Jabber, I wouldn't consider you a country bumpkin, in any way.

But with regard to religion, and what kind of a God we believe we worship, my impressions of this are heavily colored by a three-day weekend I spent roughly 30 years ago, called a Cursillo Encounter. As a result of this, I believe in a loving God, not a vengeful or punitive God.

I won't belabor my support of the Cursillo Movement, but I will say that it is a Christian movement that started in Spain by Roman Catholics (I think in the 1940s) and now involves many mainline Christian churches, including Episcopalian, Lutheran, Methodist and Presbyterian, as well as a huge number of non-denominational movements.

As I recall, it began when a group of men dedicated themselves to bringing the young men of their Spanish community, in order to know Christ better.

Initially they prayed and worked together; it developed as they talked together, sharing their thoughts about the state of the world and the effectiveness of their efforts to bring the light of Christ to it.