THE WEAPONIZATION OF BELIEF

If ever there were a time for us to put aside our preconceived notions about others and truly think critically, that time is now.  Through the mediums of social media and the 24 hour news cycle, the weaponizing of belief systems to divide us and to shut down connective conversations is more prevalent and persuasive than ever.  If you've ever listened to an episode of this podcast you will know not to expect a takedown of any particular ideology or subject and this conversation will be no different.  So if you've come here for any other reason than to better understand how to listen and speak with grace about the seeds of division being sewn amongst people all over the world, I would kindly ask you to find something else to do with your time.  But if you want to challenge yourself to look for understanding across religious or political belief systems and look for the intersections of our shared humanity, please stay and join the conversation.  Still here?  Ok good - let's get into it...

Transcript

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This is Unsided.

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Unsided.

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Hey everybody, it's Christopher. Welcome back to another episode of Unsided. I'm so happy to have you with me. I have a rather delicate subject to talk about today. It's not delicate for me, but it's delicate for a lot of people. And that is my experience being raised in the Christian church. And let me be really clear: this is not going to be a takedown of Christianity, nor is it going to be a takedown of religion. I don't do that. I'm not interested in that. That's very small-minded thinking, as far as I'm concerned. You know, I can tell you what my experience is, but trying to make a broad generalization for the rest of the world is not of interest to me. And making blanket statements about what's happening in our world around religion and Christianity is also something I'm not particularly interested in doing in this podcast, but I do think that you should be prepared for me to talk about how I believe that we have come to have large bodies of the population or a large percentage of the population that believes in a certain way because I think it's really interesting from a psychological point of view. And I'm also not the only person to talk about this, but I do feel like when I hear people talk about this, if I see them on TikTok, they're usually coming for that kind of rage bait. I don't hear a lot of really just intellectual critical thought around religion. I'm not saying it's not there at all or around Christianity specifically. I can't speak to other religions because I was raised in a Christian environment. I was raised in Oklahoma City, and part of my family is from a very small town outside of Oklahoma City. Now, my dad's side of the family is from Oklahoma, and they are church-going people. I would not say that they are let's meet at church every Sunday people, but if you ask them, there's a deep belief in Jesus and different people and God and the Christian uh I want to say ideology, that sounds negative. That's not what I mean. I mean, I don't mean it negatively, but you know, the Christian belief system. I mean, there were various denominations of Christianity. I ended up focusing on an assembly of God church. Um, my grandma, I think, went to a church of Christ. Um, there was disciples of Christ. There were Baptists, although I don't think we had a lot of Baptists in our family. And then my mom's side of the family are decidedly not church-going people. They were raised Catholic, they have their own sense of spirituality. You know, they're up in South Dakota, different vibe. But down in Oklahoma where I was raised, it was really the center of community. I mean, we did everything at the church. We had anniversaries at the church, we had obviously funerals, we had weddings, you know, we had family reunions, especially out in Cash and Oklahoma, where my family had settled long ago. Uh, it was very everything was kind of centered around the church. And I didn't think much of it growing up because here's what I think is important for people to understand. And I can speak again only to America, only to my being raised in the 70s, 80s, and early 90s in this environment and wanting to be a part of it. We are all born into the world, uh, a blank slate when it comes to how our societies function, uh, the rules of our community. Uh, nobody comes into this world that at least not that I can imagine, and certainly not that they could verbalize. You know, I guess I'm I'm trying to, for the sake of argument, imagine those people in my head in my head who are saying, oh no, absolutely, you're born into the world in Christianity, you're born X, Y, Z. Well, he, I don't believe anybody's born into the world being a Christian or a Muslim or anything else. You have to choose, you have to be indoctrinated. And again, indoctrination sounds like a bad, dirty word. I don't mean it that way. So I'm gonna ask you for the duration of this podcast to take your emotions out of it as much as possible. Because I don't think of these things with a great deal of emotion. I think of them with curiosity because I think what gets us into trouble is that we walk around thinking with so much emotion. And everything that we see, everything that we want to judge, everything that we see happening in the world around us, we have to have an opinion about, a feeling about, we we're angry about, we're happy about it. I don't find that very helpful. I've never