Even then, without a strong immune system you're toast.
that's a really interesting thing to say. if you don't mind my asking, do you wear it earnestly in the sense of being able to talk to Christians in their own language, or in the sense of (temporarily) being an earnest Christian?
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I find there are levels, and the deeper you go, the larger the risks and rewards. Adopting the language of the listener is just good communications practice, but it comes with the risk of picking up bad definitions, being perceived as patronizing...and I’m sure there are others.
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To illustrate one risk: when I use evangelical theology to argue politics with my parents, who know me to be a persuasive troll, they are right to be wary or even angry: it’s unkind if the subtext is “I keep your brain inside my brain just for kicks,” it’s condescending.
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In other cases it can be fine. In some, maybe most of those cases, the person you’re talking to probably assumes I agree with them, and some subset of those will be very offended if they learn you were just meeting them in their meme-space.
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To illustrate that risk: It never occurred to one of my closest friends of many years that perhaps I wasn’t a communist, until one day I mentioned that I appreciate apsects of the free market, like being able to start a business without approval of a party official.
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The conversation that followed, in which I pointed out that the market economy had actually done quite a bit for disadvantaged people relative because of productivity increases and competition, she got very frustrated, screamed for me to leave, and ~never spoke to me again.
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I’ve also gone deeper, wearing Christianity earnestly, which I’ve found to be strangely useful. I grew up believing that Christian practices were contingent on belief. When I grew out of my faith, it didn’t occur to me that the practices might still work without it.
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At first, anyway. Then, 8-10 years later, I found myself trying to help a Christian I met in a coffee shop with writers block. I thought, based on what he’d said about his faith and his problem, that prayerful meditation before he tryed to start typing was likely to be helpful.
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He might have bought it had I not let him know that my faith was past tense, but I did, and it fucked up my otherwise compassionate intervention. Then I said “fuck it,” leapt in, (silently) prayed for wisdom, borrowed his Bible, and got the words and passage I needed immediately
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