At this time in history, the contemporary choice offered most Americans is between unstable correctness (liberals) and stable illusion (conservatives)! What a choice!  There’s no real transformation in either case. Neither expelling nor excluding (conservative temptation), nor perfect explaining (liberal temptation) is our task. There are commonly two kinds of human beings: there are people who want certitude and there are people who want understanding; and these two cannot understand one another. Really. Those who demand certitude out of life will insist on it even if it doesn’t fit the facts. Logic has nothing to do with it. Truth has nothing to do with it. “Don’t bother me with the truth—I’ve already come to my conclusion!”  If you need certitude, you will come to your conclusion. You will surround yourself with your conclusion.  Change is not what we expect from religious people. They tend to love the past more than the present or the future. Until we learn to love others as ourselves, it’s difficult to blame broken people who desperately try to affirm themselves when no one else will. Ability to laugh at evil, to relativize symbols without dismissing them is usually a sign of a rather healthy person. Puritans and reformers can never laugh.