It’s less of a “no true scottsman” and more like…legit there’s a trillion different interpretations and sects of the Christian faith. The entire religion is basically “no true Scottsman” cuz nobody can actually agree on an interpretation.
Maintaining a single unified interpretation of a religion spread across thousands of cultures over thousands of years is probably impossible unless you are the Borg, and even then it’d be challenging
Even Warhammer 40K, home to writers with no sense of scale or bureaucracy and a militiantly theocratic society knows that orthodoxy is a hard task. As long as the local planet’s religions can be renovated a bit to check off some basic requirements, they’re good to go.
It’s striking exactly how weird Judaism and Christianity are among world religions. Most religions aggressively adapt themselves if you jump over a mountain or other interesting terrain feature. But Judaism had the innovation of writing it down in a book and standardizing stuff in order to maintain cultural tradition. This didn’t stop it from fracturing (there are a number of non-Rabbinical Jewish traditions from the post-Exile, pre-Talmud era; check out Sam Aronow on Youtube), but it showed that it was possible. That was 200ish AD. Christianity (in the form of Constantine in 300ish AD) basically stole that idea and tried to force everyone to agree on the same kind of Christianity, hence the active persecution of “heretics”. Before that canonization, there was a flowering of Christian sects (the most notable group being that of the Gnostics, which is an academic umbrella term for a bunch of different heterodoxies). The RCC is a schism from the Orthodoxy, and inside the RCC are a whole bunch of carefully controlled not-quite-heresies called “monastic orders”. A big part of the RCC is holding summits where people hash out doctrine. And then Henry VIII and Martin Luther kicked the last shreds of that house of cards over and Christianity got to diversify again, for better or worse.
People think that the RCC’s united facade is the standard template for religion, but there was really absolutely nothing in history even remotely similar to it. Not even the RCC itself.
Sabellius, Arius, Nestor, and a thousand other “heretics” approve this message.
Judaism might slightly disagree, however. Aside from certain brands of post-1800s Orthodoxy (which, interestingly, came *after* the Reform movement), it doesn’t pretend to unity. Rabbinical Judaism is much more the history of contrasting schools of legal interpretation, and the whole point of the Talmud’s structure and later Midrashim is to preserve those debates. When a Jew says “everything is Torah” they include the contradictions – it’s probably one of the reasons there are so many excellent Jewish political theorists/philosophers/historians/lawyers. The whole religion is constructed as an argument around textual interpretation, without much of a coherent doctrine. It’s still *unique* in it’s focus on a single text, but it’s not unique in the same manner as Christianity… and there’s no way to annoy a Jew more quickly than to say something like “Judeo-Christian” because that really does cease to be a thing with the execution of James the Just.
Didn’t really end quite that quickly, I think. Sects like the Ebionites and Nazarenes continued for quite some time, though they were outnumbered by the proto-orthodox.
As for Judeo-Christian, I do think there needs to be a term for various religions deriving from the old Israelite beliefs. That particular one is used to exclude Islam, which makes little sense. “Abrahamic religions” or the Muslim “People of the Book”.
The issue is that it’s a usable term for theologians in specific situations, but in general use implies unity where there isn’t any. No public speaker has ever followed “Judeo-Christian” with something distinctly Jewish, just Christian with the implied assumption that Jews are on-board.
See for example the Ten Commandments as a monument, the idea of forgiveness as something that needs to be given before atonement, or the idea that life begins at conception.
Bruceski’s comment is exactly what I was getting at. Abrahamic religions also frequently suffers from the same problem in the West. People of the Book is better, since the islamic world when that term was created was much more accepting of Jews.
In general, we need far, far less use of the umbrella terms and more understanding and respect for the differences. Even many theologians suffer from jewish theology erasure.
Agreed. It’s awkward terminology and often misused.
The umbrella terms remain valuable, I think, but only when talking in larger terms – contrasting with Hinduism, Buddhism or other faiths with very different roots.
I was in the library the other day and succumbed to the siren song of a little book I found by the name of Heretics by Jonathan Wright. I didn’t do the homework I probably needed to, but it was definitely a fascinating read about religious schisms and dead splinter faiths in Christianity. There were some ones that would be considered very strange by today’s standards. For example, a couple had this whole thing going on where they concluded that given the sinful, suffering nature of the world that their must be at least two deities – a Creator Deity that fashioned an imperfect world and the God of Jesus who sent him in pity upon mankind.
I’m not familiar with that book in particular, but I had a course on the history of occult sciences in college and there was one particular heretical order that really tickled my fancy, I think it was like the gnostic order of the serpent or something similarly generic from the 13th or 14th century (I can’t recall if the prof said 13th century or 1300s). They basically found a biblical justification for hedonism. I’m probably oversimplifying but the basic argument is that since Jesus died for our sins, if we don’t sin, then Jesus died for nothing, so therefore it is *better* to sin, confess, and repent as much as possible (so long as you don’t cross certain lines, like murder) than to live as free from sin as possible. AFAIK the most common sins they practiced were lust, including adultery, and gluttony, so they basically had church sanctioned orgies and feasts and engaged in lots of swinging, because the bible said so. Naturally the Catholics put them all down for their heresy.
I’m sure there was a whole lot more to it than that, and my memory of the discussion is very fuzzy and incomplete, so I could be wildly misrepresenting the group in question, but I think they’re my favorite Christian sect of all time.
I don’t think he has one; she’s contrasting his stance on morality with Paul’s, and that’s a whole scripture thing.
I also wouldn’t call it a No True Scotsman. I don’t think she’s saying that Jennifer isn’t a Christian, just that she isn’t as serious or focused about it as others, and that’s both true and not necessarily any sort of insult.
I think what makes it particularly relevant in this context is that both Becky and, more relevantly, Joyce know that whatever kind of Christian Jennifer is, she would in no way judge or shame Joyce for taking birth control. That’s not saying that Lucy or Becky *would*, especially given that she’s not taking to have sex but rather for a medical reason, just that Joyce is liable to *interpret* their involvement as carrying judgement, making the whole process more difficult and/or painful than it has any need or right to be for everyone involved.
Jennifer’s faith isn’t what matters, it’s Joyce’s interpretation of that faith, or rather what box she occupies in Joyce’s head. Lucy’s involvement would trigger Joyce’s left over Christian guilt from her upbringing because she identifies Lucy as a “real” Christian, even if she isn’t as fundamental as Joyce was, whereas they all know Jennifer is/has been promiscuous and thus shouldn’t poke at that particular wound.
Early theological argument. Paul nee Saul believed that Gentiles could go straight to be Christians; James argued that they had to convert to Judaism first, then become Christians. This, in particular, would have meant that the Gentile men would have to agree to circumcision prior to being allowed to become Christians.
Natch, this was a bit of a negative selling point, and Paul’s argument that Christianity had to take a less hardline approach in order to expand eventually won out.
Now, honestly, Becky’s not really thinking this through. While it’s true that Paul re-injected all the OT rules against women and homosexuality into his interpretation of Christianity (and is thus generally given the side-eye by leftist Christians), James’ approach would’ve pretty much led to the same result.
Same. I know the major stuff in broad strokes, but I’ve learned more about the minutiae (and all the interpretations thereof) from these comics and comments than anywhere else.
“James the Just”, brother of Jesus and leader of the Jesus movement based in Jerusalem from some point after Jesus’s death. Stayed with a more Jewish, Torah observant version of the movement, in opposition to Paul’s mission to the Gentiles.
Mind you, I’m not at all sure what Becky thinks a James the Just version of Christianity would be like. Pretty sure it wouldn’t include keeping strict Torah Law.
Jesus also said that “until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished. Therefore whoever relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven.”
Or at least a later author wrote that he said that. This was the big conflict of mid-1st century Christianity and the Gospel writers were part of the conflict. In different Gospels Jesus says things that can be taken to be on different sides of that divide. Which of them, if any, he actually said, we really cannot know.
I know it doesn’t fit with the whole “The Bible is inerrant,” deal you often get from Christians, but the authors of the various books in it disagreed a lot. A lot of the anti-queer stuff in the New Testament is from Paul, he also said salvation comes through faith alone. James disagreed, and said salvation requires “works”, because works demonstrate faith. You’ll see a lot of linguistic gymnastics to pretend that’s not a disagreement.
Ah, I have heard that Catholicism believes in “works” as opposed to Protestant branches like Puritans who emphasize faith alone and “conversion experiences”, thank you for clarification of the roots of this division.
Paul’s interpretation is pretty much standard for most protestants, not just the puritans. But the Catholic idea of “works” is more like sacraments, and I think a better reading is that works is like mitzvah, some are rituals, but a lot are doing good deeds: feeding the hungry, tending to the sick, making sure widows and orphans are taken care of, that kind of thing.
The doctrine of “sola fide” (faith alone) comes from Martin Luther, a monk who was very pissed that Catholic priests accepted money (“indulgences”) as a way to pre-pay for your sins instead of getting people to actually act less sinfully. It’s basically the entire thing that kicked off the Protestant Reformation (which was political as much as it was religious; history’s complicated).
Whether or not you decide to root the division in the canonized text itself is… up to you. Like, Paul wasn’t a big fan of money either. Or marriage. But importantly, the existence of such a division in the text didn’t matter when most people couldn’t read and had an interpretation handed to them by Catholic priests. Luther and the new-fangled printing press helped upend that order and with the doctrine of sola scriptura (Scripture alone) effectively handed interpretative power to whoever.
