Faith is about Redemption: The Life of Ted Kennedy

"I received a final insight: that the roles of being a prophetic advocate who stands passionately for social justice, and the vocation of being a bridge-builder and convener who brings diverse people together are not, perhaps, so mutually exclusive after all. Most people tell me they are, but feeling called to both, I have often struggled to reconcile them."

Maybe your experience is more one of paradox than of conflict. Was Jesus a uniter or a divider? Does the truth unite or divide. Is conflict sometimes the path to peace?

Hold onto your calling! Treasure the paradox--it is a fundamental piece of your calling. Let wisdom be born in the 'long obedience' of what seems divergent callings. It will be a wisdom that has found a much deeper level of both the prophetic and bridge-building call through the willingness to engage paradox.

"I have never really trusted those who are intolerant and condemning of other people's shortcomings. It makes me suspect they are likely hiding their own."

Isn't this the same Jim Wallis who loves to skewer conservatives!? Talk about hypocrisy. I will be waiting with bated breath to hear a Jim Wallis eulogy of a conservative on a par with this one. Principle over politics...I don't think so.

Yeah, the comment seemed odd to me as well. Perhaps it was just poor word choice. It seems to me that saying things like "Dick Cheney is evil" would fall into that category, but who knows...

But it was the funeral on Saturday morning that most moved me. I don't know what I was expecting - likely more speeches - but not a traditional Catholic funeral liturgy, complete with Communion. Of course, what else should I have expected from such a Boston Catholic family? Here was the divine irony. At the funeral of the nation's most liberal political leader of the last half-century, a watching nation was treated to a full Catholic Mass.

I remember a similar experience when Paine Stewart, the golfer died tragically back in the late 90s. His funeral was broadcast nationwide on ESPN. Stewart was a Christian and his story of coming to faith and Jesus was told to the hundreds of thousands who were watching. While it wasn't a Catholic Mass, it was a Christian funeral service and everyone who watched was blessed with hearing the message of Christ.

Wallis was actually very charitable toward Falwell -- who had insulted him directly -- on this very website upon Falwell death. And you best believe that he will lionize Billy Graham when he meets his reward.

Perhaps, if you and the rest of us get busy admitting to and working on healing our broken places rather than demonstrating them, there will be too little time to "skewer" those with different visions and more time to commit to becoming real friends and uniters.

This is a moving commentary with a challenging lesson: To allow people to change in our own minds by expanding our experience of them to include the beautiful parts as well as those that are ugly.

What makes Ted Kennedy different from those like Cheney? For one thing, Kennedy recognized his serious flaws and failings and strove for years to change and make amends. Yes, Cheney is as much a child of God as Kennedy or anyone else, but I see little evidence of any self-awareness in Cheney nor any significant compassion being directed to those on the margin. Perhaps that will come down the road.

But in the meantime, we could do well by trying to avoid emphasizing the good-bad splits in others and deal with overcoming those in ourselves.

I heard an interview with Billy Graham where he considered himself a Democrat. I don't that one will work. Try somebody else.

i so appreciate this website and jim's commentaries. it is an easy habit to get into judging others. it can be a form of laziness: when i judge someone and put them out of my heart, i dont have to reflect too deeply. i can judge and just move into my day.

dropping judgement does not mean dropping discernment. it does indeed require the capacity to stay w. paradox. most things in life are not 'either or' rather they fall into the catagory of 'both/and'. that requires a deeper faith that has been tested by the complexities of human life presented to each of us.

I seriously douby Ted Kennedy was born again. The Lord judge's with all righteousness to any who is not ignorant, that sheds the blood of the innocent.

Billy Graham is a Southerner, and when he was coming up virtually all Southerners were Democrats -- the Republican Party was virtually non-existent in the South until the 1960s. Unlike most, however, he found no need to change his registration.

Thank you.

How do you respond to those who are intolerant and condemning of other's shortcomings??

He just shares that his response is to be suspect. It's an honest response. He doesn't identify it as either noble or despicable. I don't think sharing what is a quite common response to equate to hypocrisy.

