When a Favorite Son Disowns His Spiritual Family

I wish I knew. Perhaps my "not knowing" betrays the scent of cynicism that has come to smother all my objectivity with the political process and mind. Over the weekend it was announced that Presidential candidate Barack Obama had severed his ties with the faith community of which he has been a member for 20 years in the wake of ongoing pulpit "embarrassments." First it was the pastor who has stood in that pulpit all these years. More recently it was a guest preacher who faux pas-ed his way into public dismay. If the former became a political embarrassment, the latter was a political offense. And so, according to the news reports, Obama broke away.

Of course there are several things I wish I knew about the events. I wish I knew how accurately the reasons have been reported. Initially there was some hint that Obama's decision was intended to help protect the church from further distraction. I wish I knew whether the action was respecting the church or himself.

But assuming the latter, I wish I knew if the church and its preachers had become a theological adversary, espousing a viewpoint he could no longer support or want his name associated with, or merely a political liability, a hassle strategically and summarily dispatched. I don't really know what difference the answer would make to me. Leaving, after all, is leaving and generally carries some measure of grief. I would simply like to know where the grief falls -- grief over the loss of church that has philosophically deserted him for a path down which he simply can't follow, or grief over the loss of a church that, for reasons of expedience, he must himself desert.

I admit to a total lack of objectivity on this subject. From a preacher's point of view the loss of a member is always an occasion of grief. A person's relationship with a church is something similar to a marriage, and divorce is never trivial or painless. Never. Heap on top of that the need most preachers have for validation, and "vote against" represented by every such departure.

I'll never likely know the details. Perhaps, then, it is enough to simply grieve along with those most principally involved -- a person and his family suddenly deprived of the faith community that has been the spiritual water in which they have swam, and the congregation that must suddenly feel like an amputee...or worse, like a crestfallen spouse who has just heard the wounding declaration, "I just don't love you anymore."

Grief, indeed, for them all.

Faith and the Politics of Religion

My sense is that he is half right. I have been conflicted about the public debate that has been rumbling regarding the religious beliefs and fidelities of the Presidential candidates these last many months. At various times they have been queried about their prayer life, their understanding of forgiveness, and perhaps most publicly their view of the Mormon faith. It is a debate that has hovered near the electoral process at least as far back as John Kennedy's speech seeking to allay concerns about his Catholicism, and eight years ago Joe Leiberman's Jewishness. This year, religiosity seems to be of particular concern -- specifically how relevant it ought to be. In his Sunday opinion piece, Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer pleads that we "Keep Religion Out" of the presidential selection process, and as I say, he is half right. His impression is that the campaign season is "knee-deep in religion, and it's only going to get worse." Through the breadth of his column Krauthammer cites numerous examples to support his contention. As he wants to clarify it, "the Constitution prohibits any religious test for office," and that a religious underpinning should confer no "special status" to a policy proposal. As he rightly points out, "In this country, there is no special political standing that one derives from being a Christian leader..."

Krauthammer laments that none of the Republican candidates, when asked in the recent CNN/YouTube debate if they believe that "every word" of the Bible "is true" had the courage to respond, "None of your damn business." Guts, perhaps, or maybe political sense.

It's true that there have been too many extraneous questions about the candidate's religious life, but I don't think that means there are no valid religious questions to be asked. I agree that no "religious test" belongs in the American electoral process, and that no religious tradition or practice should have special status, but I do believe we are entitled to learn what we can about the meaning-makers active in a candidate's psyche. Religion is not the only such maker of meaning available to people in the world, but when candidates publicly claim a given religious expression, then I believe that profession becomes relevant to further inquiry. In fact, I would assert that it is not only appropriate to ask about such frameworks of value and meaning, it is important for the public to explore them. It's none of my business how devout a candidate's religious practice may be -- whether or not he or she is in worship every Sunday, how often the candidate prays, or about what, but I don't think it unfair to ask of candidates who claim religious affiliation how that affiliation shapes them. If one's religious formation provides some characterization of "the good," I think it is relevant for the voter to know what that "good" might look like, and how, according to that tradition, said "good" is to be attained. If that religious tradition makes some suggestion about "ultimate intent," I would like to know how that "end" informs the core of a candidate's visionary aspiration? How does one understand "evil", since that word seems to get thrown around a lot these days, and how are we to respond to it? When a candidate promises "high moral leadership," what, specifically, are those moral values, what is excluded from the list, and why?

Both Jesse Jackson and Pat Robertson, by way of historical example, ran for President as Christian leaders, but both scared away most of the electorate. I submit that it wasn't their Christianity that frightened voters, but rather the very different ways that Christian faith took shape in their priorities, behaviors, and advocacies. It wasn't, in other words, what Christianity meant to others that made their faith relevant; it's what that Christianity meant to them.

Maybe, then, to return to the earlier example, it's not so much how often candidates pray that matters to me, nor even about what; it's what those candidates hear God telling them that I want to hear more about.

That could be interesting, indeed.