Thread: What should we do about 'our own' terrorists? Board: Purgatory / Ship of Fools.
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Posted by The Midge (# 2398) on
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Today news is breaking of an appalling attack against Muslims after Ramadan Prayers in London. My thoughts and prayers are with the victims of this tragedy. It is being treated as a terrorist incident (rightly IMHO). There was also a story on the BBC about a Muslim lady who was killed after leaving a mosque in Virginia, this is being considered a hate crime (although I can't see any real difference between that and terrorism).
There have been many demands for Muslims to denounce and deal with Jihadists attacks and terrorism in the name of Islam. Now it looks like Christian denominations and secular society are going to have to do the same.
The details behind these stories of who and why are yet to emerge. But dealing with the evil within doesn't look so easy. What can we do about our own potential terrorists?
I'm conscious that a Muslim may see the label "Christian" no matter how nominal that faith is or Batshit crazy the individual.
Posted by Penny S (# 14768) on
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Apparently the perpetrator has a load of supporters glorifying in his action - I hope they will be picked up for what is definitely a breach of the law. Not a law I was in favour of when brought in, but so long as it is applied equally, fitting the case.
Posted by Doc Tor (# 9748) on
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What do we do?
Firstly, I'd put the EDL on the list of proscribed organisations. I'd make membership an arrestable offence and I'd put their leaders on the same control regime as other hate preachers are.
Secondly, I'd be looking very hard at the media and those organisations that employ people specifically to whip up racial and religious tensions.
Thirdly, I'd be expecting our 'own' religious leaders to speak out, unequivocally, that harming our Muslim neighbour by word or deed is contrary to the Christian gospel and our nation's values. It might even be time we brought back excommunication as a verbal weapon.
Posted by Penny S (# 14768) on
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That might not work. I know of a person turned down for some reason for ordination in, I seem to remember, more than one denomination, including the CofE, who set up his own church. In Canterbury. (I don't know the recent history of this.)
Posted by PaulTH* (# 320) on
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They should be treated exactly the same as Muslim purveyors of hate. Prosecute and imprison ALL hate preachers and give life sentences to anyone dealing in acts of terror. No exceptions. No excuses.
Posted by Mark Wuntoo (# 5673) on
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The perpetrators of these atrocities are all 'our own'. Or not, of course. My point is that we further divide our society if we see some as different from others. An 'extremist muslim' is no more muslim than an extremist who claims to be christian is christian - they are all evil and have no place in our world.
Note: there also is the question of mental illness to be considered.
Posted by Sioni Sais (# 5713) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Mark Wuntoo:
The perpetrators of these atrocities are all 'our own'. Or not, of course. My point is that we further divide our society if we see some as different from others. An 'extremist muslim' is no more muslim than an extremist who claims to be christian is christian - they are all evil and have no place in our world.
Note: there also is the question of mental illness to be considered.
I would suggest simple self-deception is at the root of many acts of terrorism, especially those citing "faith" as a pretext.
Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Mark Wuntoo:
The perpetrators of these atrocities are all 'our own'. Or not, of course. My point is that we further divide our society if we see some as different from others. An 'extremist muslim' is no more muslim than an extremist who claims to be christian is christian - they are all evil and have no place in our world.
Cynical me wonders about such declarations so late in the game.
quote:
Note: there also is the question of mental illness to be considered.
Sound suspiciously like an irregular verb.
This apologia cannot be the way forward. Yes, the message that a society should be as one is one to espouse.
But not without throwing light on the attitudes which have fuelled this act. And not just the EDL, but the othering that is pervasive in the general culture.
Posted by Sandemaniac (# 12829) on
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For anyone who thinks Muslims are not British, I cannot help feeling that there is something very British about the imam apparently stopping people beating the attacker.
(may not play outside UK, sorry!).
AG
Posted by no prophet's flag is set so... (# 15560) on
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I suspect "EDL" means "English defence league" which wikipedia describes as a far-right group opposed to Sharia laws and Islam. Never heard of them.
Is there evidence that this group was behind the attack? Or are you conveniently targetting a hateful group you would have justification for disliking and wanting to ban on other grounds? There's still a rule of law to be applied isn't there?
Don't slam for this, because I just learned of this EDL thing 10 mins ago and also the 'sort of' use of Sharia in the UK. Does this EDL group have a point at all, even if they have terrible ways of expressing and doing? Looking at that on wikipedia led me to Islamic Sharia Council which apparently has no legal standing in the UK, but obviously wields considerable social pressure for Muslims to accept its voluntary judgements. This would be a problem: if someone who is not treated in accord with law is basically ostracised or otherwise cannot go to normal laws and courts because they pressures the community exerts.
Posted by PaulTH* (# 320) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Sandemaniac:
For anyone who thinks Muslims are not British, I cannot help feeling that there is something very British about the imam apparently stopping people beating the attacker.
(may not play outside UK, sorry!)
Yes the Imam was very impressive, perhaps even saving the attacker's life. A true holy man! But I think the message which comes out from the community is that we are all united in our determination not to be divided by the events of the last few weeks. In Western Europe there have been many attacks by Islamic extremists, and in the UK we've had our share. They are designed to produce Islamophobia, to push for the final jihad against the infidel. They have partly succeeded in that Islamophobic attacks have lately been on the increase. All peace loving people need to stand up united in resistance against all attempts to polarise communities. I hope that this man, apparently from Cardiff, was just a lone unhinged nutjob and we don't see any repeats, but he must never see daylight again except through prison bars. He's a terrorist of the most unacceptable kind and a murderer.
Posted by Alan Cresswell (# 31) on
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quote:
Originally posted by no prophet's flag is set so...:
Is there evidence that this group [the EDL] was behind the attack? Or are you conveniently targetting a hateful group you would have justification for disliking and wanting to ban on other grounds?
Evidence, for or against, will come out during investigations over the next weeks. It wouldn't surprise me if the man who carried out this attack claims inspiration from the EDL or a similar group (Britain First etc).
Senior members of EDL have called the Finsbury Park mosque a place with a history of promoting terrorism (without any evidence), and called the attack last night "revenge". It seems an open and shut case that if a very small minority of muslims are considered to have inspired terrorist acts then the same could be said of the EDL and similar groups.
Posted by irreverend tod (# 18773) on
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quote:
Note: there also is the question of mental illness to be considered.
This is exactly the excuse that one of the Muslim guys from the mosque said would be used to 'excuse' the behaviour of the van driver.
We use mental illness way to often in the UK because the phrase evil bastard offends the sensibilities of the chattering classes who don't want to admit that evil exists. It does just as good does, but that's uncomfortably close to religiosity for some people.
Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on
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I'm not sure about 'admitting' that evil exists. Is that the secret shame of the chatterati? I don't understand what evil might be, or how it's determined.
Posted by The Midge (# 2398) on
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I have been saddened if not sickened by the acceptability of anti-immigrant/ refugee diatribes that are gaining traction on platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and BBC's Have Your Say (Yes I took a look at the EDL web site too. I think they are a nasty bunch even though they espouse freedom of speech and non violence at least as far as saying anything they like about Muslims without justification and primarily concerned about Isis inspired terrorist attacks.)
The root of such attitudes is regularly touted on the front pages of British tabloids. Some of the same voices seem to have Dawkins-like-but-more-extreem-and-less-considered hostility to all religions and argue that all religion is evil, cause all wars Etc. Etc. I would like to point out to them they sound a lot like ISIS. How can these be countered without feeding the trolls?
Muslims havent been allowed to justify Jihadist attacks by saying they are works of the insane. What is looking increasingly like a revenge attack has followed a kind of logical progression from vitriolic rhetoric to violent reaction.
Anyhow, reports are suggesting the attacker was an apparently normal 47 year old dad of four. So obviously the Prevent Strategy needs to widen its scope somewhat.
Posted by Enoch (# 14322) on
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I'm less convinced that I might once have been that 'mental illness' is either a possible excuse or a relevant explanation for outrages. The bien pensant among us tend to assume that people who do vicious things that are outside the range of things we can imagine ourselves doing, must be insane in some way. Otherwise they wouldn't have done them.
I don't think that's true. Even if it were, why is it any sort of mitigation? IMHO it's an insult to the perpetrator to suggest that he or she (usually he) isn't responsible for their actions. As far as I know, neither Anders Breivik nor Thomas Mair claimed to be insane, and the members of ISIS don't either.
If a person can go to the lengths of planning an outrage, I don't think we should deny them the moral responsibility either for carrying it out, or adopting a world view that enables them to do so.
Tout comprendre is not tout pardonner.
Posted by Ricardus (# 8757) on
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The concept that slightly disturbs me is 'radicalised' and 'radicalisation'. To say someone has been 'radicalised' implies a passive process that they undergo at the hands of someone else, as though they were merely clay to be moulded by the potter. And yet, when they kill people, they are treated as fully morally responsible. This suggests an incoherence of thought somewhere.
Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Ricardus:
The concept that slightly disturbs me is 'radicalised' and 'radicalisation'. To say someone has been 'radicalised' implies a passive process that they undergo at the hands of someone else, as though they were merely clay to be moulded by the potter. And yet, when they kill people, they are treated as fully morally responsible. This suggests an incoherence of thought somewhere.
Only if you believe in zero-sum responsibility for one's actions.
Posted by Ricardus (# 8757) on
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I don't in general, but in this case we're talking about where people get the idea from that mass murder is morally licit or desirable.
If they made a moral choice to accept that idea, then they haven't 'been radicalised' - whatever they've done was a verb in the active voice.
If they didn't make a moral choice, and the idea was genuinely instilled in them somehow, then, reprehensible though it may be, they are acting correctly by their own lights in committing mass murder.
[ 19. June 2017, 21:41: Message edited by: Ricardus ]
Posted by Doublethink. (# 1984) on
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What is the defining difference between terrorism and war ?
Posted by Curiosity killed ... (# 11770) on
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Prevent applies in places of education, schools and colleges, having had to update my certificate today, and the legislation includes far right extremism, religious extremism and animal rights extremism. So unless the driver is a staff member at a place covered by the legislation, Prevent may not be relevant.
Prevent includes the requirement to teach British values which include democracy, upholding the law and religious tolerance.
Posted by Doublethink. (# 1984) on
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Prevent is part of the adult safeguarding duty for health and social care.
Posted by simontoad (# 18096) on
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I think this Billy Bragg song from 1991 is aposite, even though its about football thugs. My feeling is that football is the cradle of modern English hate.
The Few
At night the Baby Brotherhood and the Inter City Crew
Fill their pockets up with calling cards
And paint their faces red white and blue
Then they go out seeking different coloured faces
And anyone else that they can scare
And they salute the foes their fathers fought
By raising their right hands in the air
Oh look how my country's patriots are hunting down below
What do they know of England who only England know
[deleted remaining lyrics]
Billy Bragg: The Few
[ 20. June 2017, 07:06: Message edited by: Alan Cresswell ]
Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Ricardus:
If they made a moral choice to accept that idea, then they haven't 'been radicalised' - whatever they've done was a verb in the active voice.
If they didn't make a moral choice, and the idea was genuinely instilled in them somehow, then, reprehensible though it may be, they are acting correctly by their own lights in committing mass murder.
One could justify it on pragmatic grounds - that despite the apparent loss of self control one needs to maintain a justice system that deters and provides retribution.
But I think it is too black or white. No action is taken without context, irrespective of radicalisation or provocation. If I provoke someone to anger, and they then engage in assault on that basis I don't diminish their criminal responsibility. Likewise if I persuade someone that terrorism is jihad they nevertheless retain responsibility for their actions based on that belief.
The idea that radicalisation involves a removal of responsibility implies that it is something like hypnosis or induced insanity. It isn't that simple, and I think it is perfectly logical to discourage terror by punishing terrorists, but also recognising the role played by radicalisation.
Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Mark Wuntoo:
The perpetrators of these atrocities are all 'our own'. Or not, of course. My point is that we further divide our society if we see some as different from others. An 'extremist muslim' is no more muslim than an extremist who claims to be christian is christian - they are all evil and have no place in our world.
Note: there also is the question of mental illness to be considered.
A sound position. But let's acknowledge that that isn't the dominant narrative in the media when a Muslim is a terrorist.
The sorts of things one hears when a brown guy with an Arabic/Persian/Turkish/East-of-Greece name does something like this are;
1) Where are the Muslims out on the streets protesting this?
2) How many Muslim leaders have denounced it? (Doesn't matter if some have, you still hear it)
3) Muslim communities must do more to root out this sort of incident. It beggars belief that no-one knew he was radicalised and planning this.
4) Muslim parents must be more responsible in identifying this in their children.
I think that's bullshit then, and bullshit now, but I do think we ought to acknowledge there is inequality in its application by mainstream media in the UK.
Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on
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quote:
Originally posted by The Midge:
Today news is breaking of an appalling attack against Muslims after Ramadan Prayers in London.
What would the responsible elements in the media be warning if a person of "Middle Eastern appearance", with a non-European name, was in charge of a car which had careered into a group of Christians coming out of church?
To assume the possiblity of an accident, perhaps involving alcohol, drugs, or texting while driving.
To assume the possibility of the driver's having experienced a psychological or physical episode unrelated to the persons who were hurt.
To take any reports in the immediate aftermath by excited onlookers of shouted abuse on the part of the driver with a grain of salt until the completion of police investigations and the trial.
To ask whether any evidence in the form of literature, flags, banners, weapons or explosives were discovered in the vehicle or the driver's home.
To ask whether there was any evidence of the driver's having belonged to any dubious religious or political organisation.
To avoid any automatic assumption of a terrorist/hate crime.
To avoid kneejerk generalisations about the community to which the driver belonged.
To avoid characterising the driver, in the case of eventual unambiguous evidence of an attempt at a terrorist/hate crime (such as racial/religious shouted abuse, or Islamofascist literature, or membership of an extremist group) as representative, let alone "typical", of his own religious, national or ethnic background, rather than being a "lone wolf" independent operator.
[ 20. June 2017, 07:06: Message edited by: Kaplan Corday ]
Posted by Alan Cresswell (# 31) on
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Simontoad,
We do not reproduce copyright material on the Ship (see Commandment 7).
I've deleted all but the first verse of the Billy Bragg song, and inserted a link to an online source for that material. Which is an appropriate way to share copyright material here.
Alan
Ship of Fools Admin
Posted by simontoad (# 18096) on
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sorry. It took me so long to find the song I was thinking of I got a bit over-excited ![[Smile]](smile.gif)
Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
What would the responsible elements in the media be warning if a person of "Middle Eastern appearance", with a non-European name, was in charge of a car which had careered into a group of Christians coming out of church?
Absolutely. It's just that we get "Muslim plot to kill pope" and "Jolly Jihadi Boy's Outing to Legoland" from time to time as well, and "Why can't Muslims do more to prevent this".
Posted by Jane R (# 331) on
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Kaplan Corday: quote:
What would the responsible elements in the media be warning if a person of "Middle Eastern appearance", with a non-European name, was in charge of a car which had careered into a group of Christians coming out of church?
<takes out magnifying glass, goes to look for responsible elements in the media>
I may be gone for a while.
Posted by Russ (# 120) on
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quote:
Originally posted by The Midge:
What can we do about our own potential terrorists?
Three comments:
Is it perhaps a little premature to be claiming this man and his evil acts for Christianity ? If and when we learn that he attended a church and claims a religious motivation for his crime, then there's a discussion to be had which everyone of that church should take seriously.
Of course this crime should be treated every bit as seriously as other such attacks. No expense spared, maximum penalties - Muslims should have the same protection as everyone else.
I do perceive a risk of a double standard here. Someone kills people in the name of Islam and it's nothing at all to do with the Muslim next door. Someone kills people in the name of some confused "England for the English" ideology and everyone who has the slightest sympathy for that ideology is immediately complicit...
Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Russ:
I do perceive a risk of a double standard here. Someone kills people in the name of Islam and it's nothing at all to do with the Muslim next door. Someone kills people in the name of some confused "England for the English" ideology and everyone who has the slightest sympathy for that ideology is immediately complicit...
Whereas the double standard I perceive is that "Islamic Terrorist" is all over the headlines whenever an incident occurs and yet "Christian Terrorist" isn't.
"Muslim communities must to more to tackle the problem" is said all that time. No-one seems to say that White communities must do more to tackle this problem.
It is apparently a safe assumption that some other Muslim neighbours must have known about the plans and failed to come forward, yet no-one says that of the White community.
There's a double standard alright.
Posted by Curiosity killed ... (# 11770) on
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At a work training session on Friday all my Muslim colleagues said how hard they are finding it at the moment, just being a Muslim in London, including some stories about being singled out. None of my other colleagues put their feelings in those terms.
Posted by wild haggis (# 15555) on
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Interesting reading all this.I think some facts need to be checked in the polemic that is developing.
