THE IMPRESSIONS OF YOUTH

I had a homecoming of sorts to celebrate my 75th birthday. It came in the form of a surprise trip to Boston.

Nancy had told me we were going to Chicago and I was quite content with that.  But, when the skycap told me we were actually going to Boston, my jaw dropped. Then, when I saw my kids were waiting for Nancy and me at the departure gate, my jaw hit the floor.

I had a wonderful time. On our first night there I got to see a Boston Bruins hockey game, complete with lots of goals, a fight (which Nancy loved), a rare penalty shot, an even rarer save, and an empty net goal to cap the evening off. For the rest of the week we spent most of our time walking along Freedom Trail, stopping at historic sites like Faneuil Hall, the Bunker Hill monument, Quincy Market, Paul Revere’s house, Old Ironsides, and the Old North Church. On the 8th, we celebrated my birthday, along with Nancy, my kids, and my brother and his family, at a wonderful Italian restaurant in Boston’s “North End” neighborhood.

On the day before we came back to Kansas City, Nancy, my son Jarrod, his girlfriend Julie, and I took the subway over to Harvard Square, then walked over to Christ Church, the church I attended when I was young. I was amazed at how familiar everything looked - the Revolutionary War bullet hole at the entrance to the sanctuary, the short, circular staircase going up to the 18th century pulpit, and the kneeling benches in front of the altar.

My brother and I were acolytes. I had the responsibility of lighting the altar candles before the service and snuffing them out when the service was over. My brother led the procession, carrying the cross at the beginning and end of the service.

As I walked around the sanctuary, I got caught up in old memories and the mystery of the religion I was trying to understand. As I knelt at the altar, I was almost always aware that there was a “presence” near me, but I never could quite tune in to the frequency of that presence. Part of it stemmed from the fact that, after the priest recited a couple of collects (collective prayers), I would find myself swaying from side to side, feeling sick to my stomach. I’m not sure whether the feeling came from an allergy to the flowers at the altar or the sins of my youth convicting me, but about the time we got to the collect of confession, with the priest reciting, “We have offended against thy holy laws. We have left undone those things which we ought to have done; And we have done those things which we ought not to have done; And there is no health in us,” I’d be ready to go. One of the choir members, a young African-American college student, would take me to the restroom where I’d heave my guts up. He’d then wash my face and we’d get back to the sanctuary in time for the end of the service.

It happened so often I began to believe that God had it in for me. I don’t think I ever got to hear the last part of the collect of confession - “But thou, O Lord, have mercy upon us, miserable offenders. Spare thou those, O God, who confess their faults. Restore thou those who are penitent.” If I had, I might still be an Episcopalian today.

The impressions of youth are often quite powerful. My impressions of God as a cosmic killjoy stayed with me for almost fifteen years, until a series of personal crises led me back “home.”

I thought about my young experiences this morning as I was reading Ross Douthat’s op-ed in the New York Times, in which he outlined the un-Christian manner far too many Christian leaders are approaching the intersection of religion, politics, and ethics. Speaking primarily about evangelical leaders like Franklin Graham and Flip Benham, or politicians like Alabama state auditor Jim Zeigler, Douthat accuses them, rightly so, of being hypocritical in their strenuous defense of Alabama senatorial candidate Roy Moore. Douthat's words were pointed and powerful - “younger evangelicals (are being) betrayed by older pastors who insisted on the importance of moral character and then abandoned these preachments for the sake of partisanship — revealing their own commitments as essentially idolatrous.”

Douthat is right. Do these men really believe that the young in their flocks or political action committees can’t see the hypocrisy and idolatry? Well, they can and they will abandon this Christian tribalism and self-serving politics and replace it with religion and politics that are new and vibrant.

The change can’t come soon enough. We’re desperate for it.