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u/Warm_Gur8832 2d ago
No, they are Pharisees however.
It is interesting how Jesus actually felt about Pharisees in his day, too.
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u/kwallet 2d ago
Ps Jesus criticized the Pharisees sometimes but it was the Sadducees that were the real issue in biblical times, the Pharisees were extra but the Sadducees were the ones actively trying to kill him
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u/ehmaybenexttime 2d ago
Well damn. I guess he should have been paying more attention. Got his ass...
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u/mamadeb2020 1d ago
The Pharisees were the only sect/political group to survive the Destruction of the Second Temple in 70CE. Therefore, their teachings are the foundation of modern Judaism.
As such, and as a powerless remnant already in diaspora, the writers of the NT chose to attack them instead of the people actually in power, the Romans.
The writings of the NT were intended to be a religious text to convert those around them, not a history.
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u/ChaoticDumpling 2d ago
They quote "blessed are the meek" from the book of Matthew in the New Testament, to which June says "for they shall inherit the earth" and gets disciplined for it. I could be misremembering, it's been a while since I watched, but to me, this is a great example of the sort of cherry picking they do to fit their own agenda.
It reminds me of The Slaves' Bible, where slave owners would give the slave a heavily redacted copy of the bible, so they didn't have access to any passages that challenged the way they lived, or the way their masters and society treated them.
Similarly, the women of Gilead seem to be taught a heavily redacted and cherry-picked version of Christianity, where the objective isn't to spiritually enlighten them, but to reinforce the idea that the horrific life they lead is one that God commands them to live, and as such the Commanders carefully choose which quotes and beliefs from the bible to teach to the women.
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u/jaseface666 3d ago
June frequently says “jesus christ” as an exclamation, but you’re right, they don’t speak of Jesus in Gilead. it’s only “God” and “Him” or “His”
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u/Inevitable_Nerve_925 2d ago
Yes, she’s using it as a pejorative and not in the context of religion
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u/doesshechokeforcoke 2d ago
The truth is they don’t actually care about god or religion. They are hiding behind religion as an excuse to do horrible things to innocent people who they deem “sinners”. What they really care about is power and control and keeping the people they don’t like under their heel.
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u/Slayabyss 2d ago
I gather OP isn't just asking if people are religious in Gilead, but specifically Christian, in that they worship or follow the teachings of Jesus and the New Testament
In the book there's specific references to the writings of Paul in the New Testament (like how women should cover their hair) and at some points the Beatitudes from the Sermon on the Mount are quoted, but yeah emphasis seems to mainly be on the fundamentalist aspects from the Old Testament/Hebrew Bible as the foundation for the whole structure of their customs, with only a few references to the Gospels and the like
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u/Anaevya 2d ago
They're more like a very weird sect. Think of Jehova's Witnesses. No other religion (to my knowledge) forbids blood donation. Evangelicals, Catholics, Orthodox, Muslims even Jews (no blood consumption allowed according to Jewish Law) all allow it. No one else interprets the Bible that way. It's really weird how they basically claim to know Jewish Law better than Jews themselves+all the other Christians. That's how weird Gilead's interpretation of the Bible is. Plus oppression of course. It has barely anything to do with mainstream Christianity. Christian women were historically never forbidden to read for example. They might not always have had access to education and might have been discouraged from intellectualism, but Gilead is absurdely extreme. There are some similiar patterns to western history, but I feel they have more in common with the Taliban.
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u/tom_jamed4 3d ago
They are fundamentalists. That's why they act very strange, and unlike the Christians we know in this day and age. Imagine medieval way of thinking in the 21st century.
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u/giraflor 2d ago
I agree with all of that except the medieval part. Medieval Christians had more inventive ways of forgiving sins than Gilead employs. Remember the selling of indulgences, for example?
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u/IAmDeadYetILive 2d ago
Plenty of good Christians, but the Christian-right is a real threat presently, too.
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u/bextaxi 2d ago
No. That’s part of the point.
June sees the church in the beginning of the show and talks about how her daughter was baptized there. There’s also a part in the book where she’s praying for her husband and daughter. It’s not supposed to be “Christians are bad.” They’re taking verses out of context and twisting them. No one actually thinks that this show is a true representation of Christianity. But there are Christians who will use the title to push an agenda that’s not accurate to anything that Jesus actually teaches.
