Why Do Christians Feel So Victimized - Defined Edition

[Czarcasm]

The “Christian persecution” meme has been on the upswing lately. I’m hearing it more and more on Christian radio programs and television shows, and that theme is also on the rise in the movies. God’s Not Dead was about the unrealistic persecution of a college student, and the upcoming movie Persecuted(subtle title, that) is about the framing of a national religious leader for murder to bring about a sweeping governmental religious persecution program with the goal of wiping out Christianity.

[Bryan_Ekers]

Couldn’t they just wait until he gets caught in a homosexual affair? It’s just a matter of time for any prominent Christian leader, no?

[Budget_Player_Cadet]

Speaking of “Persecuted”, Moviebob’s take on it is pretty great:

I’ll admit a peculiar “fetish” for this particular brand of fundie paranoia, which also gave us “THE LAST EAGLE SCOUT.” The basic spectacle of one of the largest, longest-lived and most powerful groups/movements in the history of the world play-acting at being genuinely “persecuted” because more and more of the world is moving on from being governed by their arcane “moral” dictums (arcane moral dictums which, incidentally, have been responsible for more actual persecution throughout history than almost any other force on the planet since its inception) is strangely compelling in a “conversation with a toddler and/or crazy-person” kind of way.

[Voyager]

@Bricker

The case was a real one, in Chicago. No person attempted to purchase a brick that said, “There is no God.” The following messages, among many others, were permitted:

[ul]
[li]Peace on Earth[/li][li]Respect Nature, Seek Understanding, Truman & Emily[/li][li]Bootsie Albert Drennan, Best Cat Ever![/li][/ul]

Two bricks’ messages were rejected:

[ul]
[li]Missy, EB & Baby: Jesus is the Cornerstone. Love, Mom & Dad[/li][li]Immanuel Lutheran Church–with thanks to God for our neighbors[/li][/ul]

Evading the question, I see.

Without getting into “persecution,” would you agree that having to fight to exercise your rights, after they have been denied by someone later determined to be “overstepping authority,” is fairly described as a “negative consequence?”

Living has negative consequences. Driving a car may have negative consequences. Being employed might mean you suffer at the hands of someone who oversteps their authority. So piffle.

[Voyager]

@Bryan_Ekers

Indeed. Is there any reason to assume a brick that said “There is no God but God and Muhammad is his messenger” would have been accepted?

That is why I brought up a possible atheist block. There have been plenty of instances where Christians get a club or a monument, but when non-Christians want something similar, there is hell to pay.

Perhaps we should measure the net persecution factor - that is the persecution faced by a group less the persecution this group inflicts on others. I’d say that Christians are highly negative, and atheists and Jews are highly positive.

[Budget_Player_Cadet]

While the irony present in things such as Christians complaining when the same faith-based school funding initiatives that allow them to run their own private schools lead to Muslim schools is hilarious, I don’t know if it’s directly relevant to the conversation, or germane to an understanding. I mean, we all get that that’s hypocritical. But how does it relate to Christians feeling persecuted? Does it tell us anything about why they feel persecuted? (Those aren’t rhetorical, by the way.)

[Antinor01]

@Budget_Player_Cadet

While the irony present in things such as Christians complaining when the same faith-based school funding initiatives that allow them to run their own private schools lead to Muslim schools is hilarious, I don’t know if it’s directly relevant to the conversation, or germane to an understanding. I mean, we all get that that’s hypocritical. But how does it relate to Christians feeling persecuted? Does it tell us anything about why they feel persecuted? (Those aren’t rhetorical, by the way.)

The basic answers from what I can see are two-fold -

1. They’re used to Christianity holding a place of preeminence in US society. Any lessening of that exalted place is viewed as persecution,

2. They truly believe that what their book tells them is the absolute truth. All other religions are false and don’t deserve the protections they are afforded for that reason.

[Bryan_Ekers]

It may not be that complicated - they’re being told that they’re under attack, and since this is a handy excuse to blame one’s problems on people other than oneself, they embrace and repeat the lie.

[Senegoid]

This thread reminds me of Kenneth Starr, who “proved” that Bill Clinton had had sex with “that woman” by foisting upon the court, long after the alleged acts occurred, his particular all-inclusive definition of “sex”, designed to cover any acts he could have imagined Clinton might have done with “that woman”.

[Cheesesteak]

@Bricker

But this thread suffers from a problem: it attempts to confine the definition of the word “persecution,” to a particular variant, and then asks why people in the rest of the country, who have not read this thread and are not aware of the confining definition, are using the word to describe their experiences.

I think the trouble is that Christians who claim to be persecuted are using a definition that can only charitably be called childish. Let’s look at the root of the issue:

@Bricker

I’ve already touched on what I suspect is the key element underlying American Christians’ claims of persecution: their declining influence. While they remain numerically superior and politically powerful, there’s no real debate that the last fifty or so years have seen the dominance exercised by American Christians erode.

Going from overwhelmingly dominant in the public sphere, to simply dominant is not cause to claim persecution anymore than telling my son to clean up his Legos is cause to claim child abuse.

Christians have been trampling all over the country pushing their dogma into everything. Now some folks are getting up, refusing to be walked over and the Christians are whining about their muddy boots. Maybe there won’t be a Nativity scene in the public square, and maybe workers will say Happy Holidays once in a while, you’re not persecuted, we’re just not letting you run rampant over all of our lives anymore.

[Hentor_the_Barbarian]

I agree with the assertion made above that this persecution complex is much more a right winger trait than a Christian one. It appears as a Christian thing because of the heavy overlap.

Jimmy Carter is an example of a good Christian. To my knowledge, he never whines of persecution of any kind.

