"All Christians aren't like that!"

[xenologer]

There's something I understand better now than I used to back when I was self-identifying as a theist. I, too, was really upset that atheists were so prejudiced and bigoted and just pigeonholed any religious people they knew and assumed that if you aren't an atheist, you're an enemy. Or something.

I understand marginalization and privilege a little better now, though. Only some of it is from beginning to identify as an atheist. A lot of it's stuff I've heard from LGBT people and people of color and feminists and just... y'know, people who have experience with this stuff. Here's what I've learned about generalizing about the members (or affiliates) of organizations that hate me (or you, or someone else, or whoever).

It's hard sometimes, when someone walks up wearing the badge and uniform of one's oppressors, to assume that they don't want to be associated with the other people wearing it. It's hard for me (for example) to see someone who self-identifies as Catholic and not see an ally of the homophobia, misogyny, and just general callousness that characterizes that organization. They may not personally hate women or gays or child rape victims, but they're comfortable affiliating with an organization that plainly does, and I have to wonder at that rate whether they're true allies.

Sadly, that type of Christianity is still setting the tone in a lot of the country. While I'm supportive of the efforts of other Christians to clean up their image, I no longer feel like I should suffer at the hands of the Christian cultural system and simultaneously do their PR for them. When more Christians are like Quakers, I'll talk about them like more of them are Quakers.

I get that it's got to suck having people running around acting a fool who are using teachings from the same book as you are to do some terrible things to innocent people. It always sucks to feel like someone else has enough control over your reputation to screw with it by being bigots and just generally showing their whole ass to the world.

That's the thing, though, about continuing to wear the badge and uniform of a group that--for a lot of people--has done them nothing but personal and very tangible harm. Depending on how badly they've been hurt and for how long and how much hope they have left, they might just assume that you're an ally to the people who hurt them. They're not assuming this because they're bigoted, or bullies, or intolerant. They're assuming it because they're tired of giving chances to people who put on that uniform and then getting kicked in the face for it. So... they stop taking the risk.

I'm not quite there yet, but I've seen people get there, and it's hard for me to begrudge them. It's not hate. It's hurt, and it's weariness, and they're right. They should never have had to always be the one giving out chance after chance after chance to people who didn't take it. It's hard exhausting work, and the people I know who've given up on trying to find common ground with Christians? That's why.

So this is why I've stopped saying, "Not all straight/cis/white/etc. people are like that! Please only talk about your painful experiences in a way that protects my feelings!" and it's why I think it'd be great if Christians did, too.

Comments

[xenologer]

I am trying really hard to not be insulted by the insinuation that I think asking "should abortion be legal" is like asking "which Ghostbuster is the most awesome."

It was an exaggerated comparison, but to me the question of whether abortion should be legal is not the kind of academic abstract debateable thing that people can easily agree to disagree on. Agreeing to disagree on whether they're okay? Fuck yeah. But the "agree to disagree" position is called pro-choice because it means that people who disagree are all allowed to do what they need to do.

I couldn't remain part of an organization that argued "Everybody should do what they need to do" is an intolerable approach to really serious political issues like abortion, and I'm baffled by people who can get past it.

The married gay Catholic guy spends way more money funding marriage equality than he has ever given to the Church. But then again, these organisations are never going to change if everyone who is a decent human being leaves.

And that guy is doing very good work, but unless decent human beings are willing to leave, they won't have any more influence than the LGBT community has over the USA Democratic Party. They know we're too scared to vote for anybody else to leave them, so we're not really worth appeasing. Sadly, there isn't a viable alternative to that political party. (But then again, for people who believe that they will burn in an actual literal hell FOREVER if they leave the Catholic Church, they may not see any alternative either.)

I realise that while you are a Pagan you are also an atheist, and because of this I suspect that you may have trouble understanding that ritual isn't just a matter of "trappings" and "beauty" and has actual value.

You're right that this makes it much harder for me to understand some things, because I don't experience any sublime supernatural forces.