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u/ProfPieixoto 2d ago
I don’t think I’ve ever heard Jesus being mentioned
Except for Aunt Lydia's 'Blessed are the meek', which is a quote from the Sermon on the Mount. And Serena prays to 'Lord Jesus and his mighy angels' when setting fire (in 3x01).
Are they even Christian?
The prosecutor in Emily's mock trial refers to Romans (New Testament). So yes, the theocracy is Christian.
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u/Early_Candidate_3082 2d ago
It’s a Christian heresy. Mainstream Christians suffer in Gilead, along with everyone else.
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u/mangohandedho 2d ago
I mean there are tons of mainstream Christians that are still hateful rabid conservatives. I’d say actually it’s the majority of them. At least here in the south that’s the case.
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u/TeeVaPool 2d ago
Christians now days have forgotten about Jesus. They don’t want anything to do with loving their neighbor, compassion, forgiveness and tolerance. It’s all about power and being able to shove their beliefs down everyone’s throats.
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u/Octavia8880 17h ago
There are many true Christians who are compassionate and forgive, l don't for example shove my beliefs on others, Faith is a choice not a commandment, true Christians have a relationship with Christ, it's love, it's love for their neighbour their families, people Love is agape, Unconditional love Love is patient and kind Love does not envy or boast It is not arrogant or rude It doesn't insist on it's own way It is not irritable or resentful It does not rejoice in wrongdoing but rejoices in truth This is agape love, true Christianity that is what Jesus Christ is 🌹 So Nothing in Gilead is love
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u/TeeVaPool 16h ago
I was raised in an evangelical church and I’m a Christian, I sent my kids to a Christian school from which my son graduated, my daughter went until she was a sophomore. I’m sad to say sending my children to Christian school is now one of my biggest regrets, because all they worried about was politics (Bush years) and anyone who had a different view was ostracized.
Because I worked for a labor union and a democrat my children were mistreated and singled out in front of the class. Although it did teach my children to stand up for themselves, I regret sending them there because they learned nothing about love, forgiveness, and tolerance. It actually turned them against organized religion.One of their teachers, the pastors wife, told them to not try to help homeless people, because whatever you gave them would be used for alcohol or drugs. She also told them to look at their shoes, if they had a nice pair of shoes on don’t give them any money or help. Of course we would tell them that was wrong.
I’m sad to say I don’t run into many like you anymore. I live in Trump country and that’s all they worry about is getting their fearless leader elected and owning the libs.
They are very mean and self righteous, all while pretending to do the Lord’s work by sending a shoebox once a year to Africa. All they worry about is politics and building their next gymnasium, or going on a mission trip to help people they then turn around and say aren’t good enough to enter our country as refugees.
In the churches now all I see is people hungry for power and forcing people to live as they see fit. I’m sure you are a very nice person and I know there are some who still believe in following Jesus’ teachings, I just don’t see it where I live.2
u/Octavia8880 15h ago
Yes l feel what you're saying, l too belonged to a church money hungry, every Sunday there was a prosperity sermon to coax people to give money, l decided l would prefer to buy food for the homeless outside the shops, or give straight to a trusted charity, instead of helping the church leaders get a new car, left that church, sadly many are like this, l too regret taking my son to this church, you are a nice person, cares about her children 😊
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u/TeeVaPool 15h ago
That’s what I do as well. I donate to the homeless shelter in a city nearby, hunger pantries and to charities that I feel get the people. I feel bad even saying this because I know you aren’t supposed to boast about giving. I do this and try to be a decent person, but I don’t go to church any longer.
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u/Octavia8880 14h ago
Don't feel bad, He knows our heart, we are sharing and as sisters in Christ l believe God is pleased when His children are in conversation about the good things
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u/wordygirl6278 2d ago
No. They’re no more Christian than American Christian Nationalists and MAGA cult members.
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u/autumnlover1515 2d ago
It feels very old testament to me, when the stories are about an angrier God.
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u/misslouisee 2d ago
Okay I wasn't gonna type a big comment but I'm very annoyed at some of the things I'm reading. So here's the longest comment ever that lays out a nice, logic-based explanation for why it's not up for debate that Gilead is not christian.
