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John McCain: keeping faith, on his own terms

How the Arizona senator, once a POW 'pastor,' finds purpose in his beliefs and survival.

from the October 18, 2007 edition

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A way of life

Ultimately, like most of the presidential candidates, McCain prefers to treat his faith as a personal matter. But in a Republican primary where the religious conservative vote is up for grabs, the fact that McCain attends North Phoenix Baptist Church – a large evangelical church that is part of the conservative Southern Baptist Convention – made the papers last month. McCain is usually still identified as an Episcopalian, though even during the 2000 campaign, it was no secret that he attended a Baptist church and had a spiritual adviser there in Pastor Dan Yeary. He still does.

"It wasn't so much a rejection of the Episcopal Church," says McCain. "It was, I came into that church, I sat down, I got the message of redemption and love and forgiveness, and it resonated with me. I found going to that church was beneficial to me in my life."

McCain says he prays daily, but not in the ritualized manner of his father, the grandson of an Episcopal minister. Admiral McCain prayed twice daily on his knees, with a Bible – probably to help him resist alcohol, says his son.

"It was a very deep, sincere prayer," says Roberta McCain, the senator's mother, who was also raised as an Episcopalian. "We didn't really talk about it much, I just accepted it…. Religion was not a big topic in our family."

In a way, the McCains' multigenerational emphasis on military service and focus on honor, courage, duty, and country are a form of family religion. McCain's youngest son is a marine and the next oldest is a junior at the Naval Academy.

"If it's not a religion, it's a way of life, particularly amongst the professional officer corps," the senator says. As a teen, he dreamed of studying history at Princeton University, but there was no question that he would attend the Naval Academy.

Now, says his old POW friend Orson Swindle, "John is an incredible student of history. He has the capacity to speed read and he retains it. His whole family is like that."

Of McCain's five books, all co-written with longtime aide Mark Salter, three are collections of profiles of historical figures McCain admires. The first focuses on courage, the second on character, and the new one, "Hard Call," on leadership.

"I think he feels those things need to be said, because so many people are almost embarrassed to mention moral qualities in public," says Margaret Kenski, a Republican pollster based in Arizona.

McCain admits that he has failed to live up to his own ideals on many occasions. Unlike many politicians, he readily owns up to mistakes. He takes the blame for the failure of his first marriage. In his second memoir, he outlines his mistakes in his involvement in what came to be known as the Keating Five scandal. His advocacy for limiting the role of money in politics stems from that brush with political death. Ditto his crusade against pork-barrel spending in Congress.

McCain has also made it clear that, in the current presidential race, he would rather go down fighting for what he believes is right than to bend his positions to public opinion. Iraq, immigration, torture – all are issues he feels passionately about but that aren't necessarily going to land him in the Oval Office. After he started the race with the aura of the GOP heir apparent, his campaign imploded during the summer amid charges of mismanagement and overspending.

Now, he says, he's back on track, and raised a respectable $6 million in the third quarter of 2007. But he smiles wanly when the view of some pundits is suggested: that he's happy to be back as the old maverick McCain, not the establishment front-runner.

"If I could convince you of that fact…." He laughs. "I think we'd all like to be the front-runner, but I'm very comfortable where I am, especially since we're seeing some traction and movement."

Indeed, in New Hampshire, where he walloped George W. Bush in the 2000 primary by 19 percentage points, McCain is once again competitive for the lead among Republican voters.

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