The Clinton’s Cult Love Affair

By Eric Barger

First, are they Christian or Cultist?

In examining the policies of the current administration in Washington, one can hardly ignore the obvious unbiblical and even anti-Christian attitude. From the campaign rhetoric, concerning squelching Christian schools, to the pro-gay agenda and like-minded appointees, to the proposed elimination of tax exemptions for churches and ministries as outlined in President Clinton’s Economic Plan and additional Budgetary Information (1), subtle and blatant Christian bashing has become the sport of the Clinton administration. To the horror of Bible-believers, both Bill Clinton and Vice-President Al Gore claim to be Baptist. The 1992 campaign was loaded with inferences to their spirituality. Of course, the news media touted the Democratic candidates’ moderate (i.e. liberal) views as a kind of "in your face" to Christians who choose to actually employ their beliefs as a lifestyle. More than one liberal commentator has sneered that conservative Christians should get in step with these new progressive "Baptist" politicians. After all, they do claim to be Christians, don’t they? And certainly, isn’t that enough? In the face of seeing Gore’s hyper-New Age, mega-environmental book Earth in the Balance, Ecology and the Human Spirit soar to best-seller status, one would think that someone outside the realm of "Evangelicals" would realize that Gore is surely only Baptist by claim or association. His views concerning earth worship and pagan idolatry are as extreme as any being espoused by occultists. Hillary Clinton associates with Methodism, but again one need only compare the policies, lifestyle and beliefs of the First Lady with the teachings of Scripture to see that something is amiss. In fact, in a recent Newsweek magazine interview, Hillary Clinton stated; "I am an old-fashioned Methodist." However, she then identified God as "both he and she." She decried wrongfully being pegged as "New Age" in her orientation and went on to describe the liberal Methodist church that the Clintons attend in Washington, highlighting the seating arrangements for the homosexual couples as "in the front" (2). Wesley would turn over in his grave if this is old-fashioned Methodism!

The Truth is NOT Judging Unjustly...

Anyone can call himself a Baptist, Methodist or, for that matter, a Christian. It is not judgmental, in fact it is Biblical, to point out that a person just proclaiming he is something doesn’t necessarily make it so. The proof of Christianity is not church membership or denominational affiliation. The proof is in the fruit of one’s life. Get it straight America; this President, his wife, and their Vice-President may be "Baptist", or "Methodist" by name; but their works are certainly lacking the evidence to convict them of knowing Jesus Christ as Lord. To put it bluntly, Bill, Hillary and Al Gore claim to be Christians, but are more than just a little "off the wall" spiritually.

So then, if one can establish that the Clintons appear to be lacking a personal relationship with Jesus Christ yet are not atheists, of what spiritual affiliation are they? What teaching do they follow? What doctrine do they embrace? Who is their spiritual leader? You may be surprised, offended or horrified, but the Clintons have clearly enunciated the answers to these questions if we are just willing to examine. Read on.

The Cult of Tikkun...

I first became acquainted with the name "Tikkun" (pronounced "tee-coon") in the summer of 1993, while on a speaking tour in western Canada. While in Cranbrook, BC, a story published in the local newspaper about Tikkun was brought to my attention. The headline said it all; "American First Family Gets Cult Fever with Tikkun". In a little circulated story from the Sterling News Service (SNS), the key elements of Bill and Hillary Clinton’s spirituality were exposed. I was amazed by what I’d come across; more so that it came from a secular wire service. Sadly, the American people have, for the most part, been kept in the dark about this. Dan Rather and Tom Brokaw have never uttered a sound concerning Tikkun and the Clinton’s affiliation to it. And you can bet, considering the bias and favoritism of the liberal press, that no politically correct secular news editor would ever allow an adverse article in his paper outlining the President and his wife as common cultists. However, there have been numerous accounts of the Clinton’s association with Tikkun in the major print media nationwide (3).

