Express empathy for your opposite

[msgadget]

Can we have a respectul thread about diversity and the right of others to have differing perspectives and opinions?

Evangelicals: When my kids were younger I was frequently uncomfortable with much of the fare on TV and radio. I exercised my freedoms, however, and turned off the offending programming but I understand how hard parenting can be when kids are exposed to more violence, language, immorality and sexual situations than we would ever want.

Moderates: I think most voters are moderates since most of us are conservative about some issues and liberal about others.

Angry white men: I think of two white men I know when I read certain posts in the forum. One is the son of an immigrant; the other only remembers Northeastern US roots. Both started with money they saved from working at jobs a lot of young people wouldn’t stoop to perform these days and risked that money on their very small businesses without benefit of the SBA or minority grants. They earn through stint of labor every dollar they spend and laugh at any suggestion their being white made it easier for them. They resent anyone receiving ‘special rights’ and opportunities because of their race, ethnicity, gender or sexuality and don't buy that anyone requires assistance to become equal. They absolutely do not acknowledge the slight advantage they had by virtue of their gender and white skin when, in these difficult times, finding and keeping work is so damned tenuous.

[HamdenRice]

1. My empathy for evangicals

When I grew up in the 1960s, I was deeply moved by the entire ritual and experience of the black church. My father was basically a deist and I don't recall him ever being in church except for weddings and funerals. My older sister intensely disliked church and became an agnostic. So church was an experience my mother and I shared. We went to a big Baptist church in our community, or when she was too tired or busy to go Sunday morning, we would listen together to a gospel hour type church service, broadcast Sunday nights from Harlem.

I went to bible camp in rural Pennsylvania during the summer. The camp was multi-racial at a time when almost everything in life was segregated, and the white people who ran it were militantly well meaning and color blind. This was a time when Christian evangicals were more likely to see their views reflected in the preaching of Martin Luther King than Jerry Falwell or Pat Robertson.

Our female counselors were mostly high minded, upper middle class white girls from the Philadelphia Main Line who seemed to believe that they were in the peace corp coming out to western Pennsylvania to take care of a mix of New York City black kids and suburban New Jersey white kids. They taught us to sit around the camp fire and sing "Kumbaya, My Lord, Kumbaya" or "Michael Rowed the Boat Ashore, Hallelujia" or "If I had a Hammer". It was so stereotypically well meaning 1960s.

Our male counselor, thank goodness, were dissolute western Pennsylvania farm boys -- Pennslyvania Dutch and Amish gone bad at a young age, who taught us how to smoke cigarettes behind the dorm buildings, and how to terrorize each other with bull whips.

At night, we heard stories from missionaries who were bringing the gospel, as well as shoes, toothpaste, and English to South Koreans, Africans and Amazon Indians. We all wanted the adventure and all consuming commitment of the missionary life.

What I took from my immersion in evangical Christianity was that this religion has the power to make people try to be fundamentally decent. Evangicals took the basic message of Jesus very seriously: the purpose of life was to love your neighbor, feed the poor and heal the sick.

I see the evangicals of today embracing war, abandonment of the poor to God-directed fate, meddling in the private sex and reproductive lives of their neighbors and an overall self-righteous disdain for others. On the other hand, from time to time, the old impulses of decency inherent in Christianity surface, even among today's pinched evangicals, as when they pour their efforts into relief in poor countries or highlighting slavery in the Sudan.

[kwassa]

2. I have respect for anyone that walks the walk

There are so few that do that I really don't care where they come from. Even very conservative Christians, if they are sincere in their beliefs and have truly studied Christianity will put compassion first, as the most elemental characteristic of Christ, and doctrine a distant second.

I worked for Catholic Charities at one point in my life, and I am not particularly pro-Catholic, but I came away with a great deal of respect for all the good work they do. The largest charitable organization in the world, I believe.

[msgadget]

3. VERY well said, Hamden

I remember a time when my mom was all for any religious activity I wanted to participate in but I've not allowed my kids to go on any retreats or to any religious themed camps because Evangelicals today are not the Evangelicals I grew up with. Many I've met are so judgemental, paranoid and hard that they actually scare me.