site banner

Culture War Roundup for the week of March 13, 2023

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.

15
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Assuming you are Protestant, is it as easy (acknowledging that this is no way “easy”) as finding a new church?

As a Catholic, this is quite a big problem as the whole apostolic succession thing is pretty important to us. Kinda hard to leave. Though I seem to understand that Orthodox Church makes the same claim. And it seems many Catholics do make that jump.

Yes, there are plenty of non-denoms that would be close enough. Part of me doesn't like how pastor centric those churches are, nor do they seem to establish long running institutions. They can have a very hard time surviving pastoral transitions, then again that has been becoming more and more true within denominations and my denominations long standing institutions were a source of the corruption. Most likely there would be a schism and my current congregation would split along with a good portion of the western congregations and practically all the non-western congregations.

This also varies with the region from which a Catholic comes, in my experience. For example, I knew a lot of Polish Catholics who attended Episcopalian or even Presbyterian churches, where these were the dominant Christian denominations, because for them a church was primarily about the general idea of worship rather than the specific details of worship or the doctrines that the church professed. (Of course, I am sure they would have some limits, e.g. there would presumably be some Unitarian things they wouldn't sing.)

On the other hand, I have some Catholic friends who would actively avoid being in a non-Catholic church, and one who told me that they were more comfortable in a mosque or temple. These were from America, Ireland, or Italy, and they were more into thinking of themselves as members of "the Church" rather than "Christians".

That’s an interesting obvervation. I’ve heard the poles are quite Catholic but if that is even remotely generalizable, that is a major problem and they have missed the point.

I’ve heard the poles are quite Catholic

The people informing you might have been conflating agreeing with Catholic social teachings or the prevalence of Catholicism with people actually having the type of attachment to Catholicism that Catholic doctrine says that they should have, or a general comprehensive adherence to Catholic doctrines. I can understand people, especially lonely Trads, mistaking the sizzle for the steak.