Lizzie     October 22 at 1:16pm

Okay, so I did just have to tell you one other thing. You know the documentary Religulous by Bill Maher?

One of his victims, I mean interviewees, is Ken Ham, the guy who founded the Creation Museum (anti-evolution alternative natural history museum). Well, when I was teaching at the fundamentalist Christian high school back in 95-97, he was the main speaker/presenter at our teacher’s conference. We were required to get our continuing education credits by doing his two-day seminar. He actually WAS an entertaining and compelling speaker, but the science was, well, not really science at all. It was trying to turn Genesis into a high-level Biology textbook.

Now I really will turn to my to-do list!

Jane   October 22 at 2:08pm

Wow, you really got around in a world I only have read about/made fun of. (sorry, had to add that last bit in there).

Ken Ham, huh? Go figure. OF COURSE it wasn’t science. It wasn’t, isn’t and never could be.

Did I tell you about the Sunday this fall, I was teaching Hebrew School, we were learning about the first parsha in the Torah, Bereshit (in the beginning, 7 days of creation, blah blah blah) and day 5 is sea and air creatures, day 6 is land animals, and people? My son (who is in my class this year, argh!) says, "…well if dinosaurs were on day 5, what day did the meteor hit the earth and kill them all?"

I was so proud. (did I tell you this story already?) I told him that the Torah Stories we were learning were all from the real Torah. And that some Jewish people believe them to be be the exact words from God. Other Jewish people believe the Torah contains stories God told people, who then wrote them down. Told him that the stories were for learning. So the story of creation was a story we could learn from.

Our rabbi later added that I could also have told the class that the stories in the Torah never contain the whole truth or the whole story – so we can keep learning and studying. For instance, if Adam and Eve had 2 sons, and we know those 2 sons had children… who were the mothers of Cain and Abel’s kids? The Torah doesn’t mention them! God made it so we could learn and study and figure out stuff for ourselves.

Now that’s a very first grade explanation of how to mix Creation and Science. But it’s a great place to jump off from.

Why can’t the Big Bang co-exist in a world with faith? Why do do the dinosaurs have to have walked on the earth with humans, and all animals to be in the same place at once (Gan Eden) for the Torah to make sense? Why does Evolution need to not be valid to believe in God?

I’m sure Ken Ham would have loads to say about this. So would Sarah Barracuda (Palin), I am sure.

Lizzie     October 22 at 2:44pm

At the Christian high school, the junior-high Life Sciences teacher had a bumper sticker on her car that read "God said it. I believe it. That settles it." Scary enough, I know. But, even for those who would say, "Sure, that resonates with me!" such a statement begs the whole question of how to interpret God’s revelation of Himself and of creation. And how to approach each distinctive genre. (All the distinctive realm, I suppose of us English-y, hermeneutically minded types. "Myth" is not a dirty word to me. "Myth" is, I think, a very special, non-scientific kind of truth. I have never felt a huge need to do battle over Evolution/Creation. I have many questions (as we all do), but I do not find them mutually exclusive as Ken Ham and his supporters (like Palin) do.

I was a fish out of water in that place–I was fired (well, asked to resign) over a flap involving the administration’s insistence that all faculty must abstain from drinking alcohol.  It was rumored at the time that more rules were coming down the pike as well-and that the renewal of all of our contracts would be contingent on our promising not to dance or see secular movies.  As awful as the whole thing was, there were some redeeming parts to that whole experience–which I’d love to share later. I’ve come to the conclusions that there is something that draws me to situations where I am sure to be a fish out of water.

I don’t know why that is, but it’s clearly a pattern in my life–even though I could sign their basic creedal statement at that time, I never did fit in. I was targeted halfway through my first year teaching their for teaching "salacious" novels. (The Great Gatsby–the pastor of the sponsoring church had never read it, but he had HEARD that Robert Redford and Mia Farrow did the nasty in the movie version. I asked how that was so very different from what Hester Prynne and Arthur Dimmesdale did, but I never did get a response to that question.)

