When an evangelical christian ‘forgives’ you for something, what that actually is is them forgiving themselves for literally anything they do to you after that.
That is them saying that you are totally lost, do not count as a real human being with agency, and thus anything further they do to you is justified, because in their minds, you are not capable of making sensible decisions.
It is a threat, framed deceptively as kindness, and yes, they know they are lying.
This absolutely nails it. (Grew up in a southern baptist church.)
Solidarity to a another survivor, though we’re probably from different sides of the continent, and the doctrine and rituals may differ somewhat, the underlying psychology is largely the same at its core.
‘Well, bless your heart’ + a shit eating grin ain’t exactly a common saying where I’m from, but I know exactly what it means.
Escaped a long time ago. I never bought religion. So I enjoyed those sentiments and socially sanctioned holier than thou shunning for decades. Thankfully up north now.
I’m not saying she hasn’t actually forgiven him, but I will say I doubt genuine forgiveness for the killing of one’s spouse is happening under a month in, given forgiveness requires actually processing the harm done, and that actions are far easier than words. Will she call for him to be shown mercy rather than death? Will she work to heal divides? Will she condemn calls for retaliation?
It’s so easy to say that you forgive someone then allow others to retaliate in full force. But the forgiveness Christians are supposed to have is modeled by a dying christ pleading for mercy for his killers.
She has not truly forgiven him, she is being a manipulative psycopath.
She will not press for mercy, she will not work to heal divides, beyond possibly those within the right wing so as to shore up the basis of her own political power.
And she absolutely will not condemn calls for retaliation, unless a scenario arises where she personally would stand to lose social status or material wealth by not doing so.
She is a heartless fascist, sure, she has emotions, but her whole life is mostly all about learning how to weaponize that.
Just as horny men grovel and simp for a woman showing skin, ‘Godly’ men have a perfect excuse to be extremely angry when they witness a ‘Good Christian Woman’ making a show of being distraught, but tough, and ultimately leaving it all up to God.
Its like move 1, page 1, on the sympathy generating playbook for these people.
While Gandhi is a much more uh, morally complex figure, shall we say, than a lot of people know about, and this quote may be apocryphal, it nevertheless roughly sums up how I feel about Christian extremists:
“I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.”
You’re most likely correct, but it can be wise to show not tell. When we assert what forgiveness looks like and give her the opportunity to show it, we come off looking better than her, but when bystanders see her saying she has forgiveness and us calling her a psychopathic fascist we look worse than her. You bring up ghandi, and this media game is more or less how his nonviolent protests worked
Mass televised or otherwise public grieving is almost never sincere, at the very least, it is almost never healthy.
Grieving, truly processing a loss, is done in private, or with a few close friends or family… it is a process of self reflection and self exploration, not self projection.
The other element here is the rank hypocrisy with the religious context and framing and the other speeches she has allowed to occur here, which she surely knew would be given, and at least largely endorsed.
A whole lot of Jesus’ sayings are about how one should practice their faith in private, one should lend to charity anonymously.
There is a solid undercurrent of discretion, of not making grand public displays of faith, of your own self righteousness, etc.
… Would you invite a bunch of bombastic hate mongers to the funeral of your loved one, agree to have it as a mass public hate rally?
Or would you prefer a smaller, private gathering, and to… be given some space, for a bit, with occasional checkins or close friends on standby for help if needed?
As to me calling her display psycopathic as bad PR:
You may note that I am not blasting that message outward to millions of people.
You may note I have not accompanied that messsge with a jubilant mocking video and audio display over her husband’s death, nor likewise with a snobbishly toned monologue rantsona dripping with venom in my voice.
Looking like around 30 ish people is my audience size.
For reading some text.
Intentionally leaving intonation and body language and speech timbre and tempo soley up to the reader.
If anything, what I intend to convey is solemnity.
PR is not even close to the same as how I actually feel.
How I actually feel is terrified on a grand societal level, genuine concern for the safety and well being of millions likely to be seriously harmed by what her display, and the rest of it, presages.
I did not instantly jump on TikTok like a vengeful spirit and record a snarky video of myself celebrating Kirk’s death.
What I actually did was go into a PTSD shock / panic attack episode for an hour, upon seeing, up close in HD, the column of blood erupt from his neck, the life leave his eyes basically instantly, because I have seen too much shit like that already in the real, it has scarred my psyche.
I do perhaps share your fear of bad PR, but at a very, very deep and visceral level…
And for myself, what I would absolutely never wish to convey is any kind of performative inauthenticity.
This dumb fucking rapist couldn’t even keep it about a memorial to a shit stain that was murdered.
