Margaret Renkl’s book, Graceland, at Last provided the menu for what I dish up in my column this week.

Excerpt from “Cafeteria Christians and Food-fights in the New South”:

“Margaret Renkl and her husband are “cradle Catholics” but a family member calls them “cafeteria Catholics” since, as they see it, the Renkl’s pick and choose the beliefs that suit them. Yet, Renkl feels many Christians choose to ignore clear teachings of Jesus to care for “the least of these sisters and brothers.” She uses the classic terms “redemption,” “repentance” and “resurrection” but adds “resistance.” She is heartened to see that: “every day a resistance is growing that I would not have imagined possible, a coalition of people on the left and the right who have never before seen themselves as allies.” She refers to the political sphere, but religion plays such a critical role in so much of the tug of war, the struggle to resist from whatever side often feels like a food fight in a middle school lunchroom.”