God Damn it, I Don't Even Know

[attackfish]

I swear, the next time a Christian tries to compare the Holocaust to the death of Jesus, I may just start screaming.  I mean what the hell?  How is that even a thing you say to someone?  And yes, this is not the first time I have heard this one.   God fucking damn.

Comments

[attackfish.livejournal.com]

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.

[water-soter.livejournal.com]

I can't really say anything to that. I was raised a Christian my whole life and I have never heard anything like this. At all. But I think this has more to do about individuals than an entire culture. I don't want to argue because I see no point in it. People will always be idiots no matter the religious, cultural, national, etc background.

[attackfish.livejournal.com]

I don't know how to explain it, it's like there are Christians, many of whom are great people, some of whom are not (because people are people) and then, entirely separate from that is this Christian subculture. I need a better word for it, or to use quotations, or something, because American culture is Christian. This is something else. this "Christian" subculture is absolutely not about Christianity as most Christians understand it. And it is very much something that outside certain places like the South, if you're not part of it, whether you're Christian or not, you never have to have any real contact with it. I would think it was individuals, but the same phrases, ideas, etc. pop up over and over, which tells me that they're getting it from somewhere.