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Re: General Discussions

Reply #1425
Of course I do, Thryleon. But I suspect you’re reading Christian Nationalism as a simple conjunction of an adjective and a noun. It’s actually a political descriptor. Here’s the Wikipedia entry (and of course insofar as it relates to Russia we have to remember that partisans can modify text):

Quote
Christian nationalism is Christianity-affiliated religious nationalism.[1] Christian nationalists primarily focus on internal politics, such as passing laws that reflect their view of Christianity and its role in political and social life. In countries with a state Church, Christian nationalists, in seeking to preserve the status of a Christian state, uphold an antidisestablishmentarian position.[2][3][4]

Christian nationalists support the presence of Christian symbols and statuary in the public square, as well as state patronage for the display of religion, such as school prayer and the exhibition of nativity scenes during Christmastide or the Christian Cross on Good Friday.[5][6]

Christian nationalists draw support from the broader Christian right.[7]


Russia[edit]
President of Russia Vladimir Putin has been described as a global leader of the Christian nationalist and Christian right movements.[26][27] As President, Putin has increased the power of the Russian Orthodox Church and proclaimed his staunch belief in Eastern Orthodoxy,[28] as well as maintaining close contacts with Patriarchs of Moscow and all Rus' Alexy II and Kirill.

The Russian Imperial Movement is a prominent neo-Nazi Christian nationalist group that trains militants all over Europe and has recruited thousands of fighters for its paramilitary group, the Imperial Legion, which is participating in the war on Ukraine. The group also works with the Atomwaffen Division in order to network with and recruit extremists from the United States.[29][30]
France is a very Christian country (with a much smaller Muslim population drawn predominantly from Algeria. But the French also practice staunch separation of Church and State and react swiftly to any display of religious iconography in public spaces. That extended to banning the burquini from beaches which created a bit of a furore.




Re: General Discussions

Reply #1426
The Project declares jokes about Jesus are off limits. Are we okay with that? The Age.

Interesting that the project would go with that course of action.

There are 'Jesus jokes' and there are 'Jesus jokes'.
Back in the 70's (so the story goes), when Peter Hudson was at the peak of his powers a local minister put on his sign at the front of the church.

"What would you do if Christ came to Hawthorn?"
 Someone had written underneath...
"Move Hudson to Centre Half Forward."
I guess back in the day that still would have upset a few folks but...
The implication was that Christ was greater than Hudson....even at football.

On the other hand we have this project joke (told by a guy in drag make up...important only because of some questions I'll put later) that seeks to link the suffering in arguably the most painful and drawn out method of execution with sexual gratification.

It triggers a lot of people.
One joke glorifies Jesus, the other not so much.... but it appears the ban is an all encompassing one. (I can't see the article).

Lot's of layers in this.
Would a joke like this have gone differently with prominent figures in other religions?
(I think we can safely guess there would have been outrage in Islam).
Had the teller of the joke been more famous, like a Ru Paul, would the outrage have been greater or less?
What if the teller wasn't dressed in drag make-up?
Where did the main anger and outrage come from...churches, shock jocks the general public?
Is the response something of a case of an opportunity to hit back at what some see as the "woke" culture? ( a push back against the push)?






Re: General Discussions

Reply #1427
I guess the joke means different things to different people. I never regarded it as an allusion to S&M sex or torture. To me, it played with “nailed” having the literal meaning and a secondary meaning of being f*cked. He was saying he loves a guy he can nail for 3 days solid who will come back for more. And he was marrying that up with Jesus being nailed on the cross for 3 days. I didn’t take that as suggesting Jesus was gay or had been “nailed” in the secondary sense. It was just an absurd play on words which worked by subverting expectations. I’m sure he enjoyed tweaking the tail of his homophobic critics but I don’t see the joke as attacking Christianity or Christians. On the other hand, Jimmy Carr’s jokes flat out say religion is just fantasy and magical thinking. You’d think they’d be seen as a far more serious insult.

Re: General Discussions

Reply #1428
I guess the joke means different things to different people. I never regarded it as an allusion to S&M sex or torture. To me, it played with “nailed” having the literal meaning and a secondary meaning of being f*cked. He was saying he loves a guy he can nail for 3 days solid who will come back for more. And he was marrying that up with Jesus being nailed on the cross for 3 days. I didn’t take that as suggesting Jesus was gay or had been “nailed” in the secondary sense. It was just an absurd play on words which worked by subverting expectations. I’m sure he enjoyed tweaking the tail of his homophobic critics but I don’t see the joke as attacking Christianity or Christians. On the other hand, Jimmy Carr’s jokes flat out say religion is just fantasy and magical thinking. You’d think they’d be seen as a far more serious insult.

