Can you be a born-again Christian and not a conservative.

Of course you can. First, you could have a Nurturant Parent interpretation of the Bible. Second, if you have a Strict Father interpretation, you need not use the Nation As Family metaphor to project Strict Father morality onto the political domain. That is, you could keep your religion private. Third, you need not use the metaphorical link between the Christian system of moral accounting and laissez-faire free-market economics.

Conservatism and born-again Christianity are distinct systems of thought. Conservative Christianity links them together by metaphor. That link need not exist. It is a matter of interpretation.

Nurturant Parent Christianity

To put the Strict Father interpretation of Christianity in perspective, let us look at the Nurturant Parent interpretation. The fundamental metaphors used in the interpretation are these:

• God Is a Nurturant Parent to Human Beings.

• Christ Is the Bearer of God's Nurturance to Human Beings.

• God's Grace Is Nurturance.

• Moral Action Is Nurturant Action (helping through feeling empathy, demonstrating compassion, acting out of love, etc.).

• Immoral Action (Sin) Is Nonnurturant Action toward Others (harming through lack of empathy, lack of compassionate action, etc.).

God's grace is the central notion in this interpretation, and it is understood metaphorically as nurturance. Since nurturance is a rich concept, the Grace As Nurturance metaphor leads to a correspondingly rich notion of grace. Here are some of the basic properties of nurturance:

PROPERTIES OF NURTURANCE

Nurturance is the expression of a parent's Love. Nurturance entails the Presence of the parent.

Nurturance entails the Closeness of the parent.

Nurturance involves Feeding that allows for Growth.

Nurturance involves Healing.

Nurturance results in Happiness.

Nurturance entails Protection.

Nurturance is not earned.

A nurturant parent gives nurturance freely and unconditionally.

Nurturance must be accepted if a child is to receive the benefits of nurturance. Only through receiving nurturance do children learn to be nurturant to others (to feel love, feel empathy, act for the benefit of others, and so on).

To learn to act nurturantly toward others, one must be nurtured by a nurturant parent.

The Grace As Nurturance metaphor projects these aspects of nurturance onto corresponding properties of grace. The result is a metaphorically rich notion of grace.