A Spiritual Awakening : Part 3

Failing America's Faithful: How Today's Churches Are Mixing God with Politics and Losing Their Way
by Kathleen Kennedy Townsend

(Page 3 of 7)

Filled with a new awareness of emotional pain, he reached out to those who suffered - to the hungry and the exploited, to the neglected and the ill, and to the weakest and most vulnerable among us - the elderly and the children. Often he would quote the French philosopher Albert Camus, "Perhaps we cannot prevent this world from being a world in which children are tortured. But we can reduce the number of tortured children. And if you don't help us, who else in the world can help us do this."

My father emerged from his private turmoil with a public purpose, which as he said was "to seek a newer world." He had taken to heart the notion that we are here to help others, and he challenged his children to take this to heart as well. Each of us, he believed, has a moral obligation to pursue justice - not just putting the bad guys in jail, but also making sure that the least among us are treated with fairness.

My father became a voice for America's outrage at the injustice of millions of citizens of the wealthiest country on earth going hungry. He experienced his anger when he saw migrant families who pick our crops living in intolerably squalid conditions, working incessantly and still unable to earn even a living wage. He greeted the rage of African-Americans with empathy and understanding. He saw lives wasted in idleness and isolation and was determined to rouse the fortunate and self-satisfied to moral action.

He expressed frustration that Americans lacked decent housing, effective public schools, and accessible health care and in doing so awakened many Americans to the poverty and hopelessness that had been invisible for so long. Finally, he was unable to bear that a good and decent country persisted in the killing of hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians, women, and children in a war that was being waged without wisdom in Southeast Asia. Americans needed leadership to lift them out of the despair and helplessness into which they'd sunk after the death of President Kennedy. In 1968, he ran for president.

In the midst of that campaign, when I was still in high school, my father was brutally murdered. Again, but this time even more personally and painfully, I grieved a death that instantly became part of the fabric of America's life and lore. I could not have imagined that the lessons in faith, hope, and love I'd so painfully absorbed after my uncle's death five years earlier would now be put to a harsher and even more agonizing test. And this time I'd bear this burden without my father at my side.

Thankfully the power of my faith - and the central Christian experience of the death of innocence in the Passion and death of Jesus - came to me in a new and deeper way, emblazoned in my heart and soul. As a nation struggled with the loss, and in time sang songs portraying visions of my father walking the hills with "Abraham, Martin, and John," I prayed that I could find strength and hope in my faith, and love for myself and my country. "You have a particular responsibility now," my father had written to me on my uncle's death. "Be kind to others and work for your country." I needed to do that now, more than ever. But how?

Three weeks after my father died, I went to work on a Navajo Indian reservation in Rough Rock, Arizona. I had planned to go there in response to the challenge that my father had laid down in a speech at my high school earlier that year. He had pointed out that the unemployment rate was horrific on the reservation, that the teen suicide rate was the highest in the country, and that we in that high school were the lucky ones and had a responsibility to contribute.

My mother was wary of my leaving. She wanted me to stay at home in the comfort of my family. That might have been easier. I cried a lot that summer. But I wanted to be connected to my father's work, to his mission, and to his understanding that here on earth God's work must truly be our own. That meant caring for others, especially those whose lives offered them less opportunity than mine.

It also meant bearing in mind constantly what was fair and just in society, and finding ways to speak out against apathy and indifference. It meant knowing not only that conditions in which some people live and work are unacceptable, but that I had a duty to get involved in making those conditions better. By his example, my father's life made clear that for any life to have meaning, it must include trying to improve the lot of our fellow human beings.

Sometimes I am nearly knocked over by the magnitude of my losses and the weight of the responsibility that was left to the next generation - to me. My uncle and my father were not saints, and neither am I. But their lives demonstrated the truths of Christian teachings - that in the paths we walk we should try to reduce the suffering and sadness of those whom we meet and, wherever we are given the opportunity, work for justice.

Churches could be the place to encourage, nurture, and promote this moral action. Except for sporting events, more people attend church than any other communal event in this country. About nine out of ten American adults claim that they believe in God. That's good news.

What's more, this passion has reached a remarkable height in our country today. Throughout history, faith has gone underground, only to emerge again in Great Awakenings, readying people for spiritual exploration. There are moments in history where people are ready and able to see the connection between the rituals of prayer and worship and the larger effort of improving God's world - and I believe we are now approaching just such a time. As a result, our churches and other centers of faith stand poised to provide a setting for genuine discussion of what a just society could look like, what we want our communities to be about, and what would make us worthy in our commitments to one another.

Copyright © 2007 by Kathleen Kennedy Townsend

About the Author

Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, the eldest child of Robert F. Kennedy, worked in the U.S. Department of Justice before serving two terms as Maryland's lieutenant governor. She has taught at Georgetown University and the University of Pennsylvania, speaks regularly on political and religious issues, and is engaged in philanthropic work. She and her husband have raised four daughters and live in Baltimore.