#socialism as the secular form of christianity

[athousandgateaux]

It is reactive forces that express themselves in opposition, the will to nothingness that expresses itself in the labour of the negative. The dialectic is the natural ideology of ressentiment and bad conscience. It is thought in the perspective of nihilism and from the standpoint of reactive forces. It is a fundamentally Christian way of thinking, from one end to the other; powerless to create new ways of thinking and feeling. The death of God is a grand, noisy, dialectical event; but an event which happens in the din of reactive forces and the fumes of nihilism.

--Gilles Deleuze, Nietzsche and Philosophy, pg. 159

[kaurwreck]

for the ask game: LILAC CHARCOAL AND RASPBERRY

anon this is so sweet 😭

[ask game provided below for reference; if you'd like to play, please reblog from OP here:]

[mossadspypigeon]

someone asked me, via anon ofc and i deleted the message because it was so stupid, “what do you do for tikkun olam?”

well my good bitch…i certainly don’t advocate for the mass murder of my people on the internet just so the new nazis will like me and i’ll get followers. when you use tikkun olam against us…repairing the world isn’t starting the cultural christian “great revolution/rapture.”

it isn’t allowing evil to exist because we are too cowardly to go up against it. (that evil is hamas and hezbollah btw, not israel. for you ding dongs out there.)

nor, in its ACTUAL FORM, does it even actually mean social justice. that is appropriation.

whose social order, you asked? why thanks, i’ll answer.

the jews’.

let’s continue exploring lmao

hmmmmmm

the author of this article calls the political associations a sort of “secular messianism.” either way, it’s universalizing a concept that was created by jews for jews.

the original commentary was for us. the zionist interpretation was created by us for us. so why wxactly does judaism need to be about non jews? islam and christianity don’t so that. we can care about the world without defining ourselves by others.

so maybe stop trying to make a concept for jews about everyone on earth EXCEPT jews.

so…what do i do for tikkun olam? to continue my own society? i support my people and our right to exist and be free in our homeland, israel. i give tzedakah. i learn. i talk to my community, especially when it’s hard and people dont want to hear me. i don’t cower even when i’m uncomfortable, hated, or alone. i don’t give in to nonsense created by oppressors.

and i love the idf 😘

[tyrantisterror]

Everyone takes that one quote about the use of Christian imagery in Evangelion to form this curtains-are-just-blue ass argument about it having no deeper meaning without actually watching the show critically. Like, the creators said the show does not have a Christian message, not that it has no themes at all.

There are too many deep cut references to obscure Christian apocrypha in the show for them not to have done some research, and those references DO have significance to the show's secular themes about depression and self loathing. There is meaning in calling the monsters that want to destroy all of humanity because we weren't supposed to exist Angels. The idea that angels, servants of God, want us dead because we are a mistake, in a series that explores depression and self loathing and feelings of social isolation, is a pretty potent bit of symbolism. The world being wiped out in a Biblical flood that's caused not by God, but by one man who hates himself so much he'd rather destroy all humanity than confront his own loneliness, is a good play on the Noah story that doesn't work as well if you don't know the story it's twisting. Humanity being the offspring of Lilith, the rebellious first wife of Adam, and not Eve, is potent, adding to the idea of humanity being a self-destroying mistake. All of these are allusions to Christianity that have meaning in the story- just not for a Christian message.

[daisydisciple]

Ok thought not fully formed yet but I think everything would make a lot more sense if we thought of "sin" as more along the lines of "something that weakens your connection with God" and less "a morally bad action in the secular philosophical sense."

In modern secular philosophy, usually we only think of an action as "bad" if it causes measurable harm to society/the environment/another person etc. No victim = no crime. This makes perfect sense when we're thinking about regulating behavior with laws, rules, and, to an extent, social norms. The goal of this kind of thinking/regulating is to create a harmonious, free, and safe society in our mortal/temporal/earthly condition.

In contrast, Sin as a religious (Christian) concept is more concerned with the state of an individual soul and that soul's relationship with God. It is possible for something to be a sin and yet be a "victimless crime." (Arguably the "victim" here is actually the "perpetrator" but you know what I mean.) The goal of this kind of thinking is to help the individual be in harmony with God.

I think the problem here is when we conflate the two uncritically. Yes, there is a lot of overlap (murder, for example, would draw you further from God and also is harmful to the murder victim/their family/society.) But the two concepts are not one and the same. Just because a behavior is sinful doesn't mean it can and should be forbidden by law, rule, or even social norm. Likewise, just because enforcing or encouraging a certain behavior is beneficial to society doesn't mean that behavior is or isn't a sin.

I think this conflation is a source of miscommunication and misunderstanding. Lots of people seem to interpret calling a behavior sinful to mean "if you do this you are an bad person who is actively harming society."

I also think that's why people get so turned off by the concept of all sin being equal in the eyes of God. That isn't the same thing as all morally bad actions having equal weight or consequences in society. The point is that all sin separates us from God, and what His plan requires for us is for there to be zero separation. (That's where Jesus comes in). The point of saying all sin is the same in the eyes of God isn't to say that murder and not praying are equivalent in secular morality. The point is that someone "guilty" of not praying needs Jesus just as much as a murderer. (Because! We all need Jesus completely and equally.)

So anyway I guess my point is that Christians need to recognize that just because something is sinful (separates a soul from God) doesn't mean that that thing should be illegal or against the rules or even socially shamed.

