She couldn’t find her way to the Presidency, but Hillary Clinton seems to have found God.
According to a new book, the former Democratic Presidential candidate may have found a second calling – as a preacher.
Being an ordained Methodist minister has been something she’s thought about all her life, she told Newsweek back in 1994. A that time, she asked the reporter – Kenneth Woodward – to keep that tidbit under wraps because it would make her seem “much too pious,” but now the cat is out of the bag.
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At a recent photo shoot for his new book, Clinton’s pastor Bill Shillady said that Hillary now wants to preach, The Atlantic reports.
Religion is apparently taking a central role in her life after her brutal loss on the campaign trail.
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After long months of struggling to persuade Americans that she is trustworthy, authentic, and fundamentally moral, Clinton is lifting up an intimate, closely guarded part of herself. There are no more voters left to lose. In sharing her faith, perhaps Clinton sees something left to win, whether political or personal.
There are two books coming out this fall about the election, What Happened, Clinton’s personal account of her failed bid and Strong for a Moment Like This, Shillady’s book of devotionals that he sent to Clinton while she was on the campaign trail.
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He wrote the book at Clinton’s suggestion and said it is the only book for which Clinton has agreed to write a foreword. Clinton and her staffers read and approved the copy ahead of time.
Strong for a Moment Like This emerges from a project Shillady started shortly after Clinton said she was running for president in 2015.
Every morning, he would get up at 4 a.m. to write a quick devotional from the bible for Clinton to use for that day. “Sometimes, he asked fellow pastors to contribute a devotional to the project, including the more than 100 women clergy who formed a group called “We Pray with Her.”
In the book, Shillady inserts snippets of his email correspondence with Clinton, such as her delight at a new prayer or parable, or thank-you notes following get-togethers with Methodist clergy.
Sometimes, Shillady said, he would get a call from Clinton’s chief speechwriter, Dan Schwerin, who wanted to work something from the day’s devotional into his boss’s remarks. In her concession speech, Clinton quoted a verse from Galatians: “Let us not grow weary in doing good, for in due season, we shall reap if we do not lose heart.” Shillady had sent her that verse in a devotional a few weeks earlier, he said.
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During the presidency, the Clintons attended Foundry United Methodist Church in Washington and Hillary grew up attending the First United Methodist Church in Park Ridge, Illinois. Reportedly, she often took field trips into Chicago with her youth pastor to see figures like Martin Luther King, Jr.
Shillady said Clinton could have talked about her faith more during the campaign, but largely blamed commentators for ignoring that aspect of her identity. “It’s been there all along,” he said. “The general public didn’t necessarily want to accept the fact that she’s a Christian because there’s so many critics out there about the Clintons.” Kristin Du Mez, a professor at Calvin College who is working on a book about Clinton’s faith, agreed. “When I would hear Hillary speak, knowing that she was a Methodist, I just heard so many resonances—about education, about women’s rights, about the importance of community,” she said. “Because of that, it was just baffling to me that so many other Americans not only didn’t know she was Methodist, but didn’t accept that she was Christian.”
It’s amazing that anybody thought Hillary had any religion at all – given how much lying she did in public life.