My lit textbooks came from Bob Jones University. As I recall, all references to Lady Macbeth’s breasts  or sexuality were omitted. Just lifted right out of the text without so much as a notation.

Your son is thinking well beyond his 7 years if he would make a connection like that. You should be proud. He is drawing upon his reason and his understanding of history and logic to try to integrate what he knows of the world around him with what he is learning about God. How exceptional. When I read that, I got a little teary-eyed–questions like that are so right and so real.

One thing I will tell you about my decade-long evangelical immersion experience is that there are some very kind and good-hearted people in the midst of all that. People who are not agitating and calling down hellfire on others–just people who have been taught that this is the right path and that it’s a way to make sense of a confusing world. And there does come a point when you’ve invested so much (and maybe your employment is all tied up in it too) that it feels better not to raise too many questions or dissenting opinions. Especially if you’re female. (Once again, there’s more I want to write!)

What has your own personal experience been with those Christians who might call themselves evangelicals or fundamentalists? Have you known any personally? (I just read over that and realize that might not read the way I intended. No "tone" there–I truly am curious.)

-Lizzie

Lizzie     October 22 at 2:57pm

oh yes, and I did battle with the headmaster of the school where I worked not just because I like alcohol, movies, and dancing (which I do). But because of theological reasons. I would have agreed to give up those things if I’d thought there was some important reason to do so (e.g., if I was in a part of the world where doing those things would be distracting and cause me to be less effective in serving.)

I have a love/hate thing going with the Apostle Paul, but I love his letter to the Galatians. All about the special kind of freedom Jesus Christ came to offer. That we do not need to subject ourselves to anyone else’s "law of salvation." Or laws FOR salvation. Salvation and "calling" in this world are gifts given freely and never meant to enslave Jesus’s followers or anyone else for that matter. I knew that I never bought into this whole thing so that I could live a grim and joyless life according to someone else’s arbitrary rules of "holiness"!

When I asked what the headmaster made of Jesus’s changing the water into wine at Cana, I was told flatly that is was grape juice. No if’s, and’s, or but’s. Oh, is there a difference in the quality of different grape juices, I asked (just to be snarky) Why did the steward remark that the bride and bridegroom had saved the best wine for last?  

The answer to that was that I am an aggressive, unfeminine woman. And there you have it.

Jane     October 22 at 3:25pm

These things you tell me are so foreign and not of my experience. It’s like, I know these people and places exist, but it just isn’t part of my life. And for someone who makes it a point to not be judgemental, this is where I fail miserably. (deep sigh)

So I do what comes naturally, I turn to the snarky, superior quip. Which I realize is very smug and sarcastic.

Not drinking, dancing or seeing movies? Those are integral and onsite activities at my synagogue. (well I’m pushing it with the drinking, but only a bit…)

I have no doubt there are good and kind people you met there. My gut reaction is to wonder if they’d be so good and kind to me (while looking for the horns on my head) as they were to you. That’s a knee-jerk thing, one that I’m not sure if it’s instinctual or learned but it’s certainly cultural and perhaps historically ingrained.

Several years ago, I had an online friendship with someone I’d "met" on a discussion board on a slightly crunchy, attachment parenting web site (they sold maternity, and nursing clothes that were very cool…)

I made several friends there, actually. One particular woman, (let’s call her Miranda)  and I began to speak on the phone quite regularly. She was Catholic, but to me, her Catholicism seemed very "fundie". Her kids didn’t dress up for Halloween or go trick or treating (Halloween was from the Devil). She had (when we first became friends) 5 kids. Didn’t believe in birth control, because it was up to God how many kids she and her husband had. My internal response to that was, "Um,yeah. Because God has NOTHING BETTER to do than keep track of your husband’s sperm and at exactly the right moment, be all ‘go #19435936, you’re up! There’s your egg!’ "

She and I tried to explain our religions to one another. I think she felt she was being very open minded, having a northern Jewish friend. Once called me from a prayer group meeting, put me on speaker and asked me a "Jewish" question.  

