Tread lightly on the things of earth

I’ve mentioned my fondness for the progressive Christian writings of Rev. Allen Brill at The Right Christians, The Preacher at Real Live Preacher, and Fr. Bojangles at Le Prêtre Noir.

Now a new delight beckons: Melanie is now writing at Daily Kos, starting with today’s Liberalism and Religion (wherein, BTW, she references each of the above writers) —

Secular liberals, you need to get a clue: there are lots of deeply religious people out here who reliably pull the lever in the voting booth for the straight D[emocratic] ticket. We are Christian evangelicals and Main Line Protestants and Catholics like me, from the Dorothy Day-Peter Maurin-Oscar Romero wing of the Church. We are Jews and Muslims and Sikhs and Buddhists and Jains, pagans, Hindus and, yes, by God, there are even Zoroastrian Democrats in this country. When you make light of religion, you wound a part of us which is very important to us. …

Fundamentalism, be it Christian or Islamic, is only one faction of these faiths, which are not monoliths. Every one of the world’s great faith traditions is an umbrella which covers wide and various theologies and practices. … It is too easy to tar all of Christianity with the broad brush of condemnation of the George Bushes, the Pat Robertsons, the William Boykins. Yes, they own one piece of the large tent which is Christianity, they are not one that I can justify in any way.

Like Melanie, I am also a layperson with a master’s degree in Christian theology. And I have in the past dreamed of being “a spiritual director, retreat director and writer.” But I am still too bogged down in disappointment and anger to write well — or at all.

Melanie causes me to remember that what I’m doing is letting the Christian Right’s fundamentalism (and its embrace of a corrupt U.S. administration) cast a shadow of darkness over my whole experience of the faith. Which isn’t even slightly reasonable.

I hope to be better one day. I expect that my renewed attention to reading these folks will hasten that day for me. Check them out. Thanks, Melanie.

(I also recommend Kynn’s Shock & Awe; I often agree and I always appreciate his style. And I can hardly get enough of Jeanne at Body and Soul. My not-quite-up-to-date blogroll contains dozens of others on my Top 5 list. :-) )

2003-12-05 update:
Melanie now has her own blog, Just a Bump in the Beltway.