A Christian Liberal is NOT an oxymoron.

Posted by XT on February 27th, 2008 in Progressive Faith

Jews of First has a post up about Indian River, Delaware, and it’s a sad story of how a community targeted religious minorities for denigration. I have to say, some of the activities that were offered didn’t strike me as being aimed at doing that, but they surely had that effect. It is horrific that, in today’s United States, Jewish families were singled out by community and political leaders because they wouldn’t simply hide their faith and play nice-nice.

For example, the school offered a non-mandatory Bible study for students. I don’t think that hurts anyone. But then kids were given special treatment for attending - like receiving donuts and head-of-the-line privilege in the cafeteria. When the parents pointed out that this specifically crossed the line of separation between a voluntary program and official school functioning, they were simply told that their child should - should - attend Bible study and make the problem go away.

Read the whole post. It’s pretty sad. The behavior of elected school officials is abismal. Especially considering the problem that it shows that they simply didn’t care if they were putting undue pressure on people to convert. In fact, as is all too common in today’s world, they took the fact that the Jewish family stood up for the rights of their child as evidence that they, the Evangelicals pushing their faith onto the school district, were being persecuted.

I’m at a loss for what to say on such matters. Partly, I guess, it comes from having lived my entire life as a member of the dominant religion in this country. Whenever someone in public has said, “Let us pray,” there has never been any question in my mind that the God to which they were praying was my own. There might be some differences over how we understood that God might behave or expect us to behave, but it was the same God.

Another part is that I grew up in an area that just has pretty much zero diversity (or did when I was growing up) in terms of religion. There was 31 flavors of Christian, but no Jewish or Muslim or Hindu houses of worship. But, as I recall, there were members of those religion who lived in the area. Perhaps their worship was simply out-of-sight, out-of-mind. I don’t know.

The biggest part is that I simply cannot wrap my head around trying to force someone to pray to a God they do not recognize. If a person is Jewish, forcing them to go through the motions of praying to Jesus is just stupid. It isn’t the motions that matter, it’s the meaning found within them through personal belief. Even a Christian who just goes through the motions isn’t going to get anything out of being forced to go through the motions. Well, they might learn to hate their religion and/or life, but I hardly think that is the goal, is it?

The part that really irks me is that part where this Evangelical group tries to pervert the public schools into a proselytizing tool and then reacts as if they have been harmed when they are exposed and told they must abide by the exact same rules as all other religious groups. There is no more protected group in this country than Christians. But, more than that, it is the automatic retreat to the ideology of victimhood. God, I hate that. Almost to the point where I simply tune out and assume that everything else coming out of their mouths will be as stupid and false as what they start with.

Where it comes from, I believe, is a communal sense of entitlement (also a theology based on paranoia). Every group needs its standards and norms, but there is a fine line where enforcement of norms becomes excessive and then moves on to simply striking down any and all things that seem out of place or odd. The sense of belonging becomes antipathetic and, because the closed social group believes they are entitled to be protected from dissent, anything out-of-the-ordinary becomes a threat to their existence.

Nothing good can come of such things.