Thursday, May 26, 2016

Thealogy Thursday: Big Tents and Concepts of God

As I mentioned last week, about a month ago Dr. Amy Jill Levine came to town for a series of lectures sponsored by an interfaith group of congregations.

On Friday evening, she spoke at Temple B'nai Sholom as part of their Shabbat services. One of the things she explained (for the Gentiles in the near-standing-room-only sanctuary), was that Judaism is a "big tent" religion. There are the different types of Jews (Reform, Conservative, Orthodox, ethnic), with many different beliefs and many different interpretations of the texts & teachings - and they love to argue about their different perspectives and their different beliefs. But at the end of the day, they are all still Jews.