Unborn Again Bill Bradley
Sperry, Paul
Bill Iff how me the way not to fortune and fame," S starts one of Bill Bradley's favorite poems. "Not how to win laurels and praise for my name, but the way to know the great story that Thine...
...He's a person of the gospel...
...If in his mind there's an association of Southern Protestantism with racism, I mean, yeah, that was there very often," he said...
...It is remarkable how relevant, how real and vital Jesus Christ is today...
...In college, at the First Presbyterian Church near Princeton University, he studied at the feet of a conservative Bible teacher...
...olks at the Garland, Texasbased American Tract Society lament Bradley's lost faith...
...But it does in the context of the secular and far-left views he holds today...
...But as a 25-year-old New York Knick, Bradley lived by it...
...A full-fledged member of the Religious Right...
...Some fell on rocky places," Christ said in Mark's account, "where it did not have much soil...
...These words seem to clearly express the real choice each of us must make in life: To follow the ways of the world—the way of fortune and fame and praise—or the way of God revealed through Jesus Christ," he said...
...The days of a viable candidate for president defining anything in terms so absolute as "evil," least of all a nuclear superpower, as Ronald Reagan did during the Cold War—no matter how proper, no matter how just—are long gone...
...For me this savior is Jesus Christ, the son of God...
...Of course, few people know this...
...Except Bradley's Christian faith wasn't youthful fancy...
...It would be hard for Bill to say that Jesus is the only way...
...He recalls meeting Bradley in 1961 at an FCA camp in Estes Park, Colorado...
...While at Oxford University as a Rhodes scholar, Bradley exhorted the faithful alongside Billy Graham...
...But if he were that smart of a guy, you'd think he'd go beyond that...
...He was an evangelical...
...Left out of his book are at least two occasions in which Bradley, as PAUL SPERRY is Washington bureau chief of Investor's Business Daily...
...Then why does he no longer say that himself...
...A large part of it is politics," Olasky adds...
...Also it has given me an open door to witness for Christ...
...It's not clear if Bradley the politician — pro-choice, pro-gay rights, and running left of Al Gore in their White House race—can still recite the poem...
...I knew then that I wanted to give my life to Jesus Christ and His service...
...I wouldn't characterize it as that," said Hauser, though he stopped short of defining what he was...
...senator, he was one of Washington's staunchest backers of a woman's freedom to abort a pregnancy—even in the final month...
...I knew I had been giving my life to the wrong goals," he recalled...
...First, in an interview in the March 1968 issue of the Christian Athlete, the FCA's flagship magazine...
...A true believer...
...Thinking of Bradley, Newsweek describes him as a 'true intellectual.' There's a tendency to think, 'Well I'm so smart, I don't need this stuff.'" That seems to be part of how Bradley, who lists his religion simply as "Protestant," rationalized leaving his evangelical roots...
...The group also says that abortion and homosexuality are wrong...
...But so many want to become Christians on their own terms...
...After overhearing some of his teammates talk about religion in the back of the bus, he told an FCA publication that he planned to assert himself in future talks, ostensibly with the goal of proselytizing the unwashed among them—but only after he had proven himself on the court and was fully accepted...
...L "For me this savior is Jesus Christ, the son of God," he said...
...In another longer testimony that year, he pours his heart out for Christ...
...According to Bradley, though, American racism in fact was not the last straw for him...
...Between Jesus Christ and the world...
...That was my problem when I was searching for Jesus Christ," Bradley confessed...
...He supports Medicaid payments for abortion...
...My life experiences broadened, deepened," he said in 1996...
...Nor would the American Tract Society...
...National politics has become a purely secular enterprise—thanks in large part to the media elite's almost pathological fear of a theocracy and, out of that, their need to tar anyone who praises God as a right-wing kook with extra chromosomes...
...Bradley would not agree to an interview on the subject...
...On the campaign trail today, Bradley is championing gay rights...
...She said it was "pretty strong" and influenced a lot of athletes...
...Gore's unfavorable ratings dwarf Bradley's, which barely register...
