Whilst I believe I understand the spirit with which you quote this, I still tend to associate winning converts with rooting out heretics based on church history. For me the best way to persuade a change of mind is to demonstrate what we believe in (integrity, hope, truth and above all love) through our own actions. Persuasion with words is something that can follow, or rather can only follow once trust has been established.
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Well sure … as long as truth, integrity, hope, Love are the actual things believed in (and acted upon), then yes, those things will evangelize themselves and there should be no lack of persuaded converts. But I don’t see any of those things enthroned among the political and sectarian causes today. Instead, other things have assumed the throne, and all those good things you mention have (at best) been conscripted into the service of those lesser gods or (more likely) just been dispensed with since (in their real form) they refuse to bend the knee to all the lesser things.
I’m curious which or what church history you have in mind for this observation. Reading through Tom Holland’s “Dominion” (most of the way through now) - it makes for quite a laundry list of just how ugly it has nearly (always?) gotten whenever religious authority has acquired state power for itself (and he is definitely not writing it as a foe of Christianity - but seems eager to give each historical sect and manifestation its due credit for whatever cultural bequethments we’ve reaped - and they are many.) For all that, though, there is no hiding all the uglier underbelly of the religious beast snaking through history and still writhing in the present.
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I think that Tom Holland can be accused of whitewashing Christian history, and he does so because he has experienced the persecution of the Islamic State, and his study of history has shown how violent the past was. Therefore, whilst I understand his reasons, we must acknowledge the way Christianity enforced its rule throughout history.
Throughout history, the Christian Church, in its various forms and denominations, has employed various methods of persecution against individuals or groups it considered heretical or in opposition to its teachings. Excommunication is the formal expulsion of an individual from the Church, cutting them off from its sacraments and communal life. This was a powerful tool used to isolate and ostracize those deemed heretical or disobedient. Heretics and individuals perceived as threats to the Church were frequently imprisoned. Conditions in these prisons could be harsh, and imprisonment was used to both punish and silence dissent.
The Church would confiscate the property and assets of individuals accused of heresy or other crimes against the Church. This not only punished the accused but also served as a financial gain for the Church. Some heretics and dissenters were banished from their communities or countries, often as a less severe alternative to execution. This could result in individuals losing their homes, livelihoods, and social networks. In some cases, individuals or entire communities were pressured or coerced into converting to Christianity. This was especially common during periods of colonization and the spread of Christianity to new territories.
The Church maintained strict control over written materials, and books that were deemed heretical or contrary to Church doctrine were banned and burned. The Index of Forbidden Books, a list of prohibited texts, was maintained by the Catholic Church for centuries. The Inquisition was a system of judicial institutions within the Catholic Church established to investigate and combat heresy. It often involved the use of torture to extract confessions and the execution of heretics.
The Reformation and subsequent religious wars in Europe led to brutal persecution of Protestants by Catholics and vice versa. Additionally, Protestant denominations sometimes persecuted one another over doctrinal differences. In some cases, individuals or groups considered heretical were subjected to forced labour or servitude as a form of punishment. Of course, the extent and severity of persecution varied widely across different regions and historical periods, and not all Christians or Christian denominations engaged in persecution. During the witch trials of the early modern period, the Church played a significant role in persecuting individuals (mostly women) accused of witchcraft. Many were executed as witches.
The practice of burning people at the stake as a form of execution for heresy or other perceived crimes was most prevalent during the Middle Ages and the early modern period, particularly during the time of the Inquisition. The most famous case of a person being burned at the stake is probably Joan of Arc, a young French woman who claimed to have received divine visions and played a significant role in the Hundred Years’ War. She was captured by the English in 1430, put on trial for heresy, and burned at the stake in 1431.
An Italian philosopher and Dominican friar, Bruno was burned at the stake in 1600 for his controversial views, which included support for the Copernican heliocentric model of the universe and pantheistic beliefs. A Czech theologian and reformer who was critical of the Catholic Church’s practices and teachings, Jan Hus was burned at the stake in 1415 during the Council of Constance. Spanish physician and theologian, Michael Servetus was executed by burning at the stake in 1553 for his anti-Trinitarian beliefs and disagreements with both the Catholic and Protestant churches.
