June 6 | My America THIS is only the second time I've been back to the United States since getting on a plane to London one morning in Seattle in April 2004. What I'm noticing this time back is how friendly people are -- the "openness" that Americans are reputed for in Europe seems obvious to me now. I'm not covering a lot of territory here, only from western New York across to the eastern side of the state -- friendly territory -- but there is something characteristic of the USA that I haven't noticed anywhere else. We also have an informal quality in this country. Again my travel experience is limited mostly to the UK and western Europe, however, there is a certain measured quality to many Europeans that we seem to have let go of here. For sure it's easier to talk to people you don't know, to kid around a little, and to exchange some small talk. I often hear that this is not "real friendship" but on my quality of life score for a place, I rank friendly chatter high on the list. The next thing I'm noticing is television. True, I always notice TV. It's interesting how intimately co-mingled American culture and the American psyche is with television. Something specific got my attention: two different programs questioning the Bible as the literal word of God. I watched one on the History Channel the other night, which went on and on about how the books of the Bible were selected, copied over, had multiple pedigrees, inconsistencies, and a wide variety of problems that were not acknowledged by (for example) Jerry Falwell. He  was displayed early on the program with a bit of ridicule saying that the words in this book were the literal, actual words that God spoke. He's also quoted saying that the gospels were written down personally by Matthew, Mark, Luke and John when my understanding is that only Luke (a doctor) was literate. Then they went on to describe numerous issues with consistency in different versions of the texts, some of which were merged in the final, official version of the Bible -- interesting enough to keep me watching for hours, channel surfing during the endless commercials (most of which seemed to be for beer or drugs) waiting for the next segment. In the midst of this Natesh knocked on my door, and we continued our religious education. Then this morning, I turned on the tube to be met with another show discussing selection, editing and consistency issues in biblical texts. They had a guest described as a "former non-denominational layperson" who seemed to know a lot about the issue, or at least have a lot to say. He conceded that the editing job was basically, on its face, chaos, but that he had faith that the people who chose the scriptures to include in the final version must have been guided personally by God. Despite its religious bias, the program put it plainly that this really was an issue of authority, and that questioning the strict validity of biblical texts was about questioning authority -- they actually used those words. I don't know if this represents a trend of any kind. But it sure was interesting to see broadcast on national networks in a country where the president can claim he was led to go to war personally by God. Even if Rod Parsley was on another channel blasting gay marriage and urging Christians to pick up their phones and call the capital switchboard immediately so that homosexuality did not have to be taught in schools. After all if being queer is part of the social contract, they're going to have to mention that at some point in social studies class, and it's going to be Christians who put a stop to it.