Many mosques have worked hard to counteract terrorist ideas. I know from experience that mosques in areas I've lived have done so. So please don't say that they don't. Many of the so-called terrorist idealists don't even attend mosques. Finsbury Park Mosque has set out over recent years to be welcoming and to combat terrorism. So it's sad that it was chosen.
The man who ran into the worshipers outside Finsbury Park mosque, lives about a mile away from us. He is in no way a christian and doesn't attend any church. He is a very troubled man, chucked out by his partner and has been sleeping rough and in a van for weeks. He was thrown out of the local pub for shouting anti-Moslem comments but also appears to have been a general trouble maker.
I think before any more uninformed conjecture is made, we need to wait for the police to tell us what they have found out about him.
In church this morning we heard about the Good Samaritan - not a story about helping your neighbours! Anyone can do that. It's easy.The whole point is about accepting and helping those who are different and seen as enemies. (The Jews and Samaritans worshiped differently and were ethnic enemies. They shunned each other.) We need to learn and live this parable, especially in these days.
The support that Christians gave to the Cathays mosque in Cardiff this week, with a line of acceptance and love, is just one example of doing this.
Why today, don't we all send our Moslem neighbours a card or give gift for Eid Al Fitr? Let's show love instead of just talking.
Lets stop the conjecture about what mosques are doing/not doing or about this man who did this evil job of running a van into worshipers at a mosque.
Evil is evil not matter who does it and for what reasons.
Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on
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quote:
Originally posted by wild haggis:
Evil is evil not matter who does it and for what reasons.
So the difficulty for many of us is that having seen a very different line taken in the headline-approach for Muslim terror the feeling of "darling where have you been" isn't quite there.
But actually if no-one stops the recrimination and shows charity, and accepts the charity of those trying to reach out then nothing changes. One often has to accept what is in one's own eyes a false moral equivalency in order to move on and compromise with a newly enlightened "other". Throwing it back in their face won't work.
Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on
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Would this mean that killing is always evil? I can respect that position, but also the position that killing is sometimes necessary, e.g. in defensive wars, and so on. But of course, this quickly spirals into all those occasions when armed resistance is used, e.g. French Resistance, the parliamentary army in the civil war, the Warsaw ghetto uprising, and so on. This is one reason that 'just war' theory developed, no doubt, going back to Cicero, and in fact, the Mahabharata. You can of course argue for 'evil but necessary'.
Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on
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I think Gibbon said that Rome seemed to have acquired an empire in self defence. The just war argument got a bit broad right from the start in Cicero's hands. He probably just wanted to do away with political rivals. Catiline inspired some high-flown oration but it seems pretty pragmatic and vicious politics to me.
Also I read Mahabharata more as an acceptance of the inevitability of duty and fate rather than moral justification.
Count me in the "evil but very very occasionally necessary" camp. Very very occasional doesn't stretch to acquiring an empire.
Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on
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quote:
Originally posted by wild haggis:
Why today, don't we all send our Moslem neighbours a card or give gift for Eid Al Fitr? Let's show love instead of just talking.
Tangent Alert.
Sometimes easier said than done.
The English conversation group which my wife runs at an asylum-seeker resource centre contains a number of Muslims, and one of them, a Rohingya man, invited us to join his family for Eid-al-Fitr.
We were more than happy to accept, but we are both coeliac, and my wife also has IBS, and uses a FODMAP diet which she is still fine-tuning.
This man is both uneducated and has minimal English, so explaining our complicated food allergy situation might have been difficult.
If we had turned up and refused his food, or taken our own food, he would have been hurt, and as he is not financially well-off, we didn't want to risk the possibility of his going out and buying expensive gluten-free food just for us.
We finally decided that we would go, and try to insist that we just wanted to drink a cup of coffee with him but eat nothing, and meet his family.
That might or might not have worked, but in the event a minor family crisis came up which made it necessary for us to send an apology.
We are still not sure what we should have done.
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on
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quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
quote:
Originally posted by wild haggis:
Evil is evil not matter who does it and for what reasons.
So the difficulty for many of us is that having seen a very different line taken in the headline-approach for Muslim terror the feeling of "darling where have you been" isn't quite there.
But actually if no-one stops the recrimination and shows charity, and accepts the charity of those trying to reach out then nothing changes. One often has to accept what is in one's own eyes a false moral equivalency in order to move on and compromise with a newly enlightened "other". Throwing it back in their face won't work.
This.
Which is the job of liberal, enlightened, inclusive forces within dominant, majority society of which a minority of minority Christianity is one virtually invisible part.
Apart from agencies and a possible convert to Islam I was the only Caucasian at the multiple thousand attendee, open, 'Welcome To All' banner advertised for a week, Eid al-Fitr celebration in Victoria Park Leicester on Sunday. I had two excellent conversations.
Posted by Matt Black (# 2210) on
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quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
quote:
Originally posted by Russ:
I do perceive a risk of a double standard here. Someone kills people in the name of Islam and it's nothing at all to do with the Muslim next door. Someone kills people in the name of some confused "England for the English" ideology and everyone who has the slightest sympathy for that ideology is immediately complicit...
Whereas the double standard I perceive is that "Islamic Terrorist" is all over the headlines whenever an incident occurs and yet "Christian Terrorist" isn't.
Is there any evidence that he was a Christian? White, yes, and in so far as he is, the rest of us white Brits have a degree of responsibility, but Christian?
Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
quote:
Originally posted by Russ:
I do perceive a risk of a double standard here. Someone kills people in the name of Islam and it's nothing at all to do with the Muslim next door. Someone kills people in the name of some confused "England for the English" ideology and everyone who has the slightest sympathy for that ideology is immediately complicit...
Whereas the double standard I perceive is that "Islamic Terrorist" is all over the headlines whenever an incident occurs and yet "Christian Terrorist" isn't.
Is there any evidence that he was a Christian? White, yes, and in so far as he is, the rest of us white Brits have a degree of responsibility, but Christian?
That is rather the point. When a brown person commits and act, Islamism is assumed at the outset. Rarely, if ever, the case for a white person.
Posted by stonespring (# 15530) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
quote:
Originally posted by Russ:
I do perceive a risk of a double standard here. Someone kills people in the name of Islam and it's nothing at all to do with the Muslim next door. Someone kills people in the name of some confused "England for the English" ideology and everyone who has the slightest sympathy for that ideology is immediately complicit...
Whereas the double standard I perceive is that "Islamic Terrorist" is all over the headlines whenever an incident occurs and yet "Christian Terrorist" isn't.
Is there any evidence that he was a Christian? White, yes, and in so far as he is, the rest of us white Brits have a degree of responsibility, but Christian?
A brown-skinned person born to an ethnically Muslim family from a country that has many brown-skinned Muslims is called Muslim by the media unless that person undergoes a formal conversion to a different faith (or very very vocally declares his/her atheism) and the media is made aware of this. Seems fair to apply the same standards to people born to an ethnically Christian family in a country that is majority ethnically Christian. The idea of ethnic Christianity may seem repulsive to many Christians today, but that is how many non-Christians see Christians and/or Westerners in general - and indeed how many Christians see non-Christians in general.
Posted by The Midge (# 2398) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
quote:
Originally posted by wild haggis:
Why today, don't we all send our Moslem neighbours a card or give gift for Eid Al Fitr? Let's show love instead of just talking.
Tangent Alert.
Sometimes easier said than done.
The English conversation group which my wife runs at an asylum-seeker resource centre contains a number of Muslims, and one of them, a Rohingya man, invited us to join his family for Eid-al-Fitr.
We were more than happy to accept, but we are both coeliac, and my wife also has IBS, and uses a FODMAP diet which she is still fine-tuning.
This man is both uneducated and has minimal English, so explaining our complicated food allergy situation might have been difficult.
If we had turned up and refused his food, or taken our own food, he would have been hurt, and as he is not financially well-off, we didn't want to risk the possibility of his going out and buying expensive gluten-free food just for us.
We finally decided that we would go, and try to insist that we just wanted to drink a cup of coffee with him but eat nothing, and meet his family.
That might or might not have worked, but in the event a minor family crisis came up which made it necessary for us to send an apology.
We are still not sure what we should have done.
I have a difficult diet too. With regards to the IBS/ FODMAP triggers (intolerances) I would probably just take a hit for the cause of good cultural relations but try and avoid the worst triggers (milk in my case). I would just have to put up with a stomach upset for a while.
Being coeliac is another level entirely. Perhaps you may be blessed with another guest who could translate and explain?
If they are good Muslims I wouldn't have to worry about my shell fish allergy.
Posted by The Midge (# 2398) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
quote:
Originally posted by Russ:
I do perceive a risk of a double standard here. Someone kills people in the name of Islam and it's nothing at all to do with the Muslim next door. Someone kills people in the name of some confused "England for the English" ideology and everyone who has the slightest sympathy for that ideology is immediately complicit...
Whereas the double standard I perceive is that "Islamic Terrorist" is all over the headlines whenever an incident occurs and yet "Christian Terrorist" isn't.
Is there any evidence that he was a Christian? White, yes, and in so far as he is, the rest of us white Brits have a degree of responsibility, but Christian?
ITTWACC (I though this was a Christian Country) or that may be the perception of the Arab world.
I wonder if those on the receiving end of smart munitions think it a Christian bomb and take it out on their local neighbourhood Christians? Oil was probably given more thought than Middle Eastern Christians when the gulf wars were kicked off.
Posted by Leorning Cniht (# 17564) on
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quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
That is rather the point. When a brown person commits and act, Islamism is assumed at the outset. Rarely, if ever, the case for a white person.
When people commit terrorist acts whilst shouting "Allahu akbar" then it's a pretty safe first assumption that they are doing it in the name of Islam.
If someone plants a bomb at a laboratory that conducts research using animals, it's a pretty safe bet that animal rights terrorists are responsible.
Somebody kills a young Muslim girl on her way home from late-night prayers? Probably a racist with a thing about Muslims.
The fact is, most of the terrorist acts currently committed by brown people are Islamist. If there aren't any bits of countervailing information, it's a pretty safe bet that someone with a Muslim name who commits an act of terrorism is probably doing it in the name of Islamism.
Sure - Mohammed might be an animal rights activist, and if his target was a research lab, you'd probably go there before you went to Islamism.
As far as terrorist acts currently committed by white people, there's more of a mixed bag. So knowing that the terrorist was a white guy doesn't give you a good first guess. You do better here by looking at the target - animal research lab? abortion clinic? mosque? gay pride parade?
Posted by simontoad (# 18096) on
:
How about criminals who clothe their insanity/personality disorder/general dissatisfaction with their place in the world by doing a Hakka before they commit an atrocity so as to identify themselves with the separatists on the South Island of New Zealand?
Both so-called Islamic extremists in Australia who killed a total of three people but terrorised many more through the media claimed to be affiliated with IS. The fact is that they were both just criminals looking to clothe their acts of evil in something greater than their damaged and pathetic selves.
A bloke called Demitrious Gargasoulas decided to drive a car down Bourke St Mall in January, killing four people and injuring a whole lot more. Gargasoulas didn't claim anything. He was just a criminal knuckle who decided he was going to kill people.
So whose worse, the two who claimed to be inspired by IS and fighting a righteous cause, if only at the last minute, or the Melbourne boy who assumed the right to take life just because he could?
Posted by gorpo (# 17025) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
That is rather the point. When a brown person commits and act, Islamism is assumed at the outset. Rarely, if ever, the case for a white person.
When people commit terrorist acts whilst shouting "Allahu akbar" then it's a pretty safe first assumption that they are doing it in the name of Islam.
If someone plants a bomb at a laboratory that conducts research using animals, it's a pretty safe bet that animal rights terrorists are responsible.
Somebody kills a young Muslim girl on her way home from late-night prayers? Probably a racist with a thing about Muslims.
The fact is, most of the terrorist acts currently committed by brown people are Islamist. If there aren't any bits of countervailing information, it's a pretty safe bet that someone with a Muslim name who commits an act of terrorism is probably doing it in the name of Islamism.
Sure - Mohammed might be an animal rights activist, and if his target was a research lab, you'd probably go there before you went to Islamism.
As far as terrorist acts currently committed by white people, there's more of a mixed bag. So knowing that the terrorist was a white guy doesn't give you a good first guess. You do better here by looking at the target - animal research lab? abortion clinic? mosque? gay pride parade?
Not to mention a christian terrorist would have to be quite an heterodox christian, since nowhere in christian scriptures or in any known christian tradition it is ordered that christians kill enemies (let alone non-christians), and in fact, itīs a distinctive christian teaching to do the exact opposite. Still, if a terrorist identified himself as a christian or claimed to be doing this in the name of his religion, Iīm pretty sure this association wouldnīt be hidden. Not to mention the media wouldnīt be all "christianity is a religion of peace", but you can certainly expect the liberal stablishment (including progressive christians) would be bashing the religion all over, like they always do. There ARE double standards when it comes to the "progressive" stablishment attitude towards christianity and islam. For example, if christianity is mocked itīs nothing but a matter of freedom of speech. If islam is mocked, itīs hate speech and causes outrage. Christians and muslims have very similar beliefs concerning human sexuality, but muslims are never portraited as haters or extremists for that particular reason, neither are "progressives" demanding muslim institutions to change their teachings or destructing them from within.
Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:
When people commit terrorist acts whilst shouting "Allahu akbar" then it's a pretty safe first assumption that they are doing it in the name of Islam.
If there is no history of them caring much about religion, then not necessarily.
quote:
The fact is, most of the terrorist acts currently committed by brown people are Islamist. If there aren't any bits of countervailing information,
The point is that the assumption is made before anything is known.
quote:
it's a pretty safe bet that someone with a Muslim name who commits an act of terrorism is probably doing it in the name of Islamism.
So every John, Peter, Christopher or Jesus is automatically a Christian?
quote:
Originally posted by gorpo:
Not to mention a christian terrorist would have to be quite an heterodox christian, since nowhere in christian scriptures or in any known christian tradition it is ordered that christians kill enemies (let alone non-christians), and in fact, itīs a distinctive christian teaching to do the exact opposite.
And yet, Christians found plenty of excuse within the bible to invade other countries and kill loads of people.
And the Bible, especially the part before Jesus, does just that.
You know, the Old Testament that part of the Bible Christians like to cite or ignore depending on how it fits what they want to do.
Posted by Leorning Cniht (# 17564) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
quote:
Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:
When people commit terrorist acts whilst shouting "Allahu akbar" then it's a pretty safe first assumption that they are doing it in the name of Islam.
If there is no history of them caring much about religion, then not necessarily.
No, I'm sorry, but that's just nonsense. If someone shouts "Allahu akbar" whilst being a terrorist, he is doing it in the name of Islam. That is, precisely, what he is saying.
This doesn't mean anything about how good a Muslim he is, or how historically religious he has been, or anything like that.
Unless your case is that non-religious people from Muslim cultures tend to shout "Allahu akbar" in the same way that my childhood friends would shout "Geronimo". Which I guess is possible, but I'd like to see some evidence.
quote:
The point is that the assumption is made before anything is known.
Do you understand probabilistic inference? If you see five ducks walking down the path, and then hear more quacking coming, it's a safe bet that it's another duck.
It might not be - it could be a child with a quacking toy, or a recording of a duck, or any number of other things, but it's probably a duck. Duckhood is a good first assumption. Then you see what comes round the corner, and you either find your assumption confirmed, or you find that it was mistaken and you've got a quacking child.
quote:
quote:
it's a pretty safe bet that someone with a Muslim name who commits an act of terrorism is probably doing it in the name of Islamism.
So every John, Peter, Christopher or Jesus is automatically a Christian?
No, that's not at all what I said.
If an act of terrorism in the West is committed by someone with a Muslim name, the question you ask is "what reasons do terrorists with Muslim names give for their actions" and the answer is almost always Islamism.
If you ask the question "what reasons do terrorists with Christian names give for their actions" then you get a range of answers. Some of them are religious (bombing abortion clinics, say), and some are not.
So knowing only that someone called "Mohammed Iqbal" committed an act of terrorism in the West you can guess that he's some kind of Islamist, and you'll usually be right. If you know that the same act was committed by "Christopher Walker", it doesn't help you guess at his motives.
If "Mohammed Iqbal" blew up an animal research lab, you'd change your mind and guess that he was an animal rights terrorist, because it would be such an unlikely target for an Islamist.
Posted by The Midge (# 2398) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by gorpo:
Not to mention a christian terrorist would have to be quite an heterodox christian, since nowhere in christian scriptures or in any known christian tradition it is ordered that christians kill enemies (let alone non-christians), and in fact, itīs a distinctive christian teaching to do the exact opposite.
Crusades.
Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:
Unless your case is that non-religious people from Muslim cultures tend to shout "Allahu akbar" in the same way that my childhood friends would shout "Geronimo". Which I guess is possible, but I'd like to see some evidence.
That's pretty much it. It isn't as simple as to say that shout is like Geronimo, but the point is that if one is committed to a political cause within an Islamic culture, then war, death and terror all get wrapped up in the cry "Allahu akbar". Considering that evidence of an Islamic inspiration is as helpful as considering the cry "Geronimo" evidence of inspiration pro-native American self-determination.