An English translator of the Bible into English, Tyndale was executed by strangulation and then his body was burned in 1536 for heresy, primarily due to his efforts to make the Bible accessible to the common people. A Scottish Protestant reformer, Hamilton was burned at the stake in 1528 for his Lutheran beliefs and criticism of the Roman Catholic Church. Thomas Cranmer, Nicholas Ridley, and Hugh Latimer, all Protestant bishops and theologians, were burned at the stake in 1555 during the reign of Queen Mary I of England for their Protestant beliefs.
There were instances of violence and persecution between Protestant and Roman Catholic communities, particularly during the turbulent period of the Protestant Reformation and the subsequent religious wars that took place in Europe. The Protestant Reformation, which began in the early 16th century, challenged the authority of the Roman Catholic Church and led to significant religious and political conflicts.
The Protestant Reformation, initiated by figures like Martin Luther, John Calvin, and others, sparked tensions and conflicts between Protestants and Catholics. In some regions, these conflicts turned violent, leading to the destruction of religious icons, churches, and clashes between followers of the two faiths. It was an era marked by a series of conflicts and wars between Protestant and Catholic states and rulers. The most well-known of these is the Thirty Years’ War (1618-1648), which devastated much of Central Europe. While these conflicts were driven by political and religious factors, they often resulted in violence and persecution against Catholics in Protestant-controlled areas and vice versa.
In some Protestant regions, particularly in the early years of the Reformation, there was a strong movement against religious imagery and the veneration of saints. This sometimes led to the destruction of Catholic statues, paintings, and religious artifacts. Protestant leaders and theologians frequently published pamphlets and writings criticizing Catholic practices, doctrines, and the papacy. Some of this literature was highly inflammatory and contributed to anti-Catholic sentiment.
In regions where Protestants gained political control, Catholics could face discrimination and restrictions on their religious practices. They might be barred from holding public office, attending university, or openly practising their faith. Catholic priests and clergy often faced persecution in Protestant areas. Some were expelled, imprisoned, or executed for their refusal to convert to Protestantism. An English Catholic martyr, Margaret Clitherow was executed by being pressed to death in 1586 for her refusal to plead to charges of harbouring Catholic priests.
The Puritans, a group of English Protestant reformers who sought to “purify” the Church of England from what they perceived as remaining Roman Catholic practices and influences, were also involved in religious persecution before they themselves faced persecution in England and later sought religious freedom in the American colonies.
In the early 17th century, during the reign of King James I of England and later under King Charles I, the Puritans faced religious repression and persecution from the Church of England and the monarchy. Puritan clergy who refused to conform to the practices and liturgy of the Church of England were often deprived of their positions and sometimes imprisoned. The Crown imposed censorship on books and publications, targeting Puritan writings that were critical of the Church of England and the monarchy.
Puritans who resisted attending Church of England services, refused to participate in certain religious rituals, or held illegal religious gatherings were fined and subjected to various forms of punishment. Many Puritans chose to leave England in search of religious freedom. The Mayflower Pilgrims, for example, were a group of Separatist Puritans who sailed to North America in 1620 and established Plymouth Colony. However, it’s important to note that after the Puritans settled in the Massachusetts Bay Colony and other parts of New England, they established their own form of religious government and were not always tolerant of religious diversity within their own communities. Dissenters and individuals with differing religious views were sometimes expelled or subjected to various forms of punishment, demonstrating that the Puritans themselves were not always advocates of complete religious freedom.
There have been many instances where individuals or groups, often motivated by their Christian faith, engage in aggressive or militant actions, sometimes involving violence or the use of force, to advance their religious, political, or social agendas. Although such actions are not representative of all Christians, and the vast majority of Christians around the world are committed to peace, love, and non-violence, throughout history, there have been instances of Christian militancy.
The Crusades were a series of military campaigns sanctioned by the Catholic Church during the medieval period, primarily aimed at recapturing the Holy Land from Muslim control. The First Crusade began in 1096 and resulted in the capture of Jerusalem in 1099. While the motivations for the Crusades were complex, they involved the use of military force in the name of Christianity.
