NAOMI WOLF has found Jesus!
Wolf first made a name for herself with "The Beauty Myth," a 1991 feminist critique of feminine stereotypes. Admired by some and ridiculed by others, Wolf has since written on everything from motherhood to promiscuity. During the 2000 election campaign, she famously advised Al Gore to work on being an "alpha male," and her most recent book, a folksy memoir about her father, left many erstwhile fans clearing their throats in embarrassment.
For The Record
Los Angeles Times Friday March 03, 2006 Home Edition California Part B Page 13 Editorial Pages Desk 0 inches; 20 words Type of Material: Correction
Religion: A Jan. 27 column about religion in the United States said the Pilgrims hanged witches. It was the Puritans.
Maybe that's what pushed Wolf toward Jesus. In an interview published last weekend in Scotland's Glasgow Sunday Herald, Wolf announced that she had been struggling with a midlife crisis a few years ago when she went into "a light meditative state." That's when it happened: "I was completely dumbfounded but I actually had this vision of ... of Jesus."
If that doesn't sound like the Naomi Wolf you love (or hate), Wolf agrees. "I wasn't myself in this visual experience. I was a 13-year-old boy sitting next to him [Jesus] and feeling feelings I'd never felt in my lifetime.... It was probably the most profound experience of my life."
Has Wolf genuinely found her spiritual side, albeit by getting in touch with her inner adolescent boy? Or is this sheer opportunism, a bid for media love in an evangelized world that's increasingly hostile to feminism?
The Herald was quick to put it all in perspective. "In America, finding God is an acceptable resolution to midlife crisis."
Well, no need to be snide! It's true that the United States has always had a tradition of eclectic religiosity. And why not? Our shores were settled by the Pilgrims, who were brave, brilliant and -- face it -- absolutely nuts. They arrived in the New World and lost no time before starting to denounce one another as heretics. Before the century was out, they had managed to hang 19 witches. Then there was the Great Awakening and the Wesleyan revival and the rise of "televangelism," to mention but a few episodes of American religious fervor.
So yes, we Americans have always been enthusiastic about religion. Speaking in tongues? We can do that. Visions and fainting fits? We can produce entire revival camps full of synchronized fainters. Don't like your old religion? We've got a new one. Found Jesus while you were temporarily inhabiting the body of a 13-year-old boy? Not a problem, Naomi: We've got a church for you here somewhere.
