When Christianity is repeatedly condemned for opposite and mutually exclusive faults, that tells us something about the criticism itself.
Christianity is too violent but also too pacifist. Too obsessed with sin and judgment but also far too eager to forgive. It hates pleasure and the body, but somehow also surrounds itself with cathedrals, beauty, art, and opulence.
For centuries, critics of Christianity have attacked the faith from opposite direction, sometimes even the same critic making contradictory accusations.
In this video, I look at examples from Nietzsche, Christopher Hitchens, Marx, Engels, and others, and ask what these contradictions actually reveal about Christianity. Perhaps the problem isn’t that Christianity occupies every conceivable extreme. Perhaps it’s that truth refuses to conform itself to the ideological extremes from which we judge it.
Timestamps
0:00 Nietzsche’s attack on Christianity
1:08 Christianity: too violent AND too weak?
2:56 Christopher Hitchens’ contradictory criticisms
3:47 Did Christianity oppress or liberate women?
6:40 Too much judgment, too much forgiveness
7:37 Asceticism vs. the “opulence” of the Church
8:49 Marx, Engels, and another contradiction
10:12 Christianity is apparently guilty of everything
10:46 What contradictory criticism actually tells us
11:26 Christian heresies and opposite extremes
12:23 Why truth gets distorted
13:23 Aristotle, virtue, and the mean
