Over the past couple of centuries, Christianity has come to terms with its lower status. It has adapted, and become more tolerant of alternative views. Few Christians today condone the burning of heretics at the stake, or forced conversions. Most American Christians now accept the fact that we have always had homosexuals in our midst, and that they are not going anywhere. They don’t throw homosexuals off of roofs, or hang them from cranes.
But a new Christmas comedy has many Christians up in arms. From Yahoo Entertainment:
A Christmas comedy special which implies Jesus was gay is no laughing matter for more than a million angry viewers, who have signed a petition demanding it is pulled from Netflix on the grounds that it is offensive to Christians.
As the New York Daily News reports, The First Temptation of Christ from Brazil-based YouTube comedy group Porta dos Fundos is causing a stir with its irreverent take on the holiday. In addition to a weed-smoking Mary, the 46-minute special sees Jesus — accompanied by a flamboyant male friend — coming home to a surprise birthday party in his honor. Jesus appears to try to conceal his friend, who later joins the party and belts out an eyebrow-raising holiday ditty that includes the lyrics “In the heat of the desert I saw the size of his huge … power.”
Those upset over the depiction are calling for Netflix to stop streaming the special, with more than 1.1 million people signing a petition. Comments left by critics have accused Porta dos Fundos (which translates to Back Door) of showing religious discrimination and “derision and disrespect for the faith of the Catholic Church and especially for God.”
“No one is obliged to believe in Jesus Christ, but we demand respect for our beliefs…”
I can see how Christians would be upset by this movie – but this sort of mockery has been ongoing for decades. Why are they suddenly so thin-skinned?
I don’t blame Christians; I blame Islam, and not because I’m an Alt-Right/neo-Nazi/fascist/white-supremacist/hater.
It’s not any of that. We need to view things in context, and see past what’s on the surface. On the surface, this is a Christian phenomenon. Dig deeper, and we see that it’s actually (at least in part) a Muslim phenomenon.
As the Muslim population has grown in the West, it has become more and more bold in demanding that everybody else honor their beliefs. When a Danish cartoonist depicted Mohammad in his cartoons, there were…
… protests across the world in late January and early February 2006. Some escalated into violence resulting in more than 250 reported deaths, attacks on Danish and other European diplomatic missions, attacks on churches and Christians, and a boycott of Denmark.
When the French satirical weekly, Charlie Hebdo, published unflattering images of Mohammad, Muslims…
… forced their way into the offices of the French satirical weekly newspaper Charlie Hebdo in Paris. Armed with rifles and other weapons, they killed 12 people and injured 11 others
When Nike released a shoe that appeared to have the word “Allah” on its bottom, it was pressured to recall the shoes.
There are many more examples of Muslim hypersensitivity, and if I were to list them all, this would be a long post indeed. Pressuring non-Muslims to adhere to Muslim sensibilities is a way of projecting power. Each time they do this, Islam becomes a little more alpha. Muslim men become a little more attractive to females, and Islamic political clout increases a little more.
This is a zero-sum game. To a naive person, giving in to such pressure looks like “progress.” To such a person, it means we’re becoming more advanced, and more sensitive to the feelings of others. But the opposite is true. What it actually means is the West is ceding its civilization in bite-sized pieces – to a force that will not, in the long run, reciprocate. I’m not speaking of individual Muslims, but of the Ummah as a whole.
Christians see this, either consciously, or subconsciously, and think, “We’re losing. If this keeps up, we’ll be defeated and overrun.”
What should the Christian response be? If they attack Islam directly, they know they’ll be relentlessly attacked as bigots, racists and Islamophobes. It’s less risky to adapt, and do as the Muslims do: Become as thin-skinned as their rivals. React with outrage every time their religion is mocked. Very few Christians would go so far as to massacre those who insult Jesus; that’s not what Jesus taught (he wasn’t like Mohammad), but they will sign petitions. At this point, it’s impossible to tell how much of Christian outrage is natural, and how much is a reaction to Islamic outrage.
Islamic activism has left Christians with little choice but to react in kind. Islam is partly to blame for the ratcheting up of political correctness, and the insidious loss of freedom of speech.
Interesting that you offer this as a follow up to your review of “No Safe Spaces”, because it really indicates what needs to be done to fight off the forces of “social justice”.
I just saw “No Safe Spaces”, and I wasn’t surprised but still disappointed at the message it delivered, namely, a lot of bromides about “free speech”, the First Amendment, etc. Problem is that Dennis, Adam, Alan Dershowitz, Dave Rubin, Bret Weinstein and Heather Heying, Jordan Peterson, Lindsay Shepherd, et al. don’t realize that this has long since been a matter of live and let live.
The Left has increasingly made it clear that they believe that those of us who hold the beliefs we do have no right to exist, and have made themselves the judges, and in some cases, executioners. Unless we realize that this is an existential threat to thousands of ordinary citizens just trying to live their lives unmolested (just the other day I read about a German real estate agent brutally assaulted by Antifa storm troopers in her own home), we will be living our lives in fear.
The only remedy to this is to respond as proportionately with violence as necessary. Let them know that if the First Amendment is going to be trashed, then WE will tell YOU what you can say and think, and back it up by force and intimidation.
And my the way, I’m a fellow Tribesman. I love this blog!
Hi 370. Thanks for the great comment. It’s a topic I’ll expand upon shortly. It’s always nice to see other Jews who are sympathetic to the truth.