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Would disagree here. There is no such thing as “Christians as a whole”. There are different denominations whose beliefs could be almost opposite. I heard that in the US, on one side, there’s the conservative Catholic church, and various protestants who usually are even more conservative. Yet even there, one woman bishop stood up for trans kids before Trump. But in my city (I live in Finland) the mainstream Evangelical church is presented on pride parades. I’m not overly concerned about church as an institution—what worries me is that religious oppressed minorities feel additional pressure from the left-wing atheists. That’s terrble imo. I’m not a religious myself and don’t go to church, but my rule is simple: You’re christian, or muslim, or buddhist, etc? Fine. You’re bigot? Fuck you.
My problem with even the best denominations of Christianity is how they effectively replace a possible love for oneself with the “reciprocated” love of God. They receive love from God by giving love to God; it’s part of what makes faith so powerful. It’s hard to love oneself in all your faults, but it’s easier to love another and to receive love in return. Of course, this makes you reliant on God for you mental health, making it very hard to escape the relationship if it is abusive.
This does not mean I dislike Christians who are good people for what they believe, or that I like atheists or agnostics for simply agreeing with me. What I care most about is being decent to other people, not what identity one may have.
I don’t know how modern progressive religious communities address these very important mental health and lack of self-love issues, but i grew up in a conservative one, and even there i remember reading or hearing interpretation of a phrase “love your neighbor as yourself” as you should love yourself as well—and if you don’t, you would not be able to love others. I’m sure that what you’ve said has a place to be, but community and people around play higher role than abstract beliefs imo
It’s not necessarily a higher role, just a different one. It honestly pays a bigger role for less conservative Christians, as they need to wrestle something of value from the social control and authoritarianism of conservative understandings.
Yeah, true, wiith a remark that Christianity was not an institution in the very beginning. There were self-organized rebellious group of people without strict hierarchy. Then as it became more popular, tyrants turned it on their side to support existing world order. A classic story