I probably didn't phrase part of that well.
'Link' was probably not the right word.
There's no suggestion of S&M
I saw it exactly as you suggested, a play on the word 'nailed'.

Re: General Discussions

Reply #1429
I guess the joke means different things to different people. I never regarded it as an allusion to S&M sex or torture. To me, it played with “nailed” having the literal meaning and a secondary meaning of being f*cked. He was saying he loves a guy he can nail for 3 days solid who will come back for more. And he was marrying that up with Jesus being nailed on the cross for 3 days. I didn’t take that as suggesting Jesus was gay or had been “nailed” in the secondary sense. It was just an absurd play on words which worked by subverting expectations. I’m sure he enjoyed tweaking the tail of his homophobic critics but I don’t see the joke as attacking Christianity or Christians. On the other hand, Jimmy Carr’s jokes flat out say religion is just fantasy and magical thinking. You’d think they’d be seen as a far more serious insult.

The Project is on about 6:30 right?
2012 HAPPENED!!!!!!!

Re: General Discussions

Reply #1430
Of course I do, Thryleon. But I suspect you’re reading Christian Nationalism as a simple conjunction of an adjective and a noun. It’s actually a political descriptor. Here’s the Wikipedia entry (and of course insofar as it relates to Russia we have to remember that partisans can modify text):
France is a very Christian country (with a much smaller Muslim population drawn predominantly from Algeria. But the French also practice staunch separation of Church and State and react swiftly to any display of religious iconography in public spaces. That extended to banning the burquini from beaches which created a bit of a furore.





Right and what type of separation of church and state do Ukraine practice?

"everything you know is wrong"

Paul Hewson

Re: General Discussions

Reply #1431
You need to do a bit of research on your own about Christian Nationalism, Thryleon. It’s not simply Nationalists putting up a few crosses.

Take a look at this article: Religious nationalism and the invasion of Ukraine, religion news.com.

Quote
“I think the president of Russian Federation is making it a religious war,” Archbishop Daniel of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church in the U.S. told an interviewer for Religion News Service last week. That view is shared by John Schindler, a retired U.S. intelligence officer and historian with expertise in Eastern Europe, who argues that it was the establishment of the Orthodox Church in Ukraine separate from the Moscow patriarchate in 2019 that caused Russian President Vladimir Putin to invade.

The argument goes basically like this. Putin has wrapped his ambition to restore the Russian empire in a revived Russian Orthodox Church, long stifled by Communist hostility to religion. He considers Ukraine to be Russian heartland, spiritually as well as territorially.

After the 2014 Maidan revolution, in which the pro-Moscow president of Ukraine was ousted by protesters, deprived him of secular authority over the country, the establishment of an independent Orthodox Christian Church in the country, approved by Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I in Istanbul, was the last straw. Ergo, the invasion.

This seems to me to overstate the case. The Biden administration’s badly managed withdrawal from Afghanistan, the rise of a pro-Russian right in Europe and North America, and the dislocations of COVID-19 all gave Putin other reasons to imagine that the time was right to force Ukraine back into the Russian orbit.

But there can be no doubt that, under Putin, the Russian Orthodox Church has resumed its czarist role as an arm of state policy. This political religion — call it Russian Orthodox nationalism — has served not only to advance Putin’s goal of suppressing liberal democratic dissent at home but also to win the admiration of the pro-Christian right in Europe and America.

Writing nearly a century ago in the wake of the bloodletting of World War I, the eminent Columbia historian Carlton Hayes attacked what he called “a new religious syncretism, by virtue of which very many persons continue nominally to adhere to the faith of their ancestors and even to practice its cult, whilst they adapt it to the exigencies of nationalist worship and discipline.”

The flaunting of Christian imagery and language by those who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6 is a prime example of such syncretism. 

More than half a century ago, in the throes of the Vietnam War, the eminent Berkeley sociologist Robert Bellah praised what he called “the American civil religion” as “not the worship of the American nation but an understanding of the American experience in the light of ultimate and universal reality.”

