By Lloyd Mackey

THIS IS one of these pieces described, in baseball terms, as "the long slow curve . . . and the fast break."

Much is being written these days about the August 25 passing of American Senator Edward (Ted) Kennedy, at age 77.

In that writing, there is considerable attention being paid to his legislative accomplishments, his advocacy of health care changes and the leadership he gave to the Kennedy clan in the wake of the assassinations of both his revered brothers, President John and, later, Robert.

Then, in each piece, there will be mention of Chappaquiddick -- that place in Massachusetts where, in 1969, the car he was driving plunged into a waterway. The result was the drowning death of a young female aide who was a passenger. Kennedy pled guilty to leaving the scene of the accident.

In the years that followed, his respected half-a-century record as a senator was spotted at times, by his reputation for heavy drinking and womanizing. It was only when he married his second wife, lawyer Victoria Anne Reggie, in 1992 that those matters seemed to become things of the past.

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On August 20, an evangelical Christian icon, Charles E. Blair, predeceased Kennedy. Blair had accomplished much, but also had a time of spottedness in the 1970s, mid-way through his 50-year tenure as senior minister of Calvary Temple in Denver.

Blair, at age 26, after a stint in evangelism, had taken a struggling congregation of 38 people and grown it into a megachurch of 5,000. He did it by vision-casting, inspired preaching, shrewd decision-making, formidable persuasion skills and -- some might say -- through the power of the Holy Spirit.

The troubles started when he envisioned taking over a defunct chiropractic clinic and turning it into something called the Life Center, a place of residence, care and health for seniors.

The difficulty was that the vision was unsustainable. In 1975, the three organizations involved went bankrupt and investors, most of them church members, lost $17 million.

And Blair pled guilty to securities fraud.

He set about to see the investors repaid, a quest which was only partly successful and, in itself, brought about further audits and allegations of financial improprieties.

"If you can't put your trust in a man of God who stands up and preaches 52 Sundays a year," one elderly church member, who said she lost her life savings after investing with Blair, told the Denver Post in 1980, "who can you put your trust in?"

There is much more to the story. One side of it can be obtained by Googling Alan Prendergast, a business journalist who followed the story for years. And the other comes out of a book Blair wrote in 1981, entitled The Man Who Could Do No Wrong. In it, he tried to explain what had happened and what had changed for the better, as the result of his experience.

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When I heard about Blair's passing, I called up a long time friend, Harv Schroeder of Chilliwack, BC.

Back in the late '60s and early '70s, Schroeder was minister of music at Calvary Temple. He, Ella Mae and their young family were happy there. It was, he says, "a high point in the church's experience -- and for us."

But he was beginning to feel uneasy about things -- the "divergence of interests and energies which the digressions toward the Life Center plans" were creating.

And, as it happened, back home in the Fraser Valley, where he had grown up, a long time provincial MLA and cabinet minister, Ken Kiernan, was retiring.

Schroeder succeeded Kiernan. He took a run for the provincial Social Credit leadership, coming a respectable third behind Bill Bennett, who went on to be BC premier for the next 12 years.

Schroeder was a highly respected speaker of the provincial legislature and, later, served with energy and distinction as agriculture minister.

After leaving politics, he served a stint as board chair of Canadian Bible College/Canadian Theological Seminary, the schools affiliated with the denomination under which he is ordained as a minister of the gospel, the Christian and Missionary Alliance. (CBC/CTS is now part of Ambrose University College in Calgary)

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And, now, for the fast break, as promised earlier.

The point in recounting something about both Kennedy and Blair is to demonstrate that there can be life beyond serious moral, ethical and financial mistakes -- even disasters. True, there are people who never recovered their life savings, despites Blair's seeming best efforts.

But he continued to raise funds, until the end of his life, under the Blair Foundation. Toward the end of his 50 years at Calvary Temple, in the '90s, he did some new vision-casting. That led him to co-operate with Christian leaders in one corner of Ethiopia, where he set up training for the development of pastors who, in turn, have planted over 2,000 churches. And that part of this ministry, like the time of Ted Kennedy's relationship with Victoria Reggie, seems to have brought some redemptive and useful purpose out of earlier errors, destructive as they may have been to themselves and others.

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Lloyd Mackey is a member of the Canadian Parliamentary Press Gallery in Ottawa and author of Stephen Harper: The Case for Collaborative Governance (ECW Press, 2006), More Faithful Than We Think: Stories and Insights on Canadian Leaders Doing Politics Christianly (BayRidge Books, 2005) and Like Father, Like Son: Ernest Manning and Preston Manning (ECW Press, 1997). Lloyd can be reached at lmackey@canadianchristianity.com.

August 27/2009