{"id":270,"date":"2021-09-09T09:04:17","date_gmt":"2021-09-09T15:04:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dishonoronyourcow.com\/?p=270"},"modified":"2021-09-09T13:49:41","modified_gmt":"2021-09-09T19:49:41","slug":"surprise-christianity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dishonoronyourcow.com\/?p=270","title":{"rendered":"Surprise Christianity"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"Emily<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

This article was originally going to be about Freemasonry, and how even in a society which is supposed to be dedicated to no specific creed there is still Christianity around many corners. I started writing it in July; but then in August there was another event that came up and reminded me of the scope of what I was talking about. It reminded me of the simple truth that every Jew in America, or indeed most of \u201cWestern\u201d civilization, knows either actively or instinctually:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Being Jewish in America or Europe is to live in a world which was not designed for you. Whose baseline assumptions come from a culture you don\u2019t belong to. And which is frequently blind to that fact, and often hostile once exposed to it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On 8\/31 I checked into the Carol Joy Holling retreat center in Ashland, Nebraska for the Nebraska State Bar Association Leadership Academy Retreat. A class of lawyers in their 3rd to 15th years was going to meet for the first time, discuss leadership and ethics, and get to know one another. As instructed I arrived at 7:45 A.M. to check in and drop my clothes off in my hotel room before the retreat started. I walked into my room, and probably the third thing I saw was a cross on the wall.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Being Jewish in America is to always be finding crosses on the wall when you don\u2019t expect them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It didn\u2019t take me long to realize that the whole camp was Christian. The logo of a leaf had a cross on it that I hadn\u2019t noticed before; the conference room we were going to be meeting in was sponsored by Lutheran Financial Services. I hadn\u2019t expected it, because why would I? I was meeting with the NSBA, which is about as secular a group as one can imagine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I had been exposed, once again, to Surprise Christianity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s not a formal or academic phrase, it\u2019s one entirely of my own making as far as I know. And it is not intended to be derogatory toward Christianity or any of its adherents. It is not a criticism of any of the theology or dogma of any Christian branch or sect. But it is a label I use to describe any of those times when one, either as a Jew or a Muslim or someone raised completely irreligious, is forcibly reminded that for all of our protestations otherwise all of the baseline assumptions in America are set to a Christian default. Surprise Christianity is when you find Christianity in a thing or place where you otherwise wouldn\u2019t expect to find it, and you\u2019re suddenly reminded of your other-ness from it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Later in the retreat we did a Privilege Walk, where everyone starts in a line and walks forwards or backwards based on certain statements the moderator reads; this is to help you consider the privileges you have benefitted from in life, and let everyone in a group see how that looks for each person. I was thrilled because one of the statements was to take a step forward if \u201cyour work holidays and religious holidays have always lined up.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Everyone in the group took a step forward except for myself and one other person.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After the walk was done, I thanked the moderator for including that because I felt like it was a common privilege that was often under-discussed. She agreed, and then told me that they\u2019d had to consider that even with the Leadership Academy itself–because it had originally been scheduled to start on 9\/7\/2021 instead of 8\/31. On Rosh Hashanah, one of the High Holidays, in other words. And this had only been corrected because the facilitator\u2019s law partner is herself Jewish, and pointed it out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Surprise Christianity, you see, goes both ways. Going one way it is the fact that Christianity is so baked into our culture that your holidays are the norm and your schedule the default. Going the other way, however, is that when something is being scheduled it is presumed to be fine so long as it doesn\u2019t interfere with that default schedule. So long as it isn\u2019t over a U.S. civil holiday or a Christian holiday, it\u2019s fine. Right?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Every year around this time (late August through early October), Jewish Twitter begins sharing the stories. Of mandatory back to school nights on Rosh Hashanah followed by mandatory Parent\/Teacher conferences on Yom Kippur. Of retreats and meetings booked on the High Holidays, and looks of confusion or annoyance when it is brought up. To be Jewish in America is to have someone look you in the eye and say \u201cDon\u2019t you guys celebrate a lot of holidays? Do you really need all of them off?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The vast majority of Americans will never need to worry about scheduling events on their holidays, because their holidays are already enshrined. Christmas is a Federal holiday, and don\u2019t worry if it falls on a Saturday (as it does in 2021)–we\u2019ll observe it on the 24th! Easter is always protected, because it\u2019s on a Sunday. And let\u2019s be clear, it isn\u2019t just that it happens to be on a Sunday and is thus on our traditional weekend (as are services for most Christians): Sunday is part of our traditional weekend because<\/strong> Christian services (and thus Easter) are held on that day. I\u2019ve never seen a Christian denied the ability to go to Ash Wednesday services, while I have seen plenty of Jews not denied but pressured or even shamed for wanting to take our holidays off.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When I was in high school, I wore a Star of David. I don\u2019t any more, because I don\u2019t always feel safe while wearing it. But at the time I did, and a well meaning student came up to me and asked me if I worshipped Satan because he thought that\u2019s what it meant.