One privilege Christians don’t always realize they have
by Jennifer Kesler
This is a typical conversation between a Christian and a non-believer:
Christian: Abortion/homosexuality/[insert incredibly incindiary topic here] is blah blah blah.
Atheist/agnotic: (smiles and nods)
We smile and nod because we know Christian beliefs are respected and other beliefs are not so much, and if we say something precisely as offensive/inane in response, we will be treated as if we just punched a toddler in the face. I’ve done this a number of times:
Christian: Abortion/homosexuality/[insert incredibly incindiary topic here] is blah blah blah.
Atheist/agnotic: Really? I feel abortion/homosexuality/[insert incredibly incindiary topic here] is the opposite blah blah blah.
For which I am a hideously offensive monster. Doesn’t matter that the Christian was the one who introduced a controversial topic into the conversation and stated an opinion as fact (which I don’t). Christians have long had the privilege of spouting their views uncontested, but if we respond with opposing ideas or criticism of their ideas, we aren’t just exercising the same rights they enjoy under freedom of speech: we are attacking them. This is why so many Christians today feel persecuted: they have been so mired in privilege for so long that they have yet to realize an equal but opposite assertion cannot rationally be deemed more offensive than their statements.
People of other faiths run into this problem in societies where Christianity is culturally dominant, too. Try responding to the above with some remarks on the hard and fast reality of reincarnation, and you won’t fare much better than the atheist.
For clarity, I’m not at all suggesting all Christians engage in this behavior. I’m just saying it’s a privilege available to them in our society, and it’s unfair to others. Of course they have the right to say what they believe. It’s just ludicrous for anyone to be offended when, after introducing a very controversial topic into polite conversation, they meet with intellectual opposition. Hell, when I argue that women are people, I brace myself for strong opposition to that oh-so-controversial view. If you’re arguing that you know God exists and what he thinks about things, you really need to be prepared for a healthy, respectful debate. And there is nothing unhealthy or disrespectful about someone voicing an opinion you find offensive, especially when you did exactly the same thing to them first.
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Posted in Religion on June 30, 2009
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You’re absolutely right. I can respect someone for having a different opinion or belief. But what I do not, and will not, respect is when that other opinion is used to cause harm to ALL others, including those who are not Christians. A classic case is made here:
http://www.atheistnexus.org/forum/topics/the-true-face-of-the-prolife?page=1&commentId=2182797%3AComment%3A398153&x=1#2182797Comment398153
True Christians – and I have known quite a few who really think and behave as Jesus advised, which is loving and wonderful – don’t support anything that hurts others. They don’t get on board with a lot of the “moral majority” political stuff, for example. And if I tell them I simply can’t discuss this stuff with them, they don’t bring it up.
Then there is a second layer – people who are mostly loving and wonderful, but they just can’t stop talking religion. They’ll honor my request not to speak of it to me for a month or a few months, then suddenly they’re telling me how the End Times are coming and Satan and God and blah blah. And it’s not like I don’t make it clear to them that the End Times crap is my LEAST favorite religious topic ever, because as a Christian I was taught to scorn it as fundamentalist claptrap, so as an atheist I certainly didn’t warm up to it any.
It feels exactly the same as someone talking about my breasts after I’ve asked them not to make comments about my body. It’s violating. It’s harassment.
In my experience, there are what I would call relaxed Christians and anxious Christians. Relaxed Christians are those who joined the faith to find a better way to live, and that’s their focus (rather than their neighbor). Anxious Christians seem to me to have something to prove, and they tend to go about it the way humans usually do when they need reassurance: trying to convince others to agree with them.
Of course, this dichotomy applies to pretty much everything. Even sex – some people have sex to make themselves happy, and others have it to impress someone else or fit some mold they think they’re expected to fit. It’s just human behavior.
How do I love this blog? Let me count the ways.
They have no right to call themselves Christians if they have no Chirst-like attributes. I had a vision from me old bud Jesus and he asked me to tell everyone to just stop. Stop it. You have gotten it all wrong. You have used his name to kill. Stop killing!
He hates what’s been done in his name. Jesus hates religion and he wants you all to quit it right now this second! And lay off the gay people too he said, and stop torturing, killing and eating animals.
You people are making him depressed. If you were the Prince of Peace today, how would you feel?