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178 Believers, dogmatists, and secularists

Brett: What do you mean, contradict?
Vicky: Well, for instance, Religious Science doesn’t really talk about Jesus.
They talk about the God within, and they just talk about Jesus as a
teacher. They don’t believe Jesus was the only son of God, and so it
doesn’t contradict Judaism, who also sees Jesus as a wise person...
Brett: but not...
Vicky: not having special status, other than somebody who knew a lot.
Jan: They don’t talk about Jesus in their services, but if you talk to Jewish
people about Jesus, they feel that he was a very spiritual and wise
teacher but just not the Messiah, which is similar to. . . .

It is important for them that both their Judaism and their Christianity
come from the “liberal” end of the spectrum. The fact that both traditions
distance themselves from traditional Christianity is also important. Thus,
the notion that Jesus could be a great teacher, but not the exclusive source
of insight, is an important marker for them. It is interesting that, at such a
young age, Brett seems to have absorbed some of his mothers’ language
about these issues. Vicky provides the most extensive explanation of their
religiosity. She was raised Catholic but left that church in her twenties and
felt no need for any religious affiliation until a decade later. The openness
she finds in Religious Science is, for her, a critical difference in comparison
to the Catholicism of her youth and most other religions.

Vicky: They have a very open approach. Their whole thing is that God
lives in each of us, and there’s no one savior or one particular
anything . . . they sort of see Jesus as a very wise teacher, and there are
many other wise teachers, and that no one is particularly the son of
God, rather that we’re all children of God. And I like that kind of
openness. I really have gotten very turned off by, “This is the way”
kind of thing. So at the Church of Religious Science, there are people
from a lot of religious backgrounds. There are some people who were
raised Jewish there, there’s all different Christian denominations,
because it is very open that way. . . . I went to some workshops and
gatherings that were talking about Native American spirituality and
that whole kind of concept of what they call “the all that is,” the spirit
that lives in everything that lives. And I thought, “Oh, that’s really
open. I like that!” And then I studied some of the earth religions who
have that same kind of openness, about honoring the God in all of us.
And then Jan started really wanting us to be involved in learning
about Judaism, so we started going in that direction. (Brett, from the
dining table nearby, interjects that they celebrate the Winter Solstice.)
Interviewer: And so do you consider yourself part of that, as well?
Vicky: Yeah, that’s what Jan’s main interest is, but we all go to the
Shabbat services, and then they both go with me to Religious Science