128. A Crisis in Faith? No. A Crisis in Religion? Yes.

My candidate for president, United States Senator Barack Obama, is a member of the United Church of Christ, one of the more liberal denominations amongst the many which make up the religion we call Christianity. When he was here along the Left Bank of the Ohio River at Milepost 606 last fall, it was arranged that the cleric who prayed over the occasion was also a member of that denomination, the Reverend Beverly Lewis of the Chapel Hill United Church of Christ in Pleasure Ridge Park. Reverend Lewis is pastor of the church to which State Representative Joni Jenkins belongs.

Yesterday, Senator Obama addressed a national meeting of his church in Hartford, Connecticut, saying the religious right has highjacked religions in the name of politics. He said some are more interested in dividing America as a people as opposed to uniting us. He specifically outted the Christian Right as a group of people more concerned with their own agendas than with those of America as a whole. But such cross-breeding of politics and religion isn't confined to a few fundamentalist protestant religions. The church of which I am member, the Roman Catholic Church, has become home and host to a number of people and groups about whom it could very easily be said they are more interested in the division of people rather than the unity.

It is becoming more and more difficult for me, as a liberal Catholic Christian, one who bases his beliefs on the social justice teachings in the New Testament, as laid out by Jesus Christ, to comply with and fully support the teachings of the Catholic Church. Although my father would argue that I was always Catholic, given that I am his son and he is Catholic, and that as an infant I was baptized into the Church at Saint John Vianney Church back in October, 1960, I was not raised in that faith, or any other faith. I've written before of my journey, mostly with neighbors, through attendance in churches of other denominations. As a young child I attended but never belonged to the Mt. Holly Methodist Church in Fairdale. Later, I enrolled was in kindergarten at the Okolona Christian Church and for a few years attended services there. At the insistence of the parents of my childhood friend Glen Shumate, my brother and I began attending church with them at Thixton Lane Baptist Church, a small Southern Baptist congregation along the Jefferson/Bullitt county line on Cedar Creek Road. It was there my brother and I were both baptized as young teenagers. As an older adolescent, I did not attend church, except now and then with a friend. Finally, as an eighteen year old in my freshman year of college, I began the educational requirements of a convert, taking lessons from a priest at the Newman Center (called St. Rose) at the University of Kentucky.

I was attracted to the church for a few specific reasons. One was the discipline of the requirement at Mass every Sunday, a requirement I have often failed. Another was the lessons each week, a series of two or three readings taken directly from the Bible - the first reading from the Old Testament, a second from the New Testament outside of the Gospels, and a third from the Gospels themselves containing the words and actions of Jesus Christ, the person for whom the religion is named. Another was my understanding of the social justice movements within the church amongst the poor and especially in Latin America. A long time interest of mine, the first big paper I wrote in 7th grade English, as a student at Durrett, was on the needs of the poorest people in some of our latino neighbors to the south.

I have been a member of my church, Holy Family Catholic Church, since May of 1979 - twenty-eight years. I have a church family there who have been a part of my life for close to three decades. I have seen oldtimers pass on, new people join, and generations stay. Although I am not a native of the area where my church is located, some there are in their third and fourth generations as members. I have participated in most every social event held there over the years, volunteering when and where needed, as I will next weekend when I will serve as the announcer at our annual Summer Picnic. For twenty-three years, I have been a bingo caller, where I watched players, workers, and students come and go. Finally, in my times of need, whether of personal trials and mistakes, illnesses, or any of the other misfortunes, some great, some minor, which befall a person over a twenty-eight year relationship, these are the people who, outside of my family, have been most helpful in whatever recovery I have needed. While I know the personal politics of many of those there, a result of having knocked on the doors of and spoken with most every household in the area through three decades-plus of campaigning, and I know they know mine, all of us have been able to look through whatever differences we have had - again some great and some small - as we are one community.

Now we are in a time of change. For nearly all of my time as a member of the local Catholic Church, its leaders have been Pope John Paul II and Archbishop Thomas Kelly. The former pope has passed on and Archbishop Kelly has retired. The new pope, Benedict XVI, I believe comes with a stronger will to be divisive than I believe John Paul ever possessed. Our new archbishop, Joseph Kurtz, has had many good qualities written about him, and based on his work in his former diocese (Knoxville, Tennessee) he should be an asset to Louisville. His understanding of and help for the poor among us is dear. He also has an understanding of at least the Hispanic immigrant population, and that, too, will serve him well here in Louisville where several parishes offer masses in Spanish to our ever-growing latino hermanos y hermanas. I know there is another issue on which we will disagree. When the anti- same-sex marriage amendment was on Kentucky's ballot in 2004, like I had done on nearly every other attempt to amend the constitution, I voted no. My side lost in a big way, 30% to 70%. As a leader in the church's marriage movement, Archbishop Kurtz would have voted yes. Other than this, it is too early in Archbishop Kurtz' shepherding of the flock at Louisville for me to make any judgments, other than those I have listed herein, all of which are positive. But it may be too late for me in my personal journey of which church denomination I choose to be a part of. In the fall of 2003, I gave my self five years to make a decision. I am approaching the end of the fourth year of that journey. Chronologically, I'm 80% there. I'm not sure exactly where, ideologically, I am along the path.

All of this comes to mind as today in the Church is the celebration of the Birth of Saint John the Baptist, the one who was a Precursor to Jesus. John questioned his role in the church, acknowledging he didn't have all the answers but that one who was to come later did. John is supposed to have been six months older than Christ, hence today's celebration, six months in advance of the date purported as that of the birthday of Jesus. Not having all the answers seems to be where I am. Seeking unity, not division, seems to me that which I seek. Like Senator Obama, I see forces out there, in the name of religion, even in the name of Jesus and God, making statements which are antithetical to my beliefs, beliefs which I believe are based in the social justice teachings of Jesus.

It is a long and winding road, and one on which I have many more miles to travel.