Kennedy Townsend calls on America's churches to return to social justice

WASHINGTON — “Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country.” Decades after President John F. Kennedy spoke these immortal words, his niece, Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, has responded with a similar call to action — this time directed at America’s churches, as she calls on them to redirect their attention back to social justice.

Townsend, former lieutenant governor of Maryland, participated in a July 30 forum at the National Press Club with Bill Kovach, chairman of the Committee of Concerned Journalists and a former Washington bureau chief for The New York Times. The two discussed Townsend’s recent work Failing America's Faithful: How Today's Churches Are Mixing God with Politics and Losing Their Way.

In it, Townsend contends that the increased entanglement of religion with politics has resulted in America’s churches straying from their mission of social welfare. Townsend’s book is as much a “spiritual call-to-arms” as it is a call to act.

She shared how British journalist David Frost once asked of both Townsend’s father, Robert F. Kennedy, and Ronald Reagan “What do you think we are here on earth for?” Townsend, loosely paraphrasing, said that Reagan, then governor of California, responded “personal salvation.” And her father responded “to care for the worse off than us.”

Her concern for social welfare was instilled in her as a young child. She writes in Failing America’s Faithful, “My uncle’s [John F. Kennedy] death had made me wonder why we should work for justice if justice was not able to be given in return. But in thinking of the model of Jesus’ life, I also was forced to embrace the model of Jesus’ death. And, in that, the tragedy of my uncle’s death became more bearable.”

The author laments that religion has become “privatized.” Townsend said, “Our sense of morality comes from churches. Now churches are focused on individual salvation. We’ve gone from common humanity to demonizing others. [The] sense of reconciliation has been lost for the most part.”

In the book, she elaborates, “Yes, everyone of faith should strive for a connection to the divine. But too often we forget that this personal relationship can occur only through our connection to each person we meet for it is they who carry the divinity within them.”

Townsend reflected on the impact of the First and Second Great Awakenings and how Protestants were leaders of the social justice movement. Although much time has passed since both Awakenings, Townsend asserts that America’s churches would do well to go back to the days when they were concerned more about the greater good than politics.

— Phallan Davis