There is also the fact that in medieval and early modern Europe, the practice of medicine was not always clearly distinguished from other forms of healing, and there were suspicions of witchcraft associated with some medical practices. In England and other parts of Europe, individuals who were perceived as healers or practitioners of folk medicine could sometimes face accusations of witchcraft, especially if their methods were unconventional or perceived as a threat to established medical authorities.
The Spanish Inquisition, established in 1478, was a Catholic institution tasked with identifying and punishing heresy in Spain. It used methods such as torture and execution to suppress perceived threats to the Catholic Church, including Jews and Muslims who had converted to Christianity but were suspected of practicing their former religions in secret.
The colonization of lands by Christian European powers often involved oppression, forced conversion, and the subjugation of indigenous peoples. This period of history, which spanned several centuries and is often referred to as the Age of Exploration or Colonialism, had profound and often devastating impacts on indigenous cultures and societies. Although not all colonization efforts were the same, and there were variations in the attitudes and actions of colonizers, there were certainly instances of oppression and forced conversion. Indigenous languages, traditions, and practices were often suppressed or banned by colonial authorities in an attempt to assimilate indigenous peoples into European culture and religion.
Anti-Abortion Violence: Some individuals or groups in the United States have carried out acts of violence against abortion clinics and providers, citing their Christian beliefs as motivation. These acts are condemned by the majority of Christians and are considered acts of domestic terrorism. In various parts of the world, there have been Christian militias or armed groups that have engaged in violence, often in response to perceived threats to their communities or religious beliefs.
Of course, these were violent times, and we can’t compare them with today. The Roman Empire, Tom Holland points out, had very little with which we could compare ourselves today, but the point is that the church employed similar structures which continued to enforce its beliefs. Up until recent times, I have experience pious people who displayed a degree of superstition that I hadn’t thought still existed and ardent churchgoers have oppressed those of another faith, suspecting them of strange things. You can say that this isn’t “real” Christianity, but it is telling that people in Iraq referred to the insurgent troops as crusaders, just like George W. Bush did himself.
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Wow! … That was a pretty good (if long) summary of everything of Holland’s I’ve been reading! If it is a “whitewash” job then it’s the ugliest whitewashing I’ve ever witnessed - he’s using brownish paint with insects and debris smeared all through it!
Thanks for this. It’s good to have that background of motivation filled in. He does indeed “acknowledge” all the ways that Christianity ‘enforced its rule throughout history’. It is the very theme of his book. That he isn’t a believer is what makes his praises (where he sees fit to bestow them - even including positive influences of Islam) all the more compelling. It seems to be more a reaction against any modern scholarship that tries to tar all religion as backward, supterstitious, and outright wicked.
You may have set a record for a length of post to generously illustrate my point for me. Maybe it isn’t so much that Holland ‘whitewashes’ Christian history as that perhaps he takes an arguably perverse pleasure in de-romanticizing (If I may be excused for that term! 
) pagan and Roman other non-Christian or pre-Christian narratives.
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Ironic that after an inspired moment when the various factions recognized the risks well enough to ensconce separation of church and state in the constitution we should find so many Americans claiming we were established as a Christian nation. Of course it is true that we were primarily established by a variety of European outcasts with religious oppression fresh on their minds, many of whom may have been more motivated by preserving freedom to practice just their own Christian tradition.
But the upshot of all this history is surely that it is far better to learn to tolerate a diverse nation where some people may be mistaken in their religious allegiances than to resort to coercion in any form to unify them all under the banner we ourselves fly.
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This helps explain the sick irony:
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I think you are missing the fact that he is claiming that all of the good things of our society are inherently Christian, and overlooks the fact that a reaction against the evil that the Church employed has weakened its standing. He said in an interview:
This obviously interprets Christianity in a different way to fundamentalism, and claims that even non-Christians are influenced by Christianity, so that an interviewer pointed out, “It can be very difficult to disagree with your thesis can’t it, Tom, because in in some ways you know a critic of Christianity comes and they give some critique of Christianity, and your response can be how very Christian of you.” It is this manner of taking the sting out of pertinent criticism, which indigenous people and other countries in which crusading Christians invaded flying a red cross have, that I describe as “white washing.”