[tomndebb]

@Cheesesteak

Going from overwhelmingly dominant in the public sphere, to simply dominant is not cause to claim persecution anymore than telling my son to clean up his Legos is cause to claim child abuse.

You are moving the discussion.
The question was not “Why SHOULD Christians feel persecuted?” but “Why DO Christians feel persecuted?”.

Arguing that they should not have certain feelings addresses a different question. You may assert that their reasons are baseless, (I generally agree), but asserting that their motivation is unfounded is not the same as actually answering the question. You use an analogy to childhood emotions, but if you are going to take that tack, do you spend time arguing with a small child that they have no reason to complain?

(I will further note that this thread repeats one error of the previous thread in using “Christian” broadly and indiscriminately, since the overwhelming majority of Christians do not share this feeling of persecution, but I doubt that those who feel the need to belittle Christianity will bother to modify their posts with that in mind.)

[Jonathan_Chance]

I do think that it comes down to a decreasing sense of power and place in American society. I don’t think Bricker is wrong about that.

However, any society as diverse as ours will inevitably have times where subgroups will find themselves rubbing up against others and friction results. Calling that ‘persecution’ cheapens a word that should have real power. Still, I don’t have a solution.

I also agree that those crying persecution are a small, noisy part of the circle ‘christians’ and are only getting ink because they make for a good soundbite. Ignoring them is the best solution, keeping an eye on them and not engaging them another one.

Still, some of them are hilarious.

Here’s one where a pastor says the persecution is to bring about a Nazi Fascist Gay Super Race to Wipe Out Christians.

I swear to God, you can’t make this stuff up.

[tomndebb]

Poe’s Law is a serious threat to The Onion.

[Bricker]

@Voyager

Evading the question, I see.

What, specifically, was the question you claim I evaded?

[Bricker]

@MaxTheVool

Do you also agree that for basically ANY group, certainly anything as large and prominent as a religion, you can say “there have been incidents in American in which individual Xs have suffered negative consequences for being X”?

Yes.

And do you further agree that if you were to sort all the groups that one can belong in based on how likely one is to suffer negative consequence for being in that group, Christianity is WAY WAY WAY over on the “unlikely to suffer consequences” side of the list? (Ignoring groups like “people whose blood type is B negative” and “people who were born in March”.)

Yes.

If so, I think that is why so many of us non-Christians react so strongly to this type of discussion. Maybe being Christian is non-zero on the persecution-o-meter, even though in an ideal world it would be at zero on the persecution-o-meter. But if basically NO group is at zero on that meter, and Christians are one of the lowest groups on that meter, than complaining about how they’re not at zero is not only silly and somewhat dishonest, it’s massively insulting and frustrating to non-Christians. (PARTICULARLY given how much of the persecution other groups suffer is caused by Christians.)

Sure.

But my original response – the one from which this whole drama seems to have sprung, Minerva-like, was to point out that on the SDMB, as opposed to the world at large, the equivalent questions are answered at least a bit differently.

On a message board, no one is physically at risk. But to take your own approach:

Do you agree that if you were to sort all the groups that one can belong in based on how likely one is to suffer negative consequences on the SDMB for being in that group, Christianity is on the upper portion of the list? (Ignoring, again, oddball classifications like “people whose blood type is B negative” and “people who were born in March”.)

[Budget_Player_Cadet]

@tomndebb

You are moving the discussion.
The question was not “Why SHOULD Christians feel persecuted?” but “Why DO Christians feel persecuted?”.

Arguing that they should not have certain feelings addresses a different question. You may assert that their reasons are baseless, (I generally agree), but asserting that their motivation is unfounded is not the same as actually answering the question.

I agree with this. I also think that avoiding the theme of “Christians are wrong to think they’re persecuted because of X” (unless someone else brings up X) is probably a good idea, as it helps avoid restating the obvious in an objectionable way (see also: various complaints about the point of this thread which I find quite ridiculous, because that’s not where I want to see it go either).

[Budget_Player_Cadet]

@Bricker

On a message board, no one is physically at risk. But to take your own approach:

Do you agree that if you were to sort all the groups that one can belong in based on how likely one is to suffer negative consequences on the SDMB for being in that group, Christianity is on the upper portion of the list? (Ignoring, again, oddball classifications like “people whose blood type is B negative” and “people who were born in March”.)

I reject that. There are numerous open Christians here who get essentially no flak for their faith, and every time I’ve seen Christians “suffer negative consequences” it’s not simply because they’re Christians, it’s because they said something that was silly, or because… well, Der Trihs was in the thread, but I think we can all agree that he’s kind of an outlier. Do you have any examples of Christians here getting abuse simply for being Christian?

[BobLibDem]

One thing I forgot to mention earlier is that a lot of things that these Christians feel persecuted about just isn’t true.

Case in point. The ACLU didn’t object to Marines praying. Navy chaplains are as free as always to mention Jesus’ name. Now if you believe everyting that someone forwards you or shares on Facebook, you might just believe that someone is out to get Christians.

Another case in point, people going bananas about keeping “In God We Trust” on our coins. Nobody is advocating its removal, but if you genuinely believed that someone was, then you might feel persecuted. Ditto for “Under God” in the pledge of allegiance. NOBODY is trying to remove it, but certain Christians have convinced themselves that someone is.

It can’t be overstressed that this is just a very vocal minority. Most Christians are fine and decent folk. A few are whiners.

[coffeecat]

Lots of people are Christian in the sense that they go to church to get married. People who worry more about Jesus than their job, family, or self are unusual, and nonconformists get funny looks. Could this have something to do with it?