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arisbe"Many recall what happened in Rome, at St. Peter’s Basilica, the night of Christmas Day of the year 800. After the Mass, pope Leo III solemnly placed upon the head of Charlemagne the crown of the Holy Roman Empire.
"That night, the basilica of St. Peter gleamed with breathtaking brilliance. A few years earlier, Leo III’s predecessor, pope Hadrian I, had covered the entire floor of the sanctuary with plates of silver; he had covered the walls with gold plates and enclosed it all with a balustrade of gold weighing 1,328 pounds. He had remade the sanctuary gates with silver, and had placed on the iconostasis six images also made of silver, representing Christ, Mary, the archangels Gabriel and Michael, and saints Andrew and John. Finally, in order to make this splendor visible to all, he had ordered the assembly of a candelabrum in the form of a huge cross, on which 1,365 candles burned.
"But less than half a century later, none of this remained..." -- Sandro Magister
"That night, the basilica of St. Peter gleamed with breathtaking brilliance. A few years earlier, Leo III’s predecessor, pope Hadrian I, had covered the entire floor of the sanctuary with plates of silver; he had covered the walls with gold plates and enclosed it all with a balustrade of gold weighing 1,328 pounds. He had remade the sanctuary gates with silver, and had placed on the iconostasis six images also made of silver, representing Christ, Mary, the archangels Gabriel and Michael, and saints Andrew and John. Finally, in order to make this splendor visible to all, he had ordered the assembly of a candelabrum in the form of a huge cross, on which 1,365 candles burned.
"But less than half a century later, none of this remained..." -- Sandro Magister
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no subject
Date: 2006-01-05 05:02 pm (UTC)One need only a cursory study of the history of the Western Hemisphere to see everything this author is denouncing Islam for being perpetrated by Christians on 2 entire continents of native peoples. A history which is also largely unspoken when promoting Christianity as a religion of peacemaking and tolerance. Was the gold and silver of St Peter's more valuable than the majority of the written history of the pre-columbian americas?
From some perspectives, none of the branches of Abrahamic tradition have any moral ground to stand on regarding the violent destruction and subjugation of outsiders. Most of the pagans groups are right there beside them too. The entire history of man is a bloody one.
With all of the religious traditions drenched in the blood of those who dared disagree with them, why is it appropriate to single out Islam as particularly objectionable? If Islam's past proves it is not a religion of peace (as these authors seem to want to convey), all of the other religions are equally non-peaceful.
And what does bickering over whose massacres were more egregious do to heal the continuing wounds generated by those conflicts? Wouldn't it be better to agree that all groups of humans have done horrible things in the name of the divine and the greater good, and try to see if there's some way of increasing tolerant cooperation over sowing dischord and pointing fingers?
Bless You For Saying This!
Date: 2006-01-05 05:44 pm (UTC)Amen, amen, amen.
And what the world needs most, I feel, is inter-faith DIALOGUE (not "apologetics," not proselytizing) in order to see and confront ALL of our historic failings, on our supposed "paths" to God.
no subject
Date: 2006-01-05 10:28 pm (UTC)Mohammed himself took up the sword and encouraged his followers to do so. The idea of Jihad as a holy war is built into Muslim tradition. It is much, much more difficult to lay that claim at the feet of most of the other religions in whose name people have shed blood. One has a hard time reconciling the Inquisition with Jesus' admonition to "turn the other cheek."
At least regarding Christianity, there is a very strong argument to be made that those who did violence in the name of Christ were betraying the Christian tradition. Islam's tradition, by contrast, includes violence from the very beginning by its founder. That makes a huge theological difference with enormous practical consequences.
(And of course atheistic ideologies have shed the most blood of all.)
no subject
Date: 2006-01-06 04:37 am (UTC)If the Inquisition was betraying the Christian tradition, why was the current pope promoted from that very office? I don't know much about papal proclamations, but has the Vatican denounced the Conquistadors and Franciscan missionaries who decimated the new world in order to make it habitable for Christians? Were the Crusades ever officially declared to have betrayed the Christian tradition?
I grant that Mohammed taking up the sword does make some difference, but it does not seem all that huge compared to the Greeks and Romans doing the same thing on much larger scales. or the Puritans and other Protestants. or the slavers who used the absence of any condemnation against owning fellow humans to justify their atrocities.