It is more complicated than that though, because those crying Allahu Akbar will often have a religious justification and make claims for their actions in religious terms. And they likely do often fall within the sphere of what one might call "Islamist". But within that sphere there are many people with primarily political motivations, some religious fanaticism and some madness.
A similar thing happened with the crusades. A lot of that was about geopolitics, with a religious justification and lots of religious language.
Evidence? Almost anything written by Reza Aslan includes a discussion of this.
Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by simontoad:
A bloke called Demitrious Gargasoulas decided to drive a car down Bourke St Mall in January, killing four people and injuring a whole lot more. Gargasoulas didn't claim anything.
On the contrary, he claimed to be influenced by the Illuminati, suggesting the possibility of mental disorder and/or drugs.
Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
We are still not sure what we should have done.
I'm not sure either, although I think it is great that you were in the position of having the difficulty in the first place.
The difficulties don't seem specifically about Muslims though, rather the generic difficulties of communicating dietary intolerances to someone who doesn't speak the same language well.
Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by The Midge:
quote:
Originally posted by gorpo:
Not to mention a christian terrorist would have to be quite an heterodox christian, since nowhere in christian scriptures or in any known christian tradition it is ordered that christians kill enemies (let alone non-christians), and in fact, itīs a distinctive christian teaching to do the exact opposite.
Crusades.
Irrelevant.
There is not a single NT verse which teaches the use of violence on the part of Christians to protect or propagate their faith.
There is religious violence in the OT, but Christianity by definition supersedes and transcends the OT.
Posted by Leorning Cniht (# 17564) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
It is more complicated than that though, because those crying Allahu Akbar will often have a religious justification and make claims for their actions in religious terms. And they likely do often fall within the sphere of what one might call "Islamist". But within that sphere there are many people with primarily political motivations, some religious fanaticism and some madness.
Sure. Nobody has said otherwise. Nobody serious tries to claim that Islamist terrorists are all dedicated Koranic scholars. I agree that individual terrorists have all those reasons and more for being drawn to nutbag Islamism. I could point you at some people who became hunt saboteurs not because they were particularly fond of animals, but because they were angry young men who didn't like toffs. What of it?
The problem is still Islamism, or animal rights extremism. Just like the poor, we'll always have a supply of angry young men ready to latch on to whatever cause crosses their path. If those causes don't have such a violent ideology, they won't kill people. Maybe they'll start a punk band instead.
Posted by Alan Cresswell (# 31) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
quote:
Originally posted by The Midge:
quote:
Originally posted by gorpo:
Not to mention a christian terrorist would have to be quite an heterodox christian, since nowhere in christian scriptures or in any known christian tradition it is ordered that christians kill enemies (let alone non-christians), and in fact, itīs a distinctive christian teaching to do the exact opposite.
Crusades.
Irrelevant.
There is not a single NT verse which teaches the use of violence on the part of Christians to protect or propagate their faith.
There is religious violence in the OT, but Christianity by definition supersedes and transcends the OT.
We have, of course, had that discussion before, for example to ask how many swords the disciples needed. Or, since the government is granted the power to wield the sword does that extend to a Christian government?
The Crusades are relevant on a couple of counts. First that the modern view that the Christian faith doesn't condone violence in the name of Christianity wasn't always held to be self-evident (it's among a list of things that includes slavery etc where Christians in previous generations found support in Scripture which we fail to see today). The particular relevance is when people start to dismiss claims by the majority of Muslims that they follow a religion of peace by pointing to a minority who justify violence from their scriptures, because we have our own minority who have done the same (the vast majority of which were in our past rather than present, but that's not particularly relevant IMO). Another relevant point is that the Crusades were a particular set of wars against Islam, and so any time some political leader in the West uses the word "crusade" it recreates that religious war feeling into the situation - so, though the second Iraq war was entirely political and economic (and, unjustified under any reasonable assessment) it gets seen as a religious war by Christians against Muslims when our political leaders start using the C word. Which plays straight into the narrative of the Islamic militants, reinforces their claim of the Christian west waging a war against Islam and attracts recruits to their cause.
Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:
I could point you at some people who became hunt saboteurs not because they were particularly fond of animals, but because they were angry young men who didn't like toffs. What of it?
What of it? It would lead me to the conclusion that perhaps funding for deradicalization programmes targeting the dangers among vegetarian and anti-vivisection would not be well spent, and that there was little value in demanding that vegetarians everywhere denounce animal rights activists when they plant a bomb. It would also make me wary regarding taking what animal rights activist bombers said regarding their motivation.
quote:
Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:
The problem is still Islamism, or animal rights extremism.
Why? If you've just argued that Islam and/or animal rights aren't actually the primary motivation, doesn't it follow that they aren't the problem?
quote:
Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:
we'll always have a supply of angry young men ready to latch on to whatever cause crosses their path. If those causes don't have such a violent ideology, they won't kill people. Maybe they'll start a punk band instead.
Isn't the conclusion of your first sentance that the angry young men are going to find a cause to attach their violence to? Irrespective of how much twisting is required to do that?
Posted by Leorning Cniht (# 17564) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
Isn't the conclusion of your first sentance that the angry young men are going to find a cause to attach their violence to? Irrespective of how much twisting is required to do that?
My conclusion is that "angry young men" will latch on to whatever cause is available. If the cause is inciting them to go out and kill the "enemy", that's what they'll do. If the cause is inciting them to get piercings and sing protest songs, they will do much less killing.
The angry young men provide the fuel, but the cause provides the direction. I suggest that it is the direction which is more at fault, and perhaps also easier to deal with.
Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on
:
I find it hard to accept the idea that piercings and protest songs would fill a gap that otherwise would be filled with suicide bombing.
It seems more likely to me that a sense of belonging, being part of mainstream society, and having treatment for mental illness would fill the gap, rather than a supply of causes with aggressive but non-violent outlets.
Posted by Matt Black (# 2210) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
quote:
Originally posted by Russ:
I do perceive a risk of a double standard here. Someone kills people in the name of Islam and it's nothing at all to do with the Muslim next door. Someone kills people in the name of some confused "England for the English" ideology and everyone who has the slightest sympathy for that ideology is immediately complicit...
Whereas the double standard I perceive is that "Islamic Terrorist" is all over the headlines whenever an incident occurs and yet "Christian Terrorist" isn't.
Is there any evidence that he was a Christian? White, yes, and in so far as he is, the rest of us white Brits have a degree of responsibility, but Christian?
That is rather the point. When a brown person commits and act, Islamism is assumed at the outset. Rarely, if ever, the case for a white person.
Well, there is that pesky thing called evidence eg: either ISIS claims them as their own, the terrorist posts a video saying it's in support of the Caliphate, or, as was the case in the London Bridge attack, they state "This is for Allah". So not really an assumption.
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on
:
All things are true so far.
Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
Well, there is that pesky thing called evidence eg: either ISIS claims them as their own, the terrorist posts a video saying it's in support of the Caliphate, or, as was the case in the London Bridge attack, they state "This is for Allah". So not really an assumption.
Such evidence exists every time? Or are you just generalizing evidence from some cases to suggest it is true in all cases?
Posted by Jane R (# 331) on
:
Matt Black: quote:
Well, there is that pesky thing called evidence eg: either ISIS claims them as their own, the terrorist posts a video saying it's in support of the Caliphate, or, as was the case in the London Bridge attack, they state "This is for Allah". So not really an assumption.
And the far-right murderer of Jo Cox shouted "Britain First!". That isn't an assumption either, but he and the Finsbury Park attacker were both described as 'mentally disturbed'. Why is it so easy to believe the likes of Nigel Farrago and Katie Hopkins when they say 'we didn't mean this to happen', and so difficult to believe Muslims when they say 'these people do not represent us'?
[ 27. June 2017, 12:56: Message edited by: Jane R ]
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
Well, there is that pesky thing called evidence eg: either ISIS claims them as their own, the terrorist posts a video saying it's in support of the Caliphate, or, as was the case in the London Bridge attack, they state "This is for Allah". So not really an assumption.
Such evidence exists every time? Or are you just generalizing evidence from some cases to suggest it is true in all cases?
I can't think of a single case that isn't. Can you? Such evidence exists, one way or the other, every time, is my perception. And no, none of these attacks are representative of even the twenty thousand persons of interest (1% of the Muslim population, 4-8% of the gender age-group biased population) who haven't acted upon their extremism yet and the 99.9% of those persons of interest who never will. Let alone the 99% who are not of interest, despite their 'interesting' views, but who form waters in which those of interest swim. Around which are 'our' waters yet.
[ 27. June 2017, 13:51: Message edited by: Martin60 ]
Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on
:
There men were released without charge the next day.
I don't think there was any evidence supporting the headline.
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on
:
I wouldn't wipe your arse with The Express. And what has that got to do with actual attacks?
Posted by Matt Black (# 2210) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
Well, there is that pesky thing called evidence eg: either ISIS claims them as their own, the terrorist posts a video saying it's in support of the Caliphate, or, as was the case in the London Bridge attack, they state "This is for Allah". So not really an assumption.
Such evidence exists every time? Or are you just generalizing evidence from some cases to suggest it is true in all cases?
Neither; I am saying that in those ccases where there is evidence of Islamist connection with the attack, it is fair and reasonable to refer to them as 'Islamist terrorist attacks'. Similarly, where there is evidence of Christian motivation for attacks, it is reasonable to call the attacker a 'Christian terrorist'. I haven't seen any evidence for the latter in the most recent (Finsbury Park Mosque) attack; I have seen evidence of the former in the penultimate (London Bridge) attack.
Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
Well, there is that pesky thing called evidence eg: either ISIS claims them as their own, the terrorist posts a video saying it's in support of the Caliphate, or, as was the case in the London Bridge attack, they state "This is for Allah". So not really an assumption.
If I committed a crime and said "Lawyers made me do it!" You would rightly question whether the legal profession had any connection and, if I had no prior interest in law, rightly conclude it was inaccurate to connect it with the crime.
This is ignored or dismissed with Islam.
ISIS will claim any such act for two reasons.
It fits their agenda and the have called for random attacks. Unlike Al Qaeda, they do not check for any connection.
Posted by Matt Black (# 2210) on
:
Apples and oranges. Last time I checked, legal pronouncements could not be interpreted to call for acts of violence (capital punishment excepted) in the same way that Muslim, Christian and Jewish religious texts can and have been.
Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
Apples and oranges. Last time I checked, legal pronouncements could not be interpreted to call for acts of violence (capital punishment excepted) in the same way that Muslim, Christian and Jewish religious texts can and have been.
It is a matter of what is accepted as accurate. If someone claimed Christianity made them commit a crime, that claim would be investigated. If no apparent connection beyond the claim were found, the public would accept the declaration as an aberration. The same is not done for Islam.
Posted by Matt Black (# 2210) on
:
There is however a recent track record of correlation between radical Islamism and violence which is established in the way that there isn't (except in Northern Ireland in the Troubles) between 'radical' (in the same way) Christianity and violence. So, apples and oranges still.
Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
I wouldn't wipe your arse with The Express. And what has that got to do with actual attacks?
I'm sure there are some publications that rise above this, but the point is there's a double standard in sections of the press that are widely read. Can you imagine the express running a headline saying "Jewish plot to kill pope"?
Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
where there is evidence of Islamist connection with the attack, it is fair and reasonable to refer to them as 'Islamist terrorist attacks'.
The rub in that tautology is what one considers evidence. Islamic name? Mosque membership? ISIS pronouncements (they might claim anything and we don't take them at face value on much else)?
Or do we wait for a facebook post, a circle of contacts and laptop browser history?
My feeling is many will jump to label it with the former list, when it might be better to wait for the latter.
Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
(except in Northern Ireland in the Troubles)
And Northern Ireland doesn't count because...?
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
I wouldn't wipe your arse with The Express. And what has that got to do with actual attacks?
I'm sure there are some publications that rise above this, but the point is there's a double standard in sections of the press that are widely read. Can you imagine the express running a headline saying "Jewish plot to kill pope"?
Nice one. No they wouldn't dare. Unless there were one ... They know that they can get away with making up Islamophobic shit. Now if the Guardian reported it ...
Islamist terrorism on the West is only a generation old in modern times. Since the Siege of Vienna sort of thing. Correlated not even with 80% of the Palestinian conflict at least. 95% But with the aftermath of the Western creation of highly successful anti-Soviet Salafi jihad. And disastrous Western foreign policy since. Despite centuries of Salafism under various imperialist yokes.
Be careful what you wish for comes to mind.
We need a new Monroe doctrine. Walk very softly indeed and carry a woven stick basket from which to dispense social justice above all including defense for all.
Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
We have, of course, had that discussion before, for example to ask how many swords the disciples needed.
Yes we have, at which time I pointed out that any young theolog trying to argue that Luke 22:38 teaches the right and obligation of Christians to use violence to protect or propagate their faith, in the face of the different ways the verse can be interpreted, and in the face of all the rest of the NT, would automatically flunk Hermeneutics and Exegesis 101.
quote:
Or, since the government is granted the power to wield the sword does that extend to a Christian government?
Paul in Romans 13 is referring to all governments, which by definition have a monopoly on violence in the service of external and internal security.
There is an unbridgeable chasm between that general principle, and any attempt to demonstrate a biblical mandate for a "Christian government" (assuming that there is such an animal) to kill heretics and heathens.
quote:
The Crusades are relevant on a couple of counts.
They are relevant on many counts, historical, religious and cultural, but they are not relevant to (ie they do not lend any support to) any argument that the NT supports religious crusades.
Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
quote:
The Crusades are relevant on a couple of counts.
They are relevant on many counts, historical, religious and cultural, but they are not relevant to (ie they do not lend any support to) any argument that the NT supports religious crusades.
When ya'll quit using the OT to support your arguments, then you can limit the range of what Christianity allows to the NT.
Posted by Crsos (# 238) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
There is however a recent track record of correlation between radical Islamism and violence which is established in the way that there isn't (except in Northern Ireland in the Troubles) between 'radical' (in the same way) Christianity and violence. So, apples and oranges still.
Care to explain exactly why the Ku Klux Klan don't count as both Christian and violent? They certainly viewed their own activities through a Christian lens.
For that matter, why don't the folks who shoot up or bomb women's clinics in the U.S. count as "Christian terrorists"?
Posted by The Midge (# 2398) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
quote:
Originally posted by The Midge:
quote:
Originally posted by gorpo:
Not to mention a christian terrorist would have to be quite an heterodox christian, since nowhere in christian scriptures or in any known christian tradition it is ordered that christians kill enemies (let alone non-christians), and in fact, itīs a distinctive christian teaching to do the exact opposite.
Crusades.
Irrelevant.
There is not a single NT verse which teaches the use of violence on the part of Christians to protect or propagate their faith.
There is religious violence in the OT, but Christianity by definition supersedes and transcends the OT.
As Alan Creswell said. I don't se how you can duck the Old testament either. It is still canon.
The bible can be made out to say anything you want it too by selective quoting, selective interpretation stiles and with the help of an online search engine.
Posted by The Midge (# 2398) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
There is however a recent track record of correlation between radical Islamism and violence which is established in the way that there isn't (except in Northern Ireland in the Troubles) between 'radical' (in the same way) Christianity and violence. So, apples and oranges still.
I think we are missing what these 'Islamist' attacks are against. They are attacks on Western materialism, they are anti British/ American/ European, anti what they see as corrupt moral standards (homosexuality and promiscuity etc.). The point is there is another justification other than just Islam.
We can see these as Anarchist Revolutionaries/ Racist /Homophobia/ Islamophobia when they come from our culture even if the perpetrators cry " in the name of God and St George" . We can divide the Christians in Northern Ireland up in to the political groups of Republicans and Loyalists. Likewise we can identify our reasons for wars when the Generals use the same rallying call. Yet we fail to see the same motives when it is wrapped in an Isis flag and the cry is "Allah Akbar".
If we look at those reasons maybe we can even say "I can see the point you are making" and do something about that.
I think I want to take issue with your use of "Radical" Matt. It can mean going back to the root values. These may be very good. "Extremist" might be a better term. That could apply to original values + something else which produces a poisonous cocktail.
Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by The Midge:
I don't se how you can duck the Old testament either. It is still canon.
"Ducking the OT" is a trivial and reductionist way of describing the necessity to decide which parts of the OT have been superseded by the NT, and which haven't.
Deciding on the basis of the NT that providing for the widow, the orphan and the stranger is still relevant, but that the Tabernacle, priesthood and sacrificial system have been rendered obsolete, is scarcely "ducking the OT".
Posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider (# 76) on
:
Up to a point.
But the existence of genocide, religious violence and a bloody legal code in the OT is still a problem if you take a fairly high view of inspiration of Scripture. Sure, you can say that God wouldn't want the prophets of Baal slaughtered as Elijah did now, but you're left with the problem that he isn't apparently inherently against it given that he was supposedly cool with it then. Ditto stoning adulters to death, etc. etc.