It wasn’t all awful, she was funny, and a very good home maker, which was something I think I was aspiring to be at the time. (never quite made it, sigh)

One Thanksgiving she and her family were in Long Island, and we set up a day in NYC over that weekend to sight see. Did Rockefeller Center and the Tree, St. Patricks, FAO Shwarz, and had a meal/dessert at Serendipity. Where her dairy allergic kid couldn’t have ice cream or any dessert on the menu. The waiter kindly found a dark chocolate dairy free chocolate lollipop in the gift area, but the poor kid (who was watching the rest of us devour treats) wasn’t allowed to have that either. Why? Because it was a Harry Potter chocolate pop, and so it was about witchcraft and therefore, verboten. As if the kid would absorb witchcraft and devil knowledge from a freakin’ chocolate pop… Poor kid had to watch us all eating ice cream. I think on some wierd level Miranda was  enjoying torturing the poor kid this way.

She also told me about how once before she and her husband had been to St. Patricks and parked a rental, convertible outside the church, with the top down.  In New York City.  I asked if she wasn’t worried it would be broken into or stolen and she told me "God watched over the car" and she didn’t even get a ticket. (this is not unlike the sperm thing, and made me laugh and scream at the same time..)

Anyway, after a few months of very regular phone conversations, during which baby #6 had been born, Miranda decided that for her birthday her husband would buy her a plane ticket to NJ and that she’d stay at my house for the weekend. Seriously. She just dropped that on me. So I’m all “sure, that’ll be fun”. She came, with the baby, and had a ball just being mommy to a baby and not the rest of her crew. We had a decent time. Baked together <smirk> and cooked and shopped. Talked a lot. But it was very odd.

Cut to a few months later. Still talking regularly. She was at this point totally overwhelmed with 6 kids, one of whom had serious food allergies and the baby was beginning to show signs of developmental delay. She was on Zoloft, and during our conversations she was sounding very desperate, and yelling at the kids a lot. (I was still the sane calm mommy of one beautiful and chill toddler, ha ha.  Not.)

One day, Miranda asked me what I thought of her and her husband having another baby. (number 7!!!)  So I stupidly, not seeing the set up, told her I’d be worried since she seemed so overwhelmed already and maybe she should wait a while…

Well of course she was already pregant, and never spoke to me again, never explained why she stopped talking to me. After several emails, she let me know the reason, and said she couldn’t be friends with someone "who didn’t support her"…

Somehow I think you will have appreciation for this story. But I refuse to be wary of friendships or not let people into my life because of that woman. I might be more careful about it, but as you have seen, she hasn’t stopped me.

And she didn’t go to church the whole weekend… <evil grin>

Jane     October 22 at 5:52pm

About the response you got for daring to ask a (albeit snarky) question about Cana: when Landeaux and I got married, we had my rabbi from Hoboken and (much to my dismay, at the insistence of his parents) his childhood rabbi perform our ceremony. We were meeting with Mr. Powerful and Obnoxious Reform Rabbi before hand, so he could get a sense of us, to sound like he knew us when he spoke at the ceremony. I had a list of fairly traditional rituals I wanted to include during the ceremony. (Landeau was playing along because it was easier than to not) So as I’m discussing these rituals, and Landeau’s sort of okaying or rejecting stuff on my list, I named a specific ritual that is very old fashioned and isn’t done too much in Conservative weddings, even less at Reform. I’d of course found a feminist twist to it. And his rabbi says to me, "What are you, a Rabbi?"

And I answered, "No, I’m a Jew"…

Needless to say, that did not ingratiate me to the man. He later ruined my wedding photos by wearing a teal blue kippah (yarmulke) at the wedding.

So let’s talk grim and joyless. I think it exists in all religions. I also think it’s the easy way out. Don’t question, don’t think, just grimly go about the dreary business of performing whatever tasks, blindly follow whatever rules, some clergy decided would bring us all closer to holiness. Easier to rein in the masses, don’t let them think for themselves.