But! Non-Christians should also understand that the concept of sin is distinct from secular morality. If I say that something is a sin, don't take it as me saying "anyone who does this is evil and depraved and deserves to be executed by firing squad." girl I sin. we all sin.

[omegaphilosophia]

The Philosophy of Satanism

The philosophy of Satanism, particularly in modern interpretations, is often grounded in individualism, self-empowerment, and a rejection of traditional religious dogma. There are various branches of Satanism, each with its own approach and interpretation. While early portrayals in history associated Satanism with anti-Christian and occultist ideas, contemporary movements largely emphasize philosophical, symbolic, and sometimes atheistic elements.

Core Branches of Satanism

LaVeyan Satanism: Founded by Anton LaVey in 1966, LaVeyan Satanism is one of the most well-known and structured forms. LaVey’s Satanic Bible outlines Satanism as an atheistic philosophy that emphasizes rational self-interest, individuality, and personal freedom. LaVeyan Satanism doesn’t worship a literal Satan but uses "Satan" as a symbol of rebellion against conformity, self-denial, and oppressive moral codes. Core principles include self-reliance, pursuit of pleasure, and rejection of guilt or shame for natural human desires.

Theistic Satanism: In contrast to LaVeyan Satanism, theistic Satanism involves the belief in and veneration of Satan as a deity or supernatural being. Followers may view Satan as a force representing wisdom, self-empowerment, or the spirit of rebellion against unjust authority. They typically emphasize spirituality, ritual, and a personalized relationship with their deity.

The Satanic Temple: Founded in 2013, The Satanic Temple is a non-theistic, socio-political organization that advocates for secularism, religious freedom, and separation of church and state. Its use of Satanic imagery and symbolism is often satirical, serving as a critique of authoritarianism, religious fundamentalism, and hypocrisy. The Satanic Temple’s guiding principles prioritize compassion, rational inquiry, and individual sovereignty.

Other Forms of Satanic Philosophy: Other branches, including Luciferianism, focus on the figure of Lucifer as a symbol of enlightenment, knowledge, and self-discovery. Unlike traditional Satanic archetypes, Luciferianism often associates Lucifer with wisdom, learning, and the search for truth.

Key Philosophical Concepts in Satanism

Individualism and Self-Empowerment: Many forms of Satanism prioritize the individual as the center of moral authority, encouraging followers to take personal responsibility and to live according to their own principles and desires. Self-reliance and self-empowerment are celebrated, often rejecting dependence on external authority for moral guidance.

Rebellion and Nonconformity: Satanism often embraces the symbol of Satan as a figure of rebellion against oppressive norms or restrictive moral frameworks. This aspect resonates with the desire for freedom from traditional dogmas and the encouragement to think critically and independently.

Pleasure and Self-Interest: Satanism frequently rejects asceticism and self-denial, advocating for the pursuit of pleasure, self-gratification, and enjoyment of life. This philosophy is rooted in a materialist understanding of existence, where one’s current life is seen as the primary focus rather than preparation for an afterlife.

Critical Thinking and Skepticism: Modern Satanism, especially within The Satanic Temple, emphasizes scientific skepticism and rationalism. It challenges superstitions, encourages questioning, and critiques traditional religious dogmas that demand faith without evidence.

Ethics and Morality: Satanic philosophies often propose alternative ethics rooted in individual responsibility rather than divine commands. LaVeyan Satanism’s “Nine Satanic Statements,” for instance, outline an ethos that prioritizes self-respect, personal boundaries, and retributive justice, but they reject traditional moral frameworks as rigid or unnatural.

Satanism in Cultural and Social Context

Satanism’s popularity and influence are, in part, responses to societal structures, particularly within heavily religious cultures. By challenging the norms, it presents a counterpoint to dominant religious narratives, emphasizing secularism and religious pluralism.

In modern contexts, Satanism also serves as a vehicle for social critique and protest. Organizations like The Satanic Temple advocate for political issues like freedom of expression and the separation of church and state, often using provocative imagery to challenge established social orders and protect minority rights.

Controversies and Misconceptions

Satanism often faces misunderstanding due to historical associations with evil and media portrayals of occult rituals. While some forms of Satanism are theistic, most modern movements are symbolic, emphasizing reason and autonomy rather than supernatural beliefs. Contemporary Satanists typically do not believe in or worship an actual Satan as defined in Christian theology.

Philosophical Influence and Modern Appeal

Satanism resonates with existentialist themes, particularly the focus on creating one’s own meaning in a seemingly indifferent universe. Its principles align with certain elements of Nietzschean philosophy, like the rejection of imposed moral codes and celebration of life and personal strength. It appeals to those who value self-expression, secularism, and an individual-centered approach to ethics.

Summary

Satanism, particularly in its modern forms, challenges traditional moral structures and advocates for individuality, self-empowerment, and a critical, skeptical outlook on life. It exists both as a personal philosophy and a social commentary, reshaping the symbol of Satan from a figure of evil to one of liberation, reason, and humanism.

[actualmermaid]

It's been three months since I made this post about Saints Sergius and Bacchus, John Boswell, classical Western homoeroticism, and Christian homophobia.

Since then I have read both of Boswell's books on the history of gay/queer people in premodern Christianity (Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality and Same-Sex Unions in Premodern Europe), familiarized myself more fully with the spectrum of charges against Boswell and his scholarship, and realized that he's been the subject of ideologically-motivated smear campaigns by just about every political/religious/academic faction you can imagine. My conclusion: Professor Boswell is a saint, martyr, and important queer elder who does not get the respect that he deserves, and I'm in awe of the sheer volume of the massive genius brain that was somehow crammed into his little blond head.