And even with the NT, compared with what God's apparently going to do with all the non-believers and believers in the wrong religion, then a bit of blowing people up is actually small fry. You can see how the Inquisitors justified their actions - a bit of earthly pain and merely physical death to save people from eternal suffering and spiritual death.
Posted by The Midge (# 2398) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
quote:
Originally posted by The Midge:
I don't see how you can duck the Old testament either. It is still canon.
"Ducking the OT" is a trivial and reductionist way of describing the necessity to decide which parts of the OT have been superseded by the NT, and which haven't.
Deciding on the basis of the NT that providing for the widow, the orphan and the stranger is still relevant, but that the Tabernacle, priesthood and sacrificial system have been rendered obsolete, is scarcely "ducking the OT".
The point, however, is that the OT has been used by Christians to justify war and violence. History is full of examples. Extremists of what ever stripe are not overly concerned with exegesis and hermeneutics
except when it supports their cause. You see they selectively decide which parts of the OT are superseded to suit their own aims. Just as many churches selectively use parts of the OT to support their aims. "Short on funds?" they think "Let's teach about tithing 10%." Never mind that the tithe was for a whole raft of other things not just supporting the religious part of the community.
Posted by Alan Cresswell (# 31) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
We have, of course, had that discussion before, for example to ask how many swords the disciples needed.
Yes we have, at which time I pointed out that any young theolog trying to argue that Luke 22:38 teaches the right and obligation of Christians to use violence to protect or propagate their faith, in the face of the different ways the verse can be interpreted, and in the face of all the rest of the NT, would automatically flunk Hermeneutics and Exegesis 101.
I would actually agree with your exegesis of Luke 22. Which isn't the point, the point is that some Christians have used the Bible to justify violence (in a manner I find extremely unconvincing).
The converse side of the same coin is that there are a sizable number of people who want to portray Islam as inherently violent, picking passages from the Koran that can be used to justify that. People who would be very likely to apply the same "flunk Hermeneutics and Exegesis 101" statement to Islamic scholars who would interpret those passages differently and reach a conclusion that there is not justification for violence.
We should recognise that there are interpretations of the Bible that can be used to support violence, and likewise that many Muslims read the Koran without accepting the interpretations that call for violence. And, recognising that there are Christians who see the Bible calling for violence is necessary for us to address those people within our faith traditions who act in ways that we all find unacceptable and rightly condemn. Which includes trying to make amends for past actions in the name of our faith that still have ramifications today (eg: Crusades). It isn't enough to simply say that those interpretations of the Bible that were used to justify violence were mistaken, especially when we don't allow Islamic scholars make the same argument.
Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on
:
This whole "people in the past were obviously thick and wouldn't pass basic theology courses today" schtick is quite tiring.
Surely the simple point is that nobody interprets scripture in a vacuum. If everyone around is saying that it justifies violence then it is hard not to see it justifying violence.
Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by The Midge:
I think we are missing what these 'Islamist' attacks are against. They are attacks on Western materialism, they are anti British/ American/ European, anti what they see as corrupt moral standards (homosexuality and promiscuity etc.). The point is there is another justification other than just Islam.
I'm not sure that is correct either. I feel that the majority of Islamists are reacting against political issues in the Middle-East and elsewhere in the Muslim world rather than caring about what Westerners get up to in their own countries.
Posted by Matt Black (# 2210) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
(except in Northern Ireland in the Troubles)
And Northern Ireland doesn't count because...?
Because I thought we were talking about the sort of attacks in the OP ie: far-right Islamophobic acts of violence
Posted by Matt Black (# 2210) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Crsos:
quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
There is however a recent track record of correlation between radical Islamism and violence which is established in the way that there isn't (except in Northern Ireland in the Troubles) between 'radical' (in the same way) Christianity and violence. So, apples and oranges still.
Care to explain exactly why the Ku Klux Klan don't count as both Christian and violent? They certainly viewed their own activities through a Christian lens.
For that matter, why don't the folks who shoot up or bomb women's clinics in the U.S. count as "Christian terrorists"?
They do. As does Dylan Roof. But I refer you to the answer I gave just now to mdijon. If you want to widen the scope of terrorist acts, then I'm more than happy to include him, the KKK and abortion clinic bombers (plus possibly Anders Breivik) as Christian terrorists and condemn them as such.
Posted by Matt Black (# 2210) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by The Midge:
quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
There is however a recent track record of correlation between radical Islamism and violence which is established in the way that there isn't (except in Northern Ireland in the Troubles) between 'radical' (in the same way) Christianity and violence. So, apples and oranges still.
I think we are missing what these 'Islamist' attacks are against. They are attacks on Western materialism, they are anti British/ American/ European, anti what they see as corrupt moral standards (homosexuality and promiscuity etc.). The point is there is another justification other than just Islam.
We can see these as Anarchist Revolutionaries/ Racist /Homophobia/ Islamophobia when they come from our culture even if the perpetrators cry " in the name of God and St George" . We can divide the Christians in Northern Ireland up in to the political groups of Republicans and Loyalists. Likewise we can identify our reasons for wars when the Generals use the same rallying call. Yet we fail to see the same motives when it is wrapped in an Isis flag and the cry is "Allah Akbar".
If we look at those reasons maybe we can even say "I can see the point you are making" and do something about that.
i'm not at all happy with that: it skates close to co-belligerence and apologetics for grotesque criminality.
quote:
I think I want to take issue with your use of "Radical" Matt. It can mean going back to the root values. These may be very good. "Extremist" might be a better term. That could apply to original values + something else which produces a poisonous cocktail.
I wasn't happy with it either, hence why I put it in quotes. I prefer your word.
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
We have, of course, had that discussion before, for example to ask how many swords the disciples needed.
Yes we have, at which time I pointed out that any young theolog trying to argue that Luke 22:38 teaches the right and obligation of Christians to use violence to protect or propagate their faith, in the face of the different ways the verse can be interpreted, and in the face of all the rest of the NT, would automatically flunk Hermeneutics and Exegesis 101.
I would actually agree with your exegesis of Luke 22. Which isn't the point, the point is that some Christians have used the Bible to justify violence (in a manner I find extremely unconvincing).
The converse side of the same coin is that there are a sizable number of people who want to portray Islam as inherently violent, picking passages from the Koran that can be used to justify that. People who would be very likely to apply the same "flunk Hermeneutics and Exegesis 101" statement to Islamic scholars who would interpret those passages differently and reach a conclusion that there is not justification for violence.
We should recognise that there are interpretations of the Bible that can be used to support violence, and likewise that many Muslims read the Koran without accepting the interpretations that call for violence. And, recognising that there are Christians who see the Bible calling for violence is necessary for us to address those people within our faith traditions who act in ways that we all find unacceptable and rightly condemn. Which includes trying to make amends for past actions in the name of our faith that still have ramifications today (eg: Crusades). It isn't enough to simply say that those interpretations of the Bible that were used to justify violence were mistaken, especially when we don't allow Islamic scholars make the same argument.
Fiqh 101
Qur'anic hermeneutics maps to four main Sunni jurisprudence schools - fiqhs. The largest, Hanafi, maps to the former Ottoman and Mughal Empires and accepts Naksh - abrogation - in a large majority of two out of three modes.
Critically it is the abrogation by the Sword Verse - āyat al-sayf, Qur'an 9:5* - by which terrorist jihadists justify their atrocities against non-Muslims and compulsion in religion.
Needless to say this is a minority, literalist yet analogical yet painfully significant view in Islam.
*
"fight and slay the Pagans wherever ye find them"
ameliorated by the oft unquoted
"if any of the idolaters seeks of thee protection, grant him protection till he hears the words of God; then do thou convey him to his place of security -- that, because they are a people who do not know."
This is used analogically as the pagans referred to weren't literally Jewish or Collyridian descended Christians.
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
quote:
Originally posted by The Midge:
I think we are missing what these 'Islamist' attacks are against. They are attacks on Western materialism, they are anti British/ American/ European, anti what they see as corrupt moral standards (homosexuality and promiscuity etc.). The point is there is another justification other than just Islam.
I'm not sure that is correct either. I feel that the majority of Islamists are reacting against political issues in the Middle-East and elsewhere in the Muslim world rather than caring about what Westerners get up to in their own countries.
Though it all blurs doesn't it? This is their country. So are France, Belgium, Germany, Sweden. Although if Q. 9:5 never existed or even if all Muslims lost their faith by fiat or viral RNA overnight, Western materialism would still institutionalize injustice and violence provoking the same.
[ 28. June 2017, 09:05: Message edited by: Martin60 ]
Posted by Mudfrog (# 8116) on
:
If an act of violence is perpetrated with political motive - for example, if a UK citizen survives an attack on a building or a person, civilian, military, political or police - and his motive was loyalty to Daesh, a movement intent on imposing political Islam onto a nation, shouldn't that be treated as treason?
What is the penalty for treason that is, as far as I am aware (unless it's a myth) still on the UK statute books?
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on
:
It should be treated with wisdom. With understanding. With knowledge.
Posted by Baptist Trainfan (# 15128) on
:
Yes. But Im convinced that hatred often arises from personal circumstances and is the consequence of anger which has been allowed to fester and build up in someones mind.
So Muslims living in Europe they may feel (and it's the feeling that's important) that they have been victimised by society and not been given the opportunities that are available to other people. Or they are suffering from a huge problem of identity: are we British or Muslim? Or they believe that their peers are giving in too easily to the norms of a secular society and losing their distinctive qualities: they want to resist that. They may also feel, with some justification, that the countries from which their families originally came have been treated as pawns by the powerful nations of the West, and want to teach them a lesson.
Similar anger may build up in native British people, too you only have think of the intense debates over immigration and refugees where people have often said things like, Its not fair, theyre coming over here, getting our flats and taking our jobs. Equally, some people feel that the dice have been loaded against them: We aren't allowed to say a word against those Muslims but they can do what they like and nobody dares criticise them. And many people simply fear those who are different to themselves, whether its because of the way they speak, the way they dress or the way they worship: Those people are taking over our neighbourhood, things just arent the same as they used to be.
None of these factors can ever condone terrorism; but I think they may help us understand why a person becomes an extremist - especially when (as seems to be the case with the Finsbury Park van driver) other issues are going wrong in their life as well.
Posted by Mudfrog (# 8116) on
:
Question
What is the motive for Daesh?
1) In western Europe?
2) In their own Islamic/Arab context?
Question
Why have some Weztern Daesh supporters and fighters been well-brought up, comfortably off, well-educated and seemingly well-intefrated members of society?
I do not accept the idea that terrorists are all disaffected youths. This is idealogical, not socio-economic. This is Islamic culture versus western culture and (in their eyes) insufficiently Islamic culture in the Arab regions.
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on
:
Unrighteousness. I.e. injustice.
Posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider (# 76) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
If an act of violence is perpetrated with political motive - for example, if a UK citizen survives an attack on a building or a person, civilian, military, political or police - and his motive was loyalty to Daesh, a movement intent on imposing political Islam onto a nation, shouldn't that be treated as treason?
What is the penalty for treason that is, as far as I am aware (unless it's a myth) still on the UK statute books?
It isn't. It was abolished some years ago. Sorry to disappoint, but we like to think we've moved on from killing people in cold blood. It's the sort of thing the people we're opposed to do.
[ 28. June 2017, 09:48: Message edited by: Karl: Liberal Backslider ]
Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
(except in Northern Ireland in the Troubles)
quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
And Northern Ireland doesn't count because...?
quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
Because I thought we were talking about the sort of attacks in the OP ie: far-right Islamophobic acts of violence
The original quote was
quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
There is however a recent track record of correlation between radical Islamism and violence which is established in the way that there isn't (except in Northern Ireland in the Troubles) between 'radical' (in the same way) Christianity and violence.
So writing that back into your original quote would give us;
quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
There is however a recent track record of correlation between radical Islamism and violence which is established in the way that there isn't (except in Northern Ireland in the Troubles) between 'radical' (in the same way) Christianity and violence narrowed to considering far-right islamaphobia only.
That doesn't make sense.
Posted by Mudfrog (# 8116) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
If an act of violence is perpetrated with political motive - for example, if a UK citizen survives an attack on a building or a person, civilian, military, political or police - and his motive was loyalty to Daesh, a movement intent on imposing political Islam onto a nation, shouldn't that be treated as treason?
What is the penalty for treason that is, as far as I am aware (unless it's a myth) still on the UK statute books?
It isn't. It was abolished some years ago. Sorry to disappoint, but we like to think we've moved on from killing people in cold blood. It's the sort of thing the people we're opposed to do.
No, not disappointed. I don't support the death penalty. And in any case it would make a terrorist into a martyr.
What I was suggesting was that treason seems to have with it a sense off disgrace and shame because it's an offence against us as a people as well as the Crown. Life imprisonment is a good enough sentence as long as life meant life.
There should be an accumultive penalty for every life taken (murder), every property damaged (criminal damage / arson) AND conviction for treason against the state which must be penalised to the full.
Terrorists with a political motive, loyal to another regime, (as supporters of Daesh have) should be openly declared to be traitors.
Posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider (# 76) on
:
I think - and I'm open to being corrected if wrong - that short of killing the Monarch, treason is virtually impossible to commit outside of wartime.
Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
No, not disappointed. I don't support the death penalty. And in any case it would make a terrorist into a martyr.
What I was suggesting was that treason seems to have with it a sense off disgrace and shame because it's an offence against us as a people as well as the Crown. Life imprisonment is a good enough sentence as long as life meant life.
I think treason is a lot more complicated than you're making out here. Who is being treasonous in the Northern Ireland conflict? Who is acting against "the people", who is determining who "the people" are etc and so on?
In practice, treason can only be acts against the Powers. "The People" only exist as a proxy for the Powers.
Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
Question
What is the motive for Daesh?
1) In western Europe?
2) In their own Islamic/Arab context?
In the Arab context a big motive for the rank and file is the marginalization that Sunni Muslims have experienced in Iraq since Saddam's departure, and the long-standing marginalization in Syria.
The West is involved in both those geopolitical situations.
That doesn't take away from the darkness with which some in Daesh are pursuing their cause, much of which reads like the accounts of medicalized Nazi torture from Nuremberg and can only be motivated by pure sadism.
Posted by Sioni Sais (# 5713) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
Terrorists with a political motive, loyal to another regime, (as supporters of Daesh have) should be openly declared to be traitors.
Purges here we come. Do we need to make a special case for murderers with a motive based on faith or politics? Frankly, I would prefer to treat all of these exactly the same, whether they use a gun, a bomb or a knife, and whatever they say.
It moves us away from the notion of "Hate crime" but I'm inclined to reserve that for speech and incitement, not direct physical action.
Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on
:
I hate the word 'traitor', partly because it is bandied about by the right wing, to refer to anyone who disagrees with them. Thus, it is used to refer to anti-Brexit people quite commonly.
Why have a special category? You will only create martyrs.
Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
Question
What is the motive for Daesh?
1) In western Europe?
2) In their own Islamic/Arab context?
In the Arab context a big motive for the rank and file is the marginalization that Sunni Muslims have experienced in Iraq since Saddam's departure, and the long-standing marginalization in Syria.
The West is involved in both those geopolitical situations.
That doesn't take away from the darkness with which some in Daesh are pursuing their cause, much of which reads like the accounts of medicalized Nazi torture from Nuremberg and can only be motivated by pure sadism.
Yes, some Sunni tribes supported IS, and before that, Al Qaeda, as a means of self-defence against what they saw as sectarian rule by Baghdad, and also the Iran-backed militias.
Something similar in Syria, although more complicated. The fact that the West has managed to get embroiled is madness, and the blowback is inevitable.
One should also cite the influence of Wahhabism, sponsored by one of our great allies, of course.
Posted by Matt Black (# 2210) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
(except in Northern Ireland in the Troubles)
quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
And Northern Ireland doesn't count because...?
quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
Because I thought we were talking about the sort of attacks in the OP ie: far-right Islamophobic acts of violence
The original quote was
quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
There is however a recent track record of correlation between radical Islamism and violence which is established in the way that there isn't (except in Northern Ireland in the Troubles) between 'radical' (in the same way) Christianity and violence.
So writing that back into your original quote would give us;
quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
There is however a recent track record of correlation between radical Islamism and violence which is established in the way that there isn't (except in Northern Ireland in the Troubles) between 'radical' (in the same way) Christianity and violence narrowed to considering far-right islamaphobia only.
That doesn't make sense.
I mentioned Norn Iron partly as an aside on the basis that someone would probably bring it up if I didn't. But, on reflection, I don't consider it terribly recent (20+ years ago) so not particularly relevant to the current situation discussed in the OP
Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on
:
The use of violence by Islamists goes back a long way. I remember Nasser being targeted by Egyptian Islamists, in the form of assassination attempts. But Nasser supposedly tortured them brutally in his jails, and eventually executed Sayyid Qutb, who was reckoned to be one of the intellectual leading lights.
