United States Tax Dollars at Work
So I came across an odd bit of legislation passed a few days ago.
Whereas Christmas, a holiday of great significance to Americans and many other cultures and nationalities, is celebrated annually by Christians throughout the United States and the world;
Whereas there are approximately 225,000,000 Christians in the United States, making Christianity the religion of over three-fourths of the American population;
Whereas there are approximately 2,000,000,000 Christians throughout the world, making Christianity the largest religion in the world and the religion of about one-third of the world population;
Whereas
identify themselves as those who believe in the salvation from sin offered to them through the sacrifice of their savior, Jesus Christ, the Son of God, and who, out of gratitude for the gift of salvation, commit themselves to living their lives in accordance with the teachings of the Holy Bible;Whereas ChristiansChristians and Christianity have contributed greatly to the development of western civilization;Whereas the United States, being founded as a constitutional republic in the traditions of western civilization, finds much in its history that points observers back to its Judeo-Christian roots;
Whereas on December 25 of each calendar year, American Christians observe Christmas, the holiday celebrating the birth of their savior, Jesus Christ;
Whereas for Christians, Christmas is celebrated as a recognition of God’s redemption, mercy, and Grace; and
Whereas many Christians and non-Christians throughout the United States and the rest of the world, celebrate Christmas as a time to serve others: Now, therefore, be it
(1) recognizes the Christian faith as one of the great religions of the world;(2) expresses continued support for Christians in the United States and worldwide;(3) acknowledges the international religious and historical importance of Christmas and the Christian faith;
(4) acknowledges and supports the role played by Christians and Christianity in the founding of the United States and in the formation of the western civilization;
(5) rejects bigotry and persecution directed against Christians, both in the United States and worldwide; and
(6) expresses its deepest respect to American Christians and Christians throughout the world.
It’s disappointing that Congress is willing to pass resolutions to respect the establishment of a religion, but is still unwilling to extend basic human rights to every person living in the United States.
I half-expect this kind of thing to dovetail with the domestic terrorism and thoughtcrime bill, and by this time next year we’ll be throwing people into Gitmo for saying “Happy Holidays.”
So for all of you besieged Christians out there, who know that the pagan hordes are coming to tear down Christmas, a Happy Holidays to each and every one of you.
December 17, 2007 at 11:43 am
Christians and Christianity have contributed greatly to the development of western civilization;
True, so extremely and deeply true.Of course “western civilization” is a screaming horrorshow of ugly, but who’s counting?
IMO and experience, the United States is a Christian country. I say this as a Jew. I say this as someone who is not Christian. And by that I don’t mean “My family/ancestors are Christian and I as an individual have chosen to be Buddhist/agnostic/atheist/etc.” I say this as someone whose family and ancestors have not ever been Christian, like ever. This is the time of year that the United States reminds me with extreme loud force that like other European countries, it is deeply Christian — and just like other European Christian countries, if and when it serves the European/white Christians to come after my people, to position us as the face of its horrors, to do all the things that European Christians have done to my people cyclically over the centuries, it will do it.
It’s disappointing that Congress is willing to pass resolutions to respect the establishment of a religion, but is still unwilling to extend basic human rights to every person living in the United States.
To me it is not at all or in any way surprising or unusual. This country is built on denial of basic human rights. Rock-bottom built on that. If it didn’t continue to deny basic human rights to every person, it would not be the United States. And about the Christianity, well, to me, the menace of this time of year is palpable and I feel like this resolution is exactly in synch with the reality of this country as I have experienced it since I was small. Thrust of Christianity. Aggressive loud pushing Christianity. And this menace is IMO as supported by the nice liberals as it is by the Christian religious right in my experience. But just less obviously.
Happy Holidays
For the record:
1. Jews DO NOT have a major holiday this time of year. We just plain don’t. We have one of many non-major holidays that only has gained prominence because in a Christian country it seems to coorespond with an important Christian holiday. (Christians: when’s the last time you wished a Jew Happy Holidays around Succot? Simchat Torah? etc ) People act like “Happy Holidays” is some sort of non-Christian-centered thing, but from my perspective, it’s as bad as Merry Christmas because it’s a euphemism.
From jewfaq.org: Chanukkah is probably one of the best known Jewish holidays, not because of any great religious significance, but because of its proximity to Christmas. Many non-Jews (and even many assimilated Jews!) think of this holiday as the Jewish Christmas, adopting many of the Christmas customs, such as elaborate gift-giving and decoration. It is bitterly ironic that this holiday, which has its roots in a revolution against assimilation and the suppression of Jewish religion, has become the most assimilated, secular holiday on our calendar.
Which is true and it makes my stomach turn.
2. It’s not our New Year either. It is the Christian New Year. Jewish New Year is in the fall. And by our clock, it’s not 2007-2008, it’s *5768.* Not surprisingly, my people don’t count time starting when the Christian’s deity was born.
3. And also, even if Chanukah were a major holiday, which it is NOT, even if it were we have a different month calender than used in this country (Jewish calender includes attention to the moon cycles). Today is the 8th of Tevet. Chanukah starts on the 25th of Kislev. The months and days don’t directly coorespond from year to year. So this year, that that minor “notable to Christians because it is near the Christian holiday” …. has already passed.
Every year I get overloaded with this menacing “benevolent” Christian shit, every fucking year. Exhausted already from the overwhelming lies and ugly of Thanksgiving, there is this next ugly — this round of “benevolent” aggressive Christianity. Happy Holidays. Merry Christimas. Salvation Army. And on and on.
A Congressional resolution about Christianity? Just another piece of the overwhelming deluge as far as I’m concerned. And I work in customer service for the county, and I am going to get this deluge of Happy Holidays from the more “sensitive” people and I will flinch each time I do (just as a flinch every single time I look at the large decorate Christmas tree in the middle of the room that the nice sweet tolerant manager put up two weeks ago because how could anyone feel that as menacing, it’s a pretty tree).
At work I am going to have to smile and suck up all those supposedly benevolent wishes of “Happy Holidays” despite the fact that they play fast and loose with the actual truth, despite the fact that they are really about imposing Christian worldview under a euphemistic guise.
Because isn’t it just so nice and sensitive to say that, to accepting that Christianity isn’t the center of the world, and I should really be grateful for its liberalness.
December 17, 2007 at 11:57 am
Whew, I am so glad that congress has spent time to note that a) Contemporary Christianity is a majority in the US and b) They reject the bigotry of any of the minorities against the majority religion (the same religion you need to open claim to be a part of to be elected President for example) - stunning disapproval of intolerance. Are they going to pass one on the historic importance of whites and particularly white males and include a section on how they disapprove of any intolerance against white males as well - or is that something to keep over until next year.
