Over lunch this week I may have confused a younger friend by saying that I am personally supportive of the legalization of gay marriage and all the accompanying rights that go with it, at least until political and religious leaders get their heads together and realise that the government should provide legal civil unions for any two people who so desire and each spiritual community should enact it's own practise for sacred unions.
In the discussion she referred to the idea that she just can't see herself letting go of some of the basic tenets of conviction she has been raised with. I understand that. Still, I hope that she will learn to hold most convictions loosely and only the most crucial of them in closed hands.
Brian McLaren describes what I'm experiencing as "ideological homelessness" in an excellent and very timely article.
Here's a snippet:
What they have in common, I think, is that they are seeking to create a new space that isn't clearly defined as "left" or "right." This is a space of civil disagreement, engaging with the other, crossing boundaries. Just yesterday, I heard somebody define this space as being homeless ... ideologically homeless.
If Rick were the right-wing nut-job that some of his hefty-lefty critics are painting him to be, he wouldn't dare accept an invitation by a Democratic pro-choice pro-gay President. If the President-Elect were the left-wing nut job his tighty-righty critics paint him to be ... he wouldn't invite Prop-8-supporting Rick Warren to give the invocation. If Rick were the compromising apostate his tighty-righty critics claim him to be, he wouldn't outspokenly disagree with the President-Elect on gay marriage and criminalizing abortion. And so on ... you get the point.
Meanwhile, what the critics have in common is that they have a home. They know where they stand - left, far left, right, far right, etc. They know who's in and who's out, who's orthodox and who's not, whom they're cold toward and whom they're hot about.
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