Praying for Bill Maher

Sorry for not writing much this week. I have been in Minnesota for a training upgrade for my PREPARE/ENRICH certification. I may write about that sometime. It is perhaps the best research based relationship study ever done that can accurately predict what area could potentially cause a couple to be at high risk for divorce. But not now.

While waiting for one session to start, I watched on the TV (a very cool flat screen high definition TV I might add!) an older interview with comedian/political commentarian/satirist/fill-in-the-blank Bill Maher. It was mostly about his movie Religulous. In the course of this interview with a couple of movie reviewers, Maher began to talk about his TV show and his penchant for attacking religious individuals. He stated, and I am not being unfair here at all in my comments, that he often gets accused of only bringing the "extremist" in religion onto his show and attacking them. He brings in the caricature of a bad Christian, per se, and lets them have it. He has been told that he does not bring in the "balanced" religious individual to show the "other side."

He then made this statement, and this is almost verbatim, "That is true but it really is not true. It is my contention that if you are religious AT ALL you are an extremist. It goes against all of our normal senses and all of our normal rational thinking. If you are religious on any level . . . you are an extremist."

Now, I could instantly hear some of my Christian friends getting all worked up, wanting to rant and write him. I did not. There was a time that I may have done so, but I am just a bit older now and think my words a bit more. I did not feel any anger or anything of the sort. You know what I thought? I felt my heart go out to Bill Maher. I really felt compassion for him

He actually seems like the sort of guy I would enjoy being around and enjoy having as a friend . . . most of the time anyway. I then prayed for him. I really did. I honestly, earnestly, and sincerely prayed for him. I thought to myself, "I really wish I could build a friendship with him and let him see someone who has more warts than he could shake a stick at, but who really is genuine in his "Christian extremism." That will never happen. But, take it for what it is, that is what happened to me last week.