December 17, 2007 at 12:20 pm
Michelle, the thing about the “Happy Holidays” greeting is that many Christians view it as an attack upon Christmas itself. My mother actually gets angry enough to not shop at stores with “Happy Holidays” or “Season’s Greetings” signage instead of “Merry Christmas.” The whole “war on Christmas” BS is deeply offensive to me because it’s such a naked attempt to take offense where none is offered. That it’s not enough to be seen as the reason for the season, other holidays (major or not) and their associated religions and cultures need to be stamped out. I said “Happy Holidays” as a followup to my line about Gitmo and the war on Christmas.
Anyway, I said “disappointing” because it wasn’t surprising or unusual. That doesn’t mean I can’t be disappointed.
Thanks for the post. :)
Elizabeth, totally. We’ll have white history year officially acknowledged anytime now.
December 17, 2007 at 5:29 pm
Elizabeth,
Are they going to pass one on the historic importance of whites and particularly white males
They already have. It’s called Christopher Columbus Day.
December 17, 2007 at 5:31 pm
Wow! Michelle’s comments really made me think, too.
December 17, 2007 at 5:40 pm
Yeah, Michelle’s got a lot of good stuff there, I just wanted to make it clear why I said “happy holidays.”
And good point on Christopher Columbus day. I never would have thought of that. :(
December 18, 2007 at 2:32 pm
Lisa, I am well aware of the skirmishes among various groups of Christians about these issues. Living in this country, I am always aware of these kinds of things because I can’t escape knowing about them any more than I can escape knowing the melodies and words to Christmas songs.
My comment was partly about de-centering Christian perspectives. Your reply explaining why you said what you did IMO re-centered them
December 18, 2007 at 3:39 pm
I got the impression that you objected to my usage, which is why I explained.
I do agree with pretty much everything you wrote.
December 18, 2007 at 6:57 pm
I wish there *was* a war against Christmas. I’d sign up straight away…
December 18, 2007 at 9:17 pm
Michelle, I edited the happy holidays wish to clarify just who it’s aimed at.
I totally agree that the there’s an urge to place other holidays into the context of Christian holidays (like making Chanukah out to be “Jewish Christmas”) and this very much is a form of imperialism, and it is clueless and wrong to buy into that idea.
I didn’t know most of what you wrote about Jewish holidays. I have discussed them with a friend of mine who is also a Jew, but he’s not explained in great detail (for his own reasons), and so I wouldn’t even try to talk authoritatively on any of them. The most I manage to do is seek and offer forgiveness on Yom Kippur, because I think doing so is a good thing - and I don’t claim to be Jewish when I do so, nor do I claim it’s my holiday, nor do I claim I’m celebrating it properly as I don’t fast for it.
As a variety of pagan, I prefer not to celebrate Christmas at all, although most celebrate Yule on the Winter Solstice, which is very close to Christmas, it’s not a major holiday in the sense that it’s more important than the other 7 on the calendar year.
I admit that hearing the complaints about the war on Christmas drives me up the wall. It’s a faddish thing to get outraged about, and has been for decades. It’s a way for the oppressors to convince themselves they’re oppressed. It’s sickening to me, and every time I see something related, it makes me want to take up arms along with Shiva
The war on Christmas is not just a thing between groups of Christians, but aimed at marginalizing non-Christian religions in yet one more way (even though they’re already marginalized in that particular way, so perhaps full erasure).
December 18, 2007 at 11:29 pm
As a different variety of pagan, I get sort of aggravated by people who presume that I’m celebrating something other than, y’know, my wedding anniversary. No significant religious holiday in here, damnit.
“War on Christmas” = “OMG someone isn’t respecting the absolute hegemonial status of my religion by not celebrating its festivals!” Gah. And Christmas’s theological significance is pretty thoroughly overblown by the hooplah, too.
(I’m just bitter because I had to venture out into the world today and was afflicted with “Jingle Bell Rock”, thought it couldn’t possibly get worse, and then the damn drugstore sound system played “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree” to prove me wrong.)
December 19, 2007 at 12:03 am
Yeah, I’m not saying all pagans celebrate Yule, and I believe many celebrate it because we grew up celebrating Christmas. I don’t like the hegemonial status of Christianity necessarily, and I’d rather not have people assume that when I celebrate Yule I’m really celebrating Christmas.
December 19, 2007 at 7:41 am
I think you mean Winter Solstice, not Equinox. An equinox is when the day and night are the same length (it comes from the words for “equal” and “night”) - they occur in spring and autumn. The winter solstice is the day with least sunlight in the year (usually December 21st or 22nd in the Northern Hemisphere) and the summer solstice is the day with most sunlight (usually June 21st or 22nd in the Northern Hemisphere - obviously, in the Southern Hemisphere the solstices are reversed, and on the equator, every day is an equinox).
I don’t know if i even want to begin to list the things i despise about Christmas. Pretty much everything, in fact, including the fact that, IMO, it’s an incredibly stupid time of year to have major festivities. I might do a blog post about it, but at the moment i think i’d rather not dignify it with noticing its existence…
December 19, 2007 at 11:31 am
If your ancestry is Christian, you carry it IMO. Whatever you choose to be or not practice or believe or whatever it is that Christian religion requires, Christianity colors your perspective. It is not something you can just opt out of as I see it.
The war on Christmas is not just a thing between groups of Christians
Well, okay but we are speaking here — and you are Christian ancestry, right, and I am Jewish ancestry.
So let me be as clear and concrete as possible here. On Monday 12/24 during the afternoon I have to be at work. I work for the county (the govt) in a marginal customer service position. I have to be there Monday because I am paid hourly with no paid vacation and I can’t work Tuesday as usual because it is closed, and even with that I will lose some pay in the next two weeks because it closes early 12/24 and 1/1.
I have decided that I will be wearing all black and over that wearing a cheap silver Mogen David (Jewish Star) around my neck. I bought this star special for the occasion which is not how I want to spend money. But I bought it because I want to be able to point to it silently when people wish me whateverthefuck they will be wishing me on Dec 24.
Merry Christmas is easier. They are clueless enough to not see the star against the black cloth and try to engage me about Christmas, I point to the star raise an eyebrow and half-smile.
Happy Holidays? That’s a drive-by and puts me again into a situation of silencing myself because I am at work, it is my survival here, and it is not culturally appropriate and even defined as aggressive and bad for me to then try to explain the situation with Chanukah and Christmas and New Year’s etc etc.
This silencing of myself (in this and other situations) is deep because it is part of a pattern of what my particular people often do in these situations to survive in European Christian countries (including the US). It is a form of violence.
Of course, maybe I should be grateful that I have never experienced a pogrom where Christians come to slaughter my household because the crops are bad or something else happened they are pissed about and blame the Jews for. Grateful that I am not being literally tortured for not converting like in Spain. Maybe I should be grateful that I (though not my relatives) missed concentration camps by a generation and a half or so.
