Re-reading Rick Santorum's quotes, I realise how perfectly he's encapsulated the difference between his type of Christianity and Merton's, between Lionel Blue's type of Judaism and the Gush Emunim version.
One is about "outrage" -- hatred of anyone who isn't like you, or who has different ideas and values, it is about fear and power and control and authority.
The other is about "love" -- openness, curiosity, self-confident, smiling.
It is no surprise at all that the one thing I associate with those I admire, is precisely that -- an open-eyed smile. Just think of the Dalai Lama laughing... Pema Chödrön's huge smile... Lionel Blue's voice which is full of smile and self-amusement... Bishop Robinson's smile. Then think of those chilling voices: Jerry Falwell, Ian Paisley, John Paul II... condemning, hating, blaming.
Perhaps I am beginning to understand Bishop Spong's point about faith in Christ -- but I've a long way to go yet!
FOOTNOTE ON BLUE:
From his Thought for the Day, 24th May 2005:
"When I was a youngster I went in for third rate ideologies and religions because I was having a hard time with puberty and adolescence and desperately needed security. I wanted instant answers, and reach-me-down belief I didn't have to think through or take responsibility for. I wanted to emote, so I shouted slogans in Marxist processions and sang sticky nationalist songs round camp fires.
"I was then attracted to know-it-all religious teachers and preachers who had the answer to everything. But after getting my first hundred wrong answers I retched it all up. Never mind! My foray into fundamentalism has stood me in good stead because I now understand why so much religion goes awry - why some settlers in Gaza believe on rather shaky evidence that that's the place God wants them to settle and why pious suicide bombers want to blow them off it and themselves into paradise.
"But as I've got older, my religion's become simpler and humbler. I no longer think doubt is a disease but something precious which helps us grow up. I don't pray for difficulties to disappear, just for courage to face them. Also to know God I must know myself because he's within me.
"I've also found my own humility through humour, of which there isn't much in scripture. When I'm drunk on clericalism I remember the old boy in the front row of the Synagogue who snored his way through my sermon. 'Shake him!' I told the beadle.
" 'Shake him yourself, your reverence,' he snorted, 'since your sermon put him to sleep!' A joke can deflate you more efficiently than an hour on your knees."