Is the glorification of oppression a form of Christian heresy?

[Lord of the Large Pants]

Now that might not make much sense, so let me explain. I obviously don't mean that Oppression Olympics competitors are literally former Christians who created some kind of heterodox sect. I mean that it's a twisted form of cultural Christianity.

For better or worse, a good deal of the fabric of western culture is still rooted in Christian ideas. It's often not articulated that way these days, people might not make reference to human rights as being "God given", but they used to, and current views are partly a result of that heritage.

Part of that heritage is social justice, in the correct, classic sense of the term. There are various examples of how this goes in Christianity, but the clearest is probably the Beatitudes. Blessed are the meek, the mourners, those persecuted for pursuing justice, etc. All good stuff. But like other good ideas, it can go bad.

I think that the drive to be as oppressed as possible is a perverse form of Christian morality. But where the genuine article is (at least in theory) trying to stand up for the downtrodden and say that they're human too, and they matter as much as anybody else, the heresy instead believes that more oppressed means more virtuous.

So now, instead of social justice being a matter of all people being equal before God, it becomes a competition to be oppressed. The more oppressed you are, the more equal you are.

I may be completely full of crap here, but that's why I need a second opinion. What say you guys?

 

[Queen Elizabeth II]

Nietzche had a lot to say on slave morality, it's worth looking into for this angle where the weak and disenfranchised make their impotence a virtue.

Christians are one of the more interesting examples of it because the Christian God explicitly desires people to suffer (don't take that as me being an asshole, everyone from Jesus to Mother Teresa has quotes on how only those who suffer can be holy) and other groups don't necessarily want to suffer as an end in itself.

I personally believe modern SJW'ism is more a means of claiming power over others. By being more oppressed, you can claim either moral superiority, social influence and perhaps even special rights not afforded to other citizens in order to direct them to behave in a manner of your choosing (see White people not being allowed to take part in debates via the race card often being played when they try to justify an opinion). It becomes a hybrid of Top Trumps and Game of Thrones to see who can claw together the most power for a purpose or purely an end in itself.

TL;DR: The Early Christians wanted to suffer to get brownie points in the next world, SJW's don't really want to suffer and just want power to command other people.

 

[Sexy Senior Citizen]

I think the drive for oppression does not come from an "I'm more oppressed so I'm more Christian than you" attitude; it's entirely possible to be a perfectly fine Christian and not be persecuted. It's more of a "wheat from the chaff" deal. Remember Jesus' parable about the soils? The idea is that they want to find, and root out, the "rocky soil" Christians from the "good soil" ones.
That said, this is not a new idea. In his letters, Paul frequently talks about what he suffered- not out of a desire to participate in ancient Oppression Olympics, but to shut up the people who were (yes, there is truly nothing new under the sun). Through his suffering, Paul wanted the ancient Christians to focus their attention on how God worked good even through his suffering.

 

[lowkey]

Has social justice ever been anything but a marxist reframing of justice to give room for injustice in a positive sounding term? Honest question.

Are the oppression olympics a christian heresy? No, because it isn't christian. It is therefor not heretical, but heathenical if that were a word.

Though the fact that it sounds quite compatible with christianity, at least in the respect that you describe, is probably a large part of why it took root.

 

[1864897514651]

You cannot be oppressed without an outside oppressor, so I do not comprehend what you are trying to claim. That first-century Christian martyrs somehow oppressed themselves by believing in the risen Lord? These Christians did not burn themselves or throw themselves into an arena with lions and bears of their own free will. Their oppressors that disagreed with their values did.

Now, I am the first to detest and deride musloids for their ridiculous pagan belief system, but if you wish to know what oppression is like in our current century, then put on a burqa and walk around your city for a couple days. I am not saying this to encourage you to believe that the islamic political system is somehow justifiably oppressed, but to show you that oppression as you know it is very different from the oppression that first-century Christians endured. You will not die if you walk around with a burqa in your city. You may get confronted or briefly attacked, but you will not be put on a stake and burned, beheaded, or fed to lions in an arena.