I do want to note, though, that a religion stripped of faith down to only its ritual beauty is clearly still meaningful enough for me to practice even though I share none of the faith-based beliefs of the religion. So while a lot of atheists place zero value on ritual or the beauty of metaphor or narrative that various religions offer, I'm not one of them, or I wouldn't be continuing to practice a religion whose stories I believe are all myths (because being a myth doesn't have to mean being "just" a myth, which I figure you probably understand better than my atheist peeps tend to).

In light of that, this is something I can totally feel you on:

Talmud study is AWESOME but it isn't prayer and fasting and meditation and chanting.

Studying religion academically is kickass, but there is frequently something tangibly good about practicing one, and even with my bone-deep mistrust of faith I still continue practicing mine because the practices matter.

I don't especially enjoy knowing that I might be sitting next to someone whose politics I despise on Yom Kippur; but if we're both doing what we ought to be doing on Yom Kippur, I'm not going to know what their politics are because we're not going to be having conversations about it. And I don't want to sit in a room full of people that I know I agree with about all the really important real-world issues to do Yom Kippur if they aren't going to let me do Yom Kippur.

I want to thank you for getting into such depth about where you're coming from here, because it's helping me to better understand and articulate my own feelings on it better. For Wiccans, when we get together to practice, we're not just getting together to do The Thing, we're getting together with The People. Circling with someone is an expression of trust and respect, an acknowledgement that we are here for each other and that this space is safe for all of us.

This is something I had a conversation about today as a matter of fact. I stopped attending ritual with the group I'm part of because one regularly-attending member was anti-choice. She told me that she respected me and that we could agree to disagree, but what she didn't understand was that her position was the antithesis of "agree to disagree." What she didn't understand was that to a pro-choicer she was basically saying, "You're real smart and all and Imma let you finish, but you're not morally mature enough to decide when you'll become a mother and I wish the law didn't let you."

I couldn't circle with her, because it's an expression of trust and respect that I didn't sincerely feel we had between us. It's hard to be in circle with someone and ignore what kind of world they want to create, because Wiccan rituals are creative exercises in which we direct our thoughts and energies on common goals. There's a metaphorical (some say literal, but I don't have the faith for that) dissolution of boundaries between us so that we can pool our wills to create what we came to create.

That may be why I have such a hard time imagining sitting next to someone at church who would despise me if they knew too much about me (whether it's my orientation or whether I'd have an abortion or whatever), or attending services led by an organization that's actively opposed to the world I want to be in. I can't let down my guard.

If there were no (or at least less) expectation that the community was there to connect with each other as much as with God, I can see that turning out differently. For me, though, I've always been there to connect with the other worshippers and to share a common vision with them, and even when I was a theist... connecting to that sort of being came a distant second.

This is probably a blind spot that I have because I've never been a monotheist. I was a Wiccan and then I was an atheist Wiccan. It's a blind spot I appreciate you helping me find, because by their nature they can be pretty slippery.

Hilariously, this probably makes me one of the only Neo-Pagans who has ever been so thoroughly ethnocentrically blind about the dominant religions in her own damn culture. Kind of amusing that I even managed that.

[cleverthylacine]

Okay. So, I've done Paganism, and I know a little bit about Circles. Pagan Circles are not usually held every week on X day in a building dedicated to that purpose which is opened on that day to the public. When I go to a temple or a Chabad house or a synagogue on Saturday morning literally anyone could be there. When my friend goes to Mass, literally anyone could be there. So the connection when people are davening or praying is straight up and down (through the priest in the case of Catholicism and some other forms of Christianity, but not for other forms, nor for Jews, nor for other people who have these open kinds of religious services).

In liberal churches I think a lot of the huggy talky share-your-story-handholdy stuff is an attempt to introduce some feeling of community into the whole thing, but because anyone CAN show up, it makes me uncomfortable. Not just because I have social anxiety, and not just because my own religious practise tends to be more traditional and less huggy, but because anyone and everyone could be there and I don't know who I am sharing my story with. So even when talking and discussing texts (say Talmud, or Kabbalah) I still don't want to hug the person sitting next to me or give them the kiss of peace.

In a tribal religion (like Judaism, and most pre-Christian pagan religions) everyone who has been born or adopted into the tribe belongs to the tribe, whether they believe in anything or not.