He hadn’t planned or wanted that, but it was kinda too late.
The Bible reads much better if you jettison Paul’s stuff. He’s a misogynist too. Intolerant bigot. Contradicts a lot of the feeling from the gospels. I’m with Becky.
Of course she’s also recently (IIRC) converted to Good Works are important and Faith Alone is Not Enough— very heavily stressed in the US branch of the Episcopalian church.
I’ve seen him interpreted as ace, actually, which makes a lot more sense imo. Self-loathing gay is a good way to push blame for his homophobia back on the people it targeted. Ace in a time before that word existed turns his “all sex is evil, but if you really must, het only while married for the purpose of procreation” into an almost funny “wait, people actually enjoy sex?!?” sitcom misunderstanding.
Maybe, but celibacy as part of religion isn’t that uncommon. The Essenes at the time definitely disapproved of women and of sexual relations, even within marriage, though marriage wasn’t forbidden at least to some Essenes. I doubt all such were invented by ace people. Paul’s attitude wasn’t that extreme really.
Especially for a believer in an apocalyptic cult, expecting God to bring about the Kingdom of Heaven at any time.
Considering how some people viewed other people in that time period (including how Romans viewed women), I think you have to take some things within a historical societal context. Especially since the letters were written to specific groups in that time period. Concepts of words change, especially through translation. It’s like the US Constitution being written before things like the internet, nuclear weapons or assault riffles existed, so them talking about weapons doesn’t include our current understanding of what weapons can be. Even in talking to someone in person in the same time period, personal perceptions/definitions of words and ideas are different due to personal experiences.
Pretty sure Paul was a bigot and the gospels weren’t bigoted no matter the translation. I don’t think we have to care about the historical context about something people are trying to live by today. It’s irrelevant unless you want to say Paul was a product of his time, unlike Jesus, and they made a mistake sticking him on the end of the Bible.
It’s easy to see “…salvation requires ‘works’….” as implying an ordering: do works and then one is saved. The usual formula in my experience is to reverse the implied order: one who is saved is then moved to works because sometimes love requires action.
But even that works/faith divide is a misreading of the early divide between Paul and James, which was focused on whether Gentiles who wanted to follow Jesus need to become Jews. “Works” didn’t mean what we think of today, but rather following Torah law. A lot of focus on the dietary restrictions and of course circumcision – both things that would be a big turn-off to prospective converts.
James the Just – brother of Jesus, and known for being more “works-oriented”. Also known from Acts as an opponent of Paul in terms of Roman assimilationism and sola fide/faith-alone doctrine. There’s also some scholarship on Acts that paints James and Paul as quite thoroughly opposed to each other. One of the big challenges in biblical interpretation is that the canonical New Testament gospels, aside from John, are based on the Pauline “sect” of christianity. Some scholarship – controversial among christian scholars, less so among jewish scholars – suggests James still had Christianity tied to the temple, and it was more one sect of judaism than a new religion. He may have also been more of a follower of Shammai than of Hillel – which fits with the works/ritual focus. Basically, Paul was a Roman/Greek assimilationist, and possibly a cousin of Herod the Great (certainly a Roman citizen, that’s uncontroversial)… whereas many other very early Christians were not.
Unfortunately, following the Bar Kochba revolt, those associated with James fled Israel into the Syria and Persia. (Syrian Orthodox churches still use the Liturgy of St. James.) Those associated with Paul spread through Rome, which is part of why the Pauline letters and interpretations are given primacy in most Christian denominations.
You’re both welcome. I credit decades of soul-searching and most of a political theory PhD in lieu of the priesthood/rabbinate. If you ever want a similar lecture on Dante’s political theology, I’m also happy to provide *laugh/cry*
Jesus’ brother. Early head of the church in Jerusalem before he was put to death by Rome in 70 CE. Disagreed a lot with Paul (especially because Paul claimed to know Jesus better than James – again, Jesus’ actual factual brother). Reputed to be pretty nice. We have more extrabiblical evidence of him existing than his brother.
James the Just was Jesus’ younger brother. He was a major leader in the early Church, but the Gospel authors kinda go out of their way to avoid mentioning him. Willis is more familiar with this stuff than I am, but my general understanding is that he and Paul didn’t see eye-to-eye and that the whole “Mary was a virgin” thing is something that more Paul-aligned sources used in an attempt to discredit him. I think some branches claim that he was actually Jesus’ cousin and that the word “brother” was being used figuratively. (All the stuff about Mary’s virginity is, of course, ultimately done to tie into a passage in the book of Isaiah that Christians retcon into being about Jesus. Said passage used a term that could mean either “virgin” or “young woman” in Hebrew, but was specifically translated as “virgin” in the Greek translation that the New Testament writers were working from.)
Specifically from memory, “cousin” is the official Catholic position, while the Orthodox Church attempts to split the difference between it and the common Protestant position (Jesus’s brothers and sisters were Joseph and Mary’s) by having James and the others be Joseph’s but from a “first wife” who died some time before Mary.
It’s always weird when I talk to people who are really christian cuz like…I spent most of my life being around people who were christian as like…a technicality.
In that very vocal, relatively large segments of US Christianity have made opposition to any kind of birth control a required element of their faith. Kind of like, y’know, Joyce and her whole complex around it.
There’s some interesting facts that certain denominations of Christianity were actually attacked by political organizations about various reproductive issues. Phyllis Schlafly AKA The Queen of Evil according to my mother used large amounts of politician money to pay off megachurch as well as Right Wing pastors to try to turn Roe vs. Wade into a wedge issue for Evangelical Protestants in the Seventies. Previously, opposition had been largely considered a Catholic issue.
Why? She wanted to overturn school desegregation. If that sounds like it makes no sense, it operated from the principle of “If we can get a judge radical to overturn RvW then we can get them to overturn desegregation.”
American Politics – if you scratch at it long enough, it’s always about racism.
As always it depends on what kind of Christian you’re talking about, both what denomination they come from and what teachings of their denomination they accept or reject. The Roman Catholic Church officially states artificial contraception is wrong, but a large number of Catholics ignore this doctrine.
The Catholic Church has 2000 years’ worth of doctrine and theology on just about everything. Catholics in the US are notorious for picking and choosing which ones they actually follow. Cafeteria Catholic is not a restaurant chain.
I get that, what I don’t get is how Christian baggage effects your capacity to take pills, like the literal act of it. Like god won’t help you take an aspirin, that’s the part Joyce is struggling with. Almost anyone is qualified to help.
God doesn’t help you eat food or drink water and Christians still do it. You could say that if he really wanted us to live he would have made us like plants and only require water and sunlight.
The idea of not taking birth control just because biology doesn’t naturally have that switch is just weird to me.
I think she’s concerned about Lucy, as a fellow Christian, being judgy of Joyce and her “Hussy Pills,” not that she’d be bad at getting her to take pills in general.
Re: Sirksome’s comment, I think Joyce’s thing about pills in general has more to do with her various food quirks. The fact that we’re talking about “hussy pills” here just up the stakes for her.
Some animals do! Kangaroos can keep a fertilised embryo on stasis until conditions are good. Multiple insects/spiders can store sperm and fertilise their ova as they choose. “choice” might be a strong word, it’s not like we can ask them, but yea, in several species I know off the dome, the acts of sex and conception/gestation are mechanically separated.
Queen ants store the sperm from the males when they have their massive Bacchanalian flying orgy. Then the colony abandons the males and lets them die because they have served their purpose. Not cool.
Weird takes on Christianity are found elsewhere in Japanese pop culture. The character Nemuri Kyoshiro first appeared in a 1956 serialised novel, followed by appearances on TV and in film. A wandering samurai in the 1830s, his father was a foreigner and his mother Japanese, and he was conceived during a Black Mass, leading to a hatred of Christianity because of its supposed hypocrisy. The fact that Black Masses aren’t actually Christian doesn’t seem to have mattered to his creator, Renzaburo Shibata.
In fairness, Evangelion basically used Christianity as an aesthetic. If you want an evil Church, try out Final Fantasy 14’s Ishgard in the critically acclaimed expansion Heavensward.
I thought there were other protestants that went by that too. Even the Lutheran faith has different denominations that even now sometimes don’t get along, though some of it is more by a congregation to congregation basis with the rural ones being more picky. Missouri Synod tends to be more conservative and not as welcoming while ELCA is more liberal and takes the “all are welcome” approach. Some of the break ups with the protestant religions used to be about how communion and salvation was viewed, but now political views and society disagreements seem to play more of a factor.
LCMS is more conservative-ish though it does depend on the individual church to an extend. I had a friend recently refer to the WELS as “the rabid step child of the conservative synods,” and, having been raised in both it and LCMS, I can agree with her. I think ELS is slightly less rabid than WELS but I’m not terribly sure about that.
I was raised in ELCA, but it was really the only Lutheran church in my area growing up (and in a more urban area). I find personally that LCMS in more city or suburban areas tend to be more liberal than ones in rural areas. I was visiting family in rural Minnesota when I was young and they didn’t want to let visiting family have communion due to the fact that we went to an ELCA one instead. The church that I grew up in said that all were welcome and actually acted what they preached.