found emotion in that sense very helpful. I find logic, I find critical thought helpful. Anyway, you should know that if you've been here listening to me long enough. So I was raised in this world where I was taught from my earliest rememberings that I was a flawed human. Now, this is this is really important in evangelical Christianity because in order to control the mass, in order to control the population, you have to tell the population that they are broken and that the solution lies outside of them. Because if you were to tell your congregation, hey, guess what? You're not broken, you're great, and you can make all the changes yourself, and you can choose what to believe, and there is no right or wrong. And the solution, you know, like Dorothy said, it it's she's always had it. You just got to click those heels. And that I believe is actually the truth. And we can get into more why I believe that is closer to the truth than anything that you might that I learned in a Christian church. But just thinking critically, it would make sense that they would tell us that we're broken. So you have today, you know, I see people struggling. My husband, who is who is not raised in America, he was raised in Africa and in Lebanon and then in Canada. He is here now in America. He's watching this kind of political, uncurrent political unfolding. And again, I'm gonna stop you here before you, you know, I turn the podcast off if you think that I'm gonna get, if I'm gonna annoy you and you think I'm gonna start getting political. I'm not, but I'm gonna talk about it logically because we are watching a big division in our country right now, and a lot of it is centered around what people are calling Christian nationalism. Now, I can't really speak to that. That's not been my experience, but I can tell you that I understand how easily that base was pulled together for a common cause. Because that base was taught to believe, having grown up in that world and having still family members living in that world who are good, solid, lovely people, they were born to believe that they all had to have a collective enemy, the one who was keeping them from being a whole person, the enemy that that Jesus defeated by dying for our sins on the cross. And all we have to do is ask for forgiveness and be washed in the blood of Christ, and that will defeat the enemy. But what that still does is it puts the solution outside of us and it puts the enemy outside of us. So, you know, all the way back to the Bible itself, you know, as a piece of doctrine, literature, like a great book of parables, whatever you choose to call it, or the word of God, whatever you choose to call it, it starts with that thing that is outside of man and woman and that evil that comes in to sway us away from God. And I know now that for for myself anyway, I understand now that those parables are really beautiful things, you know, and maybe that's for another episode. But I have come to understand and to appreciate where Christianity actually is birthed from, as I have studying many other religions. But we're talking here about why this particular group of people was able to be weaponized politically. And I do say weaponized because from both sides there are there are weapons formed. Okay. And on one particular side, we are watching Christianity be put at the center of so much of the conversation. So we have to look at the why and the how. And we also, I think it's very important to understand that a lot of people who are participating in this are not what other Christians would call Christians. So it's being bastardized, right? And that's what becomes fascinating. And how is it being bastardized? And certainly there are people in positions of leadership who are not Christian who are claiming to be Christian so that they can control a piece of the population. And certainly there are people that would listen to every word I had to say, including my own family, and tell me that I was delusional for being logical and critical and thoughtful. And that's their opinion. And that's fine with me. But what I'm interested in is understanding how I can explain to my husband or other people why this group of people is so easily manipulated. And it's because they have no, you're you're I was taught as a Christian to have no agency. And the beautiful thing is that I have a lot of wonderful memories of being at church and around people in the Christian church and, you know, very, very kind, loving people. There are some beautiful, lovely, lovely people who call themselves Christians. And it hurts my heart to hear people not being more critical in their thinking. It hurts my heart to hear people grouping another group of people into a place of pure evil and negativity. Because let me tell you what I know for sure. In my life experience, there is negativity and what one would call evil or a lack of compassion or whatever it is everywhere in every grouping of people. Everywhere. I've never been a part of any group without seeing some form of that. Okay? So to say that it's, you know, that that everything in in the Christian community, everyone in the Christian community, is to be painted with the same brush is inaccurate and not helpful to the conversation because what we have to understand is how is a certain group of people so emboldened and so angry? Let me tell you, imagine an entire life without agency. Imagine an entire life where it feels like everything is done to you and your reward is to be given to you after you die. And I say that with some emotion, actually. I'm realizing it as I say it, because I do feel like I