I was a newly ordained episcopal minister. I had doubts about my faith and the job I was doing (which seemed mainly to be about reinforcing middle-class morality) and I didn't get on with my (deeply conventional) boss.
And I met a couple of people on a train who were full of the joy of the Spirit and I wanted to have what they had.
It seemed their religion was so much fun. Also they knew for a certainty that what they knew was right.
I drifted away from the movement after a year or two because it was so limiting. And the culture was just as philistine as that of the mainline churches.
The really scary thing is that a bond has now been forged between evangelical religion and far-right politics- to the extent that people within the movement think of it as necessary. Only it isn't. I was reading an article the other day by a Baptist Minister (I forget his name but he was the guy who advised Clinton after the Lewinsky affair) and he was saying, no, I'm a Biblical fundamentalist, but I believe in taxing the rich to help the poor and in the ministry of women (because there's Biblical evidence for it) and I don't see that it's my job to sit in judgement on other peoples' sexual mores.
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Date: 2004-11-16 02:40 pm (UTC)I was a newly ordained episcopal minister. I had doubts about my faith and the job I was doing (which seemed mainly to be about reinforcing middle-class morality) and I didn't get on with my (deeply conventional) boss.
And I met a couple of people on a train who were full of the joy of the Spirit and I wanted to have what they had.
It seemed their religion was so much fun. Also they knew for a certainty that what they knew was right.
I drifted away from the movement after a year or two because it was so limiting. And the culture was just as philistine as that of the mainline churches.
The really scary thing is that a bond has now been forged between evangelical religion and far-right politics- to the extent that people within the movement think of it as necessary. Only it isn't. I was reading an article the other day by a Baptist Minister (I forget his name but he was the guy who advised Clinton after the Lewinsky affair) and he was saying, no, I'm a Biblical fundamentalist, but I believe in taxing the rich to help the poor and in the ministry of women (because there's Biblical evidence for it) and I don't see that it's my job to sit in judgement on other peoples' sexual mores.