A Matter of Interpretation
by Joel Marks December 31, 2015 In the infamous Red State /Blue State divide in the United States, the Red States are stereotyped as the patriotic and Christian types. But I wonder. In this increasingly polarized and surprising Twenty-first Century, I have become more and more profoundly disillusioned, and just plain puzzled, by self-proclaimed Christian Americans. Of course one cannot generalize to all Christian Americans, nor are the ones I have in mind found only in the geographic middle of the country. But those of whom I am speaking tend to hog the airways … much as “Islamic fundamentalists” make for better “news” than the presumably very different Islamic mainstream. And increasingly they are steering the country, as in our dysfunctional Congress and now in the Presidential race (at the moment, the Republican contest for the nomination). So the nonsense matters. 9/11 was the pivotal event that brought all of this muck to the surface. What has disturbed me the m