Maybe I should give the first shit about this war on Christmas stuff because it is a visceral reminder that just like in other places other times during this part of the cycle, *it could be so much worse* for my people. So I should feel gratitude. So I should care about whether it is Merry Christmas because I should be attached to the gentler violence, appreciative of this gentler violence, the assimilation “you can be part of this if you play by its rules, okay Jew?” dynamic. Maybe assimilation and cultural violence is much better than physical violence.
This is what goes on for me when I think about these issues.
I don’t speak for all non-Christians, or all Jews even, only for myself.
December 19, 2007 at 2:26 pm
I wasn’t saying you should give a shit about the war on Christmas, although Christians are trying to make Christmas about multiple religions (as in that legislation quoted, or in the endless complaints about how “Happy Holidays” dilutes Christmas). If I did come across as saying that, I apologize.
Anyway, I’m sorry, I made your comment on happy holidays about my usage when that probably wasn’t the case. I did edit it so that it’s clearly aimed only at Christians who are offended by that use. I am also sorry if my responses silenced you, as that wasn’t my intent and intent is meaningless compared to results.
And yes, I was raised Christian. I was also raised to be straight and male, and neither of those are still true about me, either. I haven’t been Christian for longer than I haven’t been male, or straight-identified, and the only reason this stuff is on my mind is because I see my family on an almost daily basis, and they all throw tantrums when they hear “Happy Holidays” because people who say it or put it in their shop windows are out to destroy Christmas, and it’s fucking oppressive to hear that over and over again from people who believe it, not realizing that “Hey, I’m one of those people you’re blaming for the destruction of your commercialized holiday.” I admit that my religion does not have a real history of persecution, but that’s more its young age than anything else.
So yeah, I’d just had an argument about whether seeing a menorah in a store meant that store hated Jesus when I came across a story about Congress pulling this BS. So that’s why I ended up posting it here.
And yeah, I’m concerned that all this stuff is a trend toward more violence against those who aren’t Christian - the whole “Islamo-Fascism” thing, the bitching about winter greetings and the naming of things like “winter vacation.” The bitter complaints that Christianity is not centered in every aspect of American life for every single American, whether or not they’re Christian themselves.
Anyway, I’m just speaking from my own experiences here, I’m not asking you to center your discussion on my points. I don’t know how to discuss my frustrations with this without talking about it like this although I realize that talking about it like this could be recentering. :(
December 19, 2007 at 2:40 pm
So yeah, I’d just had an argument about whether seeing a menorah in a store meant that store hated Jesus when I came across a story about Congress pulling this BS.
You know, it’s surprising to me how often people forget the itsy, bitsy, teeny, tiny fact that
JESUS WAS A JEW.
December 19, 2007 at 2:50 pm
I think that acknowledging that Jesus was a Jew allows for a shallow tolerance, in much the same way as someone might claim being “colorblind” is anti-racist. Christians can acknowledge Jesus was a Jew and that they love him as meaning that they don’t hate Jews, which lets them hate Jews in peace. :(
At least, I’ve seen this pattern in action.
December 19, 2007 at 7:42 pm
Hi Lisa, I’ve just tagged you for the “Roar for Powerful Words” blog award, here…
December 19, 2007 at 7:54 pm
And yes, I was raised Christian. I was also raised to be straight and male, and neither of those are still true about me, either. I haven’t been Christian for longer than I haven’t been male, or straight-identified, and the only reason this stuff is on my mind is because I see my family on an almost daily basis,
——-
and they all throw tantrums when they hear “Happy Holidays” because people who say it or put it in their shop windows are out to destroy Christmas, and it’s fucking oppressive to hear that over and over again from people who believe it, not realizing that “Hey, I’m one of those people you’re blaming for the destruction of your commercialized holiday.”
——-
I admit that my religion does not have a real history of persecution, but that’s more its young age than anything else.
——-
So yeah, I’d just had an argument about whether seeing a menorah in a store meant that store hated Jesus when I came across a story about Congress pulling this BS. So that’s why I ended up posting it here.
——-
You know that point where you’re talking with someone who is privileged in relation to you and you keep trying to articulate an experience and reality that they clearly and stubbornly refuse to perceive as truly real? You know that point where the oppressiveness of their worldview is second only to their refusal to attend to the fact that they are actually coming from that worldview?
I have hit that point with you in this discussion, Lisa. I’m sorry but I have.
Enough already with this.
December 19, 2007 at 9:10 pm
Okay, apologies for any offense given. I can’t figure out where what I was trying to silence you or hurt you, and I apologize for posting anything that got that response.
I don’t know what else I can say or do.
December 19, 2007 at 11:36 pm
Well, I am Jewish, and I give a shit about the War On Christmas crap at least when it turns into something like this, because my first concern is not living in a fucking theocracy, thankyouverymuch.
“Happy Holidays” is not. that. big. a fucking. deal. I mean, it beats “HEY, FUCK YOU, ASSHOLE!” as greetings go, I rather think. then again I live in NY and the latter can be rather an endearment.
December 20, 2007 at 12:02 am
btw, the expression “get off the cross, someone needs the wood” is of course another product of the Christian-centered worldview. Nonetheless I’m rather fond of it.
December 20, 2007 at 1:16 am
” I can’t escape knowing about them any more than I can escape knowing the melodies and words to Christmas songs.” - Well, ironically, becuase I was raised in religion….well to be accurate so much of an offshoot as to be a cult (a very long lasting cult which traced itself back thousands of years); that believed that both Xmas and Chanukah were inaccurate (they disagreed with the way the Maccabees mixed the roles of the two tribes of Levite and Judah); but didn’t keep birthdays either; death days were okay. So it was an affront to God to participate or be NEAR anything involving Xmas, which is why I was pulled from school in December and why I went to a “private” school and why when I moved to the UK and joined a mandrigal society that booked two december concerts in shopping malls I asked them for the music in advance because I had never heard it before. Seriously. And we get there and they give me a book of 40 pages. I turned to the first sheet, “What is this?”
They googled, “That’s “Angels from the realms of glory” everyone knows that!”
“Um….I don’t. How about this one?”
“THAT’S “Oh Holy night”! You MUST know it. There isn’t a person on the planet who doesn’t know it.”
“Well…..I don’t…….can you hum it maybe?”
So, yes, I am thinking there are quite a few hudderite and amish and other people who probably don’t know Christmas Carols too. I might keep the Japanese version of Christmas which since they aren’t Christian tends to be a night for lovers where everyone eats fried chicken - Fried chicken and sex - if I have to adopt some sort of December holiday that seems not so bad (unless you are vegetarian)
December 20, 2007 at 1:29 am
Fried chicken is just a few degrees short of ambrosia for me. Fried chicken and sex sounds amazing. :)
I had an adopted sister who was in Jehovah’s Witnesses before she lived with us, and they were particularly nasty about birthdays and Christmas, and basically told her she’d drop dead if she celebrated either.