Closed communion is a really big deal to churches that believe in it. Like they actually preach that communion is a professional of faith and by taking communion alongside someone you’re processing you believe the same things they do, so if you’re not from the same synod them you’re lying and it’s a sin. It’s a really weird doctrine when you get into it, because even within the same synod you may not have the same beliefs.
I grew up (and technically still am) Lutheran Missouri Synod though I am currently an attending non-member of a liberal Catholic Church my (Catholic) mother strongly recommended.
It does depend on the congegation and Pastor. My church growing up did practice the idea of “don’t take communion unless you agree with our interpretation”, but enforcement amounted to some text in the disposable paper guide with all the songs and readings of the day in it.
You can also get a good idea of what doctrine is important by quizing the pastor.
I once asked my childhood pastor where are Church fell on the Creation/Evolution spectrum (there is a spectrum) and he said he didn’t know but it was safe to assume we matched whatever position the Catholics took. The Catholic position is that evolution is real and happened/is happening. Turns out the official position of the Synod is “We said we believe what was written down and we mean it”.
I kinda get that, but closed communion always seemed weird to me. I grew up in the very conservative Church of Christ and even we practiced open communion, served every Sunday.
In fact, before the prayer, they would often encourage visitors to partake “if your heart is right with The Lord”. Denying that based on membership just seems wrong.
I’m sure it’d be a cute story/flashback but wouldn’t be surprised if her dad was also humoring her with the bike stuff, though at least from what we know she doesn’t have any baggage parents wise
Probably, unless she’s just using it as an example for humor and isn’t being serious. Then again, it’s also not impossible she has a dad who just never learned to ride a bike and she insisted on teaching him, like a parent patiently having pokemon cards explained to them.
true, i pretty much ‘gave up’ with a no training wheels kinda bike but we also grew up in an apartment so not much room for it. prolly should’ve stuck with it or gotten like a scooter or so to make walking slightly easier to i’d still be worried about bumping into anyone lol
Going to be one of those storylines where I wait patiently to try and glean some insights into Christian lore and how it relates to the characters from the comments section.
At least I don’t have to rush to get to each comic as soon as it’s posted though, which is nice.
The Christianity fandom is one of the hardest to get into. They have weekly meetups to discuss the lore but they’re splintered into all sorts of factions. (Some people actually prefer the pre-timeskip bible and say the sequel isn’t canon, but that’s different.)
Are you referring to the fact that Christianity is actually a spinnoff of another fandom?
Personally my rule is spinnoffs aren’t cannon to the origional unless you want them to be but the origional is cannon to the spinnoff unless stated otherwise.
Or were you referring to something else.
Yeah Santa Claus can be traced back to this folk figure known as Father Christmas, first appearing in a song from the 1600s about 8 children representing the ways adults liked to celebrate the holiday — mostly getting drunk and partying.
Santa at one point had like 50 different appearances all across Europe and America. Only by the 1960s did the Coca Cola company come up with the jolly old red-suited fellow, the grand unified Santa Claus we know today.
Christian lore doesn’t always relate to the actions of the characters even if they are supposedly Christian. Nowadays in some ways people use Christianity to explain their beliefs and biases that they had without actually bothering to see if it actually fits. Like the guns and Jesus political slogans, turning the religion to fit their own needs rather than what it actually says.
Not sure it’s actually a joke and more about how Paul viewed that people got salvation by faith in God rather than by good works. Becky might not be a fan of that due to her father’s destructive faith, so prefers James’ teachings.
Paul is also one of the more noticeably homophobic (and generally sexphobic) influences on early Christianity, so he’d be one of the ones Becky would be used to having pulled out to justify why gay people and the promiscuous are going to hell.
Paul also had some of the more strict cultural rules that I would call, say, misogynistic and bullshit. His is not the preaching of “just be kind, okay?”
Paul said some bad stuff. Some of it is contested as not being written by him but by other Christians using his name. But some of it could be taken as homophobic.
James the Just is a ‘brother’ of Jesus. I do not know if that is meant to be literal or if it is meant in a brother-in-arms kind of way, but he talks about things like taking care of orphans the like and proving your faith with your actions, not just your words. He is apparently liked by Jewish Christians as he advocates for observing the Torah.
WRT the “brother of Jesus” thing, what that is interpreted to mean is dependent on which Christian branch you’re asking; Catholic teaching as I understand it is that he (and the other “brothers/sisters of Jesus” mentioned in the Gospels) was a brother-in-spirit kind of deal, while Orthodox teaching is that he was a son of Joseph from a first marriage prior to marrying Mary (making him Jesus’s step-brother), and some Protestant groups (such as the one I was raised in) teach that he was Jesus’s half-brother, born to Joseph and Mary after Jesus’s own birth.
I personally find it hilarious how many contortions Christians need to make in order to explain how Jesus has siblings, particularly older ones, because they had to start from the whole virgin birth thing. It’s the sudden but inevitable consequence of taking your mythology too literally.
Funny thing with that as well… is that the original word could have translated as young woman or virgin according to some people. So it could be very straightforward but just because of mistranslation thousands of years ago, made it confusing to people.
In many languages, including several that early versions of the bible got translated through, ‘virgin birth’ means ‘firstborn’.
My eldest child is my ‘virgin birth’ – even though I was in no way a virgin for more than a decade prior to getting pregnant with them.
I find it hilarious because I don’t see the inevitability of which you speak. The “virgin birth thing” was an event. It started, it completed, and after that life continues in its normal course. Which, for a husband and wife, typically would include children if they are capable of producing them. Where’s the problem?
Catholic (and maybe other branches of Christianity? IDK.) doctrine states that Mary remained a virgin for her entire life and never had any other children.
The joke is they’re getting into a theological discussion, regarding the contradictions in the New Testament (and the authors of it who had disagreements), but what Becky really meant was personal attitude towards sex.
I truly truly think that’ Lucy is better off staying out of this. Becky Meddling is one thing. She and Joyce are practically family. Lucy’s barely even on Joyce’s radar. She’d be forgiven if she called her “Walky’s girlfriend”. I don’t think she wants you poking around in her business.
Even if they are practically family Joyce has made it clear that Becky’s “help” is becoming unwanted. Getting Lucy involved at this point might very well be the straw that breaks the camels back so to speak because it can come off as yet another way Becky is taking Joyce’s own agency from her.
Yeah, Jennifer and Joyce are at least friends, Joyce and Lucy are kind of nothing. Lucy would only be doing this as a way to prove to her church friend Becky that she’s helpful, not actually for Joyce’s sake. And Joyce is sick of people meddling in her life, even if they have good intentions. Lucy, barely an acquaintance and a religious one at that, suddenly trying to get Joyce to take her birth control pills which Joyce is embarrassed of? Yeah, that’s gonna go very not great. Especially if Lucy realizes they are BC and gets all weird about it, which Jennifer wouldn’t.
Hey now, last I heard 7 out of the 13 Pauline epistles are considered by scholars to be written by Paul, that’s more than half…though I don’t know what other stuff he’s credited with…
Or was that 7 out of 13 pseudoepigraphic (not written by who it claims to be written by)?
This actually is a hot topic right now due to a Jeopardy question on the latest show that asked which of Paul’s epistles quoted the Old Testament the most. Since there is disagreement about which ones he wrote, the answer could be one of several depending on which source you believe.
… even worse, the answer given was Hebrews, a book for which about the only thing certain of its authorship is “not Paul”.
(it doesn’t claim to be by him, it follows different conventions to his letters, and it’s entirely unlike his writing style or that of anything else in the NT. recent suggestions of Priscilla could well be right, but with nothing known to be by her to compare with there’s simply no way of ever knowing.)
Ok, ha, the source I had for “scholars only think 7 of the epistles were written by Paul” doesn’t even count Hebrews among the 13 epistles, there we go for 50% if that’s counted in the alt-text.
Becky you don’t “gotta teach Joyce anything” especially when she has just expressed to you that your continued help is not appreciated. I feel bad for Lucy here because this situation has the making of a possible fight between Becky and Joyce over Joyce’s independence and Becky doesn’t seen to keep on acknowledging that issue.
I’d argue she is acknowledging it though. That seems to be reason she’s currently finding some alternate source of advice for Joyce; to give Joyce the means to get help from someone other than Becky if she doesn’t want Becky involved.
It could (will?) probably still cause issues, at least partly because Becky seems to be misunderstanding Joyce’s position (as she doesn’t know the things Joyce didn’t tell her about), but her intentions seem good enough.
Personally I see this as Becky just overstepping Joyce’s boundaries because she wants to remain her prominent friend in all aspects of Joyce’s life. Joyce told her she did not appreciate her help last time they spoke, Becky kind of jokingly brushed Joyce’s anger off and now she’s getting a forth person involved were there doesn’t really need to be. If Joyce wants to try on her own she should be allowed to whether she’s successful or not. Not giving Joyce a chance to try Is Becky deciding for Joyce what she needs without her input which is no healthy.
i get the feeling that ‘mothering’ joyce might’ve been a thing for a while in their childhood too and hard to let go of now that they don’t have their Christianity in common anymore as well
I feel like Lucy isn’t the sort of Christian to object to birth control, especially for someone with dysmenorrhea. I think even the Church considers hormones for dysmenorrhea to fall under the “dual effect” doctrine (and yes, I know basically no one in this strip is Catholic except the O’Malleys, the Galassos, the Desantos, and probably Asher, but the point is I assume Lucy is to the left of that).