ANYWAY. This is an official followup to my original post, now that I've read Boswell's work.

I take back my hunch that Boswell's work was not intersectional. He was, in fact, a pioneer in the field of medieval social history, and utilized a wide range of critical lenses in his work. He was inhibited by the lack of documented evidence about some groups (for example, he was frequently criticized for not writing more about lesbians, but he was open about the difficulties of researching lesbians in history and explained what he was doing as a scholar and as a teacher to mitigate this) but he constantly called attention to issues of class, gender, and other social factors wherever they were relevant.

I was RIGHT in noticing that the slight difference in rank between Sergius and Bacchus seems to be an erastes/eromenos indicator! Boswell spoke at greater length and with greater sensitivity about erastes/eromenos dynamics in history, so if you want a deeper look into that, you should read his books.

I was also probably right in noticing that the legend of Sergius and Bacchus is seeded with various forms of Byzantine propaganda! I really wish that I could talk to him about it. :(

Both secular queer theorists and religious queer theologians seem to be most uncomfortable with the fact that Boswell was reporting on historical facts and observable social forces, not idealized concepts of queer people as somehow being more ethical or spiritual than the straight majority. He included evidence of things like abuse, prostitution, and exploitation not because he thought they were cool, but because they were part of the material reality of queer people's existence in the past, just like they were part of the material reality of his own 70s-80s gay subculture.

That was his bottom line: gay/queer people are a normal human variation, and as a historian, he could provide hard proof of their existence and what their lives might have been like. If his work seems "shallow" or "dated" to some more modern queer researchers, it's only because so many people were willing to dismiss his scholarship, reject his work, and abandon his research leads after he died. But, he was actually super smart and his scholarship was actually meticulous, so even his most dedicated critics have been unable to "debunk" him. Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality most recently had a 35th-anniversary reprinting, and he is still being cited as an authority by more recent scholars.

Even though the full strength of the Church and the Academy were leveled against him, his work has proven its own worth. He still deserves to be read and discussed by both professional scholars and enthusiastic hobbyists. And, the Open and Affirming movement in Christianity wouldn't be as strong as it is without his confirmation that "gays and lesbians are normal," as he put it, and not simply a construct of modern society.

Rest in power, Professor Boswell. We won't forget you.

Since I made that post, I have also opened a sticker shop with a bunch of queer Christian saint icons, including Boswell and some of the queer saints he discovered/wrote about. They're pretty cool. You should buy one.

[pharmaciacatholica]

Secular duties and activities belong properly although not exclusively to laymen. Therefore acting as citizens in the world, whether individually or socially, they will keep the laws proper to each discipline, and labor to equip themselves with a genuine expertise in their various fields. They will gladly work with men seeking the same goals. Acknowledging the demands of faith and endowed with its force, they will unhesitatingly devise new enterprises, where they are appropriate, and put them into action. Laymen should also know that it is generally the function of their well-formed Christian conscience to see that the divine law is inscribed in the life of the earthly city; from priests they may look for spiritual light and nourishment. Let the layman not imagine that his pastors are always such experts, that to every problem which arises, however complicated, they can readily give him a concrete solution, or even that such is their mission. Rather, enlightened by Christian wisdom and giving close attention to the teaching authority of the Church, let the layman take on his own distinctive role.

Gaudium et Spes

[axvoter]

Blatantly Partisan Party Review II (federal 2025): Australian Christians

Running where: Senate in NSW and WA, plus ten House divisions in WA

Prior reviews: federal 2013, VIC 2014, federal 2016, federal 2019, federal 2022, WA 2025

What I said before: “they want their own theological views made into the law of the land. Their acknowledgement that other religions can be practiced freely in Australia is begrudging. They seem more extreme than ever in the narrowness of their vision for society.” (WA 2025)

What I think this year: The Australian Christians splintered some 14 years ago from Fred Nile’s Christian Democratic Party and, as the CDP was deregistered in 2022, they have now outlasted it. Their heartland is WA, as that was one of the two CDP branches that originally split to form the party (Victoria was the other), and they have maintained a small but consistent presence in the west. Although the WA Electoral Commission is yet to declare the results of the recent election for the WA Legislative Council, it looks certain that the Australian Christians have won their first ever parliamentary seat. (This paragraph will be updated when the WAEC declares the results in the next few days)

A decade ago, Christian fundamentalist parties of varying confessions formed one of the most common genres of micro-party. Thankfully, this desire to legislate a very particular worldview to apply to everybody has waned, but we are still stuck with the Australian Christians. Worse, they have got more extreme over time.

Nothing has changed since my WA election review a few weeks ago: this party opposes women’s bodily autonomy, they are transphobes, and they oppose “coercive vaccine mandates” (coded language for antivax weirdos). When it comes to education, they want more chaplains in school, despite our secular education system suggesting we ought to have none in the public system at all, and they promote home-schooling, which is often an avenue for religious fundamentalists to under-educate and under-socialise their kids. In less obviously religious areas, their economic policies favour the sort of small business owner who is annoyed that they might have legal responsibilities and who bleats about the sorts of “red tape” that actually stops them taking advantage of employees or clients.

I also take umbrage with their name, despite not being a believer of any faith. This party's political or theological positions do not represent all or even most Christians in Australia. Maybe if you're a socially conservative evangelical Protestant you will find your faith embodied in this party, but those from other denominations will at best feel like a square peg in a round hole. Believers who adhere to more liberal wings of Christianity will find this party about as objectionable as I do.