...But when Bradley was around 25, he proudly broadcast his faith in Christ and exhorted others to live a Biblical life...
...To court feminists in a national election, you have to adjust your position...
...Bradley himself taught Sunday school there...
...I seek my own individual faith," he said in his recent memoir...
...One of those jocks he ministered to was a young Bill Bradley...
...But Hauser also says Bradley was never a born-again Christian...
...oday Bradley says he now resists the "exclusivity of 'true believers'" and accepts all faiths...
...54 December I 99 9 /January 2000 • The American Spectator Bradley in 1996 voted against a ban on partial-birth abortions, while several other liberal Democrat senators voted for it...
...Now he denounces the "absolutism of fundamentalists"—as he calls them—as being "smug" (though he says the same thing about those who proclaim there is no God...
...Sin is spelled out in black and white in Exodus...
...At Oxford, he writes, he "reacted to the narrowness of view and uncharitable attitude of many who professed the same faith...
...The group's "statement of faith" is unequivocal: "The Bible is the only inspired, infallible, authoritative word of God...
...But he's not complaining...
...A godly life avoids sins of the flesh, including "adultery, fornication, uncleanness [and] lasciviousness," as well as "drunkenness, revelings and such like...
...That year FCA held its first adult camp in Black Mountain, North Carolina...
...References to "one Lord" or "one faith" can be found in Matthew, Ephesians, John, and Genesis, among other books...
...As a three-term U.S...
...The best guide to his views on this subject are in that chapter," said campaign spokesman Eric Hauser...
...But Bradley appears to have also resorted to a bit of revisionism...
...It also posts anti-abortion articles...
...As a rookie with the Knicks, Bradley was still evangelizing...
...In it Bradley does recount being "converted" in college, but speaks in relatively generic, antiseptic terms: He made "agreements" with "God" and took comfort in "religion...
...Recent tracts by pro football great Reggie White and pro basketball player David Robinson are not nearly as deep and personal as Bradley's...
...But when the sun came up, the plants were scorched, and they withered because they had no root...
...But not necessarily the most candid, it turns out...
...There are few gray areas...
...Specifically, chapter 18...
...It sprang up quickly, because the soil was shallow...
...He couldn't say for sure...
...I walked out, never to return...
...Another, titled "Partial Birth, Total Confusion," calls those among the pro-choice crowd "extremists," and argues that "the right to abort entails the right to kill, and kill cruelly...
...We cannot see Him, but He lives...
...Olasky sees another dynamic at work in Bradley's spiritual deflation: intellectual pride...
...In 1968, he also said he was itching to share his faith in Christ with his New York teammates...
...But in 1968 Bradley told the Christian Athlete: "I don't think I could have studied eight hours or more a day at Oxford without the discipline I learned in sports...
...It also states that "there is one God, eternally existent in three persons: Father, Son and Holy Spirit...
...Just because he's not vocal doesn't mean he doesn't believe in Jesus Christ," he said...
...In general, he talks sparingly about his own personal faith, feeling that it's a private matter," Hauser explained...
...His heart has beenchanged," he said, recalling Bradley's religious coming-out in the 1960's...
...He wants to expand the 1964 Civil Rights Act to include gays and lesbians...
...Just about every Democratic leader in the country was pro-life at one time—Clinton, Gore, Dick Gephardt, Jesse Jackson...
...He was more than just a secular kid," recalled McClanen, who now heads the Ministry of Money in Germantown, Maryland...
...Bradley spends much of the chapter disavowing what he calls the narrow-minded religious beliefs of his youth and assuring readers—and future presidential voters—that he's all the wiser now...
...He talks of other "evangelicals" accepting Christ as their "personal savior," but not himself...
...His religious fervor didn't end there...
...His senior year, he was invited to a three-day revival in Vancouver (though it's not clear if he went...
...You won't hear Bradley profess such faith on the hustings in New York or California...
...He gave evangelical sermons from the pulpit of the Grace Presbyterian Church in Crystal City...
...And the Bible says that blessed is he that believes without seeing Christ," Bradley wrote in the ATS tract...
