Originally a comment by Eric MacDonald on The war against infidels.
Essentialism is a fairly universal tendency of seeing things as have defining qualities. Without some kind of essentialism it would be hard to distinguish one sort of thing from another. Science, for example, has its essentialists (indeed, the periodic table is based on essences), and no doubt the fans of football, cricket and hockey, chess, monopoly, and other games, have what they consider to be essential properties of their favourite games. Your claim, therefore, that “essentialism is one of the cognitive biases that both underlies and is encouraged by religious thinking” is really quite misleading. Wittgenstein, as you are no doubt aware, was opposed to this sort of essentialism, by pointing out that the meaning of a word is constituted by its use, and he used the example of games to make his point. There is no one essential feature of all games, he suggested, that determines the use of the word ‘game’. I think he was probably wrong. Games are almost always characterised by quite contingent rules and limitations, so that playing a game is only possible if there are some things that do not constitute “moves” in the game. Otherwise, we have rather untstructured play, instead of a game.
So, of course, when we are talking about Islam or Christianity or Buddhism, or any other religion, we are going to home in on some of a religion’s most characteristic features. You want to let Islam off the hook, by suggesting that in picking out features of Islam that seem to characterise it (in some sense universally), we are being both arrogant (in claiming to speak thus about anything of which we are not believing members), and xenophobic (in this case Islamophobic).
But Islam does have fairly universal features. Not that every Muslim engages universally in these features, but in that historically, and in terms of its own doctrines, the practice of Islam has been so characterised. And violence, even aggressive warfare against non-believers, has been one of those features. Not only is this an observational datum, this feature of Islam is deeply embedded in its doctrinal tradition as well. It is present in all the fundamental Islamic texts, including the Quran, the Hadith, the Sira, the Sharia, etc., which, altogether is called the Sunnah.
Jihad, as offensive war against non-believers, is a duty of all Muslims to support, even though, as the Quran says, they may find it distasteful. And it is their duty to engage in it until the whole world is subject to Allah and his holy laws. Ayaan Hirsi Ali, in her most recent book, Heretic, speaks of this sort of Islam as Medinan. The “revelations” to Muhammad in Mecca are altogether more peaceful, but Muhammad’s stay in Medina produced very different “revelations”, in which a more warrior spirit prevailed, in which violence against unbelievers, and the murder of those who spoke critically of Muhammad became normative for the followers of Muhammad. Hirsi Ali thinks that Islam could be reformed by returning to the Meccan variety of Islam. I doubt this is possible, but it is not simply Islamophobia to point out that Islam has traditionally been spread by means of the sword. And being an honour-shame culture, Islam has almost always opposed anyone who calumniates Muhammad in this most savage and brutal ways (in order to restore its honour), even though the religion he devised was really nothing more than a protection racket, swelled in numbers by conquest, and the forcible conversion of people holding other beliefs. Europe was only spared Muslim occupation in the nick of time, just before the development of science and democracy in the West. Islam made incursions from both the West, where it was defeated (at the Battle of Poitiers or Tours, in 732), and from the East, where it was defeated at the gates of Vienna in 1683, although it overran Greece and the Balkan states.
For a time Muslims dominated Sicily, and much of southern Italy, sacking Rome at least once. Greece was subject to Islamic conquest and occupation. The Greek war of independence began in 1821, and with the intervention of the Western powers, Greece became an independent state by 1832. Lord Byron (the poet) played a part in the revolt against the Ottomans (and the Egyptians, who came to the rescue of Ottoman rule) and is still recognised as a hero in Greece where a day is set aside in his honour.
So let’s not pretend that Islam is not a warlike force, and that it did not engage, as it still does, in violence against non-believers and apostates in its struggle to dominate the world. This is at least one of the essential aspects of Islam, which makes it a danger to everyone who does not share the Muslim faith. Islam has already made significant inroads into Western nations and their polity. Indeed, suppression of free speech (such as you endorse yourself, Mr Walker) is well on the way to becoming established in Western democracies.
I find it hard to speak of Islamic essentialism when the sources for any of Mohammed’s revelations are so doubtful. It’s all oral, nothing was formally written down until what, 300 years later? Until then it’s hearsay upon hearsay, with translations, editing, reproducing by various people from various factions.
This has led to the situation that today it’s all down to interpretation, same with the bible of course, you can find a paragraph justifying any atrocity in there, just as you can pick bits to live as a decent person.
I find it more likely that Islam finetuned its messages and Mohammed’s “teachings” in the 8th – 10th centuries, to fit with their conquests.
I don’t think it would matter if you had video of Mohammed spouting his “revelations”. Until you can show that he’s acting as a conduit to an actual divine being, it’s all just the ramblings of a guy who says he’s a prophet with no proof. Even if he’s talking a divine, you’d have to demonstrate that this being has humanity’s best interests at heart.
[OP]
Just like Christianity.
If you refer to Islamism, then I guess so, but Islam itself is a religion, and one hardly less varied than Christianity.
Everything I need to know about history I learned from 1066 And All That. That authoritative reference work notes that everybody overran everybody with fire and, of course, the sword, usually insisting on converting each other to god-knows-what-all in the process.
So, anyway, my point, and I do have one!, is that all this forcible stuff of teaching the heathens the proper path is one of those genius ideas all “great” minds get. (Although, to stop being facetious for a second, afaik, Eric is right that Islam makes the biggest deal out of it as a religious duty.)
Bringing it into the modern day, it seems to me it has to be the same mind set as here in the US, where the best thing you can do for anyone is to send in the bombers and convert the heathens to the One True (American) way.
Power makes people stupid?
For a great refutation of Wittgenstein on games, read “The Grasshopper” by Bernard Suits. It sets out to create a systematic definition of what a game is, along with various subdivisions within the category. It’s also the most entertainingly written book of philosophy I’ve ever read.
http://www.amazon.com/Grasshopper-third-Games-Life-Utopia/dp/1554812151/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1431837683&sr=1-1&keywords=bernard+suits
Today my Muslim haircutter Sultana gave me another haircut and she was not homicidal. And this guest post cropped the context of Iain Walker’s comment about secular critics (like Eric) who essentialize Islam (emphasis mine):
Where do we stand with essentialism, as a community of secular critics? Was the feminist essentialism of the 80s/90s correct to say men are from Mars and women are from Venus? I say that essentialism was incorrect, and my anchor was Carol Travis’s book The Mismeasure of Woman.
Suppose I agree with Eric that games are defined in terms of rules essentially. But citing games does not make essentialism correct outside games.
How could Eric convince me Islam is bad versus Judaism and Christianity? He says he has an exegesis of the Quran versus the Torah and Bible. But exegesis of texts is a religious method, versus my experience with Sultana is another method with different data and results. I remain unconvinced I should accept Eric’s methods that seem to still be religious.
The bulk of this post could be applied to christianty, but I would particularly emphasise:
“But Islam does have fairly universal features. Not that every Muslim engages universally in these features, but in that historically, and in terms of its own doctrines, the practice of Islam has been so characterised. And violence, even aggressive warfare against non-believers, has been one of those features. Not only is this an observational datum, this feature of Islam is deeply embedded in its doctrinal tradition as well. It is present in all the fundamental Islamic texts, including the Quran, the Hadith, the Sira, the Sharia, etc., which, altogether is called the Sunnah.”
Becomes
“But Christianity does have fairly universal features. Not that every Christian engages universally in these features, but in that historically, and in terms of its own doctrines, the practice of Christianity has been so characterised. And violence, even aggressive warfare against non-believers, has been one of those features. Not only is this an observational datum, this feature of Christianity is deeply embedded in its doctrinal tradition as well. It is present in all the fundamental Christian texts, including the [various foundational Christian texts], altogether is called the Bible.”
Christian nations have a clear history of exactly the same shit. Wars over differing religion, wars over differing interpretations of christianity, wars of plain old expansion and asset control drenched in religious rhetoric, opression of minority populations based on both religion and ethnicity, restriction of personal rights and freedoms especially of women, bombings of things to express disapproval, all of it right there in the foundational texts even up to genocide.
