PoAC: The Perception of Christianity, from inside and outside

[velvetpage]

For the uninitiated amongst you, PoAC stands for Post of Actual Content. Term stolen from jinzi. Used by permission. :)

This will not be the most lucid PoAC I've ever written, because I do not have the time or energy this week to set it up properly and give it my full attention for an hour or two as I would like to do. There will probably be errors in logic and missing information. I apologize in advance, and humbly accept well-meant corrections. I reserve the right to stand by what I say if I have to disagree with you, though. :)

Here we go, then.

I made a statement the other day in danaeris' journal, asking rhetorically why it was always my faith that got slammed, and why I was seen as the person with the problem for not liking it when that happened. Though one or two people agreed with me that the slamming was wrong, at least one more pointed out that a) Christianity was not the only faith to get slammed in this way, and b) with the number of people who have been hurt by Christianity, some would say the slamming was deserved. The response highlighted what I had already privately recognized: that the statement was made in a fit of pique, and that it came more out of a collective Christian culture than out of honest anger on my part. Now, don't get me wrong: the event that sparked the statement did leave me angry. My reaction to it, however, was primed by my Christian upbringing and culture. (I use the word "culture" in the anthropological sense here, of anything that binds a group of people together. In this definition, each of us has a private culture that is formed of all the different parts attaching us to all the different groups to which we belong.) My feeling is that both parts of the response were also primed by the commenter's personal experiences with the Church, and that we had managed to point out what is probably the most fundamental difference in outlook between Christians and non-Christians in just a few sentences.

First, there's my statement. It has three parts: one, Christianity is always getting slammed; two, that it is the only faith that comes in for this treatment; and three, I'm expected by many people to laugh it off or stop being so darn sensitive about a joke.

Let's deal with part one first. Christianity has a martyr myth that is very, very well-developed. It goes something like this: the first Christians suffered and died for their faith. Jesus suffered and died to bring hope to the world. To be a good Christian, you must be like Jesus and (to a lesser extent) his apostles. Therefore, a good Christian must suffer for their faith. A Christian who doesn't "take up (their) cross and follow (Christ)" is not a good Christian, and a cross is not a comfortable thing to take up.

I've been primed by my faith to develop this martyr complex, always looking for ways in which I am being "tested", either to tempt me (Satan is involved at this point) or to make me stronger (this one I lay at God's feet) or, in many cases, both. The nice thing about this particular requirement of the faith is that there's no such thing as a perfect life. There is ALWAYS something going on that could be seen as a temptation or a test. Life is convenient that way. On the downside, though, when things are going comparatively well, there is a tendency to look for areas of persecution. Christians often feel the need to create this, or just exacerbate the little bit that is there, in order to satisfy the martyr requirement. (I'm grossly oversimplifying here, and I'm aware of it. Just let me make my point, please.)

Now, this is not to say that there is no persecution. There certainly is. I can think of half a dozen instances of popular culture that were extremely offensive to Christians of every stripe, just off the top of my head. But what happens in the West is a little like a teenager rebelling against parental controls. The criticisms launched by the teen (in this case, non-Christian groups) are sometimes valid, and sometimes way over the top, and sometimes overgeneralized to a wider group of people than really deserve them. The long and short of it is, the parents in the scenario have a lot more power than the teenager, even when they're feeling victimized by the teen. The feelings of victimization are out of proportion to the actual events. The Church, and individual Christians, blow them out of proportion because of a) the martyr myth, and b) the correct perception that the other faiths are attacking the power of the Church in society.

So, part one, that Christianity is always getting slammed, is true but exaggerated by Christianity itself. What's more, most denominations have some variation on this theme, so most Christians identify with the martyr myth in some way. The theory grows in the telling, until it becomes popularly accepted in the Church as a whole. In fact, it doesn't need to be accepted; it's already there. It needs to be reinforced, and that happens often.

