Thought provoking post by Barbara O'Brien filling in for Glenn Greenwald:
Unclaimed Territory--Westerners often cling to an infantile religion focused on a Big Daddy God and the face of Jesus mysteriously appearing on pancakes and cheese sandwiches. And since that's what much of religion in America looks like, it's easy to assume that's what religion is. That, and the fact that the world seems infested with warring religious whackjobs, makes religion easy to hate. I understand that. But the problem isn't with religion. The problem is that, somehow, we've allowed religion to be defined by the stupid and the warped, resulting in stupid and warped religion at war with all things rational and humane. But religion doesn't have to be that way.
I would add that most of the religious people I know, even those who would eagerly identify themselves as members of the Religious Right, don't seem as fanatical or as political as their leaders. Here in my neck of the woods, the local Hospice is manned almost exclusively by conservative evangelical Christians. They perform some of the most brutal, charitable work I can imagine. They take care of terminally ill people right up until death, emptying bed pans, giving them sponge baths, holding their hand, and allowing them to die with at least some dignity in the presence of people who care. These patients are almost invariably destitute and alone--the rich seldom lack for mourners. The volunteers do it for anyone who needs them, any race, even those we hear about being scapegoated by the religious right, such as gay/AIDS patients. And as I live in Florida, I assume the Hospice volunteers are busy.
After death, these same people then take care of funeral arrangements, leases, and final Medicare/Medicaid and social security paperwork. Sometimes they even donate from their own pocket so that the deceased can have a coffin and a grave marker. One of them owns a local funeral parlor and he and his family routinely provide services for the Hospice indigent on their own dime. They don't ask for any recognition, they don't brag about it, in fact, they're very quiet about this aspect of their faith. You have to almost pry it out of them.
True, it's always a dicey proposition to be peering in from the outside of any movement and making broad generalizations about it based on a tiny sample. I don't know what goes on in their services or extracurricular Bible studies. Maybe their behavior and language is more extreme behind closed doors.
On the other side of the coin, I was in a guy's office a few weeks ago that looked like a fucking shrine to George Bush. He had Dubya pictures on the wall, he had Laura and the twins smiling behind frames on his desk. This fellow is a partner in a tax firm and he's all about the money. He cleared something like 400K last year--so he claims anyway--and tens of thousands of dollars of it was because of changes in the tax code under Georgie-boy. He identifies himself as a Christian, goes to the ritziest church in town, drives a giant luxury SUV decked out with church memorabilia. In his own words he 'hates queers.' He also hosts Bible study in his lavish home every week; to a group of local businessmen carefully chosen for networking reasons.
My understanding is that the Hospice fellow and taxman voted the same way in '04. But I'd trade a hundred guys with Bush shrines and religious networking ambitions, for a single Hospice volunteer, any day.
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