Just a couple more thoughts/questions before this thread dies: I am always a bit wary of perspectives of people or groups which are based on what is seen on television. It is obviously a pretty warped and distorted view of reality. As a Christian, I am accountable to a community of faith called the Church. While that has its own set of problems to be sure, it also tends to be a corrective to the tendency to think faith is all about ME. It is counter-cultural in that way - it goes against good old American Individualism. From this perspective it seems that those who say "I'm saved, it's just me & Jesus and the rest of you are going to hell" and those who say "I'm a spiritual person but not religious; I choose my own path" are actually much closer in thought than appears on the surface. The New Testament is alive with the mind-boggling notion that God is seeking us, not the other way around. Whenever I hear explanations of the "development of religion" or "how people form their ideas of God" the question continually nags at me, what if God is more real than we are? What if God is at work despite our disbelief (despite, for that matter, our belief)? What if the Bible, in all its ambiguity and strangeness, is true? Jesus is far more radically liberal and more reactionary conservative than most of us will ever be. His teaching is always challenging for those who try to follow Him - he constantly nudges us out of complacency, be it from the left, right or middle. But the depth and profundity of his stories and life seem to defy simple political classifications. The love He preached is both far simpler and far more complex that we can grasp.

Shalom, Bo