Hating White Christians More Than Other Christians

Jim Bakker and his new wife Lori...

I'm wondering if Andy's friends just don't like fundamentalists or proselytizers?

That said, I'm with Andy here.. I do feel far a little more bile towards white Christians (as a white guy myself) than non-white Christians... and aside from the above, am not exactly sure why.

Yes. Yes I do.

Donut bitch otm about the contextual definition of Christians here, though I would also include some which are less forceful and more simply annoying (like the guy who has to "witness" to any and everybody who will listen in the coffeeshop even though he's not directly telling anybody what they should believe).

To be honest, I've really only encountered white Christians who do this... witnessing, forcefully imposing, etc. And when you're the barista in the coffeeshop mentioned above, sometimes you have to tell the fucker to shut his piehole about jesus or he can go drink his tea somewhere else. And that's what I did after several other customers approached me at the bar and complained.

i didn't have a great time there either, but i don't blame that on christians, christianity, christ, catholics, or the jesuits.

i think its also easier to aesthicise the other.

I loved the teachers and jesuits there, though. As for the academia, it was actually worth it in that sense, too.

Socially, however, I'm still paying for it to some degree.

Kerry, half my family is Greek Orthodox. They might be REPUBLICAN SUPPORTERS 4 LIFE EVEN IF THEY ARE EVIL, but at least they never put me in Sunday school or similar, so you're correct in that regard. They only sent me to Catholic school because they heard that the academic programs were more college-prep than anything else around in L.A., which is likely very true.

However, it wasn't until I went to U.C. Irvine when I discovered that breed of "very annoying" Christian, as Martin perfectly describes above. Granted, in this case, most of them were Asian. (Then again, most of U.C. Irvine was/is Asian)... so, in a way, this still doesn't explain my weird association here.

Think of the first image that pops into your head: a white guy, probably southern, in a tie and bi-focals, denoucing the sin but loving the sinner; OR, a charismatic black preacher in a purple robe, extolling the Promised Land. Now, these are both obviously generalizations, but I think this is how many people would picture them in their head.

Now, let's say they're both Penecostal ministers... belonging to the same church, following the same rules, loving the same vision of salvation whilst battling the same evil in the world; do we see them the same?

I think there is a benignly patronising attitude towards ethnic congregations.. seen as a quaint folk-art, so given a break for some of the divisive rhetoric. A black Penecostal is still a Penecostal, and a Hispanic Catholic is still a Catholic, with all the same unpalatable views. Am I making sense at all?

dan, if I weren't working now, I would write 4-digit number of words why this is a ridiculous statement.

Search: The Church of Latter Day Saints

also african american preachers seem to be better schooled in rhetoric (mlk jr, malcom x, jesse jackson, al sharpton vs pat robertson, jerry fallwell, jim baker)

I don't care a lot for gross overgeneralized Christianity bashing but I hear little of that. What I do encounter is a vague but definite discomfort with Christianity expressed by people in a.. well, lefty elite academic environment. Something's wrong when a friend goes to a Sunday service and is actually embarrassed to tell you about it.

Yeah you make sense Andy... I think part of the reason it's likely that we don't see the two generalizations as equal is because the stereotyped white preacher is more often seen as politically amoral or corrupt. It's not about his beliefs while on the podium. It's about his personal morality often being incongruous with his teachings. I'm sure there are plenty of non-white ministers who are equally morally bankrupt, but they're certainly not as visible as, say, Jim Bakker.

Or something like that.

malcom was taught christian rhetoric before he was taught islamic.

Anyway, I also feel that many of us aren't as immersed in our faith as some of our faith brethren are. I mean, Catholic worship services usually take about an hour -- that's just an hour a week. And even if you pray every other day on top of that, that's just an additional hour a week. Two hours. I've been friends with more fervent Pentecostals and "nondenominational Christians" who attend all-day Sunday services on top of Wednesday night services. That's an awful lot of church-going, and honestly, I can see how one might end up being big on the "witnessing" after an upbringing like that.

a) They don't know when to quit
b) They don't read their audience well
c) They weren't asked or simply brought the subject up out of nowhere. (i.e. their talking about it is either inappropriate in the context or at best completely non sequitur)
d) They won't stop if asked nicely (see also "b" above, as most of the time they simply make people uncomfortable, and their audience winds up "trying to be nice" rather than asking them to stop)
e) If challenged, they will say they are "discussing" the subject with you, even though they cannot even fathom anyone disagreeing with them.
f) When someone does disagree with them, they become increasingly emphatic about their own experience with Christ. It's almost like hearing someone speak more loudly when he learns that his audience is deaf.
g) They piss me off, not because I disagree with them, but because of all the reasons above. (Mostly for "c" -- I can't get over the fact that those who "witness" were almost NEVER fucking asked for their commentary.)