Didn’t she and Walky already discuss it? Lucy asked what was up with Joyce, Walky mentioned that she had a murderous ovary, and iirc, Lucy commented something to the effect that taking birth control pills to deal with that would be very hard because she’d probably been taught her whole life she’d go to hell for it. (Unless that second part was a different conversation—but it was definitely Lucy who made that observation.)
It sounds like Lucy is Christian enough to be aware of the kind of conditioning Joyce was subject to during her upbringing, but does not personally share the extremism of Joyce’s family/childhood churches. She seems more open to premarital sex than Joyce and Becky, as well—falling back on “I’m a Christian woman!” to assure Walky she’s not suggesting they have sex, in a moment when she seems very insecure about whether he’s even interested, and then walking that back almost immediately when it appears that he is. That moment suggests she’s familiar with the language and the behavioral expectations of being a Good a Christian Girl, but hasn’t internalized it the way peers like Joyce and Becky and Liz all have. She’ll perform it as a social crutch, but she doesn’t really *feel* it. (To which I say: she’s lucky! And probably not much better equipped to help with someone who’s struggling with religious trauma than most of Joyce’s friends circle.)
It’s okay, I remember an absurd amount of this comic quite honestly. Their first meeting mostly went badly because Joyce thought Lucy was being, as Malaya would say, fakey to make fun of her.
Their conversation otherwise went okay until she asked about guys for movie night and Joyce said to stay away from Jacob as she left. Most of their interactions have been brief.
Becky going to enlist Jennifer (supposedly) without knowing the tensions that have been built up between her and Dorothy stands to create some DELICIOUS drama (and, if we’re lucky, it may even activate Becky’s Font of Unending Jealousy if she finds out that Dorothy got actually upset with Jen rather than her, Dorothy’s True Rival)
Becky, Joyce is not going to check the “Christian” box on a form because she is not currently a Christian. She is an atheist. And she’s not being an atheist at you, it’s actually got very little to do with you at all. Even the parts that do have to do with you don’t have to do with you, so can you just stop.
You will lose your friend over this. Even more than everything else, Becky, this is the thing that will end your friendship if you do not quit it. And I think all the commenters here can agree that this is saying quite a lot.
Just realizing I read “Joyce” where I should have read “Jennifer” all along.
Well, now I feel both confused and silly, but Becky, Jennifer is not “barely” a Christian either, like, the fundies don’t own the religion and neither do you.
I’m pretty sure that Jennifer is barely a christian by her own… Whatever…? She’s probably not even thought about it too much because religion or lack thereof isn’t that important to her? It’s probably the best from her perspective socially to be christian in name and to at least say she believes that stuff while also no being a “jesus freak” or making a fuss out of it when someone says something against christianity. Which is valid, frankly. For all I know she does believe the uh. Jesus stuff and sin and christian hell or whatever.
And like yes the loud people who comment every section seem to be trying to push for an agreement the becky is somehow a bad person for being loud and having feelings and because her coping mechanisms for her traumas and insecurities sometimes annoy people… I don’t agree.
Tbh christianity rubs me the wrong way in general just because if the “money is sinful therefore slavery is good” thing. Which is a thing. Not every christian person believes that I guess but they fundamentally hate money as a concept while many of them also thing that money naturally comes to those virtuous or whatever because of providence and the more I think about it the less sense it makes to me and I don’t want anything to do with the dogma. I don’t think lust or sloth is a sin, I don’t think wrath is a sin etcetera.
Religion is good, but it’s used for power and control by patriarchal authorities. I don’t like that part very much. I’m not sure what my point is anymore but it feels good to ramble. Fundies don’t own the religion so i agree with you on that point at least.
I think if Becky were being honest she would have to admit that her meddling is primarily about keeping up her involvement in Joyce’s life whether its wanted or not. Dorothy got to be the one to take her to the pharmacy, Becky wants to be in charge of Joyce taking the pills so she can feel equally involved.
I feel for Lucy here because I think her trying to convince Becky to let her help stems from feeling like the reason she doesn’t have many friends is because she’s to passive and that she needs to be more confident. Unfortunately she’s unknowingly volunteering to be part of Becky’s uwanted meddling.
Oh I don’t think Lucy’s a bad person for this or anything. She definitely needs more friends, but she needs friends that want her to be around them, instead of just kinda tolerating her presence.
One day Lucy will find a good friend group for herself.
flaws of being a people-pleaser, if she had more of a ‘presence’ among the students i imagine she’d probably be taken advantage of/become an errand girl/gopher for some of the cliche popular students (even if cliques aren’t as bad as they are in high school still kinda a hierarchy in college i imagine) [tho at this point i’m surprised she hasn’t joined a ‘nerdy club’ and found more friends that align with her interests as opposed to ppl that happen to surround her]
some one as enthusiastic as lucy could be helpful without being as…meticulous? as dorothy
Probably not happening until after the awkward conversation about “wait, you said you’re on BC now? That seems…out of character.” I’m expecting an evasive and difficult conversation, from both sides, with plenty of misunderstandings, until they get it sorted out. Lotsa room for humor and drama in there.
Since I haven’t got enough knowledge to unravel or understand the mythological discussions today, I’ll just say hope Lucy doesn’t get dragged into some stupid cartoon scheme that involves wrestling Joyce or whatever it is Becky thinks she’s planning.
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so it’s the Gourd vs. Lost Shoe factions, I see
Both of them are Star Wars fans, too !
Lucy somewhat more openly but probably somewhat less intensely
Wut
Who’s James the Just?
Or rather, what’s his relation to this “No True Scotsman” stance Becky has on faith?
It’s less of a “no true scottsman” and more like…legit there’s a trillion different interpretations and sects of the Christian faith. The entire religion is basically “no true Scottsman” cuz nobody can actually agree on an interpretation.
Maintaining a single unified interpretation of a religion spread across thousands of cultures over thousands of years is probably impossible unless you are the Borg, and even then it’d be challenging
We will add your theological and ecclesiastical distinctiveness to our own
Even Warhammer 40K, home to writers with no sense of scale or bureaucracy and a militiantly theocratic society knows that orthodoxy is a hard task. As long as the local planet’s religions can be renovated a bit to check off some basic requirements, they’re good to go.
It’s striking exactly how weird Judaism and Christianity are among world religions. Most religions aggressively adapt themselves if you jump over a mountain or other interesting terrain feature. But Judaism had the innovation of writing it down in a book and standardizing stuff in order to maintain cultural tradition. This didn’t stop it from fracturing (there are a number of non-Rabbinical Jewish traditions from the post-Exile, pre-Talmud era; check out Sam Aronow on Youtube), but it showed that it was possible. That was 200ish AD. Christianity (in the form of Constantine in 300ish AD) basically stole that idea and tried to force everyone to agree on the same kind of Christianity, hence the active persecution of “heretics”. Before that canonization, there was a flowering of Christian sects (the most notable group being that of the Gnostics, which is an academic umbrella term for a bunch of different heterodoxies). The RCC is a schism from the Orthodoxy, and inside the RCC are a whole bunch of carefully controlled not-quite-heresies called “monastic orders”. A big part of the RCC is holding summits where people hash out doctrine. And then Henry VIII and Martin Luther kicked the last shreds of that house of cards over and Christianity got to diversify again, for better or worse.
People think that the RCC’s united facade is the standard template for religion, but there was really absolutely nothing in history even remotely similar to it. Not even the RCC itself.
Sabellius, Arius, Nestor, and a thousand other “heretics” approve this message.
Judaism might slightly disagree, however. Aside from certain brands of post-1800s Orthodoxy (which, interestingly, came *after* the Reform movement), it doesn’t pretend to unity. Rabbinical Judaism is much more the history of contrasting schools of legal interpretation, and the whole point of the Talmud’s structure and later Midrashim is to preserve those debates. When a Jew says “everything is Torah” they include the contradictions – it’s probably one of the reasons there are so many excellent Jewish political theorists/philosophers/historians/lawyers. The whole religion is constructed as an argument around textual interpretation, without much of a coherent doctrine. It’s still *unique* in it’s focus on a single text, but it’s not unique in the same manner as Christianity… and there’s no way to annoy a Jew more quickly than to say something like “Judeo-Christian” because that really does cease to be a thing with the execution of James the Just.
Didn’t really end quite that quickly, I think. Sects like the Ebionites and Nazarenes continued for quite some time, though they were outnumbered by the proto-orthodox.
As for Judeo-Christian, I do think there needs to be a term for various religions deriving from the old Israelite beliefs. That particular one is used to exclude Islam, which makes little sense. “Abrahamic religions” or the Muslim “People of the Book”.
The issue is that it’s a usable term for theologians in specific situations, but in general use implies unity where there isn’t any. No public speaker has ever followed “Judeo-Christian” with something distinctly Jewish, just Christian with the implied assumption that Jews are on-board.
See for example the Ten Commandments as a monument, the idea of forgiveness as something that needs to be given before atonement, or the idea that life begins at conception.
Bruceski’s comment is exactly what I was getting at. Abrahamic religions also frequently suffers from the same problem in the West. People of the Book is better, since the islamic world when that term was created was much more accepting of Jews.
