<title>So on a Jewish influencer’s video about Passover preparations, someone asked why she does all that,…</title>
<description><p><a class="tumblr_blog" href="https://hydrofelicity.tumblr.com/post/780302541344882688/so-yeah-christians-are-often-just-like-that-but">hydrofelicity</a>:</p><blockquote><p><a class="tumblr_blog" href="https://westiec.tumblr.com/post/780299856889692160/hi-raised-christian-though-not-evangelical-in-a">westiec</a>:</p><blockquote><p><a class="tumblr_blog" href="https://starlightomatic.tumblr.com/post/780292777016754176/so-on-a-jewish-influencers-video-about-passover">starlightomatic</a>:</p><blockquote><p>So on a Jewish influencer’s video about Passover preparations, someone asked why she does all that, and a Christian popped in to explain that none of this is necessary because of Jesus. When it was explained to them that we don’t believe in Jesus or the New Testament and these things have no relevance in our religion, they got upset and started insisting Jesus is the son of God. Throughout the whole thing, they kept stating their beliefs as though they were objective fact (eg “Jesus is the son of God,” rather than “in Christianity we believe Jesus is the son of God.” </p><p>They acted as though these are all obvious and self-evident truths; one of them acted shocked that someone would see Jesus as just a random person of no significance, and another said that Jews are not doing right by God because we are rejecting Him by rejecting Jesus.</p><p>Now, none of this is particularly shocking, but I have questions for Christians and folks raised Christian:</p><p>- Why do people act like this?</p><p>- Do they know how unwelcome these kinds of comments are? Are they doing it anyway to prove a point?</p><p>- Why do they state their beliefs as fact when they know the people who are talking to don’t share them? Do they think they’ll convert us this way?</p><p>- Does it just really offend them that some people aren’t into Jesus and they can’t compute?</p><p>- Do they know that they’re being disrespectful and don’t care, or do they not know?</p><p>[As always, I cannot respond to replies, so if you reply and I don’t acknowledge it I’m not ignoring you.]</p></blockquote><p>Hi, raised Christian (though not evangelical) in a heavily evangelical part of the US. I’ll take a stab at these.</p><p><b>Why do people act like this?</b></p><p>Christians are taught to. Christians, particularly evangelicals, are explicitly taught to “always be ready to share The Truth” (TM, captial letters, because they do indeed conceptualize it to be the singular objective truth, and see “belief” as merely a matter of accepting or not accepting that truth) in any circumstances, no matter how little they can expect it to be welcomed.</p><p><b>Do they know how unwelcome these kinds of comments are? Are they doing it anyway to prove a point?</b></p><p>Absolutely yes, and… kinda, though not always intentionally. The Christian Martyr Complex is real — you are taught that your message of The Truth ™ will be unwelcome, because [insert bigoted assertions about people who are not Christians here] and they do not want to hear The Truth ™. </p><p>The part they don’t tell you is that this rude, unwelcome, and frankly ineffective kind of proselytizing mainly serves the purpose of reinforcing every terrible assertion your Christian Leaders have made about The Non-Christian World when people react in entirely predictable fashion to being browbeaten with an aggressive Jesus sales pitch. “See?” they’ll say, “Jesus warned us the world would reject his followers.”</p><p><b>Why do they state their beliefs as facts when they know the people they are talking to don’t share them? Do they really think they’ll convert us this way?</b></p><p>See above about the Christian definitions of Truth ™ and belief — they have convinced themselves (or allowed themselves to be convinced) that anyone who does not practice Christianity is consciously rejecting the simple facts of the universe, or has been fooled into doing so. “Jesus is the son of God” is to them as factual as “water is wet.” Whether they’ll succeed in converting anyone is irrelevant — after all, failures are recast as evidence that Christianity has The Truth ™ the world refuses to hear.</p><p><b>Does it just really offend them that some people aren’t into Jesus and they can’t compute?</b></p><p>Yes. And more than offend — the really emphatic ones? The ones who really, truly, in their heart of hearts believe they’re doing the work of God? They’re heartbroken and confused that people aren’t eagerly jumping on their invitation to convert. They’ll double down harder next time.</p><p><b>Do they know they’re being disrespectful and don’t care, or do they not know?</b></p><p>It varies, in my experience. Some Christians know it’s disrespectful, but believe that an opportunity for people to hear The Truth ™ is more important than any etiquette. Other Christians simply don’t — have been <i>taught not to</i> — see how disrespectful they’re being. Both of these tend to take a view of like… “But people <i>need</i> this message. If they understood, wouldn’t they be grateful we never gave up?”</p><p>This type of Christian <i>doesn’t</i> fully respect other beliefs, at the end of the day. They <i>can’t</i>. They cannot view Judaism, in particular, as anything other than a prequel to Christianity. Holding this worldview in earnest depends on thinking of every other belief as an active rejection of The Truth ™ that Christians are called to proclaim, and it fucks ‘em up big time.</p><p>-</p><p>I have a dear friend who once told me that, as a child, they used to cry and pray that my family would accept Jesus and come to <i>their</i> church, because they didn’t want to go to heaven one day and me not be there too.</p><p>-</p><p>Someone’s going to #Not All Christians this, I’m sure.</p><p>My parents raised my siblings and I with a more pluralistic view, with the idea that we believe X, Y, and Z, and other people believe other things, and that doesn’t make us right and them wrong, because the world is vast and complicated, and God even moreso. </p><p>Even so, I think my parents believe the faith they practice is a little <i>more</i> right. That Christian conception of The Truth ™ as something singular and knowable — as something <i>special</i> to Christianity — seeps into everything.</p><p>-</p><p>I don’t have a pithy conclusion for this, and I don’t think any of the above makes that kind of behavior any less rude or inappropriate. But that’s why. It’s baked in.</p></blockquote><p>So yeah, Christians are often just like that, but this dynamic is actually really specific to Jewish/Christian interactions. Not only were Christians taught that Jesus fixed all the wrong things about Judaism to make Christianity (there are people who’ll even say that it’s not a new religion, just the true continuation of Judaism), the first few books of the new testament are about Jews, and with some exceptions, only Jews, taking Jesus to be their messiah. </p><p>So the Jesus stories Christian children learn are about Jews learning “the truth” and Jesus arguing with the “corrupt” and “ignorant” religious leaders (there are songs. I will not repeat them here). Due to this, Jewish people are at a much higher risk of being treated as misguided rather than simply bad and wrong like other religions are. Anyway, when your religion depends on rejecting another one specifically, you’ll get people like that.</p><p>*source: grew up evangelical, at the kind of church that did cosplay seders for easter and took a long time to realize how fucking offensive it was</p></blockquote></description>
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<pubDate>Tue, 08 Apr 2025 20:24:41 -0400</pubDate>