Just look at America.
OT, with my apologies:
http://www.theguardian.com/global/2015/may/17/losing-their-religion-british-ex-muslims-non-believers-hidden-crisis-faith
Decent mention of the CEMB and Maryam Namazie.
Philosophers can talk about the essentials of religions but religious groups consist of people. Most people don’t want war all the time because it interferes with raising a family, producing food and just being productive in general. People can be violent and want power so they will use religion or even “democracy” as justification. As an interesting aside, my dad asked a Somali Muslim woman if she was Sunni or Shiite. She had no idea and she called her father who also had no idea. Clearly, the “essentials” of their religion was not as important to them. I guess my point is that violence is not unique to religion
As an ex-muslim I am surprised that this post has appeared here. Generally, liberal Westerners are completely clueless about Islam, which is not a shame in itself but the problem is that they are prone to temptations of “claiming moral superiority” by constantly white-washing Islam and comparing it to Christianity, and then completing it by plugging a Muslim friend and acquaintance to implicitly boast about their “open-mindedness”.
Unfortunately, fair, honest, and well-informed opinions on Islam is extremely rare within the liberal world.
Islam is less gloom and doom than what right-wing racists suggest but it has also far more problems than what supposedly moderate muslims would like to admit. For example:
It is almost universally accepted by Muslims that Quran is the *exact* word of God revealed to Muhammad. For example, the so-called “moderate” group CAIR explicitly states this on its webpage: “[t]he Quran is the record of the exact words revealed by God through the Angel Gabriel to the Prophet Muhammad. It was memorized by Muhammad and then dictated to his companions. The text of the Quran was cross-checked during the life of the Prophet. The 114 chapters of the Quran have remained unchanged through the centuries.”
Needless to say, a similar belief with respect to Bible or Torah would put the believer squarely in the fundamentalist/nutjob category.
If you are curious about fair and cool-headed introduction and criticism of Islam, I recommend the following debate between Hamid Dabashi and Raymond Ibrahim: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dLgX4mKXvrk
(I used to have a registered name here but I can’t remember the password, so I’m posting under a different name)
Surely the “essentials” of Islam have got to be the Five Pillars, rather than these things you’re tagging? We can certainly say that warlike cultures have warlike religions, but there are a hell of a lot of Muslims who politely ignore those murder-and-pillage bits of the Koran and whose Islam consists mainly of — well, the Five Pillars, if anything, and calling themselves Muslim and maybe abstaining from alcohol and pork if anyone’s offering them.
Rorschach, you say: “I find it hard to speak of Islamic essentialism when the sources for any of Mohammed’s revelations are so doubtful.” And ah58, you say: “I don’t think it would matter if you had video of Mohammed spouting his “revelations”. Until you can show that he’s acting as a conduit to an actual divine being, it’s all just the ramblings of a guy who says he’s a prophet with no proof.”
This is entirely irrelevant to discerning essential features of Islam now. Presumably, most who comment here do not believe that any religion has a revelation. But this does not serve to show either that religions do not believe (essentially) in revelations, or that it is impossible to define them in terms of the “revelations” they claim to have. Unless we can do this, we cannot even begin to talk about religions and their dangers.
This is also why John Morales attempt to show a one-to-one correspondence between the violence of Islam and the violence of Christianity, while it may be comforting to him, is really quite pointless, because there simply are differences between Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Judaism, etc., in respect of both their texts of violence (and the relevance of those violent texts today), and of the place that violence has played in their growth. Islam, as it is interpreted by a majority of Muslim scholars, is largely Medinan in its understanding, since there is a tradition of abrogation of certain Quranic verses by others, and the abrogation almost always prefers the Medinan “revelations.” There were some instances of the early spread of Christianity by the sword amongst the northern tribes in Europe, but by and large Christianity has not been spread by the sword. Until the Indian Mutiny (or first war of Indian Independence) in 1857, for example, Christian missionaries were refused entry into India. The business of empire was not religious but commercial. Only after the British government took over the administration of the sub-continent from the East India Company were missionaries permitted to enter India, and even then there were restrictions on their activities, because of the desire of the Indian Civil Service not to disrupt the religious establishment of the peoples they ruled, so it was not done at the point of the sword. But Islam was always imperial and religious at the same time. In places that were conquered by Muslim forces people were given three choices: convert, pay the jizya tax, or die (see Mark Durie’s The Third Choice). Though it had become widely disregarded in Muslim majority countries, it has become even more common in recent years as Islam reforms itself by returning to its roots. It is, I think, significant, that Christians have no idea how to respond to the Muslim murder, enslavement and terror visited on their co-religionists in Muslim countries today.
Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s point is that there are two traditions in Islam, the Meccan (where the “revelations” were more peaceful in intent), and the Medinan (where the “revelations” were more warlike and intolerant). It is to this form of Islam that the Islamic world has been returning over the last century or so. It is the form of Islam propagated by Saudi Arabia. Even though the Saudis condemn ISIS, Wahhabi Islam has very few disagreements with the Islam practiced by the Islamic State, for their main criticism of IS is that in Islamic law, Muslims should not kill other Muslims, and no Muslim state should be forcibly replaced by any other. The Saudis do not want to give credence to a view which could in fact be their undoing. This applies to much of the Muslim world, where, within the last week or so, a man in Egypt was arrested for making fun of the Islamic State. Whether Islam can be reformed in a Meccan direction (using Hirsi Ali’s categories) is still an open question, but Hirsi Ali’s belief is that such a reformation is necessary if Islam is to be made consistent with democractic governance.
Sure, many Muslims are only half-hearted when it comes to jihad. And many support it but do not participate, as many polls indicate. Some, of course, are cultural (or often spiritual) Muslims, who have a very imprecise grasp of Islam’s basic teachings and expectations. The five pillars of faith, prayer, alms, fasting, and pilgrimage are central to the spiritual aspects of Islam (it is a religion, after all), but do not sum up all of a Muslim’s duties, amongst which must be counted the winning of the world for Allah. That not all people wish to practice jihad in this sense is unsurprising. After all, there is a life to be lived, families to be raised, etc. — which is, of course, why Islamic sources point out that the duty of jihad is distasteful to many. But this does not mean that jihad and warfare to subject everyone to Allah is not a central aspect of Islam — what might reasonably be termed an essential feature of Islam.
And, of course, as we may know, there are a number of Muslims who, moving to the West, have a crisis of faith, as has recently been revealed by a Guardian article. On the other hand, there are a number (how large I do not know) of Westerners who have adopted, not only Islam, but militant Islam. What people call Islamism is simply an orthodox view of Medinan Islam, as Ayaan Hirsi Ali points out. This is what we should expect, especially since criticism of Islam itself is widely repudiated as “Islamophobia.” Many of the most prominent teachers of Islam are Medinan Muslims: Abul Ala Maududi in India (Pakistan), Hassan al-Banna in Egypt, the Wahhabis in Saudi Arabia, and other Salafist teachers too numerous to mention. Indeed, except for apologetic reasons, Meccan Islam is effectively dead.
Islam’s beginnings are a record of ascending power and wealth gravitated toward Mohammed.
As noted, the Surahs from Mecca (before) and Medina (after) show a distinct difference in God’s infallible, permanent revelation as it related to Mohammed’s convenience.
Of course the actual sequence has had to be deduced long after the fact. The Quran is not organized by any sequence except the LENGTH of the chapters, not their content or chronology. So the tradition of ‘abrogation’ (that later, Medinan, chapters trump earlier Meccan) has at least some doubt.
Both Christianity and Judaism have acquired non-conquering traditions. Before Constantine, and after the Babylonian exile respectively. Both the senior Abrahamic religions have at least some practice at being minorities. Islam seems to have eradicated that trend, if it ever really had it.
Eric MacDonald @ # 12: There were some instances of the early spread of Christianity by the sword amongst the northern tribes in Europe, but by and large Christianity has not been spread by the sword. Until the Indian Mutiny (or first war of Indian Independence) in 1857, for example, Christian missionaries were refused entry into India.