However, to really go into this in depth, you would also have to grapple with the secular regimes in the Arab world, (even called 'Arab socialism'), which tended to play fast and loose with religion.
But of course, the secular regimes became immensely corrupt and brutal, and Qutb had pointed out that the West was corrupting the Arab leaders, a theme still picked up by Islamists. A friend of mine refers to secularism as a stinking dead dog in the Arab street, a kind of tragedy really.
In this period, the Islamists led an underground existence to an extent.
Iran provides a fascinating template (although not Arab), with its Western-linked leader (the Shah), underground opposition by both Islamists and the left, and let's not forget, a juicy Western plot to overthrow the democratic government.
It sounds like a fat melodramatic novel, but the West has always been fascinated by this region, partly for mercantile reasons, also for 'strategic' influence. As you sow, so shall you reap.
Posted by The Midge (# 2398) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
quote:
Originally posted by The Midge:
I think we are missing what these 'Islamist' attacks are against. They are attacks on Western materialism, they are anti British/ American/ European, anti what they see as corrupt moral standards (homosexuality and promiscuity etc.). The point is there is another justification other than just Islam.
We can see these as Anarchist Revolutionaries/ Racist /Homophobia/ Islamophobia when they come from our culture even if the perpetrators cry " in the name of God and St George" . We can divide the Christians in Northern Ireland up in to the political groups of Republicans and Loyalists. Likewise we can identify our reasons for wars when the Generals use the same rallying call. Yet we fail to see the same motives when it is wrapped in an Isis flag and the cry is "Allah Akbar".
If we look at those reasons maybe we can even say "I can see the point you are making" and do something about that.
i'm not at all happy with that: it skates close to co-belligerence and apologetics for grotesque criminality.
I wasn't happy with it either, hence why I put it in quotes. I prefer your word.
Fair enough, I put it badly. I'm trying to get across the need to understand the real reasons. Real reason isn't Islam.
Posted by Crsos (# 238) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
Because I thought we were talking about the sort of attacks in the OP ie: far-right Islamophobic acts of violence
quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
quote:
Originally posted by Crsos:
quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
There is however a recent track record of correlation between radical Islamism and violence which is established in the way that there isn't (except in Northern Ireland in the Troubles) between 'radical' (in the same way) Christianity and violence. So, apples and oranges still.
Care to explain exactly why the Ku Klux Klan don't count as both Christian and violent? They certainly viewed their own activities through a Christian lens.
For that matter, why don't the folks who shoot up or bomb women's clinics in the U.S. count as "Christian terrorists"?
They do. As does Dylan Roof. But I refer you to the answer I gave just now to mdijon. If you want to widen the scope of terrorist acts, then I'm more than happy to include him, the KKK and abortion clinic bombers (plus possibly Anders Breivik) as Christian terrorists and condemn them as such.
In which case I'm wondering why you consider the Troubles in Northern Ireland to be a variety of "far-right Islamophobic acts of violence"?
Posted by Matt Black (# 2210) on
:
I don't. I consider them acts of Christian terrorism.
Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on
:
This thread has me baffled now. Islamist terrorists are Islamists, and there are some Christian terrorists, and they are Christians. How am I doing?
Posted by Matt Black (# 2210) on
:
Yep. So far so good.
Posted by chris stiles (# 12641) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
Terrorists with a political motive, loyal to another regime, (as supporters of Daesh have) should be openly declared to be traitors.
Why should you qualify 'loyal to another regime' with 'terrorists with a political motive' - the plain meaning of 'traitor' would cover everyone who is 'loyal to another regime'.
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
This thread has me baffled now. Islamist terrorists are Islamists, and there are some Christian terrorists, and they are Christians. How am I doing?
Nope, either the Islamist terrorists are Islamic or the Christian terrorists are Christianist.
Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
This thread has me baffled now. Islamist terrorists are Islamists, and there are some Christian terrorists, and they are Christians. How am I doing?
quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
Yep. So far so good.
And there's a correlation for the former pairing but not for the latter? And only events in the last 20 years are valid for determining this correlation, and perhaps Islamaphobic but not, for instance, terrorism directed at abortion clinics, is relevant for the latter as well?
Posted by Matt Black (# 2210) on
:
Ok I really think we are talking past each other now.
I'm quite happy - as I have stated - to call Christians who commit terrorist acts Christian terrorists. I just don't think that the Finsbury Park attack - the subject of the thread - is an incidence of this, and I question why some are asking that we think about calling it that when there is no evidence to support that call.
Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on
:
The reason why is to draw attention to the fact that when a guy with an Arabic name is involved, or a guy who is a Muslim, we often hear talk of Islamist terror. I don't think many of those pointing this out would be satisfied if we adopted similarly lazy standards for talking about Christian terror, rather that we suspended judgement on both waiting for evidence.
Posted by Matt Black (# 2210) on
:
But I don't see such double standards: the Finsbury Park attacker didn't shout "This is for Jesus", so why would anyone jump to the conclusion that he was a Christian terrorist? Conversely, the London Bridge attackers did shout "This is for Allah", the 7/7 bombers did explicitly state that they did it for (extremist) Islamic reasons in their videos, so it is perfectly reasonable to conclude that they were Islamists. That was just the - to my mind fairly obvious - point I was trying to make about 100 years ago; sorry if it got lost in translation.
Posted by Russ (# 120) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
We should recognise that there are interpretations of the Bible that can be used to support violence, and likewise that many Muslims read the Koran without accepting the interpretations that call for violence. And, recognising that there are Christians who see the Bible calling for violence [, it] is necessary for us to address those people within our faith traditions who act in ways that we all find unacceptable and rightly condemn. Which includes trying to make amends for past actions in the name of our faith that still have ramifications today (eg: Crusades). It isn't enough to simply say that those interpretations of the Bible that were used to justify violence were mistaken, especially when we don't allow Islamic scholars make the same argument.
This seems very much to the point, Alan, but I'm not yet convinced you have it quite right. I don't know what the right answer is - what follows is just thinking aloud.
If there are people (right now, in the news) committing murder in the name of x-ism, and I publicly claim to be an x-ist, what are my options ?
A) I publicly denounce them in the name of x-ism. X-communicate them. They mis-use the sacred name of x; I deny that they are x-ists. I claim it is self-evident that x does not mean what they say it means. I contend for the good name of x-ism that they have betrayed.
B) I recognise that they have a logically valid interpretation of x, but it's one I don't share. I offer you a label to distinguish my brand of peaceful x-ism from their murderous brand. I acknowledge x-ism as ambiguous and qualify my statements to make clear which flavour I advocate.
C) If asked, I condemn their actions and deny knowledge of their motive. I have no part or involvement in what they do. Nothing to do with me, guv.
D) I agree with their ends but not their means.
Do I have a moral duty to do or avoid any of these ? Or a prudential duty (meaning that if I want people to think well of me I need to... And if I don't do that then the consequences are down to me.) ?
Don't think I believe in a moral duty to keep up with the news and respond to what news editors think is significant. It may be good PR, but since when was that a moral obligation ?
It's to do with the notion of community. A community is not to blame for someone who (through mental illness or rebellion) acts contrary to the values of that community.
But how far should we blame a community that talks up smiting others but doesn't do anything about it for the actions of rogue members who take it on themselves to do some smiting ?
We can't influence the past, but the values we profess do influence the future.
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
The reason why is to draw attention to the fact that when a guy with an Arabic name is involved, or a guy who is a Muslim, we often hear talk of Islamist terror. I don't think many of those pointing this out would be satisfied if we adopted similarly lazy standards for talking about Christian terror, rather that we suspended judgement on both waiting for evidence.
Please show the lazy standards. In responsible organs. Or by politicians in responsible positions. The Express and Nuthall don't count.
Posted by Sioni Sais (# 5713) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
This thread has me baffled now. Islamist terrorists are Islamists, and there are some Christian terrorists, and they are Christians. How am I doing?
I'm baffled too, but I regard all of them as terrorists and that applying a loaded term connected with a faith is no help at all. Unless you want to sell newspapers.
Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
We should recognise that there are interpretations of the Bible that can be used to support violence
We should recognise that there are interpretations of the Bible that can be - and are - used to teach the arcane spiritual significance of the Great Pyramid (Isaiah 19:19-20), but that doesn't mean we recognise their validity.
The old cliche of "You can use the Bible to teach anything" is simplistic, broadbrush and lazy, and no Christian who repeats it really believes it.
Anyone can say anything preceded by "The Bible teaches...", but unless it has some valid exegetical basis it is a waste of breath to which no-one else need listen.
Some propositions are biblically sounder than others, and the fact is that there is absolutely no sanction for Christian violence in the NT, and anyone who claims otherwise is wrong.
Posted by Mudfrog (# 8116) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
I don't. I consider them acts of Christian terrorism.
What is the Christian motive behind those acts?
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
I don't. I consider them acts of Christian terrorism.
What is the Christian motive behind those acts?
To take back the nation from liberal atheist scum.
Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
[QUOTE]Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
[qb]
The old cliche of "You can use the Bible to teach anything" is simplistic, broadbrush and lazy, and no Christian who repeats it really believes it.
Well, it would be difficult to use to teach String Theory, but it has been used to justify murder, torture, oppression...
quote:
Some propositions are biblically sounder than others, and the fact is that there is absolutely no sanction for Christian violence in the NT, and anyone who claims otherwise is wrong.
The NT has been used to teach things that don't really fit Jesus message and plenty of Christians have used the OT to ignore the message in NT. Until you throw out the OT, or at least the egregious bits, you are going to carry around that baggage.
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on
:
Christian terrorism as seen by a Muslim.
Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
the London Bridge attackers did shout "This is for Allah", the 7/7 bombers did explicitly state that they did it for (extremist) Islamic reasons in their videos, so it is perfectly reasonable to conclude that they were Islamists. That was just the - to my mind fairly obvious - point I was trying to make about 100 years ago; sorry if it got lost in translation.
And the point I made at that time is that there are other instances where there is little evidence, yet it is still the assumption made.
Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
Please show the lazy standards. In responsible organs.
Here's a true Scotsman with no salt in his porridge.
Posted by The Midge (# 2398) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
We should recognise that there are interpretations of the Bible that can be used to support violence
We should recognise that there are interpretations of the Bible that can be - and are - used to teach the arcane spiritual significance of the Great Pyramid (Isaiah 19:19-20), but that doesn't mean we recognise their validity.
The old cliche of "You can use the Bible to teach anything" is simplistic, broadbrush and lazy, and no Christian who repeats it really believes it.
Anyone can say anything preceded by "The Bible teaches...", but unless it has some valid exegetical basis it is a waste of breath to which no-one else need listen.
Some propositions are biblically sounder than others, and the fact is that there is absolutely no sanction for Christian violence in the NT, and anyone who claims otherwise is wrong.
Going back to the question "What to do with about our own terrorist" to suggest we need to improve their exegesis, hermeneutics and general biblical interpretation skills is important. Of course you need to reach some 'Christians' who only turn up to church to get baptised as a baby, married for the photogenic back ground and buried (before hand preferably- cause it would be too late!).
If we can agree on this may be we can move onto the how? I would be willing to bet that a majority of 'Christians' have never read the whole bible so maybe unaware of some of the genocide-y bits and other tricky passages unless they are pointed out by the Sceptics Annotated Bible or other useful text. Sweeping the issue under the carpet isn't going to solve anything.
Posted by Alan Cresswell (# 31) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
We should recognise that there are interpretations of the Bible that can be used to support violence
We should recognise that there are interpretations of the Bible that can be - and are - used to teach the arcane spiritual significance of the Great Pyramid (Isaiah 19:19-20), but that doesn't mean we recognise their validity.
The old cliche of "You can use the Bible to teach anything" is simplistic, broadbrush and lazy, and no Christian who repeats it really believes it.
Anyone can say anything preceded by "The Bible teaches...", but unless it has some valid exegetical basis it is a waste of breath to which no-one else need listen.
Some propositions are biblically sounder than others, and the fact is that there is absolutely no sanction for Christian violence in the NT, and anyone who claims otherwise is wrong.
I don't think I was clear enough. I wasn't saying we need to accept the validity of whacky interpretation. I was saying that we need to acknowledge that people do believe such things, and as a result engage in a discussion of why they're mistaken. That's especially true of those who believe that the Christian scriptures and tradition teach them to commit actions that impact others - in the context of this thread, those who think that the Christian faith justifies violence.
That would, must, include prominent¹ Christians being vocal after acts committed by "Christians" (anyone either claiming to be Christian nations, or otherwise viewed as Christian), being clear that there is no justification for that. It also includes preachers and others making that clear such that people inclined towards such acts don't, or at least don't drag the name of our faith into their actions.
And, in our dealings with the Islamic community after attacks carried out in their name we need to treat them in the same was as we treat ourselves - which includes recognising that very often they're working even harder than we are to counter the views that violence is justified by their faith, and not constantly undermining their efforts by saying that they're wrong because we can pick a few verses of the Koran that can be interpreted as supporting violence (as though they couldn't do the same with the Bible). And, just as we expect our statements that "Christian" terrorists are not faithful Christians be accepted, we should accept statements from the Islamic world that "Muslim" terrorists are not faithful Muslims.
¹ "Prominent" may include any of us, if (say) we're the only professing Christian at work and the subject of the latest atrocity by a "Christian" is talked about during the coffee break.
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
Please show the lazy standards. In responsible organs.
Here's a true Scotsman with no salt in his porridge.
OK, apparently very sloppy, but secondary to the immediacy of attacks and the common sense response.
And Alan, you cannot even begin to orthodoxly commit acts of terrorism in the name of God in Christ.
Posted by Alan Cresswell (# 31) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
And Alan, you cannot even begin to orthodoxly commit acts of terrorism in the name of God in Christ.
I know.
But, the question is what we should do when people who claim to share our faith consider that the Christian faith justifies acts of violence? Simply repeating in an echo chamber that it's not possible to commit acts of terrorism in the name of Christ doesn't seem very productive.
Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
We should recognise that there are interpretations of the Bible that can be - and are - used to teach the arcane spiritual significance of the Great Pyramid (Isaiah 19:19-20), but that doesn't mean we recognise their validity.
Let's go back a few steps. Why shouldn't we accept as valid the scriptural significance of the Great Pyramid? What criteria are you using here to assess validity?
quote:
The old cliche of "You can use the Bible to teach anything" is simplistic, broadbrush and lazy, and no Christian who repeats it really believes it.
Wrong. I'm a Christian and I believe that the bible can be used to teach almost anything.
Like you, I'm sure that there are valid and invalid interpretations. I'm just not sure what criteria you are using to make this assessment - and I suppose it is fair to say that I'm not entirely sure what criteria I am using either.
quote:
Anyone can say anything preceded by "The Bible teaches...", but unless it has some valid exegetical basis it is a waste of breath to which no-one else need listen.
Interesting.
So are you saying that there are "valid" exegetical teachings which are still wrong? Does "validity" mean "correct"? Or are they two separate ideas which overlap somewhere in the middle?
quote:
Some propositions are biblically sounder than others, and the fact is that there is absolutely no sanction for Christian violence in the NT, and anyone who claims otherwise is wrong.
I'm a pacifist and I've been very influenced by the New Testament, so clearly I agree that I don't believe one can justify violence from it.
I'm less sure that this is the only sound and valid exegetical teaching one could derive from the whole bible. I think one could derive a theory of redemptive violence from the Old Testament and carry it through to the New Testament "soundly" by making some kind of argument that states that if one is fighting for God then that is valid - and that Christ was talking about peace within personal relationships.
Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
I know.
But, the question is what we should do when people who claim to share our faith consider that the Christian faith justifies acts of violence? Simply repeating in an echo chamber that it's not possible to commit acts of terrorism in the name of Christ doesn't seem very productive.
I'm not really convinced that acts of violence are "wacky" interpretations of Christian faith.
To take just one example; plenty of Christians thought it was an expression of Christian faith to take up arms to resist the Nazis.
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
And Alan, you cannot even begin to orthodoxly commit acts of terrorism in the name of God in Christ.
I know.
But, the question is what we should do when people who claim to share our faith consider that the Christian faith justifies acts of violence? Simply repeating in an echo chamber that it's not possible to commit acts of terrorism in the name of Christ doesn't seem very productive.
I know you know.
But you obviously can in the name of Allah by a strong, minority, traditional, orthodox Qur'anic interpretation.
Historically Christian cultures have done every Church sanctioned evil imaginable in the name of the two swords and I have argued they still did until recently, until I accepted Just War in extremis. My former rejection of Just War led to a rejection of the state's monopoly of violence which was exposed as ... foolish in me at Bataclan, when, with morally flawless courage that Jesus would not just give the nod to, police advanced on terrorist machine gunners with shields to stop them with necessarily lethal force. Would Jesus have refused to be deputized in that? I don't think so. They've come a long way since Béziers.
