Commentary

After Kanye West’s prejudiced remarks about Jewish people made waves on the internet, anti-semitism has been on the rise, with The Washington Post reporting that a majority of Americans Jews are fearful of violence against them. This is why I believe it was important that our next field trip for the Religion Reporting Project was to the Spokane synagogue called Temple Beth Shalom. 

Whichever party the midterm election ends up putting in charge of the U.S. Senate and House, the failure of a widely predicted red wave to overwhelm Democrats was thanks in no small measure to abortion.

I was recently asked what sparked my deconstructing journey. For many Christians who are happy with the way they believe, the seemingly new trend to deconstruct faith is perturbing. Where does it come from? Why can’t people be content with the way they were raised, or with the messages coming from pulpits across the country week after week? 

I have never seen anything like our current anti-Semitic climate. Jews understand this dynamic in the same way Black Americans understand racism in ways white Americans cannot. We know the dog whistles, the coded language that anti-Semites use to signal their hate.

Besides symbolizing God’s eternal promise, the rainbow’s physical and spiritual beauty can be viewed as a metaphor for how we humans age. As we go through life, we admire rainbows from afar, pure light scattering myriad hues through crystal prisms of raindrops. The naked eye detects only bright colors, distinct yet inseparable.

I have found my step-son’s assumption that folks go to church so that they’ll land in heaven rather than hell quite common among non-church goers. Perhaps this assumption comes from the presence of hell-fire-and-brimstone preachers on street corners or from the seeming monopoly fundamentalists have on popular media. It sure doesn’t come from the actual church-goers I know.