(For instance, my father was raised Methodist, and my mother Episcopalian; we went to a Congregationalist church because that's what was local. Neither felt the need to "convert," neither felt a conflict of beliefs. This wouldn't have been possible with LDS or the Jehovah's Witnesses involved anywhere in that litany of denominations.)

Actually, the guy I had to kick out of the coffee shop in the example in my first post was a Jew for Jesus. That was in eastern PA in the late 90s.

I think there's a reason, apart from Teeny's preetty-good point about having associations with art as opposed to dogma. And the reason's basically this: with certain groups people imagine religion working differently. Like just to pick up on the black/white divide where I think this is most prevalent: note that example above is about the white preacher doing fire-and-brimstone (i.e. moralizing, from a position of authority) whereas the black preacher is talking Promised Land (i.e. promising a more positive system of faith and fortitude and salvation). I don't think that divide is actually a strict thing that exists -- maybe a little, but not nearly so much as it does in our mental imagery -- but nonetheless, the mental imagery exists. We imagine the old white fundamentalist man condemning us and we imagine that old black fundamentalist woman giving people hugs and assuring them that the Lord will see them through their troubles. Same goes for let's say Latino Catholicism, which we tend to romanticize in more of an old-world kind of way, a cultural way more so than a theological one.

Of course you rarely see the creeped-out-by-Christians trend attached to Catholics, who are familiar and mainstream (not to mention having that old-world culture thing); you see it pointed at particularly American fundamentalisms.

Okay but so these mental images aren't really always the case, clearly; there's repressive moralizing behind the happy faithful gospel choir and the pious Mexican aunt; and to imagine the divide I'm talking about too much is to maybe build into -- or from -- a certain possibly-patronizing image of non-white people as being allowed to believe, like white-skinned westerners should be too smart for that but these troubled simple people we can forgive. That's maybe where it can lead if you take it too far -- to the same place as, say, not bothering to argue with an Amazon animists that no, actually his whole idea of ancestral spirits is sort of silly.

I don't know what I'm talking about but I think Andy has a decent question.

The "cultural production" of white American mainstream Christianity has TOTALLY caught on -- it just happens to be aligned with lots of broader non-religious social stuff. I mean, read any five mid-list novels and surely there will be one dealing with the culture of Catholicism (specifically Irish or Italian east-coast) and one with a wider Protestant social vibe, no?

There might just be an issue here of people making strict mental separations between white Christianity as they experience it in the mainstream sense (your friendly neighborhood churchgoers) and how they observe it in the fundamentalist sense ("them ones what speak in tongues!") but not making similar distinctions about other sort of cultural subsets of Christianity: people's image of black southern Christianity is all about mainstreamy gospel-choir and barbecue and large friendly women in fancy hats; plus this idea of deep-faith religion as like carrying people through late-slavery or segregation; and that's a satisfactory package to most people, so they don't tend to dig down and think about whether there's a subset there of equally-nutsy fundamentalist blacks running underneath.

And of course mainstream news isn't about to run a "look at the crazy black churches" expose, or anything, or at least they're not going to do it about Christians. Black Muslims are considered fair game.

That's not true of a lot of Catholic churches. A lot of us are a generation or two removed from the peasantry.

i had no idea where to post this, but this video is amazing

http://fourfour.typepad.com/fourfour/2010/04/giftshop-goodness.html

The sad thing about religion is that probably the majority of the world's people practice a religion, but it is verboten to talk about it in the media. This sends a message that the masses are stupid or mute or something....or am I wrong?

Know you're right, I never hear anything about religion in the media or anywhere else. We should have a mass debate about it.

yeah, that is probably the saddest thing about religion

I never said we never hear anything about religion in the media. I am saying they cover "religion" without, like, giving voice to it. Like mainstream media's coverage of religion is usually videos with hordes of Catholics, or Muslims, or fundamentalist Christians doing something reactionary and / or political.

is it because the media is dominated by liberals?

not sure if dominique strauss kahn should be allowed internet access

i always liked sister wendy

i'd hit it

no hang on

I feel the same way about how sometimes there'll be a story on CNN about how like some shit's going down in Syria and not even once do they point out that Mercyful Fate is awesome

So glad i clicked on this thread, it has lead me to this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xGC2iP5ss6E

wkiw sister wendy. also ws of shame.