Subjects to consider
I've been asked by a reader to expand on previous posts about Messianic Jews. I promise to do that, I even have a draft essay, but I also feel the need to talk to my friends who are members of a Messianic synagogue in Philadelphia. I'd like to convey their words rather than my own in order to report on it more accurately. For the moment, let it be known that there are people out there, many of them in fact, who, just like Peter, can say to Jesus "We have come to believe and know that You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God." (John 6:69), and who have not renounced their Jewish roots.
Much of the time, I will be posting on the "Religious Left", since it is the name of this blog, and what I originally wanted to address. I see two aspects to the Religious Left, those who intertwine liberal politics with religious belief, and those who corrupt orthodox doctrine. I will talk about the former much more often than the latter, however, my observation is that (seen from the eyes of an erstwhile Unitarian Universalist) the two groups have a very large overlap. This isn't absolutely true - there is a movement within evangelical Christianity to address environmental concerns, for instance. I'll be careful to distinguish them when the need arises.
It bears repeating that the reason I feel the need to confront the "Religious Left" is that no one in the media, or in the leftist zeitgeist, seems to recognize it. There is an old joke, popular among Unitarians, "the religious right is neither". I asked one of them what he thought of the "religious left". He couldn't answer the question. He couldn't even recognize that there could be such a thing. Isn't it obvious that religious fundamentalists are using religion to destroy American ideals of "separation of church and state"? Well, the truth is that the First Amendment of the Constitution uses different words to describe what is more accurately called "freedom of religion", and that nowhere does it say that people are entitled to a right of "freedom from religion", by which I mean that there is no recognized right to protect people from being exposed to religion (everyone is free, of course, to say "no" to religious belief). I have a right, freedom of speech, to talk about my religion in public life. I have a right, as a Christian (as do others of other faiths), to hold political office. Those who say that Christians are not qualified to hold public office (as was said about President Bush's recent appointments to the FDA, and about Attorney General John Ashcroft) are not telling the truth; the Constitution explicitly forbids such a religious test.