Ends and Odds: THe Ravings of An Old Man by Dave Jaffe: Chapter Seven,Part Two.

      My Religious Odyssey. Part Two by Dave Jaffe.




     Although I was raised in a very orthodox Jewish family, my religious education exposed me to other religious trends. In my mid teens, I had classes in Bible studies and came across Jesus's wonderful Sermon on the Mount in the Gospel according to Saint Matthew. Parts of it appealed to me in a way that my father's religion never did. Now there were parts of the Sermon that struck me as absurd. For instance the idea that adulterers should be put to death seemed to me then and now as idiotic.
    Yet other sections of the Sermon glowed with a tolerance and a compassion that impressed me no end. In any case I filed the sermon away in my mind and only came back to it thirty years or so later. By that time in the late 1980's I was  a full blown socialist and a member of the New Democratic Party. In fact now looking back at my journey from Judaism to socialism, it all seems logical.
     "Religion when pushed to the extreme generalization," writes Randall Collins, "turns into political ideals. The modern doctrines of conservatism, liberalism and socialism emerge out of the declining belief in religion." These creeds, Collins says continue concerns "in a new form."
     I ditched Judaism in my late teens and replaced it soon after with another religion, namely socialism. Yet in the late 1980's, life threw me some new curve balls. I developed neurofibromas or non-cancerous tumours all over my body. The doctors I went to couldn't find a cure for these tumours and hesitated to cut them out of my body for fear of hurt my breathing and muscle use. In the end, I started to go to the Unitarians Church in Vancouver for spiritual sustenance. Here in this church on Vancouver's west side, I met many fine people and had some good times. Yet I found the church week in the spiritual sense.
     Most Unitarians didn't believe in God. I did. I also found that the political views of many Unitarians  leaned to the right. "People here are socially progressive," Barbara, a long time congregant said. "Yet they're not politically progressive." In other words, Unitarians support same sex marriage, a woman's right to abortion and gay and lesbian worshippers. and ministers.  Yet many Unitarians I met supported a strong Canadian military, weak social programs and low taxes for the rich. "Unitarians say nice things," a former Unitarian told me. "But they don't do nice things."
    The turning point for me came in early 2003 when U.S. president George W. Bush started the second Iraqi war. He launched a U.S. invasion of Iraq along with British and some other troops. By this time I'd left the N.D.P. and my political commitments had tapered off to very little. Yet I still remained a progressive. I thought that the Unitarian minister, who was an American like many other Unitarian ministers at the church, would denounce this invasion. Yet as far as I can recall he said nothing about it.  I also met people in the church who supported the war. This did disturb me.