Recommendation: Give the Australian Christians a low preference in the House of Representatives and a weak or no preference in the Senate.

Website: https://australianchristians.org.au/

[darkmaga-returns]

Despite what many of our politicians might say, there is no such thing as a religiously neutral society. Religion and politics are inseparable, even if a religion is not explicitly acknowledged. Secularism is no exception.

As soon as you define areas where God is “not allowed to matter, or not allowed to come into the equation,” as soon as you judge an action or behaviour as moral or immoral, good or bad, you are exercising a religious conviction. You are presupposing a belief about God (whether or not He exists), how He relates to the world (or how He doesn’t), how we are to respond to Him (or not respond to Him). You don’t need an explicit reference to “god” for it to be a religious commitment, you only need to finish the sentence, “God is…”

Any contrast made between secularism and theocracy fails to recognise the fact that every system is governed by a reigning theos. This includes secularism. This means that even secularism is a form of theocracy. To identify the god of the system, you only need to locate that system’s source of law and highest court of appeals, as Cornelius Van Til noted. As such, it is not whether we implement a theocracy, but which theocracy will be implemented.

Whether it is the false gods of secularism or King Jesus, the reigning theos will, by necessity, limit the liberties of all competing systems to some extent. This is unavoidable. Absolute freedom is only possible in a lawless society. So, whether it is secularism or Christianity taking precedence, every alternative will be restrained at the point in which it conflicts with what the reigning system deems “good” for the wider society.

That’s why we don’t allow people to execute apostates, marry as many women as they want, or sacrifice humans to secure prosperity. It’s not a “criticism” unique to Christianity. It’s a question of how we define what is good, just, and loving. Is it God, or should the collective be free to do whatever is right in their own eyes?

In the end, only one religion can, and will, take precedence over all others to promote justice and social harmony. Secularism has sought to take that position from Christianity by presenting itself as an areligious, and therefore “neutral” alternative.

The problem is, it’s not areligious at all. It often presents itself as such to claim neutrality, but this is simply a fallacious appeal to ‘middle ground.’ Argumentum ad temperantiam. But secularism is a religion.

[mariacallous]

The Catholic Church in Hungary has been engulfed by a series of high-profile sex scandals and child abuse investigations. The situation isn’t just a crisis for the church, but also a challenge for Viktor Orban’s Christian-nationalist government.

“Perhaps we should not refer to these merely as ‘scandalous cases’, but rather as the painful, inhumane, traumatizing injuries suffered by minors, which go far beyond ‘scandalous news’,” read a statement on December 4 by the editors of the independent Hungarian religious affairs magazine Szemlelek, reflecting on a crisis that has recently engulfed Hungary’s Catholic Church.

Since September, a series of scandals relating to sexual misconduct, pedophilia and cover-up in the Catholic church has wrecked the public reputation of five high-profile clerics and occasioned the suspension of a rising, but as-yet unconfirmed, number of their colleagues. Some see echoes of the crisis in the US Catholic church sparked by the 2002 Boston Globe ‘Spotlight’ investigation into child abuse in the city’s archdiocese – a story (and later movie) that plunged American Catholicism into a crisis from which it’s still recovering.

The close government ties of the priests implicated heighten concerns about overlaps between political power, religious networks and child sexual abuse in Hungary. These concerns were first raised earlier this year in February, following the exposure of a successful intercession by Reformed Church bishop (and former Fidesz cabinet minister) Zoltan Balog with then-president Katalin Novak, a fellow Calvinist, to pardon a church member convicted as a pedophile accomplice. News of the pardon led to Novak’s resignation.

Attention is now turning away from the Reformed community and towards the Catholic Church.

From local to national

In early September, the storm started rumbling with the public disgrace of Father Gergo Bese, a priest of the Kalocsa-Kecskemet archdiocese and a prominent social media influencer identified with the governing Fidesz party via its satellite KDNP (Christian Democratic Peoples’ Party). In 2022, Bese conducted a ‘house blessing’ of Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s office in the former Carmelite monastery beside Buda Castle.

On September 6, Hungarian outlet Valasz Online revealed that Father Bese, a vocal supporter of Fidesz’s anti-LGBTQ+ agenda, had been living a double life as a gay porn movie actor. He was also (against church law) receiving a stipend from the KDNP for communications work without permission from his bishop. He is now under disciplinary suspension.

While Father Bese’s activities involved only consenting adults, their discovery, however, prompted revelations about other forms of misconduct by Kalocsa priests, including those involving minors. Two clerics – Gabor Ronaszeki and Robert Hathazi – both with strong ties to Hungary’s ruling parties, are now being prosecuted by secular authorities for alleged child molestation.

In 2023, Ronaszeki underwent a church disciplinary process during which he admitted the offences, and was removed from the priesthood. He’s understood to have offered money and gifts in exchange for sex to underage boys attending his Religious Education group over a three-year period.

Ronaszeki is the brother-in-law of former Fidesz MP and ministerial commissioner Monika Ronaszekine Keresztes, as well as being an associate of the KDNP leader Zsolt Semjen, who is currently serving as the deputy prime minister and minister for church affairs in the Orban government.

Hungarian media reported that Semjen had been a personal guest at Ronaszeki’s remote “recreational farm” near the small town of Janoshalma in Southern Hungary. Responding to the reports, Semjen claimed that “to the best of my recollection” he has not “visited the place in question”.

