#fundamentalist & evangelical christian communities are doing the same things

[rinielelrandir]

They also frequently threw queer cis women & trans mascs in psychiatric hospitals. Queer cis men & trans femmes would get sent to jail (or fined or placed under house arrest) and often chemically castrated for "deviant behavior", queer cis women & trans mascs would (usually) get locked in psych wards for their "delusions" instead. When ya know, they weren't just straight up murdering queer people for being queer. Because as pointed out above that was also very much happening.

I feel like some queer ppl & feminist allies who used to think wlw were (unlike mlm) never really oppressed (because they didn't receive the same level of vitriol, the erasure of their identities meant that anti-sodomy laws historically disproportionately affected men, ppl are less disgusted with female homosexuality etc.) only gained a surface-understanding of oppression (lesbians = oppressed because patriarchy) without learning anything at all about erasure and what it does to a community, and now that they struggle to understand transmasculine history & oppression it definitely shows.

[aropride]

i saw a post the other day that said that gen z/gen alpha say "unalive" and "seggs" and stuff bc they're afraid of being "punished by an invisible force" and while i do think that the self-censoring sometimes unnecessary and worrying, i also don't think they're self-censoring for no reason.

i think there are a lot of situations where talking about suicide/death in general and sex outright would be punished by very real visible forces like parents and teachers and instagram community guidelines. like these kids (i say kids but i know people my age (20) do this, i feel like it's mostly younger genz and genalpha though at least in my experience) aren't just self-policing and self-censoring for no reason. some creators learned to adapt their language to unclear nebulous guidelines to try and avoid their accounts being taken down or their videos being shown to fewer people, then people started assuming any mentions of death or sex would be punished and started doing the same thing, and now younger kids have picked up on it bc they're online a lot and don't know any different.

but that's not the only part of this that matters bc while that is strange and a little dystopian. there are also offline real-life reasons kids would be scared to talk about this shit with actual words. like i was raised very christian, evangelical, not quite fundamentalist, "we don't use labels but we have stage lights for the worship songs but don't wear skirts above the knee" type of thing. my parents didn't teach me about sex until they found out i would have a sex ed class bc they had to sign a permission slip. and then they gave me a book for kids about sex that was heavily christian, abstinence-only, deeply homophobic etc. it didn't teach about birth control, about what things are not normal, any of that. and i was not raised in a way where i was even the slightest bit comfortable asking my parents or talking about it at all. my twin brother got the same book and would talk about sex or make jokes about it and our parents would get upset because it was "inappropriate" and he shouldn't be thinking about that or whatever. and if i had tried to talk about like, menstrual health or signs of abuse or even just made a joke about sex at all my parents would have been upset.

you can probably guess this from what i just said but unsurprisingly my parents weren't big on being upfront about mental health issues either. i have been depressed since before i can remember and was suicidal by the time i was eleven and i had no idea that the way i was feeling wasn't normal or that there was a word for it. i don't remember when i learned about suicide but i know my dad was at least willing to say the word in conversation when i was 12, which my mother wasn't happy about because it was "too dark" a conversation to be having (he had been telling me about a friend he had in college, specifically about how he had recovered from substance abuse issues and suicidal ideation).

and my parents were definitely not normal but there are objectively situations where parents are way worse about this type of thing. there are absolutely kids who aren't allowed to say words like suicide and death and sex. and they're not afraid of algorithms, there are real-life offline consequences if they slip up. so they self-censor, they talk quietly in the lunchroom with codewords and euphemisms with their friends. and that's not even to mention school, and how kids will get in trouble for anything an adult doesn't want them to talk about, how they can get in, again, real-life offline trouble for speaking frankly about this type of thing. because it's "inappropriate," because it's "upsetting," because their teacher is having a bad day, because god said not to, because they don't want their dm to a friend on tiktok to be flagged.

and i would much rather kids talk about these things with sometimes-insensitive code words than to not talk about them at all. if it's a choice between someone coming out as "tr4ns" to their friend and not having someone to support them at all, if it's between saying they want to "unalive" themself and never seeking help, i want them to go the sometimes-silly code word route. because i think they should be allowed to talk about these things and if they're not i think they have the right to try to do it anyway. the unnecessary self-censorship has been criticized to hell and back and i'm not saying it shouldn't be, especially when it's adults saying these things in real life situations. i'm just saying i think kids have a lot more pressure to censor themselves than people think, even offline.

[sophieinwonderland]

I saw someone complaining about my post suggesting we start marketing tulpamancy to youths in religious conservative households, accusing me of wanting to use the same tactics as the fundamentalists. To which I'll say...

Duh.

In case anyone hasn't noticed, liberal Christianity is dying.

This isn't true of evangelicalism. And you know why that is?

Marketing!

Even if someone from their flock does leave, fundamentalists can convert more people. They are willing to convert more people. It's their sacred duty as Christians to save lost souls from Hell.

Liberal churches are too passive. They choose to be respectful of other faiths to such a fault that they don't like converting people to their religion or political ideologies. While fundamentalists were preaching that Donald Trump was a hero for God battling the demonic forces of the Left, the liberal Christian churches twiddled their thumbs doing nothing because meshing politics and religion is "wrong".

They don't convert people. They don't market their religion. They don't use their religious platforms to try to push for positive change for marginalized communities.

They don't do these things because they view these tactics as things the "bad" churches do. And they aren't wrong. These are the exact tactics that fundamentalists employ. But these tactics themselves aren't necessarily immoral. And importantly, these tactics are why the fundamentalists are winning.

This isn't just a problem with liberal churches but the Left as a whole, IMO.

I saw this image going around and I feel it actually sums up the problem nicely:

This is true in a lot of ways. It's obviously a huge problem with our purity tests. The fact that many people were fine abstaining to vote because our candidate wasn't perfect by their standards when the alternative was a fascist who literally promised to be a dictator on day 1 of his Presidency is a great example of this.

But so too is our fear of using the same tactics that our enemies do because of some misguided motion that doing so is immoral or makes us just as bad as them. The notion that "pushing your political views on people makes you just as bad as fascists" has turned modern liberals into an ineffective joke.

And this finally brings us to tulpamancy.

We have a practice that...

Practitioners overwhelmingly report positive mental health benefits from.

While there are a couple edge cases of people having negative reactions, these negative reactions are far less common than you'll find for, say, prescription drugs. We're talking about maybe 1-2% of tulpa systems. And many of those will be because of avoidable mistakes. (People making tulpas that are designed to be critical of them, for example.)

The fact that many tulpamancers will create opposite-gender tulpas means their tulpas are likely to experience some level of gender dysphoria while fronting. In theory, going from a cis singlet to what is essentially a genderfluid system should make tulpamancers more sympathetic to trans rights issues. Those who care enough about their tulpas will want their tulpas to be able to front with whatever gender they identify by. Therefore, a child of a fundamentalist Christian who becomes a tulpamancer is just a bit more likely to vote in support of trans rights.

This is largely a net positive all around.

And what is the price of doing nothing?

The vulnerable people who are looking for something to fill whatever gaps they believe they have inside them will find something to fill those gaps with. Every person we don't reach is someone that the right-wing fundamentalists and fascists can.

Let's be totally clear here. Vulnerable people exist. And if we're not the ones to exploit those vulnerabilities, the fascists will be. Abstaining from reaching out to people in need and offering something that could make their lives better doesn't protect the people in need. It just means someone else will target them instead and lead them down a worse path.

It's been said that the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good people to do nothing. And sadly, a lot of liberals have made an ideology of doing nothing, so crippled in the terror that they might do the wrong thing that they avoid actions that both could help people in need and progress their political agendas at once.