That belief matters is one of the big differences between Christianity (especially Protestant Christianity) and Judaism and also one of the big differences between tribal paganism and Neo-Paganism. That is actually one of the things Neo-Paganism derives from the fact that it is a post-Christian religion and that almost everyone who is a Neo-Pagan is a convert from a nominally Christian or culturally Jewish family who has grown up their whole life long with the belief = religion equation.

Some Jewish people are very confused when you tell them that if you have Christian parents and are converting to Judaism, you're not a Christian until you become a Jew. It's hard for them to grok that even if you're baptised and given a Christian name, you aren't a Christian if you don't believe that Jesus is the Saviour (and of course, if you did, you wouldn't want to convert).

So even if I'm at a synagogue where the rabbi and I share all the same important beliefs, there's no telling what the woman sitting next to me thinks. And that's okay because in a synagogue where we're not actually expected to hold hands, sing protest songs and talk about ourselves in public, as long as she and I do what we came there to do, it's all good.

Anyhow, Jews believe that the world got broken during the process of creation and that our job is to help the Creator fix it. Which is similar to but a little different from the thing where you're envisioning a totally different world that you want to create.

I also think that in a lot of liberal Jewish and Christian congregations the de-emphasis (to the point of subtle hostility and overt discouragement) of mystical practise is not an accident. I think that it has a lot to do with the way they position themselves as being "modern", "liberal", and RATIONAL, and not like the scary crazy fundamentalists or your narrow-minded traditional old-country Orthodox grandparents/cousins/whatever. A lot of hand-holding in very liberal Jewish groups also is meant to make it very very clear that we're not like those people who think men and women shouldn't look at or touch each other while praying. (Which, fine. But I could do without men trying to flirt with me at those times so I don't actually mind the mechitzah as long as women aren't relegated to a place where they can't see what's going on.)

Unfortunately, it has the effect of forcing people who need the mystical practise to feel like they have actually done anything worshipful to make this choice between politics and fellowship and study or mysticism and getting out of your talky brain and the stress release that comes with that, which is, if you have this kind of neurological wiring--and I do think that neurological wiring has a lot to do with it--a TREMENDOUS stress release. If I can get up into that part of my brain and stay there for an hour, I may or may not be tired afterwards, but I feel so much BETTER.

I think that one of the attractions of fundamentalism and Chabad and ultra-orthodoxy and the conservative strains of neo-Chassidism is that they are not afraid of your strong emotions and your mystical experiences.

I find this disheartening not just for my own sake but because people who are overworked, underpaid and chronically stressed are not drawn to cerebral religions where there's a lot of debate and discussion. They need the stress release and they need to be told that they're okay (or that they can be okay without having to work and think and do MORE--the appeal of getting born again over social justice work to working class folks is not accidental).

Sometimes I think that what progressive political parties and religious groups need to do first is lay off the guilt tripping and make things more fun and more ecstatic and more emotionally accessible and EASIER. But now we are spiralling off into a whole different rant. Still, there's a reason Gay Pride WORKS and gets people to come back over and over and over, yet protests turn into riots or ten people come.

[xenologer]

Many apologies for the delay in response. I was out of town, but this is an awesome conversation that I appreciate hugely and I have not forgotten it.

In liberal churches I think a lot of the huggy talky share-your-story-handholdy stuff is an attempt to introduce some feeling of community into the whole thing, but because anyone CAN show up, it makes me uncomfortable. Not just because I have social anxiety, and not just because my own religious practise tends to be more traditional and less huggy, but because anyone and everyone could be there and I don't know who I am sharing my story with.

Eeeeeyeah, I can see that. I think in your position I wouldn't be in super-duper-sharing mode, either.

In a tribal religion (like Judaism, and most pre-Christian pagan religions) everyone who has been born or adopted into the tribe belongs to the tribe, whether they believe in anything or not.

That belief matters is one of the big differences between Christianity (especially Protestant Christianity) and Judaism and also one of the big differences between tribal paganism and Neo-Paganism. That is actually one of the things Neo-Paganism derives from the fact that it is a post-Christian religion and that almost everyone who is a Neo-Pagan is a convert from a nominally Christian or culturally Jewish family who has grown up their whole life long with the belief = religion equation.