In general, we need far, far less use of the umbrella terms and more understanding and respect for the differences. Even many theologians suffer from jewish theology erasure.
Agreed. It’s awkward terminology and often misused.
The umbrella terms remain valuable, I think, but only when talking in larger terms – contrasting with Hinduism, Buddhism or other faiths with very different roots.
“certain brands of post-1800s Orthodoxy (which, interestingly, came *after* the Reform movement)”
Yep, and sometimes in reaction to it
I was in the library the other day and succumbed to the siren song of a little book I found by the name of Heretics by Jonathan Wright. I didn’t do the homework I probably needed to, but it was definitely a fascinating read about religious schisms and dead splinter faiths in Christianity. There were some ones that would be considered very strange by today’s standards. For example, a couple had this whole thing going on where they concluded that given the sinful, suffering nature of the world that their must be at least two deities – a Creator Deity that fashioned an imperfect world and the God of Jesus who sent him in pity upon mankind.
That’s the basic Gnostic idea, probably drawn from Zoroastrianism.
I’m not familiar with that book in particular, but I had a course on the history of occult sciences in college and there was one particular heretical order that really tickled my fancy, I think it was like the gnostic order of the serpent or something similarly generic from the 13th or 14th century (I can’t recall if the prof said 13th century or 1300s). They basically found a biblical justification for hedonism. I’m probably oversimplifying but the basic argument is that since Jesus died for our sins, if we don’t sin, then Jesus died for nothing, so therefore it is *better* to sin, confess, and repent as much as possible (so long as you don’t cross certain lines, like murder) than to live as free from sin as possible. AFAIK the most common sins they practiced were lust, including adultery, and gluttony, so they basically had church sanctioned orgies and feasts and engaged in lots of swinging, because the bible said so. Naturally the Catholics put them all down for their heresy.
I’m sure there was a whole lot more to it than that, and my memory of the discussion is very fuzzy and incomplete, so I could be wildly misrepresenting the group in question, but I think they’re my favorite Christian sect of all time.
I don’t think he has one; she’s contrasting his stance on morality with Paul’s, and that’s a whole scripture thing.
I also wouldn’t call it a No True Scotsman. I don’t think she’s saying that Jennifer isn’t a Christian, just that she isn’t as serious or focused about it as others, and that’s both true and not necessarily any sort of insult.
I think what makes it particularly relevant in this context is that both Becky and, more relevantly, Joyce know that whatever kind of Christian Jennifer is, she would in no way judge or shame Joyce for taking birth control. That’s not saying that Lucy or Becky *would*, especially given that she’s not taking to have sex but rather for a medical reason, just that Joyce is liable to *interpret* their involvement as carrying judgement, making the whole process more difficult and/or painful than it has any need or right to be for everyone involved.
Jennifer’s faith isn’t what matters, it’s Joyce’s interpretation of that faith, or rather what box she occupies in Joyce’s head. Lucy’s involvement would trigger Joyce’s left over Christian guilt from her upbringing because she identifies Lucy as a “real” Christian, even if she isn’t as fundamental as Joyce was, whereas they all know Jennifer is/has been promiscuous and thus shouldn’t poke at that particular wound.
Anyways, what Becky really means is that she doesn’t know if Lucy fucks.
Not till the third date.
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2021/comic/book-11/04-hompk/chill/
Early theological argument. Paul nee Saul believed that Gentiles could go straight to be Christians; James argued that they had to convert to Judaism first, then become Christians. This, in particular, would have meant that the Gentile men would have to agree to circumcision prior to being allowed to become Christians.
Natch, this was a bit of a negative selling point, and Paul’s argument that Christianity had to take a less hardline approach in order to expand eventually won out.
Now, honestly, Becky’s not really thinking this through. While it’s true that Paul re-injected all the OT rules against women and homosexuality into his interpretation of Christianity (and is thus generally given the side-eye by leftist Christians), James’ approach would’ve pretty much led to the same result.
Yeah, I’m kind of curious what Becky thinks James’ version of the religion was.
The guy who is credited with writing the Book of James in the New Testament.
FYI, there’s a Book of James in the New Testament.
I’m reading the comments because I have 0 knowledge of Christianity books and I’m just more and more confused
Same. I know the major stuff in broad strokes, but I’ve learned more about the minutiae (and all the interpretations thereof) from these comics and comments than anywhere else.
Same-same.
But almost certainly not the author of that book.
“James the Just”, brother of Jesus and leader of the Jesus movement based in Jerusalem from some point after Jesus’s death. Stayed with a more Jewish, Torah observant version of the movement, in opposition to Paul’s mission to the Gentiles.
Mind you, I’m not at all sure what Becky thinks a James the Just version of Christianity would be like. Pretty sure it wouldn’t include keeping strict Torah Law.
No, because Jesus said that in Him was the completion of the Law, and Man no longer had to keep it.
Jesus also said that “until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished. Therefore whoever relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven.”
Or at least a later author wrote that he said that. This was the big conflict of mid-1st century Christianity and the Gospel writers were part of the conflict. In different Gospels Jesus says things that can be taken to be on different sides of that divide. Which of them, if any, he actually said, we really cannot know.
I know it doesn’t fit with the whole “The Bible is inerrant,” deal you often get from Christians, but the authors of the various books in it disagreed a lot. A lot of the anti-queer stuff in the New Testament is from Paul, he also said salvation comes through faith alone. James disagreed, and said salvation requires “works”, because works demonstrate faith. You’ll see a lot of linguistic gymnastics to pretend that’s not a disagreement.
Ah, I have heard that Catholicism believes in “works” as opposed to Protestant branches like Puritans who emphasize faith alone and “conversion experiences”, thank you for clarification of the roots of this division.
Paul’s interpretation is pretty much standard for most protestants, not just the puritans. But the Catholic idea of “works” is more like sacraments, and I think a better reading is that works is like mitzvah, some are rituals, but a lot are doing good deeds: feeding the hungry, tending to the sick, making sure widows and orphans are taken care of, that kind of thing.
The doctrine of “sola fide” (faith alone) comes from Martin Luther, a monk who was very pissed that Catholic priests accepted money (“indulgences”) as a way to pre-pay for your sins instead of getting people to actually act less sinfully. It’s basically the entire thing that kicked off the Protestant Reformation (which was political as much as it was religious; history’s complicated).
Whether or not you decide to root the division in the canonized text itself is… up to you. Like, Paul wasn’t a big fan of money either. Or marriage. But importantly, the existence of such a division in the text didn’t matter when most people couldn’t read and had an interpretation handed to them by Catholic priests. Luther and the new-fangled printing press helped upend that order and with the doctrine of sola scriptura (Scripture alone) effectively handed interpretative power to whoever.
He hadn’t planned or wanted that, but it was kinda too late.
ooh
The Bible reads much better if you jettison Paul’s stuff. He’s a misogynist too. Intolerant bigot. Contradicts a lot of the feeling from the gospels. I’m with Becky.
Of course she’s also recently (IIRC) converted to Good Works are important and Faith Alone is Not Enough— very heavily stressed in the US branch of the Episcopalian church.
There’s also the thing where Paul was a self-loathing Gay person. Or at least many Gospel authorities think he was.
I’ve seen him interpreted as ace, actually, which makes a lot more sense imo. Self-loathing gay is a good way to push blame for his homophobia back on the people it targeted. Ace in a time before that word existed turns his “all sex is evil, but if you really must, het only while married for the purpose of procreation” into an almost funny “wait, people actually enjoy sex?!?” sitcom misunderstanding.
Maybe, but celibacy as part of religion isn’t that uncommon. The Essenes at the time definitely disapproved of women and of sexual relations, even within marriage, though marriage wasn’t forbidden at least to some Essenes. I doubt all such were invented by ace people. Paul’s attitude wasn’t that extreme really.
Especially for a believer in an apocalyptic cult, expecting God to bring about the Kingdom of Heaven at any time.
Considering how some people viewed other people in that time period (including how Romans viewed women), I think you have to take some things within a historical societal context. Especially since the letters were written to specific groups in that time period. Concepts of words change, especially through translation. It’s like the US Constitution being written before things like the internet, nuclear weapons or assault riffles existed, so them talking about weapons doesn’t include our current understanding of what weapons can be. Even in talking to someone in person in the same time period, personal perceptions/definitions of words and ideas are different due to personal experiences.
Pretty sure Paul was a bigot and the gospels weren’t bigoted no matter the translation. I don’t think we have to care about the historical context about something people are trying to live by today. It’s irrelevant unless you want to say Paul was a product of his time, unlike Jesus, and they made a mistake sticking him on the end of the Bible.
It’s easy to see “…salvation requires ‘works’….” as implying an ordering: do works and then one is saved. The usual formula in my experience is to reverse the implied order: one who is saved is then moved to works because sometimes love requires action.
But even that works/faith divide is a misreading of the early divide between Paul and James, which was focused on whether Gentiles who wanted to follow Jesus need to become Jews. “Works” didn’t mean what we think of today, but rather following Torah law. A lot of focus on the dietary restrictions and of course circumcision – both things that would be a big turn-off to prospective converts.