[winchesternova-k]

about under the cut

daily clicks

about

call me emily, alex or cas. em, nova & castiel are also fine. 24. they/fae/ze, usually interchangeable. they/them preferred currently.

queer, autistic, adhd, mentally ill, physically disabled/chronically ill and chronic pain. i used to be a care worker. i’m also white australian, tme & perisex.

i’m a writer, artist and gaymer, a sci-fi and fantasy geek, horror connoisseur, doll collector, sword enthusiast and big emo.

i’m also a nondenominational christian, who is highly critical of the church. specifically my beliefs are closest to anglican and catholic as that’s what i was raised as, but It’s Complicated™️. i am firmly anti evangelical/pentacostal/any other fundamentalist or cult sects, and anti missionary. i am pro all other religions. antitheists are not welcome on this blog. atheists and agnostics of course are.

i tag any posts relating to my faith as ‘christian tag’ and posts about christianity generally that don’t pertain to me as ‘christianity’ for blacklisting purposes. if you have trauma surrounding christianity and would prefer not to interact, there’s no hard feelings! i wish you good health and healing :)

i post a lot about my about my special interests and hyperfixations. full disclosure that dragon age rewired my brain chemistry in 2023, so there’s probably going to be a lot of that around for the foreseeable future.

my spins include: the tribe (1999), dragon age, x-men, vampires, supernatural, batfamily, resident evil, horror in general, fashion dolls and associated media (mainly bratz & monster high), sherlock holmes (mainly the granada series & frogwares games). current hyperfixations will always be in my bio and will be edited as needed.

links

i can also be found on:

pronoun page | ao3 | twitter | pinterest | dollect

ask me for my psn & pokémon go :)

icon was made by @/hexblooded

tagging & general housekeeping

anon is currently turned off because some people don’t know how to behave. my dms are always open, and if you want to discuss something privately, you can always reach me there :)

i try to tag common triggers with ‘[trigger] cw’ or ‘[trigger] tw’ without the brackets. if i forget to tag something, pls let me know and i’ll fix it asap. MINORS PLEASE BLACK LIST ‘MINORS DNI’ AND ‘NSFW’. flashing media is tagged as ‘flashing gif’ and ‘flashing video’. i am not currently tagging any queer community related slurs and i do personally reclaim the word fag. please let me know if there’s anything you need tagged and i’ll do my best! the only thing i will not tag the word queer.

i generally tag spoilers. i usually tag for tv for up to a week after. i am currently tagging dragon age spoilers as: ‘dav spoilers’ for veilguard and current marketing. story relevant spoilers are tagged, as is anything else from behind the embargo. this does not include basic marketing. vows and vengeance is tagged ‘vows and vengeance spoilers’ and ‘dragon age spoilers’. these are tagged for 3-4 days after release, but i don’t usually make new posts after that anyway.

tags where i talk are: emily talks, alex talks, cas talks & emily liveblogs [insert media]. spn specific tags are emily liveblogs spn and emily rewatches spn. i also have a doll tag for fashion dolls, some are mine and some are other people’s.

tags where i rb things i relate to are: about me, me and same. i also have a writer tag, a fanfic writer tag, and an artist tag. i also have a separate tag for when i’m actually writing. i also make mods for the sims 4 sometimes (though i haven’t posted any yet). i sometimes post about my dog (though i mostly rb memes). my popular posts.

original characters navi etc.

i mostly post about my dragon age ocs at the moment. my general oc tag for other projects is ‘ocs’.

dragon age specific tags -

‘canon’ timeline: havella brosca (intro) / julian hawke (intro) / aelua lavellan (intro)

‘moonless’ timeline: tal’en surana (intro) / meera hawke (intro) / lunetta lavellan (intro)

‘bleak’ timeline: elyas cousland (intro) / kiernan “hawke” amell (intro) / lysk cadash (intro)

‘elfroot & blood lotus’ timeline: dallen tabris (intro) / valeria hawke (intro) / daniel felix trevelyan (intro)

proper navigational & introduction pages are under construction for all.

discourse, etc.

i’m an inclusionist of all good faith queer identities (yes, that kind too). whatever intracommunity queer discourse you’re thinking of i’m probably pro-inclusion. exclusionists are not welcome on this blog, folks who are looking for answers in good faith, or are former exclusionists are.

i’m an ‘anti’ in the sense that i believe in critical media consumption and am against child pornography. i also believe in holding bigotry, and racism in particular, to account in fandom spaces. i believe dark topics can be explored in fiction, but i also believe romantisization of incest, abuse, pedophilia, etc is Bad. ie. i don’t vibe with uncritical works or works that are straight up pro incest etc. antiantis/proshippers etc are not welcome here for this reason. and since apparently it needs to be said, i also do not believe in harassment or death threats/suicide bait etc. grow up.

dni

general dni criterias - if i catch you being bigoted in any way and you don’t attempt to better yourself after being held to account you’re getting blocked

terfs/twerfs/swerfs/radfems of any kind. this blog loves and supports trans women and sex workers. bioessentialism is bad.

exclusionists of any kind (yes, that kind too)

maps/nomaps/whatever pedophile fucks are calling themselves these day

proship/anti antis/comship/comfic/whatever y’all are calling yourselves

and on a personal note - if you were one of the people who sent death threats and suicide bait around the bbc sherlock fandom on twitter in 2019: fuck off. several people i care about nearly took their own lives because of you and i don’t want you anywhere near me. death threats etc are awful in general but this one was personal.

thanks for reading!

[lukedanger]

Ashley Williams Appreciation - Background Theme

Let’s kick this Appreciation Week by @cannot-rest off with something spicy… How about Ashley being religious?

Or more specifically, we should ask what we mean when we say Ashley is religious. The way it is usually bandied about, Ashley is portrayed as your standard issue (Christian) fundamentalist evangelical or a Sister of Battle born thirty-eight millennia too soon. However, this doesn’t actually line up with her characterization. If anything, I would posit that while Ashley is a believer, she is more of a ‘Sunday churchgoer’, and even that term gives off the wrong vibe. For her, it is a personal thing rather than a belonging in a community as the Abrahamic religions usually emphasize.

Ashley’s belief is not that of someone who is performing to identify her tribal group, that must be loudly professed and those willing to join evangelized. Ashley will even explicitly refute the idea that she would want to preach in the CiC if Shepard gets in her grill about it. So, that right there tells us that she is not an evangelical who thinks that everyone needs to worship the same way… yet it also does not mean that Ashley is not religious. After all, not every faith sends out missionaries to convert the other, even among the Abrahamic religions.

So, does she overtly practice any common rites that we might identify? Well, no. In fact, if not for Ashley explicitly confirming that she believes, would we from her dialogue even be able to ascertain it? I would say “yes” because of scenes such as mentioning her belief that Kaidan has to be in Heaven and the discussion about her father being dead, but those are singular scenes. Does this invalidate her being religious? Not at all - consider people you know who are religious but you do not interact with much outside of work. Would you say they are not religious because you don’t see them doing certain actions? Or, for that matter, do you even know what those practices are?

In fact, let’s compare her to Samara as I think this makes the difference telling. Samara’s idle animation on the SR-2 is practicing mediation, she explicitly discusses the Justicar Code as it applies to her and the mission. She is unquestionably a religious squadmate, and we don’t even know if she follows the Athame Doctrine or is a siarist - or maybe believes in both?

Ashley? She does none of this, and again we don’t even know if Ashley is Christian - we only assume it because that’s our ‘default’ for vaguely monotheistic IRL religions in the Anglosphere. Here, we hit the core of where religion factors into Ashley’s character. Namely, it is a facet of her but it is not and never was her defining feature. If anything, it is a part of herself that Ashley suppresses to fit in better given that she explicitly mentions that people considered her weird for it. 

So, does this make Ashley a “bad” religious character? To that I ask what defines a “good” religious character? What must a character do to be a “good” religious character? And, perhaps, we should ask how religious a character needs to be. Look at Dragon Age, specifically the Andrastian companions. How many of them like Sera, Varric, Aveline, Alistair, or Wynne would you consider to be “bad religious characters” because it is not as important to their identity than it is for Cassandra, Sebastian, or Leliana? All those named DA characters are firmly Andrastian, yet only the latter three have it as critical to their identity as a character. And the last three don’t praise Andraste every time Henry Hawke comes to see them.

If you have been paying attention to the comparisons, you might notice that the ones that are hardcore about making their religion a part of their identity are those who are explicitly of religious vocation. Ashley is not. Given this and how rarely it comes up, how can we in good faith* say that Ashley being faithful means it has to be core to her the way it is for a Paladin in Dungeons and Dragons? *pun unintended

Does this mean that being religious is entirely unimportant to Ashley’s character and should have been left off? No, absolutely not. It actually tells us quite a bit about her - it tells us that Ashley believes in there being some order to the world, some rightness to it even if we cannot see it. “Everything happens for a reason, Shepard.” A way for Ashley to rationalize the undue hate she gets for events that happened before she was even conceived. A way to view an unfair world, to give her some element of certainty even if it cannot give her a direct hand in bettering herself. And in that, she is also humble: she explicitly denies the idea of humanity having any sort of divine destiny.

And Shepard recognizes what this points to - that for all the armor of cynicism she wears to protect herself, Ashley ultimately wants the galaxy to be a better place. So what does he do with that? He uses it to present to Ashley a different way of thinking: if the galaxy is meant to be a survival of the fittest where everyone looks out for number one, why even bother with this kind of diversity? And with that, Ashley is able to refocus the lenses she views the galaxy with and begins to comprehend that humanity can save itself by saving everyone - and to consider that the Council may also be viewing things in the same light.

It is an utterly beautiful sequence because in the end Ashley’s core motives all remain the same, but the difference it causes is profound. And even if Shepard does not romance* her and so does not put her on that path, Ashley still shifts her opinions to be more big picture rather than a narrow focus on what the Systems Alliance needed. Would it not make sense that after the experiences she finally gained in the first game, Ashley considered it herself and found a similar conclusion? Shepard can just kickstart it so it’s seen earlier, but in the end Ashely makes that leap of faith herself. *Why, Bioware, why would you lock this behind a romance?