The SNS story outlines more than just a casual affirmation of Tikkun by Bill Clinton. As far back as 1988, Clinton could be found writing letters to Tikkun magazine editor and chief seer Michael Lerner. (4) That year the bi-monthly publication printed a letter in which an inspired Bill Clinton wrote that Tikkun "had helped me clarify my own thinking." Hillary’s association with Lerner is reported to be even deeper than Bill’s. Once one finds out what Tikkun is, knowing how the White House operates under her spell, it should be enough to shake up even staunch supporters of current policy.

Whether the Clintons are, in reality, an ongoing product of Tikkun thought or whether they have merely found a philosophy that matches their own is probably open to discussion by skeptics. However, the fact is that the economic, military, foreign and social policies being fostered by the Clintons align in perfect stride with that of Tikkun. It is hard to rationalize that the likenesses between Tikkun thought and actual policy are freak accidents. Once one discovers the philosophies and doctrines of Tikkun and then correlates them with the actions and proposals served up by the White House over the last year and a half, it would appear that Tikkun is influencing (or at least is in agreement with) the day-to-day actions of Bill and Hillary Clinton. One could pass it off as a wild coincidence if it were not for the close association the Clintons openly hold with Tikkun and its chief guru, Michael Lerner. So, let’s find out; what is this "Tikkun"; who is behind it; and where is it leading the "co-presidents" and our nation with them?

Tikkun is the Clinton’s...

The SNS wire service story included the basic tenants of Tikkun philosophy. As we examine them you will, as I have stated, notice a striking resemblance to the policies being set forth by the current administration. One could deduce by following the path the Clintons are leading the nation down that Tikkun then is built on moral relativism, pacifism, socialism and anti-American, anti-traditional family values. It is. Here are the details.

The word "Tikkun" means "to mend, repair, and transform the world." The cult takes inspiration from the Zohar manuscripts, which orthodox rabbis consider heretical. In fact, the Zohar manuscripts have inspired Cabalistic (Occult style) thinking which, among other things ignores mankind's hopeless, sin stained condition without God. The Zohar is heavy on social action to the extent that the sovereignty of God is nearly nonexistent. Thus, at first glance Tikkun sounds very appealing to the natural man. It teaches a sort of Utopian concept. It begins to sound fishy when one realizes that those following Tikkun believe that they are the elite, exclusive, enlightened ones; and that any method is acceptable and should be used to bring change to the numbed, zombified masses who know not what’s good for them. Enter relativism. Remember that Clinton whimpered that he shouldn’t be judged on what he’d done in the past (adultery, drug use, draft-dodging, etc.), but that we now were to think only of all he’d accomplished for our (supposed) good. Perhaps this is just the relative existentialism he picked up while in school at Georgetown, but it lines up perfectly with Tikkun as well.

Tikkun philosophy is: An eccentric left-wing Jewish cult, mixing the Old Testament, medieval cabala mysticism and 1960’s style campus Marxism.

Tikkun philosophy believes that man is naturally caring and sensitive, but capitalism, portrayed as the key evil that Tikkun seeks to vilify, has turned humanity in free-market countries into raving brutes. Therefore the entire system, upon which our nation and culture is built, must be totally reformed. (See Jeremiah 17:9 for God’s view of natural man.) Also, since Tikkun deems that capitalism is evil, the obvious reformation being referenced is toward socialism (big government controlling everything because they know what’s best for the peons). When Senator Jay Rockefeller told America that "the people are going to get a national health care plan whether they like it or not", and when Clinton’s new Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer said during his confirmation hearings that "the American people don’t know what is in their best interest when it comes to government regulation and how money should be spent", you kinda get the picture as to where the present administration in Washington is trying to take us!

Another central theme of Tikkun is to feminize America. Do the names Reno, Shalala, Elders, Achtenberg, Albright and someone named Hillary strike a note here?

Tikkun teaches that we need a "New Covenant". Sound familiar? It should if you watched the Democratic National Convention in 1992. Bill Clinton’s acceptance speech was called the "New Covenant" speech. That was the most famous speech in which Clinton misquoted the Bible saying; "As the Scripture says, ‘Our eyes have not yet seen, nor our ears heard, nor our minds imagined what we can build.’ We can do it!" How does Clinton propose to bring about his "New Covenant"? Through class envy propaganda, just as Tikkun proposes. Just as he’s done.

