A LOT OF THINGS DON'T, DON'T REALLY EXIST ANYMORE

video, 4:10min
2017

watch full video: http://stellameris.com/2017/11/a-lot-of-things-dont-dont-really-exist-anymore/

The fundamental Christian community I grew up in built their identity on the understanding of Christianity to be the only true way of living, and therefore a critical reflection about the absolute rightness of their beliefs was utterly out of question. Their Christian beliefs not only justified, but also necessitated an attitude towards "the other" that would not query the rightness of anything that served evangelical purposes. The often degrading ideas about non-Christians were propagated by religious fundamentalism. The essentialist belief that Jesus Christ is the "only way" and that only through the belief in this faith people can lead a good life, created a superimposed system of values and divided people in "good" and "bad". Nonbelievers were seen as "lacking something", as people who either needed to be educated or avoided. A binary opposition which decried all non-Christian cultures and people as incomplete was imposed, in order to define their own (European) Christian identity as superior and to gain power over the other. The supremacy of an all-encompassing God who divides the world in "right" and "wrong", "heaven" and "hell" and the demand to commit to such a God always felt restrictive to me and deprived me of agency.