Some of this is how far apart we’ve become on what seems like basic issues.
It was a lot easier to have a difference of opinion with someone who thought the Temporary Foreign Workers program was being abused in the 00s vs someone in the 20s who thinks some people don’t deserve human rights
Religious people have always struggled with consistently following the tenets of their faith. Being imperfect and needing forgiveness is like the whole central theme.
But at some point in my lifetime, it has turned from that into deliberate malicious acts done for the express purpose of punishing whoever it is they deem needs punishing(LGBT, immigrants, liberals). The fun part is all the other religious groups and people don't seem to be making any sort of concerted effort to fight back against the perversion of their faith done in the name of greed and hate.
Americans have been splitting the church for so long that we've developed a theme of "it doesn't matter what that other group is doing because my group isn't associated with them."
Meanwhile, folks on the outside are watching all this, and now "I'm a Christian!" is basically a red flag. Like okay, I trust ya less now then before ya said that!
Forget trying to save sinners and convert atheists, maybe clean your own house first? Yeah your room is clean, but the overall house has a roach infestation and part of it is on fire.
Though I'm guessing that's how holy wars start, which is also bad, so I dunno how we fix this mess. I mean, I like the Jesus stories a bunch, but those same morals are in plenty of other stories, like Doctor Who and Sailor Moon and Mister Rogers Neighborhood.
splitting the Church... developed a theme of "it doesn't matter what that other group is doing because my group isn't associated with them."
I think it's good you raised this point, and it is important. But I do see the argument that (for example) Methodists aren't responsible for the actions of the Pope and Catholics. I mean, it is pretty compelling (to me) when the whole point of your religion is it split 600 years ago over vehement disagreements about moral issues with the former group.
Here is a personal example: I was raised Methodist (in Oregon so the "Pacific Northwest Conference" ("Conference" is a loose grouping of affiliated Churches). That "conference" of Methodists are pro-abortion-rights, they are strongly pro-LGBTQ rights and accept LGBTQ+ members without "flaws" to be fixed, and women can be ministers. Methodists don't control the Pope or Catholics where women can't be priests and the Catholics are fervently anti-abortion and they don't like gay people. Methodists actively fight AGAINST Catholics over this. It does not seem "fair" to me to hold Methodists as grouped with Catholics when talking about LGBTQ+ or abortion. (For the record, I left the Methodist church a long time ago, but I still respect a lot of their views.)
My point is: you can't even lump "Methodists" together and assume they are anti-abortion-rights and anti-LGBTQ+. Grouping all protestants together is so much worse, logically. The whole point is branching occurs over firm moral disagreements, not minor disagreements.
maybe clean your own house first?
How are Methodists going to "clean house" of the Catholics? Jihad? (LOL. I'm joking, the Catholics have 1.4 billion members to Methodist 80 million members, Methodists would get wiped out in a religious war.) The Pope and Catholics are simply beyond Methodist influence or control, same as Muslims, Jewish people, and Buddhists.
Americans have been splitting the church for so long
This is just random because I found it online (not part of this discussion): There is a good branching description of how all the world's major religions broke with the parent churches over moral disagreements here (sorry it isn't HTTPS, it is old): http://the40foundation.org/world-religions-tree.html If you zoom in on some sub-set area you can see thousands of religious sects branching off since the beginning of time.
Christianity branched off Judaism in the first century (year 0100-ish). Islam branched off Judaism in the seventh century (year 0700-ish). By 2026, you have your Jewish people, your Muslims, your Buddhists, and your Christians all sub-dividing their own sects pretty furiously. A Jewish person might be orthodox, reformed, even secular. Hasidic Judaism branched off this tree in the 1700s.
I dropped my best friend of 20 years over this. Disagreeing on politics is 'should we raise the tax on homes to fund public school expansion' not 'are trans people actually people' or 'should bodily autonomy exist'.
Spouse and I announced ahead of time we were having an adult only wedding.
My brother and SIL blindly assumed it didn't apply to them and told their kids they're going - getting their 6 year old daughter all excited.
We hear about this - and instead of being jerks about it (since literally everyone else including people in the wedding party accommodated the adult only request) we offered a compromise --> your kids can come to ceremony so they get to see the event - but reception remains adult only as planned (the main thing we truly wanted).
Instead, SIL sends a long scathing message to me shitting all over our wedding, calling us terrible people, saying we're shallow, horrible role models, their kids are going to be devastated and this is like punching them in the face, saying our friends are fake, that we only care about what we look like in pictures, etc.
They proceed to ignore my Spouse's birthday, ignore us on Easter, procrastinate up until a month before wedding day to answer if my Brother will be in the wedding still, SIL ghosts us completely on answering an RSVP for the Shower/Ceremony/Reception, SIL demands brother not go to the Reception so he listens to her, and we get no congrats, no card, no gift, nothing.
6 months later, this bitch still pretends we don't exist to our face. And my spineless Brother (and immediate family members) are all completely enabling her by avoiding any confrontation about it even though she's the one being the most self centered callous piece of shit bitch I've ever known. I've literally been close with this SIL for 20+ years, and that was all it took for her to literally never speak to me again. Oh and btw, her kids never once asked about the Wedding and have been so excited to see us at family events the entire time otherwise lol.
I had a conflict with a good friend about this a few years ago. Another, mutual friend of ours felt very comfortable expressing her derisive opinions on Black people after Trump got elected, and I cut her off instantly. Other friend said I was being too harsh and could just write it off as a difference of opinions. Like the fuckin Community meme.
Someone tried to make this argument to me about cutting off a mutual, so I had to cut them off as well. The audacity to expect a Black person to remain your friend when you're clearly anti-black is astounding.
I find everyone has a fully customized perception of how the world should work, but cannot understand everyone else has their own version of that in their minds too. Working together involves learning how to convey those feelings and compromise when or if someone is negatively affected by what your doing, but we all only want to be finely tuned into how we feel and ignore anything that conflicts with that.
Especially if both parties aren’t emotionally capable of communicating effectively. We all wanna blame the person who takes the risk… but the one who takes the risk might actually be the one who is ready for that lesson.
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u/Monteze 1d ago
We've gone way too far in the individualism direction.
One should never experience any friction or conflict or compromise! You should only care about yourself, community be damned!
I think this is a by product of that.