Praying with Hillary
How does religion relate to presidential conduct? Every now and then, a president acts in a way that pretty clearly seems to express his religious commitments. Rarely is the expression as clear as it's been with George W. Bush's faith-based initiative. But it was not hard to see a religious impulse at work in, for example, Jimmy Carter's assiduous pursuit of a peace treaty between Israel and Egypt.
With presidential candidates, of course, we can only ask questions. And, when a candidate's religion worries some portion of the electorate, the questions tend to be unedifying. Would Jack Kennedy take orders from Rome? Would Mitt Romney take orders from Salt Lake? Would Barack Obama take orders from Jeremiah Wright?
Of greater use to to try to see the candidate's religious background and journey (if journey there be) as a window onto his or her identity. In this regard, Hillary Clinton's more than passing engagement in the semi-secret organization known as The Family is of more than passing interest. Yesterday this blog received a comment from Jeff Sharlet, whose book on the organization, The Family, will be out in a little over a week. Our exchange is here.
Having not yet read the book, I'm not sure to what extent, if any, Sharlet ties Clinton to the Family's right-wing political inclinations. He agrees that the thing has a fundamentally establishmentarian ethos--how the Family is dedicated to bringing Washington's movers and shakers together. That is the source of its particular appeal to Clinton, I suspect. (It is sort of the Renaissance Weekend of American religion.) That her favorite Bible story is Esther speaks volumes: Make me the queen and I'll save the people from the evil that threatens.
More than anything else, it is the impulse to solve problems from the top down, from the inside out, that seems at the core of Clinton's public being. Her failed health care initiative is the case par excellence. What's missing is the inspirational voice, the prophetic challenge, the spiritual summons. That latter--just words, she says--is, of course, Obama's stock in trade. At bottom, they are religious opposites.
Update: My exchange with Sharlet continues in the comments to this post.
So you're aware that on O'Reilly Hillary Clinton pronounced these magical five words: “Rich people—God bless us.” A new devotee of the prosperity gospel? A clinger to the famed Calvinist preferential option for the rich? Well, fairness obliges a link to Trailhead's Christopher Beam, who 
In last night's Commpassion Forum, Campbell Brown asked Hillary Clinton to name her favorite Bible story and she named...the story of Esther:
Today's New York Sun features Russell Berman's interview with Hillary Clinton's sometime pastor Edward Matthews, who retired 10 years ago from the Methodist church that she attended in Little Rock when she was the gubernatorial spouse there. In a genial way, Matthews more or less speaks up in defense of Jeremiah Wright, as well as of his former parishioner, who injected herself into the controversy by saying that she would not have remained in a Wright-led church. The kicker:
A number of readers (nice to hear from you) have written in to say they think Hillary Clinton's current church is the Fellowship (or "the Family"), the rather secretive organization that for decades has run the National Prayer Breakfast and which sponsors various prayer groups for government officials and their spouses. Clinton joined up when she arrived in Washington as the First Lady in 1993 and apparently has since ascended to the most elite of its "cells." It's a basically evangelical operation (though non-evangelicals participate) and it forswears partisan politics even as it pushes towards the right. I once co-authored a book on the American Establishment (called The American Establishment), and what the Family mostly seems to me to be is one of those organizations that do do what establishmentarian organizations always do: provide the contacts and networks, the modes of understanding and accommodation, and the rites of entry and inclusion that enable elites to function and perpetuate themselves. The Family appears to be a right-wing example of the breed--rather more inclusive, by the evidence available, than, for example, most right-wing Washington think tanks. It does have a shadowy leader, which makes it seem more ominous than it otherwise might. His name is Doug Coe, who Clinton describes in Living History as "a unique presence in Washington: a genuinely loving spiritual mentor and guide to anyone, regardless of party or faith, who wants to deepen his or her relationship with God."
Update: So far as we can tell, Clinton attended Easter services this year at 
The ragin' cajun, James Carville, really
Watch Hillary Clinton talk about what her faith has done for her, in an