In Judaism, one way that manifests is the guilt trip that we must be Jewish and marry Jewish and practice Judaism and raise lots of little Jews, because of the 6 million Jews who perished in the Holocaust. Not, hey look at this beautiful and wonderful ritual! Hey, what about this amazing and poetic prayer, or psalm.  

I don’t know enough about Paul to comment. I think his name had previously been Saul?  That’s about it. I am woefully uneducated about the Apostles. Jewish parents really keep their kids fairly well guarded from Christianity, lest they become absorbed too far into the majority culture (that they are so busy trying to become successful in)… So any learning about Christianity would have come later. And I was too busy catching up on the Judaism I’d somehow missed.

Aggressive, unfeminine woman. HereticChick.

Lizzie     October 22 at 6:51pm

Before I forget, I want to address your question about whether those same people would have been kind to you. The answer to that is a little complicated. They would have bent over backwards to make you feel welcome in their midst, no doubt about that. And they certainly would have asked with genuine curiosity about your beliefs. On the other hand, they would have treated you as a project. An evangelism project–and a very special one at that because of your being one of Yahweh’s original Chosen People. They probably would have made some downright embarrassing remarks about a bit of our Savior’s blood running in your veins and the wonder of the Holy Land. They might have felt a little sorry for you for still waiting for your promised Messiah and all. They might well have tried to open up conversation about Isaiah’s suffering servant prophecies having been fulfilled in birth, life, and death of Yeshua.

Funny thing about the "project" approach to other human beings. Even at my most dedicated evangelical best, I was terrible at evangelism. At least, in the terms in which it was presented to me as necessary Christian obedience–a sign of really relying on the Holy Spirit. Back to the "antennae" thing–I have super- sensitive antennae for when someone is being condescending and treating me as their special project. It makes me angry, especially when I’d originally thought the jerk just wanted to be my friend. I could just never bring myself to make a friend with the ulterior motive of "leading them to Christ."

As for your Catholic friend Miranda, I have no idea what her thinking was in forming a close friendship with you. She certainly does sound like one of the members of our local Bible church, and everything you described is quite familiar to me. Boycotting Halloween (honestly, I’m still a little squeamish about "celebrating" Halloween.), not allowing kids to have anything to do with Harry Potter (oh that poor child!!!), not practicing any form of birth control.

Oh Jane, the women I saw when I was homeschooling! Some of them so, so bright–but just buried in ceaseless domestic work. In over their heads and popping out baby after baby, while their husbands did this "priest of the home" routine and didn’t lend a hand or change a diaper. Your friend was probably desperate but clinging to a hope that if she was just obedient and selfless, she would be able to "do all things through Christ who strengthens me." (Phillipians 4:13, a very common motivational text read to tired mothers in evangelical churches)

In her desperation (and, perhaps, shame or ambivalence?) she treated you shabbily. It was probably easier to point to you as an unsupportive friend than to ask herself why she was having another baby when she was already so overwhelmed with the children she had. I feel sorry for her-but that’s really no excuse for her treatment of you.

And just announcing a visit to your home as a foregone conclusion? Who does that?! And the chirpy certainty that the Lord would make sure she didn’t get ticketed or booted for parking illegally. When you were describing Miranda to me, I suddenly thought of a woman I knew who, when I had dinner with her in a TGI Friday’s one time, left a gospel tract instead of a tip for her share of the tab (before leaving to get back in her illegally parked car that God had kept under an invisibility cloak from the police). All cheerful and chirpy and the Lord’s provision. Not thinking for a moment that that was inconsiderate and inappropriate to stiff the waitress and break the parking laws. Just wrapped up in her own solipsistic faith world, where God would make sure the car didn’t get a ticket and the waitress would be delighted to have spiritual riches left on her table rather than a $5 bill.

I think my siblings were part of the reason that I never bought in to that extent. They were always a great reality check–and a reminder of how some of the things that might sound nice in church would actually come across to people who would be very honest with you at all times!

