Friday, December 07, 2007

Methodist is Jewish-Lite? Huh?

I was idly listening to Randy Rhodes on Air America and she made the passing comment (in a vastly different context) that "wasn't Methodist Jewish-Lite?" (paraphrased). This totally got my attention and I missed the rest of the on-air conversation while I called Terri to see if she could explain the connection. Neither of us could and we both got quite a bit of amusement out of it.

You see, even though I'm no longer a Christian, I was raised Methodist, and I briefly considered converting to Judiasm (I'll explain more below). If there was someone who would have understood the comment, I would have, and I was completely befuddled as I didn't see a connection at all beyond an attachment to doing rituals exactly the same way each time. I was very much waving my hand in the air: "Excuse me. I have a question." Or as Terri put it "If this is on a need to know basis, I NEED TO KNOW."

I think we'll be forever in the dark on that one. Randy Rhodes doesn't do email for her show and I don't think fast enough on my feet to call her. I even tried Google and got precisely no where. Ah well, it was funny in that hurt brain sort of way.

What I love about the Jewish community that I'm familiar with is the willingness to laugh about familial dysfunction. My family is Southern (I'm the only Californian) and I see plenty of parallels between dysfunctional middle class Southern families and dysfuntional middle class Jewish families. The obsession with appearing happy and successful, heavily matriarchal (and the matriarch doesn't like to be disappointed), some powerful people in the family assuming that you just know what they want without them having to spell it out, oh and you must fit in and not be different.

But I realized that though I'm plenty spiritual, I'm not religious in the traditional sense so converting to Judaism didn't seem to be right for me. When asked I just say that I'm more a Jewish-Identified Gentile.

1 comment:

whoizme8 said...

Fascinating and funny. Enjoyed it. Please read and comment on my book on John Wesley's theology.










The book is found on the Newcastle Methodist Church site at



To find the book go on the internet to:
1. (Wipf and Stock)