There's an almost imperceptable (for now) change sweeping this country. A change that has its root in many "causes", not least of which is the extreme and caustic nature of the radical religious right that has taken control of not only the executive branch but also the legislative branch at the national level as well as on many state levels. People are starting to ask themselves, "Do I really believe [fill in the blank with any of the hateful messages put out by groups like Focus on the Family, the 700 Club, Westboro Baptist Church, Traditional Values Coalition, American Family Association or any of those other self-described 'Christian' organizations]?" And in the process of asking, people are finally starting to answer the most important question when dealing with faith: why do I believe what I believe.

Before I go any further, please know I'm not knocking Christianity. What I'm talking about is hiding a political agenda behind a mask and calling it Christianity. The Christians that I know are outraged at how the radical religious right has politicized and bastardized their faith-- turning the message of Love taught by Jesus into a message of hate and intolerance preached by man. And it's for this reason that I almost always refer to this emerging political party as the radical religious right and not the radical Christian right. In my humble opinion, these groups are about as Christian as the Ku Klux Klan or Aryan Nation. They can call themselves Christian, but actions speak louder than words and their actions are anything BUT Christian.

What you believe is not really all that important. And before you get up in arms, let me clarify. All any of us can do is follow what is put in our hearts as being right or wrong. No two people have the same faith because no two people have lived the same life. Everything we experience shapes the principles that we call morality. And because no two people have experienced the same thing, no two people will have the same morality. Yet each of us believes that we are doing what is right. And each of us would protest loudly if someone tried to pass a law that forced us to live according to someone else's moral code of conduct. But all too often, because the RRR has some of the best PR people on their payrolls, most people don't even realize when their morality is being hijacked.

Take, for example, school prayer. The RRR complains that the Supreme Court ruling prohibiting public school officials from leading prayers or using public school equipment to broadcast prayers is violating their right to freely practice their faith. However, any student is free at any time to say whatever prayer they like. For the RRR to insist that such prayers be said aloud violates the very teachings of the Bible they claim to follow. Jesus said that those who beat their chests and pray in public already have their reward and that when one prays, one should go into a closet so that the prayer is between the individual and God. Additionally, I ask you to consider what would happen (and indeed, has happened) if a prayer is made to anyone other than their God. A year or so ago, a Muslim cleric led the opening prayer at a session of Congress and a dozen or so members got up and walked out. Yet those same elected representatives have no qualms about having prayers to the God of their choice said in public and expecting respectful attention from everyone. A sort of continuation of this can be seen in the wearing of jewelry by students in schools. The RRR claims that by allowing students to wear pentacles or gay pride jewelry, the schools are promoting a "satanic" or "homosexual" agenda. Yet they scream persecution if a student is told to remove a cross neckalce. They want creationism taught in science class, but only the creationism espoused by their interpretation of the Bible. If a teacher tried to teach the Norse creation story or the Cherokee creation story in science class, they'd be screaming that the public schools were violating their right to raise their child in their faith. These examples are the height of hypocrisy and the Bible is full of examples of Jesus' rejection of hypocrites. Yet the RRR has twisted the issue around and is claiming persecution, when in truth, they are the ones persecuting others.

With the reinstatement of Bush to a second term, the RRR seems to think they have a mandate on deciding what all Americans want. Their attacks have progressively become more viscious, mean-spiritied and outrageous. And while that makes it extremely difficult on the members of society that they are attacking, it is serving what I believe to be a higher purpose. It is making the average individual take a look at what is being proposed in their name as members of the Christian faith. And more and more people are saying, "Wait! That is NOT what I believe because..."

And it is the "because" part that's the most important. Unless you know why you believe what you believe, your beliefs are rather hollow. To simply say, "Because the Bible says it's so!" is just as hollow. Why do you believe the Bible over the other sacred texts that have been written over the millenia? Many of them predate the Bible, so why pick that particular book to be the foundation for your faith?

While the extreme fanaticism of the RRR is waking people up and getting them to look at their beliefs, I also believe that this society is undergoing a natural maturation process. I wrote an article several years ago entitled "Two Truths, One Goal". (Click here to open that article in a new window.) I see the RRR as Kim and society as a child somewhere between Kim and Joe. But the RRR, just like Kim, expects everyone to live by Kim's rules and can't understand how it can be acceptable and even desireable to do otherwise! Can you imaging trying to make Joe live by the same rules as Kim? And yet the more strict rules that Kim has to live by serve their puspose: they keep Kim safe and help her mature. And just like Joe, society is starting to understand why the rules were made the way they were because they're starting to answer the question "Why do I believe what I believe?" rather than just "What do I believe?" What you believe is essentially just a set of rules that you follow, rather like Kim simply following the rules and not understanding why she has to follow them. Knowing why you believe what you believe is to gain an understanding of why those rules are necessary and why it's a good idea to follow them.

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