OPINION:
File this as a “You’ve Got to Be Kidding Me” moment. Hillary Clinton wants to be a spiritual leader.
That’s right. Clinton wants to preach the word of God, according to her pastor, the Rev. Bill Shillady.
Cue the smoke and dramatic dark music. Not to be impolite, but the idea of Clinton imparting biblical wisdom to the masses — isn’t that rather like Satan instructing Eve in the way she should go?
Bite the apple, Eve. Go ’head, it’s good for you.
Shillady has a new book out, “Strong for a Moment Like This: The Daily Devotions of Hillary Rodham Clinton.” And within, are “365 of the more than 600 devotions written for Clinton, along with personal notes, portions of her speeches and headlines that provide context for that day’s devotion,” publisher Abingdon Press announced.
Not sure which is more surprising in that announcement — that Clinton accepted devotions from pastors during the election season, or that she accepted them on a daily basis. Certainly, she must have missed at least a day or two of godly reflections.
How about on this day, for example, when the Daily Mail ran this headline: “Blow up! Days before losing the election Hillary and [husband] Bill had a screaming match over who to blame for her flagging campaign — the ex-president so angry he threw his phone off the roof of his Arkansas penthouse.”
Ouch. Seems that day’s devotion may have fallen on deaf ears. But then again, all humans are fallible. Thou shalt not judge, and so on. But now?
“Clinton wants to preach,” the Atlantic wrote. “That’s what she told Bill Shillady … at a recent photo shoot for his new book about the daily devotionals he sent her during the 2016 campaign. Scattered bits of reporting suggest that ministry has always been a secret dream of the two-time presidential candidate: Last fall, the former Newsweek editor Kenneth Woodward revealed that “Clinton told him in 1994 that she thought ’all the time’ about becoming an ordained Methodist minister.”
Apparently, Clinton asked Woodward to keep a lid on the hope, however. She thought it would “make me seem much too pious.”
Oh, not at all, Mrs. Clinton. Not at all.
But now, post-epic election fail, the woman whose face and name have become synonymous with Political Scandal, wants to go public and reinvent with religion. On one hand, strange but true. But on the other? Well, consider this: There is a lot of money to be made on the television preaching circuit. So in that respect, perhaps the job switch — perhaps the reinvention from politics to pulpit — isn’t quite so odd after all.
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