The first and biggest point is that words have meanings; those meanings are what create language and allow us to communicate. The word religion refers to both the concept of believing in a higher power and actual, literal religious organizations defined by words you can read about in a dictionary: christianity, islam, hinduism, buddism, judaism, etc etc. People belonging to religions all around the world periodically get together and agree on what it means to be someone that follows that religion. Some of those definitions are more stringent than others: for example, a church can't just say they're a "southern baptist" church, because there's a southern baptist convention that decides on what beliefs qualify as "southern baptist." If the church doesn't agree with those beliefs, they cannot call themselves "southern baptist." Some definitions are more flexible: believing the nicene creed has been widely adopted as a baseline requirement for being a christian, but you can be a christian and disagree with the wording of the nicene creed. Another example: you can't be a chaplain in the military unless you have studied your religion in upper education and the organization that heads your religion recognizes you as qualified leader. So you can't be a catholic, christian chaplain in the military unless the catholic church recognizes you as a priest.
The point for both of those things being, anyone can quote random lines from the bible or the quaran or the torah - but what it means to be "christian" or "muslin" or "jewish" does not change based on the beliefs of whoever is quoting their religious text. Misusing a word does not change its definition and when you look at Gilead, their beliefs do not fit into any known definition for any recognized denomination or sect of Christianity. By definition, Gilead isn't christian.
The second thing is that Gilead was intentionally written by Margaret Atwood as a melding of bad things that happen all over the world. She didn't base it on christianity; none of any aspect of Gilead follows christian principles or theology. It draws directly from things like the salem witch trials, the Romanian president Nicolas Ceaușescu, Ayatollah Khomeini’s slaughterhouse, the jails of Iran, Nazis, Mormons, the klu klux klan. Here, read about it. Notably absent? Christianity.
There are direct examples in the show and book that support the fact that Gilead is not christian:
- I'm not gonna be redundant and list all the ways Gilead theology is the complete and utter opposite of christian theology, but it is.
- Pre-Gilead christians were required to convert to christianity or were executed. When Serena visits DC, a Wife there shows her a run-down house that was abandoned because it was owned by, gasp, baptists. Why would christians have to convert to christianity?
- “It came as a painful shock: kind, helpful Aunt Estée had lied to us [about what the bible said].. as I discovered what [from the bible] had been changed by Gilead, what had been added, and what had been omitted, I feared I might lose my faith.”
- “God isn’t what [Gilead says]…. you could believe in Gilead or you could believe in God, but not both.”
tldr: Don't claim shit like "Gilead is christian" if you aren't willing to educate yourself about what it means for you to be saying that.
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u/eloquentpetrichor 2d ago
Honestly you have a great point about mentioning God and not Jesus. My biggest issue with a lot of Christians is that they seem to always talk about Jesus and pray to him rather than God. It's like Christians forget God exists sometimes
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u/CustomSawdust 3d ago
We are almost done with S6. I have heard June say Jesus twice and Christ once, all in swears. I have noticed only two crosses on walls in the entire series.
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u/Inevitable_Nerve_925 2d ago
Not on my book are they Christian. I’m not much of a Christian myself BUT I believe that a police state and ultra-nationalism are Old Testament stuff. I never heard or read Jesus name in the series or the novel.
My version of Christianity is about kindness, forgiveness and honesty. I got a lot of grief from “real Christians”. (Fundamentalist types) at work about being lukewarm but judging and condemning others is not my style.
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u/starryvangogo 2d ago
Short answer is no, they aren't Christian. They're a cult that takes advantage of some parts from the Bible when it's useful to them. But like all cults what is most important to them is the power their leaders have over everyone else. Gilead is a cult that isn't even good for the men except the top 1% of them. The Handmaid's Tale isn't really about feminism, it's about a cult.
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u/EvilWitchy 2d ago
Well...from what I've seen they play the part. As an example, the scene where Serena and Fred were detained in Canada and a commander and his wife (close friends of the mentioned) instead of helping in any possible way; just said "thoughts and prayers" to me that confirms it.
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u/CrispsForBreakfast 2d ago
They are but Old Testament. Jesus came about at the beginning of the New.
I have been binging so i can't remember which episode it was where someone said they bought more copies of the old testament than the new, which has all the crazy stuff in there.
