attackfish

I don't know what denomination this specific woman is, but I have heard it before from people of several different denominations. I think it's one of those things where denomination is less of a factor than this sort of membership and participation in this overtly Christian Protestant subculture, the sort of people who aren't content with simply being Christian and living a Christian life, but need to replace secular institutions with religious ones, like listening to Christian music, playing Christian board games, doing Christian yoga... This is the default in the South in a way that it wasn't anywhere else I've lived. Christians here who don't want to take part in this culture have to make a conscious choice not to, no matter what denomination they are. There are these narratives that I hear, like comparing the Holocaust to the death of Jesus, or the Jewish friend who converted upon reading the New Testament, or the way motherhood seems to always be described with the words "highest calling" that cross denomination, but are part of a generalized Christian subculture that many Christians, most in fact, outside of the American South and parts of the Midwest.

The thing is, I know the woman who said this to me this specific time. She's very nice, very sweet, and she really does mean well. This was an attempt to be empathetic. That's what makes it so galling.