[Oe List ...] Hillary Clinton and Tillich

[frank bremner]

Dear colleagues

I used to say that South Australia is a socially incestuous place.  Thn I 
extended it to Australia.  Then I ran into a couple on the underground in 
London - on my way to the US in 1978 - that I'd been to teachers college 
with in the late 60s.

Over the car radio, while driving along the banks of the River Delaware, 
Noel Thomas and I heard the University of Pennsylvania radio station WXPN 
play Eric Bogle's "And the band played Waltzing Matilda" on the morning of 
April 25 1980 - Anzac Day.  As Jim Bishop used to say, we celebrate a 
military DEFEAT!?  My eyes were more than a little moist .  Then the car 
broke down - "See what i mean, Noel?"

Then back in Adelaide in the 80s I run into a former student from a school 
where I'd taught in the 70s.  A youth worker, she'd been travelling and 
working, and attended some conference in New York.  Someone said "Hey, 
you're from Australia!  Do you know Frank Bremner"  And it was NOT a Lower 
East Side gathering!

Cheers

Frank Bremner

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>From: Nancy Lanphear <nancy at songaia.com>
>Reply-To: Order Ecumenical Community  <oe at wedgeblade.net>
>To: Order Ecumenical Community <oe at wedgeblade.net>
>CC: dialogue at wedgeblade.net
>Subject: Re: [Oe List ...] Hillary Clinton and Tillich
>Date: Thu, 8 Feb 2007 04:51:09 -0800
>
>Dear Ones,
>
>Isn't it amazing how synchronistic life is?  I discover daily that our
>circles of life connect with others in most wondrous ways!
>
>Last week Fred received an email from Isaac Kariyuki from Nairobi.
>Isaac was one of the young men in Kawangware that was so full of energy
>and fun.  He is now an evangelist living in the south east with his
>wife and 3 children.
>
>A few years ago I received a letter from another young man who then
>lived in Western Kenya and was a teacher.  He was the son of Joram who
>at one time was the manager of the Urban Farm Program in Kawangware.
>Joram had died at a relatively young age but his son had found my name
>in his father's journal and had written to let me know about his father
>and to send greetings to us.  This young man must have been a child
>when we lived in Kawangware but I do not remember him.   We
>corresponded a couple of time but them I lost track of him.
>
>Take care and remember that you are loved.
>
>Nancy
>
>
>
>
>On Feb 7, 2007, at 12:32 PM, chagnon at comcast.net wrote:
>
> > Lucille Chagnon here...
> >      Several years ago I asked if anyone knew if Hillary Clinton had
> > attended an RS-I when she was a teen, something I had heard about as a
> > possibility from colleagues way back.  I don't know if it was in
> > response to that that David Reese sent a long e-mail about a meeting
> > of EI colleagues with Rev. Don Jones, Hillary's mentor, near Mary
> > Coggeshall's NJ home.
> >     This week's Newsweek has an article, which I copied below, about
> > Hillary and her mentor, complete with mention of E. E. Cummings and
> > Tillich.
> >     I had kept David's e-mail and I copied that below the Newsweek
> > article.
> >
> > --------------------
> >
> > Newsweek        February 12, 2007 issue, page 30
> > http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16960621/site/newsweek/
> >
> > Hillary's Religious Roots
> > At 13, she met a Methodist minister who became a lifelong friend.
> >
> > By Susannah Meadows
> >
> > If Hillary Clinton and George W. Bush have anything in common, it is a
> > deeply rooted wariness of outsiders. Both the president and the woman
> > who hopes to succeed him have always relied on a small, closed circle
> > of friends and advisers who have been with them for years. So it's not
> > surprising that there are so many familiar faces on Clinton's new
> > campaign team. Ad maker Mandy Grunwald, pollster Mark Penn, strategist
> > Ann Lewis and others are loyalists from Bill Clinton's White House.
> >
> > There is another person on Hillary's shortlist of confidants who goes
> > back farther than any of them, but whom you've probably never heard
> > of. The Rev. Don Jones, a Methodist minister who is now 75, was
> > perhaps Hillary's earliest spiritual and political mentor. She has
> > written of her "lifelong friendship" with him. It was Jones who first
> > awakened young Hillary to the civil rights movement and counseled her
> > on questions of faith. They continued to be in touch as Hillary became
> > a national figure. Years later, he helped her through the darkest
> > period in her life, the aftermath of her husband's affair with Monica
> > Lewinsky.
> >
> > Precocious and confident, 13-year-old Hillary was an active member of
> > her Methodist church in Park Ridge, Ill., when Jones arrived in 1961
> > to lead the youth group. Fresh from the seminary, he was anything but
> > stuffy in his red Chevy Impala convertible. He carried the Bible, but
> > also the collected poems of E. E. Cummings. Hillary, politically aware
> > even then, was a budding Republican who took after her staunchly
> > conservative father. In long discussions at the church, Jones
> > introduced Hillary to the left. The young minister was determined to
> > show his white, privileged parishioners the world beyond their
> > suburban town. He took them to the South Side of Chicago to hear
> > Martin Luther King Jr. speak. Jones introduced each of them to the
> > civil rights leader.
> >
> > But the conversation wasn't all politics. "Hillary would come up to
> > talk to me after I preached and make comments about the sermon, how
> > the hymns, prayers and Biblical passages were coordinated with the
> > message," Jones tells NEWSWEEK. Jones hewed closely to the
> > social-justice tradition of the Methodist Church, preaching that
> > helping those in need was a means of practicing their faith. "I think