Oppression is ultimately a blessing from our Lord. It is meant to test the faithful. It is not something that can be conjured out of thin air as though you performed a magic act and suddenly became more oppressed. In order for oppression to be real, it must be in accord with the Word of God. Putting on a burqa has absolutely nothing to do with believing in musloid values, and so the oppression you experience is entirely real, if a bit absurd and pointless. Instead of fundamental belief systems being challenged by oppressors, it is simply your choice of dress that is being challenged. It is rather stupid and not really equitable to Christian martyrdom.

 

[Indrid Cold]

OP's points may have merit except, most religious philosophies incorporate forms of sacrifice and self-deprivation in preparation for oppressive situations. Forms of ritual tithe, scarification, fasting, prolonged meditation, etc are practiced worldwide by an array of religions not even remotely linked to Christianity. It seems most religions understand a universal concept: to be alive is to be met with oppression, friction, and loss.
Besides learning to endure poor conditions that will psychologically break others is a blessing, not a curse. It has far less to do with controlability/chattel and more to do with finding zen in an ever painfully shifting society.

...and you may have forgotten, but even Jesus the Christ knew there was a time to thwart oppression with absolute violence:


Luke 22:36-37 King James Version (KJV)
36 Then said he unto them, But now, he that hath a purse, let him take it, and likewise his scrip: and he that hath no sword, let him sell his garment, and buy one.
37 For I say unto you, that this that is written must yet be accomplished in me, And he was reckoned among the transgressors: for the things concerning me have an end.

 

[UW 411]

Was this thread intendended as bait for more religion sperging from @1864897514651 or is it serious?

 

[Slap47]

Has social justice ever been anything but a marxist reframing of justice to give room for injustice in a positive sounding term? Honest question.

Are the oppression olympics a christian heresy? No, because it isn't christian. It is therefor not heretical, but heathenical if that were a word.

Though the fact that it sounds quite compatible with christianity, at least in the respect that you describe, is probably a large part of why it took root.

"Blessed are the meek" puts it in pretty black and white terms. Christianity is all about being weak and a victim and accepting it.

Marx was right about religion's use of an opiate. Unfortunately, his "followers" decided to make their own religions.

 

[Queen Elizabeth II]

You cannot be oppressed without an outside oppressor, so I do not comprehend what you are trying to claim. That first-century Christian martyrs somehow oppressed themselves by believing in the risen Lord? These Christians did not burn themselves or throw themselves into an arena with lions and bears of their own free will. Their oppressors that disagreed with their values did.

Actually if you'd ever read the letters of Pliny or Tiberius you'd know that Christians actually did want to be "thrown to the lions" and sometimes went miles out of their way to achieve martyrdom because being martyred was and remains an automatic ticket to heaven (provided you repent of your sins and make an act of contrition and whatnot). You could have fornicated your entire life but if you got roasted at the end it didn't matter.

Don't take the word of the pagans for it, look to Christians own hagiographies of the likes of St Perpetua. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passion_of_Saint_Perpetua,_Saint_Felicitas,_and_their_Companions

What most Christians will tell you is that she was murdered in the arena while pregnant. What actually happened was she kept publically smashing up Pagan sanctuaries and was asked no less than four times to pack it the fuck in.

The Romans let her give birth first, and even then after that BEGGED her to stop smashing their shit up. She wanted to die for brownie points in the next world. St Willibrord, St Anne; one of the fastest roads to sainthood for an Early Christian (and even medieval Christians who aspired to sainthood https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massacre_of_Verden) was to destroy pagan shrines and kill pagans at worship. Again, don't take my word for it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persecution_of_pagans_in_the_late_Roman_Empire

The persecution of pagans in the late Roman Empire began late during the reign of Constantine the Great when he ordered the pillaging and the tearing down of some temples.[which?][1][2][3] The first anti-pagan laws by the Christian state started with Constantine's son Constantius II,[4][5] who was an opponent of paganism; he ordered the closing of all pagan temples, forbade pagan sacrifices under pain of death,[2] and removed the traditional Altar of Victory from the Senate.[6] Under his reign, ordinary Christians began to vandalise pagan temples, tombs and monuments.[7][8][9][10] This persecution had proceeded after a period of persecution of Christians in the Empire.

