Personal Memories of Senator Mark O. Hatfield (1922-2011)

In 1994 a piece of paper changed my life. I was walking down the hall of the Economics Department at the University of Oregon when I saw that Oregon's senior senator, Mark O. Hatfield, was inviting economics students to apply to intern in his office. This was the beginning of my senior year in college, and I wasn't sure what I wanted to do after that. Before I became a Christian, I planned to enter the business world to make as much money as I could. Becoming a Christian changed my thinking, and I began to wonder if public service was a better option. The flyer piqued my interest.

I drove up to Salem for an interview with Hatfield's State Director. My intention was to stick close to home by interning in the Salem office. I was persuaded to intern in Washington, DC instead. In September of 1994 I purchased a round trip ticket that would bring me back to Oregon in December of 1995. I never went back to stay.

After two weeks in DC I found a church, Capitol Hill Metropolitan Baptist. Mark Dever was the new pastor, he had yet to be installed. I soon discovered that the Senator and his wife were members of CHMBC. Obviously the Senator traveled a good bit, but when he was in town, he attended church. He even gave a Sunday evening devotional. It was about how Constantine corrupted the church by marrying church and state. Hatfield was a strong believer, and it would be wrong to say he kept his faith and his politics separate. He wore his faith on his sleeve. Nonetheless he was convinced that evangelicals too often used Christian arguments to dogmatically support positions over which Christians could, in good conscience differ. He quipped, "The Lord baptized me, not my voting record."

More than once I walked the Senator back to his townhouse after a Sunday morning service. It seemed sad to me that he wasn't more involved with the congregation. Of course, I was very young and didn't truly appreciate the weight of serving as a United States Senator. Still, I think his public profile made something as simple as attending church a taxing experience.

But he loved Capitol Hill Baptist, and would ask me at work about the two staff, Mark Dever and Matt Schmucker--both in their early thirties. The church went through some rocky times that first couple of years. The Senator would invite me in his office to get an update about how things were going, and I know that he met with Dever for spiritual counsel.

Hatfield gave me, and a lot of young Oregonians, a chance. He had confidence in those without experience. Perhaps it had to do with the fact that he was a member of the Oregon legislature at 28 and governor at 36! He promoted me to Legislative Assistant covering regulatory reform when I was just 23 years old.

For most of my time with Hatfield I worked on a bill called The Local Empowerment and Flexibility Act (Local-Flex) It was a way to give states more discretion over the use of federal grant monies--it tends to come with a lot of red strings. We tried hard to get Local-Flex passed on its own or as an amendment to another bill. There was one final opportunity to get it passed, but Hatfield had to choose between Local-Flex (my baby) and another priority. Again, I was young and had put a lot of time into the bill. That wasn't lost on Hatfield, at the time the Chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, who had more important things to do than worry about the crushed spirit of a young aide. And yet, after he made the decision to end Local-Flex, he found me, thanked me for my work, and let me know it was a hard decision to make. It was a small act of kindness. 

Republicans and Democrats both had many reasons to disagree with the Senator. He was staunchly pro-life and he opposed the death penalty. He supported the war in Iraq but killed Senate approval of a balanced budget amendment with his lone, Republican dissent. That was not an easy decision for him. Before the vote, he told Majority Leader Dole he'd be willing to resign to give Dole the victory. Dole refused and the bill sank.

I worked for Hatfield on the tip of the tail end of his career. I was one of many staff over the years who became fiercely loyal to him. Hatfield was smart, honest, and kind, and he wasn't uncomfortable saying, "I love you."

Of course, I don't agree with all of his views, politically or spiritually. Though he insisted our life and doctrine cannot be separated, he had what I consider an unhelpful tendency of downplaying the proclamation of the gospel and elevating the living of the gospel. Perhaps I think he spent too much time with James and not enough with Paul. But in this respect, I think he was right: many Christians have a tendency to know a lot and yet do very little. This should not be. He spent a career challenging the church to do more. 

