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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   34907 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of March 13, 2023

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My problem with the ad campaign is that the money is spent poorly. With that amount you could wrangle Christians together to produce a victim complex lobbying arm that demands one attractive crucifix-wearer in every show and on every board of directors.

What do you mean by a crucifix? Do you just mean a cross? Do you even understand the difference, and why doctrinally it was treated as such a difference between Protestants and Catholics? Is the crucifix-wearer just going to be "generic non-dom Christian who carefully avoids any real doctrines and instead is just 'let's all be nice and do good things' version"?

There's a lot going on, and just slapping in Generic Nice Chick Who's Allegedly Christian Not That You Could Tell won't achieve anything. "We know Susie in 'The Green Banana Show' is Christian, isn't that great representation?" "How? Does she go to church? Pray? Read the Bible? Disagree with the secular take on something?" "Uh, no, she acts and talks just like the rest of the cast, but she wears a cross!"

And if she is represented as a good person who is victimized because of her religion, the positive valence of Christianity will increase, which is a step forward for Christians in American culture.

Mainstream TV/movies will only present Susie as a good person victimized because of her religion if it's the liberal version being persecuted. You know the drill - she volunteers as an escort for an abortion clinic because she is Compassionate about the Emotionally Wrenching Dilemma women who Will Die Otherwise undergo, but her horrible knuckle dragging church rebukes her and excommunicates her.

Susie a Christian who gets the boot from her local para-church ministry because she's not on board with trans clergy persons? She's an evil bigot persecutor who deserves it!*

There was a late 90s TV fantasy show which only lasted one season, and in the first episode we got a blind black Catholic priest and I was mentally going "Oh here we go", expecting the usual kind of "you only need to be a nice person and have good intentions, God doesn't care what you believe" stuff. I was shocked in a good way when he came out with "yep, cool motive, still murder" (to quote a much later show) about what the lead character had done.

My immediate reaction was (1) holy crap I think I love this show (2) holy crap it's not gonna get more than one season, is it? 😂

*I don't know if I need to say this on here, but that person is not a priest, a Catholic priest, or a Roman Catholic priest in any sense at all. They may be playing dress-up in this cult but they're not Catholics, not clergy, and not anything but a bunch of lay people who are inventing their own church in the best American fashion.

My problem with the ad campaign is that the money is spent poorly. With that amount you could wrangle Christians together to produce a victim complex lobbying arm that demands one attractive crucifix-wearer in every show and on every board of directors.

Emphasis mine; and in the words of a small green Jedi, "That is why you fail".

@TracingWoodgrains you can accuse me of being "uncharitable" (you may even be correct) but this right here is exactly the sort of thing I'm talking about when I claim that the woke left and the alt right are fruit of the same tree.

Well let’s discuss it.

Many powerful groups in America use a victim narrative to further their interests, in particular Jewish Americans (discussed in the recent “Day of Hate” topic you can find in my reply history). Recently, Asian Americans (the least assaulted group in the nation, the doors for whom were open in a way they would never be in Asia for Americans) have also been winning publicity with claims of extreme assault, and perhaps Oscars with claims of under-representation (they are the most over-represented group). Indigenous groups just a few years ago burned down many Catholic Churches over a largely meritless victimhood-promoting report on the Komloops School burials. There is no group but White Christians who fail to use a victim complex. But this was not always so.

Christians once thrived on a victim narrative. This “saving victim” narrative was once crucial to Christians, who prayed “O Saving Victim lend thine aid, our foes press hard on every side”. Early Christians talked about “being persecuted for righteousness sake”. Jesus says that blessedness (happiness) lies in being persecuted as a Christian which leads to heaven. Jesus pointed the finger at a powerful group as causing this persecution and cursed them; early Christians too were persecuted by Jews and Romans and were venerated as martyrs. The Mass focuses not on the resurrection of Jesus, but on his death and sacrifice.

The Church in its earliest days saw themselves as God’s true victims. When presenting their message to others, they preached the glory and memory of their savior who was willing victimized. And in their rituals, the feeling of pity and love is stirred up by acknowledging the torture of God at the hand of sinners. This is enough to consider a victim narrative natural to Christianity. If a victim narrative is natural to Christianity, then it should be used to benefit Christians.

Many powerful groups in America use a victim narrative to further their interests,

And do you expect me to see this as something good or admirable? If so why? What value does it add? What sort of principles are being maintained?

You say Christians once thrived on a victim narrative, but as @FarNearEverywhere observes, there is a world of Difference between the attitude espoused by the Apostles and the early Church fathers and that embraced by both contemporary Jews and modern-day progressives. I would go so far as to argue that this difference is in fact one of Christianity's core strengths.

Rather than wallowing in self-pity or demanding worldly restitution we are urged to literally "rejoice in our sufferings" because by enduring them and "bearing the cross" as Jesus did, we make ourselves more worthy.

I think the theology of O Salutaris Hostia differs slightly from Help, help, I am being oppressed!

Is this relevant? Is Cafe an alt-righter?

I recognize that the parent comment is probably deserving of a modhat, but at the same time, from one perspective--a rather jaded perspective, mind--Cafe is simply recognizing that furthering a group's power in the modern first world requires getting the management on your side.

Believing that their power needs to be furthered is a pretty good indicator that the person speaking has a perspective utterly alien to Christianity. More generally, a belief that power itself is what determines outcomes is a big part of the commonality we're mutually groping toward.

That's a more fair and direct criticism.

I don't know, but based on their comment history I would argue that they are at least alt-right adjacent.

As for the rest, I feel like this might just be one of those fundamental points upon which we must disagree.

Have them literally fund anime--might be less dangerous than when Happy Science does it.

That's actually a brilliant idea, imagine an anime about St. George slaying the dragon with lots of Christian metal for the soundtrack. And tons of animes have excessively long internal monologues, so you could have him thinking to himself about the nature of faith, temptation, or whatever the message of the week is etc.

Well, I'm sold. So do you go with Narnia or with Stryper for the soundtrack?

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