Your ignorance is
showingshouting and mooning everybody from the rooftops.Allow me to suggest you look up, just for starters: “Charlemagne’s Saxon Capitulary”; “Charlemagne and the Avars”; “Crusades”; “Reconquista”; “Conquistadors”; “Junipero Serra”; “First Nations” – I could go on and on.
True, many missionaries did not rely on raw force when they entered new “mission fields” – they just scouted out and softened up the natives for the benefit of the troops and company mercenaries who followed them. But have no doubt, from Estonia to Ethiopia, the “Gospel” spread so far and so fast because its tracks were well-greased with pagan blood.
Somewhat off-topic, but
@brucegee1962:
That’s an entertaining book. Some of my work has been about how to bring things from games into our real lives and how to bring things from our lives into games. Suits’ book was helpful, partly – I think – because it is itself so playful.
I’ve learned so much about games from playing them with young people. Chess, hide and seek, video games, games made up on the spot…. games are as least as much about learning to break rules as they are about following them. What child hasn’t changed the rules of an impromptu game mid-play to ensure they win and/or enjoy themselves more? It’s hilarious – and you’ll find yourself laughing with the kid – when the kid makes up and is in charge of the rules.
The fun is in learning what rules you can bend or break. I’m not sure there’s a more valuable thing children can learn.
Pierce R. Butler (#14). What ignorance? First, let’s deal with a few things. First of all, the forced Christianisation of the Saxons was one of the things that I had in mind when I spoke of northern tribes. Second, I don’t think that Pepin’s victory over the invading Avars constitutes an act of forcefully spreading Christianity. Third, the Crusades were not aimed at conversion so much as restoring former Christian lands to Christian rule, especially since Muslims were, at the time, continuing to make incursions into Europe, aiming to Islamise those they conquered, in addition to the slaving expeditions that Muslims were already making along the European coasts. Fourth, the Reconquista was the action of native Spaniards to reclaim Spain from their Muslim overlords, who had conquered and subjected them to Muslim rule, though the forceful ejection of the Jews (or their conversion), and the consequent Inquisition, that accompanied the Reconquista was one of the most baleful events of the times. Anti-Jewish Christianity was (and to some extent still is) one of Christianity’s dominating failures of respect for the people of which Jesus was a faithful son. The Conquistadors were more intent on conquest and spoils than they were on conversion, but to the extent that Christianity was spread amongst the native peoples of the Americas by violence, this too is a marked failure of Christians to live up to some of their basic beliefs regarding God’s love and care for all people. (I don’t think the problem of evil can be solved, but for Christians to add to it in the way that some of them did should be a matter for Christians to contemplate with more concern.) Again, regarding the First Nations, certainly they were converted by Christian missionaries, but it was not Christians as Christians that restricted them to “Reservations”, but the European hunger for land (Lebensraum — in case people do not understand the origin of Hitler’s model for increasing Germany’s land space — Hitler was an avid fan of American Westerns). As for missionaries scouting “out and soften[ing] up the natives for the benefit of the troops and company mercenaries who followed them,” I’m not sure what evidence there is for this. Certainly, this did not in fact happen in India, which may account for the very small percentage of Christians in India’s huge population. (Equally powerful was respect for the ancient civilisation that the British encountered in India.) Certainly, David Livingstone did a great deal of exploring, but it is doubtful that he softened up that natives for the troops that followed his discoveries. It is said that Livingstone, the great missionary, never made a convert in his life. It was usually the other way around. Once the people had been softened up by troops, missionaries had a fairly docile population amongst whom they could work, but they also brought other benefits (if that is what they were), such as education, the suppression of slavery, etc. The spread of Christianity in “British” Africa (at least) followed, it did not precede, the defeat of the native populations by the Maxim gun.
In any event, I did not claim that Christianity was never spread at the point of the sword. What I do claim is that there is nothing in Christian doctrine that demands either conversion, payment of protection money, or death. After the occupation of South America by the Conquistadors, the way was certainly open to the spread of Christianity, which is why Roman Catholicism is still the dominant religion, even amongst native Central and South Americans. Nor would I claim that no Spaniard or Portuguese Christian never used forced conversion on the native population. I just don’t know enough to claim either one or the other.
But, again, there is nothing in Christianity which demands such means of conversion, and much in Christianity that disapproves of such behaviour. That doesn’t mean that it never happened, but I suspect it happened far less than you seem to think. But I am not an historian of the Church, and therefore cannot say with certainty what proportion of forced to free conversions to Christianity there were. But, in contrast with Islam, where conversion was (and often still is) either forced at the point of a sword, or by jizya that non-Muslims could not afford to pay, Christianity’s approach to the conversion of native populations was often less forceful than that. In India the spreading of Christianity was widely disapproved by British officials, because of the unrest that missionaries often aroused. In the Belgian Congo, which was the private fiefdom of the King of Belgium, Christian missionaries were the first to reveal the monstrous abuses to which the native peoples of the Congo Basin were being subjected, a small light in what Conrad (whose The Heart of Darkness was based on his experiences in the Congo) called (what else?) the heart of darkness.
This is obviously a very complex issue, and cannot be adequately dealt with in a short “guest” post, nor in a comment on it. But your rather uncivil claim that my “ignorance is
showingshouting and mooning everybody from the rooftops,” and your attempt to show my view so staggeringly wrong, is not really based on a great deal of knowledge either. It’s amazing what you can produce is you use Google. University essays are often the product of the googling algorithm.Eric MacDonald @ # 16: What ignorance?
That expressed above and in yr #16, to start with.
FYI:
… Pepin’s victory over the invading Avars …
Who invaded whom?
– both from David Levering Lewis, God’s Crucible: Islam and the Making of Europe, 570-1215.
… the Crusades were not aimed at conversion so much as restoring former Christian lands to Christian rule…
And even more at looting, glory, looting, guarantees of Heaven, and a lot of looting. Rapine too.
… the Reconquista was the action of native Spaniards to reclaim Spain from their Muslim overlords…
Which “action” also involved a great deal of finding Jesus at swordpoint by Muslims & Jews whose families had lived in Iberia much longer than the United States has existed.
… The Conquistadors were more intent on conquest and spoils than they were on conversion…
Yet they charged into battle shouting Divine Names™, wielding weapons blessed by priests at regular intervals, and just happened to extinguish the preceding religions across the former kingdoms of the Aztecs, Mayans, Incas (and numerous others) as they went. Uh huh.
… but to the extent that Christianity was spread amongst the native peoples of the Americas by violence, this too is a marked failure of Christians to live up to some of their basic beliefs regarding God’s love and care for all people.
The Christian “basic beliefs” you idealize and the actual behavior of Christians over the last ~19.8 centuries don’t overlap much. Thus, the former serve only in effect to conceal the latter.
I have things to do; will attend to more of your Gish Gallop later, perhaps.
Eric @16:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dum_Diversas
—
In passing, as I see it Islam had to achieve its hegemony, whilst Christianity was gifted it when it became the official religion of the Holy Roman Empire.
Eric MacDonald @ # 16, cont’d: … it was not Christians as Christians that restricted them to “Reservations”, but the European hunger for land …
– accompanied, encouraged, and blessed by priests ‘n’ preachers at every lethal step.
As for missionaries scouting “out and soften[ing] up the natives …,” I’m not sure what evidence there is for this.
The story repeats all over, from Iceland to Hawai’i. In rare cases you find some monk or whoever trying to advocate on the part of the locals – such as Bartolomeo de las Casas, who demanded the Spanish leave the Indians alone (and bring in more Africans to work the silver mines) – but they tended to get overridden by the drive for gold (etc) and their own hierarchies.
… this did not in fact happen in India…
– where the British discovered it worked more cheaply to buy out the local rajahs and swamis. Meanwhile, in China, a young man with no other real prospects in life get so excited about the Christian message that he adopted it as his own and sparked the Tai-Ping Rebellion, which in over 20 years killed more than 20 million people – which “may account for the very small percentage of Christians in [China’s] huge population”.
… David Livingstone did a great deal of exploring, but it is doubtful that he softened up that natives for the troops that followed his discoveries.
