    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1993, Book II)]
    [August 30, 1993]
    [Pages 1403-1405]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    Remarks at a White House Interfaith Breakfast
    August 30, 1993

        Thank you. Thank you very much. I want to once again, as the First
    Lady did, welcome all of you to the White House on behalf of Vice
    President and Mrs. Gore and Hillary and myself. We're delighted to have
    you all here.
        We wanted to make this new beginning by beginning with a group of
    religious leaders from all faiths and parts of our country to come here
    today as we rededicate ourselves to the purposes for which we're called
    here.
        I wanted to make just a couple of brief remarks. We've had an
    immensely interesting conversation at our table about some of the things
    which are dividing Americans of faith as well as those which are uniting
    them. I would say to you that I am often troubled as I try hard here to
    create a new sense of common purpose. All during the election I would go
    across the country and say that we're all in this together. Unless we
    can find strength in our diversity, our diversity of race, our diversity
    of income, our diversity of region, our diversity of religious
    conviction, we cannot possibly meet the challenges before us. That does
    not mean, in my view, that we have to minimize our diversity, pretend
    that we don't have deep convictions, or run away from our honest
    disagreements. It means that we must find a way to talk with respect
    with one another about those things with which we disagree and to find
    that emotional as well as the intellectual freedom to work together when
    we can.
        A couple of days ago, when I was on vacation--let me say, the most
    important religious comment made to me this morning was that several of
    you gave me dispensation for my vacation. You said I did not need to
    feel any guilt for taking a little time off, so I appreciate that.
    [Laughter] But I bought a book on vacation called ``The Culture of
    Disbelief '' by Stephen Carter, a professor at our old alma mater,
    Hillary's and mine, at the Yale Law School. He is himself a committed
    Christian, very dedicated to the religious freedoms of all people of
    faith, of any faith, in the United States. And the subtitle of the book
    is ``How American Law and Politics Trivialize Religious Devotion.'' And
    I would urge you all to read it from whatever political as well as
    religious spectrum you have because at least it lays a lot of these
    issues out that I am trying to grapple with.
        Sometimes I think the environment in which we operate is entirely
    too secular. The fact that we have freedom of religion doesn't mean we
    need to try to have freedom from religion. It doesn't mean that those of
    us who have faith shouldn't frankly admit that we are animated by the
    faith, that we try to live by it, and that it does affect what we feel,
    what we think, and what we do.
        On the other hand, it is very important that, as Americans, we
    approach this whole area with a certain amount of humility, that we be
    careful when we say that because we seek to know and do God's will, God
    is on our side and therefore against our opponent. That is important for
    two reasons. One is, we might be wrong. [Laughter] After all, we're only
    human. The

    [[Page 1404]]