December 20, 2007 at 7:14 am
> If your ancestry is Christian, you carry it IMO. Whatever you choose to be or not practice or believe or whatever it is that Christian religion requires, Christianity colors your perspective. It is not something you can just opt out of as I see it.
I think this quote reveals what this is really all about, which is the assignment of guilt by legacy. It’s very similar to the assumption that any white person is necessarily somehow and agent of oppression against people of color, simply by participating in the culture.
It’s nonsense, of course. Christianity colors my perspective only in the negative sense, and I opted out of it long, long ago, having learned that its worldview was completely antithetical to my own.
For me, it’s a lot like being trans. I choose who I am, and what makes sense to me. I am re-made, by my own will.
December 20, 2007 at 3:59 pm
To be fair, participating in the culture can and does result in white people being agents of oppression, and we have inherited the legacy of racism that the US was built upon. The question is what you do with it - and it is hard to step outside the white perspective because you’re white 100% of the time, 24/7.
I do think that Christianity is a large part of that white legacy, and it is used to justify many kinds of oppression, as well as being a vehicle for oppressions of its own.
That said, I’m not able to see how anything I wrote was oppressive. I wasn’t trying to shut anyone up, tell them they’re wrong, except about the Christian thing - unlike whiteness, Christianity is something you can choose not to be and live outside of, and Christianity will excoriate you for it. A lot of people who do opt out of Christianity spend time reacting to Christianity because it’s what they grew up with, and I had my phase with that. I stopped defining my not being a Christian in relation to Christianity years ago, though. My frustration with the religious right is that they spend time and energy propping up straw dummies that look suspiciously like me and mine and set them on fire.
But apparently, I can’t talk about that because it centers the discussion on Christianity? It oppresses people who were never raised Christian? I mean, I linked to a series of posts on how the religious right marks GLBT people as the enemies, and that wasn’t a problem.
Or was it just the “happy holidays,” thing?
December 20, 2007 at 6:56 pm
Gorgonqueen, it reminds me of Heart and other radfems when they go on their anti-trans tears and say to trans women - you were male you can’t give up your male privilege, you’re just trying to infiltrate and usurp women’s spaces. Both are equally ridiculous to me.
Michelle, the way I see it anyone can speak to any point of view, and there is no harm in that, it is when they universalize their point of view that it is harmful. Lisa didn’t do that, in fact she was very specific in speaking about herself and her family. I think you are the one being unfair to her by coming to her blog and expecting her to alter her views because you said so.
December 21, 2007 at 10:54 am
There’s even a Christian rock group that has a song that complains about people saying “Happy Holidays.”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IAckfn8yiAQ
December 21, 2007 at 1:48 pm
Shit I knew I shouldn’t have come back to this.
Lisa, I don’t know if my response below addresses your questions, but maybe it will. I speak of you in the third person because I was struck hard by the turn of the conversation after your comments.
Donna wrote to me: I think you are the one being unfair to her by coming to her blog and expecting her to alter her views because you said so.
She saw a MENORAH and argued with a blatantly and specifically anti-Semitic stance that was not actually targeting her (she is NOT a Jew) but is about my people and my ancestors. A situation that has actual real historical specificity (what does it actually mean when Euro-white Christian people in a Euro-white country say that a JEWISH symbol means a store hates Jesus? It’s not some theoretical abstract game you know).
And lacking — or ignoring or downplaying — actual information about the actual reality of what that actually means to actual peoples who have this as part of our embodied lives, Lisa (because in her privilege she can) disconnected it from its context and abstracted this experience out into how it affects her as a Christian ancestry person who denies the reality of how that ancestry affects her perspective even as she shows that perspective in her disconnection. Because what else is that situation but fodder for her to focus on how it affects her in a non-historically grounded way?
She has chosen as an individual a religion that she dares (because in her privilege she can) to talk about in terms of some imagined future persecution when she is speaking to someone whose real (not theoretical or abstract or future-projected) history includes centuries of actual oppression and violence at the hands of European Christians.
I carry their fear and pain like a weight on my back, in my bones, in my life. To make it plain, she insulted my ancestors and all their real and actual and specific experience (not to mention mine which are so slight in comparison for now) with what she did and her refusal to hear it.
She as a white Christian can choose to disconnect from what lives in her — her people, her history, her ancestors. Religion for white Christians (and those who assimilate to this perspective) is an individual choice and relationship rather than communal/ancestral thing. Everyone disconnects from everyone else and no one is responsible for the collective. History and ancestry are irrelevant. She can refuse to see how this itself is a manifestation of privilege. She doesn’t have to live with the the voices of her ancestors and people, because she is just a disconnected individual who chooses some other religion from them.
And when an actual person comes along who has some specificity in relation to this, that person is the one who you call unfair. I mean, really, an unassimilated Jew speaking on this? No room in the “discourse” for that.
Because. No worries! I am being “unfair”! So let’s all be “fair” and civilized and play by some rules that say that this kind of thing is ok because it is only harm when this other thing happens, and whatever THIS harm is doesn’t exist.
Donna you can say what you say because because you don’t know — more to the point, because you don’t feel and you don’t HAVE to feel — all of what the actual context and impact of Lisa’s approach really is. Your ancestors are not screaming in your face on this one, Donna, so you can say there is no harm based on what you would feel but we are not the same person, and IMO you’re approaching this as if it is some abstracted exercise instead of a real human specific historically grounded embodied situation.
And — from my perspective, white Christians who want to be pagans should consider doing it from a space of connection to their own historical and collective reality, not individual disconnection. Look deep into the reality of their own specific history, what they carry as part of a people or peoples. Stop treating this stuff like “go to a mall and buy your individual religion.” Deal with what “pagan” meant back for their own people and take in the truth and reality of that specificity, AND the specificity of how their people became Christians (future persecution? C’mon!) and the movement and actions of their Christian ancestors and collective. Because it’s all part of them even if they have the privilege to deny it.
And not use shallow “I am this religion because I decided to be” approaches to evade the weight of the historical specificity of their own people.
I mean: Talk to me about Christianity while standing firmly grounded in the real collective history of your people or just don’t pretend we are speaking the same language or living in the same reality. (but of course she wasn’t talking to me to start with).
Or if they refuse to or can’t do this, if they choose this individual-based disconnection and refusal of their own specific ancestry and history, then they should at least have some care and recognition when speaking to people who don’t have that choice.
And yes it is true that in blogland, individuals have individual blogs that they control and that exist for them to say whatever they feel moved to say, and it is truly unfair of me to come to this blog and ask that the person writing — the blog owner after all — shift to take in a reality that she has exercised the choice to ignore.
And gorgonqueen, IMO it’s not about guilt but about actual real function in an actual real historical and current system. The flip to making about assignment of guilt by legacy is messed-up and distorted IMO.
