Seems to me that "Easter worshippers" is shorthand for "people worshipping on Easter Sunday."
In the US, at least, churches are often full to the brim on Easter Sunday with what we might call "cultural Christians" -- folks who do not ordinarily grace the inside of any church and are not necessarily Christians in any theologically meaningful sense on a day-to-day basis (prayer life, devotion to Christ's teachings, etc.). So from a purely technical point of view, "Easter worshippers" could potentially be more accurate than "Christians" to describe the victims.
In any event the phrase, though inelegant and easily mockable, is clear enough. It seems odd to complain that these tweets failed to use the word "Christians," when the word "Easter" makes clear that the victims were not culturally or theologically Muslim, Jewish, Buddhist, or the like. Does the word "Christian" have some totemic power that it must be invoked in a tweet expressing sympathy for the victims?
Moreover, the phrase "Easter worshippers" arguably gets to the core of the matter -- these attacks were not just random attacks on Christians on some random Sunday. They were targeting Christians on the highest of high holy days, the day when it was fully revealed that Jesus was not just another nice guy who finished last, but instead was God himself incarnate, sacrificed and resurrected for us. And they were targeting Christian churches on a day when anyone with any cultural or theological affinity to Christianity whatsoever would likely be in a church. (Presumably in order to maximize the deaths/injuries.)
No comments:
Post a Comment