“My neighbor won’t stop praying for me. What should I do?”

As a normal person, you’ve probably never had such narcissistic and morally inverted thoughts. Even if I had, I wouldn’t have bothered to write about it in the New York Times and ask for advice.

But the average reader of the Times is not an ordinary person. They are middle-aged, single, well-to-do people who know what they are missing out on and make up for it by self-righteously causing misfortune to those around them. So, naturally, they’re upset that their kind neighbor prayed for them — and they want the world to know that.

Holiday theme by The Times advice column:

“I have an 85-year-old neighbor who is a sweet friend and a caring person. My problem is that she is very religious and I am not at all. Thank you for praying for me in person, by text message or electronically, no matter how trivial the situation may be. She told me that in an email. I told her my religious beliefs and that she didn’t have to pray for me. She said that if she didn’t, she wouldn’t be following the Bible. I’m trying to ignore this, but it really bothers me that she can’t respect my wishes.”

If you pick your jaw up from the floor, notice how this runs counter to the arguments liberals have long used to arbitrarily ignore conservative concerns in the culture wars.

• Why do you two care what men are doing in the house?
• Why do women care what they do with their bodies?
• Why do I care if someone identifies as male, female, or somewhere in between?

How does it affect you?

The same can easily be said here. Why do you care if someone prays for you? If you are a non-believer, what effect does that have on you? Do your own thing, fascist.

What’s interesting is that asking NYT ethicists for guidance is literally a form of progressive prayer. pic.twitter.com/1lJ2U1YBWo

— J.R. Clark (@J_R_Clarke) December 18, 2024

The Times’ advice columnist seems to agree with this shocking twist on Christmas magic:[I]Instead of demanding that your 80-year-old neighbor change her ways, I hope you change your ways, hear her prayers as a sincere expression of your feelings of love, and learn to accept this woman for who she is. Why not take a look? ”

“So you have no right to insist that she stop including you in her prayers.”

Of course. You don’t even have to be religious to recognize this obvious truth. Only a cynical shrew could believe that the old woman’s prayer was anything other than an ironic mockery, or a “sincere expression” of kind sentiments. So while the advice seeker portrays herself (“name withheld,” but let’s be real, obviously a woman) as a victim of oppressive Christians, prejudice It is clear that the flow is actually in the opposite direction. (Click here to sign up for Gage’s newsletter Cultured)

There is no legitimate harm done to justify feeling disrespected here. Rather, the author is simply looking for an excuse to justify his ill will towards Christians and Christianity. Because she has a liberal worldview, she cannot believe that Christians can be good people. There she turns morality on its head, reframing thoughtful kindness as antagonism, and positions herself as the personal receptacle of all the oppressions that Christianity has historically recognized. It is not the prayer that she has a problem with, but the broader context in which it is given. Obviously, she would not object to the prayers of “oppressed” Muslims.

It is a deceptive inversion of morality on top of nuclear level narcissism. But what else can New York Times readers expect during the holidays?