But beyond that distortion in what you wrote — yes, I do actually believe that any white person [including myself] is necessarily somehow and agent of oppression against people of color, simply by participating in the culture.
I mean I really and truly and seriously believe this. As I feel/see it, the system of white supremacy is both structural and cultural and hell yes white people are agents of it as we participate in the culture.
And Euro-origin Judaism has made some contributions to this cultural system, and Christianity has intertwined with it in a huge huge way historically and currently. And there are hard hard issues and questions in all of this, all around, and specific to this situation here, hard stuff about the relationship and dynamic between Euro-white Jews and Euro-white Christians. And when white Christian-ancestry people don’t stand clearly grounded in their own actual historical specificity and claim a shallow disconnect by choice, then those discussions will not occur because the context of what is happening just …. rhetorically disappears, along with the necessity of difficult self-examination and pain of what actually exists between us, between our respective peoples.
December 21, 2007 at 2:03 pm
My. What wonderfully presumptuous victim-positioning. I have to say that I’m impressed.
Putting aside the bulk of the retort, which addresses something I’m just that interested in - Christianity, Judaism and Islam are all one to me, really - I will take exception to Michelle’s ignorance of modern pagans’ motives and approaches. I don’t particularly care to go into a lengthy defense or explanation of my faith practices, but let me say as succinctly as I can that I do in fact approach my own paganism with a great deal of awareness of the “historical specificity of my own people.”
I am as offended as Michelle seems to want to be by the alleged “Christian-centrism” of Lisa’s posts (and I emphasize alleged, because I haven’t seen such flagrantly manufactured outrage in quite a while) , by the “Abrahamic-centrism” of hers.
In short: stuff it.
December 21, 2007 at 2:53 pm
Lisa– I was tempted to ask you before, decided not to, but reading this reply from gorgonqueen now, I will ask you because I want to understand if/how there are political divisions between us and want to be sure I understand what this blog is about.
Gorgonqueen wrote in the previous comment: I think this quote reveals what this is really all about, which is the assignment of guilt by legacy. It’s very similar to the assumption that any white person is necessarily somehow and agent of oppression against people of color, simply by participating in the culture.
It’s nonsense, of course. Christianity colors my perspective only in the negative sense, and I opted out of it long, long ago, having learned that its worldview was completely antithetical to my own.
For me, it’s a lot like being trans. I choose who I am, and what makes sense to me. I am re-made, by my own will.
That really struck me, the whole thing and the last sentence in particular. In fact it was what I came back to the blog to copy into a file on my computer so I could have it for future reflection or discussion purposes.
“I am re-made by my own will” — Lisa, is that an underneath of how you yourself feel yourself as trans? And, if so (or even if not if you care to discuss it) — in your view what is or isn’t the relationship between that space and standing responsible for areas where you are a member of a dominator group?
I ask because I’m thinking about it myself and feel like it icould get at … something that I don’t quite see clearly.
I mean: It seems to me that gorgonqueen’s perspective is totally consistent with itself. In that perspective, there is an individual remaking themself by individual will. Collective, history, all those things that may be collective or communal are in submission to the will of the individual remaking themself.
And it makes sense to me that someone coming from this perspective would not see white people as agents of white supremacy by acting in the culture. It makes sense to me that someone coming from this perspective would not have a framework to understand the pull/power of collective history and context that I was talking about.
And I was tempted to just say to myself that this is gorgonqueen’s perspective and no possibility of relation to your perspective, Lisa, except that you made a link earlier that seems (to me) possibly related somehow. You wrote: And yes, I was raised Christian. I was also raised to be straight and male, and neither of those are still true about me, either. I haven’t been Christian for longer than I haven’t been male, or straight-identified,
And Donna made a similar link (I think!) when she wrote that I am like the radfems.
But you do stand responsible as a white person and wrote about the white/Christian intersection. So maybe gorgonqueen’s starkness of being re-made by individual will isn’t where you’re coming from on that. But what is this parallel that keeps coming up here? What is this connection? Does me speaking from this ancestral/collective space that I can’t opt out of mean that we don’t have language in common to discuss this? What is the relationship between these issues and your feeling and experience of being trans? (and again, I am asking because it seems like you feel a parallel, not because I would automatically see one myself, because I don’t quite get it).
PS to gorgonqueen, you wrote: Christianity, Judaism and Islam are all one to me, really
Well, that’s from where you stand. I feel like you might feel it differently if the distinctions (cultural social structural) lead to violence against your family and people.
Personally I feel like the monotheism of my people is fucked-upon deep levels. I don’t “believe” (in the Christian sense of the word) as a Jew. But I don’t get to feel Judaism as the same as Christianity (for example)– because my personal beliefs do not erase my membership in a collective of people, a membership that is both internally (collective/ancestral) and externally (Euro-white Christian-dominated society) imposed. Not something I can opt out of, and not something I can ignore even if I wanted to. But you apparently can, and so you do.
December 21, 2007 at 3:27 pm
PS to Lisa: I don’t know if this is relevant but this question came up for me just after I submitted the above and so will serial comment:
My question is: In what specific cultural contexts does being trans require individual disconnection from & rejection of the communal/collective aspects of a person’s history, culture and ancestry?
Because. I’m wondering why the link between individual disconnection from collective membership, and being trans. And it seems to me like maybe it comes from being inside a cultural system in which the only way for people who don’t fit into the imposition to honor their actual gender identity is to do so as an individual in relation to the cultural system.
And on gender identity — though not sexual orientation, I was “raised to be straight” too — I have the privilege of not dealing with the cultural pressure to choose between myself and my people
I’m also thinking: individual disconnection as route to “freedom” is also part of the Euro-white (and Christian) cultural system. Individual “freedom” to express our individual selves is supposedly the way toward liberation in this context.
But I feel that that approach to “liberation” would not be necessary or even maybe appealing in a cultural system in which all members are valued and part of it (not *tolerated* but actually deeply valued for what each unique individual brings into the mosaic of the whole) … a context where there wasn’t this relentless competition and individualism that links individual disconnection, freedom and supposed liberation or whatever the word is.
FWIW (or not)
December 21, 2007 at 3:29 pm
I was going to add this a bit more confrontationally, but having just read your most recent reply, I will offer it instead in a lighter tone: for me, a faith assigned by immediate birthright is not as valid as a practice studied deliberately.
Also, I think my notion of “ancestral space” is of a different scope than yours.
Finally, I should add that few trans people of my acquaintance are as committed as I am, to the notion of will in the context of transition. I would be surprised if Lisa does not express a substantially different perspective than my own.
