Obviously there’s a long and integral dynamic of ‘good in-group / bad out-group’, but I’m convinced its further exacerbated in the US by the so thoroughly intertwined Christian aspect, particularly the WASPy say the right things, give the church money, and do what you like types to still be righteous.
Yeah. Fucking secular Calvinism is a huge obstacle. Catholics and I think Greek Orthodox both believe in good works whereas Calvinists think that good or bad is like a permanent thing you’re born with, then they go on to be completely incoherent by believing that your material wealth reflects your spiritual condition. And Americans have no idea they do it, it’s baked in to their racism and contempt for poor people and they have no idea it’s a religious belief.
Like, historians always talk about how we can’t understand the way that pre-secular society was completely organically integrated with religion, and we can’t understand how peoiple made no distinction between daily life and religious life and it’s like no, brah, you’ve got religious beliefs that you live every moment of the day just like 12th century peasants, but like 12th century peasants you just think those things are compeltely normal and mundane and don’t even notice them.
Yes, exactly. Calvinism was the term I was reaching for, thank you. Now was he the tiger or the spikey haired lad? I kid, I kid.
Like so much about American Christianity I find it to be such a bizarre inversion of the dynamics of more traditional religiosity. Rather than living a moral (and largely uncomplaining, obidient) life for the promise of eternal happiness in the next life, the American religious or quasi-religious seems to basically say ‘Live whatever hedonistic, selfish, piece of shit life you want! You’re still going to heaven so long as your monthly subscription doesn’t lapse!’
Maybe it just seems particularly bizarre to me as someone who partially grew up in a modern Quaker tradition (with guardians finding that after basically fleeing / drifting from other Christian faiths), which also has a loose, almost anarchist, interpretist approach to faith but does so in a way where the focus is upon thoughfulness, solidarity, and communication. The Calvinst streak seems like a bizarre inversion that screams, No requirements. Don’t think about it. Money down.
Obviously there’s a long and integral dynamic of ‘good in-group / bad out-group’, but I’m convinced its further exacerbated in the US by the so thoroughly intertwined Christian aspect, particularly the WASPy say the right things, give the church money, and do what you like types to still be righteous.
Yeah. Fucking secular Calvinism is a huge obstacle. Catholics and I think Greek Orthodox both believe in good works whereas Calvinists think that good or bad is like a permanent thing you’re born with, then they go on to be completely incoherent by believing that your material wealth reflects your spiritual condition. And Americans have no idea they do it, it’s baked in to their racism and contempt for poor people and they have no idea it’s a religious belief.
Like, historians always talk about how we can’t understand the way that pre-secular society was completely organically integrated with religion, and we can’t understand how peoiple made no distinction between daily life and religious life and it’s like no, brah, you’ve got religious beliefs that you live every moment of the day just like 12th century peasants, but like 12th century peasants you just think those things are compeltely normal and mundane and don’t even notice them.
Yes, exactly. Calvinism was the term I was reaching for, thank you. Now was he the tiger or the spikey haired lad? I kid, I kid.
Like so much about American Christianity I find it to be such a bizarre inversion of the dynamics of more traditional religiosity. Rather than living a moral (and largely uncomplaining, obidient) life for the promise of eternal happiness in the next life, the American religious or quasi-religious seems to basically say ‘Live whatever hedonistic, selfish, piece of shit life you want! You’re still going to heaven so long as your monthly subscription doesn’t lapse!’
Maybe it just seems particularly bizarre to me as someone who partially grew up in a modern Quaker tradition (with guardians finding that after basically fleeing / drifting from other Christian faiths), which also has a loose, almost anarchist, interpretist approach to faith but does so in a way where the focus is upon thoughfulness, solidarity, and communication. The Calvinst streak seems like a bizarre inversion that screams, No requirements. Don’t think about it. Money down.