No doubt they – or at least the officers – appreciated his maps and other reports. Your claimed knowledge of missionaries in Africa seems to have come from a Protestant/Anglophone Sunday school source – read up a bit more from actual historians, and you’ll note that Europeans clerical and laic tended to stick together, to the disadvantage of the locals.
… I did not claim that Christianity was never spread at the point of the sword.
Just that … by and large Christianity has not been spread by the sword – which I suppose leaves enough of a loophole to drive centuries of examples of just that through… in your mind.
In the Belgian Congo, which was the private fiefdom of the King of Belgium…
Who confessed (some of) his crimes to and was forgiven and blessed by his own personal priest, over and over.
… Christian missionaries were the first to reveal the monstrous abuses.
Hah. Read Adam Hochschild’s King Leopold’s Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa.
… your attempt to show my view so staggeringly wrong, is not really based on a great deal of knowledge either.
You say that with even less knowledge of my knowledge than of the actual history of Christianism. But your idea that Google works as a primary reference, and no mention of, like, y’know, books, confirms your status at a – I’ll try to put this kindly – sophomoric level.
Read up.
Pierce R. Butler. None of this (#19) shows that Christianity was principally spread at the point of the sword, nor that there are any doctrinal principles upon which such expansion could be plausibly based. The defeat of the Avars was the defeat of a confederation of tribes which threatened not only Byzantium, but the Empire created by Charlemagne. None of this has anything to do with the spread of Christianity by the sword. You might bear in mind that for centuries Russia was tributary to the Tatars, and were expected each year to provide tribute money and virgins to be sold in the slave markets in Islamic lands. And while I know nothing of the Tai-Ping rebellion, it cannot be said that the number of Christians in China is a very small percentage of the population of China. And this too is not obviously a matter of spreading Christianity at the point of the sword.
As for King Leopold’s Ghost, it was on that book that I based my claim that Christian missionaries were one of the brighter spots in what was one of the cruelest colonial administrations in sub-Saharan Africa, possibly one of the chief sources of the instability of the Congo to this day. And it was the missionary reports, often suppressed by that administration, that were amongst the first to reveal the horrors taking place in that heart of darkness. (Whether or not Leopold had a compliant confessor is irrelevant to the point that you want to make, that Christianity, like Islam, was spread by the sword.)
It is true, as John Morales says, that Christianity becoming the religion of the Empire during Constantine’s reign meant that the religion of the pagans was often suppressed, especially during the reign of Theodosius. Thus, there is no doubt that Christianity (what is this word ‘Christianism’?) was sometimes forcefully imposed upon non-Christians, but this had as much to do with imperial administration as it did with Christianity itself. If that were not so, Julian could not have been even remotely successful in his efforts to give new life to paganism. Unfortunately, the alliance between Church and Empire led to a central Christian principle being abandoned, namely the separation of Church and State. Early Christians could not both profess Christianity and serve in the military, but this principle was not unexpectedly abandoned when Christians began to occupy positions at the imperial court.
As for India, much of India was conquered by the British East India Company, but at the time of partition (and independence) India was still a congeries of quasi-independent states, since the British administration could be carried out without the conquest of all Indian principalities which were, effectively, islands surrounded by British ruled territory. Interestingly enough, reflecting the class structure back in England, the Rajas and Maharajas were considered to be of equal social status to high placed British administrators, and no effort that I know of, was made to impose Christianity upon them or their kingdoms and principalities — which were finally bought off by India itself, when it became independent in 1947, provided with large allowances from the Indian government for several generations in repayment for their abdication and the assimilation of their kingdoms into an independent India. The Maharaja of Ratlam, where my father worked, was more British than the British, both in his accent and in his dress.
Quite aside from all this, I have tried my best to be civil in this discussion, something which you, regrettably, seem unable to achieve in response. This is my last comment on the issue. It is tiresome trying to discuss with someone who is both arrogant and rude. I am quite willing to have my errors pointed out to me, but not by someone who knows so little about the topic as you, and is as foolishly obnoxious as you have shown yourself to be.
Eric MacDonald @ # 20: None of this (#19) shows that Christianity was principally spread at the point of the sword…
You rely on that weasel word “principally” to cover the proverbial multitude of sins, of which we have only touched the surface. And you continue to lie:
The defeat of the Avars … tribes which threatened not only Byzantium, but the Empire created by Charlemagne. None of this has anything to do with the spread of Christianity by the sword.
This directly contradicts my quotation from DL Lewis: Christianity and civilization triumphed once more by the sword as pagan Avars reported en masse for baptism as ordered. Had you found a reputable historian to contradict Lewis on this point, I might concede that you had one – but so far you haven’t, leading me to conclude that your evident bias blinkers you to inconvenient facts.
… for centuries Russia was tributary to the Tatars, and were expected each year to provide tribute money and virgins to be sold in the slave markets in Islamic lands.
And also in Christian lands. Lewis again:
Do recall that the Goths became Christians well before they overwhelmed their Roman fellow believers. The fine theological points of today’s Christianism were also evangelized with sword, spear, and fist within the gentle brotherhood of Jesus, thus providing us today with, e.g., the ineffable doctrine of Trinitarianism. (To be fair, the three-pack got its initial advantage at the Council of Nicaea not by sword-thrust, but the more subtle persuasion of poison.)
Of course, the Russian tribute of other Russians to the Mongols – c’mon, “Tatars” is racist propaganda – you speak of happened centuries later, but Christians continued to be a major market: we in the west wouldn’t still use the word “slav(e)s” for humans-as-property if that tradition had expired with the “Dark Ages”.
Once the people had been softened up by troops, missionaries had a fairly docile population … they also brought other benefits … such as education, the suppression of slavery, etc.
Missionaries who “followed” (“accompanied” fits more accurately) the troops tended to work within whatever system the troops had brought. Africa presents something of a special case, in that local diseases kept susceptible Europeans from colonizing in mass in most regions until the 18th/19th centuries; but opposition to slavery, when it finally came (mostly via British and French) had more to do with their relations to the Spanish and Portuguese, loss of profitability of sugar plantations due to slave rebellions, and internal Euro/American political dynamics than any initiative from the pulpits.
… I know nothing of the Tai-Ping rebellion…
Confirming my impression that your knowledge of the spread of Christianism (yes, it’s an ideology, an “ism”) is severely limited. Chinese recall the arrival of that doctrine as hugely disruptive – it was the bloodiest single catastrophe of the 19th century in the entire world (estimates range from 20M to 100M dead); Sunday school teachers usually prefer to pretend it never happened.
King Leopold’s Ghost does indeed document reports of (some) missionaries exposing slavery in Africa. But Hochschild’s protagonists, Edmund Morel & Roger Casement, who did most to oppose Belgian brutality, were independent of churchly ties.
Whether or not Leopold had a compliant confessor is irrelevant …
Do you really think Leo’s priest – or his pope(s) – raised the teeniest resistance to his decades of butchery, or declined to accept a single penny from his blood-drenched hoard?
…there is no doubt that Christianity … was sometimes forcefully imposed upon non-Christians, but this had as much to do with imperial administration as it did with Christianity itself.
Christianism became an explicit tool of the Empire with the Edict of Milan, and identical with it by decree of Theodosius a couple of generations later. (Morales seems to have confused the Roman Empire with the “Holy” R.E., but both employed religion as a weapon of social control, as it had been before them and continues to be now.) Your statement above strikes me as a futile attempt to separate the blame for the bloodshed from the doctrines which profited by it: *rolls eyes to back of head*
… the alliance between Church and Empire led to a central Christian principle being abandoned, namely the separation of Church and State.
A “central” principal that was abandoned at the first opportunity of that urban underclass cult to slide between Caesar’s sheets, and resurrected – by secularists, against stiff and continuous Church opposition – only at the American and French revolutions >14 centuries later. Please note that all of the current hostility to this concept today comes from the Church side.
… no effort that I know of, was made to impose Christianity upon [India]…
That you know of. Therein lies the rub.
