Can mayor put aside job as minister?

Inquiring minds want to know how our mayor-elect will separate church and state.

Ever since his election, folks have wondered how the Rev. Dwight Clinton Jones of First Baptist Church of South Richmond will balance his role with that of Mayor Dwight Clinton Jones.

"As we've said all along, he recognizes the job of mayor of Richmond is a full-time job and he intends to be a full-time mayor," spokesman Kevin O'Holleran said.

"He will give up the sort of day-to-day operations of the church," O'Holleran said. But he added that the church and environs "is who he is and where he comes from, and he will remain active in those communities."

As for whether Jones will remain in the pulpit, "I don't think they've worked out a specific schedule on how that's going to work yet," O'Holleran said.

Jones must realize his dual role has the potential to satisfy no one. And church politics can be as vicious as the secular brand.

Of course, there's nothing barring clergy from holding office, as evidenced by Jones' tenure in the state legislature. And others have sought to balance God's work and the secular, seamy world of politics, with mixed results.

Religious bonafides were an asset to former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, a Southern Baptist minister, during his run for president this year. But former Rep. Robert Drinan, D-Mass., a Jesuit priest, did not seek re-election in 1980 after pressure from Pope John Paul II.

In Virginia, Lawrence A. Davies of Fredericksburg and Curtis W. Harris of Hopewell were minister-mayors. And there's the cautionary tale of the genre: former Richmond Mayor Leonidas B. Young.

Young, mayor from 1994 to 1996, pleaded guilty to mail fraud, obstruction of justice and filing a false tax return in 1999. One of his crimes was defrauding an elderly, dying member of his congregation by dipping into her money to feed his extravagance.

Clergy were disqualified from holding public office in 11 of the original 13 colonies, said Rob Boston, a policy analyst for Americans United for Separation of Church and State.

The matter wasn't clarified until 1978, when the U.S. Supreme Court decision McDaniel v. Paty invalidated a law barring an ordained minister from serving on the Tennessee Constitutional Convention.

"We're strongly for separation," Boston said. "People sometimes say we take it too far. But at this time I'm more concerned with the agenda a person brings to office rather than if they're ordained."

Boston said the conflicts Jones may face as a clergyman-mayor are no different than those that might be encountered by a businessman-mayor. "The moral thing to do in a case like that is to recuse yourself, no matter what your job might be."

So Jones may feel unencumbered in exercising two fundamental rights simultaneously. But taxpayers who questioned Mayor L. Douglas Wilder's moonlighting as a college professor also have the right to ask whether they're getting a full-time commitment from Jones. His flock might wonder the same.

Even if your heart is in the right place, it's tough to serve two masters.
Contact Michael Paul Williams at (804) 649-6815 or .