He talked about this in his 1971 book, Conflict and Conscience. He wrote about the faith, about the church, and about the problems of government and politics. Hatfield had a good understanding of human sinfulness. He knew that political structures were only as good as the people who built and sustained them. Some evangelicals will fault him for placing too much hope in the power of government to change the world, but I still appreciate his conviction that if we are following Christ, we should expect not only our lives to change, but the lives of others as well. He put it this way:

While condemning their public officials for misconduct, most Americans fail to realize that they are pointing their fingers at the "representatives" of the people. These men hold office because we, the people, put them there. We helped to elect them--the good ones and the bad ones--either by voting or failing to vote; by making our views known or by withholding our comments and complaining only where we could not be heard.

We should remember that the Congress, the executive branch--indeed, government at all levels--are no better than the demands of the citizens. If the people pursue excellence, they can require it from their public officials. If the nation seeks after righteousness, then its leaders should surely point the way. If each of us, as citizens, expects moral and ethical leadership in government, we ought to be prepared to render that kind of service ourselves whenever called on to do so. By the quality of our own personal ethical and spiritual character we ought to be setting the standards for conduct, both private and public . . . 

If the message of the transforming power of God in Christ is applicable to the individual human being, then it must have an effect upon social man and his community. A man's view of the world and his relationships to those around him must change when he is confronted with the message of the gospel. Changed men must build a changed world. Christians must become involved in the processes of transformation in our world as God leads them. One of the major processes for orderly change in our world is politics--the art and science of human government.

And yet, Hatfield was convinced that it was God, not government, who is in control:

It is much easier for us to criticize and condemn our public officials than it is for us to pray for them. We find it difficult to pray for those with whom we disagree. Yet this is God's will in order that "we may lead a quiet and peaceable life, godly and respectable in every way."

This is a practical point of departure from which we can begin to have an influence upon our government and upon its public officials. Prayer changes men. Your prayers can change men who make history. Your faithfulness to God as a citizen and as a Christian can mean the difference in the destiny of the United States of America--"one nation under God."

One moment, Hatfield sounded like he was writing for Jim Wallis and Sojourners. The next moment he sounds like a foot soldier of the Moral Majority. He is hard to pin down.

One of my fondest stories that Hatfield shared had to do with the night he arrived at a prayer meeting. He was late, the room was dark, and he made his way to an open seat. The gathered men were holding hands, praying for each other. When it came to be Hatfield's turn to pray, he looked to his right and noticed it was Chuck Colson. He was astonished. Colson and Hatfield were not friends. Hatfield publicly assailed Nixon's Vietnam policy. Colson took it as a personal affront. But Colson became a Christian, and the Lord brought the two of them together. That moment brought Hatfield to tears because his heart had been hard toward Colson and here he now was, forced to pray for him! It wasn't the last time they prayed together. Colson explains the significance of the moment in his book, Born Again:

It was the evening before the National Prayer Breakfast in late January that Al Quie, Graham Purcell, Doug Coe, Harold Hughes, and I met for prayer and dinner in the Capitol with Billy Graham and Senator Mark Hatfield. Mark Hatfield's outspoken opposition to Nixon's Vietnam policy had earned him a reputation as a leading Republican maverick. Mr. Nixon had ranted about him many times and I had joined in the denunciation myself. To Senator Hatfield I was the embodiment of all that was misguided and evil in the Nixon White House. 

Yet as we knelt in prayer together at the altar in the quiet of the tiny granite-walled prayer room located just off the massive domed rotunda of the Capitol Building, the animosity drained away. Much of Hatfield's prayer was devoted, in fact, to thanking God for my conversion and for bringing us together in Christ. At dinner we discussed helping Nixon as a human being and as a national leader--Senator Hughes, a political foe; Hatfield, a rebel within his party; Billy Graham and I, his friends--all pledging ourselves to pray for our beleaguered President.

Hatfield was an imperfect but extraordinary man, and I'm thankful to God for the brief time I had with him.

 

 

 

 

 

Comments

[Ben Wright]

Thanks Aaron, I'd been hoping to hear this part of his story.