have watched people in my family and for myself for a period of time put my immediate happiness aside because I was too busy thinking about how I could get to the other side and have that happiness. Get to the other side and have that reward. You know, I was the president of my youth group at the Assembly of God Church that I went to, but I didn't officially start fervently going to church until I was in junior high, and I think later in junior high, and then through high school. Um my mother did not choose to take me to church every week, neither did my father. I knew that they both had their own belief system, but they pretty much let me figure it out for myself. I was just surrounded by the community. So in order to make friends or have a group or, you know, uh to feel connected, I chose church. I didn't, I was a performer, I did theater, I sang. That was a little awkward in Oklahoma, frankly. It's not like there weren't beautiful, wonderful, successful people around me who also did that. I mean, I went to school with James Marsden and Kristen Chenna with uh was I I did my first professional show with her, and she was a coach at my high school. Uh and like I I got I was around that, but that community was small. So, in order to feel connected to everybody else in the school, I went to church. And then I was kind of accepted. See, I was also outside of the norm. I didn't know that I was queer at the time, but I knew that I was different. And everybody else knew that I was different. You know, I got bullied a lot. I just felt outside. So church was a really easy thing to come into. Now, I don't look back at my church experience when I was the president of the youth group and doing all that. I don't look back at that as people having done anything to me. Because here's the other thing that I think is really important to remember people can become brainwashed in any capacity, but it's not fair to say that all Christians are brainwashed. I was able to come and go as I please. Nobody forced me to do anything. I always had a bit of the feeling that I didn't care if people approved of what I was or wasn't doing, and maybe some people don't have that, but plenty of people who join any organization later decide to leave that organization. I wouldn't call uh, you know, people talk about this group currently in our country as being a cult. And I think it's important to separate what the cult that they're talking about is from Christianity. And I am not agreeing with anything here. I'm gonna make that, I'm gonna keep saying that because it's important for you to understand that so that you can keep your brain in the critical thought space. Because when thinking critically, I think what people sometimes forget is it's gonna sound like you're taking one side or the other because it's important to fully explore. So I have thought about this, and I do not think that what people are saying politically is a cult, is is directly and completely connected to Christianity. I think there are a group of those people who are Christian or call themselves Christian or work under that guise, whatever. And then there are people who are Christian who it's an it's an entirely different thing. So when I talked about the weaponization here, you know, anything can be weaponized. Any religion, any political point of view, and any anything can be weaponized. And I think that what we see on this one side of this group of people who have felt very disenfranchised because they have no agency. And oftentimes, you know, Christians are taught, I was taught that it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are the meek, I think it is. And we are kind of inherently taught to be humble, you know, and you give your 10% every week and you pray that God will give you enough. And it's not like there weren't wealthy people around, but there are plenty of very poor people who found their way into Christianity, in my experience as a child. Because in the moment when you feel like life is falling apart, it's really nice to believe that there's something outside of you that has your back. Of course. We all want that. And those of us who are not Christians, whatever your religion is, or maybe you have no religion, there are things we look to. It's human nature. We look to something to give us the okay. One of my daughters says that she's an atheist, so we have this conversation a lot because she's only 13 years old, and I really want to understand what that means for her. And even in her atheism, there are things that she looks to to give her a feeling that she's not alone. And that's what we all do. And so some people really respond to Christianity. And in my experience of Christianity, the thing that was hardest for me was that I felt like my idea, my understanding of my worth was completely outside of me. That never resonated very well with me. And it could have just been my interpretation of Christianity, particularly because I was queer even before I knew what it was. I was looking to figure out okay, how could I be okay? Like AA for some people, or NA or or meditation groups, or whatever it is, we go where we feel like we can find community or others who are broken in a way where we, even if we don't share how we're broken, we don't feel alone. Because we've all got something going on. We've all got something we're ashamed of, we've all got something that we want to hide. And what's really easy to do with religion is to take those people who feel broken or like they have no agency, give them a common enemy, and then use that to wield power. And that's what we see happening