Yeah, I think part of it is a belief of a lot of Christians have that Christianity is The Way and everyone's in danger of going to hell if society isn't (a certain kind of) Christian enough (which can create a sense of being surrounded by threats), part of it is simply being so used to having things accommodate your own (sub)culture that even little changes made to accommodate someone else seem like a major imposition, and part of it is simply only feeling one's own pain (and not having enough experience with other perspectives to see them as real people who can feel pain, too).
What kind of scares me is, despite how easily offended and even vocal I got on behalf of Christianity, I was always inclined to be quiet about my faith, or even not to have religious faith at all. But on top of being trained as Christian by intelligent, nice people whose judgment I trusted (and learning all non-Christians go to hell when they die), I kept hearing about how Jesus suffered so much, Christians were thrown to lions in ancient Rome, a Christian girl at Columbine was shot in the head after one of the shooters asked if she believed in God, some girl was publicly questioned and started crying when she volunteered to speak about how homosexuality is wrong on some daytime talk show, a teenager in the Middle East was beaten to death for bringing a Bible home, some teacher at a public school got fired for not teaching evolution in his science class, and all sorts of examples (verified as truth or not) of Christians being a persecuted minority. We were the Good Guys who wanted everyone to live wholesome lives and go to Heaven, so anyone who saw us as threatening was simply misjudging us from their own ignorance or trying to justify continuing their lives of sin. And since only Christians stay out of hell, we had a responsibility toward our fellow human beings to make the Christian, too. So shame on the cowards who are quiet about being Christian! You aren't true Christians (and only true Christians stay out of hell)! That was enough to even get my private, quiet little self to feel threatened by the rest of society and speak up in class once or twice about little things that offended me as a Christian, or once or twice even test the waters to see if I had any chance of converting a few non-Christian friends I didn't want sent to hell. (I don't think it's a coincidence that I was most easily offended on behalf of Christianity when I felt least able to defend my belief in it, but I was still afraid of my loved ones going to hell.)
So I guess that's one way of getting to feel like you're persecuted when you're actually in the majority--the problems come from within, and you don't get enough experience listening to others (or being challenged) to put your problems in perspective. And then once it starts feeling bad being challenged, it's easy to cling to the idea of being an oppressed minority to avoid having to really question yourself or change your ways even just enough to accommodate anyone else.
Thank you for the well thought out explanation, Niki. I definitely can understand the perspective from which you came. I suppose, to compare to my own life, when I was an animal rights radical, I truly believed that each person "converted" to vegetarianism would not only live a longer, healthier life, but I was saving animals, the environment, and starving people every time I got someone to choose vegetarian over a meat option. It wasn't that simple in reality, but that was what I believed, and my behavior reflected that. It was also comforting to believe that my choices had such an enormous impact across multiple issues. If one really and truly believes that a loved one's immortal soul is in danger, I can see the urgency in "saving" that person, even to the point of making oneself unpopular or a nuisance. After all, eternity in hell is infinitely worse than even starving children, global warming, and factory-farming atrocities! :)
Because of this, I have to admit that my skin crawls when I see dozens of Vacation Bible School signs pop up every summer or when I hear a parent say s/he homeschools a child because learning to live with diverse people and hear different perspectives is so essential to a person making an informed choice about what they believe.
I remember the temptation to go overboard with animal rights and eco-friendliness myself! My friends and I would draw posters about how important those things were... using lots of poster paper and drawing with crayon, which our school said made the paper non-recyclable at the time. Oops. :S
Of course, I can only go so far in my understanding of people who intrude on others' rights and privacy in the name of saving souls, no matter how much they believe it. One has to ask, "What about people of other religions who have similarly serious beliefs--but simply aren't in the majority?" And I would think that if a person is super concerned with saving souls the best they can (especially instead of making sure they get recognition for Having Faith), they'd be serious about learning the best ways to get people to see their way of thinking. I would then think that would require them to not only learn about the other people and their beliefs, but also to learn to question their own religion (and privilege) with another's point of view in mind so they can better explain it and make it look more appealing and logical. I know I'm personally much more likely to explore alternatives to what I'm already comfortable with when I feel like an equal to the person talking to me (and like they've tried very hard to do their homework and have genuinely had some of the same doubts as me), and when a person approaches me like "I am the superior and you can either learn for me or shut up," (even if they're not aware that's how they come off) I get knee-jerk cynical. But maybe that's just me.
