I just read a great New Yorker article called "The Moderate Martyr" (September 11, 2006) in which the author George Packer quotes a Muslim moderate from Sudan, Abdullahi an-Naim: "I need a secular state to be a Muslim. If I don't have the freedom to disbelieve, I cannot believe."
What great words. When I read this, it reminded me of "Rumspringa", which is the traditional rite of passage in Amish society in which adolescents are released from the church and its rules and, if they choose, can date, take drugs, engage in sex, drive cars, watch TV and use telephones. Rumspringa flows from the Amish belief that only informed adults can accept Christ...and do so by their own free will. In coersion, neither God nor liberation is possible. This simple truism is even found in mass-marketed pop novels: in Jonathan Livingston Seagull, Richard Bach wrote: "If you love someone, set them free. If they come back they're yours; if they don't they never were." To subscribe, send a message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Or go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ and click 'Join This Group!' Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ <*> Your email settings: Individual Email | Traditional <*> To change settings online go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/join (Yahoo! ID required) <*> To change settings via email: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
