Naomi Wolf has found Jesus. This should be entertaining. Its one of those events where everyone rolls their eyes - blue state and red state alike.
I found Jesus a number of years ago. Anyone who knows me knows that. Anyone who knows me also knows that I am pretty divided about that.
This is one of these coming-of-age things that seem personally profound...but also limited to a particular moment in history and in a particular culture. In the past people did not so much "find Jesus", as get found. In the past, announcing that you had "found Jesus" would have made as much sense as discovering that you had a name.
Nonetheless this is one of those odd events that seems to be occurring with increasing frequency. Last year... or was it the year before?... Jane Fonda found Jesus. Then it was Anne Rice... now Naomi Wolf. I have an issue with public conversions, but its my issue, not theirs. At this point I wish them well, and now this polemic turns a corner.
It is damned easy to become a born-again Christian in the United States as of 28-Jan-2006.
And that term: "Born Again"... Throughout the history of Christianity, in all of its glories and horrors for over 2,000 years, this type has been the leading market-brand for only about 75. It speaks to a particular type of construct which exists primarily because of a reactionary movement in the early 1900's: Christian Fundamentalism.
Give them their due. They were the hard-core who would not give an inch on Bible Inerrancy, evolution, or traditional ethics. As such, they maintained a strident and insistant stance that harkened to Luther and Calvin. Like the Reformers, they were utterly without hesitation to set themselves apart...and became largely a fringe movement in the Protestant agricultural/ industrial working class. Albeit conservative, Fundamentalism informed a cohesive community that was socially disenfranchised. These were the Babbits and Elmer Gantrys of yore: American kulaks, peasants, and small-town businessmen. They were hypocrites. But hypocrisy is a back-handed testament to the practice at which the practitioner fails.
This movement has subsequently devolved into the insipid evangelicals that we are blessed with today. (Should anyone not understand the difference, spend some time with the old-school fundie
Gary North).
I wish all people would find Jesus. But I also have a problem with the current cultural paradigm of conversion. Per one reviewer's filter:
"Given our history, perhaps it's inevitable that many a modern midlife crisis will culminate in a spiritual awakening. But in our religion-saturated culture, I worry that we're losing touch with another great American tradition: the tradition of skepticism, rebellion and good old-fashioned orneriness.
In my own family, that's a tradition we cherish. I grew up hearing about my great-great-grandmother Mamie O'Laughlin. As her father lay dying, Mamie summoned a priest to his bedside. The priest sent back a message demanding $25, far beyond the family's meager means, and her father died without the sacrament. Later, when Mamie herself lay dying, a priest came — this time unbidden. He offered Mamie the crucifix. Summoning up the last of her strength, she furiously flung it across the room." (
Naomi Wolf Gets Religion)
I suspect that this kind of rage would not go down well with the current crop of the Godly. However the Jesus who flung out the money changers, charged Pharisees with hypocrisy, and social elites with criminality, would understand. And there it is: the tension between the frustration of belief, and a fatalistic acquiescence to an inert, oppressive status-quo.
Whatever the merits of Fundamentalist Protestantism were, (and I grant intellectual integrity and deep-seated faith), the weak tea of Evangelical Religion has become the douche of choice of the American bourgeoisie: an attempt to cleanse their filth by dropping Jesus' Name: Religion as avoidance.
I hope that my new-found sisters, Jane Fonda, Anne Rice, and Naomi Wolf, extend their radicalism, and their Feminism, as a result of encountering Christ. Hell. I hope I do too. Its getting hard though... its getting very hard.
