2,000 years

I went to see this play on Wednesday and it was very good - full of Jewish humour and argument. What struck me was that one theme in it was the reaction of the secular Jewish parents to their son suddenly taking up religion seriously. You could see they regarded it rather as though he had suddenly taken leave of his senses. What struck me was that the reaction was more or less independent of the religion - the reaction would have been the same if they were not Jewish and the son suddenly became a keen evangelical or a Muslim family with a fundamentalist son. And I think I would feel the same, if it happened to me.

But there's a paradox here. Religion is important and it is life changing. Why shouldn't it lead to some extreme behaniour? Is it just that we have lost our enthusiasm? Well, I don't think so. I am deeply suspicious of many of the manifestations of religious enthusiasm, particularly if they involve losing sight of what the religion is about. We say our lives should show what we believe and that should certainly be so, but should we do anything else to show we are Christians? My feeling is not, but maybe I'm just a wimp!