Part two, then: that Christianity is the only faith that comes in for this treatment. This is patently untrue, though there are certain scenarios that support it. For example, I've discovered recently that launching a discrimination suit according to Ontario Human Rights legislation requires that one be part of a minority group being discriminated against. Christianity is not a minority, therefore I would have trouble launching a human rights case if I were discriminated against because of my Christian faith. (There are loopholes here, and cases like this have gone to the human rights tribunal only to be thrown out. It seems a majority never gets discriminated against.) The thing is, Christians believe this. They have been brought up on the martyr myth. The whole world is against them because they are following the difficult path of Christ. Every scenario that feeds this myth gets adopted as part of the mythos, until it becomes an accepted aspect of Western Christianity.

However, Christians' treatment of other faiths never comes under the same scrutiny that we apply to those criticizing us. We never look on our denunciations of paganism, for example, as anything but spreading the truth about a dangerous lie. It never occurs to most Christians to see that as slamming other religions. Christianity (or at least, most of it) defines itself as the One True Faith. Ergo, practitioners of all other faiths are at best deluded and at worst evil tempters of the faithful. Ergo, it is our job to either enlighten them or cast them out. From the Christian perspective, this is not anti-pagan propaganda so much as spreading the truth in the effort to save souls. The idea that this could be called a hate crime is beyond offensive to Christians. It's not about hate. It's about being right. It's about God's love.

So, the Church prepares us and teaches us to look on our relationship with the rest of the world as a martyrdom in progress: everyone is, indeed, out to get Christians, just because we are Christians. It also puts itself on the highest moral pedestal it can: the Church and the Church alone has the key to Truth, and everyone else needs to hear it for the good of their own souls. They may not like it, but it is a Christian's job to preach it and take the persecution that comes with that. (See how the myth feeds itself?)

Three: I'm expected to be able to laugh at jokes where my faith is the butt.

It wasn't that long ago that jokes about a Jew, a Negro, and an Arab were fairly common. I remember hearing them while I was growing up, with various other races/ethnicities substituted for those three, and I'm not yet thirty. It's been a while since I heard one. Why? Because the anti-racism movement, aka the political-correctness movement, has stifled jokes that are discriminatory in that way. People telling such a joke in public risk censure of various kinds; from polite laughter followed by avoidance, to being told off or complained about to employers.

Closer to home, I often find myself defending my faith and explaining it. I can see both sides, usually. I can see how a non-Christian would perceive the action in question, but I also know the rationale for it from inside the faith. In many cases, I might once have acted that way myself. I have been told to lighten up when I commented that such-and-such was offensive to me. I have been told that no other religion would have a problem with that kind of joke aimed at them. My response to that is: do they really have no problem with it, or have they learned to cover hurt with laughter? Have they decided to pick their battles, and to not pick this particular one as worth fighting at this time? Or did they start out covering hurt with laughter, and end up raising the next generation thinking they really were okay with that type of joke?

I have trouble believing that a group of people could take lightly a joke that was sacreligious and mocking of their faith. Exactly how much did they really believe if they were capable of laughing at their beliefs like that? I haven't managed to wrap my head around this one fully yet.

I know this: I find it offensive to hear and participate in jokes or performances that would be sacreligious to anyone. Sometimes I will tolerate it in the interests of social cohesion. Sometimes I will leave. Sometimes I will speak out against it. But I am never comfortable with it. If I'm aware of it, I will be uncomfortable with it. I have no desire to develop a thicker skin. I'm comfortable with the skin I've got. If it makes me more sensitive to some situations, it also makes me a more empathetic person, and I will not sacrifice that on the altar of humour. It's about respect. I would not do that to your faith, not even in the guise of enlightening you to the truth (unless you asked, in which case I'd tell it as I see it.) I expect the same respect from others.

In summary, then: Yes, Christianity gets slammed. I purposely didn't go into whether or not Christianity deserves that slamming. That is a subject for an entire university course, and I'm not willing to take on that particular battle at this time. Yes, Christianity exacerbates the slams it takes through the device of an ingrained martyr mythos. No, I'm not prepared to let my faith be ridiculed in my presence.