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u/Adrianne-Avenicci 2d ago
Certain religions will emphasise God over Jesus if their beliefs are more like the vengeful, wrathful God of the Old Testament. Talking about Jesus would highlight just how un-Christian they really are. They’ll only wheel out Jesus when it suits them.
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u/smokefrog2 2d ago
Christian means different things to different people. As a nonreligious member of a different religion...Christians have done a lot of messed up shit to us and seem to have zero problem pushing their religion on the rest of us (10 commandments in Louisiana and Oklahoma classrooms. Bible must be taught in public schools)...so yeah I think Gilead historically seems pretty Christian from my pov.
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u/trackipedia 2d ago
Really interesting question, although I think I'm interpreting what you're asking differently than most of the responses I'm seeing.
They obviously haven't internalized the messages of peace and tolerance and humility that Jesus preached, which I think is what a lot of folks are saying here.
But, to respond to what it seems to me that you're actually asking, I do think it's a bit strange that they're not performatively Christian. As in, they don't refer to Jesus or attend church or, I think, quote from the New Testament at all. No priests. In today's America, the hypocrites who use religion as a tool to punish (in direct conflict with their supposed beliefs), do pretend to have those beliefs in the first place. Gilead doesn't seem to. Someone else said they're fundamentalists, which, yes, but fundamentalist what? There's a lot of Old Testament stuff (the Commander reads from the Old Testament prior to the Ceremony, a lot of quoting, etc) but aside from turning the Washington Monument in to a cross I tend to think they are more or less a new, fourth Abrahamic monotheistic religion (the current major ones being Christianity, Islam, and Judaism).
Okay I'm warming to this now and damn guys, it's literally in the name! Traditionally Abraham's two sons, Isaac and Ishmael, represent the ancestry of the Jewish and Muslim faiths (Christianity comes later). Jacob was Isaac's son and also considered a patriarch of Judaism. So the name "Sons of Jacob" seem to identify them as reverting to pre-Christian Abrahamic beliefs (although admittedly they don't identify as Jewish either). So no, they're not Christians at all. They're Jacobites I guess you might say (although that term currently refers to something else, in British history).
The Sons of Jacob aren't and don't pretend to be Christian. They're Jacobites.
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u/smokinXsweetXpickle 1d ago
It is very strange to me that church isn't a way more important & ritualistic part of daily Gilead life.
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u/RockStars007 2d ago
Read the religion section in the newspaper, it doesn’t mention God at all ever it just talks about all these squabbling denominations.
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u/misslouisee 2d ago
No. It’s a made up religion that uses elements of christianity. It’s not meant to accurately represent any real religions.
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u/Anotherplenty 2d ago
Maybe diving too much into Christianity would have been way too disrespectful to Christians so they don’t mention it on purpose
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u/Janknitz 2d ago
In the series, there's an episode that takes place in Washington, DC on the mall in front of the Lincoln memorial. The Washington monument has been turned into an enormous cross. So clearly the show runners perceived a Christian connection. Beware! There are spoilers in this link, if you haven't watched Season 3 yet. https://www.vulture.com/2019/06/the-handmaids-tale-washington-dc-gilead.html
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u/Mi55fabulus 1d ago
I don’t think the series would associate the story to Christianity as that would offend a whole religion and people would be extremely upset
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u/Coupdefoudreamoureux 1d ago
They focus on Old Testament customs and have tried to take society more so back to that time, so I don’t find it odd.
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u/ProMedicineProAbort 2d ago
Absolutely they are Christian. There are literally 1,000s of variations of Christianity right now.
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u/misslouisee 2d ago
Uh, no, that’s not how denominations work. You can’t just make up a bunch of shit and then say it’s christian because you took a few words from the bible when making stuff up and waalaa, that’s considered a denomination of christianity.
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u/WoodwifeGreen 3d ago
They turned the Washington Monument into a giant cross.
I think the show doesn't mention Jesus much is because they'd get backlash from people. So far I haven't heard of anyone trying to boycott Hulu over it. I'm guessin' they want to keep it that way.
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u/tom_jamed4 2d ago
The show is based on a book. And they want to stay true to the content of the book. It has nothing to do with supposed "backlash ".
