In response to Anne Rice’s decision to “leave Christianity,” Brad Hirschfield writes,
I think it would be more interesting for people to claim their “Christian’ness” or “Jewish’ness” or religiosity as they see fit and let those who oppose them deal with the fact that nobody deserves a monopoly on such big, important words.
Of course there are people who are done with Christ, Torah, etc. and they will have no use for such terms. But for people like Ms. Rice and the millions like her – people for whom much of what they call religion is broken, even though faith, passion, practice and commitment are not, I would encourage them to use the language of their traditions and create new understandings of these ancient systems. At the end of the day, that is precisely how these systems came to be.
Every religious tradition was once a novelty. The history of religion is the story of people living their faith in the present, while drawing on traditions from the past. In fact, that’s how the future is most successfully created. So why stop now? (Religion is broken for many, but not faith)
How do you respond to Hirschfield? What might you do in the coming week to “reclaim the language of [your] tradition and create new understandings of these ancient systems?”
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