How a misreading (oops) of Hannah Arendt’s seminal work kinda fits well into the whole Joanna Theng v Gays debacle
Tired and anxious, I dragged myself back from yet another Go-Far meeting — a different story for another day — and reached home at eleven. After showering, my phone buzzed. I snatched it from my desk. Could it be something about Go-Far — a different story for another day — or was it something else?
Thankfully, it was something else. One of our more prominent (read: rich, socialite) fellow students in WKW decided to star in City Revival Church’s video. All fair and good. There’s nothing wrong with professing your faith —
OH GOD. So apparently she’s said homosexuality and abortion is bad. But wait, that’s not particularly groundbreaking or shocking as far as it goes with your typical Christian rhetoric —
OH GOD. So being gay is bad because the pride flag is a sign of the Devil (due to its choice of six colours, which, when tripled, becomes the Devil’s number) and the word “pride”, which clearly indicates the endorsement of one of those pesky deadly sins. And abortion is bad, well, just because (honestly, I’ve only watched snippets of it — but it’s not really the focus of today anyway).
I’ve spent plenty of time in church, so I’m not unaware of certain Bible verses that purportedly forbid, condemn or otherwise shows heavenly displeasure at dudes doing other dudes in the bum (or otherwise). As an ex-Christian, those are far, far more compelling arguments than those presented in the video.
Some (Ben Shapiro) have taken the “going from religious to secular” approach with arguing against homosexuality; others (Ravi Zacharias) substitute “think” with “ruminate” and form an argument based on that — okay, so he attempts the “elevation of religion” sort of approach; and apparently, in the most daring approach of all, City Revival’s decided to go for the “Facebook conspiracy theory” way of advocacy. It’s otherwise known as the “how am I on this part of Youtube?” or “Let me just Whatsapp this to all my contacts” methodology.
That brings me to the banality of evil bit: I honestly thought it meant silly(I mixed it up with inane). For me, I saw it as nothing more than some dumb shower thought you had (for example, do fish need to drink water) made into an entire philosophy (veganism. I’m kidding).
The Banality of Evil (I’m quite lazy to rephrase something anyone can Google) basically stems from the trial of some Nazi officer that Hannah Arendt witnessed. Essentially, the explanation goes that Nazi officers aren’t necessarily evil: they’re just following orders.
Though you might disagree with the theory altogether, I do see some pretty stark similarities between Nazis performing genocide and leading Jews to the gas chambers, and for example, Christians. I wrote that just to get your attention, truth be told.
The similarities are present in any hierarchy or power structure. Some people are just following orders, no matter how controversial. Think of places like the army, where discipline is key; or perhaps migrant worker dormitories run by operators, who after a hard day’s work providing substandard care, return to their homes for a tasty meal and nice warm shower. For more, refer to Go-Far — but that’s a different story for another day.
Simply put, I think Joanna, Jaime or whatever J-lettered female City Revival presents us with next, are just following orders. Not necessarily from errant pastors or vile preachers — though I’m certain there are a fair few of them running around Singapore, spreading hate disguised as scripture — but essentially, well, God. Or what they perceive God’s orders to be, more precisely. And as much as we’d like to say she should be more educated, or more knowledgeable, or more anything else — she does truly believe it. Which could be sad or faithful, depending on which side of the fence you’re on.
That doesn’t mean she isn’t responsible for saying stupid shit though. And I have to say that of the Christian response I’ve seen on Instagram, the arguments seem to boil down to “We believe it, we’re sorry you don’t like it, but please treat us with love and respect. Psalm 12:3. Amen.” Which basically reads as Excuses, with a capital E. Reddit, thankfully, fared much better — they actually apologised and distanced themselves from it.
You probably realised I didn’t even attempt a rebuttal at any of their arguments. I don’t think I should. It’s kinda pointless to say “Joanna has 6 letters too, gotcha! Which also has six letters.” Yet, this is a mortal sin (heh) that butthurt (heh) gays and allies decided was the right move to make. What is the point of it?
I mean, City Revival has even got a 15 minute long video expounding on the evil machinations and beguiling, sinister nature of the Avengers: Endgame. The cast of which includes, a talking tree, a gym-bro hopped up on juice that throws a frisbee and Squidward-made-live-action.
Now, back to Go-Far. I’ve already taken far too much time off from working on it, so I won’t explain what it’s about for now: after all, it’s a different story for another day.