Wow–what a lot of writing we’ve done today. George just pulled in and I’ve got ham and macaroni to take out of the oven. (None of it prepared by me personally, by the way).

Jane     October 22 at 8:39pm

We HAVE written a lot today. (the excitement of our earlier idea to start a blog, perhaps?)

The subordination of women in Judaism and Christianity (hell, in most religions) is something I think could be visited and revisited many times. I think if I were in that bone tired brain fried too exhausted to be crazed place, and some yutz quoted fucking scripture at me in order to keep me doing all the drudgery work, I’d lose it.

And the whole evangelism thing, well I want to write about it but have to figure out how to do it without letting my biases get in the way. Because I am so shaped by a distaste, and an ingrained disdain that I don’t want to misstep with you. Please try to understand that it is just so foreign to me, and I really love hearing about your journey into that world – I don’t think less of you or anyone who goes there. I want to understand. I just can’t deal with those who stay there, and are in so deep that the rest of the world closes off because it is evil, and a dairy-allergic kid has to watch me eating a sundae, and can’t have a flipping chocolate pop because the molded shape might bring witchcraft and the Devil into their lives. Absolute right versus wrong. I can’t buy into that. Let alone become someone’s "project". This Jewish girl, with no Christian education, does not think that’s what Jesus intended.

Somewhere above we spoke about Myth. Oh right, about me teaching Bereshit and creation and how much the Torah is the actual word of God.

I can’t imagine the world without myth. I really do believe in that Jungian idea of many cultures sharing the same basic, universal stories. creation. flood. good and evil. People need to create myth. It’s magic and wonder and all the things we can’t explain. It’s stories told and told and re-told, generation to generation. Magic is a powerful thing.

We still create myth. Star Wars, Harry Potter, Star Trek, (even my son’s beloved Power Rangers comes with such an ongoing back story that it could fit under the myth umbrella). Vampires. Ghosts. Various other creatures and stories. Some more literary and intelligent than others, ha ha.

Talking about myth is of course a direct route to talking about belief, or faith, or whatever you want to call it.

Don’t tell anyone but I think the Torah is myth too. I can’t (won’t) tell my first grade students that, I may never tell the Hebrew School director or even the rabbi that. (whoops, just did, ha ha)

But to me, it’s all a bunch of stories people created to make themselves feel safe, secure and knowledgeable. It’s probable that some people created the stories in order to maintain power over other people.  That doesn’t mean I don’t believe in the power of the Torah to teach, as well as to define the Jewish People, but that is a whole other post altogether…

(You know this means that of course I think the story of Jesus the son of God, and the Testament that followed was myth as well. I do believe Jesus was a real person, as were His Disciples. But the stories around all of it – were stories. I’m cringing as I write, hoping you are okay with me writing this)

Here’s one reason why: why would God be available to talk directly only to Noah, Abraham, or Moses? Or Jesus or some Apostle or a MAYBE a few medieval saints here and there?

Why not anyone more recent than biblical times? Why not more people?  God or something that is everywhere… exists.  Let’s just say there is a God or something bigger than all of us that is everywhere. It’s the old, KNOW THAT I AM. Maybe. For me, the jury’s still out… (and Higher Power is just so AA and bumper sticker-ish)

So why then do I feel so strongly about my Judaism? It’s cultural, historical, and comforting. I am drawn to ritual. I think it helps attain spirituality. (Here is where Landeaux would inject that you don’t need organized religion to be spiritual, in fact he might even think that it squashes spirituality)

Judaism is in my blood. And it is community and family and social. (I tend to create family around me wherever I am.  Big surprise, ha ha)

What I do believe in, is something Jews call the yiddishe nechama, or jewish soul. Which takes us back, in a rather tidy circular fashion, to our conversation about resurrection, other lives, heaven and hell, what happens when we die…

Myth is universal. We all love a good story.

