I don’t say this lightly, but this is in response to several diaries today, and one a few weeks ago by Frederick Clarkson. It’s been sitting with me awhile. Oh, am I back? Nah. I’m still out, rather enjoying being an occasional lurker. But this needed to be said, so I’m going to say it.
As a non-Christian (raised Christian, ex-Christian now), living in a nation that is culturally Christian on many levels, and as a non-Christian who reads a lot of history, and as a non-Christian who is of two minority groups that this nation has traditionally persecuted (one of which did not even get the right to marry until a few years ago and is about to have it revoked because of religious animus), I am TERRIFIED.
As Novapsyche points out in their diary, non-Christians have historically suffered under Christian regimes, where the policy until the Enlightenment was “conversion, exile, or execution.” Conversion wasn’t even easy. Converts were tracked for, in some cases, over a century to make sure they were “sincere”, and then even they were expelled from that particular nation in question. It is not hard to see that happening to us again. We non-Christians often point this out among other things (and yes, perhaps we could be nicer about it) and we’re told we’re “too strident,” “generalizing”, “engaging in bigotry,” “alienating your allies,” and so on. In short, we do not get listened to. This is of immense frustration.
We’re told there’s a Religious (Christian) Left. Poll numbers certainly seem to indicate that, and that they’re actually a majority of the folks still identifying as Christian, and that they are generally kind, non-authoritarian, and if not fully progressive at least liberal in a great many ways. But there’s no evidence that segment has any power whatsoever. In my almost 20 years of reading and participating with this site, this has been an old and long-running topic, and again we’re told “we’re not flashy about it like the Religious Right is,” “you’re alienating your allies by asking where we are,” “we’re out there doing the work, why are YOU not helping us?” and so on. Again, this is immensely frustrating as I watch things get worse and worse. I am terrified that when the time comes and it IS coming, many of you will simply acquiesce.
I’m watching books get banned and burned. I mean are you kidding me?! I’m watching parents get horrible because their kids are being taught to be nice to each other and others who are different and maybe get taught that history is complex and nuanced. They’ve rebirthed the hideous anti-LGBT arguments from the 1980s and 1970s. We’re told “Well that’s of a generation that’s old and dying off” (an ageist statement), and well, they aren’t . These people are my age and younger. The nastiest anti-trans rhetoric I’ve heard in the last few weeks is from young gay men in their early 20s. The Buffalo terrorist is 18 years old. And the animus is birthed entirely from a Christian well even if it doesn’t have an explicitly religious message once it wends its way through the body politic. And again, we’re told that when we point this out that “they’re not real Christians,” “call them Christianists, not Christians”, “why are you being so strident,” “They’re not following the New Testament,” and on and on, and this is, yes, yet again, immensely frustrating.
From where I sit, y’all ain’t doing much at all while the GOP is 2 years or less from establishing the Christian theocratic republic they want to establish and have explicitly stated as such. And on that date, non-Christians and others who don’t meet their mold will begin to get oppressed, or more historically accurate, outright murdered. This is not a religion that historically has shared. The relative kindness and tolerance of others of the last three hundred years does not remotely resemble the previous thirteen hundred. I recognize religions evolve (and this one has) but that’s not what they say---and I’ve even seen people I know are fairly liberal say, “my beliefs are Truth and that is ageless”. People belonging to traditions that did not exist before that day Martin Luther nailed his theses to the cathedral door are saying this. People who belong to traditions that are less than 100 years old are saying this. They’ve successfully planted the belief that their religion has ALWAYS been anti-abortion when that belief is only 45 years old! This is scary and watching it from the outside, it’s even scarier.
I was going to buy my first home, a process I began 2 years ago and one that I could rant about ad nauseum (and have, elsewhere on social media) but that’s not the point of this diary. Instead I feel I should take that money and either flee the country or buy an arsenal. I have not yet decided which to do. No other nation wants a 40+year old generic office worker and I refuse to pay tax back to this place if I leave, and I really don’t want to buy an arsenal. I am stuck because there’s a fairly good not-zero chance I’ll end up genocided before 2030. That terrifies me. That should terrify the Christian Left too because as history shows, when they’re done with us or perhaps concurrently, they’ll come for you too.
I won’t participate in any discussion that gives me accolades or condemnation. I don’t want to hear any discussion that resembles anything that has gone on about this subject, over and over again, for the last two decades on this site, although you’re certainly free to post whatever you want, just note I’m not going to respond to it. My terror, and I know I’m absolutely NOT alone here, is very real and very valid. What is the Christian left going to do about it? They are winning. You are not. Please do something! Cause frankly, we’re terrified, and extremely frustrated, and feel we are NOT being listened to at all and we’ve felt this way for decades!
Is there something you need from us?