lessons learned from the crucible

This past weekend I went to Studio 58's production of The Crucible (thanks Alison!).  In high school this was one of my favourite plays and I was pretty sure that I was born to play the role of Abigail.  Something about the single minded passion and ferocity.

Watching this play now, through my adult eyes, it is the most infuriating thing I have ever watched.  Rarely do I want to jump on stage and shake the actors into reason, but there were a few occasions where it was hard for me to stay in my seat - and that means Arthur Miller's writing did it's job.  There are, however, a few important lessons that I think we could all learn from this play:

1. The importance of the separation of church and state.  It was really discomforting to watch people's Christianity put on trial.
2. Leaders should never be above scrutiny - questioning the priest or the judge was treated as on par with blasphemy (probably because they thought they were all buddy-buddy with God and thus could do no wrong) and anyone who did it ended up in jail.
3. If you are trying to determine how good of a Christian a woman is, it's probably a smarter idea to ask HER the ten commandments, not her husband.
4. When you tell someone that a confession will save their life you're going to get a whole lot of false confessions.