This issue that Putin has with the Ukrainian Orthodox Church also came up at the end of last year. Putin proposed a truce for Christmas. But that was a calculated slap in the face for the Ukrainians because the Ukrainian Orthodox Church had already celebrated their Christmas on a different day.

AFAIK Zelenskyy hasn’t sought to harness the Ukrainian Orthodox Church politically as Putin has. But I’m no expert and am willing to be corrected on this.

How concerning Christian Nationalism can be is amply demonstrated by the US. They have a Constitutional prohibition against adopting a religion but the right wing in particular routinely ignores it. The following is a BBC article about it:
Christian nationalists - wanting to put God into US government, bbc.com.

At its worst, Christian Nationalists believe they have a duty to ignore legislation that they say conflicts with their beliefs. Some consider themselves ‘Magistrates’ who can direct other believers to act contrary to law. When the rule of law disappears, what kind of democracy do you have? You may like the idea of a theocracy but I don’t. Church and State must be separate.



Re: General Discussions

Reply #1432
Zelensky is a Jewish comedian by trade who in a previous life was in a TV show that used to make fun of Jews and religion so he would probably fit right in on "The Project" and target Christians and Jews alike.
Was initially seen as a buffoon when he got the president role but a good dictator in Putin and a dirty War has done wonders for his credibility, as for harnessing the Ukranian Orthodox Church....dont see that happening, more harassing seems his methods.
Zelenskyy’s secret police have raided monasteries across Ukraine, and even a convent full of nuns, and arrested dozens of priests for no justifiable reasons whatsoever and in clear violation of the Ukrainian Constitution.
The UOC have actually assisted the Ukrainian army with money and aid but Zelenksy has been revoking citizenships of Priests in return. Biden has just sat back and allowed Zelensky to do what he likes.....nice quote from the past by the famous Will Rogers where he says
" Everything is changing, People are taking their comedians seriously and the politicians as a joke".

Re: General Discussions

Reply #1433
Could it be that some priests and nuns have supported the Russians? After all, some of them might be ethnic Russians who remained loyal to the Russian Orthodox Church. Wouldn’t it be reasonable for a government of a country in wartime to crack down on treasonous clergy? Now, I don’t know if any of the above is true but I’m not going to accept without proof that they were arrested for no justifiable reason (and in fact after googling it looks like my suspicions are correct). But it looks from what you say that the Ukrainian Orthodox Church isn’t seen as an arm of the Ukrainian State such that we’d say Ukraine is run by Christian Nationalists (and that was the issue).

Do you agree with Sergei Lavrov that Russia is trying to stop the war that was started by the Ukrainians?

 

Re: General Discussions

Reply #1434
Could it be that some priests and nuns have supported the Russians? After all, some of them might be ethnic Russians who remained loyal to the Russian Orthodox Church. Wouldn’t it be reasonable for a government of a country in wartime to crack down on treasonous clergy? Now, I don’t know if any of the above is true but I’m not going to accept without proof that they were arrested for no justifiable reason (and in fact after googling it looks like my suspicions are correct). But it looks from what you say that the Ukrainian Orthodox Church isn’t seen as an arm of the Ukrainian State such that we’d say Ukraine is run by Christian Nationalists (and that was the issue).

Do you agree with Sergei Lavrov that Russia is trying to stop the war that was started by the Ukrainians?
Sergei is being a good Russian Foreign Minister and selling Putin propaganda Goebbels style else he would need to check his drinks from the bar fridge were not glowing in the dark when he got home. Even the Rubel loving diplomatic Indian officials were laughing when they heard Lavrov do his comedy routine at the G20......
To be honest not sure where the Ukraine Government stand in regards to extreme Christian Nationalist ideology influence  but the mob on the other side of the border who attacked them are the most powerful Christian Nationalist Army on the planet in theory if they are all loyal to Vlad the imploder, got no doubt the Russian people are being sold this war is a holy war in terms of Western decay as well as NATO ganging up on them etc.