...I feel it's a sin," he said, "and yet I have to be honest and say there's a part of me that's not so hardlined on it anymore...
...For him to fall away from it so dramatically is too bad...
...He seems very sincere" in his testimony of faith, Mitrisin said...
...the weak, between the living challenge and a boring conformity," he said...
...By all accounts, Bradley practiced what he preached, living a relatively clean life...
...He claims to have started to outgrow the beliefs of his youth in 1964, yet four years later he was still talking about the importance of the "application of the pure gospel in the life of every person," according to one published testimony...
...If you ask operatives in Bradley's camp about his religious views, they'll point you to Time Present, Time Past, the memoir he penned in 1996, as he was leaving the Senate...
...He's also for federal funding of abortions and recently chided Gore for waffling on the issue...
...The choice is simple...
...Shouting his faith from the mountain tops is just not Bradley's style, he explains...
...The American Tract Society, one of the groups he was associated with, chastens the faithful to live a "godly life...
...His press kit boasts: "Bradley was a consistent and unwavering supporter of a woman's right to choose...
...Consider what he told FCA in 1968: "Man is insufficient on his own and needs a savior...
...Omitting such memorable personal experiences in an autobiography is disturbing enough...
...But as a seasoned Democrat, he's also acutely aware that there's little place for absolutes in politics, especially post-Clinton politics, where religion, morality, and culture are all relative to what victim group you're courting that day or what police state you're engaging in the name of global harmony...
...There, he was moved by personal tales of faith shared by pro quarterback Fran Tarkenton and FCA founder Don McClanen, among other "huddle group leaders...
...Some say: 'I want Him to come into my life, and He can occupy all the rooms but one...
...McClanen, a Bradley campaign supporter, doubts that politics has suppressed that spiritual hunger...
...I could not fathom how those who professed such faith in Jesus Christ could so adamantly refuse to see that prejudice and discrimination against black people were affronts to Christian values," he wrote in 1996...
...It was British racism, oddly enough, and it involved a colony in Africa...
...ATS archivist Kristen Mitrisin says Bradley's sports tract was very popular at the time and sold as many as 300,000 copies before going out of print in 1971...
...What's more, he entertained ideas of serving as a "street worker" in a big city after the season—to "demonstrate my faith...
...In 1964, as a college senior, he went back to FCA camp...
...But it was later, at Princeton, that Bradley says he accepted Christ as his savior in a fit of despair over bad grades...
...52 December 1999/ January 2000 The American Spectator 0 C 0 0 Fellowship of Christian Athletes...
...Instead, Olasky says, Bradley apparently let his distrust of man lead to a distrust of Christ's word...
...B radley, who played basketball alongside many blacks, says the racism he saw in fundamentalist churches during 1964's civil rights struggle was the main thing that drove him away...
...Scripture does...
...Likewise, Olasky posits, Bradley's faith has withered under the klieg lights of Washington...
...Today, Bradley wants to find grace on his own terms...
...ATS represents five conUn its Web site, ALS sells books such as Abortion: Where tiave All the Babies Gone...
...He can join the crowd," said Marvin Olasky, author of Abortion Rites and editor of World, a Christian magazine...
...He's always been a pro-choice Democrat in his public service," Hauser said...
...He wrapped up his testimony by urging other jocks to let Christ come into their lives...
...And when he uses certain language—as in "accepted" Christ or "converted" to Christianity—he wraps it in quotes, as if to say: Those are their terms...
...Bradley's spokesman sees no contradictions...
...Of course, fundamentalists don't teach absolutes...
...In fact, few voters know much of anything about Bradley's past...
...The younger Bradley wasn't just religious in the sense of going to church on Sundays and saying grace before supper...
...And New Hampshire polls now have Bradley edging out the vice president as the Democratic frontrunner going into the state's February primary...
...A Zogby International poll taken earlier this year showed a whopping 56 percent of all likely voters are "not familiar" with Bradley...
...E ven so, Don McClanen isn't sure Bradley ever really fell away from his early faith...
...Some people are more naturally vocal and have no problem saying Jesus is the way and the light," McClanen added...