Like you I cannot see Jesus giving the nod to a Christian equivalent of Salman Abedi at the Manchester Arena. I can see ordinary, decent Muslims doing that to him, whilst shaking their heads in horror. Being understanding. Sympathetic. More so than I am. I can hear the repressed 'Yeah but'. I can articulate it for them. With them. I can see why. As I could in Northern Ireland. Both sides. 9 11. I HEARD it.
Can we dare to have that conversation? To extend the conversation to that level of discomfort? In the intelligence community, in detective work, one MUST put one's self empathically in the mind of one's prey.
So, what should we do when our own side indistinguishably mirror the enemy? Have the most open possible conversation. Admit everything that we all think. Vulnerably. Safely.
European Christianity is the beneficiary of the enlightenment, can European Islam be for a start?
[ 29. June 2017, 10:22: Message edited by: Martin60 ]
Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
And Alan, you cannot even begin to orthodoxly commit acts of terrorism in the name of God in Christ.
I know.
You are both incorrect.
Jesus said he was not here to challenge the OT. The OT very clearly justifies great violence and terrorism.
∴ Orthodoxy can justify terrorism.
Posted by Dafyd (# 5549) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
Some propositions are biblically sounder than others, and the fact is that there is absolutely no sanction for Christian violence in the NT, and anyone who claims otherwise is wrong.
Those of us who lean towards pacifism have all heard the arguments about Jesus telling the disciples to sell their cloaks and buy swords and not telling the Centurion to give up his job.
Also, the New Testament endorses the Old Testament except when it clearly does otherwise.
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
Some propositions are biblically sounder than others, and the fact is that there is absolutely no sanction for Christian violence in the NT, and anyone who claims otherwise is wrong.
Those of us who lean towards pacifism have all heard the arguments about Jesus telling the disciples to sell their cloaks and buy swords and not telling the Centurion to give up his job.
Also, the New Testament endorses the Old Testament except when it clearly does otherwise.
The NT endorses the OT when the OT backs my beliefs; it does not when the OT is contrary to my beliefs. This is true for everybody.
Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
Those of us who lean towards pacifism have all heard the arguments about Jesus telling the disciples to sell their cloaks and buy swords and not telling the Centurion to give up his job.
The issue is not pacifism versus any violence at all.
Pacifism is a possible legitimate NT position.
Christian participation in state-authorised violence in the cause of law enforcement or just war is also a possible legitimate NT position.
Crusading (ie violence specifically forcing Christianity or a particular version of it on the unwilling) on the other hand has no NT sanction whatsoever.
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
And Alan, you cannot even begin to orthodoxly commit acts of terrorism in the name of God in Christ.
I know.
You are both incorrect.
Jesus said he was not here to challenge the OT. The OT very clearly justifies great violence and terrorism.
∴ Orthodoxy can justify terrorism.
And the stoning of adulteresses.
Posted by Mudfrog (# 8116) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
I don't. I consider them acts of Christian terrorism.
What is the Christian motive behind those acts?
To take back the nation from liberal atheist scum.
So, when was there a terrorist event with that motivation and where possibly the bomber, knifeman, white-van-man cried out 'Jesus is Lord', Jesus loves you!' as he took 25 atheists with him to eternity?
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
I don't. I consider them acts of Christian terrorism.
What is the Christian motive behind those acts?
To take back the nation from liberal atheist scum.
So, when was there a terrorist event with that motivation and where possibly the bomber, knifeman, white-van-man cried out 'Jesus is Lord', Jesus loves you!' as he took 25 atheists with him to eternity?
Sure, but what about attacks on abortion clinics and staff in the USA? Those carrying out such attacks have claimed to be doing so in the name of Christ.
Then you've got whacky fringe groups like The Lord's Resistance Army in Uganda.
The issue, surely, isn't this, that or the other religion per se but forms of fundamentalism that crank up a kind of Puritanical, literalist approach to the point where it spills over into violence.
Posted by Mudfrog (# 8116) on
:
Jut dine some background reading to the Lord's Resistance Army.
What comes out of that, for me, is that here is a very dangerous personality cult focused on one man and his very twisted view of God and with a powerful hold over a small group of people who have forced people to join them and fight for some perverted cause to establish the Ten Commandments as the rule of law!?
To me, what makes that different to IS is that IS is actually seemingly based on a Legitimate Islamic aim - to establish the Muslim Caliphate and to impose Sharia Law on non-Muslim nations and also to enforce that law of Muslim states that are not sufficiently Islamic.
It is said that the LRA "is not motivated by any identifiable political agenda, and its military strategy and tactics reflect this"
but that it also seems to be based in tribal warfare to asset the dominance of the Acholi tribe.
It might be terrorism but it has no Christian evangelical motivation. It isn't trying to spread the Christian Gospel through violent means in the way that IS is trying to spread Islam through violent means.
Posted by Mudfrog (# 8116) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
[Sure, but what about attacks on abortion clinics and staff in the USA? Those carrying out such attacks have claimed to be doing so in the name of Christ.
Deranged, yes.
Hateful, yes.
Murderous, yes.
But terrorism?
Once you start calling every act of violence a 'terrorist act' when it's done by a religious person, the word ceases to mean anything; to my mind there is political and religious terrorism but it always seems to me that the religious kind will have a political motive mixed in. Islamic terrorism is religious and political. It's intertwined.
Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
It might be terrorism but it has no Christian evangelical motivation. It isn't trying to spread the Christian Gospel through violent means in the way that IS is trying to spread Islam through violent means.
Christianity exists now because it was spread through violent means.
Explain to the billions of Muslims who do not relive they are urged towards violences how they are wrong.
Or go on playing your One True Christian Bingo.
Posted by Mudfrog (# 8116) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
It might be terrorism but it has no Christian evangelical motivation. It isn't trying to spread the Christian Gospel through violent means in the way that IS is trying to spread Islam through violent means.
Christianity exists now because it was spread through violent means.
Explain to the billions of Muslims who do not relive they are urged towards violences how they are wrong.
Or go on playing your One True Christian Bingo.
That may well be true of the Spanish Catholic activities in South America but it seems to m that Africa was converted by peaceful means.
The activities of colonial governments is another matter of course, but I don't see the Church of England blowing up villages in the jungles of Africa to force tribesmen to convert.
Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
It might be terrorism but it has no Christian evangelical motivation. It isn't trying to spread the Christian Gospel through violent means in the way that IS is trying to spread Islam through violent means.
Christianity exists now because it was spread through violent means.
Explain to the billions of Muslims who do not relive they are urged towards violences how they are wrong.
Or go on playing your One True Christian Bingo.
That may well be true of the Spanish Catholic activities in South America but it seems to m that Africa was converted by peaceful means.
The activities of colonial governments is another matter of course, but I don't see the Church of England blowing up villages in the jungles of Africa to force tribesmen to convert.
Constantine? Hello?
ETA: How many followers of Zeus have you encountered. Odin?
AND WTF! Africa converted by peaceful means? That is colonisation apology rubbish.
[ 30. June 2017, 15:09: Message edited by: lilBuddha ]
Posted by Matt Black (# 2210) on
:
King Leopold's Congo, anyone? (B)Ugandan civil war in 1890s between Catholic wa-Fransi and Protestant wa-Inglesi?
Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
The issue is not pacifism versus any violence at all.
Pacifism is a possible legitimate NT position.
Christian participation in state-authorised violence in the cause of law enforcement or just war is also a possible legitimate NT position.
Crusading (ie violence specifically forcing Christianity or a particular version of it on the unwilling) on the other hand has no NT sanction whatsoever.
It seems to me to be fairly self-evident that there is a very thin line between state authorised violence, just war and - for want of a better term - crusading.
And, perhaps most importantly, those who walk in this zone seem unable to reliably tell the difference. They end up condemning everyone else's "state authorised violence" and promoting as highly ethical their own.
This is basically why I am a pacifist, fwiw. Once you start saying that violence is ok, it is very hard to stop. Then Dresden becomes acceptable, then civilian deaths from drones become unavoidable and soon there is very little difference between pigs and men.
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
It wasn't just the Conquistadores. In the 1630s the New England Puritans justified the massacre of Pequod non-combatants by referring to the Book of Joshua ...
The CofE may not have gone around blowing up villages to coerce indigenous peoples to convert but there's a lot of truth in the old adage, 'The white man brought the Bible in one hand and a whip in the other ...'
As for religious violence of whatever stripe being a syncretic religio-political mix - then sure, of course. That applies to sectarian violence in Northern Ireland, Kosovo, tensions between Islamic sects, Buddhists vs Muslim insurgents in Burma, Hindus vs Muslims in India ...
It doesn't make any of it less violent or any less reprehensible to acknowledge either the political aspects or the sectarian / religious elements.
Posted by Matt Black (# 2210) on
:
The "3Ms" colonised Africa: the missionary, followed by the merchant, followed by the Maxim gun.
Posted by chris stiles (# 12641) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
So, when was there a terrorist event with that motivation and where possibly the bomber, knifeman, white-van-man cried out 'Jesus is Lord', Jesus loves you!' as he took 25 atheists with him to eternity?
You are making the assumption that the above is the only possible rallying cry all Christians anywhere could come up with - there were plenty of others willing to go with variants on "Kill them all, God will know his own".
.. and yes, as for Africa .. Congo (which introduced the concept of limb chopping as a collective punishment) was already mentioned up thread but there are others.
Posted by The Midge (# 2398) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
The "3Ms" colonised Africa: the missionary, followed by the merchant, followed by the Maxim gun.
The coalition forces have progressed to missiles now.
Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on
:
In East Africa Christianity largely preceded colonialism. And was spread mostly by Africans. In Nigeria the Church preceded colonialism as well.
Constantine became a Christian at a point when Christianity was already very widespread within the Roman Empire.
I don't deny that the state and Church stories are thoroughly interwoven in antiquity and in modernity. But it is extremely simplistic to suggest that the spread of Christianity was initially a matter of power and coercion.
Posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider (# 76) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
The issue is not pacifism versus any violence at all.
Pacifism is a possible legitimate NT position.
Christian participation in state-authorised violence in the cause of law enforcement or just war is also a possible legitimate NT position.
Crusading (ie violence specifically forcing Christianity or a particular version of it on the unwilling) on the other hand has no NT sanction whatsoever.
It seems to me to be fairly self-evident that there is a very thin line between state authorised violence, just war and - for want of a better term - crusading.
And, perhaps most importantly, those who walk in this zone seem unable to reliably tell the difference. They end up condemning everyone else's "state authorised violence" and promoting as highly ethical their own.
This is basically why I am a pacifist, fwiw. Once you start saying that violence is ok, it is very hard to stop. Then Dresden becomes acceptable, then civilian deaths from drones become unavoidable and soon there is very little difference between pigs and men.
This. The most batent example, to my mind, is that what we euphemistically call our "nuclear deterrent" is actually the credible threat to carry out the most appalling massacre of civilians in history, dwarfing all previous slaughter, and anyone raising an objection is considered a political extremist, something of a crank, and a terrible threat to security. Madness.
Posted by Dafyd (# 5549) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
Christian participation in state-authorised violence in the cause of law enforcement or just war is also a possible legitimate NT position.
Crusading (ie violence specifically forcing Christianity or a particular version of it on the unwilling) on the other hand has no NT sanction whatsoever.
As Mr Cheesy notes that is a fine line and easily crossed. (The ostensible justification of Crusading was not to force Christianity on the unwilling, but to stop Muslims (or Cathars) from persecuting Christians. Likewise the conquest of the Americas was frequently justified as putting a stop to human sacrifice.)
There isn't any verse forbidding coercion in religion in the New Testament.
I think the main point is that when it comes to comparing Christian violence to violence in other religions we should err on the side against Christian self-righteousness just as when we think our personal sins.
Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
Constantine became a Christian at a point when Christianity was already very widespread within the Roman Empire.
For a certain definition of widespread I suppose.
quote:
I don't deny that the state and Church stories are thoroughly interwoven in antiquity and in modernity. But it is extremely simplistic to suggest that the spread of Christianity was initially a matter of power and coercion.
It was a new cult and spread a bit. But if you look at the major expansion, it has been parallel to the expansion of Christian states.
Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on
:
I think that map proves the point. All the areas where we know there were Christians prior to Constantine are dark blue.
Your argument rests on the light blue being all the areas where we are sure there were no Christians. Seems unlikely though given the limits of historical evidence back 2k years. It's more likely we simply don't know enough to be sure. For instance the UK has some uncertain evidence of Christianity among the Celts, and also spread among the Roman occupants.
So seeing such widespread dark blue really indicates widespread Christianity. Constantine's conversion was arguably as influenced by the power politics that Christianity was already relevant to as much as the influence being the other way around.
Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
In East Africa Christianity largely preceded colonialism. And was spread mostly by Africans. In Nigeria the Church preceded colonialism as well.
Constantine became a Christian at a point when Christianity was already very widespread within the Roman Empire.
I don't deny that the state and Church stories are thoroughly interwoven in antiquity and in modernity. But it is extremely simplistic to suggest that the spread of Christianity was initially a matter of power and coercion.
Christianity in the West developed in a muscular form which was associated with state power and colonialism. It is true that some places where the colonies spread had indigenous forms of Christianity, but these were often seen as being inferior to the Western forms.
It is obviously true that not all Christianity in Africa was associated with colonialism. But a vast amount was.
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
[Sure, but what about attacks on abortion clinics and staff in the USA? Those carrying out such attacks have claimed to be doing so in the name of Christ.
Deranged, yes.
Hateful, yes.
Murderous, yes.
But terrorism?
Yes. Terrorism is "the unlawful use of violence and intimidation, especially against civilians, in the pursuit of political aims." Making abortion illegal is a political aim.
Posted by Soror Magna (# 9881) on
:
If the aim is to terrorize women and the people who care for them, it's terrorism.
Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
It is obviously true that not all Christianity in Africa was associated with colonialism. But a vast amount was.
Very difficult to quantify the "vast amount" though.
To illustrate with the Kenyan example; in Kenya the first Christian mission was in the 1840s. They made very few converts for the first 40 years or so. They were reasonably successful in campaigning against slavery, but much less successful in promoting Christianity. The European missionaries almost gave up.
When the second generation of freed slaves continued as Christians, and were integrated more into the community, Christianity began to spread more widely in what one could describe as an "indigenous form".
Protestant missions became more active in the early 1900s and coincided with colonialism. There were quite serious power politics involved at that time.
Then the state of emergency, when the Church opposed Mau Mau and so was very clearly identified with colonial rule at that time.
Interestingly the biggest growth of church numbers and Christian numbers was after independence in the 60s.
So how does one go about assessing the role of colonialism in at all?
Posted by Russ (# 120) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
Terrorism is "the unlawful use of violence and intimidation, especially against civilians, in the pursuit of political aims." Making abortion illegal is a political aim.
It is a political aim, and if the anti-abortionists were blowing up random passers-by to try to persuade society as a whole to give in to their demands, then yes that would be terrorism.
Targeting the people engaged in a (perceived to be) wrongful act because the State refuses to do so is more akin to vigilante-ism.
Which is an evil, but a lesser evil than the deliberate targeting of those who have made no personal choice to involve themselves in the dispute.
I reserve the use of "terrorism" for that greater evil.
Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on
:
You might want to use the words that way but that's not based on any definition you can reference.
(And I would submit rather prone to semantic pushing - for instance if I disagree with Catholicism and label that "wrong" is blowing up Catholics vigilantism rather than terrorism?).
Posted by Russ (# 120) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
there's a lot of truth in the old adage, 'The white man brought the Bible in one hand and a whip in the other ...'
I think it's worth making the distinction between the sort of Bible that promotes whip-carrying as a religious duty to God, and the sort of Bible that merely fails to prohibit the whip definitively.
Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
As Mr Cheesy notes that is a fine line and easily crossed. (The ostensible justification of Crusading was not to force Christianity on the unwilling, but to stop Muslims (or Cathars) from persecuting Christians.
There is not a self-evident "fine line" at all.
If European military action against Muslims in eleventh century Palestine had been simply a matter of preventing Muslim mistreatment of Christianity and other non-Muslim religions (which had existed on and off for the preceding four and a half centuries) is would not have been crusading, and it would have been justifiable, but we all know it wasn't that simple.
And incidentally, I have never read of Christians being persecuted by Cathars, who in any case identified as Christians themselves.
quote:
There isn't any verse forbidding coercion in religion in the New Testament.
There is an absence of verses forbidding many things (eg arson) in the NT, but that doesn't prevent us from making exegetically informed deductions from existing injunctions - and using our common sense.
quote:
I think the main point is that when it comes to comparing Christian violence to violence in other religions we should err on the side against Christian self-righteousness just as when we think our personal sins.
Would that it were that simple.