I'm going to bed.

Comments

[danaeris.livejournal.com]

(1) I hope no-one jumps down your throat for the teenager/adult analogy. I know what you mean, but that particular choice implies childish/knows better, which is not what you meant (I assume), but would piss others off.

(2) I still don't know what to think about the whole idea that people should be able to laugh about these sorts of things. I think anyone who is saying that any joke should be ok is oversimplifying. And quite frankly, my experience is that to make a joke about Jews, for instance, you have to BE Jewish, or perhaps be dating one, for it to be socially acceptable. Of course those who made the joke skit that prompted this train of thought may be christian. I personally doubt it, however.

I can't help but wonder if there is a PhD thesis or three in a study of religious jokes and their acceptance among different populations.

I know pagans who take their religion "too seriously" (and I mean that in the sense of "he takes himself too seriously"). They don't have much of a sense of humour about their own religion either. I have more thoughts, random theories about the intersection of modern culture and how that influences taking seriously or not taking seriously one's religion, but I don't feel like going into them on here (lazy). Perhaps we'll chat about it at some point. :)

[velvetpage.livejournal.com]

It was ten o'clock at night, and I was making analogies that seemed right at the time. You're right, I did not mean to imply anything else about the analogy than what I said in my post. Any other comparisons that might come from that are unintentional.

[dornbeast.livejournal.com]

"Though one or two people agreed with me that the slamming was wrong, at least one more pointed out that a) Christianity was not the only faith to get slammed in this way..."

True enough, although in recent history (arbitrarily defined as post-WW2), Christianity has been taking the worst of it, in my opinion.

"...and b) with the number of people who have been hurt by Christianity, some would say the slamming was deserved."

There's a pony somewhere around here. No matter how much people may have been hurt by somebody, slamming isn't fair. Truth counts. Slams and slurs don't.

What's that old saw about two wrongs?

"...the Church and the Church alone has the key to Truth, and everyone else needs to hear it for the good of their own souls."

This statement is why I parted company from religion - any religion - a while ago. When there are two religions that claim to have a monopoly on Truth (and there are more than that, last time I checked), I feel completely justified in giving up in confusion.

I try not to say anything against somebody else's faith. In some ways, I wish I could have the comfort that faith offers. But it doesn't work for me.

I'm expected to be able to laugh at jokes where my faith is the butt.

Excuse me while I quote Dogbert. "Bah." (waves hand)

That's ridiculous. Now, I will allow that there are some funny jokes that depend on Christian references. On the other hand, all the ones that I thought were funny, I heard from Christians. The rest are just mean.

[shavastak.livejournal.com]

True enough, although in recent history (arbitrarily defined as post-WW2), Christianity has been taking the worst of it, in my opinion.

I'm sorry, but I have to disagree with you here - call it expressing a dissenting opinion. Christianity has recieved a lot of slamming, there's no question, but so have other religions. I would say we went through a period in which Christianity was the biggest butt, if you will, of the jokes, but the Jews got a lot, especially right after WW2 when there was still a lot of anti-semitism. (The holocaust was originally denied for years, remember? And since it 'hadn't happened,' people didn't feel (as) bad about making Jewish jokes.) There was, until the 80s at least, a lot of Muslim jokes, and they seem to be popping back up, despite well-meaning attempts to point out that the 'Islamic' terrorists aren't true followers, etc etc.

It also depends on where you are. When I lived in New York there was a fair bit of Christianity-slamming, mostly by 'recovering' Catholics specifically slamming Catholicism. There was a fair bit of similar stuff going on by Jews about Jews, too. However, the feeling here in the south is very very different. Making jokes about Christianity is generally frowned upon, and I feel very uncomfortable in most settings even mentioning my own religion. Not that anyone I have come in contact with would slam my faith in front of me (though they might to their friends), but when the subject comes up there's a definite pause, an oh, and a kind of recovery in which it's clear the person I'm talking to goes 'well I can deal with them anyway' to themselves.