Handing matters over swiftly to police and prosecutors reflects improvements in practice following recent reforms across the Catholic world. Even so, the scandal has continued to grow numerically and geographically.

In a November 15 interview with Valasz Online, the archbishop of Kalocsa-Kecskemet, Balazs Babel, said public awareness of the two court cases had led to more complainants bringing allegations against other clerics.

“In recent months, the Archbishop’s Office has received many more reports than before,” he admitted, adding that several other Kalocsa priests have now been suspended pending investigation.

Major Pajor problem

The issue has morphed from a diocesan scandal into a national crisis. That’s partly because the outcry about Kalocsa was heard from early on in the national media, and partly because first central church institutions and then other dioceses became implicated in related misconduct stories.

First came the resignation on October 25 of the national Bishops’ Conference Secretary Father Tamas Toth, amid allegations of serious impropriety in mishandling communications relating to Kalocsa.

And then on December 5 the scandal reached the archdiocese of Esztergom-Budapest, led by Hungary’s primate, Cardinal Peter Erdo.

On that day, news broke of canonical and police investigations into Budapest priest Father Andras Pajor, a prominent face of Fidesz’s ‘political Christianity’. In 2023, Father Pajor received Hungary’s Knight’s Cross of the Order of Merit from Deputy Prime Minister Semjen for his “role in youth education”.

Father Pajor has repeatedly urged Christians to vote for Orban. He has also, latterly, become notable as a spreader of Russian propaganda, claiming in a YouTube video about the Ukraine war that, since 2022, some 35,000 Russian children had been kidnapped “for pedophiles in the West”.

Former altar boys from his parish, speaking anonymously to Valasz Online, tell a rather different story, however. They claim Father Pajor himself frequently made them strip naked, inspected their genitals intimately with his hands, and gave them full body massages.

Anticipating the next day’s announcement concerning Father Pajor, on December 4 the Bishops’ Conference finally acknowledged the pedophilia issue as a national problem in a statement: “The scandalous news concerning our Church in recent months has caused many to feel uneasy and disappointed… for sins committed, we must pray, fast and make atonement.”

The text continued: “The Catholic Church stands with the victims and communities affected. We pray for them and support their healing.”

Political reverberations

In a letter to fellow bishops obtained by the independent news outlet Telex, Archbishop Babel observed that the impact of the successive scandals was greater “because they are interwoven with politics”.

The political dimension magnifies the spotlight on the church, but the connection of religion and pedophilia is a huge challenge for Fidesz – a party that portrays itself at home and abroad as a protector of family values.

The party’s domestic alliance with historic churches long predates its international communication about Hungary as a bulwark of Christian civilisation against Muslim migration and rising woke-secularism.

Churches have vigorously supported government messaging regarding the supposed dangers that, Fidesz alleges, the LGBTQ+ community poses to children, especially ahead of 2022’s ‘child protection’ referendum, which was timed to boost turnout at that year’s general election. Around 75 per cent of Hungary’s state-funded children’s homes are run by churches.

“Orban’s government constantly seeks endorsement from the churches for its Christian credentials,” religious affairs commentator Janos Reichert tells BIRN. This is because, Reichert continues, there are three overlapping themes closely connected in the minds of many Hungarians: “Hungarian nationalism, anti-Communism and Christianity”.

These three motifs organically support each other such that, Reichert says, “criticism of any one of them cannot be tolerated by Fidesz for fear of danger to the other two”.

Thus, anyone who criticises even one of them is “attacking the ideological basis of the regime”, he adds.

Reichert’s take is shared by political journalist Balazs Gulyas. The government’s flagging support amid economic turbulence and the rise of opposition challenger Peter Magyar means that, in his view, Fidesz is paradoxically more, not less likely to double down reflexively on its traditional talking points, including political Christianity.

“Hungary’s governing parties are grappling with a sharp decline in popularity, making it politically expedient for them to cling to their (overstated) role as the primary political patrons of the churches,” Gulyas tells BIRN. “I find it highly unlikely that they’d abandon the program of political Christianity.”

Such views seem to be borne out by the government’s responses to the crisis to date. Far from distancing itself from the churches, Fidesz has rushed to their defence.

In November, the left-wing opposition party DK proposed a parliamentary motion calling for Hungary to follow the example of Ireland and Australia in establishing an independent enquiry into child sexual abuse in the church. The government used its parliamentary super-majority to defeat the proposal.

And addressing parliament’s justice committee on November 14, Deputy Prime Minister Semjen, speaking in his capacity as minister for church affairs, dismissed suggestions that the situation in the churches represented a particular concern. “The number of church cases is a hundredth of the number of secular cases, there is no reason to single out the church world,” he declared.

[serena-darrin]

It's Good Friday. And now that I'm back from Church, I'm sitting in a virtual workshop about social media.

And it's one of the weirdest and most hypocritical things I've ever experienced. Supposedly, this is a 'Christian' Workshop, geared towards Christian Entrepreneurs. So far, none of the social media teaching or advice has been any kind of unique, and I've heard exactly the same techniques and theories from secular coaches and creators as well. There's been a few interesting things, but none of the actual content actually speaks to being a Christian, it's all social media, business, and podcasting info. The only difference is opening and closing the workshops with a prayer; and a bunch of talk about these business somehow forming the Kingdom of God and making everyone (rather, everyone they agree with), wealthy. The attendance for this thing is like, 99% USians, and, it shows.