...One is on the American Life League honoring Pat Buchanan...
...It's certainly a convenient and noble ending to what, in the worldly eyes of many of his backers, could be construed as an ignoble chapter in his life...
...One Sunday, in the church I attended in Oxford, the minister preached a sermon that blatantly defended white Rhodesian power," Bradley said in his memoir...
...So he says...
...What voters don't know has helped him...
...Bradley writes that he "began to see that fundamentalism had a downside" in his senior year at Princeton, which began in 1964—but his ATS testimony was delivered four years later, in 1968, as a New York Knicks rookie...
...Bradley stood on a platform above a crowd of thousands during the London crusade...
...And before that...
...But Bradley is not one of them...
...He ended the interview by saying he planned to attend another FCA conference at the end of his rookie season with the Knicks...
...Bill Iff how me the way not to fortune and fame," S starts one of Bill Bradley's favorite poems...
...In its mission statement, it cites Galatians 5:16-18 to explain what that is—or isn't, in this case...
...A big part of faithfully believing in God is believing God is smarter than us," Olasky said...
...a pro basketball player in his mid-20's, "witnessed" to other athletes in powerful and passionate testimony about his deep, unswerving faith in Jesus Christ...
...The son of a devout Methodist mother and Hoover Republican father, a teen-aged Bradley traveled from his home in Crystal City, Missouri, to Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, and later to Estes Park, Colorado, to attend youth Bible camps run by the Well into his twenties Bill Bradley was a member of the Religious Right...
...It is between the eternal and the passing, between the strong and The American Spectator • December 1999/January 2000 53 He planned to be a "street worker" to "demonstrate my faith...
...McClanen founded the FCA in 1954 to bring Jesus to jocks...
...People everywhere in the world seem more than ever to yearn for inner peace, a oneness with themselves and their world," he wrote dhism "I'r scribe to that utilitarian philosophy," said Christian Coalition spokesman Jeffrey Taylor...
...The American Spectator • December r999/ January 2000 55...
...Thirty years ago Bradley confessed to believing that...
...That's going to be your most substantial grounds...
...I love Jesus Christ and I try to serve Him to the best of my ability...
...It's almost hard to believe that a good liberal like Bradley was once mixed up with a Bible Belt group...
...He was one of about 500 kids, McClanen says...
...This heartfelt testimony goes unmentioned in his 1996 memoir...
...Life became fuller...
...Bradley, as a student of the Bible, knows this...
...I've made my choice," Bradley added...
...Not how to win laurels and praise for my name, but the way to know the great story that Thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory" At least that was a favorite of his in 1968, when the Bible-thumping (that's right) pro hoopster was bringing other jocks to Jesus...
...hat may be the case T now...
...Or some will give up becoming a follower of Christ because it is hard, and they won't be convinced until God shows them through a bolt of lightning or a burning bush that He is real...
...Citing one of Christ's parables, Olasky says Bradley is like the farmer who scattered his seed on shallow soil...
...Religion seemed less urgent...
...And then in a declaration of faith published shortly thereafter by the American Tract Society...
...Bradley, who is pro-choice, calls foes of abortion rights "zealots...
...What's more, he wants to let them serve openly in the military, arguing that homosexuality "happens to be an attribute about as meaningful as having blond hair...
...Olasky, who teaches at the University of Texas at Austin, understands—to a degree...
...Here was a kid with soul who wanted to nurture it...
...He says he "first met Christ" at an FCA conference his junior year in high school...
...But he stood out, and not just because of his 6'5" frame...
...The themes of good and evil, light and dark run throughout the Bible...
...Dates just don't line up...
...I want the study for myself,"' he said...
...Still, McClanen is not as comfortable with Bradley's tolerance of abortion, although he says he's softened his own position after his daughter chose to have one...
...In other words, he essentially outgrew the message of the core gospel he once embraced...
...In the spiritually arid world of modern politics, Bradley's earlier strong faith may not matter much by itself...
...His speeches rarely find room for the word "God," let alone exhortations...
Vol. 32 • December 1999 • No. 12
