The poseurs we created

I wondered why Robert F. McDonnell, who is Roman Catholic and had been educated mostly in Catholic schools, chose Regent University, founded by Pat Robertson, for his degrees in public policy and law. It was an interesting choice not only because it was a departure from his religious tradition and past school choices but because it potentially creates problems for him as he tries to position himself as a centrist when running for governor.

I am sometimes called upon to advise students who are choosing a seminary. I caution them about going to a school that easily pegs them as having a particular theological perspective. I urge them to consider schools with a theologically diverse faculty and student body. At their ages they can’t possibly know how their thinking will evolve over decades and need as many options as possible for serving the church. From a purely educational standpoint there is value in going to school with a wide range of people with different backgrounds and ways of understanding faith and life. After all, they are all out there somewhere. You may as well test your ideas against theirs while you are in school. It may be more comfortable to be in classes with people who think just as you do, but it isn’t very challenging or even interesting.

I sent messages to McDonnell asking him about his choice of Regent but I got no response. I am sorry he did not answer me, but I am not surprised. What was he going to say? That he is in agreement with Pat Robertson? That would hardly help his cause. That he got a scholarship? That it was geographically located in a place he wanted to be? That he thought it would help his political career in Virginia? There isn’t a single answer he could have given that wouldn’t create problems for him, but even if he had answered, I would have no way of knowing whether it was true because he is a public person running for office.

The terrible price you pay for being a public person is that you think about every word you utter and craft it to please the audience most important to your career. This is not only true for politicians; it is true for most public figures including ministers. It is true for all of us some of the time. As children we learned that we had best not blurt out the first thing that came into our heads. As much as adults said they valued honesty, we observed that they were even more concerned with getting along with people who had power over their lives. We need our boss, our relatives and our friends to think highly of us. Being a public figure just magnifies the problem, especially if, like politicians, your career depends on a lot of people approving of you.

I have occasionally known ministers that I was not sure had a self anymore because they had spent so much time pleasing other people. They’re probably politicians who no longer have any views of their own; they simply respond to polls. They don’t ask themselves what is true, only what is expedient.

We may be able to predict what politicians will do in office, although that is not a sure bet, but we can never know in their lifetimes what they actually think. I have no idea who Bob McDonnell and Democratic gubernatorial candidate R. Creigh Deeds really are; I do know that the television ads are no help in finding out.

I feel sorry for both of them, getting up every morning and sticking their moistened fingers in the air to determine what they should pretend to think and what they should say to us. Maybe that is why we don’t like politicians much. If they say what we want to hear, we wonder if they are lying to get our vote. If they don’t, we throw them under the bus.  It is a difficult relationship at best, but we need each other. It is up to voters and office holders to keep it as clean and honest as possible.

Patricia Hunt, of Staunton, is a Mary Baldwin College chaplain.