, he would apologize.

This is true decency; indeed this is true Christianity, and I have highest respect for Kenneth Starr for having said this.

A Christian is meant to love, and a Christian is meant to forgive. The extreme viciousness that came the way of Clinton, while being done in the name of Christianity, was in fact not Christian at all. Do we ever remember Jesus saying, “May he who is without sin cast the first stone”?

Ultimately this situation is none of our business. It is between Bill Clinton and his wife. His wife is willing to forgive him, we should as well. And we should not be imposing upon them judgments that are made without insight and that are, frankly, wrong.

It took the Salon magazine revealing the hypocrisy of Kenneth Starr's associate in Congress, Henry Hyde, to save America from the worst feeding frenzy that it ever had, one that threatened to depose a legitimately elected and successful president. This took guts. Henry Hyde was absolutely ruthless, as was Kenneth Starr at the time; and it took standing up to them to preserve America's liberties. It cost the Salon magazine the work of some of its writers. But the result was saving America.

I am very happy that Kenneth Starr has discovered the true meaning of Christianity, and I hope that others do as well. And then Christianity can stop being synonymous with hypocrisy and oppression and instead move forward as a religion of love and forgiveness, bringing more people into the glory of God and into understanding what that means for them.