Wow, that wasn’t what I originally set out to write. And in order to keep writing I am letting my kids watch way too much Sponge Bob…

Lizzie     October 22 at 9:50pm

Deep, deep sigh. I figured the evangelism stuff would be a little hard for you to hear/process–I’m sorry. I thought about glossing over it, but when you asked how you would have been treated, that was really the kernel of the answer. I don’t blame you for feeling outrage/disgust/disdain, Jane. It was part of the world I was in–and not a contrived little add-on. All part and parcel of John’s gospel "I am the way the truth and the life; no one comes to the Father but by me." and the Great Commission ("Go out into all the world and make disciples…")

Thanks for explaining what you believe about the Scriptures and about Myth. I’m tired right now, and my head is kind of reeling. Even if I were fresh and rested, though, I don’t think I could give a coherent explanation right now of what I actually believe about the Bible (especially the N.T.). What’s literal, what’s not; what’s myth, what’s history. I am really struggling and full of doubt about the whole deal. I’m only confused and aware of how much I don’t know. I could spout a bunch of stuff at you about all the reasons to believe that the gospels offer eyewitness accounts of a Resurrected Christ, but I really don’t feel like going there.

I am angry at patriarchal men (including a lot of the patriarchs in the bible accounts!), I am angry at myself for years that I spent locked in a worldview that cheated me out of a lot of the good things that life has to offer. I am angry at the women who offered me platitudes along the way when I was depressed and couldn’t figure out a reason to get up in the mornings.

So I’m having trouble sorting out my own anger and feelings of betrayal from the "truth claims" questions.

I’m sorry I never got to some of the rest of the stuff. I loved your answer to the power rabbi, by the way. And lots of other gems from this big writing day.

I don’t want the sin of SpongeBob abuse to be on my head. Yegads, I’ve got enough already. Time to get out those preschool craft supplies and leave me to stew in my juices.

Peace,

Lizzie

Jane     October 22 at 10:02pm

Sorry, sorry sorry! It really wasn’t intended to make you feel bad, yet how could it not? Shit.

Well, this is why we are doing this, right? I have enough faith (ha!) in the process we are creating together to sift through it.

And I should not have used the word disdain. Dismay, okay. Anger, maybe even that. Disdain may have been too harsh. (or not?)

But this shows me that you and I shouldn’t leave out the parts that are difficult for the other to process or understand or like. It’s all part of it. This is the stuff of wars and pogroms and genocide, we certainly can’t expect to resolve it with a few pithy (!) emails.

I’m just really relieved you are not voting republican this election.

And the Spongebob abuse is so not on your head. Trust me, around here, Sponge Bob is the least of it.

Big hug.

Lizzie     October 23 at 5:44am

You didn’t make me feel bad–I already felt all those things. I just keep enough distractions going that I don’t normally feel them quite in quite such a growl. "Disdain" is okay, if that’s what you feel. As the counselor reminded me over and over, what you feel is what you feel. It’s not open for judgment, and judgment wouldn’t make it any less your truth. Please be open. I know you’ll be civil and articulate, and I can take a few unintended blows to the gut. (I can honestly say I’ve been through worse!

No, I’m not voting Republican–but George and I will just cancel each other’s votes out. (As we do in so many areas of life  :-S  )

Today I’m doing my teaching/volunteering/soccer-mom thing. Shower, get kids out the door, drive an hour down country roads, explain about punctuation to my writers and inferences to my readers, have office hours, drive to the kids’ school, volunteer in Bart’s classroom, get homework done, drive to soccer practice. See why I like friendiful Wednesdays so much?

Now that I’m rested with some caffeine coursing through my veins, let me ask you: is the cultural connection and the uncodified personal spirituality enough for you? (Once again, I’m trusting you to take the question at face value.)

