No it’s pretty Christian to dislike people because of religion, sexuality, and gender actually. Just read the Bible, it says all those horrible things and more. The only reason it’s not racist too is because race didn’t exist when it was written.
I think the sketch is an accurate depiction of how people today fail to comprehend what he was communicating with that parable.
I've heard that parable probably 50 times and you know how many times they decide to give context into what "a samaritan" is, how they were viewed contemporaneously, or especially where THEIR theology differed with that of the Jews of the day?
I think once you understand all of that, that the sketch is a very humorous take on what was fundamentally Jesus's most direct plea against racism... which incidentally, did require you to come from a place of racism to "get it". (IE you had to at least understand that the targets of the message were super racist against them. The parody here being that in the skit the target audience are more like TODAY'S audience who are like "What's wrong with being a Samaritan?" When, aside from racism, there's simply no answer: Humans are Human.)
Which circles right back to the humor of the skit.
When you AREN'T racist, the parable of the Good Samaritan... comes off a little racist. Not "Uncle Tom" or anything... but definitely a little "magic Negro" ya know?
I'm functionally Baha'i--if you're familiar with the religion this should all make sense. But if you're not, suffice it to say that I think that the figure of Jesus was AS liberal and "perfect" as a character could be made during that time period in order to achieve the goals of perfect worldwide Egalitarianism... but that this all happened 2,000 years ago in the middle of one of the most divided, aggressive, and patriarchal areas on earth. Obviously some concessions were gonna have to be made... Just like they were with The Bab--nothing wrong with homosexuality except that you absolutely couldn't express that 200 years ago in Iran. Same basic idea.
Yeah, no. The Samaritans were absolute pariahs in jewish society at the time.
Think "The Good Protestant" at an IRA meeting. "The Good Muslim" maybe, but even that doesn't really go far enough. That's what the skit is about. The joke was turning that on its head and making the listeners NOT racist.
I'm trying to say, that in order to preach AGAINST racism... Jesus created a parable, a fictional story, about "A Good Samaritan". A 'magical negro' type character who was fully wise and perfect and helpful within the context of the story to illustrate that it was the content of people's character and the summation of their actions NOT their race which matter.
Which is something writers do all the fucking time today as well, and WHEN they do it today, it often comes across a little racist and heavy-handed to those who aren't the targets. This was 2000 years ago we're talking about!
Or, to put it another way: How racist was Uncle Remus in Song of the South? TODAY many people say very, at the time of its release, the NAACP came out in full throated support of the film and the character. Context matters!
...and at this point the joke has been completely analyzed to death. I really thought just watching the skit would be enough for anyone who'd actually read the Bible... since in fairness, if you read the entire thing it DOES do an "ok" job of explaining the context of Samaritan relations historically.
Sure, like you said, today the story would kinda weird since racism/tribalism is less of an accepted ideal. But when you're fighting against something that may have never been fought against, it made sense.
I get what you're saying, just not sure how it proves that the person above had a point.
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u/LineOfInquiry 20d ago
No it’s pretty Christian to dislike people because of religion, sexuality, and gender actually. Just read the Bible, it says all those horrible things and more. The only reason it’s not racist too is because race didn’t exist when it was written.