Re: General Discussions

Reply #1435
Zelensky is a Jewish comedian by trade who in a previous life was in a TV show that used to make fun of Jews and religion so he would probably fit right in on "The Project" and target Christians and Jews alike.
Was initially seen as a buffoon when he got the president role but a good dictator in Putin and a dirty War has done wonders for his credibility, as for harnessing the Ukranian Orthodox Church....dont see that happening, more harassing seems his methods.
Zelenskyy’s secret police have raided monasteries across Ukraine, and even a convent full of nuns, and arrested dozens of priests for no justifiable reasons whatsoever and in clear violation of the Ukrainian Constitution.
The UOC have actually assisted the Ukrainian army with money and aid but Zelenksy has been revoking citizenships of Priests in return. Biden has just sat back and allowed Zelensky to do what he likes.....nice quote from the past by the famous Will Rogers where he says
" Everything is changing, People are taking their comedians seriously and the politicians as a joke".

The UOC is the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (Moscow Patriarchate) and is closely aligned with Putin's Russian Orthodox Church.  The OCU, Orthodox Church of Ukraine, was granted ecclesial independence by the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople in 2019, giving it control of the branches of the Orthodox church in Ukraine including the UOC.  I think that you'll find that it's the OCU that has been assisting the Ukrainian Army and the UOC that's resisting the OCU and supporting the Russians.

While Zelensky was best known for his satirical comedy, he is a lawyer from a family of high achievers and intellectuals. I don't think anyone saw him as a buffoon.

“Why don’t you knock it off with them negative waves? Why don’t you dig how beautiful it is out here? Why don’t you say something righteous and hopeful for a change?”  Oddball

Re: General Discussions

Reply #1436
The UOC is the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (Moscow Patriarchate) and is closely aligned with Putin's Russian Orthodox Church.  The OCU, Orthodox Church of Ukraine, was granted ecclesial independence by the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople in 2019, giving it control of the branches of the Orthodox church in Ukraine including the UOC.  I think that you'll find that it's the OCU that has been assisting the Ukrainian Army and the UOC that's resisting the OCU and supporting the Russians.

While Zelensky was best known for his satirical comedy, he is a lawyer from a family of high achievers and intellectuals. I don't think anyone saw him as a buffoon.


Zelenksy had an approval rating of just 31% when elected , he was a humourist/showman with no prior experience in public administration and got elected because the previous administration under Poroshenko was corrupt/hopeless and the public wanted him out and anything else was better than what they had. His political promises were just the typical populist carp and lets keep it accurate he was a legal graduate..he never worked a day as a professional practicing lawyer. Both the West and the East had their doubts on him being able to do the job.
The funny thing is he is best known for his role as an actor playing an ordinary man who accidentally becomes president of Ukraine in the TV series "Servant of the People". He also played the voice of Paddington Bear in the Ukrainian version.....I remember reading and enjoying the Paddington books when I was at school so he gets a tick from me .
Putin was another legal grad but of course went on to perform a not so comical role in the KGB making people disappear being his speciality. Credit to Zelensky he has proven to be a brave and smart worldly political operator and his approval rating is about as good as it gets for a Prez peaking at 90% but that wasnt the initial thoughts about him.
Zelenksy's father was an Electrical Engineer ...they are usually high achievers and intellectuals... 8)  ;)  :P

Re: General Discussions

Reply #1437
The UOC is the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (Moscow Patriarchate) and is closely aligned with Putin's Russian Orthodox Church.  The OCU, Orthodox Church of Ukraine, was granted ecclesial independence by the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople in 2019, giving it control of the branches of the Orthodox church in Ukraine including the UOC.  I think that you'll find that it's the OCU that has been assisting the Ukrainian Army and the UOC that's resisting the OCU and supporting the Russians.

While Zelensky was best known for his satirical comedy, he is a lawyer from a family of high achievers and intellectuals. I don't think anyone saw him as a buffoon.



Christian nationalism has nothing to do with it according to mav, but your post says different.

If there's one thing a Greek understands its the role of the orthodox church in an orthodox country.

Kyril sees himself as the pope of the eastern orthodox Church and any support of Russian politics is likely forced by the hammer and cycle types to capture the mind and heart of the people.

"everything you know is wrong"

Paul Hewson

Re: General Discussions

Reply #1438
Religious humour is one thing....but ignorant racist kiwi humour is something we should all be upset about. ;D

(warning: this video contains adult content and some naughty words)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3GD7ZQXPtuI

Re: General Discussions

Reply #1439
I get the anger and distrust about the Porter Davis and Lloyd's collapses, but I fail to see how anybody benefits from breaking and entering to trash the reception desk.

If you are angry, go to the gym and punch the crap out of the sparring bag!
The Force Awakens!