From 361 until 375, paganism was relatively tolerated. Three Emperors—Gratian, Valentinian II and Theodosius I—came under the influence of the Bishop of Milan, Ambrose. At his suggestion, state anti-paganism policies were reinstituted.[11][12] As a penitent under the care of Ambrose, Theodosius was influenced to issue the "Theodocian Decrees" of 391.[12][13] Gratian also removed the Altar of Victory for the second time. The Vestal Virgins were disbanded, and access to Pagan temples was prohibited.

During the course of his life, Constantine progressively became more Christian and turned away from any syncretic tendencies he appeared to favour at times, thereby demonstrating, according to his biographers, that "The God of the Christians was indeed a jealous God who tolerated no other gods beside him. The Church could never acknowledge that she stood on the same plane with other religious bodies, she conquered for herself one domain after another".[14]

Even if Constantine had desired to Christianise the state, expediency may have dictated otherwise since Christians may have formed only a fifth part of the population in the West and a half of the population in the East.[2][15]

That said, not all Christians behaved like modern Islamists. There were many who rose in high office and we know there were several powerful and very influential Roman families who formed factions of the Knights and the Senate. But of course, these Christians didn't feel the same urge to destroy unbelievers so probably shouldn't be counted as "real Christians".

Now, I am the first to detest and deride musloids for their ridiculous pagan belief system, but if you wish to know what oppression is like in our current century, then put on a burqa and walk around your city for a couple days. I am not saying this to encourage you to believe that the Islamic political system is somehow justifiably oppressed, but to show you that oppression as you know it is very different from the oppression that first-century Christians endured. You will not die if you walk around with a burqa in your city. You may get confronted or briefly attacked, but you will not be put on a stake and burned, beheaded, or fed to lions in an arena.

They follow a cult that would quite happily murder the both of us for shits and giggles if they ever gathered the numbers and means. Fuck them.

Oppression is ultimately a blessing from our Lord. It is meant to test the faithful. It is not something that can be conjured out of thin air as though you performed a magic act and suddenly became more oppressed. In order for oppression to be real, it must be in accord with the Word of God. Putting on a burqa has absolutely nothing to do with believing in musloid values, and so the oppression you experience is entirely real, if a bit absurd and pointless. Instead of fundamental belief systems being challenged by oppressors, it is simply your choice of dress that is being challenged. It is rather stupid and not really equitable to Christian martyrdom.

And this is a prime example of Nietzche's slave morality. This is not the message that was being shrieked by Innocent III when he declared himself lord of the universe and second only to God, when the Byzantine Emperors' would speak with the full authority as the "Temporal" Emperor twinned against the Divine Christ or when Pius IX would bellow his fury at the great evils of the day like Democracy.

It's only a "means to test the faithful" because the faithful currently aren't able to persecute those who offend them. See Russia today when the moment they can again, they do.

Oppression is only a blessing as long as you're impotent and can't crush the enemy. The moment there's even half a chance of victory out comes St Thomas Aquinas and the calls for a Just Holy fight.

 

[1864897514651]

[redacted]

It is generally accepted that Saint Felicitas gave birth before her execution. You are somehow trying to rest an argument on the misinformation of modern Christians, which is weak. Most modern Christians cannot even tell you the Ten Commandments. And you are leaving out key details, such as how many of these Christians were asked to renounce their faith in the risen Lord before being murdered. Pope Fabian, Bishop Polycarp, Saint Justin Martyr—a huge portion of early Christian martyrs were given the option to spare their lives if they pinched incense to pagan Roman gods. It is profoundly illogical to assume that the majority of these holy men and women chased after death. The reality is that when they were tried by Roman officials, they would consistently refuse to renounce their faith in Christ by performing idolatry, and this is what caused most of them to be martyred.

I also see nothing wrong with smashing pagan temples. That is badass.

 

[Queen Elizabeth II]

I also see nothing wrong with smashing pagan temples. That is badass.

It's also a prime example of why Christians like yourself are cunts.

Smash a pagan temple? Wooohooo!
Smash a mosque? Wooohoooo!