James the Just – brother of Jesus, and known for being more “works-oriented”. Also known from Acts as an opponent of Paul in terms of Roman assimilationism and sola fide/faith-alone doctrine. There’s also some scholarship on Acts that paints James and Paul as quite thoroughly opposed to each other. One of the big challenges in biblical interpretation is that the canonical New Testament gospels, aside from John, are based on the Pauline “sect” of christianity. Some scholarship – controversial among christian scholars, less so among jewish scholars – suggests James still had Christianity tied to the temple, and it was more one sect of judaism than a new religion. He may have also been more of a follower of Shammai than of Hillel – which fits with the works/ritual focus. Basically, Paul was a Roman/Greek assimilationist, and possibly a cousin of Herod the Great (certainly a Roman citizen, that’s uncontroversial)… whereas many other very early Christians were not.
Unfortunately, following the Bar Kochba revolt, those associated with James fled Israel into the Syria and Persia. (Syrian Orthodox churches still use the Liturgy of St. James.) Those associated with Paul spread through Rome, which is part of why the Pauline letters and interpretations are given primacy in most Christian denominations.
Unsurprisingly, I was also a James the Just stan growing up. So much so that I eventually converted to Judaism…
Somehow I doubt that’s the route Becky’s on, though it would be amusing.
Yeah, that would be a comic by Zach Weinersmith, not Willis LMAO
Thank you for the thorough explanation!
Seconded. I liked Lucy’s line in panel two, but Becky’s punchline left me scratching my head.
You’re both welcome. I credit decades of soul-searching and most of a political theory PhD in lieu of the priesthood/rabbinate. If you ever want a similar lecture on Dante’s political theology, I’m also happy to provide *laugh/cry*
Yeah, in my youth I would introduce my self as I’m James, like Jesus brother – same mom different Dads. tis boom!
Jesus’ brother. Early head of the church in Jerusalem before he was put to death by Rome in 70 CE. Disagreed a lot with Paul (especially because Paul claimed to know Jesus better than James – again, Jesus’ actual factual brother). Reputed to be pretty nice. We have more extrabiblical evidence of him existing than his brother.
James the Just was Jesus’ younger brother. He was a major leader in the early Church, but the Gospel authors kinda go out of their way to avoid mentioning him. Willis is more familiar with this stuff than I am, but my general understanding is that he and Paul didn’t see eye-to-eye and that the whole “Mary was a virgin” thing is something that more Paul-aligned sources used in an attempt to discredit him. I think some branches claim that he was actually Jesus’ cousin and that the word “brother” was being used figuratively. (All the stuff about Mary’s virginity is, of course, ultimately done to tie into a passage in the book of Isaiah that Christians retcon into being about Jesus. Said passage used a term that could mean either “virgin” or “young woman” in Hebrew, but was specifically translated as “virgin” in the Greek translation that the New Testament writers were working from.)
Specifically from memory, “cousin” is the official Catholic position, while the Orthodox Church attempts to split the difference between it and the common Protestant position (Jesus’s brothers and sisters were Joseph and Mary’s) by having James and the others be Joseph’s but from a “first wife” who died some time before Mary.
Wow, and here I thought virgin births were common wherever women are executed for adultry.
It’s always weird when I talk to people who are really christian cuz like…I spent most of my life being around people who were christian as like…a technicality.
Right? I just nod and go “uh-huh” a lot.
Then, if you were a DoA character you would have spent most of your life around Jennifer. Lucky you.
I’m definitely not cool enough to be friends with Jennifer. If I was though I’d love to be FWB.
Any talk of what Paul actually wrote always initially registers to me as talking about who wrote which Beatles songs.
Understandable.
Hey Jude – Paul
Jude – Jude, brother of James the Just
–And You Don’t Mess Around With Jim!
I mean I’m not sure how much Christianity plays into taking birth control but I guess if that’s the criteria for them then who am I to judge.
Becky: I’m sorry, Lucy, but there’s something creepy about you.
Lucy: CREEPY?
Becky: You remind me too much of Joyce.
*Becky becomes good friends with Liz*
Joyce, Lucy, Liz gather around. A jamboree of Joyce
And they all put up a “season 1 Joyce” mask because that’s what they think the others expect.
I would honestly love the three Joyces to go hang out.
Joyce: WHY AM I THE GRUMPY ONE!?
Sarah: You’re the Sarah of the group!
In that very vocal, relatively large segments of US Christianity have made opposition to any kind of birth control a required element of their faith. Kind of like, y’know, Joyce and her whole complex around it.
There’s some interesting facts that certain denominations of Christianity were actually attacked by political organizations about various reproductive issues. Phyllis Schlafly AKA The Queen of Evil according to my mother used large amounts of politician money to pay off megachurch as well as Right Wing pastors to try to turn Roe vs. Wade into a wedge issue for Evangelical Protestants in the Seventies. Previously, opposition had been largely considered a Catholic issue.
Why? She wanted to overturn school desegregation. If that sounds like it makes no sense, it operated from the principle of “If we can get a judge radical to overturn RvW then we can get them to overturn desegregation.”
American Politics – if you scratch at it long enough, it’s always about racism.
She, of course, was also against contraception in public.
Eh, sometimes it really is about the misogyny, too. Right-wing politicians have plenty of room in their hearts for hating multiple groups.
As always it depends on what kind of Christian you’re talking about, both what denomination they come from and what teachings of their denomination they accept or reject. The Roman Catholic Church officially states artificial contraception is wrong, but a large number of Catholics ignore this doctrine.
The Catholic Church has 2000 years’ worth of doctrine and theology on just about everything. Catholics in the US are notorious for picking and choosing which ones they actually follow. Cafeteria Catholic is not a restaurant chain.
If God wanted us to control our birth we would’ve been born with…I dunno…some sorta shutoff switch.
I get that, what I don’t get is how Christian baggage effects your capacity to take pills, like the literal act of it. Like god won’t help you take an aspirin, that’s the part Joyce is struggling with. Almost anyone is qualified to help.
God doesn’t help you eat food or drink water and Christians still do it. You could say that if he really wanted us to live he would have made us like plants and only require water and sunlight.
The idea of not taking birth control just because biology doesn’t naturally have that switch is just weird to me.
I think she’s concerned about Lucy, as a fellow Christian, being judgy of Joyce and her “Hussy Pills,” not that she’d be bad at getting her to take pills in general.
Re: Sirksome’s comment, I think Joyce’s thing about pills in general has more to do with her various food quirks. The fact that we’re talking about “hussy pills” here just up the stakes for her.
You may be displeased to learn that some Republicans claim that such a switch exists. It’s an excuse for why you can’t get an abortion after rape.
Some animals do! Kangaroos can keep a fertilised embryo on stasis until conditions are good. Multiple insects/spiders can store sperm and fertilise their ova as they choose. “choice” might be a strong word, it’s not like we can ask them, but yea, in several species I know off the dome, the acts of sex and conception/gestation are mechanically separated.
Queen ants store the sperm from the males when they have their massive Bacchanalian flying orgy. Then the colony abandons the males and lets them die because they have served their purpose. Not cool.
Be the Christain the Japanese think you are.
Power-mad controlling society while summoning the Dark God to destroy the world?
I may have played too many RPGs. Or not enough.
*looks at the history of Christian colonization of the entire globe* I mean, are they really wrong when describing Christianity this way?
Hahahaha XD good point
The Rapture is a terrifying concept to me tbh T_T good thing it’s not a real thing that’s going to happen though
As long as Index can be my Pope, I might be OK with this.
I don’t get this and I am not sure if googling it would help.
I’m just going to link the TvTropes page
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AnimeCatholicism
Weird takes on Christianity are found elsewhere in Japanese pop culture. The character Nemuri Kyoshiro first appeared in a 1956 serialised novel, followed by appearances on TV and in film. A wandering samurai in the 1830s, his father was a foreigner and his mother Japanese, and he was conceived during a Black Mass, leading to a hatred of Christianity because of its supposed hypocrisy. The fact that Black Masses aren’t actually Christian doesn’t seem to have mattered to his creator, Renzaburo Shibata.
Fair’s fair, IMO; our pop culture has all sorts of weird takes on Japanese history/culture/religion.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vfd_4LHzNHY
Thank you! Not enough people recognize that Christians just love Evangelion.
Christian Evangelion fanart is indistinguishable from secular Evangelion fanart
In fairness, Evangelion basically used Christianity as an aesthetic. If you want an evil Church, try out Final Fantasy 14’s Ishgard in the critically acclaimed expansion Heavensward.
Less obviously, Jews also love Evangelion.
I only celebrate Christmas and weddings?
There has to be a better place for the flag button than right where fat thumbs (like mine) hit it when going for the reply.
Yeah, I hit it a couple of times by mistake recently as well.
That’s why there has to be a bunch of flags to get a post removed so that one fat-fingered klutz doesn’t block a bunch of people by accident.
If this is why we’re turning saints into the sea, then I’m not walking on water.
Nevertheless, non sequitur.
I take it Lucy is a Lutheran then?
I thought there were other protestants that went by that too. Even the Lutheran faith has different denominations that even now sometimes don’t get along, though some of it is more by a congregation to congregation basis with the rural ones being more picky. Missouri Synod tends to be more conservative and not as welcoming while ELCA is more liberal and takes the “all are welcome” approach. Some of the break ups with the protestant religions used to be about how communion and salvation was viewed, but now political views and society disagreements seem to play more of a factor.