But what's really baffling me? The hypocrisy of holding a supposedly Christian conference over Holy Week, holding live workshops on Good Friday, which, uh, is the most sombre day for the Christian Faith. . . and the opening prayer today didn't even mention Good Friday. It hasn't been mentioned once. Not even a single mention of Jesus' death on the cross, which, simplistically, is what makes Christianity what it is?

But instead, opening prayer was a plea to Prosperity Gospel God to please make them all wealthy. Of all days, -that- is what they choose to focus on? This makes my skin crawl. Did . . . did all these people who profess to be Christian forget the importance of what happened on the cross -- which is commemorated today? (Sadly, if we look at the actions of may people who profess to be Christian, the answer to that seems to be yes, they have forgotten.)

I want to cry, but it's also like watching a train wreck, and I'm dementedly curious to how this keeps going and if Good Friday gets mentioned by -anyone- today. I'm staying tuned in out of a sick fascination, and will update further.

There may be tears later.

[probablyasocialecologist]

From the 1950s through Goldwater to Romney, the modern American right has had three major legs: anti-New Deal and welfarist libertarians, white social conservatives, and anti-Communist or pro-interventionist Hawks. Conservative politicians like Ronald Reagan deployed the metaphor of a three-legged stool to describe the intellectual and popular coalition of the modern American right. This coalition assumed hegemonic status in the 1970s and 80s through Nixon and Reagan. They agitated for and achieved many long-standing conservative objectives: rolling back the welfare state, implementing tough-on-crime policies, and remaking the judiciary to advance social conservative policies.  From this old-three legged stool, a new coalition has emerged. This new coalition consists of national conservatives, committed to the idea that America should abandon liberalism for a kind of ethno-religious nationalism. There are also post-liberals, who argue instead for a commitment to a right-wing communitarian universalism bordering on theocratic integralism (or sometimes just slipping over). They overlap with national conservatives in many respects, but reject the ethno-nationalist framing for a more universalistic perspective-often centered around Catholicism. Its possible this might wind up being a largely theoretical dispute, but it could become more in the event that the post-liberals aren’t capable of appealing to non-Catholic, let alone non-Christian, ethno-nationalists. The third leg of this stool is what I’ve called the Nietzschean right. The Nietzschean right, as exemplified by figures like BAP and Richard Hanania, is more secular and appeals to pseudo-scientific arguments about the need for a typically male and white (though there are some exceptions) elite to gain greater power in America. In BAP’s case this takes the form of arguing for fascism or, as he puts it, “something worse,” in a rather trollish way. Hanania is a bit closer to the mainstream. He argues for a capitalist Nietzscheanism where entrepreneurs aren’t subjected to democratic constraints in their pursuit of the kind of “greatness” that has taken Elon Musk’s X to new heights. They conflate the idea of Nietzsche’s superman with the idea of the entrepreneur. Never mind that Nietzsche himself (1844–1900) posited the artist-philosopher as the ideal superman and was largely contemptuous of businessmen.

[justforbooks]

Elias Khoury

Lebanese novelist best known for his 1998 book Gate of the Sun, which he said was an act of love for the Palestinian people

Throughout his life and in his 14 novels, the Lebanese writer Elias Khoury, who has died aged 76 after a long illness, explored his region’s contemporary history, whether it was identity politics, social inequality and injustice, or the expulsion and dispossession of Palestinians that he witnessed first-hand.

His best-known work, Gate of the Sun (1998), translated into English by Humphrey Davies, is both an epic love story between a husband and wife, and one of the first novels to describe the 1948 Palestinian Nakba, giving faces, names and histories to the voiceless.

Khoury used stories that he had collected over seven years from Palestinian refugees in Lebanon, and testimonials from Palestinians who remained in the Galilee region, today part of Israel. Gate of the Sun was an act of love for the Palestinian people, Khoury said, and in it he wove those stories together to give the full sweep of Palestinian history. The novel has been translated into 14 languages and in 2004 was made into a film by the Egyptian director Yousry Nasrallah.

Khoury was part of what is known as the civil war generation of Lebanon (1975-90), which includes writers such as Hanan al-Shaykh, Hoda Barakat, and Jabbour Douaihy, all of whose works were a significant departure from earlier Lebanese authors through their modern style and content. Khoury experimented with narration and form, as well as the way he wrote in fus’ha, or classical Arabic, bringing the language as close as possible to the spoken word, increasing its fluidity.

His first novel, On the Relations of the Circle (1975), was published the year the civil war began. He participated in the war with a leftist alliance, and was injured, losing his sight temporarily. In between fighting he wrote his second book, Little Mountain (1977), which describes the early years of the war through the eyes of three characters. In White Masks (1981), Khoury wrote about the social fragmentation and disintegration of Lebanese society undergoing the complexities of a civil war.

Born in Beirut, into a Christian middle-class family, he was the son of Adèle Abdelnour and Iskandar Khoury, who worked for Mobil Oil. He came of age in the 1960s and early 70s, when the city had become a flourishing intellectual and artistic regional capital. However, this was against a backdrop of sectarianism and profound economic inequality, deeply influenced by regional tensions.

While studying history at the Lebanese University in Beirut, in 1967 Khoury travelled to Jordan to work in a Palestinian refugee camp, then joined the Palestinian Liberation Organisation. In an interview with the Paris Review in 2017, Khoury said: “We trained in Syria, in the camps at Hama and Maysaloun, just off the Beirut- Damascus highway … Later on, we worked in the south of Lebanon as well as around Beirut.”