Smash a Church? WAAAAAAAAA THE CHINESE ARE PERSECUTING US!!111!!!

That makes you a hypocrite.

Also, to correct you.

a huge portion of early Christian martyrs were given the option to spare their lives if they pinched incense to pagan Roman gods.

They were asked to offer incense to the Emperor (who sans Caracalla who failed to be aknowleged as a deity while alive as he wished) had not yet been deified.

The letters from the governors of the Empire to Tiberius make it clear the response of the Emperor was to avoid prosecuting Christians when possible, and only to go after the most rabid ones who made a nuisance of themselves or publically attacked the Emperor's authority.

 

[1864897514651]

[redacted]

We believe nobody is saved except through the Christ, Jesus. It is uncharitable for Christians to allow pagans to remain in superstition unchallenged. Rather, you are the hypocrite because you worship brick and mortar above God. You do not actually care about those men's beliefs.

 

[Queen Elizabeth II]

We believe nobody is saved except through the Christ, Jesus. It is uncharitable for Christians to allow pagans to remain in superstition unchallenged. Rather, you are the hypocrite because you worship brick and mortar above God. You do not actually care about those men's beliefs.

Neither do you. You're just following the dictates of your deity in the hope he decides to let you worship him forever while the vast majority of humanity burns forever for the edification of the faithful.

I don't give a shit what you believe provided you leave the rest of us alone, but that's far too much to ask of a Christian who....Well, let's have it from the father of western Christian theology himself....

“At that greatest of all spectacles, that last and eternal judgment how shall I admire, how laugh, how rejoice, how exult, when I behold so many proud monarchs groaning in the lowest abyss of darkness; so many magistrates liquefying in fiercer flames than they ever kindled against the Christians; so many sages philosophers blushing in red-hot fires with their deluded pupils; so many tragedians more tuneful in the expression of their own sufferings; so many dancers tripping more nimbly from anguish then ever before from applause."

“What a spectacle. . .when the world. . .and its many products, shall be consumed in one great flame! How vast a spectacle then bursts upon the eye! What there excites my admiration? What my derision? Which sight gives me joy? As I see. . .illustrious monarchs. . . groaning in the lowest darkness, Philosophers. . .as fire consumes them! Poets trembling before the judgment-seat of. . .Christ! I shall hear the tragedians, louder-voiced in their own calamity; view play-actors. . .in the dissolving flame; behold wrestlers, not in their gymnasia, but tossing in the fiery billows. . .What inquisitor or priest in his munificence will bestow on you the favour of seeing and exulting in such things as these? Yet even now we in a measure have them by faith in the picturings of imagination.” [De Spectaculis, Chapter XXX]

God is love. If love is cackling maniacally with a raging hateboner as people who're smarter, prettier or wealthier than you are tortured

 

[Indrid Cold]

"Blessed are the meek" puts it in pretty black and white terms. Christianity is all about being weak and a victim and accepting it.

Marx was right about religion's use of an opiate. Unfortunately, his "followers" decided to make their own religions.

Matthew 5:5 (KJV)
5 Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth.

^...this verse is actually more of a warning for his followers than an ideal for Christianity. Read on five more verses and you'll realize greater prizes are offered for a bolder, and braver life lived. Who wants to inherit this shitty dust-ball (the Jesus apparently rejected it for 40 days & 40 nights) when the splendors of all heaven are offered? When taken in context it's sorta saying: May the cowards who hide during war, inherit our battlefield. See, not really an ideal for a religious philosophy you want to last more than a generation, er so.

Marx's theories and ideas for society, when put into practice, are so catastrophically BAD that even after 90yrs and 40+million lives sacrificed, they weren't enough to stabilize any small manifestation of his proposed system. Marx could rebel and brag about it, but that's where his expertise ends, imho.
"philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways; the point however is to change it" ...but not for the worst, Karl.

 

[1864897514651]

[redacted]

I suggest you use the Douay-Rheims translation rather than the KJV, for the sake of the difference in wording. Also, the Douay-Rheims has seven deuterocanonical books that the KJV and many other protestant translations do not, along with some extra bits in Esther and Daniel.