The thing is, what drove me to be "born again," if that’s even the right term, was my terrible fear of death. When your mother dies at 28, death feels highly possible (even probable) for a young woman. I didn’t just hitch my wagon to that star for a free ride to heaven, but (to be honest) the promise of resurrection/eternal life was a huge one for me. Because of growing up Catholic, I totally "got" my own sinfulness and had no difficulty seeing myself as a sinner who needed forgiveness. I still have no problem with the idea of personal sin and the need for atonement. But I wonder now about the eternal life part if I begin to go down the road of believing that the gospels might just be stories/man made myths and that Jesus may not have been God. You see, the way the fundamentalists paint it, you don’t just pick and choose which parts of the Bible you think are authoritative.

It’s like that game, Ker-plunk, that we used to play as kids. You pull out one too many sticks and all the marbles fall into somebody’s tray. That person loses the game. I’m afraid of pulling out those sticks, being left with no redeeming faith at all, and, well, losing the game.

That may make no sense at all to you, but that’s the heart of my struggle. I look at the people who believed everything lock, stock, and barrel. Are they out making the world a better place? Not most of them. And, so I reason with myself that that must not be the way. If God wanted to institute a special plan for perfect, permanent atonement of sins and salvation, wouldn’t he do it in a way that the people who followed it wouldn’t act like complete boneheads and assholes? (To be fair, I could give you lots of examples of heroic Christian believers–but in my world I’ve seen lots of self-absorbed, self-righteous ones.)

Wouldn’t he do it, I ask myself, in a way that would get people to care MORE about the only reality they know–this world–and not less?

So, then I start traveling down that road of being too smart and savvy to believe the Bible is actual Divine revelation (or that parts of it may be, but no one really knows which parts are the keepers and which are the bs).

And I wonder, is this my own sin of pride? Or vanity? Or just not wanting to believe something that is inconvenient for me to live? Which then leads me to wonder, am I really just still shedding the fundie theology and haven’t yet really gotten my head around who Jesus was and what he wants from someone who claims to follow him?

This is where I begin to go around and around and make myself dizzy.

One book I read which really sort of re-set my intellectual understanding of American-style Christianity was Harold Bloom’s The American Religion. (Also Karen Armstrong’s book about worldwide fundamentalism–can’t recall the title right now) Bloom is a non-observant Jew–he’s the famous literary critic/professor from Yale, who I’m sure you’ve heard of. He tackled the whole religion question because it was gnawing at him so much. And he concluded that American-style religion, whether Christian or Mormon, was at its very heart, GNOSTIC. That word may not be anything more than an interesting style of spirituality to you. If you’re an evangelical, though, you think you’re the farthest thing from that heretical, esoteric offshoot. But you know what? He was right! And he made an excellent case for the dualist approach of the American religious culture. Flesh and temporal reality is bad, spirit is good.

If you’ve ever heard of the Left Behind series, that’s exactly the kind of view they endorse as "real Bible-believing Christianity." This world is going to hell in a handbasket, so just believe in Jesus, be saved, and be damn glad that he’s going to yank you up into the air just in time to get out of the way of Antichrist and all his abominations. Too bad the Jews didn’t believe–no they’re going to have to go head to head with the guy who will desecrate the rebuilt temple and start killing them all off. Aaaaaaaarrrrrrggggggggghhhhhhhh.

You start going down that road, and it really makes no difference whether you care for the environment, try to prevent global warming, take special care with WMD, or act as a force for bulding up your community. It’s the church huddling together actling like a bunch of hunkered-down survivalists. It’s a diseased way of thinking/believing.

I’ve got to get my marathon day moving. I’m not even reading back over what I just wrote, so I’m hoping I didn’t get too way-out-there. That is, however, why I really want to know whether what you get from your Judaism and personal spirituality is enough for you.

Hugs to you too,

Lizzie

 

Jane     October 23 at 7:06am

 First of all,I’m glad you are okay, I would have hated to cut this off at the knees, so to speak. You bring up many things I want to answer. So I’m taking my lap top on the road today. Answer while Lulu has swim lesson and gymnastics. Answer a little more at home. But answer I shall. Perhaps one thing at a time (or Bird by Bird?)

Please see the next post called So You Got Religion…

(warning: it’s not going to be a quick answer. And knowing me, it will be convoluted with side-stories…)