However, Khoury decided he wanted to become an “intellectual”, leaving for Paris in 1970 to study social history at the École Pratique des Hautes Études. There, he worked on a thesis about the 1840-60 Mount Lebanon war between the Druze and Maronite communities that provided a base for his subsequent writings on the civil war.

Two years later he returned to Lebanon where he worked at the Palestine Research Center and for its journal, Palestinian Affairs, where he became editor-in-chief in 1975. He was culture editor of the Lebanese daily As-Safir from 1983 to 1990 then, once the civil war ended, he ran the cultural supplement of the An-Nahar newspaper.

Khoury was actively involved in the region’s secular, leftwing intellectual scene, working with the poets Mahmoud Darwish and Adonis, and the writer and critic Edward Said in New York, where Khoury taught Arabic literature at Columbia University (1980-81), then held the title of global distinguished professor at New York University (2000-14). He also taught at the University of London, and universities in Switzerland and Lebanon.

According to his French-language translator, Rania Samara, who worked with him for 25 years, Khoury was “someone who lived his Arab society to the fullest with his political positions and commitments. He was courageous and frank about everything he thought, and all this was reflected in his work. There was no dissociation between life and the man.”

Although he always supported the Palestinian people, Khoury never hesitated to criticise Arab leaders, including the PLO, and he sought to understand Israel, teaching himself Hebrew and reading Israeli novelists. Indeed, his Children of the Ghetto trilogy (2016-23) is set in Lydda, Palestine, which becomes Lod, Israel, where his Palestinian characters speak Hebrew, but also in New York and Warsaw, where Jewish and Israeli histories are explored.

The trilogy characteristically follows a form of circuitous storytelling – Khoury spoke of his love for the One Thousand and One Nights, and the infinity and continuity of Scheherazade’s stories. His own stories often feel as if each narrator is passing a baton to the next. The protagonist of the three books in the trilogy, My Name Is Adam (2016), Star of the Sea (2019) and A Man Like Me (2023), Adam Dannoun, is a complex character whom Samara thought that Khoury most resembled, saying: “He didn’t know if the character resembled him or if he was the character. We no longer know who the author is and who the reader is. The reader is the author’s mirror. He loved this dizzying kind of game.”

In A Man Like Me, the character of Khalil, who originally appeared in Gate of the Sun attempting to revive a comatose leader of the Palestinian resistance by telling him stories, resurfaces, circling back to Khoury’s previous work.

As well as his novels and articles, Khoury wrote a collection of short stories, three plays and a number of literary studies.

Throughout his recent illness and nearly year-long hospitalisation suffering from ischaemia, Khoury wrote articles for the London-based Al-Quds al-Arabi newspaper. He was also the editor of the Arabic Journal of Palestine Studies and was working on a novel set in contemporary Beirut.

Two months before his death, Khoury wrote in Al-Quds al-Arabi: “Can he whose ordeal has been rooted in the land since the beginning of the Palestinian resistance lose heart? Gaza and Palestine have been savagely attacked for nearly a year, yet they continue to resist, unwavering. A model from which I have learned to love life every day.”

He is survived by his wife, Najla Jraissati Khoury, a writer and researcher whom he married in 1971, his daughter, Abla, his son, Talal, a grandson, Yamen, and three siblings, Samira, Souad and Michel.

🔔 Elias Khoury, author, editor and journalist, born 12 July 1948; died 15 September 2024

Daily inspiration. Discover more photos at Just for Books…?

[mitchipedia]

“The Anti-Social Century: Americans are now spending more time alone than ever. It’s changing our personalities, our politics, and even our relationship to reality.”

An in-depth longread by Derek Thompson at The Atlantic.

This solitude epidemic is not the same as loneliness. Despite public statements to the contrary, we’re not in the middle of a loneliness epidemic. We’re just choosing to be alone, Thompson notes:

… compared with 2003, Americans are more likely to take meetings from home, to shop from home, to be entertained at home, to eat at home, and even to worship at home. Practically the entire economy has reoriented itself to allow Americans to stay within their four walls. This phenomenon cannot be reduced to remote work. It is something far more totalizing—something more like “remote life.”

…

the cardinal rule of contemporary apartment design is that every room is built to accommodate maximal screen time.

…

Despite a consumer economy that seems optimized for introverted behavior, we would have happier days, years, and lives if we resisted the undertow of the convenience curse—if we talked with more strangers, belonged to more groups, and left the house for more activities.

Social media and other screen time means we’re never truly alone, which is part of the problem. We don’t get time to recharge.

But Thompson ends on a hopeful note. He quotes political scientist Robert D. Putnam, author of the seminal 2000 book Bowling Alone:

” I have a view that is uncommon among social scientists, which is that moral revolutions are real and they change our culture," Robert Putnam told me. In the early 20th century, a group of liberal Christians, including the pastor Walter Rauschenbusch, urged other Christians to expand their faith from a narrow concern for personal salvation to a public concern for justice. Their movement, which became known as the Social Gospel, was instrumental in passing major political reforms, such as the abolition of child labor. It also encouraged a more communitarian approach to American life, which manifested in an array of entirely secular congregations that met in union halls and community centers and dining rooms. All of this came out of a particular alchemy of writing and thinking and organizing. No one can say precisely how to change a nation’s moral-emotional atmosphere, but what’s certain is that atmospheres do change. Our smallest actions create norms. Our norms create values. Our values drive behavior. And our behaviors cascade.