I thought this was really interesting, because for some definitions of "belief" it fits my experience, and for some it doesn't. I think if we define "beliefs" as "values," it fits perfectly. It matters to our group what you believe, because it matters to the people you're circling with whether you respect their freedom to decide certain things (such as how to initiate, or whom to be in a relationship with, or what gender to identify with if any, or whether to continue a pregnancy, etc.).

If you define it as "religious beliefs," though... it ceases to matter at all. We have a wide spectrum from atheists (of whom I think there are at least two or three, myself included) to people who specialize in dealing with ghosts to a woman who talks to fairies and another man who talks to a dragon that tells him about the future. As far as what we believe is going on around us and which stories are true, there's a really wide divergence.

I used to think that was just because orthopraxy matters more to Neo-Pagans than orthodoxy, but one of our priests sent me an article via email a bit back that changed how I looked at it. It's about how Neo-Pagan religions were cobbled together in a time when diversity couldn't be escaped, so they're frequently built to survive in a different environment than religions whose origins lie in a time when you could trust that your neighbor and the guy across the street and even the people across town probably believed more or less the same stuff you did. Because of that, being able to handle diversity can be as important to the basic nature of a lot of Neo-Pagan traditions as resisting diversity can be to a lot of monotheist traditions. So while sitting next to a homophobe in a Christian church might not be a huge problem in that circumstance, circling with one in a Neo-Pagan kind of environment prompts a lot more questions as to what the hell that person is even doing there.

This is not to say that Neo-Pagan individuals (or even Neo-Pagan groups) are always going to be better about these things than older monotheist traditions. There are too many Dianic groups for "women born women" and too many gender essentialists and heteronormativity in general (because hey, fertility cults, it's an easy pitfall) for me to say that. Wanted to give that disclaimer. Practicing a religion whose values and customs are shaped by the expectation of diversity doesn't mean members themselves always have the tools to handle it.

Unfortunately, it has the effect of forcing people who need the mystical practise to feel like they have actually done anything worshipful to make this choice between politics and fellowship and study or mysticism and getting out of your talky brain and the stress release that comes with that, which is, if you have this kind of neurological wiring--and I do think that neurological wiring has a lot to do with it--a TREMENDOUS stress release. If I can get up into that part of my brain and stay there for an hour, I may or may not be tired afterwards, but I feel so much BETTER.

I hear that. It's almost certainly more vital to you than to me, but it's also more important to me than almost any other atheists I know.

It made my handfasting interesting, because I wanted the ceremonial experience and I wanted to have the energy that I look for from rituals, but without invocation of or salutes to deities that we don't believe in. It turned out great, though, because the only blessings we needed were from each other and the community that loves us and we had that in abundance. For our group, a group that's based more on shared values and support of our common humanity than orthodox beliefs about the material world or the supernatural, this worked beautifully. I don't think that kind of arrangement would have worked in a group that's united in a different way, though.

Even a lot of atheists are sort of thrown that we had a religious commitment ceremony, because they don't always know what religious practice does aside from act as a vehicle for faith, so they don't know what could possibly be there for anybody without faith. I have a need for religious practice even though I've come to be comfortable with the idea that the stories are stories, but the practice I have doesn't happen to be one that forces me to choose between having the ritual I want and the community I want.

I picked my religious practice in large part because I like the religion as a cultural system, but if Neo-Pagans didn't show signs of working on the heteronormativity and weird gender stuff (which, from what I've seen, the Neo-Pagan community has been pretty responsive to), I absolutely would ditch them in a heartbeat. What I need is so tied up with common values that even if practicing with homophobes or transphobes or misogynists could still work for some people (because it leaves the thing they're after largely untouched), it undermines my whole reason for being there.

I need to connect with other people as much as I think some people need to feel a connection with a deity. I used to think I fell into the latter category until I visited a mosque in religion class and realized that I loved performing salat because I liked praying with the Muslims and not because I liked praying to Allah. (As you can see I would make a very poor Muslim.)