TL;DR - Ashley is not an evangelical character, but she is a religious one. It’s just that to Ashley, religion is a very personal matter rather than one she needs to parade about to show as her tribal signifier or to win brownie points with the big G. Assuming that she has to is to reduce Ashley to a stereotype.

[papirouge]

What’s are your views on “purity culture” among christians

I think it varies between denominations but the idea is still around mainly fundamentalists. It’s definitely important to teach women how important it is to be picky, believe in hypergamy, and ignore probably the 90% of scrotes that aren’t good people but I never really believed in flat out refusing to teach sex ed, what stds and stis are, what Plan B is, and how birth control and condoms work. Which seems like a lot of these more fundamentalists tend to do.

I had this friend who is divorced now. She grew up in that type of environment where they were very strict about her purity but ignored the boys virginity completely. Like she had two brothers who were total opposites. 1 was basically community dick and caught a disease and her parents didn’t care 💀 the other was an incel who was very anti social. And her parents were upset that they couldn’t marry him off because not even the desperate fundie girls wanted his violent outbursts. He’s still single too and approaching 40

She was married young to her ex and had no idea how sex even worked. She was only told to avoid it and it just scared her. So when she got married, she told me how her parents and church counselor were upset that she didnt turn into someone who liked sex immediately. Even kissing was new to her and she didn’t know what to do. She didn’t like it at all/avoided sleeping in the same as her husband and was told by them to suck it up when she expressed she had pain. When she got older she left that church and her husband but was ex communicated by her family for it.

Does that type of stuff happen in France?

Purity isn't much of a thing anywhere else in the world because as I said, most of USAmerican evangelicalism staples are rooted in culture not in Christianism. I've always found fascinating how France & its very liberal "sex culture" was compared to the US (age of consent is 15 years old, birth control & abortion is free, condoms are handed over in highschool, etc.) yet managed to have proportionally lower abortion rate than God fearing United States of America lol

Fundies family don't exist anywhere else in the world beside the USA anon so nope, we don't have this kind of messy affairs here. Catholicism is in a limbo here in France and real Catholic families are very rare. And even when they do, they don't hold such a spiritual grip on their members to guilt trip them into marrying someone. The only stories of people being excommunicated are bishops coming out as gay or being caught dating/having sex with women lol

The story of your divorced friend is very representative of the double standards of women virginity vs male virginity. Although it's quite normal to particularly warn off women about the consequences of sex because, unlike men, they are the ones who'll carry the baby so they have much more responsibility to deal with (as unfair it may sound). But it doesn't mean men virginity is any less relevant.

Many of women will never want a community d*ck, that's why her busted brother is still single at 40 (which is weird bc red pillers always said men got more value as they got older 🤔).

Fornicators are literally filled with demons and should be avoided at all costs.

And yet, I'm sure he's not shamed like his sister was to marry a man she was even attracted to... Her story is so sad.. but she's better off outside of this cult though. She's lucky she if she didn't have any child with him...

I think kids shouldn't be taught sex ed before middle school. I did in elementary school and it lowkey fucked me up. Even when I was 12-13 years old I had a male friend of my age who told me how many times a week he masturbated and it triggered me so bad lmao

Tbh there should be something progressive, like first learning about sexual organs, periods, how babies are made (12~13 years old), than at 15 about birth control(?) IDK the idea of teaching kids sex at school is weird to me but I think I would be even more traumatized if my mom taught me any of this because we NEVER talk about things like that lmaoo I guess it's important to build a trust relationship with your kid from start so that it's not awkward when you actually do? IDK I lowkey hate the sex talk and wish sex wasn't such a big deal in society so I'm probably not the best person to inquire about that lmaooo

[kinfriday]

Ritual Radical

One of the factors that allowed Christianity to spread so rapidly across Europe was a result of a unified liturgy.  

While there were local derivations, and debates on dates, such as with the Celtic and British churches, there was an overall trend of homogeneity not seen in heathen traditions.  

By and large this made Christianity a type of modular faith, with ready snap ins to infiltrate new cultures, allowing them to assimilate those cultures into their fold. Whereas with the old ways different villages, regions and even families might have different traditions, or venerate Gods at different levels (For some Tyr was the head of the pantheon, others Woden, for instance.) With Christianity elements of faith had a much more rigid structure, which combined with evangelical zeal allowed it to spread.  

Within our modern times in western culture these liturgical traditions have gone to effect me at a deep level. It was after all what I was raised with, having spent many years as an evangelical fundamentalist, ultimately pursuing a degree in the ministry.  

You would not have recognized me twenty years ago. 

This has translated into modern neopagan practice as many of us are converts from Christian paths. We take our cultural traditions of prayer and formalized worship with us and reinterpret and reincorporate them in new ways.  

Yet for all my ascetic ways, and liturgical history, I get very little out of formal ritual.  

Every day, on wake up, I kneel before my altar and recite my vows, my creed, and a daily prayer to the Gods ancestors and spirits. This, along with meditation is about the closest I come to a formal practice. Offerings are not made at these times, rather, I make daily offerings of my favorite things. If I have a banana I give the Gods my favorite quarter, my daily apple, I give three slices, for the Gods, the Ancestors and the House/Landvaetir.  

While these are ritualized actions, they are not exactly the same as the formal high day rituals, the traditional blots and symbels that are normally seen within the germanic traditions.  

This is one of the reasons I’ve remained quite solitary in my practice over the years and remain a type of strange outlier in heathen communities, because a core element of the faith is about community. Still, I’ve always been an introvert, and something of a hermit. It’s difficult, nigh impossible for me to feel any connection to the divine in ritual gatherings, to the point where I feel as if I’m going through the motions, yet my heart and spirit are not connecting at all.  

However, when I recite my creed, utter my vows, and make my daily offerings that have become so normal it is almost casual...there is a connection there.  

“I present these offerings to you, My Gods, to the Ancestors, and to the Spirits of nature, earth and place. I’m thinking about you.”  

It’s dirt simple, but also honest and real for me. It’s how I experience the divine.  

This has led to existential crises in the past, as I’ve wondered if I’m on the right path, or if my faith is valid compared to other Heathens. Like everything in my life, I seem to have to do it my own way to function, which is why I’ve found great comfort in the diversity in the ways of our spiritual ancestors.  

Everything was different depending on where you went from funerary customs, to what ritual structures we’ve been able to devise. Far from having an overall homogenous structure, it is the heterogeneity that grants me comfort.  

The point of ritual, I feel, in all of its many variations and ways is akin to tuning a radio. The systems, routines, smells, sounds, and experience, position the spirit to encounter the divine but everyone’s spiritual radio is a little different which means there will always be outliers like me.  

This is something that the ancient ways seemed to account for well.  

This is where we get to heart of the matter. Our traditions are lived traditions where we seek to connect with the spiritual world around us. It is not about the forgiveness of sins committed, perfect obedience, or the following of a program.  

Our Gods call us to be ourselves, to boldly forge our own paths in life, and I think this does come all the way down to how we worship and approach them.  

We know we are doing it right when we come into a space where we can encounter them, no matter if that occurs in a high day ritual or a simple morning devotional.  

It is our path to wander, and our journey to discover.  

-Sister Snow Hare  

[talenlee]

Fundamentalism Is A Grift

New Post has been published on PRESS.exe: Fundamentalism Is A Grift

It’s not that fundamentalist christianity is itself fundamentally a grift, it’s just it’s a space that’s always, always, always going to feature some variety of grifters. I don’t have an explanation for why, this isn’t a scientifically researched position or anything, it’s just me noticing a pattern with the same thing, every single time, every single time I stumble into it anew.

It’d be easy to extrapolate that this is related to power dynamics. If a fundamentalist group are all people who defer to a specifically limited interpretation of some source text or ideological position, it almost always expresses as refusal to engage with, or accept, things outside that position. It’s not necessarily the same thing as being big on ‘fundamentals’ per se — I don’t imagine there are mechanics who refuse to fix brake pads because they’re too committed to the fundamental principles of the lever or anything. The basic idea I’m talking about here are ideological communities, usually ones like my fundamentalist evangelical christian background.

I’ve talked about Christian Replacement Media (a few times, in fact) and the way that there’s a market inside these fundamentalist spaces, for, well, everything. You know, you can buy godly books and movies and music and that’s specially separated from the filthy excesses of the other industries around them and so on, but don’t think it’s limited to just the content. It’s also the presentation. Hobby Lobby is infamous for its Christian culture in the fundie space, so buying goods there, and goods with their own branding is a sort of ‘christian’ action you can see in these fundie spaces. We had Koorong bookstores for that.

It’s been perhaps as a byproduct of paying attention to the Content Creation Griftosphere lately that I’ve been so mindful of this lately. Alex Jones wants you to buy his boner pills, the Birchers want you to buy their literature (and distribute copies!), Praying Medic wants you to subscribe to his patreon or whatever, and even actual outright nazis want you to pay into their subscribestars.

