Christian 'Seeker' for President

If elected, General Wesley Clark would be America's first modern Christian "seeker" president. What comes through clearly in his

is that he has been on a lifelong spiritual search, trying in place after place to find the right match with his personality, values and emotional needs. At various points in his life, he was influenced heavily by Methodists, Baptists, Jews, Catholics and Presbyterians, and his quest seems not to be over.

There are parts of the interview-

with the candidates--that will no doubt strike readers as idiosyncratic, such as the fact he became alienated first from both Protestantism and then Catholicism as a result of the anti-military comments of individual clergy. Some Catholics may scoff--or be offended by--Clark's statement that he remains a Catholic even though he goes to a Presbyterian church.

But in many ways, Clark is a prototypical modern American Christian. He shops for faith. His decisions are based not only on family considerations, region and theology but spiritual fit--the type of music, quality of the sermons, or the message of the preacher. His faith seems both deep and, at the same time, not fixed to a particular affiliation.

When Clark was almost four, his father Benjamin Kanne, a Chicago alderman and lawyer, died suddenly of a heart attack, prompting the family to move back to Little Rock where his mother had family. Clark's mother, Veneta, was a Methodist but gave the young boy the choice of where to go to church.

Five-year-olds are not likely to choose a church on the basis of its views on salvation or premillennial tribulation theory. "I remember the Methodist church in Chicago had these beautiful stained glass windows," Clark recalls. "I saw a church in Arkansas that had those beautiful stained glass windows and it was right across the street from this barber shop that had a miniature barber's chair complete with the razor strap and everything."

So he chose the church with the pretty windows across from the barber shop with the cool chair. That's how Clark became a Baptist.

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