{"id":1174,"date":"2013-10-05T18:26:00","date_gmt":"2013-10-05T18:26:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/rhetoricraceandreligion\/2013\/10\/whats-my-religion-its-complicated-and-beautiful.html"},"modified":"2013-10-05T18:26:00","modified_gmt":"2013-10-05T18:26:00","slug":"whats-my-religion-its-complicated-and-beautiful","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/rhetoricraceandreligion\/2013\/10\/whats-my-religion-its-complicated-and-beautiful.html","title":{"rendered":"What\u2019s My Religion? It\u2019s Complicated, and Beautiful"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>
I sometimes remark to friends that I must be the only Christian in the world who participates in three or four Passover seders a year. Even active Jews don\u2019t attend so many. Why would they, after all, unless they\u2019re working, as my wife often is\u2014leading them.<\/span><\/div>\n
My wife is a rabbi, and when I\u2019m at a seder, I am gathering together with my primary congregation, even though I\u2019m not Jewish. The other reason why I attend seders is that I like them. I find them spiritually meaningful. Every religious tradition marks God\u2019s activity in the world as something akin to freeing slaves, and Judaism does it memorably.<\/span><\/div>\n
One particular seder two years ago became a turning point for me. My wife and I were fresh off a painful experience in Florida where she hadn\u2019t gotten a pulpit job because of me, because her husband was a Catholic. For the first time in my life I felt judged for my religious orientation because although I am about as supportive of a clergy spouse as one could be, it seemed that all they saw was a cross on my forehead.<\/span><\/div>\n
So as this seder was about to begin, one of the men around the table said, \u201cI notice that we are all interfaith couples around this table, that we are all Jewish-Christian.\u201d<\/span><\/div>\n
He went on, \u201cSo, I\u2019m wondering, you Christians who are here, why are you? I mean . . . I\u2019m Jewish and I know why I\u2019m here; I know what I get out of these things. But what do you get out of this? What brings you here?\u201d<\/span><\/div>\n
Read the rest here<\/a><\/span><\/div>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I sometimes remark to friends that I must be the only Christian in the world who participates in three or four Passover seders a year. Even active Jews don\u2019t attend so many. Why would they, after all, unless they\u2019re working, as my wife often is\u2014leading them. My wife is a rabbi, and when I\u2019m at […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1174","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nWhat\u2019s My Religion? It\u2019s Complicated, and Beautiful<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"I sometimes remark to friends that I must be the only Christian in the world who participates in three or four Passover seders a year. 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