Brain Fertilizer

A slightly tangential reaction to these two posts:

To understand why the "religious right" isn't homogeneous or monolithic, you have to understand religion in America in the first place. Go figure.

Consider that Catholics are religious, and yet usually don't get included. Consider that Protestants run the gamut from snake-handlers, to Assembly of God (if people aren't crying when they pray, Jesus isn't there), to Pentacostals (women can't cut hair or wear pants, TV not allowed), to semi-heretical, semi-cultish Christian sects, to Southern Baptists, to Mormons, to gay-bishop-ordaining Episcopalian, to Lutherans (which range from extreme conservative to extreme liberal). Try to find agreement among those different denominations on alcohol, or dancing, or what communion means...then try to explain how they could all hold the same political view on anything; I'll be rolling on the floor laughing before you are halfway done.

I'm religious. I'm conservative. I make political decisions based on what my faith has told me is true about human nature. I approved of what the Florida legislature and the US Congress did in attempts to try to save Ms. Schiavo's life. Does that make me a member of the Religious Right? Heck, no: I don't like and don't approve of just about everything Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell say, politically.

President Bush identifies himself as a Methodist. Does anyone even know what the Methodist church is like? Sure, there are various branches of Methodists, but the denomination's leadership put out a hymnal in the 90s with all masculine references to God removed. Does that sound fundamentalist?

Sheesh.