I’m knee deep in Ken Gormley’s new book, The Death of American Virtue: Clinton vs. Starr.

Why? Well, certainly Ken Starr’s new appointment as president of Baylor University makes it relevant in this part of Texas. But it’s much more than that. The overlap with my own life is huge: the Church of Christ . . . Arkansas . . . Harding College.

Kenneth Starr’s father was a Church of Christ minister in Texas. His first two years of college were at Harding — a decade before I was a student there.

Here are the passages about Harding:

“. . . [President Clinton] knew that Starr had grown up in the ‘hard-scrabbled’ part of North Texas, where the religious right had first planted its seeds, and then attended Harding College in central ARkansas for two years. Everyone from Arkansas, Clinton said, lifting his eyebrows, knew what ‘Harding’ stood for at that time: ‘Well, it was an ultraconservative Church of Christ school that in the fifties had a president who was a leading, militant anti-Communist. And was rather well known in those super anti-Communist circles around America.’ The Church of Christ believed in ‘the saving grace of baptism’ and was ‘steeped in the New Testament teachings of Jesus.’”

[Correction: We were steeped in the New Testament teachings of Paul -- many of our churches considering the words of Jesus less important.]

“Harding was initially a good fit for Starr, incorporating many of the building blocks that came to define his adult life. His freshman yearbook included a prominent picture of Harding’s president pointing to a pyramid that had written at its foundation, FUNDAMENTAL BELIEF IN GOD. Above that was situated a block that represented THE UNITED STATES CONSTITUTION, and atop that a smaller block, THE AMERICAN WAY OF LIFE: OUR FREEDOM, with an American flag flying at the pinnacle.”

During the seven years I preached at the College Church in Searcy, Gov. Clinton had close connections with Harding. (He became governor at the age of 32 in 1978, the year I graduated. He lost reelection in 1980, but won again in 1982 and kept the position until 1992. We moved to Abilene in 1991.) I remember one time when he spoke on campus. Jim Bill McInteer also spoke, and his humor cracked up the governor so much he pulled out a pen and paper to take notes. Diane remembers another time when Mrs. Clinton came to a small event for Associated Women For Harding — especially the moments they had alone visiting when Hillary encouraged her as a mother of a mentally-handicapped daughter and gave her a crash course on opportunities for special needs kids in Arkansas.

Kenneth Starr returned to the world of the Church of Christ for the past six years as dean of the Pepperdine Law School and as a member of the Malibu Church of Christ. (I think he and his wife technically “kept their membership” — whatever that means! — in their previous church in Virginia, but they attended the Malibu C of C when in town.)

Gormley is doing a great job of balancing his account of both men. Was Kenneth Starr “Satan” (as Susan McDougal suggested), or just an honest, at-times over-zealous prosecutor? (Those who’ve worked with Mr. Starr at Pepperdine wouldn’t even recognize the man described by the harsher critics — compared to the generous, competent man they’ve known the past six years.) And Bill Clinton? Well you can imagine that the opinions are all over the page!

Very interesting read, though. So much that happened came during our dark years of grief. The events that were in the headlines of the nightly news just floated in the background as we tried to survive.

An interesting note is Starr’s statement that if he ran into President Clinton at an out-of-the-way barbecue join, where they could speak without microphones preserving everything, he would say, “I’m sorry that it all happened” — “not in the form of an apology, but really as a reflection.”

Read about it here.