Relligion and Me

(Courtesy of Creative Instigation)











My friend Jan Sokoloff Harness asked me "out of all the issues and all the controversies in all the worlds, why is it that religion (specifically, Christianity and esp. Southern denominations) is such a touchstone for you?"

Here's my response:

1) From my perspective, if you look at my fiction, there is a recurring theme: I'm interested in the process of moral decisions. How they happen. What sort of circumstances surround them. When do they occur. How are they made. I write about this all the time. Clearly, the process of moral thought and decision is important to me. So I'm already starting on the same playing field.

2) Another recurring theme to me is freedom of thought. This puts me square in opposition to a lot of the religious fundamentalists I don't like.

3) My personal moral decisions are decidedly liberal and in strong opposition to the political and moral issues of many of the same fundamentalist groups above.

4) They are politically very powerful. Powerful enough to (IMHO) endanger my freedom of thought and freedom of action. They've been doing so for the last twenty or so years.

5) To my point of view they are unscrupulous for what they think are the very best of reasons. When you are Serving a Higher Power, lower moral decisions are meaningless.

6) My feeling is the problems I have with them are written into the DNA of (at least) their interpretation of Christianity. The triumph of symbol over substance, the preternatural and canonized afterlife, the apocalyptic vision, the evangelistic imperative. This is the source of the issue.

So: is it any surprise I'd talk about it?

But hey! I talk about politics, too!
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