[dornbeast.livejournal.com]

Your dissenting opinion is appreciated. I don't have a complete view of the world, or even of the state I live in.

[velvetpage.livejournal.com]

Attitudes in Canada are more like those in New York, probably. Christianity is not dominant here the way it is in the southern States. There is bashing, and there is defensiveness on all sides of every religious issue. The arguments on the editorial page of the paper are sometimes rather heated.

[kesmun.livejournal.com]

There's something to be said for simplification. I usually try to insert "to a point" or another appropriate caveat. Unfortunately, even when I do, very few people actually read that as anything but a "covering her rear" caveat.

I think you've shown concisely why you object to "humor" treating religion with disdain, especially so-called humor that treats your (our) faith with disdain.

[collie13.livejournal.com]

It sounds like there was a very unpleasant dust-up; I'm sorry you caught part of it. If it helps any, I have some ancestors who owned slaves, but I don't consider myself responsible for slavery, nor do I condone it or find it funny.

So while I don't know what the "joke" was, I do know someone holding you personally responsible for the entire christian faith is ludicrous. Also, to anyone saying you should just laugh painful jokes off... nonsense. If something hurts someone, it's not funny.

[shavastak.livejournal.com]

Three things I'd like to say.

1) I once heard a comedian sum up quite well how I feel about Christianity. He said that Elvis and Jesus were a lot alike, and one of the reasons he gave was this: "I like a lot of the stuff they did, but some their fans get on my nerves." And the truth is, I know a lot of wonderful Christians, and a fair few Christians who I'd like to gag and send somewhere else for a long long time. At its heart, Christianity is an admirable religion - love your neighbor, help the poor, try to be basically good.

2) Now we come to the other half of Christianity (split arbitrarily in half by me, into parts I like and parts I don't like. I freely admit it's an arbitrary split.) One of the fundamental tenets of Christianity that grates on me is that 'in order to get into heaven, you have to believe this way.' Good Christians who really are trying to be good and helpful to other people will, if they really believe in this tenet, immediately try to convert anyone they can, because they'll want as many people as possible to get into heaven. This unfortunately leads to a LOT of tension. I don't know that there's really any solution to it, but maybe a compromise can be reached - every Christian I meet is officially allowed to ask me to convert *once* and only once. Once I refuse, they aren't allowed to ask again, and they have to accept my refusal. Any chance that could become policy?

3) This is perhaps the most important thing I want to say. Christians are not a majority - not really. The truth is, get any three Christians together and they will disagree on something fairly fundamental to their faith. I can't count how many sects and branches of Christianity there are - Roman Catholic, Russian Orthodox, Greek Orthodox, Ethiopian Orthodox, and then the giant conglomeration we lump into Protestantism... This is something I say whenever the issue of 'separation of Church and State' comes up in US politics. You want your church to run the government? Well, the truth is no one sect of Christianity has a majority. Whoever you put in charge, eventually a majority of Americans will disagree with them. And the thing I like to bring up the most is, if you separate (as I do) the Southern Baptists from the other Baptists, the plurality of religion in this country goes to the Catholics, and most of the people who talk about religion being important in politics aren't thinking of Catholicism when they say that.

Basically what I'm saying is, you probably *could* argue that you're a minority, if you identify yourself as part of a particular branch of Christianity. If you really wanted to.

Oh, and I'm also saying that (with the exception of recovering Catholics ragging on Catholicism) people that make jokes about Christianity often lump the sects artificially.

[sassy-fae.livejournal.com]

Well put! I agree with all of point one, though I've not said it so eloquently.

The truth is, get any three Christians together and they will disagree on something fairly fundamental to their faith
I think this is true in any faith. For a good example of this, get a handful of pagans together to discuss their view of God and or Goddess, gods, goddesses, etc. (Most can't even agree on which!) Even if you get right down to specific wiccan sects, I suspect there'd still be a huge discrepancy.