right now. And I left the Christian church because I wanted to explore other theologies and ideologies, and because I knew deep within my soul that it is impossible that there is one right answer. It just does not make sense. If you look around the earth, the world, the at nature, at evolution, there's there's no such thing as a right and a wrong. I spend so much time in the forest and I see death and destruction and decay at the same time as I see life and birth. And the same is true of religion or any belief system. You can't possibly be holding the one truth, the beacon that will attract those people who just happen to find their way to it and everybody else is, for lack of a better word, fucked. I don't like to use that word very often. I mean, I do in private, but not here because I don't know who's listening. But it I I just it's the perfect word because it's absurd. It sounds absurd. So my experience of Christianity, let me be clear, was not bad. It was eye-opening. It gives me still love for those who choose to believe the basic Christian tenets, which are due unto others, and to love and to give to the least and to accept. That is Christianity as it's and I'm not even being a proponent of Christianity when I say that. I just that's what I believe it to be. And I think the core of many religions that are misunderstood, which I guess all religions are by those who are not part of that religion or that community, most of them, in my experience, have that, those same tenets. But you cannot control people if you stop there, which is why religion is often used, and I saw Christianity begin to be used to control, and is being used to control now a lot, and it's giving Christianity a terrible name. And I'm not saying that Christianity didn't have a terrible name. You can have your own thoughts and opinions. I'm just I'm talking about taking it down to the base. I'm talking about when I talk about these things, I'm not talking about all of the horrible acts that have been perpetrated in the name of. I'm talking about if you're sitting down with a group of people who haven't done any of those things and they're saying, What do you love about Christianity? i.e., you know, what do you love about Islam? What do you love about Judaism? They're gonna come to some similar themes, right? And it's it's not about hurting and harming and controlling. But that's where we find ourselves now. And as we look at Christianity, I think it's better for those of us who are really trying to understand to know that, you know, there are a lot of people who they can't find their way up because they believe that their agency is outside of them and they don't believe that they're blessed, and they believe that they're sinful, and they have things that they're hiding, and they go to church and they commit to the church and they commit to the people who are speaking at the church because it gives them something to hold on to. And they can't even possibly, you know, look necessarily and see, because if they were to say, Oh, wait a minute, let me question everything I believe in, they have to question their community, they have to question their spouse, they have to, they have to question everything, and they may end up losing all of that. And people crave community, and people will take that community wherever they can get it, no matter how harmful it may be to other people, as long as they can feel okay. And I'm not excusing it, but I think it's very important to look at that because we start to look at people and call them horrible and stupid and awful and sure, maybe their actions are, maybe we don't agree with it. And this can be on any side of the political aisle, by the way. For those of you who are going, who are really keeping this, you know, are being politically minded about what you're listening to from me. We don't stop to understand and evaluate and allow space for the whole human, and we just start talking to each other across social media and and you know, we don't really get to know one another, and maybe there's not even the opportunity to do that, but it makes no sense to me to just throw insults of being crazy or horrible or awful. And I'm not telling you I don't feel that way sometimes. And I'm a little more centrist in some ways because I have to be, because my brain wants me to think of all sides. Because I don't really believe that many people are inherently bad or evil. Where, again, it goes back to that blank slate thing. We're all kind of born into a blank slate. And when I was born into that blank slate in Oklahoma and the community around me was Christian, what was I going to do? I was gonna learn from that. I was gonna be pulled into that, I was gonna appreciate that. I felt this Holy Spirit so many times. I've also felt it in meditation. Now I know what it is. It's just me connecting to something higher than myself. And so I think perhaps because I was part of it and then I left it, you know, I you might expect me to be one of those people who just wants to bash it. I don't want to bash anything. I want to encourage us to stop and ask questions and think. Think, think, think. We hate because we we dehumanize on both sides, and then we keep saying, Well, but they did that and they did that. Yeah, I have a lot of people in. In my Christian community, I think who that I don't ag or in the community I grew up with that I don't agree with that their belief system directly opposes my life, especially as a queer man with an immigrant husband. You know, I I I accept that. And and I can I can choose not to participate in that energy, and I can choose