That makes my skin crawl too--my cousins were home-schooled because my super religious aunt and uncle thought even the local Christian schools weren't good enough (for religiousness), and I've seen some not-pretty results from them. (Fond memories of one cousin telling a friend of mine "The Jews are blind" in an e-mail, and said friend happened to be from a Jewish family. And then my cousin acted more distressed for learning that her northeastern, public-schooled cousins actually socialized with any people who aren't Protestant than sorry for having said such a thing. :\)
What kind of scares me is, despite how easily offended and even vocal I got on behalf of Christianity, I was always inclined to be quiet about my faith, or even not to have religious faith at all. But on top of being trained as Christian by intelligent, nice people whose judgment I trusted (and learning all non-Christians go to hell when they die), I kept hearing about how Jesus suffered so much, Christians were thrown to lions in ancient Rome, a Christian girl at Columbine was shot in the head after one of the shooters asked if she believed in God, some girl was publicly questioned and started crying when she volunteered to speak about how homosexuality is wrong on some daytime talk show, a teenager in the Middle East was beaten to death for bringing a Bible home, some teacher at a public school got fired for not teaching evolution in his science class, and all sorts of examples (verified as truth or not) of Christians being a persecuted minority. We were the Good Guys who wanted everyone to live wholesome lives and go to Heaven, so anyone who saw us as threatening was simply misjudging us from their own ignorance or trying to justify continuing their lives of sin. And since only Christians stay out of hell, we had a responsibility toward our fellow human beings to make the Christian, too. So shame on the cowards who are quiet about being Christian! You aren't true Christians (and only true Christians stay out of hell)! That was enough to even get my private, quiet little self to feel threatened by the rest of society and speak up in class once or twice about little things that offended me as a Christian, or once or twice even test the waters to see if I had any chance of converting a few non-Christian friends I didn't want sent to hell. (I don't think it's a coincidence that I was most easily offended on behalf of Christianity when I felt least able to defend my belief in it, but I was still afraid of my loved ones going to hell.)
So I guess that's one way of getting to feel like you're persecuted when you're actually in the majority--the problems come from within, and you don't get enough experience listening to others (or being challenged) to put your problems in perspective. And then once it starts feeling bad being challenged, it's easy to cling to the idea of being an oppressed minority to avoid having to really question yourself or change your ways even just enough to accommodate anyone else.
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Because of this, I have to admit that my skin crawls when I see dozens of Vacation Bible School signs pop up every summer or when I hear a parent say s/he homeschools a child because learning to live with diverse people and hear different perspectives is so essential to a person making an informed choice about what they believe.
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Of course, I can only go so far in my understanding of people who intrude on others' rights and privacy in the name of saving souls, no matter how much they believe it. One has to ask, "What about people of other religions who have similarly serious beliefs--but simply aren't in the majority?" And I would think that if a person is super concerned with saving souls the best they can (especially instead of making sure they get recognition for Having Faith), they'd be serious about learning the best ways to get people to see their way of thinking. I would then think that would require them to not only learn about the other people and their beliefs, but also to learn to question their own religion (and privilege) with another's point of view in mind so they can better explain it and make it look more appealing and logical. I know I'm personally much more likely to explore alternatives to what I'm already comfortable with when I feel like an equal to the person talking to me (and like they've tried very hard to do their homework and have genuinely had some of the same doubts as me), and when a person approaches me like "I am the superior and you can either learn for me or shut up," (even if they're not aware that's how they come off) I get knee-jerk cynical. But maybe that's just me.
That makes my skin crawl too--my cousins were home-schooled because my super religious aunt and uncle thought even the local Christian schools weren't good enough (for religiousness), and I've seen some not-pretty results from them. (Fond memories of one cousin telling a friend of mine "The Jews are blind" in an e-mail, and said friend happened to be from a Jewish family. And then my cousin acted more distressed for learning that her northeastern, public-schooled cousins actually socialized with any people who aren't Protestant than sorry for having said such a thing. :\)
This is an interesting discussion. :)
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