LCMS is more conservative-ish though it does depend on the individual church to an extend. I had a friend recently refer to the WELS as “the rabid step child of the conservative synods,” and, having been raised in both it and LCMS, I can agree with her. I think ELS is slightly less rabid than WELS but I’m not terribly sure about that.
I was raised in ELCA, but it was really the only Lutheran church in my area growing up (and in a more urban area). I find personally that LCMS in more city or suburban areas tend to be more liberal than ones in rural areas. I was visiting family in rural Minnesota when I was young and they didn’t want to let visiting family have communion due to the fact that we went to an ELCA one instead. The church that I grew up in said that all were welcome and actually acted what they preached.
Closed communion is a really big deal to churches that believe in it. Like they actually preach that communion is a professional of faith and by taking communion alongside someone you’re processing you believe the same things they do, so if you’re not from the same synod them you’re lying and it’s a sin. It’s a really weird doctrine when you get into it, because even within the same synod you may not have the same beliefs.
I grew up (and technically still am) Lutheran Missouri Synod though I am currently an attending non-member of a liberal Catholic Church my (Catholic) mother strongly recommended.
It does depend on the congegation and Pastor. My church growing up did practice the idea of “don’t take communion unless you agree with our interpretation”, but enforcement amounted to some text in the disposable paper guide with all the songs and readings of the day in it.
You can also get a good idea of what doctrine is important by quizing the pastor.
I once asked my childhood pastor where are Church fell on the Creation/Evolution spectrum (there is a spectrum) and he said he didn’t know but it was safe to assume we matched whatever position the Catholics took. The Catholic position is that evolution is real and happened/is happening. Turns out the official position of the Synod is “We said we believe what was written down and we mean it”.
I kinda get that, but closed communion always seemed weird to me. I grew up in the very conservative Church of Christ and even we practiced open communion, served every Sunday.
In fact, before the prayer, they would often encourage visitors to partake “if your heart is right with The Lord”. Denying that based on membership just seems wrong.
Luthy
I’m hooooome!
I’m sure it’d be a cute story/flashback but wouldn’t be surprised if her dad was also humoring her with the bike stuff, though at least from what we know she doesn’t have any baggage parents wise
Probably, unless she’s just using it as an example for humor and isn’t being serious. Then again, it’s also not impossible she has a dad who just never learned to ride a bike and she insisted on teaching him, like a parent patiently having pokemon cards explained to them.
true, i pretty much ‘gave up’ with a no training wheels kinda bike but we also grew up in an apartment so not much room for it. prolly should’ve stuck with it or gotten like a scooter or so to make walking slightly easier to i’d still be worried about bumping into anyone lol
Going to be one of those storylines where I wait patiently to try and glean some insights into Christian lore and how it relates to the characters from the comments section.
At least I don’t have to rush to get to each comic as soon as it’s posted though, which is nice.
The Christianity fandom is one of the hardest to get into. They have weekly meetups to discuss the lore but they’re splintered into all sorts of factions. (Some people actually prefer the pre-timeskip bible and say the sequel isn’t canon, but that’s different.)
This sort of reminds me of what C.S. Lewis did.
Are you referring to the fact that Christianity is actually a spinnoff of another fandom?
Personally my rule is spinnoffs aren’t cannon to the origional unless you want them to be but the origional is cannon to the spinnoff unless stated otherwise.
Or were you referring to something else.
A lot of fandom struggle with where Santa clause fits as he’s a popular character but his importance calls into question some basic cosmology stuff
He’s kind of the Tom Bombadil of Christianity
Nicholas was/is a saint. Santa Claus, IIRC, is mostly an invention of the Coca-Cola company. :p
It’s a bit fitting that the patron saint of thieves got stolen, though.
Also Odin, Santa is probably Odin
Yeah Santa Claus can be traced back to this folk figure known as Father Christmas, first appearing in a song from the 1600s about 8 children representing the ways adults liked to celebrate the holiday — mostly getting drunk and partying.
Santa at one point had like 50 different appearances all across Europe and America. Only by the 1960s did the Coca Cola company come up with the jolly old red-suited fellow, the grand unified Santa Claus we know today.
Probably also a mix of characters from other local cultures, like Christmas in general.
+1 Internets to Yotomoe
And then there’s the other big spin-off fandom that the Christian fans often try to pretend isn’t related.
Christian lore doesn’t always relate to the actions of the characters even if they are supposedly Christian. Nowadays in some ways people use Christianity to explain their beliefs and biases that they had without actually bothering to see if it actually fits. Like the guns and Jesus political slogans, turning the religion to fit their own needs rather than what it actually says.
Er, I’m Jewish. Could someone please explain the joke to me?
Mood
Not sure it’s actually a joke and more about how Paul viewed that people got salvation by faith in God rather than by good works. Becky might not be a fan of that due to her father’s destructive faith, so prefers James’ teachings.
Paul is also one of the more noticeably homophobic (and generally sexphobic) influences on early Christianity, so he’d be one of the ones Becky would be used to having pulled out to justify why gay people and the promiscuous are going to hell.
Paul also had some of the more strict cultural rules that I would call, say, misogynistic and bullshit. His is not the preaching of “just be kind, okay?”
Paul said some bad stuff. Some of it is contested as not being written by him but by other Christians using his name. But some of it could be taken as homophobic.
James the Just is a ‘brother’ of Jesus. I do not know if that is meant to be literal or if it is meant in a brother-in-arms kind of way, but he talks about things like taking care of orphans the like and proving your faith with your actions, not just your words. He is apparently liked by Jewish Christians as he advocates for observing the Torah.
Actually, I have listened to the Book of James several times. I really enjoy it as piece of literature.
WRT the “brother of Jesus” thing, what that is interpreted to mean is dependent on which Christian branch you’re asking; Catholic teaching as I understand it is that he (and the other “brothers/sisters of Jesus” mentioned in the Gospels) was a brother-in-spirit kind of deal, while Orthodox teaching is that he was a son of Joseph from a first marriage prior to marrying Mary (making him Jesus’s step-brother), and some Protestant groups (such as the one I was raised in) teach that he was Jesus’s half-brother, born to Joseph and Mary after Jesus’s own birth.
I personally find it hilarious how many contortions Christians need to make in order to explain how Jesus has siblings, particularly older ones, because they had to start from the whole virgin birth thing. It’s the sudden but inevitable consequence of taking your mythology too literally.
It doesn’t help that the texts that became the New Testament were written by authors who didn’t actually know Jesus, decades after he died.
Funny thing with that as well… is that the original word could have translated as young woman or virgin according to some people. So it could be very straightforward but just because of mistranslation thousands of years ago, made it confusing to people.
In many languages, including several that early versions of the bible got translated through, ‘virgin birth’ means ‘firstborn’.
My eldest child is my ‘virgin birth’ – even though I was in no way a virgin for more than a decade prior to getting pregnant with them.
I find it hilarious because I don’t see the inevitability of which you speak. The “virgin birth thing” was an event. It started, it completed, and after that life continues in its normal course. Which, for a husband and wife, typically would include children if they are capable of producing them. Where’s the problem?
Catholic (and maybe other branches of Christianity? IDK.) doctrine states that Mary remained a virgin for her entire life and never had any other children.
I thought oily Joshua had younger sibs?
The joke is they’re getting into a theological discussion, regarding the contradictions in the New Testament (and the authors of it who had disagreements), but what Becky really meant was personal attitude towards sex.
I truly truly think that’ Lucy is better off staying out of this. Becky Meddling is one thing. She and Joyce are practically family. Lucy’s barely even on Joyce’s radar. She’d be forgiven if she called her “Walky’s girlfriend”. I don’t think she wants you poking around in her business.
Probably not, though there’s also sometimes something freeing in dealing with people you don’t really have a vested interest in yet.
Even if they are practically family Joyce has made it clear that Becky’s “help” is becoming unwanted. Getting Lucy involved at this point might very well be the straw that breaks the camels back so to speak because it can come off as yet another way Becky is taking Joyce’s own agency from her.
That’s what I’m afraid of too. Especially because she will probably just view this as Becky recruiting her church friend.
Yeah, Jennifer and Joyce are at least friends, Joyce and Lucy are kind of nothing. Lucy would only be doing this as a way to prove to her church friend Becky that she’s helpful, not actually for Joyce’s sake. And Joyce is sick of people meddling in her life, even if they have good intentions. Lucy, barely an acquaintance and a religious one at that, suddenly trying to get Joyce to take her birth control pills which Joyce is embarrassed of? Yeah, that’s gonna go very not great. Especially if Lucy realizes they are BC and gets all weird about it, which Jennifer wouldn’t.
Yeah, taking pills is just like riding a bike!
In that you’ll fall down a lot learning to do either
That doesn’t surprise me whatsoever, Becky.
Alt-text: Hey, if it checks the “Pauline Letters” box, that’s good enough for Paul.
Hey now, last I heard 7 out of the 13 Pauline epistles are considered by scholars to be written by Paul, that’s more than half…though I don’t know what other stuff he’s credited with…
Or was that 7 out of 13 pseudoepigraphic (not written by who it claims to be written by)?
This actually is a hot topic right now due to a Jeopardy question on the latest show that asked which of Paul’s epistles quoted the Old Testament the most. Since there is disagreement about which ones he wrote, the answer could be one of several depending on which source you believe.