… I have tried my best to be civil in this discussion…
Uh-huh. Accusations of ignorance against one exposing your ignorance indicate your best ain’t much.
… arrogant and rude.
I got the facts (and plenty more where those came from). You’ve got the non-facts – specifically, the claim that Christianism spread (mostly, with a few obscure exceptions we can slide past) peacefully. Your whines that I call out this self-serving deception for the whitewash-over-bloodstains that actual history shows it to be indicate only that your attachment to holy lies has exhausted its feeble defenses.
Oi, Pierce! Eric doesn’t “lie”! Don’t be saying that. I haven’t read past that word yet, I hope it’s not all that OTT.
Ophelia Benson @ # 22: Eric doesn’t “lie”!
Repeating others’ lies in the belief they are true doesn’t technically constitute “lying”; nor does claiming competence in history when one’s statements (ahem) belie that assertion. The differences in each case, however, lie completely in murky questions of intent; the falsity of such statements persists visibly and beyond doubt.
However, in the particular case of my statement in # 21, had you waited to reply long enough to read the next paragraph, you would see that Eric MacDonald attempted to deny the flat statement of the historian I quoted without himself providing any evidence, just a repetition of his freshly-disproved thesis. How else but “lie” should I, could I, characterize such dogged tenacity to non-truth?
Pierce, I had resolved not to respond to your rather angry and overheated comments again. However, it is simply false that I lied. I may have overlooked a point or two in your rush to judgement, but I did not lie. For one thing, I do take historians with a grain of salt. When Lewis says that the Avars appeared for baptism “as ordered,” I would like to know what the evidence is for such a claim, and what it means. The Avars defeat may have prompted a mass conversion, ordered by their leaders. Or it may be that they were ordered by the Christian forces which defeated them. Or they may not have been “ordered” at all. It is hard to see how such an order could have been carried out, since presumably the Avars could have retreated to the steppes, instead of remaining in conquered territory. When you suggest that the Avars were not a threat to Christian Europe at the time, as you do, you give no evidence that they were not. The Byzantines had bought them off (because they were a threat to the Eastern Empire), so that they did not attack the Eastern Empire, so they tried their luck further to the north, where they were defeated. But I did admit from the start that I know too little about this history to comment with any assurance of being right. I certainly would not base myself on the historical narrative of one historian.
By the way, I am not, as you think, defending Christianity (and it isn’t an ‘ism’ in the same sense in which political ideologies such as Communism and Fascism and Islam are ideologies, even though the Germans refer to Christianity (which is the normative English term for the religion) as Christianismus. I am trying to get it right. But you seem to be so hell bent on trying to prove that Christianity was spread principally by violent means that you seem to confuse acts of violence (like the war of the Carolinian empire against the Avars) with the the act of spreading Christianity, without showing (i) that the spread of Christianity was the intention of the war, and (2) that the Avars were forced at forfeit of their lives to convert to Christianity. The truth is that, in general, when pagan tribes converted, it was often at the behest of their tribal leaders.
When you refer to the Taiping rebellion you get things horribly wrong. The rebellion was started by someone who was disappointed in his failure of passing the very rigorous exams to enter the Emperor’s civil service, as you intimate, but it was only a scrap of Christianity that he had hold of. Hong Xiuquan believed he had had a vision in which he was said to be the brother (I believe) of Jesus, and in that capacity stirred up a rebellion against what was in fact an unjust system. Indeed, the Taiping rebellion would later be taken as an inspiration by other Chinese leaders, such as Sun Yat Sen and Mao Zedong. It was a popular uprising against Manchu Qing Dynasty, and there is no evidence that it required conversion to Christianity, nor that Hong was a Christian in any normative sense (most Christians do not believe that they are Jesus’ brothers, and do not attempt to justify their acts on such a proposal). What you seem to want to do is to find anything at all roughly appearing to be Christian use of force to justify your claim that Christianity was mainly spread by force. I do not think you have made your case. Sure, Christian states had armies, and were engaged in warfare, but that is not the point at issue. For example, when I say that Christian missionaries were one of the brighter lights of the darkness of Leopold’s Congo, you return with the names of two non-missionaries. Were they Christians or not? You do not say.
Nor did I ever whitewash Christianity in any way. I acknowledge that it was sometimes spread by violence. But I do say that there is nothing in Christian doctrine (unless you take the parable of the Great Feast in Matthew as an example, where the Master, having prepared the dinner, says something about compelling people to come to his feast) that mandates the forceful conversion of anyone. Indeed, in general, Christianity required a fairly long period of instruction, and a free choice to enter the Christian fellowship. That does not mean that there were never acts of forcible conversion, but, in general, this was done without reference to the requirements of Christian baptism, which required a free decision to renounce evil and to accept Christ as Lord. I do not think you have shown that, in general, Christianity was not spread in this way.
Notice that your examples often refer to “secular” rulers. Unfortunately, in time Christian leaders in the Roman Empire took on the same character as other imperial servants, something that is still retained by the Roman Catholic Church in the term Pontifex Maximus, which is in act a Roman, not a Christian title, for the supreme priest of the college of priests of pagan Rome. The use of Christianity as a unifying force in the Empire followed the normal Roman protocol of using religion as a stabilising force in the Empire. It was not normative Christianity, and it was this role that the Protestants rejected, although this led to widespread warfare for over a generation in Europe. But this was not spreading Christianity by the sword. It was Christians fighting amongst themselves as to whether or not Rome would remain the supreme authority. In the end, after indecisive warfare in which too many died, the acceptance of different strands of Christianity was simply accepted as a fait accompli.
As to the work of missionaries in India, the source you direct me to says nothing about forceful conversions. At one point it even suggests that Christianity was a leading religion in India: “The time witnessed the tremendous rise of Christian faith as a leading religion in India.” This is simply nonsense. Christianity was never a leading religion in India, though I can say that when I left India in 1959 (after having spent my childhood there), fully 80% of all nurses in India were Christians. Christians converted some Hindus (and perhaps even Muslims) to Christianity, and the missions, besides bringing the gospel, brought schools, hospitals, district nurses, food aid, and many other benefits to the millions of small villages in the country. But there is no support for your claim that it was spread by violence.
Also, notice, when you are speaking about Leopold (and perhaps his confessors), you say that he did not reject the income brought about by the widespread cruelty to native Africans in the Congo. Of course, that was part of the darkness. But this still doesn’t show that Christianity was spread by force. Indeed, it says nothing at all, except that some Christians benefited by the cruelty and slavery that the Belgians visited upon the indigenous population, against what were their moral duties to others and the morality of Christianity. This does not support your argument in the least. You say: “Do you really think Leo’s priest – or his pope(s) – raised the teeniest resistance to his decades of butchery, or declined to accept a single penny from his blood-drenched hoard?” No, I don’t, but it still doesn’t support your argument.
Again, regarding my statement that “…there is no doubt that Christianity … was sometimes forcefully imposed upon non-Christians, but this had as much to do with imperial administration as it did with Christianity itself.” You say that “Your statement above strikes me as a futile attempt to separate the blame for the bloodshed from the doctrines which profited by it.” That’s the way it may strike you, but this is in fact the way imperial administration was carried out. When Christians were a hated minority in the Empire, they suffered as a result of such imperial policies; when the Empire became Christian, Christians benefited. Yes, I’ve already said that. But this does not mean that this was doctrinally normative for the spread of Christianity. It was normative imperial policy, and in many respects it changed Christianity for the worse, establishing a parallel administration for the Church which exists to this day in the West, something for which there is no scriptural or doctrinal basis. The Vatican is still a shadow of the Roman Empire preserved into the twenty-first century, vested with some of the same peremptory powers possessed by the Emperor.
In conclusion, let me just add once more that I have tried to be civil in this discussion. Unfortunately, you have decided not to reciprocate, since, as you say: “Accusations of ignorance against one exposing your ignorance indicate your best ain’t much.” Well, but, you see, this is meant to be a discussion, a dialogue, in which our different ignorances might provide some insight into the question you raised. You have simply decided that you are right and that I am wrong, but you have not demonstrated it. Civility would have got you much farther.
