It's cool to be weird, as long as you mean quirky and weird for Jesus, at which point you can express yourself in all the ways you want, except for secular ways that are against the rules, now let's all hold hands and pray for people who aren't saved, and also for the unspoken prayer requests we all seem to have for some reason.
I grew up in, and left, a fundie upbringing. We were instructed to never ever ever call someone weird. Strange, odd, peculiar. But weird was unacceptable.
It supposedly has its roots in witchcraft. So, ultimate insult.
"wyrd" (I e. weird) in archaic usage was a prediction, a statement of the future, kind of like "doom" meant a curse ("I pronounce my doom upon you!"). Trying to see the future is, of course, evil witchery that shall not be suffered to live, according to fundamentalists. So, if they DO somehow get their Gilead they want so badly, hopefully every conservative pundit who's ever written a "here's what I see for the next six months" column will be executed for witchcraft.
I was “evangelical adjacent,” but I never heard the word “weird” quite that way. The term I heard was “peculiar,” which basically meant the same thing. They wanted us to be a little cadre of kids who would stand out for being different (than all of the other groups of kids doing the same)
Thanks Jason. I was brought up in a non religious household in the UK and since moving to the US in 2016, I’ve often found myself wondering why so many of those around me are weird.
YEP.
It's cool to be weird, as long as you mean quirky and weird for Jesus, at which point you can express yourself in all the ways you want, except for secular ways that are against the rules, now let's all hold hands and pray for people who aren't saved, and also for the unspoken prayer requests we all seem to have for some reason.
I grew up in, and left, a fundie upbringing. We were instructed to never ever ever call someone weird. Strange, odd, peculiar. But weird was unacceptable.
It supposedly has its roots in witchcraft. So, ultimate insult.
"wyrd" (I e. weird) in archaic usage was a prediction, a statement of the future, kind of like "doom" meant a curse ("I pronounce my doom upon you!"). Trying to see the future is, of course, evil witchery that shall not be suffered to live, according to fundamentalists. So, if they DO somehow get their Gilead they want so badly, hopefully every conservative pundit who's ever written a "here's what I see for the next six months" column will be executed for witchcraft.
I was “evangelical adjacent,” but I never heard the word “weird” quite that way. The term I heard was “peculiar,” which basically meant the same thing. They wanted us to be a little cadre of kids who would stand out for being different (than all of the other groups of kids doing the same)
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/weird#:~:text=Synonyms%20of%20weird-,1,weirdness%20noun I was surprised to find it here!
Thanks Jason. I was brought up in a non religious household in the UK and since moving to the US in 2016, I’ve often found myself wondering why so many of those around me are weird.
This is great. Thank you, Jason.