December 21, 2007 at 4:38 pm
This isn’t precisely what happened - I didn’t see a menorah, my mother said [i]she[/i] saw a menorah and not a nativity scene in a store - which is actually a paraphrase of something Bill O’Reilly said in 2005, so I don’t even know if she actually saw this. If she did, she ignored the Christmas trees, the tinsel, the Christmas carols, the lights, the…well, pretty much everything that is about Christmas, to complain that the store was exalting Judaism above Christianity by putting up a menorah but not a nativity scene (as if both decorations would involve equal effort in the first place). My argument - and it was bitter, loud, and short, I admit - was that the presence of Jewish religious items should not imply anything good or bad about how the store owners/managers/employees collectively feel about Christianity or Christmas. I’m just clarifying, although I’m not sure if the clarification is important - I mean, beyond the possibility that there never was a menorah involved in the first place, just a notional menorah.
And you’re right, I don’t have the cultural or religious context about Judaism that you do. When I described it here, yes, I did describe it in relation to myself in terms of [i]being angry[/i] that people were even saying this stuff. Yes, I did see it as anti-Semitic. Yes, I talked about being angry about it here. The reason I framed it that way was not because I feel that only my feelings about anti-Semitic bullshit matter, and not because that was the sum total of my reaction to that argument - anti-Semitism does have the smell of blood and death for a lot of people, myself included. I’m sorry about not mentioning the real history behind anti-Semitism, or why anti-Semitism actually angers me.
I will post a longer answer soon, but I just wanted to post now so you’d know I’m not ignoring your posts.
Gorgonqueen, thank you for the support. However, I’d rather avoid stuff like My. What wonderfully presumptuous victim-positioning. I have to say that I’m impressed. because that same language is used to shut down trans people as often as it is to shut down other people. It doesn’t matter if that’s really going on or not (and I’m not saying it is going on), just that it is often used as a silencing tactic.
December 21, 2007 at 5:05 pm
Point taken. Here, I will moderate my language.
December 21, 2007 at 5:40 pm
Michelle, you are the one who centered the discussion on Judaism. Lisa did not mention the menorah incident until comment 15! It was all about congress creating a theocracy around Christianity, of which she IS NOT. And unless her ancestors century upon century ago were, get this, JEWISH, then even they were not Christians in their blood and their bones. The original Christians were Jewish people, who then spread that religion to the Romans and from there throughout the world. But of course you’re the only one who can go back through centuries to dig up your ancestors persecution of which yours is nothing comparitively…which is exactly what Lisa said. So you too have imaginary future persecution PERSONALLY, don’t you? Pagans were murdered by Christians when they wouldn’t convert, they were persecuted too. And one other thing you are forgetting, I am a Native American woman, do you have any idea what Christians have done to Native Americans? Oh but that’s right, only you understand persecution, and only your ancestors have suffered.
I’m sorry Lisa, but I agree with gorgonqueen. It is presumptuous victim positioning, especially when she says that your beliefs are mall bought instead of sincere. The one using silencing tactics is Michelle. I recognize the oppression olympics when I see it. She knows damned well you weren’t speaking about Judaism in this post, UNTIL COMMENT 15 when you mentioned an incident involving a menorah…After she recentered your post, your discussion, everything around herself and Judaism.
December 21, 2007 at 7:14 pm
And one other thing you are forgetting, I am a Native American woman, do you have any idea what Christians have done to Native Americans? Oh but that’s right, only you understand persecution, and only your ancestors have suffered.
I don’t know how much of a real deep sense I can have of what this is for you, but I know as an outsider and occupier that horrors upon horrors have been done by Christians to Native Americans here. I actually feel that what indigenous peoples here have had to deal from Christianity was/is way worse than anything me or my ancestors experience. Maybe it isn’t good to compare, but that is how I feel it. Maybe I feel like that because my ancestors are only really active this time of year for me, and because I live every day on stolen land as a citizen of an illegitimate nation built on horrors and I apparently don’t need my ancestors in my face to feel that dissonance of that space where my feet are on this land and I have the “right” granted by this monster system and supported by my complicity with it to live here.
And I also see that my people are participating very actively now in enacting white supremacy horrors, violence and land theft, under religious banner in Palestine. Which I am responsible for as part of the collective too.
So hell no Euro-white Jews aren’t the authorities on being targets of persecution by Christians, or persecution on religious basis. And in fact, right now, we have thrown our lot in with the European Christian nations, oriented our loyalty to that and accepted a role as active agents of white supremacy in our own right and that is playing out in this time and isn’t about past or future of this cycle.
The thing that doesn’t seem apparent to you, Donna, is the inner workings of the dynamic between Euro-white Christians and Euro-white Jews. But why should it be? Really. The Happy Holidays thing is at the intersection between white privilege and anti-Semitism. This is the time of year when I have to deal with a reality that is not in my face most of the rest of the year. That’s white privilege, as a Jew, and it functions in a specific way in relation to my history.
And. But. I’ve been thinking about this dynamic and I feel that at some level these voices of my ancestors living in me are pretty crazy, or maybe they aren’t in themselves but it translates that way for me in particular. Seriously. This fear, this freaking dance with the European Christian cycles of violence in relation to us, how that plays out in how I experience this time of year, it does lose perspective. It is sheer staring probably totally irrational terror in a way that does get self-referential.
So every year I have this situation, and every year after it is over tell myself to get the fuck over it already and every following year I don’t or can’t. And this year, here on this blog, in this irrational freaked-out terror state, I have made Judaism loud in a way that I am really not supposed to do given the context — as Donna put it, I recentered your post, your discussion, everything around [myself] and Judaism and in that I have probably done more harm to Jews than anyone here.
Recentering around myself, okay, good or bad, okay that’s me and I can stand responsible. But recentering around Judaism just … it’s like participating in bringing it on ourselves and that is really really seriously wrong for me to do — intensely irresponsibly wrong. I need to take better care this time of year because my actions here are totally wrong, really seriously truly not okay.
December 21, 2007 at 10:21 pm
“unspecified Higher Power bless us, every one.”
December 22, 2007 at 2:24 pm
I have been totally and completely wrong in my participation in this discussion.
I have some sort of culturally transmitted collective memory and/or consciousness that I have not been responsible to or about. And in its perspective (which I agree with after paying better attention) I am extremely and completely wrong to interact as I have on this blog in this discussion. I am way way more assimilated than I thought — my actions and perspective show that very clearly.
Lisa, the assimilated me envies you so hard for (apparently) not having to deal with a collective whatever like this. This envy of mine — among much other messed-up stuff I have brought to this discussion — has nasty energy. I am very sorry to get you involved in it, very sorry to bring it here.
And very sorry to be so damn loud and aggressive about it all on top of that.
Please know that all of what I have said in this discussion (content, approach and even the plan about wearing the star on the 24th as some sort of supposed “resistance”) is from me — the individual assimilated me — being fucked-up and extremely wrong in my perspective. Please please know, the wrongness in my participation here is not because I am a Jew or because of Judaism. Truth is I don’t even have a right to speak “as” a Jew if I am going to take this approach.
