WASHINGTON, Sept. 24 /Christian Newswire/ — A top-level advisor and ten- member delegation for Sen. Barack Obama were no- shows at yesterday’s Reese RoundTable on Capitol Hill, a forum for the campaigns to present their respective candidates’ worldviews and how that informs their ideas about government.

The Obama representative, the Reverend Evna Terri La Velle, Senior Advisor Religious Affairs for Obama for America, inexplicably cancelled only hours before the event. When event organizers appealed to Democratic Party Officials, they were told someone would “look into it,” but that these decisions are made in Chicago, meaning Obama campaign headquarters.

Event host, Rev. Rob Schenck (pronounced SHANK), who moderated the discussion, said he was profoundly disappointed. He released this statement:

“Democratic Party Chairman Howard Dean assured me last year in a private meeting in his office that his party would do everything possible to constructively engage Evangelicals, traditional Catholics and other moral conservatives. He even pledged to participate in events like this. Barack Obama has made similar promises. They did a couple of high-profile media events, but it appears they were not serious at a grass- roots level. Yesterday’s last-minute unexplained cancellation was nothing short of a snub. Our capacity crowd was insulted by their absence.”

Schenck is available for further comment . Contact Peggy Birchfield at 202-546-8329, ext 103 or 202-236- 0953.

I won’t attempt to fool you: I was thrilled when John McCain picked Alaska Governor Sarah Palin to be his running mate. Not that it clinches the vote from me (I’m still deciding what to do), but because it was a historic move. A lot of people want to make history in this election–and rightfully so. It’s agonizing for me to think I may not vote for the first African-American presidential candidate because he doesn’t pass the first threshold for me, which is always the sanctity of pre-born life. By doing so, I miss my opportunity to be part of much needed change. It’s critical we have an other-than-usual person in the White House. It will be good for the country in the short-term and good for our American civilization in the long-term. I’m ringing my hands and pacing. That’s why I felt relief in the Palin pick. I was no fan of John McCain. (I had even exchanged some harsh words with him in a private face-to-face in the early stage of his campaign.) Then when he announced Palin (and I was there in the VIP section when he did), I suddenly felt relief. Relief because we now get to make history whether we pick one of the big tickets or the other. Whew! A little less hand-ringing! But alas, that’s not why I’m writing today. I’m actually writing to bemoan what I mournfully call the “Regrettable Inevitable” of all campaigns–the personal attack. Since George Washington’s ascendency to the chief executive seat, it’s been part and parcel of American politics. It’s like sin–it’s eventually going to happen because we all share a predilection for it. Still, its unavoidability doesn’t make it any prettier–nor acceptable. The violation I’m thinking of today was Sarah Palin’s attack on Barack Obama’s background as a “community organizer.” She said it during her acceptance speech to the Republican Convention in St. Paul and she’s repeated it since. (I was there that first time, too.) I remember earlier that evening how I wondered if the Republicans could ever match the exhilaration of the Democrats I had witnessed in Denver at their convention. Then out came Governor Palin and Voila, they topped it! To my consternation and utter deflation, the violation came when Gov. Palin said in her speech, “I guess a small-town mayor is sort of like a ‘community organizer,’ except that you have actual responsibilities.” OK, it was a wise-crack in torrent of them cascading from both sides, but unfortunately some very, very good people got caught in the cross-fire. I know some wonderful, talented, enormously capable and always self-sacrificing “community organizers.” I’ve been one myself. I think of Ron Calandra, the partially blind former male strip show concessionaire who built our Hearts for the Homeless ministry into a shining star of a life-saving outreach to otherwise hopeless men, women and children living on the streets of our native Western New York. Ron and countless others like him have “actual responsibilities.” In fact, when government bureaucrats get to hand-off hurting people or excuse themselves because it’s not their department’s responsibility, “community organizers” like Ron cannot turn away. In fact, they dare not turn away. It can literally be a matter of life and death. So, though I remain delighted with Governor Palin’s nomination and presence in the race; though I applaud Senator McCain for making the selection (and I told him so to his face in Dayton); I must register my strong objection to Governor Palin’s maligning those great, courageous, talented, committed and effective “Community Organizers” that make this country one of the greatest on Earth. Governor Palin, with all due respect and affection, please drop it from your repertoire. Rob Schenck

You know I’ve been out in Denver to attend the Democratic National Convention. The very “first official event” was Sunday afternoon’s “Faith in Action Interfaith Gathering.” I couldn’t believe my eyes or ears. (And maybe not even my soul!)