The anti-social century is the result of one such cascade, of chosen solitude, accelerated by digital-world progress and physical-world regress. But if one cascade brought us into an anti-social century, another can bring about a social century. New norms are possible; they’re being created all the time. Independent bookstores are booming–the American Booksellers Association has reported more than 50 percent growth since 2009–and in cities such as New York City and Washington, D.C., many of them have become miniature theaters, with regular standing-room-only crowds gathered for author readings. More districts and states are banning smartphones in schools, a national experiment that could, optimistically, improve children’s focus and their physical-world relationships. In the past few years, board-game cafés have flowered across the country, and their business is expected to nearly double by 2030. These cafés buck an 80-year trend. Instead of turning a previously social form of entertainment into a private one, they turn a living-room pastime into a destination activity. As sweeping as the social revolution I’ve described might seem, it’s built from the ground up by institutions and decisions that are profoundly within our control: as humble as a café, as small as a new phone locker at school.

Since last year, I have been making more of an effort to get out into the community, in my own introverted, nerdy socially maladroit way. I’ve joined the Masons and rejoined the board of the La Mesa-Foothills Democratic Club. Also, inspired by this whimsical Tumblr post, I’ve started a personal calendar of local community events that it might be fun to go to. All of this is a start.

[bimboficationblues]

what is the connection you see between liberalism and "prevent suicide at any cost"? i get the other two but not liberalism

oh I'm so glad you asked, this is a super fascinating topic imo.

One of the interesting shifts that goes on in the philosophical conversation around suicide in early modernity is that while religious objections to suicide were being undermined, this didn't necessarily stop objections. (Hume is one of the few bigger names that doesn't seek an alternative secular grounding for opposition to suicide and instead just rebukes the religious argument.) Instead the anti-suicide attitude became sociopolitically driven. On the ideological level, anti-suicide thought assumed a particular kind of social and political subject and image of society that would have been alien to earlier Christian writers like Aquinas. On the more material level we see the modern state developing an increased interest in the health of their populations (though only on an abstract, utilitarian level, for the purposes of maintaining security and control) via the disciplinary institutions of law and medicine.

A really good example: while John Stuart Mill, Boy Genius, never explicitly addresses suicide in On Liberty, he does indirectly discuss it when carving out exceptions to his "harm principle." While generally intervening in the behavior of others for "their own good" is politically and socially undesirable for Mill, there are some exceptions. He uses the example of selling yourself into slavery as an "extreme example" of how one should not be permitted to give up their own liberty and ability to make reasoned decisions about their life. Personally, I think this passage might cut either way on the question of suicide; Mill's primarily interested in social and political liberty and so the idea of removing one's own "metaphysical" liberty through self-annihilation seems outside his scope.

But he also argues that, despite the harm principle, society can intervene if someone is putting themselves at risk or going to harm themselves if they are a "child, or delirious, or in some state of excitement or absorption incompatible with the full use of the reflecting faculty" - i.e. a non-rational agent in some way. Even if it's not what Mill is directly addressing, there's a clear line to be drawn between his ideas about the ability to exercise reason as a foundation for autonomy and modern, non-religious anti-suicide sentiment. This is a recurring theme of modern liberal attitudes towards suicide, which regard it as a fundamentally anti-rational act and therefore grants society permission to override, restrain, and act upon you in ways contrary to your individual desires. (For the record, this same supposed lack of ability to govern oneself effectively is also Mill's self-absolving justification for authoritarianism and colonialism: "Despotism is a legitimate mode of government in dealing with barbarians.") You and I might conceive of suicidal ideation as a rational or at least quasi-rational response, but that's not typically, or at least consistently, something that liberal thought grants.

You can find similar views (if unique to their own frameworks) in Hobbes (natural right), Kant (deontology), even Spinoza to some extent (egoism), even as each of them is (in some form or another) trying to resist a religious justification for their opposition.

Contemporarily, in response to Washington v. Glucksberg (an assisted suicide SCOTUS case), Rawls, Nozick, Judith Jarvis Thomson, Ron Dworkin, and a couple other schmucks filed an amicus curiae brief arguing in defense of assisted suicide. That might seem to cut against my claim - maybe this is a change in the shape of liberal thought? But! I think what's noteworthy is that 1) their argument still takes place entirely on the terrain of rights, i.e. what the state is willing to grant and enforce (which is appropriate considering the venue, but still relevant), and 2) assisted suicide has been the main contemporary avenue of discussion in philosophy and policy regarding suicide. You don't see a generalized defense of suicide too often these days. it's taken as something of a given that while it may or may not be okay to end your life because of physical illness or debilitation, and this is an acceptable debate for public policy, it is definitely NOT okay to end your life because of mental illness or because you want to.

I'm pointing to political philosophers because it comes immediately to me, but I think they serve as good representatives of how the anti-suicide perspective can have a political "liberal" shape beyond just religiosity or psychiatric intervention, and how it's changed over time. sadly don't have the time to do a full historical genealogy effortpost on this subject, but to put on the Foucault hat for a very brief moment: suicide is decreasingly arbitrated by religious institutions. Instead we find it governed by secular law and judges (e.g. Washington v. Glucksberg), and by health regimes of psychiatry and medicine, all of these forces that developed and intensified their discipline over large populations as part of the contemporary science of statecraft.

Anyway, so when I say that anti-suicide attitudes are rooted in bad values and institutions like liberalism, that's what I mean - the idea that suicide is an irrational act that needs to be suppressed by state power, in the process producing a "suicidal subject" that needs to be contained by law and medicine.

An interesting article on some of this stuff, by way of Hobbes, Foucault, and ideas around the legality and social convention of suicide.