Growing up, our pastor was running a business trying to distribute multi-level marketing nonsense, like health-care supplements and alternate medications, I think it’s still around and the brand persists. I know there were atttempts made to recruit my dad into other MLM stuff like Amway, and while we listened to the tapes in the car, nothing came of it. Which was wild as well in hindsight because dad was always a good salesperson, I imagine if he’d gone in on it he might have wound up becoming one of those guys.

It seems almost tautological to point it out: These dudes and it is almost always dudes, are always running a con or a scam. I can’t think of a single fundamentalist christian outlet, people offering to share in the fellowship of the body of christ as indicated by a very specific reading of a text, that isn’t ultimately connected in some way to selling something, and that something is never actively good. Hell, Jones has gotten to the point where he’s now just plain out selling overpriced crap because you’re ‘paying to fight the infowar.’

So fundies are scammers, so what.

Well, not all fundies are in on the scam. In fact, there are a lot of good-faith actors in the space who are shitheads for other reasons, but which don’t realise they’re dealing with other scam artists. And that’s why you may notice most of these people in these spaces tend to be a bit territorial, a bit… exclusive. Most of the time, give these people enough time and even if they overlap on 99% of what they do they’ll still find ways and reasons to be mad at one another, to find some reason to try and keep their audiences and their income stream isolated to just them.

What an example?

Patch the Pirate is the stage name of a guy named Ron Hamilton, a guy who I file happily in the ‘good faith producer’ space of Christian Replacement Media. Note that he is a big dumb shithead for other reasons, what with the misogyny and racism, but it’s the kind of misogyny and racism that he would see as just ‘good old fashioned fun,’ or ‘old fashioned values,’ you know how it is. He’s the source of the truly harrowing I Wanna Marry Daddy song, which he then had his daughters sing on an album, which

Yeah anyway.

Patch the Pirate media is basically karaoke covers levels of qualities of Christian knock-off songs of well-known songs from other sources, praise songs and hymns, and some moral messaging that I understand is derived from in many cases the Pat Boone-ification of other modestly singable songs from Back In The Day. It’s like how a lot of sunday school songs are all built around classic showtunes if you know the right corpus.

What I’m saying is this guy makes the Christian Replacement Media version of Softest Cheese. There is no edge to his music.

But.

But.

He has not escaped criticism.

I was gunna start this article just going ‘hey, here’s a goofy thing from my childhood’ about how fundie music and art sucked and I was going to give you a run through on one of the Patch the Pirate pieces (and I still might, another time). But what I got caught up on here was instead finding this amazing controvery from 2000, back in the still-sharing-tapes time of the Patch the Pirate industry, from again, probably good faith actors who nonetheless understand that you have to defend your turf.

While most of the music produced by Majesty Music of Greenville, South Carolina (headed up by Ron and Shelly Hamilton), is excellent, we must warn that some of the newer recordings are moving in a contemporary direction. This is particularly true of the newer Patch the Pirate children’s tapes. The Mount Zion Marathon tape for example, has a song titled “Lazy Bones,” which is certainly akin to rock music. It uses a syncopated rhythm with a heavy, synthesized bass. The music would be right at home in a nightclub or a sleazy Broadway play. Though it is tame compared to much of the standard CCM fare today, Patch the Pirate’s “Lazy Bones” will help develop an appetite in children for worldly music. Other examples of this can be found on their newer tapes.

David Cloud

CCM in this case referes to contemporary christian music, the idea of Christian music that wasn’t made before the Titanic was. But still, this David Cloud guy (a fundamentalist critic of other fundamentalist work) has problems with a song called Lazy Bones, which would be right at home in a nightclub or sleazy broadway play.

Imagine what this music is.

Please.

Just put it in your mind what it could be.

Ready?

Okay, it’s this:

Lazy Bones

Watch this video on YouTube

Check it out on PRESS.exe to see it with images and links!

[tyrannosaurus-trainwreck]

The other thing about Disney is that it’s wholesome and family-friendly, but not in any kind of explicitly religious way, and there are a lot of evangelical fundamentalists who get driven up a wall by stuff like that because, in their opinion, anything that’s not explicitly Jesus-ridden is of the devil.

It’s basic cult tactics--make sure your followers interact as little as humanly possible with the secular world so you can scare the shit out of them about it, they won’t know enough to see through your bullshit, and they’ll have a fucking hard time leaving the church no matter how much abusive shit you pull. For bonus points, you can threaten to kick them out of the church if they don’t fall in line, with most of the same psychological fallout as any other insular group that practices shunning.

But Disney stuff occupies this space where it’s so patently inoffensive and devoid of objectionable material that they look utterly unhinged when they try to convince people that the content is morally the same as a grindhouse movie or a Motley Crue album. Most other believers get exasperated with them about it, and people who aren’t deep enough in the fold to have run into too much of this sort of blatantly controlling horseshit are like, “Is Helen Lovejoy over there fucking kidding with this?”

It’s a point of (extremely minor) resistance to their “burn your books and your rock’n’roll albums” campaigns, so of course it sends them into a frothing goddamned rage, which doesn’t help with the whole “no, for real, are you fucking kidding me right now” interactions.

So they do what any Good Christian™ does in this situation: lie their tits off.

Just make a whole bunch of shit up about Disney being a hotbed of what the fuck ever libel Lou Dobbs is pushing this week and go to town! You may not see anything objectionable about Lion King, but the whole Disney animation department is run by child-hungry perverts, and there’s totally a scene where some dust clouds spell out S-E-X, which means you should only ever let your kid watch VeggieTales and you were so, so wrong to question Pastor Fucknuts when he said the only way to keep your family safe was to lock them in a dark basement and never let them out.

It’s part and parcel to the way reactionary groups get more and more sensitive to and hostile towards even the tiniest challenge as their environments get more homogenized and their control gets more absolute. (Same reason people in lily-white gated communities frequently start getting real aggro about minor differences in religion, class background, or politics--their comfort zone will just keep getting smaller and smaller the more they’re able to eject The Other from it.)

So I’ve been enjoying the Disney vs. DeSantis memes as much as anyone, but like. I do feel like a lot of people who had normal childhoods are missing some context to all this.

I was raised in the Bible Belt in a fairly fundie environment. My parents were reasonably cool about some things, compared to the rest of my family, but they certainly had their issues. But they did let me watch Disney movies, which turned out to be a point of major contention between them and my other relatives.

See, I think some people think this weird fight between Disney and fundies is new. It is very not new. I know that Disney’s attempts at inclusion in their media have been the source of a lot of mockery, but what a lot of people don’t understand is that as far as actual company policy goes, Disney has actually been an industry leader for queer rights. They’ve had policies assuring equal healthcare and partner benefits for queer employees since the early 90s.

I’m not sure how many people reading this right now remember the early 90s, but that was very much not industry standard. It was a big deal when Disney announced that non-married queer partners would be getting the same benefits as the married heterosexual ones.

Like — it went further than just saying that any unmarried partners would be eligible for spousal benefits. It straight-up said that non-same-sex partners would still need to be married to receive spousal benefits, but because same-sex partners couldn’t do that, proof that they lived together as an established couple would be enough.

In other words, it put long-term same-sex partners on a higher level than opposite-sex partners who just weren’t married yet. It put them on the exact same level as heterosexual married partners.

They weren’t the first company ever to do this, but they were super early. And they were certainly the first mainstream “family-friendly” company to do it.

Conservatives lost their damn minds.

Protests, boycotts, sermons, the whole nine yards. I can’t tell you how many books about the evils of Disney my grandmother tried to get my parents to read when I was a kid.

When we later moved to Florida, I realized just how many queer people work at Disney — because historically speaking, it’s been a company that has guaranteed them safety, non-discrimination, and equal rights. That’s when I became aware of their unofficial “Gay Days” and how Christians would show up from all over the country to protest them every year. Apparently my grandmother had been upset about these days for years, but my parents had just kind of ignored her.

Out of curiosity, I ended up reading one of the books my grandmother kept leaving at our house. And friends — it’s amazing how similar that (terrible, poorly written) rhetoric was to what people are saying these days. Disney hires gay pedophiles who want to abuse your children. Disney is trying to normalize Satanism in our beautiful, Christian America. 

Just tons of conspiracy theories in there that ranged from “a few bad things happened that weren’t actually Disney’s fault, but they did happen” to “Pocahontas is an evil movie, not because it distorts history and misrepresents indigenous life, but because it might teach children respect for nature. Which, as we all know, would cause them all to become Wiccans who believe in climate change.”

Like — please, take it from someone who knows. This weird fight between fundies and Disney is not new. This is not Disney’s first (gay) rodeo. These people have always believed that Disney is full of evil gays who are trying to groom and sexually abuse children.