Anyway, being meek does not mean that you are a coward. Jesus would not call meekness a blessing if this were the case—God does not "bless" with weakness or infirmity. Let us read this verse in the Douay-Rheims translation instead: "Blessed are the meek: for they shall possess the land." Huge difference in the wording between earth and land, since it offers not only an interpretation of inheriting the renewed earth during Parousia, but also the Land of Israel—the Kingdom of God, so to speak. And do not underestimate the renewed earth at Parousia, as the prophets in the Old Testament also proclaimed that the meek shall inherit the land. This statement by Jesus was an echoing from past prophets to His audience at the mount.

Meekness is more like having power under control. It is a very similar word to modesty or humility, and you should remember the words of our Lord in Matthew 11:29—"Take up my yoke upon you, and learn of me, because I am meek, and humble of heart: and you shall find rest to your souls." Why would our Lord call Himself meek if it was not a blessing?

 

[Indrid Cold]

I suggest you use the Douay-Rheims translation rather than the KJV, for the sake of the difference in wording. Also, the Douay-Rheims has seven deuterocanonical books that the KJV and many other protestant translations do not, along with some extra bits in Esther and Daniel.

KJV comes from an earlier Germanic translation which comes from the original Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek. Seeing as English is a Germanic language, the translation benefits from leaving out a further ambiguous latin/Catholic translation step. Best thing to happen to the bible was in 1666 when they quit printing the bullshit apocrypha along side it. Also, doesn't help your case that the Council of Trent’s decree that the Vulgate (Latin source for DRB) was, for Catholics, "free of doctrinal error". Hard to translate a canonically perfect book, is it not?

Oh, and meek doesn't mean "having power under control", that's bullshit. Only other close translation of πρα in english is "gentle". Again, take the verse in context when compared to the other verses of Jesus' sermon on the mount. Take this verse from his sermon into account:

Matthew 6:25-33 King James Version (KJV)
25 Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment?

26 Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they?

27 Which of you by taking thought can add one cubit unto his stature?

28 And why take ye thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin:

29 And yet I say unto you, That even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.

30 Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, which to day is, and to morrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith?

31 Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed?

32 (For after all these things do the Gentiles seek) for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things.

33 But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.

...again, man isn't blessed to inheriting a scortched battlefield god's gonna torch anyhow. He's blessed when he fights throughout life with faith. The meek hide and are "blessed" to keep what little life they hold dear until god turns everything to ash. Point is, you don't want to inherit the earth... or do you?

 

[1864897514651]

[redacted]

Jesus did not "hide" to keep His Most Holy Life. Your interpretation of Sacred Scripture is strange and mostly incorrect.

 

[Lord of the Large Pants]

Huh. I don't know how I thought this would go, but this was not it.

To clarify what I meant by Christian heresy, because I don't think I articulated it very well, it's something like this: Christianity is a religion that, from the beginning, placed a great deal of emphasis on the poor and oppressed. The western world has had its morals shaped by Christianity in many ways. As those morals lost their theological roots, that become twisted into thinking that being poor and oppressed was something inherently virtuous.

The sort of people I'm talking about wouldn't call themselves Christian. But the desire to be oppressed is still a perversion of Christian morality, whether they know it or not. It's not that modern people think of oppression as making them more Christian, but rather, more virtuous, based on a concept of virtue that they've inherited from Christianity without realizing it. So, call it a cultural Christian heresy if that makes it more clear.

Some specific points...

The point about claims of oppression being used as a tool of political power rather than being its own end is entirely fair, and probably true in a lot of cases.

I agree with a lot of what Nietzsche says about religion as a cultural phenomenon, including many parts of slave morality. But I don't know that it really contradicts what I'm saying. Suppose Nietzsche is more or less right in what he says on the topic, that slave morality originates from the weak trying to subvert the strong, and that this is the origin of Christian morality. The modern form of victim culture would still strike me as a perversion of this.

That is, the early Christians might have tried to turn weakness in to a virtue because they really WERE weak and had no choice about it. But in modern culture, you see middle class and even very powerful people wanting to feel and appear oppressed. That seems to me to be a very different thing.

