During a fundraising event earlier this month at Riverside Church in Manhattan, New York, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told the gathered crowd that it was her Christian faith that kept her going after her “devastating” presidential election loss to Donald Trump last November.
The New Yorker magazine reported that in an interview with Rev. Ginger Gaines-Cirelli, senior pastor of Foundry United Methodist Church, Clinton “relied on several tools, one of which was prayer,” to help her cope with the election defeat.
“I was lifted up and blessed by a lot of people who sent me prayers, sent me spiritual readings,” Clinton told Gaines-Cirelli. … Through it all, my faith was really holding me together in a very central way. It gave me a lot of courage to get up and keep going.”
Juicyecumenism.com reported that, during the interview, Clinton, a lifelong Methodist, said conservative Christians misunderstood her during the campaign, leading to Trump’s victory.
“There was a misconception between who I am, what I believe and the kind of campaign that we saw a year ago,” she said. … “We talked about a love in a community concept, a public concept, and it was challenging to do because there is a large group of people with a very strong opinion that, if you’re a Christian, if you profess your faith, you can only have one set of political beliefs. And, if you deviate from those political beliefs, you somehow are not really a Christian. I reject that completely.”
Also during the interview, juicyecumenisum.com said Clinton referred to “a Galatians passage” (Gal. 6:9) that instructs Christians “to not grow weary in doing good works.”
“It is hard. It is exhausting to stand up and say, ‘Don’t talk about people like that. Don’t treat people like that. Don’t insult and demean a whole group of people,'” Clinton said.
Yet, last September during the campaign, time.com reported that Clinton said, “You could put half of Trump’s supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables. … The racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamaphobic—you name it.” The remark drew laughter and adamant applause.
Clinton is in the midst of promoting her new memoir, What Happened. In his article, New Yorker magazine editor Michael Luo lamented that, in her interview with Gaines-Cirelli, Clinton didn’t “go deeper into how faith helped her find a way out. … Instead of dwelling on the spiritual dimensions of her election loss, she found her way back to the political, getting most invigorated when launching broadsides against the Trump administration.” {eoa}
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