Not only do I still need to write final installment of our DeanFest weekend (which ended over 2 weeks ago–pathetic, ain’t it?) but I don’t seem to be finding the time to read what I want to either. Friends send me links, and I promise myself to read these things “soon”, but then I dash off to work and forget by the time I get home. Today, I actually remembered to follow through, and I hope some of you find this article worthwhile.
This morning, I received an email from Jody, who is trying to get the word out as widely as possible about the lead article in the July/August issue of Orion, which just posted on their website this morning. “What Fundamentalists Need for Their Salvation” is written by David James Duncan, an ex-fundamentalist who is a novelist, naturalist, and philosopher.
http://www.oriononline.org/pages/om/05-4om/Duncan.html
Here is just a taste of the article. The article is about so much more, but I’m feeling a little too scattered at the end of the day to do an adequate summary.
The whole world, for example, seemed to fall into the heart of Mahatma Gandhi, not only on the day he said, “I am a Christian, I am a Hindu, I am a Muslim, I am a Jew,” but on the day he proved the depth of his declaration when, after receiving two fatal bullets from a fundamentalist zealot, he blessed that zealot with a namasté before dying. For the fundamentalists of each tradition he names, Gandhi’s four-fold profession of faith is three-fourths heresy. It is also a statement I can imagine Jesus making and, for me personally, a description of spiritual terrain in which I yearn to take up permanent residence.
How about this–if you are someone who generally finds my religion spirituality links worthwhile, you’ll probably appreciate this one too. 😉