Had to weaponize it and make it about himself and further push his civil war agenda he wants so badly that’s already started.
Fuck sakes.
empathy for kirk? he would be spinning in his grave
Holding hat solemnly, looking down, nodding :“it’s what he would have wanted.”
He was a bad person, but the full quote should still be presented.
“I can’t stand the word empathy, actually. I think empathy is a made-up, new age term that — it does a lot of damage. But, it is very effective when it comes to politics. Sympathy, I prefer more than empathy. That’s a separate topic for a different time.”
It’s curious that a master debater would put forth the notion that empathy is a “made-up” or “new age” term. But that’s assuming this guy was ever “debating” in good faith.
By the way, “new age” is frequently a term that I’ve seen the hard right xtianists toss around. Seems to be a way of in-group signaling that xtianists like to use, especially in mixed company or when they don’t want to scare away people they are trying to red-pill. Behind closed doors, they’d rather go hard and just say it’s witchcraft or occultism, etc. But they seem to be constantly worried about their pure xtian America is getting infected by new age stuff…
So, its kinda complicated, but yes, generally, when middle aged or older American diehard Christians refer to New Age, they… basically are referring to anything that involves the word ‘quantum’ or ‘yoga’ or …
You know what, maybe an easier way to explain this would be to say that almost anything on Gaia or GaiaTV or whatever its called… thats ‘New Age’ to them.
Anything involving a grander sort of… spiritual hierarchy to the world, that isn’t directly from the Bible, anything with an ‘Ascended Master’ or involves a way of mediating your way into enlightenement, in a kind of systemitized and mystic way.
So… its not quite the same as your more tradtional bogey men of Satanism and Witchcraft. Neither of which most Christians actually understand correctly at all, but that doesnt matter to them, as these are all enemy groups that they rarely know anything at all about other than their own invented paranoid fears.
But, even this is… wiggly, diffuse, inexact.
With the rise of the internet… a whole lot of younger people are basically melding their favorite notions from Christianity and New Age stuff into … their own versions of what they call Christianity.
Like uh, when I was raised in the 90s, by fairly extreme Christians… the Zodiac was evil sorcery, horoscopes and tarot were signs you were a witch.
But now… its…not. With mainly the younger tiktok crowd of Christians. They have somehow worked this into their idea of Christianity.
Same with manifesting.
In my day, manifesting would have beem seen probably as New Age heresy, spiritual poisoning, presuming yourself more powerful than the will of God, you should be praying to God, not acting like you are God, etc.
But… now… there are tons of younger people who call themselves ardent Christians and who also earnestly believe in the idea of manifesting, manipulating reality via your internal will/intention alone.
Anyway, I blame Helena Blavatsky for all this, lol, I am fairly sure you can historically trace almost every New Age concept or teacher or way of thinking back to her, and Theosophy.
But now… its…not. With mainly the younger tiktok crowd of Christians. They have somehow worked this into their idea of Christianity.
I think this kind of thing comes in waves. You had lots of little xtian denominations that had offshoots in the 60s and 70s (as I understand it) that incorporated things that originated in the “occult”. This stuff was hardly new then, either, as you point out, with people like Blavatsky (and the Golden Dawn and Crowley and Steiner, etc). Prior to that bunch, you had spiritualists and Mormons. Before that, you had things like Rosicrucians and Freemasons and John Dee/Edward Kelly…
But it definitely had a revival (again) in the 60s and started to spread in the 70s and you had the inevitable reaction from the militant fundamentalist types, and it manifested in ways like the 80s Satanic Panic…I think when these people start talking a certain way about certain things/groups, using terms like “new age” (and more laughingly, misused terms like “pagan”, or pronouncing other xtians members of a “cult”), I think it’s partly out of a frustration that not enough people are leaping up to join them to fight against this incursion of what they think is spoiling their “pure” religion…
Yep, totally agree with all of that, no notes!
Yeah, because the guy that put a hole through her husband’s neck made her even richer, which is all she cares about. She probably likes him more than she liked Kirk.
She told her daughter that “Daddy is on a business trip with Jesus so he could afford her blueberry budget”. Fucking evil.
Awww… She forgives the Republican who killed her husband.
Forgiveness from Serena ‘kKk’ Joy is always special.
how can she forgive his killer when we don’t know who it is? (also when it was probably actually the government lol)
also, don’t care erikkka, you’re still a nazi
Bet if he was black, queer, or left there would be no forgiveness.
Conflicting messaging on brand for conservatives
He hates people who dress up like him for Hallowe’en.
Im surprised he hasn’t hired her for some administration job, he loves surrounding himself with women who look like her