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u/WoodwifeGreen 2d ago
Of course it's based on a book. The book only covers the first season as source material. After that the show is completely made up by the show writers. They could have taken any direction they wanted.
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u/tom_jamed4 2d ago
June talks about baptizing Hana at a church which was destroyed by geliad. They also showed a priest that was hanged in the wall.
So they make it clear there's a difference between the versions of Christianity we know about and the version Geliad practices.
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u/Proud-Ideal-2606 2d ago
There is a scene where a catholic church? Is completely burned down. So I'd say no. I don't think they are protestant either. I think it's more so less about which religion is being portrayed and more about what can happen when we let it dictate women's bodies and rights.
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u/Dorianscale 2d ago
A lot of people in this comment section have no idea what Christians are lol
Gilead is Christian, they use quotes from the Christian Bible to support their beliefs, they made a whole government based on biblical principles. They quote and reference both the new and Old Testament.
Just because you are a Christian and personally feel they are unjust, immoral, or interpreting the Bible in a way you don’t like, doesn’t mean they’re not Christian.
In the real world, Baptists, Catholics, Lutherans, Jehovas witnesses, Mormons, KKK members, quakers, Amish, Prosperity gospel preachers,etc. will all readily point at each other and say “they aren’t real Christians” when to everyone else it’s apparent.
Gilead is Christian like the Westboro Baptist Church, The KKK, the original Nazi party, Maga cults, many small white supremacy groups, The American Family Association, etc. are all explicitly christian. Their individual beliefs and interpretations likely differ from yours, but you are all working from the same source material.
It’s not really a debate. Whether you disagree with their interpretations is irrelevant. Gilead is a Christo fascist nation.
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u/misslouisee 2d ago
They quote the bible, so what? You can quote whatever the heck you want, it doesn’t mean that thing you quoted is now synonymous with whatever you believe. I can tell you I’m Muslim and quote the Quaran, but if I eat pork, drink alcohol, wear bikinis and don’t believe in the basic tenants of Islam, that doesn’t mean that it’s Islamic to eat pork, drink alcohol, wear bikinis and not believe in the basic tenants of Islam; I haven’t invented a new sect of Islam, I’m just not muslim.
But my opinions aside, Gilead is literally not christian. It’s a major plot point that they aren’t true believers, they’re just power hungry old men twisting reality to fit their needs.
“It came as a painful shock: kind, helpful Aunt Estée had lied to us [about what the bible said].. as I discovered what had been changed by Gilead, what had been added, and what had been omitted, I feared I might lose my faith.”
“God isn’t what [Gilead says]…. you could believe in Gilead or you could believe in God, but not both.”
- Margaret Atwood
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u/Dorianscale 2d ago
Have you not met Jewish or Muslim people before? I’ve met plenty of them who don’t eat kosher/halal, drink, etc.
I’ve also met plenty of Christians who will quote Leviticus to justify their hatred of queer people while eating a plate of shrimp.
Are you under the impression that Christian’s don’t Cherry pick the Bible? Protestants have 39 books in the Old Testament, Catholics have 46, other denomination families have different numbers. Then there are the verses that are taught and the verses that are ignored by worshippers.
There are also way too many rich preachers for people to believe that christian leadership are “true believers” camel through the needles eye and all that.
I don’t remember psalm 137 being read in church
“Happy is the one who seizes your infants and dashes them against the rocks.”
Or the story of the concubine being raped then left for dead by her master, then her master cutting her body into pieces to justify genocide (Judges 19)
Then there are the number of verses about how women need to be subservient.
1 Corinthians 11:3 “the head of a wife is her husband”
1 Corinthians 14:34 “the women should keep silent in the churches. For they are not permitted to speak, but ashould be in submission, as the Law also says.”
Ephesians 5:22-24 Colossians 3:18 1 Timothy 2:11-12 Titus 2:5 1 Peter 3:1
There’s also a lot of verses condoning the murder of non believers (including children), condoning and encouraging slavery, not allowing disabled people to worship, etc.
To be honest, Gilead is probably more in line with the Bible as a whole than a lot of modern worshippers. People just like to ignore the inconvenient parts and only read the handful of love thy neighbor stuff.