I sometimes (quite often) do not think his language about conservatives matches up to what he says he wants to accomplish regarding a new dialogue. But I do not think his language or spirit is lacking in graciousnes.

Good example to the contrary (and I agree with you about Graham), but that doesn't disprove his point. Wallis is on record oftentimes saying he doesn't like Sarah Palin, John McCain, and typically does talk down to conservatives.

I never once heard Wallis denounce McCain. When he criticizes conservatives, however, it's not just because he disagrees with their policies, although he does -- it's more their arrogance and unwillingness to work with those who disagree with them, and in fact he's right about that. Contrary to what people may believe, he's not at all being divisive; he's only exposing the divisiveness that has already existed for over 30 years. (Similar to the things MLK Jr. was accused of during the civil-rights movement.)

When he criticizes conservatives, however, it's not just because he disagrees with their policies, although he does -- it's more their arrogance and unwillingness to work with those who disagree with them, and in fact he's right about that.

At times I think Wallis is right about that too. It still doesn't explain the odd statement that Wallis made - that he doesn't trust people who condemn other people's shortcomings. People's shortcomings are condemned all the time on this blog.

It still doesn't explain the odd statement that Wallis made -- that he doesn't trust people who condemn other people's shortcomings.

Well, when you consider that the people who do that gained power in the first place by scapegoating others in that fashion, I think he's standing on solid ground. For example, "bashing 'big government'" -- which, essentially, is code for using the political process to help the poor -- was in vague in the 1980s and used for the sake of polarization, and I personally denounced that. More to the point, if you identify yourself as a Christian your faith was questioned; five years ago Wallis published on this very blog an insult that Falwell had delivered -- that he was "as evangelical as an oak tree."

Nobody is arguing whether it's right or wrong to point out shortcomings. The point is that Wallis is saying he doesn't trust people who do as he does.

That's hypocrisy, pure and simple.

That's not what he was taking about. More to the point, he was talking about people who made themselves into household names with sheer demagoguery, throwing red meat to a hateful, spiteful audience and, in some cases, telling them outright whoppers and refusing to be confronted about them. Sorry if you don't think that's legitimate.

It sounds like what you're saying is that its not inconsistent for Wallis to say he doesn't trust people who condemn other people's shortcomings even though he, himself, condemns other people's shortcomings because the people he's condemning (even though he never names who they are in his piece above) gained power by condemning other people's shortcomings. So basically, it's not inconsistent because it's a tit for tat thing.

No -- the conservatives use the "shortcomings" of others for the sake of the kind of power that Wallis doesn't have or seek, all the while ignoring their own; examples are far too many to mention here. I remember well the 1980 general election campaign, which from the Republican side was pretty nasty (the Democrats never knew what hit them); things simply haven't changed because, frankly, they won with it. They got upset with Bill Clinton only because he wouldn't go down like the rest.

A conservative columnist for my newspaper bashed Ted Kennedy this week for his role in the Robert Bork SCOTUS hearings, blaming him for the bitter partisanship we see today. The piece, however, ignored Bork's consistent record of overt judicial activism, and after he lost Bork even suggested that the U.S. pass a Constitutional amendment that would allow a super-majority of both houses of Congress to overrule any SCOTUS decision. (And then the conservatives have the audacity to accuse "liberals" of such.)

He was pretty clearly talking about those who criticized Kennedy for his shortcomings. Nothing else makes sense in this context. Wallis does the same. Again, hypocrisy.

And on and on it goes...you skewer Jim Wallis and become guilty of the same thing you accuse him of.

That whole speck in someone else's eye vs. the log in our own gets so inconvenient sometimes -- the minute we accuse someone else of some shortcoming we generally are doing the same thing we criticize.

And just an aside -- just once, I would love to see a challenge to our perspectives of Christianity and social justice go anywhere -- anywhere -- besides arguments about who should rule the country -- liberals or conservatives. In the end, I don't even think our political affiliation will be anywhere on the list of questions Jesus poses to us.

calledme,

Are you criticizing only the critics of Jim Wallis? He set himself up for this by attempting to turn Ted Kennedy into a saint. Perhaps the whole blog was a useless exercise on both sides...