Laura Turner writes for Politico Magazine about presidential candidate John Kasich:

If the role of religion in Kasich’s life isn’t well-understood, that’s in part because his complex faith journey led him to a denomination that most Americans have never heard of. He was raised Catholic with ambitions to be the best altar boy in his parish, earning him the nickname “Pope” among his friends. But around the time he left for college at Ohio State, Kasich’s belief began to wane. He “drifted away from religion as a young adult,” he wrote in his book. It wasn’t until a drunk driver killed his parents in 1987 that Kasich returned to church. But this time, he entered the Episcopal Church, which his parents had joined later in life.

This is where things get a little tricky: He stayed with his church as it broke off with the mainstream Episcopal Church in the United States in protest over the denomination’s embrace of openly gay priests and bishops. In 2011, Kasich’s home church, Saint Augustine’s Anglican Church in Westerville, Ohio, is one of those that split off under a new, more conservative denomination called the Anglican Church in North America. …

Kasich cites the late University of Southern California philosophy professor Dallas Willard as one of his theological inspirations — an interesting choice because Willard was not always accepted by the Christian establishment. … “I love to envision the potential impact on society if more and more people in government began to live lives of other-centered love,” Kasich wrote in a tribute book to Willard.

Read the rest.

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