There's a lot of things I WANT to push back on here theologically, but I'd sperg too much and get too far from the core topic.

And finally...

Was this thread intendended as bait for more religion sperging from @1864897514651 or is it serious?

I wasn't familiar with the user before this topic. I am now.

 

[Indrid Cold]

Jesus did not "hide" to keep His Most Holy Life. Your interpretation of Sacred Scripture is strange and mostly incorrect.

Your reading comprehension skills are severely lacking, because not only did I not say that, I didn't even insinuate it. Quite the opposite, in fact. Go back, read it again and learn.

...back on topic, why is Christianity even being linked with "virtue in deprivation" anyhow? To do so, would assume:

1. Christianity is the only modern religious collective to be oppressed by others. Jews, Mormons, Taoists, etc. would disagree there.
2. Christianity authored concepts of virtue/vice and is the absolute accepted defining standard by which others are rated... which it isn't.
   
3. Victim culture is a fiat moral currency freely exchanged throughout Christianity and doing so is socially advantageous... which again there are strong arguments against.
   
4. Christianity is a stronger driving social force than basic human decency or peer pressure, which I also strongly doubt.

Sorry OP, but there's more supposition to this line of thinking than genuine solid connections. Cannot support.

 

[Positron]

Now that might not make much sense, so let me explain. I obviously don't mean that Oppression Olympics competitors are literally former Christians who created some kind of heterodox sect. I mean that it's a twisted form of cultural Christianity.

I cannot think of many heterodox Christian sect that actively glorify suffering or oppression for its own sake. The flagellants were obviously one, as I suspect it is the case of some crucifixion sects in the Philippines (which was strongly influenced by the Spanish), but even in those cases you can argue they are more concerned with the spectacle rather than the suffering itself.

Oppression is ultimately a blessing from our Lord.

This is a very dangerous and, I argue, un-Christian, view. From the point of view of Theodicy suffering is not inherently good or bad. Suffering is something that is just there, in life, that not even Jesus himself is immune to. Suffering is good only when it is the will of God (and even in that, God understands that you are not always ready to take this in stride. Remember what Jesus's private prayer in Gethsemane, "My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will."), and suffering is bad -- and in this case must be avoided -- when it results from the sin of men.

The sort of people I'm talking about wouldn't call themselves Christian. But the desire to be oppressed is still a perversion of Christian morality, whether they know it or not. It's not that modern people think of oppression as making them more Christian, but rather, more virtuous, based on a concept of virtue that they've inherited from Christianity without realizing it. So, call it a cultural Christian heresy if that makes it more clear.

The simple equation more oppression = more virtuous, or the glorification of suffering for its own sake, or the desire to actively seek out oppression, are not the picture of the Christianity I know, but then you've already point out it is a perversion.

My understanding of Christianity is that, given suffering is inescapable, it is not only pointless to actively seek it out, but doing so is a perversion to the will of God. Jesus, after all, did not go "Roman oppression? Fuck yeah! Lacerate my flesh! Bleed me dry! Spit on my face and feed me vinegar! When people see how OPPRESSED I'm they'll take vengeance against me! And this will be the end of you Roman pagans!" No, in fact Jesus actually, in a passing moment, thinks of bailing out, but he nevertheless goes ahead because it is the will of God. And he shows us that the Cross is not the end of the story; He is to transcend death and be seated at the Right hand of God. This is the example for Christians: oppression is not an end in itself, but a sometimes necessary, painful step for a greater good -- be it Truth, Justice, or any other moral ideal.

I feel there is some commonality between Christ's attitude to His suffering with the civil rights movement (including some strains of second-wave feminism) in the 60s (but NOT with third-wave feminism or the masturbatory "intersectional" slacktivism). Black activists and feminists did not seek out oppression, and unlike SJWs they did not fetishize their sufferings. They knew that, as their oppression was a given, the best they can do was to conduct themselves morally, and to thrive in the face of oppression, confident that their grace and strength will inspire people to reappraise their humanity, and grant them their due rights (Helen Ready, "I've paid the price, but see how much I gained... until I make my brothers understand". c.f. "The centurion saw what had happened, he glorified God, saying, "surely this was a righteous man.").