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Jews are tired.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The original impetus for this article was a Masonic brother discussing the Scottish Rite. He mentioned that for one of the degrees (the 18th, I believe), there is an included preparatory explanation that while it uses Christian imagery it is not intended to imply that it is only for Christians or to force Christianity on anyone. This brother was perturbed, because there are apparently other degrees using Jewish or even Islamic imagery and that there was no similar preparatory explanation for those degrees. Why, he asked, was Christianity signalled out so singly?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I told him that I couldn\u2019t speak for the author, but that for me I appreciated it. Because of that warning, when I go into the Scottish Rite I will be prepared for one of the degrees to involve big crosses and other Christian imagery. I can go in knowing it is coming, and not feeling the sudden panic of \u201cis this a conversion attempt, or am I just unwelcome?\u201d In a way that I don\u2019t think, although I can\u2019t speak for everyone, a Christian would feel when being presented with Jewish or Islamic imagery put on by other people they know or have good reason to believe are co-religionists in a symbolic setting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When I was in elementary school, my class went on a field trip. We were up, I think in the foothills, passing old mines on a hike. I saw what was labelled as a \u201cNon-Denominational Chapel\u201d down a side trail, and I thought that was so cool! A prayer space that was open to anyone, not specifically Christian, in case the beauty moved them to prayer. When I told my teacher that (Hi, Mrs. Appell), she got a look on her face that I now recognize as \u201cOh no, I have to tell this excited child they\u2019ve fundamentally misunderstood something and now they\u2019re going to be sad.\u201d She then explained to me that non-Denominational in this case didn\u2019t mean \u201cno specific religion,\u201d but instead meant \u201cnot any specific form of Christianity, but still very much specifically Christian.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Surprise Christianity also works behind the scenes, ensuring that in some ways our lives will always be a tension between Judaism and Society, or that we\u2019ll always be finding new and exciting ways to be exposed to it. As a member of the Society for Creative Anachronism, I dress up in historical clothing and go hang out with people doing the same. And 90% of the time that means that I am traveling on a Friday, going to an event on a Saturday, and then going home on a Sunday. Which means, of course, that unless I\u2019m going to a week-long war, I could not ever really participate in the SCA and keep an Orthodox Shabbat. And even if I did go to every week-long war in the Society, I would find it difficult to advance because so much of the SCA\u2019s structure is based on attending Kingdom events on Saturdays and doing things–fighting, teaching, working–that would be explicitly outlawed on Shabbat under an Orthodox interpretation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I brought that up in an article, and someone commented that even as a Jew they\u2019d never really considered how the SCA\u2019s event structure all but precludes Orthodox and many Conservative Jews from participating. The Vorkosigan Saga points out that fish don\u2019t recognize water as a way of pointing out how someone doesn\u2019t recognize the basic assumptions and conditions they\u2019ve always lived in; Surprise Christianity even affects those of us who are very much outside of it, because it\u2019s just the way we\u2019ve always lived.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This article doesn\u2019t end with a solution, or a way to change society to make it better. I don\u2019t know how to make the Jews un-tired; I don\u2019t know how we become unbothered, moisturized, in our lane, well-hydrated, and flourishing, to quote the prophet Cardi B. All I can do is end with this.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you are a Christian or former Christian in America, please recognize the amount to which your faith tradition is not just acknowledged or even protected but intrinsically woven into our society. Please recognize the ways in which those things may well be invisible to you, because they are as normal as breathing. And please be patient with those of us who deal on an almost daily basis with a culture whose baseline assumptions we don\u2019t share, and whose customs we have only absorbed through pop culture. It can be frustrating, and exhausting, to be so frequently surprised by reminders that we are others in our own homes, even in such small ways.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This article was originally going to be about Freemasonry, and how even in a society which is supposed to be dedicated to no specific creed there is still Christianity around many corners. I started writing it in July; but then in August there was another event that came up and reminded me of the scope […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,41,22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-270","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-explanations","category-judaism","category-rants"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dishonoronyourcow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/270","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dishonoronyourcow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dishonoronyourcow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dishonoronyourcow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dishonoronyourcow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=270"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dishonoronyourcow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/270\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":271,"href":"https:\/\/dishonoronyourcow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/270\/revisions\/271"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dishonoronyourcow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=270"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dishonoronyourcow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=270"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dishonoronyourcow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=270"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}