… even worse, the answer given was Hebrews, a book for which about the only thing certain of its authorship is “not Paul”.
(it doesn’t claim to be by him, it follows different conventions to his letters, and it’s entirely unlike his writing style or that of anything else in the NT. recent suggestions of Priscilla could well be right, but with nothing known to be by her to compare with there’s simply no way of ever knowing.)
Ok, ha, the source I had for “scholars only think 7 of the epistles were written by Paul” doesn’t even count Hebrews among the 13 epistles, there we go for 50% if that’s counted in the alt-text.
I know you want to help Lucy but this a “Becky Meddles Under the Guise of Aid” episode and you don’t want to get mixed up in it
Becky you don’t “gotta teach Joyce anything” especially when she has just expressed to you that your continued help is not appreciated. I feel bad for Lucy here because this situation has the making of a possible fight between Becky and Joyce over Joyce’s independence and Becky doesn’t seen to keep on acknowledging that issue.
Becky knows that Joyce was right during their last fight. Maybe she doesn’t consciously know it, but deep down, Becky knows she was right.
I’d argue she is acknowledging it though. That seems to be reason she’s currently finding some alternate source of advice for Joyce; to give Joyce the means to get help from someone other than Becky if she doesn’t want Becky involved.
It could (will?) probably still cause issues, at least partly because Becky seems to be misunderstanding Joyce’s position (as she doesn’t know the things Joyce didn’t tell her about), but her intentions seem good enough.
Personally I see this as Becky just overstepping Joyce’s boundaries because she wants to remain her prominent friend in all aspects of Joyce’s life. Joyce told her she did not appreciate her help last time they spoke, Becky kind of jokingly brushed Joyce’s anger off and now she’s getting a forth person involved were there doesn’t really need to be. If Joyce wants to try on her own she should be allowed to whether she’s successful or not. Not giving Joyce a chance to try Is Becky deciding for Joyce what she needs without her input which is no healthy.
i get the feeling that ‘mothering’ joyce might’ve been a thing for a while in their childhood too and hard to let go of now that they don’t have their Christianity in common anymore as well
That got a legitimate laugh out loud from me. For a cradle Catholic I know a lot of Bible lore.
that’s righ, lucy. stick your nose in someone elses business. remember that you are an alpha sweetie!
Lucy once again is at a 28 when she needs to be a 3
I feel like Lucy isn’t the sort of Christian to object to birth control, especially for someone with dysmenorrhea. I think even the Church considers hormones for dysmenorrhea to fall under the “dual effect” doctrine (and yes, I know basically no one in this strip is Catholic except the O’Malleys, the Galassos, the Desantos, and probably Asher, but the point is I assume Lucy is to the left of that).
Didn’t she and Walky already discuss it? Lucy asked what was up with Joyce, Walky mentioned that she had a murderous ovary, and iirc, Lucy commented something to the effect that taking birth control pills to deal with that would be very hard because she’d probably been taught her whole life she’d go to hell for it. (Unless that second part was a different conversation—but it was definitely Lucy who made that observation.)
It sounds like Lucy is Christian enough to be aware of the kind of conditioning Joyce was subject to during her upbringing, but does not personally share the extremism of Joyce’s family/childhood churches. She seems more open to premarital sex than Joyce and Becky, as well—falling back on “I’m a Christian woman!” to assure Walky she’s not suggesting they have sex, in a moment when she seems very insecure about whether he’s even interested, and then walking that back almost immediately when it appears that he is. That moment suggests she’s familiar with the language and the behavioral expectations of being a Good a Christian Girl, but hasn’t internalized it the way peers like Joyce and Becky and Liz all have. She’ll perform it as a social crutch, but she doesn’t really *feel* it. (To which I say: she’s lucky! And probably not much better equipped to help with someone who’s struggling with religious trauma than most of Joyce’s friends circle.)
Didn’t Joyce not really get along with Lucy? I have a vague memory of them not getting along.
Joyce did on a first meeting have a bad reaction, yes. But their other reactions have been more civilly friendly.
Ok, it’s been a bit so I wasn’t sure.
It’s okay, I remember an absurd amount of this comic quite honestly. Their first meeting mostly went badly because Joyce thought Lucy was being, as Malaya would say, fakey to make fun of her.
Their conversation otherwise went okay until she asked about guys for movie night and Joyce said to stay away from Jacob as she left. Most of their interactions have been brief.
I like Lucky, really! But her idea of helping looks like the perfect receipt for a disaster.
I like Lucky too, but he was just never the same after Jonathan Jackson left the role.
James the Just, Dexter the Great, Monkey the Master, whatever.
I really like the juxtaposition of the speech bubble with Dexter, as if it is him praising Apostle Paul as part of his diabolical scheme.
Yeah, I totally hear Dexter’s voice: “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?”. And then: “Join me, and I will conquer the world”.
Becky going to enlist Jennifer (supposedly) without knowing the tensions that have been built up between her and Dorothy stands to create some DELICIOUS drama (and, if we’re lucky, it may even activate Becky’s Font of Unending Jealousy if she finds out that Dorothy got actually upset with Jen rather than her, Dorothy’s True Rival)
Paul is dead, Lucy.
Becky, Joyce is not going to check the “Christian” box on a form because she is not currently a Christian. She is an atheist. And she’s not being an atheist at you, it’s actually got very little to do with you at all. Even the parts that do have to do with you don’t have to do with you, so can you just stop.
You will lose your friend over this. Even more than everything else, Becky, this is the thing that will end your friendship if you do not quit it. And I think all the commenters here can agree that this is saying quite a lot.
Just realizing I read “Joyce” where I should have read “Jennifer” all along.
Well, now I feel both confused and silly, but Becky, Jennifer is not “barely” a Christian either, like, the fundies don’t own the religion and neither do you.
And I stand by what I said about Joyce.
I’m pretty sure that Jennifer is barely a christian by her own… Whatever…? She’s probably not even thought about it too much because religion or lack thereof isn’t that important to her? It’s probably the best from her perspective socially to be christian in name and to at least say she believes that stuff while also no being a “jesus freak” or making a fuss out of it when someone says something against christianity. Which is valid, frankly. For all I know she does believe the uh. Jesus stuff and sin and christian hell or whatever.
And like yes the loud people who comment every section seem to be trying to push for an agreement the becky is somehow a bad person for being loud and having feelings and because her coping mechanisms for her traumas and insecurities sometimes annoy people… I don’t agree.
Tbh christianity rubs me the wrong way in general just because if the “money is sinful therefore slavery is good” thing. Which is a thing. Not every christian person believes that I guess but they fundamentally hate money as a concept while many of them also thing that money naturally comes to those virtuous or whatever because of providence and the more I think about it the less sense it makes to me and I don’t want anything to do with the dogma. I don’t think lust or sloth is a sin, I don’t think wrath is a sin etcetera.
Religion is good, but it’s used for power and control by patriarchal authorities. I don’t like that part very much. I’m not sure what my point is anymore but it feels good to ramble. Fundies don’t own the religion so i agree with you on that point at least.
More meddling is exactly what Joyce wants right now….right?
I think if Becky were being honest she would have to admit that her meddling is primarily about keeping up her involvement in Joyce’s life whether its wanted or not. Dorothy got to be the one to take her to the pharmacy, Becky wants to be in charge of Joyce taking the pills so she can feel equally involved.
One of these days Lucy is going to learn that aggressively trying to involve yourself in someone else’s problem isn’t always a great idea.
I feel for Lucy here because I think her trying to convince Becky to let her help stems from feeling like the reason she doesn’t have many friends is because she’s to passive and that she needs to be more confident. Unfortunately she’s unknowingly volunteering to be part of Becky’s uwanted meddling.
Oh I don’t think Lucy’s a bad person for this or anything. She definitely needs more friends, but she needs friends that want her to be around them, instead of just kinda tolerating her presence.
One day Lucy will find a good friend group for herself.
agree, hopefully Lucy will come to realize she is great the way she is.
flaws of being a people-pleaser, if she had more of a ‘presence’ among the students i imagine she’d probably be taken advantage of/become an errand girl/gopher for some of the cliche popular students (even if cliques aren’t as bad as they are in high school still kinda a hierarchy in college i imagine) [tho at this point i’m surprised she hasn’t joined a ‘nerdy club’ and found more friends that align with her interests as opposed to ppl that happen to surround her]
some one as enthusiastic as lucy could be helpful without being as…meticulous? as dorothy
What if Joe helps Joyce with the pills?
Probably not happening until after the awkward conversation about “wait, you said you’re on BC now? That seems…out of character.” I’m expecting an evasive and difficult conversation, from both sides, with plenty of misunderstandings, until they get it sorted out. Lotsa room for humor and drama in there.
probably what is going to happen, at least, I hope so. From her asking, too, not from anyone else meddling.
I meant to reply to Jess saying she hoped Joe helped Joyce with the pills… I’m bad at this thread stuff.
It’s all good. I saw. 🙂
Joe is giving her time to make her own decisions and I think that is something that is going to open her up to more stuff, like the pills and such.
Since I haven’t got enough knowledge to unravel or understand the mythological discussions today, I’ll just say hope Lucy doesn’t get dragged into some stupid cartoon scheme that involves wrestling Joyce or whatever it is Becky thinks she’s planning.
Wrestling? What like with pillows?