To say it “worked out in the end” despite horrible suffering, and that the criticism of that suffering is “Christian” has a degree of obtuseness that annoys me.
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Thanks for that further clarification. Yeah - I share in that annoyance too.
Of course, I can hear Holland replying to your (our) annoyance with “How very Christian of you to be annoyed by all that!” … and so continuing to fulfill his interviewer’s expectation.
There is a bit of the “No true Scot” fallacy about it, and indeed it is written off entirely as that by detractors. I’ve failed to find that reply much of a compelling one, though. Christianity does make claims toward universality (following no less than words from Christ himself, … things about any tree being known by its fruit, and such). And so to try to dismiss that claim toward universality with an equally bizarre claim that no sectarian religion can or should be allowed to occupy that role (or be recognized as such), I think just amounts to trying to handwave away the author’s thesis without providing any other foundation for the objection other than “we object to seeing Christianity recognized as any sort of universal solvent.”
Don’t get me wrong. I don’t want a theocracy and I think current nationalist trends toward autocracy are abominable - and can only arise in total forgetful ignorance of some pretty central and explicit claims taught by our own nation’s founding fathers - people that today’s autocratic enthusiasts usually want to be seen as venerating. As an anabaptist, I at least aspire toward just about anything else that goes away from coercive power concentrated in the hands of a few or one. Christianity has seemed to be at its best when on the sidelines of main culture, and often at its worst when mainstreamed and even given pre-eminence in the halls of power. So that might be the main criticism I would still have of Holland’s work over all; but meanwhile then, it’s good for me to hear his challenge to that. Why shouldn’t we, after all, expect to find deeply and widely embedded in current culture all the leavening influences exerted by Christianity during the many times it has been at its best over the last couple millenia?
Perhaps it would be better to ask: why shouldn’t we expect to find embedded in current culture all the leavening influence exerted by - the sacred traditions of the world. I wouldn’t be surprised if some of the founding fathers were somewhat aware of other traditions. Of course in this country that would point to Christianity for much our founding history. Unless he argues that only Christianity has that salutary effect, perhaps failing to place Christianity in a broader context isn’t such a naked grab for exclusivity as it may seem?
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The problem that I have with Christianity, although finding myself culturally inside Christianity with my outlook, is that the temptation of power has the proverbial tendency to corrupt and “absolute power corrupts absolutely.” The thing that Holland continually fades out, including in his exchange with others, is that despite having an influence on our thinking, great harm was done when the church had power. There is also the perspective that the Old Testament also gathered from various traditions, that recently there was a report that Buddhists were in Rome around the time of Christ, and I have read Christian monastic traditions took up very similar structures to eastern monastic structures, which even Thomas Merton spoke about after his interreligious exchanges.
The claim of exclusivity doesn’t hold water, because we can see where the vocabulary, the images, and the archetypes come from, and I have previously pointed to the fact that Constantine seems to have preferred to adopt elements of the Mithras cult into Christianity to win over his armies. I see Jesus in the tradition of the prophets, albeit interpreting in a non-dual manner, which sees all humanity and all of life as one with the sacred Unity.
Preach it!
Is he claiming ‘exclusivity’? Or ‘universality’? I’m thinking rather the latter. If by ‘exclusivity’ you are referring to any particular faith tradition having a total monopoly on all truth (or at least the most important truths), then it would be a curiosity (to me) that he (Holland) would entertain any kind of exclusivity on behalf of Christianity while he himself does not embrace the tradition. “Hey people - here is the only route to all truth … you should take it! As for me - I’m not, but whatever. Don’t mind me, It’s you all that this is important for…” That would be a puzzling message for anybody to be pushing.
