"I didn’t think much about politics or social issues in my20s and the first half of my 30s because my racial and socioeconomic privilegeafforded me the luxury of not paying attention. The extent of my politicalideology was that the Republican Party was the party of God and identifying asa Democrat was incompatible with calling oneself a Christian. So I votedRepublican."
The Op/Ed is a wonderful look into the mind of a person previously brainwashed who is now realizing just how damaging her previous lifestyle was to her own well being. Her conversion to a saner and more healthy relationship with her religion did not happen over night. It came in stages with Evangelical support of Trump being her last straw. Now as she says, she has been gas lighted, ostracized, and looked down upon by those Good Christians she grew up with and lived with inside their protected culture somewhere out there in Bible Thumping Land.
I have been clear as to my feelings about organized religion. It is not for me. "Not for me" being the key words. However, after reading Elizabeth's piece regarding her life changing experience, I find some reassurance that some of the folks who never questioned their clerics, their dogma, do sometimes see the light that comes from their heaven and not from their pastor's image of that heaven.
I wish her luck.
5 comments:
good to know she's shaking off the shackles..
I like knowing that people wake up even after years of being completely committed to organized religion. It's a small glimmer of hope.
Suffocating religious zeal is what made my wife and I leave Kentucky.
People would actually call my wife and want to pray with her on the telephone. Religion permeated everything including the schools.
the Ol'Buzzard
JACKISUE - Yes, it is indeed a sign that ingrained ideas can be adjusted over time.
robin andrea - That she even took the time to share her experience is what really impressed me.
Ol'Buzzard - People up here in heathen land just do not how much religion runs things in other parts of the country.
Mike: I must have missed this initially. It is very good and I appreciate her ability to see through the foolishness she had been under the spell for for so long. While I am a left leaning Democrat, and am fully in favor of things associated with social justice, economic justice, racial and ethnic justice, etc. I also happen to ascribe to a faith (RCC). It is comparable for me because I feel how it all overlaps into a sense of family, community spirit and a desire to try to do good in the world. By no means is it necessary for a person to ascribe to any faith. Most of my friends and associates are not associated with a faith. But, the ideas of both can be compatable. It is just very sad that too often faith is used to denegrate others or to instill a sense of superiority in some folks. That is wrong and horrific.
PipeTobacco
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