Quality Post

What's the fastest growing religion in the US? The answer may surprise you. Read it on CA's blog.

Additionally CA writes:

I have had a strange and possibly disturbing experience with some non-Jewish colleagues. Perhaps your legions of knowledgeable readers, and also the Bray of Fundie, could comment and give me some suggestions.

As I told you, I am currently in [flyover country] for business reasons. After work today, we all retired to to the pool at the motel and started drinking beer. Our conversation was friendly, and moved from politics (the county I am visiting went for McCain, but the colleagues are all Democrats), the fools in management, the dark starry night sky, the strange moving lights in the sky that might just be the red-eye to LA, but might also be alien space ships, and the nature of the world to come.

At this point we started talking about religion, and one guy, who works for our contractor and is my opposite number on this job (and who also knows that I'm Jewish, as he teases me about ordering the spare ribs at lunch) made a comment that suggested he considered Jews to be a variety of Christians. I tried to set him straight, but he was having trouble wrapping his mind around the concept. One of the younger techs, a Latino guy, nearly fell off his chair laughing at this and was trying to help me out. I tried to explain to him that, yes, Jesus was a Jew, but that Paul had rebranded the minor Jewish sect into a different product altogether. He was still having trouble with the concept, so I promised to discuss it in more detail the next day when we were sober.

Now this guy is a Catholic. And he somehow got the idea that Jews were just another kind of Protestant, or something. I mean, someone should look into the curricula of the Catholic school system, though I have to admit that I prefer this sort of reaction to being accused of killing "Christ." It just kind of amazes me at how ignorant people are, and this guy is otherwise pretty well informed. Should I offer to go to his church on Sunday and preach a sermon to explain the difference?

Incidentally, I had the same experience once with a very white, very waspy, very well educated professional, who having just returned from what he called a very inspiring Easter service asked with evident pain and surprise "and Jesus has nothing to do with your religion at all?"
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