Hymns of my youth — Gone?
I grew up in Missouri, a member of the First Baptist Church. Though I’ve moved away from that form of religious practice toward a more freeform spirituality more akin to Buddhism, I still carry that influence of my childhood. The songs I sang in church stay with me.
I’m wondering, especially after watching the GOP convention last week and observing the popularity of Trump rise in Christian communities…
What happened to my favorite childhood hymn? When did Right Wing Christian Conservatives forget the words to it:
Jesus loves the little children/ALL the children of the world/Red, Brown, Yellow, Black and White, THEY are [all] precious in His sight/Jesus loves the little children of the world.
In her article “Why I Left the Right: How Studying Religion Made Me a Liberal” published in the Huffington Post February 23, 2016, but originally appearing here in Medium, Susie Meister writes about her transition from conservatism to liberalism, starting the article by telling the reader:
It was January 20, 2001, and I was at George W. Bush’s inaugural ball. I had spent months campaigning for him, and it had not been easy. After the Florida electoral debacle complete with “hanging chads,” Katherine Harris (and her 15 minutes of shame), and ultimately the Supreme Court’s Bush v. Gore decision, I was finally enjoying the fruits of my labor as I celebrated the new president that I worked to get elected.
But then goes on to confess:
Only after my doctrinal evolution [religious studies] did I realize I no longer aligned with the political conservatism for which I once literally campaigned. Jesus was a champion of the poor, the weak, the meek, and downtrodden. He encouraged his followers to “sell their possessions” and give them to the poor. He hung out with hookers and crooks.
The lifestyle of Jesus didn’t look anything like the politics of the Right.
So today I say a prayer:
