As the Mueller investigation continues, Comey is expected to return to the national spotlight. Who is this man with his calm demeanor and towering 6 foot 8 inch frame?
To gain a better perspective on former FBI Director James Comey, we should start with his appointment as the new FBI director by President Barack Obama in September in 2013.
Neill Caldwell, editor of the Virginia United Methodist Advocate magazine, wrote a story for Religious News Service July 31, 2013, under a headline that said: "Next FBI Director is a United Methodist."
That was news to me and it also pleased my John Wesleyan heart. (We Methodists can also be tribal). Here is the start of the story:
"The next director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation is a former Sunday school teacher at Reveille United Methodist Church in Richmond, Va.
"President Barack Obama's nominee, James B. Comey Jr., breezed through a U.S. Senate hearing on his nomination and was approved July 29, as the seventh director of the FBI.
"He will follow current FBI leader Robert Mueller, who has been director for 12 years. Comey, a Republican former deputy attorney general under the George W. Bush administration, won praise from members of both parties on the Senate Judiciary Committee for his extensive resume.
"Comey, 52, was born in Yonkers, N.Y., where his grandfather rose from cop walking the beat to police commissioner. Comey grew up in Allendale, N.J., attending public schools, and went on to the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg. There he majored in chemistry and religion, and met his future wife, Patrice Failor.
"In 1983, after his first year of law school, he was visiting Patrice in Sierra Leone, where she was in the Peace Corps. He came down with malaria. Only her quick action in getting him to a hospital saved his life."
Comey was born and raised in Yonkers, New York. Comey is of Irish heritage and his family was Catholic. His family moved to Allendale, New Jersey, in the early 1970s. He later became a United Methodist. He graduated from the College of William and Mary in 1982, where he majored in chemistry and religion.
For his senior thesis, Comey analyzed Reinhold Niebuhr and the conservative televangelist Jerry Falwell, emphasizing their common belief in public action. Steven Weitzman examined that senior thesis for Christianity Today.
"I tracked down his senior thesis to see what lessons there might be for understanding the FBI director's run-in with President Trump.
"Submitted in 1982, Comey's thesis compares Niebuhr and Jerry Falwell. At the time, the televangelist had emerged as a central figure in American politics following the election of Ronald Reagan. Comey's study was an effort to understand how each man would answer the question: 'Why should the Christian be involved in politics?'
"Niebuhr and Falwell came from opposite sides of the political spectrum. One, a former socialist and -- despite his support for the Cold War -- an early opponent of the Vietnam War, believing it an obligation to be critical of American actions that were unjust. The other, a staunch opponent to socialism and a supporter of the Vietnam War.
"As the co-founder of the Moral Majority, Falwell espoused the kind of America-first patriotism that Niebuhr condemned. Niebuhr rejected moral absolutes, believing they were beyond reach and that their pursuit could lead humans into sinful pride. Falwell embraced them.
"Yet, each claimed Scripture as the source for their political doctrines. Falwell believed the Bible to be infallible whereas Niebuhr was sensitive to the ambiguities. And each believed in a politically engaged Christianity willing to seek power, accept compromises, and risk cynicism and cooptation to achieve justice or avoid moral decay."
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