"Oppression"

[FSUBoy966]

As a young Christian in America, I cannot help but notice that many, especially older, Christians play victim.

Why is it that many Christians today claim that we are the only oppressed group in the world? And I don't even mean race, sexuality, ethnicity, w/e. I mean just religious groups.

I was on the phone with my grandma and I was talking to her about my fraternity brother being Muslim and about my World Religions class and somehow the topic of living in the Middle East compared to America came up. And she said that there's no religious oppression "unless you're a Christian." And I was dumbfounded at how ignorant a statement someone in my family had just made.

In America, everyone is free to practice their own faiths. I HATE that people say that university professors attack Christianity and play it down as a myth. First of all, most people saying that are older and have no idea what university is like now-a-days. Second, I'm currently in three religious classes. They treat ALL religions exactly the same. As mythology. They have to, b/c I have a Christian professor, a Buddhist professor and an Atheist professor. And all three try to remain unbiased as possible when talking about religious. The only reason you can tell a difference is when talking about certain topics, they will get more excited and enthusiastic about teaching it. Before saying that Christianity is the only religion that is "attacked" (I use that VERY liberally) in universities, think again.

Also, before saying that we are the most oppressed, take a look around at the Muslims in America and how badly they are attacked. As I said before, one of my brothers is Muslim and I almost fought someone because they called him a VERY derogatory term for someone of his faith. Luckily, Jesus held me back from striking this bigot, but my point is, I do not understand why some of us (not most) almost LOOK to be oppressed.

Sorry this took so long for something so pointless... But my question is, why does this happen? Are some Christians just masochists that LOVE to be verbally attacked?

 

[Credo_ut_Intelligam]

Why is it that many Christians today claim that we are the only oppressed group in the world?

I've never encountered this claim before. Can you provide more examples (like from leaders of Christian communities or churches)?

I HATE that people say that university professors attack Christianity and play it down as a myth. First of all, most people saying that are older and have no idea what university is like now-a-days.

Maybe they go around lecturing at universities and that's how they know? Or maybe they are themselves university professors and they know what the faculty is like.

For instance, look at the statement by John Searle, a philosophy professor at the University of California, Berkley:

"There is a sense in which materialism [naturalism] is the religion of our time, at least among most of the professional experts in the fields of philosophy, psychology, cognitive science, and other disciplines that study the mind. Like more traditional religions, it is accepted without question and it provides the framework within which other questions can be posed, and addressed and answered" (qtd. in 9 Goetz, Stewart and Charles Taliaferro. Naturalism. 9).​

As a professor at one of America's major universities, he looks like he would be in a good place to know this. And John Searle is himself a naturalist, so he isn't trying to play the victim card by any means.

I'm currently in three religious classes... Before saying that Christianity is the only religion that is "attacked" (I use that VERY liberally) in universities, think again.

But your very limited experience (in college or with your grandma) is insufficient grounds to overturn something that is said to be generally true. After all, someone who had a religion professor that attacked Christianity could then use her experience to justify the generalization.

So, for example, James White's daughter had a professor who constantly attacked Christianity in class. She could use that anecdote to justify the generalization that university professors are hostile to Christianity.

Ultimately, we have to look beyond a few selected stories to see whether it is true or not.

Also, before saying that we are the most oppressed, take a look around at the Muslims in America and how badly they are attacked. As I said before, one of my brothers is Muslim and I almost fought someone because they called him a VERY derogatory term for someone of his faith. Luckily, Jesus held me back from striking this bigot, but my point is, I do not understand why some of us (not most) almost LOOK to be oppressed... why does this happen? Are some Christians just masochists that LOVE to be verbally attacked?

I've never known anyone who was looking to be oppressed. I've also never heard of someone who was looking to be oppressed so I'm not sure it even does happen.

 

[thimsrebma]

I don't know people personally that feel that Christians are oppressed, but I have heard some random people make those statements.
I think that sometimes people in dominant culture feel "attacked" when others oppose their views. They are so used to being the main group that when someone goes against it they get scared and suggest that they are the ones being attcked when they many time have been attacking others all along.