Eric MacDonald @ # 24: I may have overlooked a point or two … but I did not lie.
You simply re-asserted the point I had established (by citing a serious historian), without citing any basis in fact whatsoever. You claimed something was the truth, when you provide no reason for anybody to think so. Pls re-read my query to Ophelia Benson in # 23.
When Lewis says that the Avars appeared for baptism “as ordered,” I would like to know what the evidence is for such a claim, and what it means.
Well, aren’t you special? Lewis’s footnote for that paragraph cites a couple of biographies of Charlemagne, which I don’t have on my shelf. Do some homework (yes, I did try looking online: not much about Avars there, especially concerning their defeat) – don’t just go Sam Harris and throw out a bunch of unsubstantiated and self-serving “what-if”s.
I certainly would not base myself on the historical narrative of one historian.
Well, you certainly wouldn’t if that narrative disagreed with your pet presuppositions, would you? Not even in the case of a barbarian king who had, as you already concede, done exactly the same thing just a few years previously in a parallel situation.
… Christianity (and it isn’t an ‘ism’ in the same sense in which political ideologies such as Communism and Fascism and Islam are ideologies, even though the Germans refer to Christianity … as Christianismus.
As do do the French and Spanish, mutatis mutandis. Not to mention Buddhism, Hinduism, and, yes, Judaism. But the Christians – well, aren’t they special, too?
… you seem to confuse acts of violence (like the war of the Carolinian empire against the Avars) with the the act of spreading Christianity, without showing (i) that the spread of Christianity was the intention of the war…
You might want to do some searching at this blog in particular for the phrase “intent is not magic” – around here, that argument will not only not get you anywhere, it will pull you backwards.
… and (2) that the Avars were forced at forfeit of their lives to convert to Christianity. The truth is that, in general, when pagan tribes converted, it was often at the behest of their tribal leaders.
Citation needed – and not from sundayschool.com, please!
Note that the “tribal leaders” – aka kings, occasionally queens – often made that behest so as not to end up as human pincushions, pendants, or combustion materials.
When you refer to the Taiping rebellion you get things horribly wrong.
This from somebody who yesterday admitted … I know nothing of the Tai-Ping rebellion…. So, so special!
[Remainder of your ‘graf on the Tai-Ping unpleasantness] – No True Christian!!!
Nor did I ever whitewash Christianity in any way.
… by and large Christianity has not been spread by the sword. … (etc)… Pants feeling a bit warm yet?
… there is nothing in Christian doctrine … that mandates the forceful conversion of anyone.
Christian doctrine is the set of lies that Christians use as a smokescreen to conceal – mostly from themselves – the actuality of Christian behavior. Are you also going to tell us that the US invaded Iraq in self-defense?
I do not think you have shown that, in general, Christianity was not spread in this way.
You manage to “think” that by carefully ignoring most of the relevant history of Europe and the Americas, for starters, and by denying – so far without any evidence – multiple specific instances I have cited. And yet you demand that this chickenshit approach be treated with “civility”. So very special!
The use of Christianity as a unifying force in the Empire followed the normal Roman protocol of using religion as a stabilising force in the Empire.
It isn’t a lie if you’re too ignorant to know any better. It isn’t a lie if you’re too ignorant to know any better. It isn’t … The Romans (like the Greeks, Ottomans, Brits…) succeeded at imperialism for centuries in large part by allowing the populations they conquered to retain their customs/language/religion/etc – look up all the special concessions they made to the Jews, for crysake – so long as they paid their taxes and followed orders. Theodosius broke that pattern, but y’know what – just ask him, he was special!
… there is no support for your claim that it [Christianism in India] was spread by violence.
Sure, the British established the Raj by Gandhian nonviolence – that’s where he got the idea, right? That must be true, because Eric MacDonald doesn’t lie!
… it says nothing at all, except that some Christians benefited by the cruelty and slavery …
Damn, you wear blinders the size of barns.
No, I don’t, but it still doesn’t support your argument.
Well, since special you say so… Or maybe you don’t even understand my argument. Anybody out there taking bets?
… this is in fact the way imperial administration was carried out.
So you want us to accept the violence of imperialism as a fact of life, but to exempt the (willing, profitable, and continuing) participation of multiple Christian institutions and individuals in every aspect of that imperialism because … it’s not in your (think of all the adjectives I could use here) super-special scriptures?!??
… I have tried to be civil in this discussion.
And therefore I should overlook your hypocrisies, ignorance, and willful distortion of history, because after all you merely spread big loads of shit, but don’t use that word. Can you figure out by now which word I might use to describe that?
I was wrong about the German for Christianity which is Christentum, not Christianismus. Sorry about that.
Now, Pierce, you are trolling. Don’t expect an answer.
Pierce, seriously, you don’t “establish a point” by citing a historian; that’s not how that works. Historians are secondary sources. Ask any historian, she will confirm!
And particularly not that historian. While I have ordered a copy of Lewis from Abebooks, I have also been reading reviews of the book The Crucible of God. It does not win high praise by many commentators. Indeed, Lewis idealises the Muslim Al Andalus, and laments that Islam had not conquered Europe, since Europe was such a retrograde civilisation. Given the ultimate end of Islamic civilisation, this seems to be an extremely faulty judgement. Besides, in Al Andalus, all people either hand to be Muslim, or to pay the jizya tax and wear badges signifying their religion. Jizya, in fact, was necessary for public finance! Regarding Charlemagne’s dictates regarding the forcible conversion of the Avars, it seems that St. Alcuin objected, and wrote to the Emperor, in consequence of which those dictates were toned down. Whether Lewis takes note of this or not, I don’t know, but it seems that the statement that the Avars were ordered to convert does not tell the whole story, as the quote from Lewis suggests. But, since Lewis has such an obvious pro-Islam bias (where people were forced to convert, pay jizya, or die) Carolingian “order” does not seem quite so ominous as it has been portrayed. And it is important to note that an important Christian theologian opposed the will of the Emperor.I am a bit astonished that a pro-Islam historian, who thinks that Europe would have been better had Islam conquered it should be quoted here in opposition to Christian missionary activity. Some of it was obviously forceful (I have already named the northern tribes, which included, of course, the Scandinavian countries too), but by and large, whatever else Christianity brought to Europe was far more valuable than anything that Islam, now one of the most backward areas on earth, and it is hard to believe that an Islamic Europe would have been any improvement over what eventuated. Perhaps the following review would temper Pierce’s unqualified admiration for Lewis: http://www.johnderbyshire.com/Reviews/History/islam.html
According to Wikipedia on Alcuin: “In this role as adviser, he tackled the emperor over his policy of forcing pagans to be baptised on pain of death, arguing, “Faith is a free act of the will, not a forced act. We must appeal to the conscience, not compel it by violence. You can force people to be baptised, but you cannot force them to believe.” His arguments seem to have prevailed – Charlemagne abolished the death penalty for paganism in 797.” My point has always been that, despite the actions of warriors like Charlemagne, basic Christian beliefs do not support people’s forcible “conversion”.
[Pierce, I quote your last comment in full and make my remarks enclosed within square brackets. I apologise to Ophelia for making such heavy weather of this. You will have to distinguish between remarks of mine that you quote, and your comments, since copying and pasting stripped out all the italics. Nevertheless, your comments should be easy to spot. They are the ones that are snide, belittling, and rude,]
Eric MacDonald @ # 24: I may have overlooked a point or two … but I did not lie.
You simply re-asserted the point I had established (by citing a serious historian), without citing any basis in fact whatsoever. You claimed something was the truth, when you provide no reason for anybody to think so. Pls re-read my query to Ophelia Benson in # 23.
When Lewis says that the Avars appeared for baptism “as ordered,” I would like to know what the evidence is for such a claim, and what it means.
Well, aren’t you special? Lewis’s footnote for that paragraph cites a couple of biographies of Charlemagne, which I don’t have on my shelf. Do some homework (yes, I did try looking online: not much about Avars there, especially concerning their defeat) – don’t just go Sam Harris and throw out a bunch of unsubstantiated and self-serving “what-if”s.