If you think this stuff sounds far out, the confessional prayer of Tikkun, known as "Al Cheyt" takes the cake. Al Cheyt begs forgiveness "for the sins of accepting the current distribution of wealth and power...for the sins of squandering hundreds of billions on unnecessary defense expenditures...for the sins of turning our backs on the oppression of gays and lesbians."

What kind of mind thinks this stuff up? His name is Michael Lerner, editor of the Tikkun magazine, which boasts 40,000+ subscribers bi-monthly. When I first saw his name, I realized that I had heard it before. Here’s where. I lived in Seattle from the late 60’s until 1989. Lerner was known around the University of Washington as the "Commie" prof. He openly advocated communism telling the Seattle Times in 1970, "I dig Marx." Lerner taught at both Washington and U. of Cal.-Berkeley where he was the head of the SDS. In Seattle he led the infamous Seattle Liberation Front, a radical anti-war group (sounds like Clinton, eh?). In the 1970’s Lerner was indicted for his part in the violent bomb attack against the Seattle Federal Courthouse. His 1973 book, The New Socialist Revolution states, "This book is an attempt to explain why the only changes that will make sense in America are those that will move the country to socialism...can the American Revolution occur without violence?" According to the SNS wire story, Lerner’s goal now is to fuse left-wing politics with religiosity - a Jewish version of "liberation theology."

The Sterling News Service story sums Tikkun up as "a craze about the middle-aged crisis of meaning for a coterie of Yale Law School graduates and their confused friends. Culturally adrift, they are trying to create a new designer religion for themselves out of the fetishes of modern life - a bit of ecology here, a bit of psycho-babble there - a cult without faith, without God, without transcendental purpose, doomed to failure." Lerner would disagree.

Though in recent days the President’s advisors have attempted to create distance between the Clintons and Lerner, there can be no doubt that Tikkun is a perfect match for the relativism (i.e., the end justifies the means; change your mind to suit the outcome of any given situation) and socialism that the Clintons live and are bent on pushing on America. Before it was deemed unwise to veil their communications by those at the White House, it was apparent that Lerner had captured the attention of Hillary Clinton so much that she has invited him to disciple her in Tikkun thought regularly. (5) She even constructed her most famous speech around a Lerner phrase and philosophy - the "Politics of Meaning" - in San Antonio, April 6, 1993. This speech echoes Lerner’s teaching from the Tikkun magazine May/June 1993. It was shortly thereafter that Hillary invited Lerner to the White House to discuss "...how to take the politics of meaning into a policy direction." (6) Lest there be any doubt that Lerner still stands totally entrenched in Marxist philosophy, he wrote, speaking of his own ideas saying; "The politics of meaning is the Clinton's attempt to change the dominant discourse of this society from the language of selfishness to the language of caring, social responsibility and ecological sensitivity." (7) Translation: "selfishness" is the free-market system and "caring, social responsibility, sensitivity" beckon the idea of Utopian socialism controlled and defined by a Marxist government. Human Events evaluates the "politics of meaning" to be simply "a loony form of socialism." (8)

Obviously enthralled to be in her guru’s presence at a White House reception in 1993, Hillary exclaimed "that she felt like Lerner’s mouthpiece." (9) He said of her, "It’s amazing how much we seem to be on the same wavelength." (10) That’s what we were afraid of.

Footnotes:

1. Economic Plan and additional Budgetary Information released by the U.S. Dept. of Commerce February 17, 1993

2. Newsweek, Oct. 31, 1994, p. 22, 23

3. The Washington Post, June 13, 1993, p. C-1

4. Reported by both Sterling News Service and The Washington Post, June 9, 1993

5. The Wall Street Journal, June 11, 1993

6. Human Events, June 26, 1993, p.3

7. The Washington Post, June 13, 1993, p. C-1

8. Human Events, June 26, 1993, p.3

9. ibid.

10. The Boston Globe, June 17, 1993, p. 31

© 1995, 1997 Eric Barger

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