The main difference now is that these beliefs are becoming mainstream. It’s not just conservative pastors who are talking about this. It’s not just church groups showing up to boycott Gay Day. Disney is starting to (reluctantly) say the quiet part out loud, and so are the Republicans. Disney is publicly supporting queer rights and announcing company-supported queer events and the Republican Party is publicly calling them pedophiles and enacting politically driven revenge.

This is important, because while this fight has always been important in the history of queer rights, it is now being magnified. The precedent that a fight like this could set is staggering. For better or for worse, we live in a corporation-driven country. I don’t like it any more than you do, and I’m not about to defend most of Disney’s business practices. But we do live in a nation where rights are largely tied to corporate approval, and the fact that we might be entering an age where even the most powerful corporations in the country are being banned from speaking out in favor of rights for marginalized people… that’s genuinely scary.

Like… I’ll just ask you this. Where do you think we’d be now, in 2023, if Disney had been prevented from promising its employees equal benefits in 1994? That was almost thirty years ago, and look how far things have come. When I looked up news articles for this post from that era, even then journalists, activists, and fundie church leaders were all talking about how a company of Disney’s prominence throwing their weight behind this movement could lead to the normalization of equal protections in this country.

The idea of it scared and thrilled people in equal parts even then. It still scares and thrills them now.

I keep seeing people say “I need them both to lose!” and I get it, I do. Disney has for sure done a lot of shit over the years. But I am begging you as a queer exvangelical to understand that no. You need Disney to win. You need Disney to wipe the fucking floor with these people.

Right now, this isn’t just a fight between a giant corporation and Ron DeSantis. This is a fight about the right of corporations to support marginalized groups. It’s a fight that ensures that companies like Disney still can offer benefits that a discriminatory government does not provide. It ensures that businesses much smaller than Disney can support activism.

Hell, it ensures that you can support activism.

The fight between weird Christian conspiracy theorists and Disney is not new, because the fight to prevent any tiny victory for marginalized groups is not new. The fight against the normalization of othered groups is not new.

That’s what they’re most afraid of. That each incremental victory will start to make marginalized groups feel safer, that each incremental victory will start to turn the tide of public opinion, that each incremental victory will eventually lead to sweeping law reform.

They’re afraid that they won’t be able to legally discriminate against us anymore.

So guys! Please. This fight, while hilarious, is also so fucking important. I am begging you to understand how old this fight is. These people always play the long game. They did it with Roe and they’re doing it with Disney.

We have! To keep! Pushing back!

[cazort]

One of the weirdest things about modern American Fundamentalist Christianity is the fact that it claims to be sticking to divine truth by interpreting the Bible "literally", but it accepts the canonization of the Bible which occurred by a political process during the early church, and wasn't concluded until around the year 419 when Revelations was added. But the early church grew into the Catholic church, and fundamentalists generally reject the Catholic church as evil and wrong and "not really Christians".

Then Martin Luther (1483-1546) removed certain books from the canon, and this is somehow ignored, yet the new canonization with these books removed, is generally respected as "correct".

So what is it? Do you trust the political processes in the early church or don't you? Why do you trust the processes that led to Bible canonization in its current form, yet you reject the Catholic church, which grew out of this same early church, as evil and wrong and "not really Christian"? If the broad consensus around the canonized Bible texts was really sanctioned by God, then why did the Catholic church that grew out of the same communities holding that consensus, become so corrupt and disconnected from God, as you allege? And why was Martin Luther magically able to remove texts from the canon but no one else is allowed to?

It doesn't make sense.

You know what I think? I think people just never think about this stuff. It's glaringly inconsistent, but people never think that deeply, they just accept the Bible canon as-is, without question. When you start questioning it, it starts to unravel.

To give you an idea of how little people think of this stuff, some American Christians are so ignorant, they genuinely think Jesus spoke English. English as a language didn't even exist at that time!

I'm not saying to reject the Bible as a holy text. I'm saying to embrace the subjectivity in the political process that went into its canonization. Recognize that even if you reject Catholicism as a belief system and disagree with them on important points, that your faith has a shared history with it, and don't demonize Catholics like some mysterious "other". And to maybe consider texts outside the canon as also containing divine truth, as well as considering that texts within the canon may have also been corrupted by all sorts of human limitations. Seek out and study non-canonical gospels and other non-canonical texts from the times of the canonical books in the Bible.

I especially think Evangelical Christians need to change their thinking on the relationship between Catholicism and Protestantism, and start seeing them more how outside observers do: as different branches of Christianity. I don't think one of them is "right" and the other "wrong". Both of them are human institutions, and both have a lot of people within them trying to get at divine truths, yet both are corrupted by politics and cultural biases and a long list of other human imperfections. And yes, this corruption includes the Bible canon itself. I see the canonization of the Bible as political and rather arbitrary and as such I think it is problematic to assign special meaning to the texts your particular branch or denomination considers holy, without acknowledging the subjectivity of the choices of what to include and the processes that led to those inclusions or exclusions.

If you choose to embrace a particular Bible canon, and have faith in it, use it in your tradition, then great. I can respect that choice. A lot of mainline Protestant churches do just this. You can say "these are the texts that we use / include". But I will not respect your claim that that particular choice of texts is divinely sanctioned and all others are wrong. When you make that claim, you're now going too far, you're claiming to know what God wants, that your particular interpretation of truth is divinely sanction and others aren't, and you're putting an awful lot of faith in a human political process in a way that doesn't make sense when you consider all the other things that you reject about the same communities making those political processes. That's an awfully arrogant thing to do, claiming to know with certainty what God wants, especially when the evidence in the world conflicts with your claim.

Go ahead, call me a heretic. It's the only consistent way I can think of to make sense of this stuff without being a glaring hypocrite.

Really what this all comes down to is that people are desperately holding onto one idea: "I'm right, you're wrong." Explain to me how that is going to lead to religious truth? How that is going to cause you to lead a Christ-like life, when Christ teaches us to love others and not to judge them? You can't do it. You can't be a sincere Christian, you can't really live out Christ's teachings without letting go of the idea that you're right and other people are wrong.

And yes, this includes the relationship of Christianity to other religions. I don't think you can really be true to Christian values if you believe other religions are wrong and your particular interpretation of your religion is "fully" correct. You can invent really convoluted logic to justify why you can do this...but it's just that, convoluted. The only simple idea is to acknowledge the subjectivity of your own beliefs, and that is the essence of divine truth that will lead you into the life where you are not judging others.

Yeah, I know this is a radical idea. Like I said, label me a heretic and kick me out of your community, I don't care. It's what I believe.

[ofhouseadama]

I've seen a lot of takes about how Midnight Mass isn't true horror because it ends on a thesis of death being a true neutral, about how we start as energy in the universe and we end as energy in the universe and how everyone who dies gets a neutral ending, despite what they did or didn't do. And if that's what you took away from Midnight Mass, I totally get why and the way we perceive media is absolutely 100% what we carry into the viewing experience.

But as someone who comes from a deeply dysfunctional Catholic family, I appreciated how Midnight Mass focused so deeply on how the true horror is what we do to each other here on Earth, under the guise of "having faith." Obviously the narrative shows it to us in Father Paul/Monsignor Pruitt and Bev most clearly -- two people whose world view and sense of self were so so so colored by zealotry and fanaticism and blind faith -- who destroyed the entire town.

I see the characters as two sides of the same selfish coin. Monsignor Pruitt blindly seeking any scrap of redemption for his sins at the end of his life, even after murdering Joe Collie, finding peace in his lack of remorse for breaking his vow of celibacy, in committing adultery with Mildred, his lifelong negative presence in his daughter's life, all the way to murder. And then you have Bev, who has spent her entire life attempting to smother her insecurities with being the Most Saved and the Most Faithful and the Best Catholic. Who wields cherry-picked scripture and fundamentalism like a truncheon, especially against anyone different, anyone a threat to the ecosystem where she has become a big fish in a very small pond. Neither of them can grasp the harm they have done to others, because their actions and beliefs have kept them "safe."

But they have hurt so many people, so very deeply. And that is the true horror of Midnight Mass. The harm we do to each other. The harm we do, and don't even think to apologize. The things we do not think to be forgiven from the people we have hurt and abused and wronged.

And if you were brought up in a religious household or religious environment, you know the fear that is instilled in you young. The fear, the firmly-held belief spouted from the pulpit that there are Good People and there are Bad People and you have to follow these thousands of years old rules that we are still fighting and squabbling about -- fighting wars about -- exactly right or you are going to hell for eternity. The fear that some of the people you love are going to hell, and you will never see them again for the rest of all time. Or that you are going to hell, because you are gay or you're the "wrong" religion, or you're doing religion "wrong" or you are somehow looked at and judged and found wanting. And that is a horror you carry with you from the time you are old enough to toddle into a Sunday School classroom. Day in and day out. Until it either drives you to harm others or you get out, and you become the sinner you were warned about.