Many people are extreme in their views on religion when they oppose it. Its either "I think all religion is okay as long as you dont push it on anyone else" or the polar extreme "all religion is bad and I hate all of it."

 

[Credo_ut_Intelligam]

Interestingly, I got an email from Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews today. The book being reviewed is The Errors of Atheism by J. Angelo Corlett. He is himself an agnostic, but he argues "that atheists myopically focus on orthodox Christianity and unfairly treat a defeat of that view as a defeat of theism." The reviewers, one of whom I know to be an atheist (Bradley Monton), agree but suggest it may be due to the fact that Christianity is the dominant religion in the West.

So here we have at least one atheist and one agnostic agreeing that Christianity receives the most (intellectual) attacks from atheists. I don't know if that counts as (intellectual) oppression though. In terms of physical oppression, not much goes on in most Western countries (Christian or non-Christian). But recently I was reading Philip Yancey's book "What Good is God?" where he provides some documentation of Christian oppression in Islamic countries like Saudi Arabia and in China. (He tells of a Christian man and his 10 year old and 8 year old boys being surrounded in their car and burned to death by Muslims.)

This doesn't in itself prove that Christianity is the most oppressed religion and that's not my point, we'd need to see studies to say definitively. Every belief system (religious or not) has received some oppression at some point in time. But Christians definitely have seen and continue to see their share of intellectual and physical oppression. Christians who grow up sheltered in a Western country where virtually no physical persecution of any kind exists can remain blissfully ignorant of other Christians, like in China, who may be tortured and then locked in solitary confinement in prison for 22 years (as Yancey tells of one Chinese Christian).

And such pampered Christians may even become desensitized to the intellectual oppression that takes place constantly in Western culture. They may even embrace it when it comes to their own Christianity, having swallowed the party line and double standard, and then become outraged when it occurs on a different religion. For instance, if calling your brother a derogatory religious term constitutes an attack and oppression of Islam, then I've been attacked and oppressed two times in the last two weeks by bigoted atheists. And I've been attacked and oppressed at least once in the past month by a bigoted Muslim. (My point is not that *you* have become desensitized, I'm just showing how prevalent it can be depending on how we define our terms.)

 

[contemplative]

But my question is, why does this happen? Are some Christians just masochists that LOVE to be verbally attacked?

There's nothing really wrong in recognizing that you've been victimized or oppressed. I think it's essential for Christians to experience that there are people out there who genuinely dislike them, sometimes for the actual contents of their faith, sometimes just for the label, sometimes for just looking Western and therefore Christian. If Christians can't acknowledge this, they have no gospel to share with these people.

Again, the difficulty is not in the acknowledgment of oppression. The sin, and I think it is a sin in the truest sense, is choosing not to redeem the situation. The victimization usually becomes a soapbox, lifting the Christian above the crowds, empowering him to do or speak as he pleases. We continue the fight on different turf, usually among those who will agree with us. Usually, too, we win.

Playing the victim is the best way to have your cake (moral superiority, because you wouldn't dare attack someone like that) and eat it too (win the battle you say you're too good for).

We have on the other hand Jesus, who in the words of one of my favorite modern mystics, "did the victim thing right." When a disciple tried to violently defend Jesus, Jesus rebuked him. It seems they got the message - neither Jesus nor his immediate followers seems to have sought retribution for his murder. He was victimized but did not use it as a soapbox from which to condemn his oppressors - quite the opposite, in fact, if we believe the story.

He really took the brunt of the assault - his post-resurrection body even carried the actual wounds. He didn't reflect it back with clever psychological reversals (like playing the victim). Were Jesus your average person, he would have stuck around and founded a religion of guilt, casually reminding people that they killed him and probably should apologize again for that. There would have been no actual redemption, just things as usual. Sin and retribution.

 

[Ezee]

Matthew 5 : 11-12

Blessed are you when they revile and persecute you, and say all kinds of evil against you falsely for MY sake.
Rejoice and be exceedingly glad, for great is your reward in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

Luke 6 : 27 - 38

Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you. Bless those who curse you, and pray for those who spitefully use you.........
Just as you want men to do to you, you also do to them likewise.....
If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them.....

God is love..... ))