Read C.S. Lewis's The Dangers Of national Repentance for an explanation of how ostensible political humility is exploited to indulge underlying self-righteousness and judgementalism.
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
It is obviously true that not all Christianity in Africa was associated with colonialism. But a vast amount was.
Very difficult to quantify the "vast amount" though.
To illustrate with the Kenyan example; in Kenya the first Christian mission was in the 1840s. They made very few converts for the first 40 years or so. They were reasonably successful in campaigning against slavery, but much less successful in promoting Christianity. The European missionaries almost gave up.
When the second generation of freed slaves continued as Christians, and were integrated more into the community, Christianity began to spread more widely in what one could describe as an "indigenous form".
Protestant missions became more active in the early 1900s and coincided with colonialism. There were quite serious power politics involved at that time.
Then the state of emergency, when the Church opposed Mau Mau and so was very clearly identified with colonial rule at that time.
Interestingly the biggest growth of church numbers and Christian numbers was after independence in the 60s.
So how does one go about assessing the role of colonialism [in] at all?
It's a no brainer 400 years before in the Iberian colonization of the Americas. In Africa the church-state wasn't so integrated. And Africa was not colonized the same way, to the same degree by far from the Portuguese onwards. There's no comparison between Brazil and Angola, the latter was a one way sewer outlet and for the export of slaves. Portugal itself didn't benefit in revenue unlike all later imperialists, it spread cancer throughout south Africa, taken up by Belgium. I don't know how one could begin to quantify the presence of Christianity in any meaningful form going counter-clockwise round the coast and progressively inland for 400 years of Western imperialist rapacity.
Christianity didn't transform virgin societies with the gospel of Christ, it provided minimal welfare and education along with jam tomorrow in heaven, it marginally softened the impact of disrupting alien civilization, most genteelly in the Protestant British colonies and possessions.
The word vast doesn't apply to the positive impact of Christianity in Africa. As everywhere else.
Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
There is not a self-evident "fine line" at all.
If European military action against Muslims in eleventh century Palestine had been simply a matter of preventing Muslim mistreatment of Christianity and other non-Muslim religions (which had existed on and off for the preceding four and a half centuries) is would not have been crusading, and it would have been justifiable, but we all know it wasn't that simple.
And incidentally, I have never read of Christians being persecuted by Cathars, who in any case identified as Christians themselves.
I don't think you are really understanding my point.
It's a progression of thought: first you say that the only way to run a country is by having the rule of law, next you restrict legal violence to the rulers. Then you say that the violence that the rulers do is legitimate.
So now we have a generally organised society where the vast majority of violent power is held by the government, which we hope is a democracy and which is using the violence with retraint.
I'm saying that there is a fine line between this kind of government violence and the violence which extends that violence to "crusades" abroad.
It is a bit tricky to talk about the actual "crusades" in this context because the Western societies involved were not as organised as they are today.
But it is a lot easier if one considers Western societies of the 19, 20 and 21 centuries. Here there are police forces and armies - and for the most part generally logical (albeit corruptible) legal systems with capital punishment. The vast majority of violence was retained by the powers, almost everything else is/was illegal.
I'm saying that most people would say that this is an acceptable way to use violence however I'm also saying that the problem with this is that there is a thin line between this kind of "acceptable" violence and over-reactions which involve destroying rebels and undesirables at home and in crusading wars abroad. The only difference is one of scale, but if one can argue that putting down riots or those with disagreeable views at home is legitimate then putting down those who the powers determine are trying to "destroy our way of life" is acceptable abroad.
I'm sorry if this sounds like I'm trying to teach you how to suck eggs, but I really think you had the wrong end of the stick of the point I was making.
quote:
There is an absence of verses forbidding many things (eg arson) in the NT, but that doesn't prevent us from making exegetically informed deductions from existing injunctions - and using our common sense.
That's quite an odd thing to say, in my opinion. I don't thin it adds up. If the only way to close down a concentration camp was arson, are you really trying to claim that there is an overall exegetically informed deduction which somehow says it is unacceptable?
ISTM that about the only thing it is possible to agree upon regarding the ethics of the New Testament is that the "right thing to do" depends on the context, and that the priority is on actions which show love for God and neighbour. The problem is therefore that there is no foolproof way to deduce exactly what this might be in any given circumstances - and whilst it is hard from this distance to understand how genocide can be "love for neighbour", the reality is that those who have in the past done terrible things in the name of Christianity have indeed done them because of zeal for love of God and neighbour. Simply claiming that we now have better ways to deduce the right thing to do seems to minimise and reduce their actions to the level of obvious stupidity.
quote:
quote:
I think the main point is that when it comes to comparing Christian violence to violence in other religions we should err on the side against Christian self-righteousness just as when we think our personal sins.
Would that it were that simple.
Read C.S. Lewis's The Dangers Of national Repentance for an explanation of how ostensible political humility is exploited to indulge underlying self-righteousness and judgementalism.
I think maybe you might benefit from reading rather wider than CS Lewis, if I might be so bold as to mention it.
Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
Very difficult to quantify the "vast amount" though.
No, it really isn't.
Go to most of Africa and study the types of Christianity that are available. In the vast majority of areas outside of Egypt and the Horn, Christian believers exist in forms of Christianity that originated - or emerged from - those exported by colonialism.
Just a fact.
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on
:
Aye, the vast amount of very little.
Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
Aye, the vast amount of very little.
No idea what you're talking about. Christianity is very big in many parts of Africa.
And it is just plain wrong to say that Christianity has had marginal impact on education and health.
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on
:
Can you quantify that?
Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on
:
Quantify what? the number of African christians? the number of places that have church hospitals and schools and no other provision?
Posted by Dafyd (# 5549) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
As Mr Cheesy notes that is a fine line and easily crossed. (The ostensible justification of Crusading was not to force Christianity on the unwilling, but to stop Muslims (or Cathars) from persecuting Christians.
There is not a self-evident "fine line" at all.
If European military action against Muslims in eleventh century Palestine had been simply a matter of preventing Muslim mistreatment of Christianity and other non-Muslim religions (which had existed on and off for the preceding four and a half centuries) is would not have been crusading, and it would have been justifiable, but we all know it wasn't that simple.
Exactly.
quote:
And incidentally, I have never read of Christians being persecuted by Cathars, who in any case identified as Christians themselves.
Look up St Peter Martyr. You and I might not think his death counted as persecution but his death was treated as such at the time.
quote:
Read C.S. Lewis's The Dangers Of national Repentance for an explanation of how ostensible political humility is exploited to indulge underlying self-righteousness and judgementalism.
One cannot defend avarice against generosity by reading a lecture on the vices of prodigality.
Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
The word vast doesn't apply to the positive impact of Christianity in Africa. As everywhere else.
You seem to be using Christianity as coterminous with white-people's impact on Africa. It's true, colonialism was a vastly bad thing. But if you ask Africans what the positive experience of their Christianity is they'll tell you a different story.
Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
Very difficult to quantify the "vast amount" though.
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
In the vast majority of areas outside of Egypt and the Horn, Christian believers exist in forms of Christianity that originated - or emerged from - those exported by colonialism.
Just a fact.
Emerged from or originated is a different standard. You seem to be using colonialism as a general term for white people going to Africa. I would restrict it to actually establishing a colony.
Hence if there are missionaries in Kenya in 1848 but no British rule or hegemony I wouldn't consider that colonialism, and therefore would argue that the Christianity that spread before 1895 isn't actually under colonialism. (Arguably it is under Arab colonialism but that can't really be argued as a promoter of Christianity).
Likewise if Christianity spreads after the end of British rule in 1963 I'd argue it is harder to see that as a consequence of colonial rule.
Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
Emerged from or originated is a different standard. You seem to be using colonialism as a general term for white people going to Africa. I would restrict it to actually establishing a colony.
It was a colonial project. White people were trying to get to Africa to establish/tame/exploit it before they actually set up colonies.
quote:
Hence if there are missionaries in Kenya in 1848 but no British rule or hegemony I wouldn't consider that colonialism, and therefore would argue that the Christianity that spread before 1895 isn't actually under colonialism. (Arguably it is under Arab colonialism but that can't really be argued as a promoter of Christianity).
Well sorry, I think that's garbage. The British, Germans, Belgians, Dutch and others had a colonial project in mind when they went out to subdue Africa and elsewhere. It took a while for them to actually set up colonies. Meh.
quote:
Likewise if Christianity spreads after the end of British rule in 1963 I'd argue it is harder to see that as a consequence of colonial rule.
Not really that hard at all if you consider that the post-colonial African countries were deeply scarred by the colonial period.
Indigenous Christianity is emerging from the ashes of colonialism, but much of it is directly influenced by the colonial past.
Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on
:
I don't think white people were a monolithic block of identical motivations. I think there were some genuine missionaries. Two historical examples I'd point to;
a) the founding of Freetown in West Africa, funded by abolitionists wanting to establish a haven for freed slave refugees from the American war of independence. The adventure ended badly, but it demonstrates the mixture of motives at work in European dealings with Africa.
b) the evangelism of the Kenyan Coast by the second generation of freed slaves funded by CMS. Again there is a real mixture of motives on display, but a group of freed slaves were eventually able to influence the forms of Christianity still evident today.
It is too simplistic to say it was all grubby racist colonialism, although that was clearly there.
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
The word vast doesn't apply to the positive impact of Christianity in Africa. As everywhere else.
You seem to be using Christianity as coterminous with white-people's impact on Africa. It's true, colonialism was a vastly bad thing. But if you ask Africans what the positive experience of their Christianity is they'll tell you a different story.
Aye. We're all the survivors of history. We all stand on a pyramid of corpses. I've encountered African Christians a bit more than I have multiple British ones who've spent African fortunes doing 'missionary' work or whatever it is when you go out there and build a toilet or stand at the head of a queue of people waiting to be healed through you. And not by Western medicine. Therefore not at all except by placebo. Talking of medicine I dined with a missionary evangelical doctor to Chad. It was a VERY powerful, formative experience. She was old school, zealously pious, everything was done in the name of Christ up front - she couldn't understand a Christian doctor colleague who never wore his faith on his sleeve - AND incredibly realistic (not like those claiming to have been used for healing), that made her more than bearable. Her description of Chadian Christians had no empty claims whatsoever, it was like something Solzhenitsyn could have written. Poignantly hopeless.
I know, I know, Chad isn't Kenya. I regard Christianity as a mopping up operation after 500 years of painfully slowly patchily attenuating brutal exploitation continued by our local heirs: Amin, Obote, Selassie, Mobutu. A part of the marginal Western solution to the nightmare problems the West created in the first place. A solution not even mentioned by the piercing observer Ryszard Kapuściński.
But that's me. A former Anglo-Israelite justifier of apartheid.
Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
I think that map proves the point. All the areas where we know there were Christians prior to Constantine are dark blue.
I think it shows that there were widespread pockets of Christianity. Probably something that could be said of many other cults at the time. This is inevitable in a polytheistic society.
quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
But if you ask Africans what the positive experience of their Christianity is they'll tell you a different story.
I heard an American comedian say he was grateful for slavery, as it meant he was in America rather than Africa. Which misses the mark by a mile and at least one alternate universe.
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on
:
I know I shouldn't post this because when I post shit like this it gets completely ignored in most instances. But I wonder if this might have some application to the question of post-colonial Christianity in Africa.
It's not about Africa though but Alaska. As everyone in the room knows, the first Christians in Alaska were the Russians. Missionary priests and monks were sent, and had some success, although they also pissed off St. Petersburg by calling wrath down on exploitative leaders among the Russian equivalent of the Hudsons Bay Company. They had some success with the Tlingits but not a lot.
Then AK was bought by the Americans, and the Orthodox were replaced with American (mostly Presbyterian) missionaries. These had a track record of oppression and abuse (separating children from their parents so they wouldn't learn their native languages was a big complaint of the natives among many others).
Anyway one of the things that happened as a result of the Purchase was huge numbers of conversions to Orthodoxy among the Tlingit. This is seen by one Tlingit writer as a reaction to their treatment by the Americans. His description of the general feeling of the Tlingit of that time was something like, "We didn't realize how good those guys' offer was, until we met these guys." There may have been a good bit of wishful remembering going on, too, of course
Maybe some of this dynamic can be seen happening in Africa, changing the names and the denominations? I don't know. Offered for consideration.
Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
I think that map proves the point. All the areas where we know there were Christians prior to Constantine are dark blue.
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
I think it shows that there were widespread pockets of Christianity. Probably something that could be said of many other cults at the time. This is inevitable in a polytheistic society.
So you missed the rest of the quote that I would hope you could engage with to continue this strand on the idea that there were only pockets of Christianity.
quote:
Originally part of the same post by mdijon:
Your argument rests on the light blue being all the areas where we are sure there were no Christians. Seems unlikely though given the limits of historical evidence back 2k years. It's more likely we simply don't know enough to be sure. For instance the UK has some uncertain evidence of Christianity among the Celts, and also spread among the Roman occupants.
So seeing such widespread dark blue really indicates widespread Christianity. Constantine's conversion was arguably as influenced by the power politics that Christianity was already relevant to as much as the influence being the other way around.
Then on a parallel strand of the discussion;
quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
But if you ask Africans what the positive experience of their Christianity is they'll tell you a different story.
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
I heard an American comedian say he was grateful for slavery, as it meant he was in America rather than Africa. Which misses the mark by a mile and at least one alternate universe.
Sure it does. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't listen to a whole large bunch of Africans because one American comedian missed the point.
[ 03. July 2017, 04:47: Message edited by: mdijon ]
Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
Maybe some of this dynamic can be seen happening in Africa, changing the names and the denominations? I don't know. Offered for consideration.
There was certainly an influx of Church membership in East Africa after the end of colonialism.
What I'm less sure exists is a dynamic between two different occupying powers with different strands of Christianity on offer.
There is a dynamic between a more indigenous form of Christianity which is Pentecostal in flavour, and adopts a number of traditional African practices such as monthly all night vigils and more exuberant praise sessions and a more informal approach to church leadership versus the traditional RC and Anglican churches.
Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
[qb] As Mr Cheesy notes that is a fine line and easily crossed. (The ostensible justification of Crusading was not to force Christianity on the unwilling, but to stop Muslims (or Cathars) from persecuting Christians.
There is not a self-evident "fine line" at all.
If European military action against Muslims in eleventh century Palestine had been simply a matter of preventing Muslim mistreatment of Christianity and other non-Muslim religions (which had existed on and off for the preceding four and a half centuries) is would not have been crusading, and it would have been justifiable, but we all know it wasn't that simple.
Exactly.[/QB
I don't think you get it.
The Crusades did not represent the crossing of a thin line between a legitimate protecting of Christians and an illegitimate forcing of Christianity on (or simply slaughtering) Muslims and Jews (or forcing Western Christianity on Eastern Christianity as in the Fourth Crusade).
It is anachronistic to imagine that Crusaders had the remotest conception of protecting religious freedom along the lines of modern liberal pluralism.
The Crusades were launched (among other reasons) to protect Christians simply because, in the famous words of The Song Of Roland from an earlier crusading epoch: "Paynims are wrong, Christians are in the right".
The Crusades were the continuation of an existing religious tradition of killing non-Christians because they were not Christians.
There is not a single verse in the NT to justify it, and to try to argue in its defence that there is no NT verse specifically forbidding it is risible.
quote:
You and I might not think his death counted as persecution .
Precisely.
One swallow does not a summer, and one death does make a persecution - particularly when set against the hundreds of thousands of Albigensians killed.
quote:
One cannot defend avarice against generosity by reading a lecture on the vices of prodigality.
One cannot defend the use of a clear-sighted and laudable shame over Christendom's too frequent use of actual religious violence to deliberately overlook the fact that Christianity's foundation text does not contain one jot of justification for it.
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on
:
The parallel to Saint Peter the Martyr and the Vth Crusade that comes to mind is the assassination of Reynhard Heydrich and the liquidation of Lidice.
As for the Ist, chilialist Pope Urban II needed to unify Europe after the failure of the Carolingian dynasty left competing warrior knights rampaging across it. A manufactured external threat did the trick.
Posted by wild haggis (# 15555) on
:
Crusades was as much a land-grab as anything. If you know your history, it will be clear that Crusaders attacked Orthodox Christians as well as Moslems e.g. in Aya Sophia.
It's easy to give land grabbing by the west and tribal wars wherever they are, a label of "religious" just because each side espouses a particular creed. In fact many if not most of the perpetrators will have no idea whatsoever of the tenets of their espoused religion.
As to "our own" terrorists, one just needs to think of Mosley trying to raise the Nazi flag here in Britain not so long ago, or the Tartan Army, or the Welsh who burned holiday homes and even in Ireland (I was there during the Troubles), it was more a Nationalist/British war than religious. It just so happened that most of the Nationalists were RC - but not all, and most of the Loyalists were Protestant - but not all).
The EDL is evil, there is no 2 ways about it. It is not British! It excluded those of us who are Scots, Welsh or Northern Irish. Nor is it Christian. How many of them know the basic Christian beliefs or attend church.