The convention hall was about 2/3 full by the end of the over two-hour program. (I’d guess four to five thousand.) Besides the startling revival-style preaching by some of the speakers, there was a thunderous denunciation of abortion by the venerable Bishop Charles E. Blake of the Church of God in Christ, America’s largest black Pentecostal denomination. That one shocked me, especially when the Bishop challenged Barack Obama to pursue “viable alternatives” to abortion. All I could do was stand and shout Amen! Only a few others joined me.

Notwithstanding that enormously important moment, what really impressed me was the number of folks who actually entered into an intense time of worship as black gospel music artist Richard Smallwood led in rapturous praise. I had to pinch myself. Hands were raised, Hallelujah’s were shouted and people swooned. I had to pinch myself. Man! Where was I?

And how about this? Host Governor Bill Ritter of Colorado said, “There is a tremendous interaction of faith and politics,” and, “Politics is about our being spiritual, that there is a God.”

This had to be irksome to the two atheist groups protesting outside, but for so many in that hall it was an enormous relief. Finally, the Democratic Party was giving an “official” place to people of vigorous faith.

Of course, as you can imagine, the stage was religious pluralistic—rabbis, imams, Hindu representatives, liberals and conservatives among them. The theme, though, kept returning to the focus on morality. Religion teaches morality—sometimes just a little and sometimes much. This fact came through loud and clear. I’m sure some secularists would assail what happened yesterday as way too much moralizing.

However you see it, a new era has begun in the Democratic Party and I can only imagine the interesting conversation—and perhaps conflict—it will evoke.

There is no such thing as a boring life. Every human journey is a dramatic one. I often think about this when I look out the window of my daily commuter train and see hundreds standing on station platforms. I wonder what stories they have to tell. From our first life impulse as zygotes, to our last death rattles,  we all write chapters of our own stories–and in the stories of others–that read like the best novels. Many personal stories would be incredible as movie scripts.

On such story is told in The Visitor: A Memoir by my friend Kenneth Barney. “Ken,” as he family and friends affectionately know him, is the pastor of an enormous congregation outside Baltimore, Maryland. He is a precious human being, the kind of person everyone instantly loves. He’s kind, brilliant, articulate and highly accomplished. While leading one of the more significant African-American churches in the metro Washington, DC, area, his appeal crosses every racial, ethnic and even religious boundary. Ken is adored by his family and congregants and is admired in his community. When I took him to the North African Kingdom of Morocco for a dialogue with Muslim leaders there, they practically begged me to bring him back–which, of course, I did.

Watching this successful “revivalist” preacher in his pulpit or commanding a meeting at the expansive board table outside his impressive office in his church’s brand new $11 million structure, you would never dream of the arduous, pain-filled path he took to get where he is now. The Visitor is anything but a predictable “testimony” of sin and redemption. It is in every way a true human drama. The book is endorsed by the likes of US Senate Chaplain Barry Black and world-renowned neurosurgeon Ben Carson (who have told their own great stories) all the way down to humble little me. In fact, one of the signal honors of my career was to write the forward to Ken’s book.

You’ll love this story as much as I did when I first heard it. It will lift you up after it brings you down. It will give you hope while it helps you understand your despair. The Visitor is one exhilarating ride. You’ll love it.

The Visitor: A Memoir
by Kenneth Barney
Soon to be available at www.faithandaction.org

Your missionary to Capitol Hill, Washington, DC, Rob Schenck, reporting:

That day will always be seared into my memory. We hadn’t yet moved our administrative offices from Virginia to the ministry center in Washington. My daughter, Anna, had recently taken a job at a pro-life organization in the city. She was living temporarily in the guest quarters of the ministry center on Capitol Hill. Her cousin, Leah, my brother’s oldest, was staying there with her.

