This week’s set of questions comes in response to recent developments in the presidential campaign. I’m intentionally not answering this week, because there be a separate post in which I will address my views on the subject, both generally and specifically.

I realize that not all of my viewers participate in formal religion, and that a few of them would likely sooner set their hair on fire than do so. Those folks are equally welcome to participate: the questions regarding church should be universally hypothetical, and questions involving clergy or spiritual leaders can be modified for those people to include friends and fellow non-believers who influence your own beliefs.

To put it another way, whether you actually go to church regularly should not be regarded as an indication of whether it is appropriate for you to participate in this week’s edition of the Saturday Six.

• First to play last week: Gabrielle of A Metamorphoself of Gabrielle. Congratulations!
  (According to the rules, “First to Play” requires you to be the first to include the link to the specific entry in which you answered the questions, not just the general link to your blog.)

Here are this week’s “Saturday Six” questions. Either answer the questions in a comment here, or put the answers in an entry on your journal…but either way, leave a link to your journal so that everyone else can visit! To be counted as “first to play,” you must be the first player to either answer the questions in a comment or to provide a complete link to the specific entry in your journal in which you answer the questions. A link to your journal in general cannot count. Enjoy!

1. You’re in church, listening to a sermon, when your pastor begins a diatribe that you strongly disagree with. Which are you more likely to do: sit through the sermon and confront the pastor privately afterwards, get up and leave in the middle of the sermon, or say nothing at all?

2. Regardless of your response to question #1, how likely would you be to return to the same church with the same level of enthusiasm the following week?

3. Based on how well you know your particular belief system’s main principles, how much do you agree with them overall?

4. Based on how well you know your pastor or the person from whom you take the most spiritual advice (or the person who has influenced your beliefs the most if not a pastor), how much do you think you agree with this person overall and how much do you disagree?

5. How important is it to you that the people with whom you associate most often have views on spirituality that closely mirror your own?

6. To what extent do you believe spirited rallies about racism actually opens the door to improve race relations in this country, as opposed to merely maintaining a level of anger that blocks such attempts to improve things?

If you have a Reader’s Choice question you’d like to see asked (and answered), send me an email! I’d love to be able to include it in a future edition of the Saturday Six.