I have been strongly chastized, by this collective whatever, for speaking all this stuff here “as a Jew.” It is wrong and it is dangerous and it is irresponsible beyond belief. It is a mark of how messed-up assimilated and deluded I am that I would speak, act, respond the way I have here. The problem is from me as an individual being fucked-up, being assimilated and deluded about reality, and being really intensely incompetent and ill-equipped to know how to maturely and responsibly live with this collective memory/consciousness.
December 22, 2007 at 9:00 pm
And now we interrupt our program to bring you our specail Holidays comedic relief:
What do you mean “Jesus was a Jew?” Everyone knows he was Greek: He stayed with his parents until he was 30. He took his father’s job. And he believed his mother was a virgin.
::canned laughter::
December 23, 2007 at 3:21 am
Wow, this has moved since I was last able to check in.
Michelle, thanks for those posts - I still want to answer your question about religion, but I’ve had a near-migraine all day and part of yesterday and haven’t been good for much beyond fluff.
Stassa, heh. :)
December 23, 2007 at 11:26 am
I’d be among the Pagan hordes tearing down Christmas, but I’ve got to bring my Christian relatves presents and cookies tomorrow night…
December 24, 2007 at 10:36 am
She has chosen as an individual a religion that she dares (because in her privilege she can) to talk about in terms of some imagined future persecution when she is speaking to someone whose real (not theoretical or abstract or future-projected) history includes centuries of actual oppression and violence at the hands of European Christians.
I choose to remain Christian, as I choose to remain American, to transform these “entities” into something else, not to uphold the evils they have historically propagated. I was assigned this status in this incarnation, and I take full responsibility. Thus, I zealously work to change both institutions, flawed as they are. It is my *destiny*, she said (sounding too much like Gene Wilder in YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN for comfort)…
Michelle, your rhetoric, as Donna said, leaves no choices for those of us born into the Christian caste. We can DENY or REJECT it (and you say here that we can’t convincingly or truly do that), or we can EMBRACE it, and have you dislike us for that too. Ironically, that seems to be the choices Christians historically forced on Jews. Isn’t there a third way, called Tolerance and Respect for Everyone? It is this third way that I have chosen for myself. (I agree that is not what is happening now.)
I have written on my blog, about 4 times now, how I feel assaulted by capitalist Christmas bullshit, which I feel drains the whole season of all genuine, lasting meaning (no matter which religion one follows, or no religion). I’ve been assaulted for about 6 weeks, with -Jingle Bell Rock- (I work in retail) and I am about to slit my wrists. But that is not the fault of individual Christians, or me personally.
If I keep going, will sound dopey, so I’ll stop here.
December 24, 2007 at 10:48 am
And now we interrupt our program to bring you our specail Holidays comedic relief:
What do you mean “Jesus was a Jew?” Everyone knows he was Greek: He stayed with his parents until he was 30. He took his father’s job. And he believed his mother was a virgin.
::canned laughter::
Remember Sam Kinison’s Bible-based comedy routines? God, they were totally hilarious, and he was once a Pentecostal preacher, too:
Joseph to Mary: So, he didn’t say anything? Nothing? Just said he was God? That’s ALL? Did you ask him when he was coming back for the kid, or anything?
To Jesus: Well, you’d BETTER be God, little Mister!!!!
~*~
At Easter…
Q: How do you know Jesus wasn’t married?
A: Because how many women tolerate a husband gone for three days, who then shows up drag-assing through the door with 12 other guys?
Woman’s voice: WHERE WERE YOU?
Jesus: Excuse me, but I was DEAD, okay?
(Maybe you have to be raised Christian to find those funny, but they just slay me…)
December 24, 2007 at 10:56 am
Religion for white Christians (and those who assimilate to this perspective) is an individual choice and relationship rather than communal/ancestral thing.
OMG. The Blarney stone erupts in flames. The entire existence of Irish people, erased.
In case you didn’t know, Michelle, we only got made white around 1877 or so.
December 24, 2007 at 4:28 pm
Wow. I spent ages trying to think up an intelligent response to Michelle’s posts, then came back to find that she had recanted them. This thread reminds me of Barbelith.
I will say this, however: religion, IMO,should be “an individual choice and relationship rather than communal/ancestral thing” for everyone. Otherwise, i can’t see any way that it keeps its meaning at all - because, surely, the essence of religion is not how you were brought up or what traditions have emotional meaning for you, but what you believe is true (in theological and/or ethical terms). The other stuff would seem to me to be not. religion, so much as “culture” and/or ethnicity (and “culture” is in quote marks because, IMO, that’s a very problematic usage/definition of the word “culture”).
I think that’s actually at the root of the problem so many people have with present day Judaism - that it’s a religion, but it tries to (also) define itself as, or lay claim to being, an ethnicity. I can’t think of any other major religion that does that - well, some would argue Muslims in the UK, but from where i’m standing (in a part of the UK with a very large Muslim population) it looks more like religious identity being used as a euphemism for racial/ethnic identity by racists who don’t want to look like they are actually racists. Anyone, of any ethnicity, can convert to Islam, just as they can to Christianity, and with Hinduism (and, to my knowledge, the other major religions of East or South Asian origin) it’s much vaguer and more pluralistic, to the extent that anyone can worship the relevant deities without even the need for a formal “conversion”, and it’s even possible to be a member of more than one religion at the same time. Of course, all these religions do have cultural traditions sort-of-attached, but not necessarily attached, more by default of the ethnic groups who historically believe(d) in these religions - Arab culture is not the same thing as Islam, nor is Hindi the same as Hindu.
Then again, someone’s probably going to argue that all of the above argument is valid only from a Christian (or, in my case, ex-Christian) perspective. But i can’t really even parse the idea of religion being fundamentally constituted of anything other than belief and ideology - which, IMO, is necessarily something individual… IMO, it would help a lot if people in general managed to fully disentangle religion-as-belief and ethnic/ancestral issues from each other…
December 24, 2007 at 4:29 pm
Oh shit, i buggered up a “close italics” tag there (in the last sentence of my second paragraph). Is it possible to fix that?
December 24, 2007 at 9:42 pm
It’s worth noting that the concept of “religion” as distinct from “what we as a people do” is pretty modern, as human things go — it’s Roman in origin, and is pretty much only a dominant notion where Roman-influenced people go. Tribal religions — and Judaism is a tribal religion — do not have this distinction, and consider it artificial. It’s an imperialist construction, pretty literally.
Personally, as someone who follows a primarily orthopraxic religion, I find the concept of belief and ideology being important completely baffling. Religious stuff is stuff I do, not the unverifiable nonsense rattling around in my skull which I may or may not report accurately depending on my knowledge and my honesty. Belief-based religion confuses the everliving fuck out of me.