The horror is in fundamentalist Christianity and evangelism. The horror is looking back and realizing all the people you hurt with your beliefs. The horror is in realizing there will never be enough to atone. The horror is in realizing you cannot possibly apologize to all the people who harmed. The horror is in reckoning with that, with all the awful things you have done, and trying to find a path forward.

(Riley's addiction issues fits in nicely with this. The true horror, with Riley, is that he had just found his next step. Not the whole journey, just the next step. And it was enough.

And then it was taken from him.

By someone who wasn't even capable of feeling remorse for their harm. By someone who wasn't capable of seeing the monster he brought into the community. By someone who perverted the ideals of AA from the first meeting he ran.)

The catharsis is the belief that we carry back out into the universe what we carried in -- energy. That no matter how we followed the rules or didn't, we do not die and get sorted into Good People and Sinners. There are no heavenly gates, there is no fire and brimstone. We all flow back together. We will never be separated. Not before life, and not after death. We all flow back together. And there is meaning in looking away from the heavens and looking at each other and asking for forgiveness.

And that to be truly saved means to be forgiven by your fellow man.

And it's okay if that's meaningless to you, or offensive, or makes you mad because it comes across as preachy or pro-Catholicism or pro-atheism or somewhere in between. But as someone who was told her entire childhood by her extended that she was the Wrong Type of Christian for being raised Presbyterian and forced to go to mass and be excluded from communion and all the other rites -- it really resonated with me. I'm carrying out what I carried in.

[the-writing-mobster]

So, you said that “You’re What I Want” will be following the political conflicts between Monsters and Humans (which I cannot WAIT to see), but I was wondering how you would show this? Of course, racism (speciesism???) is a heavy topic to cover, especially in writing, and is shown in different ways. Expecting that the humans won’t take the freedom of monsters so lightly, what type of Monster racism can the readers expect to see in YWIW?

(Also, love your writing and characters! Can’t wait to see more of your beautiful content!💖)

Thank you for the ask! And great question!

⟨⟨I want to make it clear that if this is the only interaction someone has with topics such as; Racism, Anti-Blackness, Xenophobia and anti-Semitism then I would encourage them to get more involved.

I'm happy to offer some form of insight, but I would also urge and encourage one to watch media made for and by POC and not just starting and stopping at fanfiction. I'll leave some good recs in the tags⟩⟩

When it comes to the monsters, the heaviest amount of discrimination they would face would be on the basis they are considered "demons." Their biggest prosecutors would be Evangelical Christian Fundamentalists. (Lol who ISN'T victimized by evangelicals?)

I pull a lot of inspiration off of right wing conspiracy theories about The New World Order and how Christian evangelicals would react specifically to "Demons" (not good)

Here's an example of the type of discrimination monsters would face;

Fetishization (shit like "I heard monsters have "ruts"/Big dicks/are really rough in bed/freaky/I want to fuck a monster girl..." shit like that. They would be treated like a Sexuality and not, ya know, sentient beings capable of thought and feeling... It would be awful 😥)

A LOT of "The end times are here" and "this is the democratic baby eater pedophile elites last step in their plan for world domination! Letting hell loose on us! Just lettin Satan walk amongst us, brothur!"

Literal dehumanization for not being... Humans... There would be a lot of legal problems trying to get paperwork done. Legitimizing monster identities, their money, integration.

Interspecies/racial relationships would be demonized (no pun intended) and fetishized.

NIMBYism

White Flight 2: Electric Boogaloo

Think Alex Jones and Marjorie Taylor Greene.... Yeah. YEAH, now you know what I'm talking about.

Keep in mind, New World Order conspiracy theories are inherently anti-Semitic and I'm not about to erase that. In fact, knowing the behavior of right wing political pundits, they would undoubtedly rope in other minorities such as Jewish people as a way to blame them for the demons on the surface.

Also, hmmm, do any of these sound familiar? If so, it's because White Supremacists have the same fears and reactions to everything.

⟨⟨Again, I want to reiterate that these kinds of discrimination already happen irl to MULTIPLE GROUPS but esp Black Americans and I would hope that a fanfiction isn't the thing opening peoples' eyes to this; but if that's the way some people learn, then I'd want to do it as well as possible, and I'll do my best to provide resources as well. This is not a light topic to be used for entertainment value, ya know?⟩⟩

Who would be the first to accept them in a real world situation?

The queer community would def be one of the first to accept them ESP the Black Queer Community, simply because it was that community [black queer individuals] which opened the doors for pretty much all civil rights PERIOD.

Don't get me wrong, there would be some backlash from human marginalized communities, as a way to distance themselves, but ultimately, the reintroduction of magic into society could be used as a great tool to protect vulnerable people and the communities would learn to hopefully accept, empathize and fight with the demons. It's the true anarchists understanding that MY LIBERATION is dependant on YOUR LIBERATION, and is the drive to work together.

This fic would explore magical solutions that are based in real world solutions (as in, all the solutions are stuff we, humans could do in real life, it's just being portrayed in a magical way with mythical creatures) For example, mutual aid, building community, housing the homeless, and so much more.

There is an emphasis on Intersectionality. After all, you can't spell community without unity.

That being said, that won't really be tackled until the second part, as the first part is dealing with Crime Syndicates.

These are all extremely heavy topics to tackle, but I do want to explore the real world consequences of the world Toby Fox created and in my humble opinion, left unfinished.

If I have any Black, Jewish, Latin and/or Asian American readers, I would love for you to reach out through PM and possibly beta for this fic, because when handling these topics it is imperative to have sensitivity readers.

ALSO if you're a POC content creator, feel free to hop on and promote your own fanfics, art and writing, I'd be more than happy to give you all a space and promote your art. As far as I'm concerned, this blog is safe space for this fandom.

[queerprayers]

i grew up evangelical (which i no longer am) and am stuck in a community that continuously tells me that my faith is wrong. im feeling really lost and alone, i dont know what to do.

Hello! I hear you! This is a horrible position to be in, and I'm so sorry that this is your experience right now.

Something I hear a lot of people bring up is that leaving a denomination/religion isn't just saying goodbye to a faith/rituals/church, it can be saying goodbye to a whole support system/community! Especially for movements like evangelicalism, often people's whole family and all their friends will also be part of the church, and so leaving means ending up alone. I don't know if I have any words that can heal how scary this might be for you, I know that. But here's what I do have:

A Note: You mentioned that you're being told your faith is wrong, so I just wanted to say: it isn't. Obviously I have no idea what your faith is/isn't specifically (I technically don't even know if you're Christian), but I do know that you don't measure faith in right or wrong. I suppose you can have faith in wrong things, things harmful to yourself/others, but I still don't like calling faith right/wrong. Let's measure it in different ways. You're not wrong, they're not wrong. But one of you, from what I know of/my experience with evangelicalism, is toxic and cult-like and harmful. And, unless somehow you're deconstructing your evangelicalism to an even more horrible place or a different cult, you're just finding the right space for you. (Especially if you're on this blog, which I try to keep focused on love and Jesus's words :)

Words for while you're in an unwelcoming space: Do what you can to get through. Grit your teeth. Take what you can from it, grow however you can, love as much as you can. Even as the community around you stays in that toxic place, do your own reading and growing. Find spaces online where you can be yourself, and connect with/read about people who have been where you are. There are so many people who have successfully left evangelicalism and created beautiful lives for themselves. Don't lose hope (easier said than done, I know). Any growth/beauty you create in a toxic environment is infinitely more impressive when you take into account the situation. And God is with you in your deconstruction.

Another Note: Some people are in that place their whole lives, but I desperately hope and pray that you find a new path. I'm not sure exactly how much freedom you have (whether you live at home, are financially dependent on family, have health issues, etc.), but either very soon or sometime in the future, I pray that you have the security and courage to find spaces where you are welcomed wholeheartedly, where you don't feel like this.

Yet Another Note: Obviously you don't have to leave your community. That's not your only option. I don't know the specifics of your situation, and it might not be realistic/possible for you to change your life that much, or you might not want to/be ready to. I'm not trying to tell you what to do, just giving you some thoughts if that's where you're headed. For as long as you're in the same situation, I pray that God may give you strength and help you heal internally, and that you may find a way to be at peace.

Words for leaving/finding new spaces: Sometimes everything has to fall apart so that you can put it back together again. It might be even more lonely at first. Do it. Jump. I promise there's a whole world out there besides evangelicalism, and it's waiting for you. It's up to you what to keep—what family/friends stay in your life, even whether you keep going to church at all. Once you've found your footing, you're going to flourish—I can feel it. You're going to have to let yourself heal—it's not easy. I won't pretend it is. But God is with you in your reconstruction.

