“Christianity Bashing”
That, right there in the title? That’s the number one complaint I get in one form or another for A Thing Of Vikings, even more than I’ve gotten complaints about the LGBT characters. I get complaints that I am “bashing” Christianity in my fic, ranging from public comments where the reviewer clarified that they view the mere inclusion of LGBT characters as “an ultra-liberal agenda”, to guest reviewers on FFnet, and private messages that say that they have no problems with me being a Jew… but that I should shut up about the Jewish experience with Christianity. I had one ask when the “True Christians” will be showing up, the ones who missionize with zeal and love for Jesus, and cited as examples Billy Graham and Richard Wurmbrand of the sort of people he’d like to see–both of them vile antisemites, Wurmbrand even worse than Graham’s “Synagogue of Satan” comments, because Wurmbrand was born a Jew and converted, and joined a group that wanted to destroy the Jewish people. I can say, without hyperbole, that this is literally the single most common complaint I get.
But the thing of it is, I’m not “bashing” Christianity, despite temptation. I’m just not handling it with silk gloves. And these people are so used to being coddled that, as usual with any privileged person, it’s easier to tell the minority to shut up and be quiet than it is to engage in retrospection.
But let me give an example here; I don’t know how many people follow my main tumblr, but the other week, there was this incredibly tone-deaf post by @catholic-living, and then, in their attempts to apologize, they managed to victim-blame the Jews for the suffering we’ve endured at the hands of Catholics, saying that it was the fault of both sides. It then got worse when other Christians chimed in. But the thing is, this is normal. This is how relations between Jews and Christians are. Some are polite, sure, but #NotAllChristians falls flat as a protest for the same reason #NotAllMen does–because we don’t know which of these privileged people are safe, or will remain safe. As I commented in that last post I linked, it’s actually almost a relief to see the hatred out front-and-center, as a reminder not to fall into a false sense of security.
But still, after that, I made my own venting post on how, to these people, my sole value is “Jesus was a Jew!” and not as a person in my own right.
That attracted more angry Christians who proceeded to prove me right. I’ll spare you all the link spam and just give you all this highlight.
So when I hear accusations of “Christianity bashing”, I just think of stuff like this. Because this is my normal; that stuff I linked above? That’s not exceptional. This behavior–of calling me “Satanic” and insisting that it’s love, of saying that I need to convert or else–that’s my normal experience in interacting with self-professed Christians. I was stalked in college by three Baptists who believed that converting a Jew was guaranteed admission into Heaven and wouldn’t take no for an answer. I don’t go out wearing my headcovering or anything else that could identify me as Jewish, because I don’t feel safe, because I’ve been harassed. I’ve been asked where my horns and tail are. I’ve been told, to my face, that my sole use in Christian theology is as part of a mass blood sacrifice to bring back Jesus.
And the thing is? The thing that really brings home “#NotAllChristians” to me?
I can count on one hand, with fingers left over, the number of times I’ve had another Christian intercede when I’m being harassed, either online or in public. My first personal interaction with Christian antisemitism was when I was nine and a kid came running up to me and screamed at me that “You killed Jesus!” and I’ve had routine encounters with hate-filled Christians since then. I’m now 34. So in a quarter century of dealing with hate, I’ve had less than five times of someone else who is also “Christian” attempt to put a stop to it.
Instead, when I cite incidents like this, I’m told that the malefactors are “Not True Christians”. Every single time. Which is laughable. (My favorites, speaking as hyperbole, are the Protestants who try to pull that “Any Christian who hates Jews is ‘No True Christian’.” Oh, buddy, I ‘hate’ to burst your bubble, but you might want to see who you’re defining as “Not A True Christian”!)
The thing with the No True Christian arguments is that it lets them wash their hands of misbehaving Christians, instead of accepting that such behavior is rampant among their own community. And, hey, I get it. Nobody wants to have monsters in their community. Imagine how I feel about Jared, Ivanka, Miller and Shapiro! They’re all Jews, and they’re monsters who should be treated as such.
But I don’t have the luxury of disowning them, as antisemites of all stripes won’t let me. So we have to police my own community, and that’s something we Jews do (to greater or lesser effectiveness). We actually have multiple terms for such people: Shonde fir de goyim (literally “A Shame before the Nations”), Chilhul Hashem (”A Stain on the Name of G-d”), Judenrat and Kapo (from the terms for the Jews who collaborated with the Nazis during the Holocaust), and more. Because, thanks to that history that @catholic-living was so ignorant of and that others tried to say was irrelevant, we’re deeply aware of how we’re judged by our worst members, and don’t have the luxury of being able to say “they’re not ‘True Jews’”.
And with no Christians calling out their fellows for their bad behavior, or at least interceding against harassment, I feel justified in judging the community of Christians by their worst members, at least on a personal level.
But, like I said, while I feel that I could justify engaging in “Christianity bashing” in my writing, I’m not. I’m doing my best to show the difference between what the religion says and what the practitioners actually do. I’m not coddling them. I’m holding up a mirror to show how they treat others from an outsider’s perspective–the hate, the atrocities, the monstrousness committed in the name of Jesus.
And to those reviewers, that’s “bashing”.
To them, I say, “Matthew 7:5″.
I’ve had a few Christians get defensive over this–and in the two months since I’ve written this, I’ve gotten six more accusations of “Christianity bashing”.
So let me clarify something here.
If I was going to bash Christianity, I could. I could draw from my upbringing where I was literally warned as a child to behave in public or “The Christians will come and kill us all!” Christians are literally used as boogeymen for Jewish children–with examples from real history, like the Strasbourg massacre in 1349, where the Jewish community (save for the pretty ones and the children who were forcibly baptized) were herded into a building, barred inside, and the building was set on fire.
I could easily paint Christians as bloodthirsty monsters who need to regularly consume Jewish lives in order to stay placated.
I could write about the mass burnings, the Inquisition, the expulsions where my ancestors were thrown out with only what they could carry (if that!) by Christians interested in looting their possessions (on that note? My family’s bakery in Lodz, Poland, is still standing after it was taken from us during WWII. It is now city “property”, but we have the papers that show it was ours. We inquired once about 20 years ago about possibly getting it back, and the city government basically threatened our lives if we were to try). I could write about the pogroms, the atmosphere of fear. Of ritual public humiliation enforced by law. Of our people being murdered and their bones being used for playthings by Christian children, rather than being allowed to be buried with respect.
I could use all of that, and it would only be scratching the surface of the treatment my people have suffered at the hands of Christians over the last two thousand years.
But I’m not.
I’m just presenting Christianity fairly from an outsider perspective. As good, bad, or indifferent.
And I’m getting lectured and having lengthy essays written at me–but when I get attacked by Christian missionaries (like I was last week), Christians don’t speak up to police their own.
And, look, I get it. Reacting defensively when your people get criticized–especially when you’ve never experienced serious criticism–is the natural reflex. But it’s hypocrisy of the highest order to demand that an outsider, one whose personal and cultural experiences with Christianity is overwhelmingly negative, instead paint Christianity positively while doing absolutely nothing to present to that outsider any evidence that they themselves are different.
The question is not “Why is the author presenting Christianity as negatively as they are?”
The question is, “Why is the author presenting Christianity positively at all?”
Because it’s not like I have reason to–aside from my own integrity, knowledge of history, and personal experience that at least some of you aren’t bloodthirsty monsters who hunger for Jewish lives and treasure. Some of you actually live up to the moral lessons in your “New Testament”. Just a few.
But not many.
Not in my experience.
And rather than challenge my accumulated experience, I’m just getting it reinforced with every accusation of “bashing”.