I don’t think the privilege “invisible napsack” framing really works for people raised in a dominant religion since those tend to be the people most often victimized by that religion.
This is exactly why non-default people think default people live on a different planet.
Well,obviously, my ideal Archbishop of Canterbury would be a black, atheist transwoman, but we hae some way to go before that happens.
The phrase I think would be more accurate is the one I used:
I don’t want to open up the “intersectionality” can of worms but it can be tricky dealing with one form of bigotry in a population that themselves are subject to bigotry. The lines between “criticising that group for their bad behavior” and “pretending to care about that issue as an excuse to further persecute that group” tend to get blurred. I’ve certainly seen plenty of blatant Islamophobes pretending to care about the treatment of LGBTQ+ people by Muslims who in the next breath will spout some virulent homophobia themselves.
TL;DR: It’s complicated.
Meanwhile, a reminder that US evangelicals have been instrumental is promoting some pretty nasty anti-gay legislation themselves.
It’s so much easier to get away with persecution when the government is on your side, no matter your religion.
Atheist makes no sense, but the Archbishop of Canterbury is a woman- Dame Sarah Elisabeth Mullally , she is married with two children.
And this thread has drifted from the Op into Christian bashing/bigotry.
Not at all; I’m very fond of the Church of England, simply because it is so open to new ideas and interpretations. If any church could be ‘culturally Christian’ while being agnostic or atheist, the CoE has that potential.
I remember with fondness the Bishop of Durham, David Jenkins, who cast doubt on many of the tenets of conventional Christianity.
The Unitarian Universalists filled that niche in the USA, AIUI.
But really “church being culturally Christian while atheist”… maybe it’s just my own oldfartitude but my reaction to that is what would be the point.
Jewish Atheism is a long-established and well-respected identity.
Christian Atheism also exists, and has many different schools of thought. Many UK people are culturally Christian, but the theological side does not appeal to them at all.
We have already discussed Buddhist atheism, which is very well-established and just about the dominant school in that belief system. Non-theism also exists in Hinduism.
The ethics and moralities of these various religions can be regarded as important and separate from the theology, and if a religion is open to a secular interpretation, then encouraging such an interpretation is a worthwhile strategy, and entirely different to ‘Christianophobia’.
Well, if you publicly mock Islam or make it the target of comedic barbs, you might get yourself assassinated. I’m thinking that’s a strong deterrent. Whereas, if you mock Christianity or make it the object of comedic barbs, you don’t face much of a downside. Taylor Tomlinson’s newest Netflix comedy special was actually performed in an old Christian church, and most of her hour or so was mocking Christianity. I don’t recall hearing a single barb being thrown at Islam or any other religion.
I’m seeing it as safely doing what is politically correct. Mocking Christianity is okay because it is viewed as the basic religion of American culture. Mocking any other religion is viewed as mocking the culture that has that particular religion as their basic religion.
And hey, if you make a whole musical mocking the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, they’ll buy an ad in your program.
Are you kidding?! Well, someone said bad publicity is better than none at all. Maybe that was their thinking? LOL
I’d much rather have a religion that you can poke fun at than one you can’t. LDS seems to embrace their (frankly absurd) theology and revel in it.
Larry David got away with writing a musical that poked fun at the fatwa against Salman Rushdie, albeit as a show-within-a-show on Curb Your Enthusiasm.
Nope. I went to the musical, and the ad in the playbill said something like, “you’ve seen the show, now read the book”, and was pretty prominent.
And if you write a hit song parody lampooning the Amish, they won’t know it exists.
For now … LO
The word “might” is doing some very heavy lifting, there. You might also get assassinated for offending Christians. You might get assassinated by members of any demographic, for any reason. But it’s not very likely that you’ll get assassinated for offending Muslims.
It’s been a while since I read this but apparently many people have been inspired enough by seeing The Book of Mormon to go learn the reality about Mormonism and, in some cases, to convert. The LDS have taken the exact right tack on this issue.
And yet lots of people have made fun of Islam and Muslims and not been assassinated.
Also - has no one seen Four Lions? It’s so good.
By way of allegory —
When I lived in Athens Georgia, Catholic Christians were very much the minority. They had one church that I was aware of, whereas the town was rife with Methodist churches, had a double handful of Presbyterian churches, multiple Lutheran churches, and a Baptist church on every corner.
Whenever I found myself interacting with any Catholic folks, they were surprisingly progressive, directly involved in some kind of caring outreach, and activist. The Baptist folks, on the other hand, were intolerant, pushy, and strongly inclined to insist that anyone who was not a Baptist was going to hell.
I’ve been living in the New York City region since 1984 and the Catholic Church is much more the establishment up here. They’re the ones most likely to be bragging about their intolerance and declaring this and that behavior to be reason for excommunication, these folks and those folks to be evil sinful people to speak out against.
Yeah, I think there’s a bit of a double standard towards Christianity in general from some of us here in the United States. The Christianity we look down our noses at is the United States incarnation of it, where it is so often the establishment religion, and arrogant and pushy and intolerant and judgmental.
The fact that someone has to reach back more than a decade really shows how ridiculous the assertion is. As if the Mayor of New York isn’t being openly blamed by the MSM for 9-11 (which happened when he was a young child) because he’s Muslim. As if dozens of far right provocateurs haven’t made a name for themselves with anti-Islamic bigotry. As if this country’s Christians haven’t actively signed off on the destruction of Palestine because they want to get to the end of their story book.