Chelsea Clinton's decade-old claim against Baptists and abortion sparks fresh backlash

Michie said:

Chelsea Clinton's decade-old claim that she left a Baptist church as a child because they were talking to her about abortion in Sunday school when she was 6 years old has prompted fresh backlash.

On Thursday, pro-life news outlet LifeNews drew more than 1 million views on X for reposting its 2016 story about the only daughter of former President Bill Clinton and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton pushing back against those who question her family's faith.

“My mother is very deeply a person of faith," Chelsea is quoted as saying in her reported comments at the 2016 fundraiser for her mother, which first came second-hand in the "Page Six" gossip column of the New York Post. "It is deeply authentic and real for my mother, and it guides so much of her moral compass, but also her life's work."

Chelsea, whose mother was raised Methodist, reportedly claimed she joined her mother's denomination after leaving the Baptist church over abortion, even before her father. She said she found it "quite insulting sometimes when people say to my mom, my dad or me ... that they question our faith."

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Chelsea Clinton's decade-old claim against Baptists and abortion sparks fresh backlash

Chelsea Clinton has prompted fresh backlash for her reported decade-old claim that she left the Baptist church for Methodism as a child because the Baptists were talking to her about abortion in

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I wonder how many brothers and sisters Chelsea never got to know.

Not much of a news story. Just people lying about things Chelsea Clinton didn't actually say, hearing what they wanted to hear.

I question Ms. Clinton's account. I know for a fact that such is not in Lifeway material for that age. For one thing, it would hamper sales (cough). That doesn't preclude a Sunday School teacher bringing that up. So either Ms. Clinton fabricated the story or misremembered the story. As an example of the latter, last year I found I misremembered a cartoon from the 1950s as an uncharacteristically dark horror episode revolving around the main character becoming a vampire. Except, when I happened to see the same cartoon last year, discovered that while it had some of the same motifs, it wasn't about vampires at all, and it didn't end with the main character having a stake driven through the heart. For all those years what I saw wasn't what I thought I saw. It does bring up the question of how a child as young as I was then knew something about fictional vampire lore. It's entirely possible that Ms. Clinton misinterpreted that lesson in Sunday School class. All I know for certain is it's one of three things: It happened; it was misremembered; or the whole thing was made up.

As to leaving the Baptists...shrug. My wife and I knew a former Baptist minister who became a Methodist. If the Clintons are Methodists these days, my assumption is that it's what's left of the United Methodist Church. Whatever. Since the Baptists are a loose coalition of churches and not hierarchical, you can have a group of churches that believe roughly the same thing (like American Baptists or Southern Baptists or Primitive Baptists) or independent Baptists not affiliated with any group, Baptists by doctrine. (Note: for those curious about what Baptists believe, there are confessions of faith, and Herschel Hobbs' What Baptists Believe). As a case in point, during the Monica Lewinski scandal, Bill Clinton attended a Southern Baptist church, and a delegate to the Southern Baptist Convention tried to introduce a resolution kicking him out of the denomination. It was patiently explained to the delegate that such rare acts were done by individual congregations, and could not be dictated by the convention. (Note: my source for that was another delegate who was there). As is often the case after such things, I think Bill Clinton's church attendance went up after the scandal broke, which I'll only note didn't have anyone going "Give me that old time religion."

Well, I'll note this: I think the Carters left a Southern Baptist Church for an Independent Baptists or a Baptist church affiliated with another organization (Baptists churches form organizations to share missions and printed material costs). I don't really know for certain because frankly it was none of my business. The same with the Clintons going over to the Methodists, if that's the case. Not my business. In the South, Baptists and Methodists will often attend each other's churches, so that's not a big deal, anyway. Frankly, I'm surprised anyone would care enough for their to be a "backlash."

Carter joined the American Baptist Church in his later years. ABC are northern Baptists, part of the historic Protestant Mainline, at one time a very large religious denomination.