[No, I did not lie, and I suggest that you retract that claim. I may have overlooked something you wrote, but I did not do so intentionally, and you have not pointed out that I even did that. I said that, on the basis of one historian’s account, I was not going to accept what he says as unquestionably true. Besides Lewis is not a serious historian. He does not have any standing as an historian of Islam or Christianity, and has the rather outlandish view that it was a pity that Islam did not conquer Europe, in which case the scientific revolution would probably not have occurred, there would still be internecine strife amongst the varieties of Islam, and people would look on the world in a fatalistic way that saps energy and destroys initiative.]
I certainly would not base myself on the historical narrative of one historian.
Well, you certainly wouldn’t if that narrative disagreed with your pet presuppositions, would you? Not even in the case of a barbarian king who had, as you already concede, done exactly the same thing just a few years previously in a parallel situation.
[It’s got nothing to do with pet preconceptions, though it is obvious that you have several of your own. It has to do with doing history, in which the account of (what turns out to be) a popular rather than a professional historian, must be questioned, and cannot simply be taken as written.]
… Christianity (and it isn’t an ‘ism’ in the same sense in which political ideologies such as Communism and Fascism and Islam are ideologies, even though the Germans refer to Christianity … as Christianismus.
As do do the French and Spanish, mutatis mutandis. Not to mention Buddhism, Hinduism, and, yes, Judaism. But the Christians – well, aren’t they special, too?
[Fair enough. That point is reasonably well made. However, notwithstanding, the English word for the religion of those who follow the teachings of the gospel is ‘Christianity.’ I see no reason, aside from some prejudicial preconceptions, to alter common usage.]
… you seem to confuse acts of violence (like the war of the Carolinian empire against the Avars) with the the act of spreading Christianity, without showing (i) that the spread of Christianity was the intention of the war…
You might want to do some searching at this blog in particular for the phrase “intent is not magic” – around here, that argument will not only not get you anywhere, it will pull you backwards.
… and (2) that the Avars were forced at forfeit of their lives to convert to Christianity. The truth is that, in general, when pagan tribes converted, it was often at the behest of their tribal leaders.
Citation needed – and not from sundayschool.com, please!
[No, nothing is magic, so intent obviously is not. But intentions do count. Mens rea is a reasonable standard in a court of law. I don’t know what you mean here by “citation needed,” since this was simply my argument. If Christianity was regularly spread by means of violence, the action of warriors without the accord of the Church does not count. And in fact, there seems to be a letter from Alcuin, a scholar at Charlemagne’s court, whose advice to Charlemagne was that conversion (to Christianity, or, I assume, to any other religion) cannot be forced, and that his dictates with respect to the Avars was wrong. Charlemagne apparently toned down his dictates with respect to the Avars as a consequence. Of course, that is an historical claim that needs substantiation too.]
Note that the “tribal leaders” – aka kings, occasionally queens – often made that behest so as not to end up as human pincushions, pendants, or combustion materials.
[Citation for that is most certainly needed.]
When you refer to the Taiping rebellion you get things horribly wrong.
This from somebody who yesterday admitted … I know nothing of the Tai-Ping rebellion…. So, so special!
[Remainder of your ‘graf on the Tai-Ping unpleasantness] – No True Christian!!!
[That is true. Yesterday I had never heard of the Tai-Ping rebellion, but, having done some quick research, now I know more than I did yesterday. Thank you. As for the “No true Christian” accusation, my point was simply that Hong apparently did not know much about Christianity, and based his argument for rebellion on a vision in which he believed he was shown that he was the brother of Jesus. Now, my brother actually believes that he is the reincarnated twin brother of Jesus, and that this twin brother was really the teacher that should have been heeded instead of Jesus. I don’t think that Hong was obviously a Christian. It is not obvious that the unrest in the Empire of the Machu Qing dynasty was actually actuated by Christian motivations, nor that anyone was forcefully converted to Christianity a result. But that may only show the limitations of my knowledge of the rebellion, which was the beginning of the end of the Chinese imperial period.]
Nor did I ever whitewash Christianity in any way.
… by and large Christianity has not been spread by the sword. … (etc)… Pants feeling a bit warm yet?
… there is nothing in Christian doctrine … that mandates the forceful conversion of anyone.
Christian doctrine is the set of lies that Christians use as a smokescreen to conceal – mostly from themselves – the actuality of Christian behavior. Are you also going to tell us that the US invaded Iraq in self-defense?
[This is simply false. Christianity is not a set of lies, though you may want to say that it is a set of delusions. Lies are untruths deliberately spoken as untruths. It is doubtful that Christians in general have taught their faith consciously as untruths. Nor is it obvious that there is any scriptural or doctrinal warrant in classic Christian teaching for the forcible conversion of anyone. If there is, please provide the relevant citation.]
I do not think you have shown that, in general, Christianity was not spread in this way.
You manage to “think” that by carefully ignoring most of the relevant history of Europe and the Americas, for starters, and by denying – so far without any evidence – multiple specific instances I have cited. And yet you demand that this chickenshit approach be treated with “civility”. So very special!
[Yes, I expect you (without any hope now that you will concur) to behave civilly. I do not know what specific instances that you have cited that I have ignored. There is no doubt that Christians have been involved in massacres of native Americans (in Canada we were just a bit more civilised, and established the rule of law in the West quite early). Of course, we didn’t have the effects of the Civil War to deal with, and the lawlessness that prevailed in the American West, where native Americans were treated with uncommon barbarity. But it is hard to think of this as a concerted effort to convert native Americans to Christianity.]
The use of Christianity as a unifying force in the Empire followed the normal Roman protocol of using religion as a stabilising force in the Empire.
It isn’t a lie if you’re too ignorant to know any better. It isn’t a lie if you’re too ignorant to know any better. It isn’t … The Romans (like the Greeks, Ottomans, Brits…) succeeded at imperialism for centuries in large part by allowing the populations they conquered to retain their customs/language/religion/etc – look up all the special concessions they made to the Jews, for crysake – so long as they paid their taxes and followed orders. Theodosius broke that pattern, but y’know what – just ask him, he was special!
… there is no support for your claim that it [Christianism in India] was spread by violence.
Sure, the British established the Raj by Gandhian nonviolence – that’s where he got the idea, right? That must be true, because Eric MacDonald doesn’t lie!
… it says nothing at all, except that some Christians benefited by the cruelty and slavery …
[You seem to have missed the point (or did you just ignore it) of my argument. You are saying that forced conversion was the way that Christianity was normally spread. I disagree. I do not say it was never practiced, because that is false, but I do not think that Christian missions were often acts of violence under the cover of which subject populations were forcibly enlisted as Christians. That is not to say (as I acknowledge) that the normal Roman protocol for maintaining peace in the Empire (the Jews, by the way, were a major exception to the rule), was to use religion as a unifying force. When Christians were persecuted, it was in the interests of imperial unity that the persecutions were carried out. When heretics were exiled, it was also in the interest of imperial unity. And, by falling nicely into the imperial rhythm of these things the Church was incontravertibly drawn away from its original peaceful intentions. By adopting imperial titles for the pope, there are still aspects of the Roman Empire that still hold sway today. I think this is a distortion of early Christianity, but it is a distortion, and the effects of it have been reaped in harvests of violence and brutality. This I do not question, and have not done so in my earlier comments.]
Damn, you wear blinders the size of barns.
No, I don’t, but it still doesn’t support your argument.
[The point of “No, I don’t, but it still doesn’t support your argument.” is simply that what the King of Belgium did or did not do, does not demonstrate that Christianity is spread by force. Indeed, missions in the Belgian Congo were discouraged, because they had the power to bring the gold mine of the Congo, based on its inhuman treatment of the indigenous people, to an end. The administrators did not want the horrors to come out, and they were unfortunately too successful in suppressing information about the cruelties and brutalities to come out into the light of day. But none of this has anything to do with your claim that Christianity was forcibly spread.]
Well, since special you say so… Or maybe you don’t even understand my argument. Anybody out there taking bets?
