Kathleen Kennedy Townsend elaborates an almost foreign political view: that of the religious left.
The Former Lt. Governor of Maryland and Deputy Assistant Attorney General of the United States came to speak last night at Logan Hall about her recent book, Failing America's Faithful: How Today's Churches Are Mixing God with Politics and Losing Their Way.
Her talk lauded the importance of an active church and of the benefit, in her opinion, of churches exercising influence in politics.
Townsend, who has taught courses on foreign policy at Penn, contended that, "throughout American history, faith has been at the center of every single progressive movement we've ever had in our country."
The concept of mixing government and religion is one that some liberal thinkers spurn as dangerous.
"Many on the left worry that religion . breaks the wall of separation between church and state, and, to tell you the truth, I understand that," she said.
But as both a faithful Catholic and a liberal Democrat, Townsend has experienced her share of controversy. Upon adopting a pro-life stance during her campaign for Maryland governor, her parish priest, she revealed, "condemned me from the pulpit."
Nonetheless, Townsend lauded the Church's contributions to progressive social change.
The Second Great Awakening in the late 1800s, for example, kickstarted the successful abolitionist and women's suffrage movements, and the Church played an key role in the civil-rights movement behind such leaders as Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.
"I'd always seen that faith and religion opened up people's hearts to . the challenges of public policy and about how we can make a more just society," she said.
Her ideas seemed to echo those of her father, Bobby Kennedy, who lost his life campaigning on a platform for civil rights and social welfare while remaining faithfully Catholic.
She emphasized the importance of pursuing justice by whatever means, atheist or religious. Disregarding the positive social power of the church as a platform for achieving this, she warned, would be a mistake.
College freshman Enoch Arthur-Asmah said, "Going in, I felt I was going to receive a mandate for an increase in the Church's role in the state, and, coming out, I was surprised by the central message of working toward a more just society regardless of the way in which we strive for it."
College junior Kristin Williams added that "it was interesting to hear the expressions of religion from the left instead of from the right in such an explicit way."
