A Critique of the Christian Ideology

Written by: Golan

I want to preface this by mentioning I'm an Orthodox Christian, I believe in God and the faith summarized by the Nicene Creed. This post is not meant to insult or attack anyone, but to critique a certain perversion of the Christian faith. In order to understand, we need to lay down a few terms:

1. The Christian faith, as the author of Hebrews put it, is the "evidence of things not seen" (Hebrews 11:1). It is a paradigm radically different from "knowledge" or "belief" as we typically understand it. It is noetic (some would even say, noumenal), and one cannot properly understand it unless they have experienced it. Sure, we can attempt to signify it in our own finite language, but it will never capture the fullness of the faith. It is like the difference between reading about someone and actually knowing them. The faith is also a transfigurative experience by it enabling communion with God and theosis. The faith is revealed by God, and it is not merely a human creation.

2. Ideology, as [I] understood from Marx's critique of it, is a condition of false consciousness, of circular or erroneous thinking, used by the status quo to reify itself and the system they control.

With these two now established, we can get a grasp at what the Christian ideology really is. I am not going to give it a rigid definition, but overall it is a hijacking or appropriation of certain elements of the Christian faith in order to suit a goal that is not God. A perversion of the Christian faith in which its elements are being abused for a worldly, excessive motive.

The Christian ideology is a fuzzy concept and can spawn in many different forms. For instance, the use of Christian aesthetics and rhetoric solely for a political cause. At times and among other things, this will lead the political subject to emphasize certain aspects of the faith over others in an erroneous way. Left: emphasizes the values of social justice, love and tolerance; tends to neglect family values, sexual ethics and the sin-death causality. Right: emphasizes order, family values, sexual ethics; tends to neglect helping the poor, empathy and at times idolizes tradition.

Another way in which it can spawn is through a new kind of pharisaical attitude, that is through making up new, unfounded rules, that only serve to burden people who struggle with sin more than they already are. It also includes the attitude of not doing anything to help a fellow sinner on their path, and treating them with a damaging self-righteous attitude. For instance, those people who have had doubts about the faith, and the authorities responsible with answering the questions and dealing with it that have simply repressed said doubt. Or the people who struggle with mental illnesses that have been demonized instead of helped or understood.

The Christian ideology poses a danger for the Christian faith in that it has infected the Church and lent it for the accomplishment of twisted goals. It is also pushing people away from the Christian faith and from Christ, leading people to dismiss or outright reject it. It is an idol, a hollow simulacrum that has nothing to do with the transfigurative experience of the faith save for some aesthetic elements. And the Christian ideology is not a new phenomenon, and has been criticized even by our Lord Jesus Christ.

This post is by no means comprehensive or complete, but a general outline of this phenomenon as examined from my point of view. Maybe there are some aspects in which I am wrong about it, or worse, hypocritical. I am looking forward for constructive criticism and even for responses or completions to this concept.