to even actually make moves in my life to counteract that energy. But what I don't choose to do is sit on this side of that conversation and just refuse to ask questions and see it as a multidimensional issue and people as human beings. Because you know what happens when we refuse to think more critically? We just continue the same cycles over and over and over and over. And the person who was victimized then becomes the uh aggressor. And then it goes in a cycle because everybody holds on to past hate, everybody dehumanizes, everybody decides. You know, the people on whatever the opposite side of your belief system is, there are, you know, if you really hate or have strong feelings or or have painted a particular group with a broad stroke of disgust, there's a group doing that to you as well, and they believe just as fervently that they are correct. And the only way, the only way forward is for everybody to drop all of that and sit down and communicate. Is that actually going to happen? I don't, I don't actually think it's supposed to happen. But I mean, if you want to look at it logically, we would all have to drop all of our past hatred, our past understandings, our past whatever, and come to the table and really do our best to give people grace. And that is what I really learned from Christianity is grace, even as a non-Christian person now. And so the people who are doing things and saying things that I don't agree with that are hurtful and harmful, yeah, I can stand up for myself, but I give them grace. And I give myself grace. I don't want to hold on to it. I can go through periods of anger and frustration and even fear, but they they must be given grace for my sake. Because I don't want to, I don't want to carry that around. I don't want to carry around my anger. I don't want to carry around, I don't want to look at someone and decide I know exactly who they are in every moment of their life because of a belief system they hold or a community they're a part of. And when I think about Christianity and why I wanted to talk about this, is not because I want us to, or I want you to suddenly forgive and forget whatever may be hurting you on either side, whether you're Christian or not Christian, or you know, even if you're listening and you don't like queer people, you don't like me, whatever. What I would like to see is for people to allow themselves to stop and really think and really see people and open our eyes. And again, we can decide that those people are not my people. But this hatred that keeps getting tossed back and forth and the not stopping to understand why people are the way they are. So I could speak to Christianity, but it's just one example, and it doesn't have to just be around religion. But the conversation is I understand why Christianity has taken the path that it's taken in the West. I understand how people could be brought to think the way they think. I can understand how power and control and fear is used based upon how people are taught and based upon people's need for community and to fit in and to hold a common belief system with others so that nobody's so afraid of death and what comes next. I get it. And I also understand how hard it is to extricate oneself from that. I was 17 when I left the church and I was going to the college. But imagine that I stayed behind and suddenly my whole community how would I how would I leave my community? I also had the advantage of being queer, which already meant I was outside, but imagine that I was straight and I didn't have anywhere else to go. That was my community, that's what I was supposed to be doing. How do I ask the questions? It's just important for us to understand that. And it's important for Christians to understand that about people who are not Christian. And it's important for, you know, people who are Republican or Democrat to look at the other side, or independent, or agnostic, or atheist, or whatever. We are always in a continued exploration of our understanding of humanity and how and why people and humans function the way that they do, and how and why we form and build communities. We cannot stop asking questions. We can't just take up, continue to take up the mantle of these flat ideas of people and communities. And I don't know why I said flat, but it just feels so one-dimensional. And nothing will be born out of that. No connection will ever be made when you've decided you know exactly who people are before you've ever taken a moment to talk to them or think or give them some humanity. Anyway, I hope that that gives you something to think about. And I imagine if you listen to me, you probably already feel that way, but I feel terribly passionate about this. In fact, more passionate about this than I do anything. Not the religion part per se. That was just the entree into the conversation. I feel very passionately that that the only way to true connection is through understanding and acceptance. And allowing and letting go of preconceived notions and old anger and of understanding that we are all born a blank slate and that some people are born into a situation they didn't ask for. And the more that we offer them understanding, the more we offer each other understanding, the more that people can feel encouraged to change and to look at their community, and to hopefully bridge the gap and make real and lasting change in our world. It's the only way. Maybe it's pie in the sky, but it's the only way. Wherever you are, I hope you're great. I look forward to talking to you again very soon. Until then.

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