John McCain as Prison Chaplain In Vietnam and His First "Sermon"

Religious conservatives and in fact religious liberals have been at time a little bit hard on McCain and McCain as a man of Faith. There has always been a lot assuming that seemed to have a non Christian tone and in fact Non Christian spirit to it.

McCain still has problems with some elements of these groups I suppose but I often think their voice is tad amplified more than it should be because of blogs, Internet forums, and direct mail. All those can come together and create a echo chamber that accumulated sometimes on purpose for what is called astroturfing.

There are no doubt some serious issues that even McCain's religious conservative supporters have with him. Including me on the issue of the Stem Cell research.

That being said I was very struck by this article McCain's faith rooted in Vietnam experience. I suppose McCain at times a man that does not share all of his life knows he must share more now. In that regards I expect we share hear about one of the most pivotal moments of his life. That is his POW experience. I did not know till today that McCain was the unoffical Prison Chaplian to his fellow prisioners.

A few excerpts
In an extended interview, McCain talked about how his faith was tested during his years as a prisoner of war from 1967 to 1973, said God must have had a plan for him to have kept him alive, and reminisced about his appointment as informal chaplain to his cellmates.
"There were many times I didn't pray for another day and I didn't pray for another hour - I prayed for another minute to keep going," said McCain, who was brought up Episcopalian but now worships at the North Phoenix Baptist Church, a Southern Baptist church. "There's no doubt that my faith was strengthened and reinforced and tested, because sometimes you have a tendency to say, 'Why am I here?' "
McCain said his faith in God informs his decisions on issues of public policy. Christian conservatives are skeptical of McCain's commitment to many of the issues they care about such as abortion and marriage. They have also been disappointed in his embrace of embryonic stem cell research. But McCain said he wrestled with that decision and hopes technology soon renders it obsolete.......

After recounting a Church Service that got McCain and others "punished" McCain recounts his first Homily / Sermon


About six months later, they were back in the ironically named Hanoi Hilton, and Day, the senior officer, chose McCain as the group's chaplain. His first lesson - he doesn't like to call them sermons - recounted the biblical story of the man who asked Jesus whether he should pay taxes. Jesus replied, "Render unto Caesar what is Caesar's, and render unto God what is God's."

McCain's point was that the prisoners should not pray for freedom, nor for harm to come to their captors.
"What I was trying to tell my fellow prisoners is that we were doing Caesar's work when we got into prison, so we should ask for God's help to do the right thing and for us to get out of prison if it be God's will for us to do so," McCain said. "Not everybody agreed with that."

Swindle said he understood McCain's talk to mean that "the God we had come to know wasn't going to wave a magic wand and Poof,' we would all be free. The God we knew would give us the strength to endure what we had to do, and it was up to us to take that strength and knowledge and do what we had to do."
McCain also recalls a Christmas service he orchestrated. A week before the holiday, McCain's guards let him out of his cell and gave him a pencil, a piece of paper and a King James Bible. He copied sections of Matthew, Mark and John describing the birth of Christ so he could read them aloud while other POWs sang It Came Upon a Midnight Clear and Silent Night.

"I recall it as if it happened an hour ago," said McCain, sitting in a wingback chair in a suite overlooking the Susquehanna River toward the end of a day of campaigning. "It was cold, the guards were looking through the windows at us, the room was dimly lit because of the light bulbs (that) were in each corner. These guys had beautiful voices, I'm telling you. One was a bass, one was a tenor. It was one of the most beautiful experiences I ever had."

The men became tearful. "It wasn't because they were sad," McCain added. "It was because they were so happy to be able to celebrate Christmas with fellow Americans."
McCain's friends say they believe God had a plan for him, allowing him to survive death to put him on the cusp of the presidency. He, too, acknowledges that idea, though cautiously.

"I can't help but feel like that to some extent, and I'm not a fatalist," said McCain. "I think it's remarkable that I've been able to survive so much and to have the opportunity to do the right thing. I do think we make our own choices, but certainly I think I was meant to serve a cause greater than my self interest."