> > she responded to my ministry in part for its intellectual content,"
> > Jones says. "Her heart responded to the social responsibility
> > aspects."
> >
> > Not everyone appreciated the minister's lessons. Within two years, the
> > conservative members of the congregation asked him to leave. Jones
> > landed at Drew University in Madison, N.J., where he spent his career
> > teaching theology. They were in communication while Hillary was in
> > high school and later at Wellesley. During her time as First Lady, he
> > visited the White House nine times. After Bill Clinton admitted his
> > affair with Lewinsky, Jones gave Hillary a Paul Tillich sermon about
> > grace, and how it comes to you when you feel great pain. Jones says he
> > hoped Hillary would pass the words on to her husband. "It was my
> > secret agenda," he says. Sure enough, five days later, Jones received
> > a thank-you note from the president. Last year he saw the Clintons at
> > their home in Chappaqua, N.Y. The senator had called him to invite her
> > old friend to her mother's birthday party.
> >
> > Though she's been accused of adopting a religious patina for political
> > gain, her relationship with Jones shows that from the time she was
> > young, Hillary was thinking seriously about her faith. She clearly
> > talks more about religion these days, as many politicians do—but her
> > connection to Jones reveals that her Christianity has always been at
> > the center of her identity. "She's not using the language of prayer
> > and God for the first time," says Jones. "While there may be a
> > political dimension, it's authentic."
> >
> > Jones describes Hillary's beliefs as falling, like her politics,
> > somewhere in the middle of the spectrum. Unlike the extreme left, she
> > understands the limitations of human beings, he says. And unlike the
> > extreme right, he argues, she believes in humanity's potential. She
> > does take seriously the doctrine of original sin. And after a lifetime
> > in politics, she's seen plenty of it.
> >
> > © 2007 Newsweek, Inc.
> >
> > ---------
> >
> > from David Reese  Nov. 2003
> >
> > Hi, each of you have been talking about Hillary and RS-1 probabilities
> > way
> > back in the 60's.  The book is:  HILLARY CLINTON by Judith Warner,
> > released in
> > January of '93.  It is a paperback by Signet.
> >
> > Reading it soon after the Clinton election, I got excited by the same
> > thing
> > some of you are recalling.  Page 18 begins a description of her youth
> > minister,
> > Don Jones, "currently a professor of religion at Drew University in New
> > Jersey".   Jones is described as 'fresh out of Drew U. Theological
> > School'.
> >
> > He describes taking the lily white youth group into the inner city,
> > meeting
> > with black and Hispanic groups.  At Drew, the piece says, that  Jones
> > studied
> > under Paul Tillich.  That he exposed the kids to Picasso, e. e.
> > cummings and
> > Stephen Crane.  Screened films like "Requiem For a Heavyweight and the
> > 400
> > Blows".
> >
> > "I took a print of Picasso's Guernica, took it into the inner city,
> > set it on
> > the back of a chair, and asked both groups, the city group and the
> > suburban
> > group to look at the painting and not say anything, and then we talked
> > about it
> > in terms of their experience."   And on.......'what strikes you?',
> > 'what
> > grabs you?'
> >
> > The writer continues:   "Jones introduced Hillary in small doses to the
> > difficult theological writings of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Reinhold
> > Niebuhr and Paul
> > Tillich".
> >
> > Now, all this convinced me that Don Jones had been to a PLC so I
> > called Drew
> > U., got his number and talked with him for a while.  Since there was
> > to be an
> > ICA meeting fairly soon in New Jersey and some of us were going to
> > stay at
> > Mary Coggleshall's home, I got in touch with Ray Caruso and Mary and
> > they agreed
> > it would be good to set up a meeting with Don Jones.
> >
> > Mary may have done the actual arranging.  Ray, Mary, Don Jones and I,
> > and
> > maybe another person or so, had lunch with Don and later reported back
> > to the ICA
> > meeting.
> > (My notes of that time are buried somewhere in files packed away out
> > in the
> > garage.)
> >
> > It was a fascinating and informing time.  He talked about telling Joe
> > Matthews of his plans to get a PhD and Joe dismissing that plan with
> > something like,
> > "Come and be with us, it will be better for you than any PhD".
> >
> > He was still in touch from time to time with Hillary.  By mail.  He
> > talked
> > about Japanese TV crews looking him up, taking him to those places in
> > South
> > Chicago where the youth groups had gone and pressing him for details.
> > Preparing
> > to leave us after the lunch, he promised that whenever he met with
> > Hillary
> > later in the years, he would recall to her the sources in the
> > Ecumenical Institute
> > to which he had exposed the youth and her in their church group.
> >
> > David Walters, I never got the impression that Hillary had attended a
> > full
> > fledged RS-l or that her family had been involved with RS-l.  Ray
> > Caruso was
> > there and could have other opinions.   Mary Coggleshall, too, could
> > have more
> > details of the meeting. All of us were excited to hear these details
> > of her youth
> > experience but I don't recall anything ever coming of it.  Anyone could
> > probably find the book among old books of that time.
> >
> > --
> > Lucille T. Chagnon, M.Ed.
> > Literacy Acceleration Consultants
> > 408 River Road, Wilmington, DE 19809-2731
> > 302-762-0282    fax -0285
> > chagnon at comcast.net      www.teachtwo.net
> >
> >
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>
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