Do All the Good You Can

"After more than forty contentious years in the public eye, Hillary Clinton is one of the best known political figures in the nation. Yet the strong religious faith at the heart of her politics and personal life often remains confounding, if not a mystery, to longtime observers. Even many of her admirers would be surprised to hear Clinton state that her Methodist outlook has "been a huge part of who I am and how I have seen the world, and what I believe in, and what I have tried to do in my life." Gary Scott Smith's biography of Clinton's journey in faith begins with her Methodist upbringing in Park Ridge, Illinois, where she faithfully attending worship services, Sunday school, and youth group meetings. Like many mainline Protestants, Clinton's spiritual commitment developed gradually throughout childhood while her combination of missionary zeal and rare personal talents informed her career from the time of her pro bono work at Yale on behalf of women. Yet Methodism has been no less important to Clinton's high-profile endeavors-and in helping her cope with the equally prominent travails brought on by two presidential campaigns, never-ending conservative rancor, and her husband's infidelity. Smith's account examines Clinton's faith in the context of work ranging her 1990s pursuit of healthcare reform to a "Hillary doctrine" of foreign policy focused on her longtime goal of providing basic human rights for children and women--a project she saw as essential to United States security. The result is an enlightening reconsideration of an extraordinary political figure who defied private doubts and public controversy to live John Wesley's dictum: "Do all the good you can, by all the means you can, in all the ways you can, in all the places you can, at all the times you can, to all the people you can, as long as ever you can.""--