So I don’t think Holland is putting Christianity forward that way (or at least not in the first half of the book I’ve read so far.) And to dovetail on what Mark brought up…
YES! This. Absolutely. Thanks, Mark. It makes total sense that all the major faith traditions are embedded with all their (and many of the same and overlapping) truths as well. Also … Christianity would have Judaism, and a whole host of other pagan and other traditions that influenced it and are embedded within it. To me that just makes sense and wouldn’t subtract from the claimed universality of Christianity. It isn’t unique in claiming universality, and isn’t unique in putting forward valuable lessons for us. If Holland can’t or doesn’t go there, then I would part company with him on that - but I haven’t got the sense yet that he insists on exclusivity for Christianity in those ways.
Other believers may feel threatened by “admitting any truth at all” coming from anywhere outside their own faith tradition, but I’m not one of those sorts of believers. Reading Barbara Taylor Brown’s “Holy Envy” gives excellent answer to these sorts of concerns.
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The way I look at it, what you believe including claims of universality are about personal alignment with the sacred. Since that is something forever beyond verification, the only thing that matters is how well it connects one to the mystery that holds everything together. So every believer who subscribes to universality can all be pragmatically justified no matter how different everything else they believe may be. Those whose belief in the excluded middle is primary may not be able to make that work. Not necessarily a problem for anyone else.
Verification. Believe it, or not. Factual evidence. Reality.
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Or maybe even another way to put that is that claims of universality are also about “alignment with reality” (which for many of us … is sacred). And any faith tradition or religion worth the name will have something to say about reality. We go on to add that the really good ones have you caring for the orphan, and the widow (i.e. the people most in need of help) as well. So for me to think that Christianity calls us toward a number of those things and speaks of realities that are all around us whether we choose to believe it or not - is not all that big a claim. Nor is it a claim that Christianity is the only religion that does this, and furthermore is certainly not a claim that Christianity is the only one to get much of that right (or such is my conviction as a Christian believer, anyway). None of that ranked as being ‘exclusivist’ about Christianity. Now … Saying that Christ is the way, the only way we are saved from our sins (as I also affirm) … now that begins to sound exclusive, but even there, exclusivism probably isn’t quite what it seems (or is made to be in the hands of doctrinal hardliners.) But that can be a subject for a whole 'nother time and place.
Yes but of course the reality one can access will be only as good as one’s portal. That is where a good wisdom tradition should increase access to reality, not diminish it. But dogmatic, intolerant literalism is no portal at all. It operates as a set of blinders.
I guess what I’m trying to get at is everything we know about reality must pass the subjective/objective barrier in our quest for reality. How we regard what is beyond the reach of objective knowledge can be enhanced when our mindset is right or limited otherwise. I think many wisdom traditions can probably enhance ones receptivity to reality but a pair of blinders will not. No wisdom tradition yields anything to those who merely repeat homilies with their eyes firmly shut.
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Yes!!! May it ever be so.
I notice that you edited your conclusion on that sentence. And for the better I’m thinking. I had read it before and had planned to add in, perhaps a mild objection - or at least a caveat or two. But as you have it stated now, … yeah! Bring it on. And may our traditions encourage the opening of eyes and removal of blinders rather than vice versa!
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Too many times to remember what earlier version you might have seen. Hopefully this is an improvement. This is very hard stuff to discuss.
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Just received this in an email from a friend and I love it. I wonder if Soren ever touches on this sort of theme, @Kendel or MacDonald, @Merv?
“At the heart of things is a secret law of balance and when our approach is respectful, sensitive and worthy, gifts of healing, challenge and creativity open to us. A gracious approach is the key that unlocks the treasure of encounter. The way we are present to each other is frequently superficial. In many areas of our lives the rich potential of friendship and love remains out of our reach because we push towards ‘connection.’ When we deaden our own depths, we cannot strike a resonance in those we meet or in the work we do.
A reverence of approach awakens depth and enables us to be truly present where we are. When we approach with reverence great things decide to approach us. Our real life comes to the surface and its light awakens the concealed beauty of things. When we walk on the earth with reverence, beauty will decide to trust us. The rushed heart and the arrogant mind lack the gentleness and patience to enter that embrace. Beauty is mysterious, a slow presence who waits for the ready, expectant heart.”
JOHN O’DONOHUE - Excerpt from his book, Beauty: The Invisible Embrace
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Swamped right now, Mark. Will try to reply soon.
You know the rule: RL always comes first. Good luck!
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