… this is in fact the way imperial administration was carried out.
So you want us to accept the violence of imperialism as a fact of life, but to exempt the (willing, profitable, and continuing) participation of multiple Christian institutions and individuals in every aspect of that imperialism because … it’s not in your (think of all the adjectives I could use here) super-special scriptures?!??
[No, you are not paying attention. I did not say that the participation of Christians in the imperium of Rome was a desirable thing. I argue that it distorted Christianity and its message so much that, in many respects, it departed from its earlier respect for peace and life.]
… I have tried to be civil in this discussion.
And therefore I should overlook your hypocrisies, ignorance, and willful distortion of history, because after all you merely spread big loads of shit, but don’t use that word. Can you figure out by now which word I might use to describe that?
[I can certainly imagine you using much more graphic language than you have used so far, but none of it would be justified, since you have been arguing at cross purposes with me. I never said that Christians did not engage in violence. I am arguing that forced conversion is not a normative Christian practice. And you have not produced anything to dispute this. I do expect to see my words distorted and twisted out of shape again. But, trust me, do your worst, this is my last comment.]
I had a nice, long documented, careful reply to Eric MacDonald’s # 26/27/29 almost finished and zapped it irrecoverably with a single false click, then came back here to find his # 30 – so if the following sounds rushed and crankypants, now you know why.
@ # 26: … Christentum, not Christianismus.
Damn, I should’ve spotted that.
@ # 27: Don’t expect an answer.
If only. But don’t worry, I have no doubt that stating you were leaving but failing to stick the flounce, twice, won’t make you any more of a liar.
Ophelia Benson @ # 28: … you don’t “establish a point” by citing a historian…
As compared to making flat-out wrong assertions with no citations at all?
@ # 29: I have also been reading reviews of the book The Crucible of God.
But none worth naming or linking to, apparently.
… Lewis idealises the Muslim Al Andalus, and laments that Islam had not conquered Europe… Lewis has such an obvious pro-Islam bias …
Actually probably not worth naming, considering how much the reviewers got wrong, or at least gave you the wrong impression of, in this book.
Muslim Iberia was far and away a much more advanced civilization than anything on the other side of the Pyrenees would attain for hundreds of years after its fall. The Muslims were learning to make paper from China, use abacuses and decimal notation from India, inventing algebra and creating spectacular architecture on their own, while the “Europenses” lived by barter and brigandage, gawping in awe at a two-story building. Such perceptions neither originate with Lewis nor ring false to anyone with knowledge of the era.
Lewis does speculate that, had internal strife not kept the Muslims of Iberia from resuming the momentum they lost in “the killing fields of Aquitaine”, Europe might have jumped ahead technologically and culturally by several centuries instead of stagnating for several centuries – much as that might induce the Daniel Pipeses and Robert Georges of academia to apoplexy at verbal treason against the mighty Christian White Man. Only in the mind of neocons would that constitute “such an obvious pro-Islam bias”.
it is important to note that an important Christian theologian opposed the will of the Emperor.
Charlemagne and Alcuin were both Franks. As the lower-case meaning of that word still implies, their tribe valued free speech and bluntness, as barbarians often do. The concept of complete authoritarian thought control comes from centralized theocracies, and was refined beyond all previous conceptions by a certain Church.
… but by and large…
Lo! Behold another loophole large enough through which to drive a cargo ship of weasels!
… whatever else Christianity brought to Europe was far more valuable than anything that Islam, now one of the most backward areas on earth…
My inner grammarian schoolmarm insists on noting that comparisons require something to be compared with.
More to the point, at the time under discussion the relative levels of civilization of the two sectors was exactly reversed from your crude description. Baghdad, under Charlemagne’s contemporary Harun al-Rashid, was a thriving cosmopolis of around 2 million, bustling with commerce, art, and science; Christendom©’s most advanced centers of learning boasted a couple of hundred books at most and made progress only by snagging snippets of ancient pagan philosophers from the Caliphate.
Digression (well, it wasn’t a non-sequitur in the first draft…): According to (uh-oh – another book by a historian!!1!) Richard Fletcher’s The Barbarian Conversion: From Paganism to Christianity, devotes a couple of pages to the pleas from Alcuin that you cite:
Hey, what with the Slavs and the Balts and the Rus, as well as aforementioned Saxons and Avars, there were a helluva lot of “instances of the early spread of Christianity by the sword amongst the northern tribes in Europe”, weren’t there?
According to Wikipedia on Alcuin…
Wikipedia. You lecture me about quoting a book by a double-Pulitzer-winning, MacArthur Foundation Fellow, University of New York professor – and then cite Wiki fucking pedia. To quote Benson: Oi.
But that pales, just fades away, in light of your only link in # 29, from John Derbyshire’s site. John thrown-out-from-National-Review, avowed white supremacist, borderline fascist Derbyshire, for crysake.
Thanks for correcting my false impression of you as a naïve but well-meaning chump unable to shake off the whitewash of childhood indoctrination. If I get around to responding to yr # 30, you may get to see what real incivility looks like.
Eric MacDonald @ # 30 – sheeyit, wotta mess. Please learn elementary HTML (hint: see text below Comment box on almost any FtB page), if you intend to continue polluting blogs here or anywhere with your uninformed opinions.
I may have overlooked something you wrote, but … you have not pointed out that I even did that.
Or I did (hint: see my comments for text adjoining the word “sword”), but you overlooked it – repeatedly.
… has the rather outlandish view that it was a pity that Islam did not conquer Europe, in which case the scientific revolution would probably not have occurred, there would still be internecine strife amongst the varieties of Islam, and people would look on the world in a fatalistic way that saps energy and destroys initiative.
Ye gawds and little cephalopods. You denounce a professional historian who (claims he) spent ~ 6 years in research (building on knowledge of Islam from writing an earlier book about Sudan), and then confidently rattle off a set of stereotypical clichés about might-have-beens easily disproved by a look at the actual achievements of historical Islam at its peak(s). And still expect respect.
Phhhht!
Mens rea is a reasonable standard in a court of law.
A clue, for free – this ain’t that.
I don’t know what you mean here by “citation needed,” since this was simply my argument.
And because it’s Eric MacDonald’s argument, it (the claim that Christianism spread because “tribal leaders” asked their followers pretty please) needs no citations, even in the face of countless wars without which many other religions would still be here. *snort*
… the action of warriors without the accord of the Church does not count.
The victims of those warriors, and the actual events of the last 17 centuries, would beg to differ. History is not Calvinball.
You want citations for conversions to Christianism by violence? I don’t have all night to write this, so I’ll just send you to Richard Fletcher as cited above. Fyi, he does include some examples of persuasion by word instead of sword, but clearly shows that was not the predominant mode of proselytization in old Europe.
Your reply illustrates my point about trying to whitewash the Tai-Ping Rebellion through a “No True Christian” dodge – and your Nor did I ever whitewash Christianity in any way. exemplifies why I call you a liar.
It is doubtful that Christians in general have taught their faith consciously as untruths.
Agnes Bojaxhiu (aka Mother Teresa) was one of the few missionaries indiscreet enough to leave a written record of her non-belief – feel free to add the idea that she was the only one to your pre-breakfast workout.
I do not think you have shown that, in general, Christianity was not spread in this way.
Yet another example of the chasm between your beliefs and the facts, unless you pretend I need to write you a book about the Crusades, the invasion of the Americas, etc, etc, etc., to “show” you.
I do not know what specific instances that you have cited that I have ignored.
That’s because you ignored them.
… it is hard to think of this as a concerted effort to convert native Americans to Christianity.
Hard for you, possibly impossible. But voluminously documented.
I am arguing that forced conversion is not a normative Christian practice.
Normative is a fuzzy word, and you’re welcome to it. I claim, with whole libraries to back me up, that it was – and in some ways still is – the predominant actual, factual Christian practice – pretty propaganda be damned. (Look up your asshole buddy Derbyshire’s asshole colleague Ann Coulter’s words on conversion if you want a contemporary example.)
… this is my last comment.
Who’s taking those bets tonight?