Resources/Further Reading:

find organizations/social media accounts I recommend here

on choosing a denomination (from me)

Life After Evangelicalism, Rachel Held Evans

"Exvangelicals" Are Living a Uniquely American Crisis, Scout Brobst, Vice

Deconstructing faith: Meet the evangelicals who are questioning everything, Sam Hailes, Premier Christianity

11 Former Evangelicals Talk About What They Left Behind, Dani Fankhauser, The Salve

The Rise of #Exvangelical, Bradley Onishi, Religion & Politics

"God Is Going to Have to Forgive Me": Young Evangelicals Speak Out, Elizabeth Dias, The New York Times

Searching for Sunday: Loving, Leaving, and Finding the Church by Rachel Held Evans

After Evangelicalism: The Path to a New Christianity by David O. Gushee

Faith Shift: Finding Your Way Forward When Everything You Believe Is Coming Apart by Kathy Escobar

Accidental Saints: Finding God in All the Wrong People by Nadia Bolz-Weber

Religious Refugees: (de)Constructing Toward Spiritual and Emotional Healing by Mark Gregory Karris

Deconstructing Evangelicalism: A Letter to a Friend and a Professor's Guide to Escaping Fundamentalist Christianity by Jamin Hübner

<3 Johanna

[theshoesofatiredman]

When you are deconstructing your faith, it's not unusual that some of the baggage is going to carry over. Deconstruction is a long journey and your faith system likely packed a lot of bags for you. For example, your quest for truth can be just as fundamentalist, just as rigid, inside a deconstructing framework as it can inside the framework of evangelicalism. It's important to deconstruct that fundamentalist approach to truth seeking in order for your deconstruction to not just be more of the same evils you're trying to flee. The same goes for the need to get everyone to believe what you believe.

For example, here is a great post by @eivor-wolfkissed about Islamophobia in ex christian blogs. They make great points about how they are bringing their superiority complex from Christianity into their ignorant critiques of Islam. It enables hate and narrows perspectives.

I also saw a similarly great post by @positivelyatheist about the poor treatment that atheists receive from theists. It's along the same lines though their critique was not directed at ex Christians specifically though I think the same idea applies. Atheists have been subject to gross mistreatment and mischaracterization from the Christian community. This behavior is incredibly wrong, profoundly hurtful, and deeply ingrained inside fundamentalist evangelicalism.

What I currently struggle with in that is not knowing when I am morally obligated, by nature of how toxic an ideology is, to critique and try to change minds. There are things about certain types of atheism and certain sects of Islam that are really bad for other people. There are things about Christianity that are bad for other people. We do not have a set of perfect ideologies out there in the world that is entirely free from toxicity. If we do not talk about it, we will never improve our ways of thinking.

For example, here is another post that is a critique of a specific ex religious brand of atheism that seeks to destroy spirituality, that wields pessimism against the joy and fulfillment that people find within faith based communities, and that may be driven by bigotry as much as it is a zeal for anti-theism. This is incredibly toxic and deserves critique. At least, imo. It may not have the codified systems and entrenched power structures to cause the same scale of damage as militant evangelicalism but I don't think it's that hot of a take to say that tearing down things that bring joy is a societal ill.

I feel like I can like and support the ideas in both the "pro atheist" and "anti atheist" posts here because in my mind they are describing different things that happen to use the broader umbrella term of atheist, simply because, as far as I know, there isn't really language to distinguish between atheist brands. Atheists deserve respect as people but respect for their beliefs, depending on harm, can and should vary. The same goes for other ideologies.

So back to my question - do I have any moral obligation to try and turn people away from harmful ideologies? For example, I believe that QAnon is a wholly toxic thing. No part of it is good. It was created to advance a flawed political agenda, has deep roots in bigotry, is deeply untrue, and prevents a picture of the world and humankind that strips people it stands against of their very humanity. There are members of my family that are Q believers. Am I obligated to try and pull them out of that?

Of course, I have tried to call out the lies when I can and critique the ideology when I've had the opportunity. It is terrible to see them believing QAnon insanity. But this has done little to change their minds. It's very hard for me to convince my parents of anything that doesn't line up with their thinking since I lost all my credibility and moral authority by becoming more liberal and dating a man. But do I have an obligation to keep trying? Does anyone?

We as a society have very strong ethical systems surrounding the preservation of physical life. But what kinds of ethical systems should we have for preserving a person's ideological life? If we would not abandon a person to disease, why would we abandon a person to a conspiracy theory? A false religion? A dangerous cult? A racist political party? A verbally abusive workplace?

I have no desire to abandon my fellow human to any harmful system of thought. Yet, there are times when I am unequipped or ill-suited to deal with the problem. These things seem very case by case, but even then it's hard to parse.

[idylls-of-the-divine-romance]

Hiii. First of, thank you because you've been quite respectful and that deserves gratitude.

I'm only really addressing this because my post is being reblogged by nonchristians. I do want to say somethings do: American Christians also do not understand Christian theology lol. I was 17 when I learned about the resurrection of the dead - a MAJOR tenet of Christian theology. I am 17 right now! I learned this, after having been Christian my entire life, a couple months ago! I used to think the world would be destroyed and we'd be raptured and that was just what the bible taught and what the church taught. Point is: USAmerica Christianity just sort of sucks in general. Fundamentalist or liberal, there theology is like really bad. Heck, diet-gnosticism was being taught in the pulpit of the Baptist church i currently attend (against my will lol). Many, many American Protestants are low-key diet gnostic (is it the same in Canada? I know literally nothing about the state of Canadian Christianity).

I agree that treating Christianity like a monolith is bad (with the key exception of anything in the Nicene Creed, they reject it they are not Christian.) but that is exactly what the people who made the claims i said were absurd had done: they took there bad experience in some evangelical protestant (one girl apparantly evangelical catholic - wtv that means) American church (some of which were literally cults who didn't actually believe in Scripture) and then made a blanket statement about all christians: Anglicans, Methodiests, Eastern Orthodoxes, Pentecostals, Dutch Reformed, Presbyterian, the Assyrian Church of the East (i know they are sketchy but wtv), Baptists, Roman Catholics, Eastern Catholics, Western Rite Orthodoxes, the like 5 different Oriental Orthodox churches, Anglo-Catholics, Catholic Anglicans, Anglican Catholics (apparently all 3 are different things T-T).

So yeah. Basically my point is we are agreed that treating Christianity like a monolith is bad, and I would add treating USAmerica like the epicent of "true Christianity" is laughable. If i was some kind of high church leader I would freaking ex-communicate this country lol

"The seven deadly sins thing is such bullshit who care-" Tell me you don't actually understand Christian theology/philosophy without telling me you don't understand Christian theology/philosophy.

"Christianity is escapist-" Tell me you don't actually understand Christian theology/philosophy without telling me you don't understand Christian theology/philosophy.

"Who cares about the environment since the word is just going to be destro-" Tell me you don't actually understand Christian theology/philosophy without telling me you don't understand Christian theology/philosophy.

"Christianity teaches a low view of human-" Tell me you don't actually understand Christian theology/philosophy without telling me you don't understand Christian theology/philosophy.

"Christianity teaches thought crime-" Tell me you don't actually understand Christian theology/philosophy without telling me you don't understand Christian theology/philosophy.

"God hates gay people-" Tell me you don't actually understand Christian theology/philosophy without telling me you don't understand Christian theology/philosophy.

"Christianity teaches the rapture-" Tell me you don't actually understand Christian theology/philosophy without telling me you don't understand Christian theology/philosophy.

"Christianity teaches that you should seek martyrdom-" Tell me you don't actually understand Christian theology/philosophy without telling me you don't understand Christian theology/philosophy.

"Christianity teaches that one should sell all their possessions and go live with the poor-" Tell me you don't actually understand Christian theology/philosophy without telling me you don't understand Christian theology/philosophy.

"Christianity is anti-science-" Tell me you don't actually understand Christian theology/philosophy without telling me you don't understand Christian theology/philosophy.

"Christianity is against the physical world-" Tell me you don't actually understand Christian theology/philosophy without telling me you don't understand Christian theology/philosophy.

"Jesus teaches that the greatest form of love is to die-" Tell me you don't actually understand Christian theology/philosophy without telling me you don't understand Christian theology/philosophy.

"Christianity teaches that your body is your enemy-" Tell me you don't actually understand Christian theology/philosophy without telling me you don't understand Christian theology/philosophy.

"Christianity teaches young earth creationism-" Tell me you don't actually understand Christian theology/philosophy without telling me you don't understand Christian theology/philosophy.

"Christianity teaches that emotions are demoni-" Tell me you don't actually understand Christian theology/philosophy without telling me you don't understand Christian theology/philosophy.

"Christianity teaches that no good dwells in humans-" Tell me you don't actually understand Christian theology/philosophy without telling me you don't understand Christian theology/philosophy.

If you don't want to be Christian or if you don't like Christianity that's fine. But what's not fine is strawmaning and using a lack of theological and philosophical understanding to talk bad about a religion that is not your own. If you've been hurt, my heart goes out to you. I hope you get therapy and that you can find peace and wholeness, however that looks for you. But that does not give you an excuse anymore than it gives anyone else an excuse.