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u/misslouisee 1d ago edited 1d ago
Right, and again, people’s misuse of something doesn’t change the actual meaning. And your intentional misunderstanding of me doesn’t make you correct.
A muslim is someone who follows Islam and believes in the basic tenants of Islam. If I don’t believe in the basic tenants of Islam but I say that I’m a Muslim, am I Muslim? Have I forced the definition of the word “muslim” to include someone who doesn’t believe in Islam, simply because I used the word?
You ever watched a reality show where 2 girls who just met the day before hug and say “I love you girl, we gotta stick together”? Tell me, when you hear people use love in that context, does what it means to love someone change? Does your concept of love change? I bet it doesn’t.
You just quoted a bunch of bible versions - are you a christian now, even though you don’t believe in those verses, even though you took them out of context and pretended that they meant what you thought would prove your point best? That’s exactly what Gilead did.
The bible is not in line with Gilead, and the fact that you think that suggests to me that you really need to look closer at what you’re saying instead of just accepting things at face value whenever they seem to confirm your pre-existing beliefs.
edit: I thought of a simpler explanation after I typed that, so here it is. tldr I suppose.
Eating halal foods is an important aspect of Islam. If I eat halal, am I muslim? The answer is no, because while halal is part of Islam, it’s a detail; it’s not included in the definition of what it means to be muslim. The same applies to Gilead - they follow out of context details in the bible, but they are not christian because the definition of any religion does not boil down to a diet or a dress code or a how well you do (or don’t) follow a single verse.
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u/misslouisee 1d ago
As an aside, feel free to check out the literal argumentative essay I wrote about this exact topic in a separate comment under this post.
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u/Sophiatab 2d ago
They don't mention Jesus because the production company doesn't want to deal with the backlash.
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u/Similar-Count1228 2d ago
The bible is dualistic text. One person's Satan is another person's loving god. This righteous will spend most of their life on one side or the other. In one story God gave up his only begotten son so the world could be free. In the other he doomed his son to hell so that he could continue to be the supreme ruler of heaven.
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u/Eszter_Vtx 2d ago
I'm not a Christian but I used to be....
"In the other he doomed his son to hell so that he could continue to be the supreme ruler of heaven." Where in the Bible is this?
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u/lordmwahaha 3d ago
Christianity existed long before Jesus. Like many offshoots, they choose to ignore the very recently added section of the Bible where Jesus appears.
It’s really only certain subsets of modern Christianity that care about Jesus. A LOT see it as blasphemous.
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u/Additional_Noise47 3d ago
Christianity did not exist before Jesus. Judaism is the abrahamic religion that existed before Christianity sprang up. Gilead is very much not a Jewish state.
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u/lordmwahaha 2d ago
Okay so it wasn’t CALLED “Christianity”, no. But many of the subsets of the main umbrella religion, focused on the God of the Bible, that we now REFER to as “Christianity” did exist. Like Catholicism, which the vast majority of people do now consider a version of Christianity. And in THIS day and age there are many people who use the word “Christian” to describe themselves, but do not actually believe in the New Testament.
Yes, my wording was a little bit poor - but come on, I think we all know what I meant. Just because it doesn’t use the same name, that doesn’t mean it’s not the same religion.
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u/JenniferJuniper6 2d ago edited 2d ago
Catholicism did not exist before Jesus. Jesus is the entire basis of it. And Catholics have always been “considered” Christian—you know, what with having founded the entire religion. Protestants didn’t come into existence until many centuries later. The biblical, monotheistic faith that existed before Jesus, that Jesus was born into, is Judaism. Christianity is a break off of Judaism. And no Christians consider belief in the divinity of Jesus to be blasphemy.
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u/misslouisee 2d ago
So… I gotta know, if you think people now consider Catholicism a version of Christianity, what do you think is the original Christianity?
What do you think it means to be “christian”?
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u/Amazing_Emu54 3d ago
It’s a critique on how organised religion of all kinds can be harmful if it’s used to justify corrupt human goals. Power in the wrong hands rots away all the kindness of the lessons and is only more dangerous if it’s hidden behind a deity who by their religion cannot be wrong.
The SoJ cherry-picked a handful of lines without much consideration of the context using religion as a justification but no, I don’t think many/any believe in it or are interested in Christianity.