My Jesus Year

One of these days I'm going to think of a good topic for a year memoir--you know, that subgenre that seems so popular of late where the writer makes some lifestyle change or other for a year and writes about it with some blend of comedy and insight. So far my muse hasn't complied, though.

I can't stop reading the things, though, and I enjoyed My Jesus Year (Benyamin Cohen, 2008). Cohen, an Orthodox rabbi's son, had been going through the motions of his own faith, so he wondered if satisfying his lifelong curiosity about Christianity will give him new insight into his own beliefs. And since he live in Atlanta, he's well-placed for such a project. He spends a year visiting assorted churches and Christian events (all while maintaining faithful Jewish observance) and comes out feeling reinvigorated by the variety of faith he sees.

Cohen's outsider view doesn't always mesh with my insider perspective. He's a lot more tolerant of megachurches and stadium worship than I tend to be, and he's harsh on a church that sounds exactly like a larger version of my mom's church in Alabama--very informal, with no trappings of tradition or liturgy, and maybe not the most theologically sophisticated in the world--because he's put off by the youth of the prayer leader and the pastor's interpretation of Moses and the burning bush. Still, it's funny and engaging, and I'm feeling inspired to open my eyes a little more to the possibility of God's presence, both in the places I expect it and where I don't.

Allies for Armageddon (Book #11)

Allies for Armageddon: The Rise of Christian Zionism (Victoria Clark, 2007) explores the Religious Right's role in Middle Eastern politics. Half of the book studies the history of the movement from roughly 1600 to 1948, while the other half, IMHO the more interesting one, focuses on the belief common in conservative Christian circles that Israel has absolute, divinely ordained title to a big swath of the Middle East, including Israel, the Occupied Territories, and then some. You'll occasionally see bumper stickers in the Bible Belt that say "My country--right or wrong." You don't see "Israel--God's country, right or wrong," but that belief goes even deeper. Basically, the Palestinians don't matter, and conflict in the Middle East is a good thing, because it brings the apocalypse and Jesus' return that much closer.

It's crazy. And I used to believe it myself, 15 years or so ago. It appealed to me then because, if you accept the worldview behind it, it has a certain internal logic. Also, at that age, I loved the idea that I might be living at the CLIMAX OF HISTORY! Now? I've had enough interesting times. I'd like a few boring, uneventful decades to live my life and raise my kid and write some books. Anyway, Clark's book is a decent summary of the movement, which she seems to understand better than most outsiders.

(For the record, I'm still a Zionist in the sense that I support Israel's right to exist within safe and secure borders and to defend itself on the same terms that any other nation might. It's just that I now believe there should be a Palestinian state as well, that if something is wrong for America, the UK, Japan, etc. to do it's also wrong for Israel, and I no longer believe that 1948 triggered some kind of prophetic countdown to the Second Coming.)