At the Buddhism Examiner, Emily Breder has a fascinating interview with Erik Curren, who is a candidate for Virginia's General Assembly. Curren is Methodist, but also a practicing Buddhist.
Breder: There seems to be… an environment in the United States now where, if you’re not a Christian candidate you don’t have much of a chance of being elected at all. Do you see… possibly, as some of us do, your candidacy as being… a foot in the door for other faiths and perhaps even one day Atheists, who are a growing cross-section of the population, to be represented in our government?
Curren: You know, I think people of different faiths have been represented in the government; it’s just that they haven’t made that much of a big deal about it. Like Jefferson, we all may call him a Deist… I think it’s difficult for people to understand the approach to religion of the Founding Fathers, all of whom were Christian “on paper”, but what they practiced or what they believed I think is different than what a lot of people would consider to be religious today. So, I think that we probably have more religious diversity in our history than we know.
As far as electability, this is a very interesting concept when it comes to religion and Buddhism in particular. Buddhism teaches us that the mind influences reality in a very profound way and that you can change reality by changing the mind. And so, if you say that someone is un-electable because of their religious faith or for any other reason- the car they drive, the color of their hair- in essence, you are pushing that reality. If you say that this is a tolerant country of open-minded people who like to think for themselves, then you are encouraging another kind of reality.
Read the whole thing!
