Last night, I dreamed I was walking home on a Sunday morning, and saw some protesters outside of a mainstream Protestant church--the denomination was not ever identified in my dream, but I can only guess it was a Lutheran, Methodist or Presbyterian church. The building was not big, nor were the people going into the building anything but ordinary. Let's just call it "Everychurch".
The protesters were loud, and were waving signs--I couldn't ever clearly read the signs, but they were all homemade and the words were in black and red. The faces of the protesters were vicious, full of hatred, and frightening.
I walked up to one of the protesters, and asked why they were there. She said, "Because they don't worship God in the right way!!!! They don't honor Jesus properly!! They are evil!!!" I asked, "But aren't you Protestant too?" She replied, "That's beside the point!!!! They aren't being religious enough!!" I watched the people filing into the church. They looked scared, and wouldn't even look at the protesters, let alone engage them in conversation. I couldn't believe how ridiculous this was--both groups of people called themselves Protestant, yet this group outside looked ready to kill those inside. I tried to reason with the protesters, yelling to be heard above their shouts and threats--"This is crazy! Both of your denominations believe in the same basic things; you even say you worship the same God!" But the protesters wouldn't listen to reason; all they could say, over and over again, was that THOSE people didn't worship "right". Finally, exasperated, I asked what "religion" the protesters were. "We're Baptists!" was the reply, as if that explained everything.
I felt really sorry for the denomination under siege, but felt powerless to help them. The next Sunday, when I saw the protesters again, I had an idea...
Question # 2: Did I:
1) Walk away, convinced I was seeing the demise of Christian religion as I knew it,
or
2) Decide to bring back some of my Unitarian Universalist friends, thinking that they could successfully help protect one side against the other, because the UUs could be neutral parties.
I decided to do #2, because I really thought those "Everychurch" people needed protection from the more fundamentalist of their Christian religion. And UUs could be neutral--could judge both sides on the merits (or lack thereof) of their arguments, and find a peaceful solution--after all, UUs have been fighting for social justice for years.
No offense to the Baptists; they may be perfectly nice, but I was not ready for a religious war in my own country, especially over something so petty. I think my dream was an illustration of my deeper fear for this country--that we are becoming so ideologically polarized that we can no longer meet in the middle.
And that is what leads me to question # 3.
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