Customer Reviews

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

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This thoughtful, deeply personal book is a reminder that true faith is not blind, nor deaf, nor dumb. Townsend is clearly a person of deep faith. She passionately conveys the essential role religious beliefs have played throughout her life. Yet she seems never to have shyed away from questioning the authority figures who lay claim to defining those beliefs. She thinks, she questions, she challenges. From a child in the classroom to a college student grappling with a friend's abortion to an elected official ridiculed from the pulpit of her own parish church, Townsend makes clear that she respects and values religious institutions but she has never been a passive participant. As a Catholic woman myself, this book resonates with my own experiences and feelings. I think it will do the same for many Christians. We just have to be willing to think, to question and to be challenged to act.

As Kathleen Kennedy Townsend holds up the mirror with this book, many American Christian denominations won't like what they see. These Christians denominations, the Catholic Church included, are retreating deeper into a quasi-fundamentalism that negates their ability to discourse openly. She regrets that her own Roman Catholic Church has retreated from the openness its 2,400 bishops heralded four decades ago. She is right to do so. The price that church has paid is a vanishing clergy, declining numbers and rising mistrust. Ms. Townsend laments that many Christian denominations today seems less concerned with Good News for the poor than acquiring power to impose their views on one and all.

I loved this book so much, I gave copies to as many people as I could, especially the young adults in my family. Kathleen Townsend is clearly a committed believer, whose values have been formed by her Catholic faith, yet she has wonderful, clear insight into the failings, timidity, and missed opportunities of all the Churches and Church leaders in recent years. I wish I could give copies to every Catholic Bishop and Protestant Church leader in the country. Buy it, read it, and then give it to your Pastor!

Kathleen Kennedy Townsend's book serves to emphasize how much the networks and major media missed the big religion story in the 2004 Presidential Election, portraying as they did a battle between a pious Religious Right and an unbelieving Secular Left. Ms Townsend makes the case for a Religious Left that is alive and well, and faithful to the Gospel principle of serving one another. This "decade of faith" is one in which Christians, including Catholics, will either steer themselves toward greater emphasis on Benjamin Franklin's aphorism, "God helps those who help themselves," or reinvest in Jesus' call to "love one another." She urges caution in this era of the country club Christian, where church membership becomes a badge of personal superiority to be lorded over others.

It's easy to see why Republicans would be offended by what she's written, and why conservative reviewers of her book here on Amazon pepper their critique with personal insults toward her. She argues effectively that contemporary conservatives have created a form of Christianity that bears little relationship to traditional Gospel teachings: justifying unilateral war, deconstructing decades of environmental protections in the name of "personal freedom," and restructuring the tax code to favor the most well-to-do. The real courage of the book lies in her suggestion that the Catholic Church leadership is being seduced by the conservative movement to steer Catholics toward beliefs like these and away from the imperatives of Vatican II to work for a more just world.

Coupled with her unique perspective as the oldest daughter of Robert Kennedy and her own accomplishments in American politics, Ms Townsend offers a mixture of anecdotes and scholarship that will leave the reader with a much better understanding of the recent history of American Christianity--and with a sense of concern about its future.

I thoroughly enjoyed this insightful and informative book and agreed with it totally. I too have been saddened as I have come to the realization that our church focus seems to have moved away from the value of putting one's self out there to help others and instead seems to have become the body politic! This book gives clear examples of where the churches have missed out on supporting our most needy and vulnerable members of society while we organize marches and protests against or for political causes. And Ms. Kennedy-Townsend also has some excellent insights on how to change our focus back to one of service and doing for the less fortunate. Being Catholic as well, I particularly found that chapter of interest. But regardless of your personal faith, the message in this book is one we can all do well to remember, that Jesus commanded us to "love one another as I have loved you".
Thank you and kudos to Ms. Kennedy Townsend for writing such a wonderful, insightful and thoroughly enjoyable book, I look forward to the next one!

In "Failing America's Faithful", RFK's oldest daughter states that the Christian church in the United States, has moved away from its traditional roles of providing charity and promoting social justice. Instead, churches are primarily involved in one or both of the following:

a. Political battles about personal moral issues (sex, abortion, etc.)
b. A type of "individualist" Christianity where participants emphasize their own spiritual growth and needs, and maybe perhaps those of their immediate community, but de-emphasizing, ignoring or even walling themselves off from the issues that affect society at large.

