Relationships between religious and temporal leaders, while unavoidable and often valuable, are always problematic. Richard Nixon's association with Billy Graham generated crtiicsm, as did Bill Clinton's parade of spiritual advisors. People in public life must not be deprived of pastoral care, of course, but clergy who counsel politically powerful individuals need to be especially vigilant about maintaining religious integrity. They must carefully assess their own motives, the motives of the politicians seeking guidance, and the political implications of any public connection. To explore this predicament, entitled "Evangelicals and Political Power: Lessons from the Past, Lessons for the Future," held at the DoubleTree Park Terrace Hotel, on February 2, 2001.

John Ortberg and Elizabeth Maring, a pastor and an elder, respectively, of the Willow Creek Community Church in South Barrington, Illinois, first discussed the controversial visit of President Clinton to their leadership summit in August 2000. Willow Creek's Reverend Bill Hybels had had a long pastoral relationship with Clinton, and Ortberg and Maring noted that the church had been taken to task for seeming to sanction the president's behavior and his remarks at the meeting. Those remarks, in which Clinton expressed remorse for some sins, seemed designed to advance Al Gore's political interested just weeks before the Democratic National Convention. Despite the resulting disapproval, however, Ortberg and Maring defended the visit. They admitted to being naive but not wrong. The media had misrepresented the forum in which Clinton spoke, they say: it was not a worship service but an educational event, and Clinton's attendance did not indicate that church members approved of him or endorsed what he said. More importantly, they stressed, the invitation to the president was consistent with Willow Creek's fundamental identity as "a church that persistently and relentlesesly extended the love of Christ" to all irreligious persons. No matter how repulsive his or her behavior, Maring said, "no person is beyond the grace of God."

Gabriel Fackre of the Center of Theological Inquiry in Princeton, New Jersey, stepped back from the specific Willow Creek controversy to consider more general principles of religious-political engagement. Citing instructive passage from Scripture, he urged religious leaders to keep a prophetic distance from the powerful. All human beings, even the more righteous, are susceptible to self-aggrandizement, and evangelical Christians may be particularly vulnerable to the seductions of power because their faith may prompt them to suppress their critical and self-critical faculties. One "cannot privatize religion in a fallen world," Fackre cautioned. Christians must make a distinction between the forgiveness given by God and the accountability required by human law, and they must "speak truth to power" as Nathan did to David.

William Bennet of Empower America said he welcomed the discussion of religion's appropriate role in public life because he sees signs that the United States is becoming "a pagan nation." While American claim to be moral and spiritual beings, "we are very unclear about the things that matter most." The people's nonchalant reaction to the Clinton scandals and lies is especially worrisome. The wrongheaded struggle of many not be "judgmental" is undermining our moral fiber, Bennett argued. "Is there anything you can't do anymore and still keep your job?" Are there any standards for gauging genuine repentance? Siding with the crtiics in the Willow Creek debate, Bennett faulted the church for allowing itself to be "used massively, successfully, and unambiguously."

Center vice president Michael Cromartie moderated the ensuing exchange that explored, among other matters, the range of Christian reactions to fallibility and evil, the relative merit of public and private religious counseling, evangelical naivete, and the interaction of religious institutions with the culture at large.