The practical consequences in the end seem rather similar, millions dead over disagreements about what a specific collection of books says, with most doing the killing not even around to witness the books being written or speaking the languages the books were written in, making all the killing all that much more absurd.
no subject
Date: 2006-01-06 12:46 pm (UTC)Regardings wars over what a book says, I think perhaps that is an oversimplification and perhaps even an obfuscation. Most wars were started by kings, not bishops, and I'm pretty certain that most of them weren't over scriptural hermeneutics but rather over the things wars are usually fought for (land, honor, revenge, etc.). If religion is brought in, it's usually only an "inspiring" excuse, which is certainly the case with most of the Crusaders, who were looking to carve out their own kingdoms over in the Middle East.
The difference I was highlighting, though, is that there are fundamentally different theologies at play between Islam and Christianity (though, of course, with the variations in Christianity, one can always come up with a counter-example). You write "we have no record of Jesus taking up arms to promote Christianity," as though perhaps he might really have done so and the records got lost, erased, or never written. Despite the subtle accusation, what he really did is not the point here. What the faith which looks to him as its founder believes about him is the key element. That is, there are basic theological questions at stake.
(The Essenes, by the way, were Jews, not Christians.)
The Christian "core," if you will, has no tradition of holy wars of conquest. Though the pope may not have criticized the Conquistadors (I don't know), one can mount a good argument against them from the New Testament. Jihaddi, on the other hand, are much, much tougher to refute from the Qur'an. In other words, Christians who criticize those who kill in the name of Christ have much, much firmer ground on which to stand than Muslims who criticize those who kill in the name of Muhammad's Allah.
That is what makes Islam fundamentally special with regard to the question of holy war. When talking about religion, theology really does matter. If one is not religious himself, it is easy to regard all theologies as essentially equivalent (and false, of course), look at a history of religious people who fight wars, and then assess that history as showing that religions are almost necessarily bloody. It of course then makes sense to question whether singling one of those religions out is really fair. But it is unfair to those religious people to examine them in such a way. What a Muslim as a Muslim is trying to accomplish is quite different from what a Christian is pursuing. That difference is theology.
(And just so you know my own set of biases, I'm an Eastern/Greek Orthodox Christian clergyman. Our Church's history has a strong tradition of criticism for those who take up the sword in the name of Christ.)
no subject
Date: 2006-01-06 02:20 pm (UTC)having said that, I comepletely agree with amp23.
We can't forget that:
1-Christianity does indeed have a tradition of holy war. This is totally unrefutable. Anytime a group raises the banner of Christianity in the context of war, you have holy war, whatever the circumstances.
2-Most western countries no longer kill in the name of the Church. They are now secular, they use secular reasoning, therefore. Muslims commit acts of murder also, but in religious terms. these are the terms for most everything in their societies.
3-George Bush is very clear that God inspires his decisions. Holy War.
4-The Prophet and his followers did engange in holy warfare and Islam does have a legacy of violence. It is permitted but tempered by clear laws. Terrorsts don't follow them. Christians don't follow Christ when they support the war in Iraq, I believe, either.
5-The Prophet was non-violent for the first 13 years of his role, while under siege, becuase he had not received Divine Permission to retaliate against his attackers.
So, these things are not so black and white. Let us all pray for all of this to end. That would be, by far, the most helpful thing we could do. There is a Sufi syaing that if you want the dogs to be called off, you talk to their Owner.
Love,
R
no subject
Date: 2006-01-07 06:23 am (UTC)This really is grossly unfair, because the assumption behind it is that I can sully the name of any religion or ideology I like simply by raising its banner and doing something reprehensible. In any event, this claim fails to address the point which I made earlier:
The Christian "core," if you will, has no tradition of holy wars of conquest. Though the pope may not have criticized the Conquistadors (I don't know), one can mount a good argument against them from the New Testament. Jihaddi, on the other hand, are much, much tougher to refute from the Qur'an. In other words, Christians who criticize those who kill in the name of Christ have much, much firmer ground on which to stand than Muslims who criticize those who kill in the name of Muhammad's Allah.
Like I said, the question is one of theology.
no subject
Date: 2006-01-06 08:15 pm (UTC)As Cicero said, "not to know what happened before you were born is to remain a child forever."