This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
According to the latest polls, while up to 70% of Russians consider themselves Orthodox, 6% of those have been to the church within the past month, and 10% commit to fasts. Polls are subject to selection factors, but we have a specific number of those who were in church for Orthodox Christmas in 2024 - 1.4m people, which is about 1% of Russians.
Anecdotally, I live here and while I know a few people who were part of the faith as children, I know no one who has ever mentioned adhering to any religious ritual as an adult, aside from the universally enjoyable ones like eating the Easter pastries or painting eggs. Weddings rarely involve the church, too.
I have got the impression that unless you are extremely urban and Blue in USA, your circle of acquaintances will include practicing Christians to the point where they will not stand out. In Russia, the bubbles of atheists and the Orthodox do not appear to mix as much.
My observations fit my theory that the Russian Orthodox Church is largely grift and a tentacle of generic pro-state ideology.
I actually thought you were going to cite Anne Applebaum who's pointed out similar statistics that I'm aware of. Most Russians as I understand it are cultural Christians in the same sense Americans are cultural Christians in that they celebrate Christmas as a consumer holiday, not as a way to celebrate the glory of Jesus. That doesn't mean Christianity doesn't have a significant sway in both countries. The major reason the US foreign policy establishment is in hock to Israel is because of the massive amount of financial and religious support given to them by the Evangelicals and Christian Zionists in our country, both of which are heretical. That testifies to the institutional power an even secularized Christian society has in advancing their religious causes on the international stage.
You may be surprised to know that I've never formally attended Mass or a church before (in a devout ceremonial sense). Culturally, Christianity was a 'huge' influence in my local community as is Catholicism specifically in the case of my family. It is so huge in fact, that the secular community borrows heavily from the norms and habits largely introduced by Christians as part of their daily lives, without even recognizing it. You may say that that's not unique to Christianity, but Christianity has been the standard bearer for most of our practices from the day this country was founded. I'd argue that's probably historically the case in your country as well.
As I've gotten older, I've become even more attracted to the religion in the sense of a semi-devout or at least lay practitioner. That is to say someone that does more than just profess the faith and pays lip service to it but partakes in the demands and activity of it's more serious adherents. To call your tradition a "grift" I think is an insult to your history. That it's an ideology in league with functioning of the state system isn't a surprise because that hasn't been a historical anathema anywhere in the world and to any religion that's ever coevolved with state institutions.
I did not call "my tradition" a grift, and certainly not the broader kind of traditions that stem from Christianity without being explicitly recognized as religious. I called the church, as in the government-adjacent institution, a grift.
Regarding Christmas as a consumer holiday, it might provide some perspective that while in the Catholic West, as I understand, Christmas is synonymous with the winter holidays and New Year's Eve is an afterthought, in Russia New Year's Eve is synonymous with the winter holidays and Christmas is an afterthought. It is not nearly popular enough to be a consumer holiday.
I don’t know how you can speak meaningfully of Orthodox Christianity without the church. That’s like speaking about governance without the state. By this logic most of Christian history the world over should be discarded and throw on the scrap heap as a grift.
The US in particular is still dominated by non-denominational Protestantism. Calling yourself Catholic in certain areas some of my relatives live in will leave people scratching their heads or looking at you with a raised eyebrow. In both Protestant and Catholic cases, a true sense of bound up spirituality in the religion exists only in pockets across the country, the same as I’d wager it does in Russia. The average American shares much more in common with the average Russian in that neither is anywhere near as religious as the average Jew in Israel or Muslim in the Middle East. If you asked me to say the Our Father in ecclesiastical Latin I couldn’t do it unlike a Muslim who could give Salat in Arabic (which was already given by Muhammad in his native Arabic, save the classical-modern distinction).
You can speak of governance without the state pretty well. There's the king far away in the capital, and then there's your local lord who actually determined the minutia of your life. Totalizing nation-states are recent.
And maybe I'm not very well-versed in Christian theology (rather, not at all), but I don't recall Jesus Christ saying anything about the Pope and the cardinals and Patriarchs being very important for Christianity. Didn't people believe, back then after his death, that the Second Coming would happen within their lifetimes?
I'll take you up on your word. Now that you mention it, by the way, I realize I have no idea who actually runs the church in the US.
You can speak of governance without the state but it’s very limited in what you can say and it’s difficult to do so.
As far as the Second Coming, yes. The Christians of the first century absolutely thought he’d be coming back in their lifetimes. But this debate is usually relegated to the sphere of Eschatology and the doctrine of the Last Days. Christians have adopted a wide number of views on this throughout the centuries.
No one officially runs the church in the US. Not in the sense you may think. Most people here are a kind of very watered down, non-denominational version of a Protestant, which is basically a way of saying people just make shit up for themselves about what Christianity means to them and they pick and take what they want from the Christian references they grew up hearing. Catholics in the US still follow the Pope and the Orthodox Church does have an increasing presence here, but I know very little about it. If you search something like “Jay Dyer debate” on YouTube, he’s one of the most popular lay voices of the Orthodox in the west. Father Spyridon and Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel are also very popular in the west.
That's also the impression I got, and the fact that Christianity in the US is so "headless" and the Presidents still swear on the Bible and pay general lip service to it makes me think the Christian tradition in the US is a lot stronger than in Russia. Even if Russian clergy have swaggier drip.
In the US it’s essentially a meaningless gesture. It’s violated all the time as a matter of some “sacred duty” to uphold the integrity of the office. Same as in our court system when there’s some criminal matter have you have to swear on the Bible to tell the truth. If you refuse to swear on the Bible they have you make what’s called an “affirmation” instead but in both cases, they violate this requirement so often that almost nobody takes it seriously. It’s an almost useless symbolism.
In that case it looks like what you describe as Christianity being a profound part of Russian daily life looks like useless symbolism to me, and vice versa regarding my impression of American life.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link