Which goes to show where I fall on “faith vs. works”, huh?
December 24, 2007 at 10:49 pm
Yo, Michelle, I gotta say, I’m of the Tribe, and I’m okay, y’know?
December 25, 2007 at 7:03 am
What Dw3t said, totally. (This is why I am such a fan of your blog, you articulate things so well!) Faith vs. works, indeed, I never did understand that, which is probably why I’ve never gotten on too well with the fundies. ;)
((kisses to Dw3t for her consistent clarity in all matters spiritual))
December 25, 2007 at 7:23 pm
Well, in the real world, what people do is far more important than what they believe to me too (although i’d argue that what people believe is usually at least one of the major causes of what people do, and thus it can be very difficult to separate the two). Hell, one of the major reasons i left Christianity is because my moral beliefs come down firmly on the side of consequentialism rather than intentionalism, and all that stuff Jesus said about “wanting to do X/fantasizing about doing X is morally identical to actually doing X” just smelt like authoritarian, wannabe-Thought-Police bullshit to me.
And you’re right about religion-as-belief being primarily a Roman invention… but, well, i use the term “religion” to mean religion-as-belief. If the term “religion” is to cover a whole lot of other stuff as well (stuff which i think terms like “ethnicity”, “tradition” or, at a pinch, “culture” (if you make it really clear which definition of “culture” you’re using) cover much more accurately), then you need another, more precise word for religion-as-belief. Maybe “theology” will do, but IMO it’s not just beliefs about the existence and nature of god(s), but ethical beliefs about concepts like justice, purity, sin, righteousness,etc (such as the intentionalism vs consequentialism stuff). Why do all terms have to be so fucking contested all the time (not an attack on any poster here, but on terminology itself)?
December 25, 2007 at 10:45 pm
No, the Romans weren’t big on religion-as-belief. They cared about what people did — specifically, stuff like ‘burn incense to the emperor’. They didn’t care what people believed, so long as they did the right things.
The persecution of the Christians in Rome was because they didn’t burn incense to the emperor, because they found it sacreligious. The Romans were all, “Dudes, just go burn the incense. We’ll know you’re not freaking anarchists if you do the proper things for the state cult.”
Religion-as-something-other-than-culture is the Roman invention.
Tribal religions still have theology.
December 26, 2007 at 10:25 am
OK… i’m having difficulty identifying what exactly you’re defining as “religion-as-something-other-than-culture” here. I didn’t mean to imply that tribal religions didn’t/don’t have theology, more that, i suppose, they are (or were before Roman proto-globalisation) more likely to take their theology for granted, rather than making it, by means of catechisms, tests-of-faith, etc, their central means of defining their religion both among themselves and to others. What do you mean exactly by it being a Roman innovation to make religion distinct from culture, if not that move towards theological “truth” as the central feature of religion?
December 26, 2007 at 11:39 pm
shiva, I think she’s talking about the practice of distinguishing “religion” from the rest of the culture–drawing a line between “religious” activity/system/belief and everything else a person does throughout the day.
Religion as a discrete system, that is, not something that’s just seamlessly integrated?
December 27, 2007 at 2:05 pm
Exactly.
The Egyptians, the Greeks, and probably bunches of other cultures (but those are the ones I know of) had no word for religion. The concept as something distinguishable from everything else just flat didn’t exist. (The closest thing we have to a word in Egyptian for ‘religion’ is ‘heka’, which arguably means something in the space between ‘prayer’ and ‘magic’.)
Is a prayer religion? Is a spell against nightmares religion? Is leaving a gift at a gravesite religion? Is leaving a gift at a shrine religion? Is leaving a gift for the fairies religion? Is seeking an oracle religion? Is doing your makeup religion? Is interpreting your dreams religion? Is a wish for a healthy pregnancy religion? Is writing a letter to the dead religion? Is painting the wall of your house with good luck symbols religion? Is serving in the temple religion, even if you’re mostly doing it for the free food? Is working your farmland religion? Is writing things down religion?
Which sort into which pile? Where do you draw the line?
December 28, 2007 at 4:09 pm
Dw3t-Hthr wrote: It’s worth noting that the concept of “religion” as distinct from “what we as a people do” is pretty modern, as human things go — it’s Roman in origin, and is pretty much only a dominant notion where Roman-influenced people go. Tribal religions — and Judaism is a tribal religion — do not have this distinction, and consider it artificial. It’s an imperialist construction, pretty literally.
This for me clearly names something I was *spectacularly* failing to articulate. There’s a lot of confusion for me personally about this because I am so freaking assimilated. But even so, there is some core of perspective that is deeply embedded in me anyway that comes out of what is named “tribal religion” in that statement. And for me it’s both parts — not just the part about practice, but also the part about “as a people.”
In this part of me, there is no category for “MY individual belief-based relationship with religion.” There is only OUR group’s, as “a people”, relationship through OUR everyday embodied life, also as “a people” (not individuals).
But I am assimilated away from that group practice; I wasn’t even this assimilated as a child as I am now. But this embodied “as a people” perspective still persists in how I feel and see things. Yet I don’t even know how to name it. Collective cultural consciousness? My ancestors? (though I do kind of feel haunted, maybe that’s from an assimilated mindset)? WTF is this? And also, what is my relationship to the culturally transmitted history of a group whose collective sense of what is happening cannot be simply be “shed” by my individual choice? And what does family have to do with it?
Anyway, I think that my own internalized oppression and assimilation made me seriously ashamed of this supposedly narrow and insular and ethnic (as opposed to supposedly open expansive individual-choice Christianity and other religious choices made from its framework) perspective. And I think that my assimilated shame shaped some of how I responded here, for example me over-compensating and trying to be all proud to offset it, and also probably in other ways.
The less-assimilated part of me feels that religion is part of culture, and culture is everyday group practice as a people. With physically-integrated-in-actual-practice major cultural assumptions about reality underneath. I feel European Christianity in the US as this as well (despite its apparent denial that this is what it is) — but it seems to me that European-white Christians here often don’t see themselves this way.
For me, the Euro-white Christianity of this country is really clear as something going on at the dominant group level all the time, in the everyday, not just when/if people identify individually as Christians or when the Congress says something explicit about it. I feel it as supposed-to-be-invisible group practices encoded into everyday dominant-culture life with underlying cultural assumptions, also encoded in that everyday.
In my life, I have had to observe & learn some of those cultural assumptions and practices in order to survive here as someone who is relatively and conditionally “acceptable” to the dominant culture.
In my feeling of it, this cultural-religious context includes in-practice assumptions of certain disconnects — eg individual from group/people, “religion” from everyday group cultural practice of how we live and what we do all the time.
And when I say assimilated for myself, I mean assimilated into this dominant group practice and its underlying embodied cultural assumptions.