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So, I recently read a meta on how it's easy to leave your religion behind if your Christian and someone else talking about ethnic heritage in America and I just can't shut my mouth. If you don't want to hear me drone about growing up Irish-Catholic and the issues therein, you really oughtn't read.
( So it all started before I was actually born )
I'd like to request something of people (both on the internet and otherwise).
I'm not saying that I didn't grow up with Christian privilege or white privilege or whatever you want to say. And I'm interested in learning what you have to say about that.
But. I also think that assuming people are all the same if they're not you is really wrong. Saying "Christian" works kind of okay in some situations, but honestly, to say, "Christians say..." or "Christians believe..." or, even worse, "Christians and former Christians say/believe..." is so wrong. What kind of Christian? Mormons? Baptists? Seventh Day Adventists? Italian-Catholic Americans? Catholics in Ireland? Russian Orthodox? Those are all different faiths and have different tenets, different traditions, etc.
I believe what you mean is, "mainline Protestant sects in America." Sometimes other Christian sects fall into that category, sometimes not. I know that many practising Catholics in America (as opposed to lapsed Catholics and former Catholics) vehemently disagree with many things that are common to "mainline Protestant sects in America." I would also disagree that the culture I grew up in is the "culture of America." Sure, I've got Christmas in how I grew up, but I remember, without any fondness, having fits over meat-filled menus on Friday at college (and Good Friday, too, the biggest meatleass day in the Catholic calendar - and I can tell you fits were had on my behalf all over the country when I informed my family).
As a final bit, since people are talking about how people appropriate their heritage and faith, I would like to add this. I grew up in - and still live in - Irish-Catholic Massachusetts. I am fully aware of the problem of the pedophile priests. I know people who were affected by the situation. I know the churches and the priests themselves and all of that. I have actually stopped reading and watching things about Catholics and Catholicism that are not written/directed by Catholics. Not every priest is a pedophile, not every clergyperson is sexually repressed and/or has pedophilic tendencies and/or is secretly gay, not everyone is destroyed, body and soul, by Catholic school or priests or whatever. Treating it like it's great fun is damaging.
( So it all started before I was actually born )
I'd like to request something of people (both on the internet and otherwise).
I'm not saying that I didn't grow up with Christian privilege or white privilege or whatever you want to say. And I'm interested in learning what you have to say about that.
But. I also think that assuming people are all the same if they're not you is really wrong. Saying "Christian" works kind of okay in some situations, but honestly, to say, "Christians say..." or "Christians believe..." or, even worse, "Christians and former Christians say/believe..." is so wrong. What kind of Christian? Mormons? Baptists? Seventh Day Adventists? Italian-Catholic Americans? Catholics in Ireland? Russian Orthodox? Those are all different faiths and have different tenets, different traditions, etc.
I believe what you mean is, "mainline Protestant sects in America." Sometimes other Christian sects fall into that category, sometimes not. I know that many practising Catholics in America (as opposed to lapsed Catholics and former Catholics) vehemently disagree with many things that are common to "mainline Protestant sects in America." I would also disagree that the culture I grew up in is the "culture of America." Sure, I've got Christmas in how I grew up, but I remember, without any fondness, having fits over meat-filled menus on Friday at college (and Good Friday, too, the biggest meatleass day in the Catholic calendar - and I can tell you fits were had on my behalf all over the country when I informed my family).
As a final bit, since people are talking about how people appropriate their heritage and faith, I would like to add this. I grew up in - and still live in - Irish-Catholic Massachusetts. I am fully aware of the problem of the pedophile priests. I know people who were affected by the situation. I know the churches and the priests themselves and all of that. I have actually stopped reading and watching things about Catholics and Catholicism that are not written/directed by Catholics. Not every priest is a pedophile, not every clergyperson is sexually repressed and/or has pedophilic tendencies and/or is secretly gay, not everyone is destroyed, body and soul, by Catholic school or priests or whatever. Treating it like it's great fun is damaging.
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