My then chief-of-staff, Linda, burst into my office with the news that a plane had hit one of the Trade Towers in New York. We brought up NBC news on one of the computers just in time to watch the second plane hit. Shortly after, a call came in that two other planes had been hijacked and were headed toward Washington. One may have already hit the Pentagon.

I called Anna on her cell phone. It was her day off and I caught her still sleeping.

“Honey, do you know what’s happening?” I asked. She didn’t.

“You and Leah get in your car and drive east out of the city right now. There’s no time to waste. Take only your purses and go. There’s been a terrorist attack. Now leave.”

“But Dad,” I remember her fussing. “But Dad . . ”

In my panic I barked at her, “No, ‘but Dad,” just get out of there. Get in your car and go.”

“But Dad,” she said again.

“Quit it!” I shouted. “Go now!”

“But Dad,” she insisted, “what direction is east?”

I felt terrible, calmed down and explained how to get out of the city ahead of all the announced road closures that were moving from central city outward.

The next five days are blurry. I remember checking and re-checking on the girls who were by then in a hotel and on the rest of the family. I called around looking for others, but telephone lines and cell connections were mostly down. I toured the Pentagon site with my friend Denny Nissley of Christ in Action Ministries, the first one at the scene to provide food and shelter for the emergency workers.

I later led a prayer procession of Christian clergy to the still-smoking cavity along the Pentagon’s west wall. You could still see the vague outline of a passenger jet with it’s wings splayed at like a 45 degree angle. Passers by knelt with us and openly wept.

That same day I headed for New York on the first trains to run after two days of a transportation shut-down. I went looking for my pastor friend, Jan “Kirk” van der Swaagh of Greenwich Village’s “Neighborhood Church.” We hadn’t heard from him or two other faithful Faith and Action supporters since the day of the attacks.

I found all three alive and whole but deeply shaken. One had fled a taxi as body parts rained down from the sky all around her. She kept running until she reached her apartment three miles away.

Toward evening, Kirk and I headed down to Ground Zero to see what we could do to help. As we rounded a corner into what looked like a post-apocalyptic moon-scape, we saw the silhouettes of two dusty figures coming toward us. They were FBI chaplains. We identified ourselves as fellow clergy and volunteered our services. The two men said they hadn’t slept in 48 hours. We more or less took their places.

For the next few hours we ministered to police officers, firefighters, EMTs and other emergency personnel working in and around Ground Zero. I was momentarily distracted when I passed the small cemetery yard outside St. Paul’s Chapel, a very old, colonial-era church located directly across from the former World Trade Center site. I had toured St. Paul’s only weeks before when I guest-taught a Bible study of Wall Street executives that meets nearby.

That tranquil, quaint graveyard, famous for some of its occupants, was now filled with ten inches of plaster and glass dust, office furniture, personal effects. Desks, chairs, purses, brief cases and even shoes, all blown out of windows 70, 80 and 90 stories above, littered the yard.

The most arresting scene, though, was the giant fire pit itself. Right there, where the towers collapsed on themselves. It was a small mountain of debris, still burning. The smell was ghastly. It looked like the mouth of hell. As we approached, my police officer escort pointed to my now white-dusted otherwise black shoes.

“See that dust on your shoes, parson,” he said. “There’s a thousand incinerated people in that dust.”

The rest of my time there is dotted with memories of praying with physically and emotionally exhausted workers. It was one of the richest experiences of my life. I don’t know that I’ll ever be with more heroic, dedicated–or sadder–people than I was with that day.

In many religious traditions, “Remembering” is a spiritual act in itself. The word “remember” appears often in the Bible. In numerous places we are told “God remembered.” In other places we are commanded “to remember.”

Remembering 9/11 is a sacred act acknowledging the importance of those whose lives were lost or forever changed; the heroic acts of those who risked everything to rescue and to recover; and even the evil that is ever-present and threatens the future and the good that will always overcome it.