In Enemy Territory

I've written (on my old blog, of course) about going back to church. I'm happy there, and I'm glad to be going after about four years of not going. Luckily, I go somewhere that doesn't rub it in my face that, in general, I'm out of my element.

Not because I worship Satan, and I'm a spy. Although that would be pretty cool. No, it is being a liberal in a conservative setting. It's like being a conservative at a Habitat for Humanity meeting. You're welcomed, of course, but you know that you're going to a minority.

I love being a minority, in general--fitting in has never been something I've strived for except for in my weakest moments. But...it leads to so many questions. I don't hate conservative people, I just can't understand them in any way. Conservative thinking is so blatantly flawed and has been proven so many times to not work, but people still follow it. God bless em I guess.

Once in a while, somebody says something crazy, though. Hateful, or uncaring, or borderline insane. And in those cases, it's hard to be the minority. Because you're not going to win any arguments if you're one against six. Unless you're really, really good at arguments. Which I'm not.

It is also fairly disconcerting when you think about it too much. Realizing, wait a minute, conservative ideas completely oppose Jesus ideas...he welcomed outsiders, believed in love for everyone, believed in peace, treated the 'least of these' with compassion. Or, as conservatives would call it, 'socialism.' (How the Republican party would try to destroy Jesus if he came back today is a whole different blog, sorry to say!). So, suffice to say, I'm not disavowing my vote for Barack Obama anytime soon, no matter how deep I may get into church affairs.

What I wonder about, however, is whether I even want to know. I've tried on numerous occasions to have people attempt to explain conservative ideas to me, to no avail. And by 'avail' I don't mean making it appealing, just understandable. So I'm not quite sure if that would be a positive development, to know more about what my conservative brothers and sisters believe--whether it will help me to understand them, or will make me lose respect for them because their ideas are crazy. It's hard to know, and I am not going to say I do.