[shavastak.livejournal.com]

Yes indeed, you're right, it isn't just Christianity. Certainly, though I call myself pagan, my religious beliefs are probably nothing like the beliefs of the person who sat next to me at the Beltane ritual I went to on Sunday...that might be a bad example, since my pagan group specifically welcomes all kinds of faiths and the pastor himself follows Judaism as well as some pagan traditions...

Faith is, for *everyone*, a personal journey of discovery, even if you're a member of an organized religion. The dissention is just more...noticeable in the organized religions, because they seem to try to put all their members into a box of certain beliefs.

[dornbeast.livejournal.com]

"...maybe a compromise can be reached - every Christian I meet is officially allowed to ask me to convert *once* and only once. Once I refuse, they aren't allowed to ask again, and they have to accept my refusal. Any chance that could become policy?"

---

Depending on who you speak to, that may actually be the policy. As you noted in your third point, Christianity isn't one cohesive lot, but a lot of people heading the same general direction. Some of them have, in my experience, done exactly what you asked for.

The problem is, it's hard to hear them being quiet when other groups are busy trying to save your soul.

[shavastak.livejournal.com]

Exactly. When I ask 'can this become policy' I fall into the trap I've just pointed out to others, because I'm really asking that of Christianity in general, which, as I said, doesn't really work because it doesn't really exist.

I have, in fact, met Christians to whom this is policy. (One of them was a Jehova's Witness who worked with my father; nice of him to stop at once, I always thought.) That's how I got the idea. I can still hope that *all* Christians might one day take this tack. Everybody's gotta dream!

[velvetpage.livejournal.com]

I've known Christians who would stop at that. I've known others who would stop being obvious about their desire to convert you - taking it underground in an attempt to show you how wonderful it was to be Christian. In fact, that's effectively what evangelicals are taught to do - live with Christ shining through your actions so that others will see and say, "I want some of that. Why are you so different?"

For myself, I've adopted the most liberal type of Christianity - the kind that can't reconcile a loving, all-powerful, all-knowing God who created so much diversity with the idea that we all have to believe the same thing to go to Heaven. I no longer believe in the Great Commission.

[shavastak.livejournal.com]

I like the sound of the Evangelical version, honestly, though I can picture a lot of people doing it wrong - sort of glancing at their friends every so often as if to say "Hey, do you get it yet?" rather than letting the actions speak for themselves. But I like yours the best - I was thinking about it when some of my college friends expressed sorrow that I was not to be converted. I said to myself, if God requires that I say such-and-such to get into heaven, and doesn't care that I've been a good person...more importantly, if God will turn away truly good people who are not Christian, like, say, Ghandi...then I don't want to be in His heaven, and my Christian friends will just have to live the afterlife without me. :)

[velvetpage.livejournal.com]

Many of the less-liberal denominations still believe that "you are judged on what you know." Ghandi, who knew a great deal about Christianity and made a conscious choice not to accept Christ, would not have gone to heaven, but a Muslim who had never heard the gospel but lived their life to the best of their ability, in faith and humility, would. That has the obvious hole you point out - that very good men, such as Ghandi, who actively choose another path would not get to heaven. It does, however, take the pressure off in terms of conversion. If you've never heard the gospel, you're off the hook a bit. Catholics would have that person in purgatory for a while in order to work off the sin that couldn't be forgiven, because they didn't know to ask for forgiveness.

Then there's the rabid evangelicals, who believe that anyone who hasn't accepted Christ is going to hell - no grey areas anywhere. Even at my most evangelical some twelve years ago, I never believed that. I pretended to, mind you - it was one of the discussions I mostly decided not to have because I wasn't sure where I stood on it. The first rule of debating is to know your own position, and I didn't, so I didn't debate. But I was always uncomfortable with that idea. It fit much better with the terrible-judge view of God than with the loving-father view.