    other is that the thing that has kept us together over time is that our
    Constitution and Bill of Rights gives us all the elbow room to seek to
    do God's will in our own life and that of our families and our
    communities, and that means that there will be inevitable conflicts; so
    that there will never be a time when everything that we think is wrong
    can also be illegal. There will always be some space there because there
    will have to be some room for Americans of good faith to disagree.
        I think we need to find areas where we can agree and work together
    on. The restoration of religious freedoms acts is a very important issue
    to me personally. And this administration is committed to seeing it
    through successfully. And I think virtually every person of faith in
    this country, without regard to their party or philosophy or convictions
    on other issues, agrees with that. So we are hopeful that that will
    happen. But there must be other areas in which we can meet together and
    talk together and work together and frankly acknowledge our agreements
    and our disagreements.
        If people of faith treat issues about which they disagree as nothing
    more than a cause for a screaming match, then we also trivialize
    religion in our country. And we undermine the ability to approach one
    another with respect and trust and faith. And I say that not just to
    those who disagree with me on some of the particularly contentious
    issues but also to those who agree with me. Every person in this country
    who seeks to know and do the will of his or her Creator is entitled to
    respect for that effort. That is a difficult job, difficult to know,
    even harder to do. That is hard work.
        But people that have that level of depth, that aren't totally
    carried away by the secular concerns of the moment must, it seems to me,
    find a way to talk and work with one another if we're ever going to push
    the common good. We can't pass a health care program without a
    conviction that this is in the common interest, that over the long run
    we will all win. If this becomes some battle where I'm trying to slay
    some dragon of special interest and that's all it is, we'll never get
    where we want to go. The American people have to open their hearts as
    well as their minds and figure out, this is this horrible problem. We
    have to solve it. But we have to solve it in a way that enables us to be
    united together.
        We can't work our way through a lot of these economic problems
    unless we frankly admit that we're moving into a new age where no one
    has all the answers. We may have to modify, all of us, our specific
    policy positions. But our goal should be to enable every person who
    lives in this country to live up to his or her God-given potential. And
    if we look at it that way and frankly admit we're in a new and different
    era, then we can go forward.
        We can't possibly do anything for anybody in this country unless
    they're willing to also do something for themselves. There has to be a
    new ethic of personal and family and community responsibility in this
    country that should unite people across the lines of different faiths
    and even different political philosophies. And the people of faith in
    this country ought to be able to say that, so that if you say that
    you've got to have that sort of revitalization at the grassroots, person
    by person, that the Democrats can feel comfortable with saying that; no
    one says, ``Oh, you're just being a rightwinger.'' It's just simply
    true, it is self-evidently true: You cannot change somebody's life from
    the outside in unless there is also some change from the inside out.
        So these are the kinds of things that I've had a lot of time to
    think about over the last few days. And I have felt in the last several
    months during my Presidency that we oftentimes get so caught up in the
    battle of the moment, the heat of the moment--how are you going to
    answer this charge and make that change or deal with this difficulty--
    that sometimes we forget that we are all in this because we are seeking
    a good that helps all Americans. There must be some sense of common
    purpose and common strength and, ultimately, an end which helps us all,
    that revels in the fact that there are people who honestly disagree
    about the most fundamental issues but can still approach one another
    with real respect, without assuming that if you disagree on issue X or
    Y, you've jumped off the moral and political cliff and deserve to be
    banished to some faraway place.
        So I wanted to have you here today because I wanted you to hear this
    direct from your President. I wanted to ask you to continue to pray for
    me and for our administration, and I wanted to invite you to be part of
    an ongoing dialog, which we will come back to all of you later on, talk
    about how we can continue to involve people who care about their
    citizenship as well

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    as about their relationship to their God and how we can work through
    these things.
        There are no easy answers to this. The Founding Fathers understood
    that; that's why they wanted us to have the first amendment. There are
    no simple solutions. But I am convinced that we are in a period of
    historic significance, profound change here in this country and
    throughout the world and that no one is wise enough to see to the end of
    all of it, that we have to be guided by a few basic principles and an
    absolute conviction that we can recreate a common good in America.
        But it's hard for me to take a totally secular approach to the fact
    that there are cities in this country where the average murderer is now
    under the age of 16. Now, there may not be a religious answer to the
    policy question of whether it's a good thing that all these kids can get
    their hands on semiautomatic weapons. But there certainly is something
    that is far more than secular about what is happening to a country where
    we are losing millions of our young people and where they shoot each
    other with abandon and now often shoot total strangers for kicks, shoot
    at them when they are swimming in the swimming pool in the summertime.
        So I believe that we have enormous possibilities. I think we have
    enormous problems. There will always be some areas of profound
    disagreement. What I would ask you today to do is to, as I said, to pray
    for us as we go forward, to be willing to engage in this dialog, to
    reach out to others who may disagree with us on particular issues and
    bring them into the family of America, and to give us a chance to find
    common ground so that we can build a common good and do what all of us
    in our own way are required to do. For I believe that each of us has a
    ministry in some way that we must play out in life and with a certain
    humility but also with deep determination.
        So I thank you for being here. This has been a wonderful morning for
    me and for all of us. And I ask you to think about these things and to
    be willing to continue to engage in this dialog. We have a lot of work
    to do to lift this country up and to pull this country together and to
    push this country into the 21st century. And we have serious
    responsibilities beyond our borders. Every day there is some good news
    in the press about that--some of you have been talking about the Middle
    East, how many times we thought we had good news and been disappointed,
    but better than the bad--and every day there is some frustration. So we
    have to go forward with a much deeper sense of shared values and
    togetherness toward the common good than we've had so far. That is what
    I seek to do and what I ask for your prayers and guidance and support
    and involvement, active involvement, to achieve.
        Thank you very much.

    Note: The President spoke at 10:03 a.m. in the State Dining Room at the
    White House.