Along with the right-wing evangelicals and the mainstream Protestant denominations, Ms. Kennedy's own Catholic Church is up for criticism too; not only abortion but contraception is banned there, and women are not allowed to be priests. (A whole chapter is devoted to the position of women in the Catholic Church).

The book covers some of the Kennedy family history, including her own childhood experiences, as well as the Church's (both Protestant and Catholic) place in the labor, civil rights, and anti-war movements through the years. But within the past twenty years or so, public Christianity in the United States has largely been co-opted by the Right; the Left is now mostly secular, and often hostile to religion. There is a Religious Left, but it is relatively small and quiet.

According to Kennedy, a true "Christian Nation" would be actively involved in supporting causes such as civil rights, women's rights, welfare for the poor, environmental issues, etc. rather than being involved in moral judgements, supporting "business conservative" concerns such as lower taxes, or promoting individual spiritual comfort. Secularism alone will not bring about a more just nation; a spiritual basis is required. The relationship between religion and politics should not be a "wall" but a "window" where they can observe and influence each other, but not unduly.

Essentially, she's calling for a stronger "Christian Left" to counter the "Christian Right". This may already be happening in some form, with even the evangelicals taking a closer look at environmental issues and such, not just slavishly following the lead of the business conservatives.

My only real criticism of this book, is that Kennedy basically wants the church to switch from one set of political battles to another more in line with her own political beliefs. That's fine, but to be a church, and not just a secular charity or political action group, there should be a definite spiritual structure. I would have liked to see a little more Biblical support for some of her positions. But that's just me....

FAILING AMERICA'S FAITHFUL: HOW TODAY'S CHURCHES ARE MIXING GOD WITH POLITICS AND LOSING THEIR WAY addresses a key topic which should be of interest to any American church community, blending the author's account of her Catholic family's involvement in the church with an overview of how churches became allied with the political right and began to create new social agendas as a result. The distortion and translation of typical Christian values is surveyed in the course of her examination of individuals within and outside the Church who have been exploring political values while neglecting traditional concerns such as care for the poor and needy. More than a condemnation, FAILING AMERICA'S FAITHFUL offers new avenues for social change and new hope for revitalization, and should be a part of any serious spiritual collection.

Diane C. Donovan
California Bookwatch

Kathleen Kennedy Townsend (the daughter of RFK) offers up an engaging book about the way that Christianity has lost its way. Having been raised a Catholic, she is not shy in her criticism of the Catholic Church or Christianity at large. She believes that the church should be focused on social justice issues such as helping the poor and less fortunate. Kennedy criticizes the church for focusing too much time on the individual through their emphasis on spiritual growth and salvation.

She writes, "My own Catholic Church has allowed its social agenda to be trumped by an all-consuming focus on contraception, abortion, same sex marriage, and embryonic stem cell research - none of which are mentioned in the Gospels" (p. 19).

Later, Kennedy submits the following observation "There's something deeply troubling and inconsistent about evangelical support for conservative economic policies. Essentially, they've chosen to abandon any notion of shared responsibility and the idea, well supported by both the Hebrew prophets and Jesus Himself, that we have an obligation to improve the world, an idea that was central to both the Catholic and Protestant political traditions throughout history" (p. 119)

If you like this book, you might also enjoy Jim Wallis' book entitled God's Politics or Tony Campolo's book entitled Red Letter Christian. The meaning of "red letter" in the title is that all of the words Jesus spoke in the New Testament are written in red. Like Townsend, both Wallis and Campolo believe the church should be promoting peace, social justice, and the elimination of poverty.

Failing America's Faithful does a great job of analyzing how faith organizations have dealt (or not dealt) with some of the most difficult issues of our times. Kathleen Kennedy Townsend writes very well and makes this tough topic easy to understand. Anyone interested in how faith relates to politics and society should read this book.

If you think Christianity has potential, but has lost its way, read this. The author does a good job of pointing out the loss of direction of the dominant Christian faiths in American today. She especially points out the self-serving nature of Catholic and evangelical Christian religions and their neglect of the social gospel.