Sometimes in life (well, mine anyway) one comes across a group of words that so succinctly, so accurately captures the zeitgeist of your passion that you can't believe you weren't the one to write it...
My current read (1/3 through it so far) is "Life of Pi", by Yann Martel, about a young Indian boy who becomes, simultaneously, a Christian, Muslim and Hindu, to the ultimate chagrin of his secular parents and religious instructors. One of the passages in the book talks about the boy's frustrations with those who assume the mantle of God's own avenger or celestial bodyguard:
(excerpt below fold)
There are always those who take it upon themselves to defend God, as if Ultimate Reality, as if the sustaining frame of existence, were something weak and helpless. These people walk by a widow deformed by leprosy beggeing for a few paise, walk by children dressed in rags living in the street, and they think, "Business as usual." But if they perceive a slight against [their] God, it is a different story. Their faces go red, their chests heave mightily, they sputter angry words. The degree of their indignation is astonishing. Their resolve is frightening.
These people fail to realize that it is on the inside that God must be defended, not on the outside. They should direct their anger at themselves. For evil in the open is but evil from within that has been let out. The main battlefield for good is not the open ground of the public arena but the small clearing of each heart. Meanwhile, the lot of widows and homeless children is very hard, and it is to their defence, not God's, that the self-righteous should rush.
To me, religion is about our dignity, not our depravity.
Bingo. If I were a christian, a politician and a democrat (well, one out of three ain't bad), then I'd be using this frame to recapture the "faith" or "values" agenda from the GOP:
Why are these folks attempting the arrogant task of defending the most powerful being in the universe? God is not under assault by man, humanity is. God is quite capable of defending himself, the lesser among us are not. My faith and my ideals demand that I help mankind to a better place with charity, good stewardship and equal justice -- it is not the provenance of man to sit in judgement of what God wants other men to do, it is for us individually to PRACTICE those beliefs ourselves, and let our example lead others to his divine grace.
...or something like that.
Perhaps I'll get a bumber sticker that says, "God bless the United States-- NOT the other way around."
