The head of the Catholic League in NYC this morning, in an interview with Fox News, compared the plight of Christians in America to blacks in South Africa under apartheid.
I can't speak for Pat, or anyone else, only myself.
I used to be a Christian, an Evangelical Christian. I was taught that we *were* being persecuted, that the US and the world were against us just as the Romans persecuted the first Christians. I'm also a Black woman who grew up in a large NorthEastern US city, so...things are *much* better than they used to be, but they aren't where they should be yet, so it was a benchmark.
In my teens I started examining what I was being told. Most of the examples of "oppression' I was told about were actually mere disagreement or diversity of opinion; the teaching of evolution, the public acknowledgement of other holidays in December besides Christmas, polite refusals to listen to evangelism, these are *not* oppression. I compared my experience as a Christian with my experience as a Black girl; Christianity was *everywhere* in the US, often assumed to be the default, whereas being Black often made me unusual or unique in the places where I found myself (such as boarding school). Being a Christian tended to help me relate to people I didn't know; being Black tended to be an obstacle. And so on.
Eventually I left Christianity for several reasons, not least because I felt that as a Christian I was part of, contributing to, inflicting the same kinds of oppression on non-Christians that I felt myself experiencing as a Black woman. In fact, even worse kinds.
So, that's my take on it. As someone who was a Christian for the first two-thirds or so of her life, I *don't* think Christians are oppressed in the wider US society. There are some segments where I have observed that they are to varying degrees, but not in the US as a whole.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
From:
no subject
I used to be a Christian, an Evangelical Christian. I was taught that we *were* being persecuted, that the US and the world were against us just as the Romans persecuted the first Christians. I'm also a Black woman who grew up in a large NorthEastern US city, so...things are *much* better than they used to be, but they aren't where they should be yet, so it was a benchmark.
In my teens I started examining what I was being told. Most of the examples of "oppression' I was told about were actually mere disagreement or diversity of opinion; the teaching of evolution, the public acknowledgement of other holidays in December besides Christmas, polite refusals to listen to evangelism, these are *not* oppression. I compared my experience as a Christian with my experience as a Black girl; Christianity was *everywhere* in the US, often assumed to be the default, whereas being Black often made me unusual or unique in the places where I found myself (such as boarding school). Being a Christian tended to help me relate to people I didn't know; being Black tended to be an obstacle. And so on.
Eventually I left Christianity for several reasons, not least because I felt that as a Christian I was part of, contributing to, inflicting the same kinds of oppression on non-Christians that I felt myself experiencing as a Black woman. In fact, even worse kinds.
So, that's my take on it. As someone who was a Christian for the first two-thirds or so of her life, I *don't* think Christians are oppressed in the wider US society. There are some segments where I have observed that they are to varying degrees, but not in the US as a whole.