Clergy need to be active leaders, involved with cultural and municipal events.

How does one go from committing crimes to writing a guest column? How do you go from being a creep to becoming a clergyman? What takes a person from the low depths of incarcerations and propels him into an inauguration?

I call it conversion through evangelization. That was the case in my situation.

You see, back in the 1980s, I was not known by people as Brother Doug, but as Druggie Douggie. I was building myself a bad reputation and I was in trouble with the police.

One of the policemen I knocked heads with during those years was Bob Macdonald, who is now the mayor of the city of Lewiston.

God works through mysterious ways, sometimes.

I went from being a hard-line criminal back in the day to a hard-line clergyman. I admit that both are hard for people to swallow sometimes.

I had the distinct honor of giving the invocation at the inauguration ceremony at the Franco-American Heritage Center on Jan. 3 as the leaders of Lewiston took their oaths of office. I was joined by the Rev. Bob Vaillancourt, the chaplain of St. Dominic Academy, who said the benediction.

I am always amazed by the lack of interest and poor attendance by local religious leaders at such important events in our city.

The ceremony was held in the Franco-American Heritage Center that, at one time, was St. Mary’s Church. Because of poor attendance and lack of funds, the church became a conference center for public events.

How does a big church like that fizzle out of existence?

I dare say it all starts with a lack of interest. Since that church went out of commission, many more churches locally followed in its footsteps.

If I were going to start blaming anyone, it would start in the area of leadership. In my opinion, the leadership in the faith community, as a whole, is dead.

Whatever happened to the old paintings of a community with a steeple rising in its midst? The church used to be the central place in a community. In some places that’s where you were educated, voted, worshipped and gathered for community concerns.

As far as I am concerned, nothing is more important to Americans than the peaceable transfer of power that occurs during elections. We live in a democracy and we are governed by a Constitution. We are free to use our speech as we will and we are free to express our faith publicly without fear of repercussions or action by the government.

However, you would think our religious leaders live in North Korea by how silent and non-visible they seem to be.

When I looked up at the audience during the inauguration, I was disgusted to see barely any support from various religious leaders. Perhaps that is why, when City Council President Mark Cayer gave his speech, he went on and on, mentioning just about every good thing that Lewiston had to offer but stopped short of mentioning anything about the local places of worship.

As far as I am concerned, it is our own fault if we, as a faith community, dry up and blow away. The devil doesn’t work against us as much as we work against ourselves.

I have been to numerous church services where ministers laced their Sunday morning church services with complaints against the government and its leaders. I hear these religious leaders cry how prayer is not allowed in school and how political correctness is destroying America.

It is not secular humanism that will destroy America; it will be the lack of evangelism that will corrode our values in America.

If this country goes into a complete moral failure because of the lack of evangelism of Christian ideals, I once again will blame the leaders of the faith community for their lack of interest.

As with the transfer of power and leadership within the political realm, we need a change in the religious circles when it comes to leaders, as well. We need people in politics, as well as in religion, with passion, courage, humility and concern for people and this great country.

My fire is not meant to burn anything down, but to warm things up a bit.

The Rev. Douglas Taylor of Lewiston is leader of the Jesus Party.