V.S. Naipaul: saw the evangelical train a'coming Evangelical influence in the Unites states is not a secret. Intellectuals like Naipaul identified its ascent in the mid 80's. Of the four living presidents, two are avowedly evangelical. The public sphere is full of leading evangelical personalities, both on the left and right. Evangelical books are some of the biggest sellers in American publishing. Evangelicals have so thoroughly dominated the US that they have now set themselves up for a worldwide expansion and are exporting churches and the myth of intelligent design with considerable gusto (even to Muslims).

Just last week, pastor Rick Warren of California, author of the Purpose Driven Life, and head of the 22,000 strong Saddlebrook Church, held a conversation about religion and values with the two presidential candidates. The event was covered by every major news station. Among pundits and bloggers it was critiqued and evaluated as if it was a proper presidential debate. Barack Obama and John McCain talked about Jesus Christ and abortion and homosexuality; partly in neutral terms, and partly within the context of Christian theology.

Rick Warren, Barack Obama, and John McCain: seek a purpose driven life through jesus We are religiously permissive in the United States and over the last decade the general view has been to let religious people bring religion into the public sphere. For example, Bush introduced the Faith Based Initiative in 2000 without much opposition and Obama recently suggested that he'd be willing to continue it albeit with a overhaul (probably since most of the money in the Bush initiative behaved very racially), and was again met with little opposition.

Having said that, it seems that the days of such permissiveness towards bringing religion into the public sphere might be coming to an end. The Rick Warren debate, in other words, might be a farewell party for American Christianity in the political sphere. To substantiate this assertion I direct your attention to the Pew Forum which recently concluded a survey about Americans' views about religion in politics.

Thomas Jefferson: once said something about keeping religion and government separate It shows that in 1996, 43% of Americans felt that Churches should stay out of politics; today, that number is at 52% and its trending upward. In other words, the more religion gets introduced into the public sphere, the more Americans want it out (the survey notes that conservatives are the ones most changing their views about this, now at levels similar to moderates and liberals).

It seems that religious Americans are remembering again Jefferson's idea that the wall of separation between religion and state exists in order to protect religion. What happens when religion stuffs itself into the political sphere too long? You may want to ask a theocratic state like Iran. Only 1.4% of the population attends the Friday prayer in the Islamic Oligarchy. (This number is actually lower than the Church attendance number in those purportedly hedonistic European nations).

All over the press today, news of Pat Robertson predicting "mass killings" for some time around the end of this year.

"I'm not necessarily saying it's going to be nuclear," he said during his news-and-talk television show "The 700 Club" on the Christian Broadcasting Network. "The Lord didn't say nuclear. But I do believe it will be something like that."

Robertson said God told him during a recent prayer retreat that major cities and possibly millions of people will be affected by the attack, which should take place sometime after September.

Robertson said God also told him that the U.S. only feigns friendship with Israel and that U.S. policies are pushing Israel toward "national suicide."

Comedian Elayne Boosler (yes that Elayne Boosler) commented on Robertson's psychic abilities in her blog today:

Well you can bet the Lord didn't say nucular either. I always wondered, if God really did decide to actually talk to anybody, why would he choose somebody who's only on cable? Then I realized, if the Virgin Mary and Jesus choose tacos and grilled cheese sandwiches on which to appear, maybe cable makes sense. After all, God seems to be in the "small, everyday life" business again.

Manya Treece has written something pretty wonderful for SoMA Review, about how her evangelical (which, btw, is NOT the same as "fundamentalist") grandmother helped her explore her Jewish faith.

And this is of great interest to me, not only because I-- like Manya-- had a Christian grandmother (or even because I also, oddly enough, lived a block from the Reform Congregation in Chattanooga, TN) but because I'm interested in how often it is our non-Jewish experience of "faith" that teaches us to be comfortable with the "faith" elements in Judaism. And the language of that faith.

Why is that?

I think maybe it's because most of the time, when we do use these ooky religious words, we say them in Hebrew, a language many of us don't actually know, to say words like "God" and "Holy." To "pray." And in Hebrew, those words connect us back to something ancient and historical, even though the translations of such words make us itchy. They remind us of a high school trip to Jerusalem, of "the past."

But shouted in, say, a grocery store, in plain English, "The Lord is Our God" sounds freakish and weird. It sounds... Christian.

Because Judaism isn't a religion like that. It's smart, academic, political. Sarcastic and cynical even.

Am I wrong?

So, given a Reform/Secular Jewish education, I knew, by middle school, that "Jews don't have to believe in God" and it was actually the Catholics is my own life (I grew up in Maryland, which is heavily Catholic) who helped ease me into an awkward ease with words like "prayer" and "faith" and "God." Or "G-d."

But enough about me. What about you? What do you say if someone asks (as I am doing now I guess) DO YOU BELIEVE IN GOD?

And then please tell me whether you've had outside (non-Jewish) experiences that affected the way you practice as a Jew.

And then (if I may be so bold) I'm also curious about your religious upbringing. What flavor of Judaism did your family practice (or not)?

(Oh, I hope I haven't scared you off)