Also: Fundamentalism is heresy.

[brendanelliswilliams]

Misappropriated Language and Outmoded Ideology in the Church, and How We Might Move Beyond Them

A good friend and fellow priest posted this past Sunday on his Facebook page that he had been frustrated in trying to write a sermon, feeling that so much of the language he would normally use had been coopted and tainted by right-wing Evangelical white nationalists. The following was my reply to him (with a few minor points of clarification added here):

‘Fr. Karl Rahner once said that he thought the Church should fast from using the word “God” for at least fifty years, until we can all get clear about what we’re actually doing and saying with a term like that, and get deeply rooted and serious enough in our theological speculations to warrant its use. (Fr. Richard Rohr suggested we take the same approach with the name “Jesus”, and I concur; in fact, I think we are much more in need of fasting from this latter name than from the former.) It seems to me that there’s a great deal of wisdom in this approach. What you point out here is the principal reason why the “Jesus Movement” language so ubiquitous in the Episcopal Church today feels misplaced to me, and in fact really chafes every time I hear it. Don’t get me wrong, I love the Presiding Bishop and the basic elements of his vision, but I find this sort of language to be hitting the wrong chord. To me it feels ill matched with where the Church is at now, and where it should be going—and with where the world is at with regard to the Church. It partakes of precisely the same sorts of dissonances you’re highlighting. In the Western Church today we are always in danger of simply repeating platitudes, or unwittingly furthering falsities by allowing ourselves to remain stuck with misappropriated and imprecise language. Most peoples’ “Christology” in the West (if you can even call it that—maybe we should say “Jesusology” instead) is, in my humble opinion, really lacking the deep roots of the tradition. And that leaves us with a rather small and limited vision. This is one reason (among several) why I almost exclusively use “Christ” in religious discourse, or “Christ-Sophia”. I think we need that sort of lens again, which is both broader and more nuanced, and which, if we’re intelligent about it (rather than merely reactionary or political) can liberate us from all the heinous misunderstanding and misuse that has colored Christianity in the West for so long, and afford us a much more effectual set of linguistic and imagistic tools for legitimate transformation. Rahner also said, “Christians of the future will be mystics or they won’t exist at all.” In my view, that’s where we’re headed now from this particular crossroads, if we have the depth and courage to claim the calling of real religiosity. As I perceive it, that’s the divine invitation. And it can most definitely take us into a truer, more authentic, and more rooted place, away from all the baggage of the language and imagery you’re rightly lamenting.’

I saw a photo today from the Capitol riot on January 6th. In the background of the photo was one of what appears to have been many ‘Jesus Saves’ or similar signs present at that event. No doubt those folks also consider themselves to be part of the (‘true’) ‘Jesus Movement’. To be sure, their coopting of Jesus as a figure who supports their insane fundamentalism, egoic delusions, and desire for power is corrupt and evil, but I wonder how ours really differs, structurally speaking. The (white) progressive Jesus is ‘nicer’, but is our understanding of what such a figure really means and invites us into that much deeper than their reactionary, fundamentalist version of the same? Both expressions are drawn in essence from the same literal-historical trends in hermeneutics; it’s just that they emphasize different elements of received texts and interpretations. Granted, I strongly affirm that the emphases of right-wing Evangelicalism (and Evangelicalism at large, in fact) are objectively destructive and immoral, but fundamentally both interpretations play the same sorts of hermeneutical games: they operate in the same playing field, not only culturally (in a homogeneous container), but also religiously.

In other words, all Christians in the West are at some level responsible for this cancerous appropriation of Christian values. Even in progressive circles, in spite of our best intentions, we partake of the language, the dominator cultural styles and structures that have birthed and perpetuated all this toxicity. Until we face that head-on, how can we go about the real work of healing or ‘wholing’ ourselves into a mode of religiosity that is finally supportive of the values of Life, of Nature, of Divinity, rather than blatantly contrary to them?

One of the many problems we face now as people in the Church who want desperately to lead it in a direction of Life—rather than death, ignominy, political coopting, immorality, and corrosion—is that most Western Christians have a rather surface-level view of Jesus, and of Christ more broadly. So the toolkit we’ve been given to work with to articulate a better vision for ourselves is extremely limited. In the United States particularly, it should now be abundantly clear how tied up with right-wing nationalism, racism, and dominator values this theologically underdeveloped mode of Christian language has become. This means—obviously, I hope—that we need to expand and deepen our toolkit, drawing from the deepest and most life giving roots of the tradition.

The lack of adequate Christological understanding is not the fault of ordinary Christian folk; it’s what has been fed to them by their clergy, and it’s what was taught to most of those clergy in seminary for the last two or three generations. It’s what I call the ‘social Gospel, historical Jesus’ trend, and, in my view, this is a trend that has utterly crippled mainline and progressive Christian denominations, and in many cases created a notion of Christian religiosity as (essentially) little more than social justice work with a veneer of religious language. Of course, the work of justice is crucial, but what happens when we scrub away the Mystery, the experiential, inward transformation that is actually required to give rise to authentic justice, the richness of myth and symbology, leaving only this ‘social Gospel, historical Jesus’ layer of ideation? Well, as I’ve been saying for many years now: I think it is perfectly plain to see what happens in that case, as we now see it playing out all around us: the Church is collapsing, and (ironically) has almost no socio-cultural clout, which is the only thing it seems to have really desired for the last five or six decades.

I pray that people will finally be ready to move beyond all this, into something with real transformative capacity. But, alas, I suspect many, if not most, will not. So many Western Christians, of whatever stripe, seem absolutely determined to cling to all manner of outmoded and unhealthful aspects of Christian religious expression, language, and dogma, simply for the sake of safety, comfort, and security in the ‘known quantity’. And that, we can be sure, will lead us nowhere, both individually and collectively.

Might we not attempt to root our religion in actual religion? In other words, can we not learn once more to base our religious affiliation and practice on a legitimate and appropriately comparative understanding of myth, religious narrative, the ‘perennial philosophy’, and the actual aims of religiosity—namely, the science of spiritual transformation through initiatory, ascetical, liturgical, sacramental, and other modes of productive individual and communal sacred work? Haven’t we had enough of basing our religion on socio-cultural and academic trends in lieu of what actually transforms? Are the disastrous results of that finally clear enough for all to see? Of course, we must evolve with the times—I am by no stretch of the imagination a reactionary, and I am stringently anti-fundamentalist in every possible way—but this current disaster we now inhabit is what happens when, in the rush and distraction of that process of cultural evolution, we lose touch with the real root and purpose of the whole operation in the first place; that is, when we lose our memory and understanding of what religion is actually for and what it’s meant to accomplish in the human person.

I won’t enter here into the many additional issues related to male dominator language and the rest of the attendant cancerous threads that have long plagued Abrahamic religious expression, or their effects on Church and society; if you’re interested in all that, you might find some food for reflection in my book, Seeds from the Wild Verge. But here’s an idea: Let’s focus on the Blessed Mother for a while—very deeply: not just linguistically and imagistically, but theologically and practically as well, in a nuanced and committed fashion, not for purposes of political correctness but out of profound theological curiosity and a spirit of expansive internal exploration. God knows all you Protestant types out there could use a serious (and indefinite) dose of the Mother.

I was reflecting recently on what a truly sad circumstance it is that I often feel I can much more readily find depth and theological nuance in contemporary Hindu discourse on Christ, the Blessed Mother, etc., than I can in contemporary Christian discourse on the same. A terrible irony. It often feels to me as if we need to restore Christianity with inspiration from non-Christian sources—something I’ve done in my work with native Celtic traditions, but which could (and perhaps should) be done with inspiration from other arenas as well; for instance, from Vedanta, which has not only unequivocally maintained a far more refined and mature view of religion and its aims than most Christians have, but in fact often seems to possess a more mature view of Christianity than most Christians presently do.

Writing in 1963, Swami Prabhavananda astutely observed: ‘Of course there are millions of Christians today who attend churches regularly…but of those who do, few seek perfection in God. Most people are satisfied with living a more or less ethical life on earth in hope of being rewarded in an afterlife for any good deeds they may have done. Christ’s ideal of perfection is generally either forgotten or misunderstood. True, many people read the Sermon on the Mount, but few try to live its teachings.’

Now, almost sixty years later, that statement proves to be even more radically true than it was then. We have much work to do, friends, if we wish to restore the Church to something that truly transforms, which is truly relevant in a perennial way, and which is positioned not only to survive but to once more contribute something of inestimable value to the world. This will involve us, should we have the courage take up the task, in reclaiming the profound Mystery in Christian tradition, its ancient spiritual practices, and its expansively symbolic depth. May we set out with open hearts on that next adventure—and may we do so quickly.

Peace and every blessing,

Fr. Brendan+