Confessions of a Liberal Puritan

No news yet on whether I'll be one of the 'lucky ones' to get to keep my low-paying job (with health insurance!) -- in case I forgot to mention it earlier, the company has decided to eliminate two out of six positions at my level, and to do it 'fairly' by making all six of us jump through an apparently endless number of hoops, in order to justify our continued underemployment through test-taking, essay-writing, interviews, etc..

I took the online tests in software and analytical reasoning and wrote my essays in response to hypothetical situations last Thursday, and I had my interview on Tuesday afternoon (asking pretty similar questions to the ones already answered in the essay test), which concluded with a 'quiz' on grammar (insultingly easy verb tenses -- like knowing that the past tense of 'lie' is identical to the present tense of 'lay', etc.) and the sorts of words that my university students routinely get wrong (you know, being able to use 'effect' and 'affect' correctly, 'it's' and 'its', 'to' and 'too', 'past' and 'passed', and so on), which took me about 3 minutes to complete, including writing my name, since those things are easy for me. But it turns out they hadn't yet LOOKED at our test scores, so I still have no feedback on how that went (I know I aced the analytical -- since there wasn't one challenging question in the bunch, and I did score 800 on the logic portion of the G.R.E. the first time I took it, and 750 the second time, after all -- but they'll probably never tell me that, since it won't help them justify laying me off). I'm more and more feeling like this whole process is just for show, and nothing we do will affect the job-elimination decisions already made.

So much for my paranoia (justified, or not).

However, I saw a great free preview of a movie this afternoon (thanks to my job -- the invitation was forwarded to my unit, since we work in religious publishing, and I was feeling grumpy enough to RSVP and be willing to work extra hours tomorrow in order to do something different today), the documentary Lord, Save Us From Your Followers: Why is the Gospel of Love dividing America? -- a thought-provoking, CIVIL, and ultimately mutually loving and respectful discussion of faith and values among people who believe in various religions and people who call themselves agnostics or atheists.

To some extent, it's focused mainly on helping Evangelical Christians (the group with which the film's creator and presenter identifies) understand how others may see them (the 'Body of Christ' which has become "Frankenjesus", rampaging around the countryside and stomping on the villagers) and remember that acting like Christ (healing the sick, helping the poor, etc.) and loving people through charitable ACTIONS is far more important than raucous, mean-spirited arguments over 'culture wars' -- a lot of WORDS whose only purpose seems to be to say 'we're right, and you're wrong, so there!'

Any movie made by an intelligent, honest, and very witty Evangelical which lifts up Tony Campolo, Jon Stewart, and Bono as 'prophets' of a more honest and constructive dialogue comes as a delightful and inspiring surprise . . . to me, at least. If you can keep a dry eye -- whatever your beliefs -- while watching the 'confessional' scenes towards the end, then you should probably consult an eye doctor soon, 'cause that can't be healthy.

Pardon my hyperbole, but I left that preview and the discussion with the film-maker afterwards with the feeling that "Lord, Save Us From Your Followers" is the best-made, most moving, inspiring, sad and joyful, humility-producing experience I've had in quite a while (including most of the sermons I've heard and/or preached in the last year or two).

Therefore, I recommend it HIGHLY for Christians (both liberal, intellectual elitists with a cynical streak a mile wide -- like myself! -- and conservative, judgmental, Fox News-watching 'bible-thumpers' like those the film-maker identifies with), as well as people of other faiths or no faith. It's something you can take your friends to, even if their beliefs and your beliefs (or their politics and your politics) are miles apart. "The Conversation Starts Now" is a good tag-line for this documentary, which opens in theaters 9/25/09 (it'll only be playing on one screen here in my city for the first week, at least, so anyone who wants to see it may have to look for it).