ISIS has a warped view of Islam. Get yourself a modern translation of the Koran and dig to see what it says.
Whether a crime is "hate" or "terrorist" it is still a crime. Why waste time arguing about names.
We need to deal with folk who kill others just because they perceive them as different, whatever their nationality, backgrounds, beliefs or religious labels/ or not.
Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
I don't think you get it.
The Crusades did not represent the crossing of a thin line between a legitimate protecting of Christians and an illegitimate forcing of Christianity on (or simply slaughtering) Muslims and Jews (or forcing Western Christianity on Eastern Christianity as in the Fourth Crusade).
It is anachronistic to imagine that Crusaders had the remotest conception of protecting religious freedom along the lines of modern liberal pluralism.
Ye gods, what is your problem.
Looking at if from the perspective of 21 century, it looks anachronistic, but they weren't doing that. Instead they were looking at is from the perspective of the 11 and 12 century, when it seemed entirely consistent with the religion as they understood it.
quote:
The Crusades were launched (among other reasons) to protect Christians simply because, in the famous words of The Song Of Roland from an earlier crusading epoch: "Paynims are wrong, Christians are in the right".
The Crusades were the continuation of an existing religious tradition of killing non-Christians because they were not Christians.
Well.. no not really. It is quite true to say that the Crusades were deeply embedded in geopolitical plays, but it is over-simplistic to say that it was just about killing non-Christians.
quote:
There is not a single verse in the NT to justify it, and to try to argue in its defence that there is no NT verse specifically forbidding it is risible.
There is not a single verse to justify it if you read the text with the 21 century understanding that you have. It is clearly possible to read it with a 10 or 11 century understanding and to see the text supporting their actions.
quote:
One cannot defend the use of a clear-sighted and laudable shame over Christendom's too frequent use of actual religious violence to deliberately overlook the fact that Christianity's foundation text does not contain one jot of justification for it.
One cannot simply re-write history to suggest that people in the past would have been far better if they'd been a bit cleverer and had bothered to actually read the religious texts that they said they believed in.
I can't remember the proper word for this kind of faulty historical analysis, but in simple terms it is bollocks.
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by wild haggis:
Crusades was as much a land-grab as anything. If you know your history, it will be clear that Crusaders attacked Orthodox Christians as well as Moslems e.g. in Aya Sophia.
It's easy to give land grabbing by the west and tribal wars wherever they are, a label of "religious" just because each side espouses a particular creed. In fact many if not most of the perpetrators will have no idea whatsoever of the tenets of their espoused religion.
As to "our own" terrorists, one just needs to think of Mosley trying to raise the Nazi flag here in Britain not so long ago, or the Tartan Army, or the Welsh who burned holiday homes and even in Ireland (I was there during the Troubles), it was more a Nationalist/British war than religious. It just so happened that most of the Nationalists were RC - but not all, and most of the Loyalists were Protestant - but not all).
The EDL is evil, there is no 2 ways about it. It is not British! It excluded those of us who are Scots, Welsh or Northern Irish. Nor is it Christian. How many of them know the basic Christian beliefs or attend church.
ISIS has a warped view of Islam. Get yourself a modern translation of the Koran and dig to see what it says.
Whether a crime is "hate" or "terrorist" it is still a crime. Why waste time arguing about names.
We need to deal with folk who kill others just because they perceive them as different, whatever their nationality, backgrounds, beliefs or religious labels/ or not.
A modern translation of the Qu'ran is not the Qu'ran which can only be understood by being catechized in Arabic. In the minds of many, like SCIS today, the Crusades were a doomed desperate fulfilment of the totally misunderstood as prophecy apocalypse.
Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
Instead they were looking at is from the perspective of the 11 and 12 century, when it seemed entirely consistent with the religion as they understood it.
And that understanding, ie the use of religious violence, was wrong, ie inconsistent with the teaching of the NT, their foundation religious text.
Good history involves trying to understand why people acted in the way they did at the time because of their worldview/assumptions/ understandings.
But that is in no way inconsistent with believing that what they thought was mistaken and what they did was wrong - we, including you, make these judgements all the time.
quote:
The Crusades were launched (among other reasons) to protect Christians simply because, in the famous words of The Song Of Roland from an earlier crusading epoch: "Paynims are wrong, Christians are in the right".
The Crusades were the continuation of an existing religious tradition of killing non-Christians because they were not Christians.
quote:
Well.. no not really.
Well...yes really.
The religiously inspired slaughter of pagan Saxons by Charlemagne (whose reign is the background to The Song Of Roland) is an egregious but not unique example of it.
Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
So seeing such widespread dark blue really indicates widespread Christianity. Constantine's conversion was arguably as influenced by the power politics that Christianity was already relevant to as much as the influence being the other way around.
We disagree on what the divisions of blue mean. You are inferring from your POV. As, am I, I suppose. Though, having no horse in this race, I would prefer to think I am being more objective. Mightn't be.
quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
But if you ask Africans what the positive experience of their Christianity is they'll tell you a different story.
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
I heard an American comedian say he was grateful for slavery, as it meant he was in America rather than Africa. Which misses the mark by a mile and at least one alternate universe.
Sure it does. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't listen to a whole large bunch of Africans because one American comedian missed the point.
I am seeing they are missing the same point. They are viewing a whole lot of history through the endpoint of their faith. It neglects what has happened for the end result they think better than what it might have been.
Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
So seeing such widespread dark blue really indicates widespread Christianity. Constantine's conversion was arguably as influenced by the power politics that Christianity was already relevant to as much as the influence being the other way around.
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
We disagree on what the divisions of blue mean. You are inferring from your POV. As, am I, I suppose. Though, having no horse in this race, I would prefer to think I am being more objective. Mightn't be.
You keep dodging the 2nd paragraph. I'm not inferring from my POV, I'm presenting an argument. The light blue doesn't mean pre-Constantine evidence of absence, it means absence of evidence. At 2k years ago that means very little.
Also, to consider the history of Constantine's involvement with Christianity, he was responding to widespread dissent in his empire regarding the trinity. He wanted to bring the Arian/Catholic controversy to an end, as it was an impediment to a smoothly governed empire. That implies quite substantial sway held by both arguments, otherwise it would hardly have risen to the notice of the emperor.
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
I am seeing they are missing the same point. They are viewing a whole lot of history through the endpoint of their faith. It neglects what has happened for the end result they think better than what it might have been.
I think you are leaping to a conclusion of what they might be saying. Restricting myself to those that I know, many Africans would repudiate colonialism as a very bad thing that they could have done without, but nevertheless believe that Christianity is a good thing and appreciate the missionaries.
[ 04. July 2017, 04:15: Message edited by: mdijon ]
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
Well.. no not really.
Well...yes really.
This is the kind of vigorous, bold debate that really makes the Ship of Fools a great place to discuss religious topics.
Posted by Galloping Granny (# 13814) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
quote:
Originally posted by The Midge:
quote:
Originally posted by gorpo:
Not to mention a christian terrorist would have to be quite an heterodox christian, since nowhere in christian scriptures or in any known christian tradition it is ordered that christians kill enemies (let alone non-christians), and in fact, itīs a distinctive christian teaching to do the exact opposite.
Crusades.
Irrelevant.
There is not a single NT verse which teaches the use of violence on the part of Christians to protect or propagate their faith.
There is religious violence in the OT, but Christianity by definition supersedes and transcends the OT.
We have, of course, had that discussion before, for example to ask how many swords the disciples needed. Or, since the government is granted the power to wield the sword does that extend to a Christian government?
The Crusades are relevant on a couple of counts. First that the modern view that the Christian faith doesn't condone violence in the name of Christianity wasn't always held to be self-evident (it's among a list of things that includes slavery etc where Christians in previous generations found support in Scripture which we fail to see today). The particular relevance is when people start to dismiss claims by the majority of Muslims that they follow a religion of peace by pointing to a minority who justify violence from their scriptures, because we have our own minority who have done the same (the vast majority of which were in our past rather than present, but that's not particularly relevant IMO). Another relevant point is that the Crusades were a particular set of wars against Islam, and so any time some political leader in the West uses the word "crusade" it recreates that religious war feeling into the situation - so, though the second Iraq war was entirely political and economic (and, unjustified under any reasonable assessment) it gets seen as a religious war by Christians against Muslims when our political leaders start using the C word. Which plays straight into the narrative of the Islamic militants, reinforces their claim of the Christian west waging a war against Islam and attracts recruits to their cause.
If I weren't falling asleep I'd read to the end but...
How did the church justify the Crusades?
How many leaders/landowners collect an army and set off because it was a chance to win honour and glory (cf ISIS)?
Why did they slaughter Jews and Orthodox Christians on the way to the 'Holy Land'?
GG
Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
Well.. no not really.
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
Well...yes really.
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
This is the kind of vigorous, bold debate that really makes the Ship of Fools a great place to discuss religious topics.
Really?
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on
:
ISWYDD
Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
Well.. no not really.
Well...yes really.
This is the kind of vigorous, bold debate that really makes the Ship of Fools a great place to discuss religious topics.
Thanks for clarifying your idea of "vigorous, bold debate", which evidently consists of reproducing incidental comments from posts while deleting their substantive content.
In this case, it was the question of whether and how Charlemagne attempted to justify from the NT his massacre of Germanic heathen for not being Christian.
Any ideas?
Or does your post represent the extent of your capacity for contributing to a discussion of this particular religious topic?
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on
:
@GG, as I said previously, the Church was chilialiast. Millennialist. They were in the thrall of the 'prophecy' of Revelation and had to fulfil it.
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on
:
@KC. Why, how would he have needed to? By the C9th century there was no trace even of the radicalism of the Cappadocian Fathers half a millennium before, let alone Jesus.
Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
ISWYDD
That looks like Welsh but doesn't appear in my dictionary.
I guess it means I See What You Did [something]
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
ISWYDD
That looks like Welsh but doesn't appear in my dictionary.
I guess it means I See What You Did [something]
Dere. I can't even not typo when doing an acronym. Sigh.
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
Or does your post represent the extent of your capacity for contributing to a discussion of this particular religious topic?
Yeah, that must be it. I can see how those incapable of reading for content might see that.
What is so different with Charlemagne than any other Christian king killing heathens? Why would they need any other justification than the conquest of Canaan?
Posted by Matt Black (# 2210) on
:
"See those Saxon heads roll, folks!"
Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
You keep dodging the 2nd paragraph. I'm not inferring from my POV, I'm presenting an argument. The light blue doesn't mean pre-Constantine evidence of absence, it means absence of evidence. At 2k years ago that means very little.
And your argument is filing in with your preferred interpretation.
quote:
Also, to consider the history of Constantine's involvement with Christianity, he was responding to widespread dissent in his empire regarding the trinity. He wanted to bring the Arian/Catholic controversy to an end, as it was an impediment to a smoothly governed empire.
That is certainly one interpretation. Another is that Constantine was looking for things which would garner him support and/or legitimacy anywhere he could. He also once had a "vision" of himself as Apollo, ruling the world. He used whatever he could to gain advantage or bend perception. I am not arguing that Christianity wasn't present. It gained massive momentum because of Constantine. That it had spread beyond the original disciples is obvious. That it would have gained the massive size it has without Constantine, is not.
quote:
I think you are leaping to a conclusion of what they might be saying. Restricting myself to those that I know, many Africans would repudiate colonialism as a very bad thing that they could have done without, but nevertheless believe that Christianity is a good thing and appreciate the missionaries.
Of course Christians will look to the benefits of Christianity. Christianity is the predominant religion of black people in America. This does not negate the very negative way in which this came to be.
OK, I am not saying Christianity is a bad thing. This part of this thread is how Christianity came to Africa largely at the end of a gun barrel. That some missionaries did not espouse the negative aspects of gunboat conversion, they still benefited from it. Whether or not Christianity itself is a positive or negative is beside the point in this discussion.
Posted by chris stiles (# 12641) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
In this case, it was the question of whether and how Charlemagne attempted to justify from the NT his massacre of Germanic heathen for not being Christian.
Any ideas?
Why would he need to 'justify from the NT'. You are assuming your standards are adopted everywhere, always and by all (I assume part of MTs point is that it isn't even accepted today by all three major branches of Christianity)
He saw it as part of his role of defending the church from attack, by subduing the heathen that may overrun the realm in which the church existed.
Posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider (# 76) on
:
Exactly. Isn't "kill 'em all!" from Joshua, Samuel etc. sufficient?
I'd go as far as to say that the reason some are saying that justification must come from the NT is to avoid the problem that taking the whole Bible, including OT, it's all too easy to justify.
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on
:
It assumes two unlikely things:
1. Charlemagne went, "I need to justify my killing the Saxons biblically"
and
2. He also said, "and my justification must also be from only the NT and not the whole Bible."
Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
What is so different with Charlemagne than any other Christian king killing heathens? Why would they need any other justification than the conquest of Canaan?
Thank you.
Because a Christian (king or otherwise) by definition recognises that the NT supersedes and takes precedence over the OT (which is why you don't practise the OT sacrifices), and in NT terms religious violence is heretical.
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
What is so different with Charlemagne than any other Christian king killing heathens? Why would they need any other justification than the conquest of Canaan?
Thank you.
Because a Christian (king or otherwise) by definition recognises that the NT supersedes and takes precedence over the OT (which is why you don't practise the OT sacrifices), and in NT terms religious violence is heretical.
By YOUR definition. Hey guess what? For most of history nobody cared about your definition.
Posted by Sioni Sais (# 5713) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
What is so different with Charlemagne than any other Christian king killing heathens? Why would they need any other justification than the conquest of Canaan?
Thank you.
Because a Christian (king or otherwise) by definition recognises that the NT supersedes and takes precedence over the OT (which is why you don't practise the OT sacrifices), and in NT terms religious violence is heretical.
The NT may supersede and take precedence over the OT but it does not replace it. The OT is still there although the means by which we observe it is now by the Spirit, not the letter.
Posted by Crsos (# 238) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Sioni Sais:
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
What is so different with Charlemagne than any other Christian king killing heathens? Why would they need any other justification than the conquest of Canaan?
Thank you.
Because a Christian (king or otherwise) by definition recognises that the NT supersedes and takes precedence over the OT (which is why you don't practise the OT sacrifices), and in NT terms religious violence is heretical.
The NT may supersede and take precedence over the OT but it does not replace it. The OT is still there although the means by which we observe it is now by the Spirit, not the letter.
It's the sliding scale of hermeneutics. If you agree with something in the Old Testament then it's still theologically valid. (A lot of Dead Horse issues seem to be justified this way.) On the other hand if you disagree with something then it has to be affirmatively asserted in the New Testament, or by the direct statements of Jesus in the Gospels, or whatever standard of strenuousness gets you to the 'right' answer. For example, religious violence is heretical because Jesus never explicitly said anything like "I did not come to bring peace, but a sword".
Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
And your argument is filing in with your preferred interpretation.
Why do you think I have a preferred interpretation? And when will you engage in the argument rather than your view of my motives in making it?
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
That is certainly one interpretation. Another is that Constantine was looking for things which would garner him support and/or legitimacy anywhere he could.
Yes, Constantine gave Christianity massive momentum, as you say later, but it's worth reflecting on what went before. If Christianity gave him legitimacy it implies it was already quite powerful.
It's also worth remembering that the Valentinian dynasty saw the rise of Arians again, and Julian brought back paganism.
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
This part of this thread is how Christianity came to Africa largely at the end of a gun barrel. That some missionaries did not espouse the negative aspects of gunboat conversion, they still benefited from it.
If that is the focus of your argument I still find it simplistic. Look at the examples I gave above of Christianity in Freetown and in Coastal Kenya. Those were hardly at the end of a gun barrel. A lot of the spread of Christianity in East Africa occurred before colonialism, and the greatest church growth in Kenya occurred after independence. Very substantial church growth has involved Pentecostal and free church denominations outside the mainstream that were not promoted during colonial rule.
[ 05. July 2017, 04:55: Message edited by: mdijon ]
Posted by chris stiles (# 12641) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
Because a Christian (king or otherwise) by definition recognises that the NT supersedes and takes precedence over the OT (which is why you don't practise the OT sacrifices), and in NT terms religious violence is heretical.
There are a number of embedded assumptions in your description above.
Looking it at from the view of a hypothetical Charlemagne; The material that addresses the behaviour of governments in the NT would mainly come from the section on how Christians should deal with governments in Romans, where there's a tangential description of the PTB as ordained by God to maintain order. Of course there are descriptions elsewhere on how illegitimate power is confronted - but then his task is to be a legitimate power and faithfully carry out the work described in Romans. Part of which would - of course - consist of defence of the realm. Of course if the Saxons wished to convert - and sometimes they did - they would be handled differently, but until then his task was to wield the sword and maintain order. He would not have recognised your description of such actions being 'religious violence'.
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on
:
KC. We all agree. Christendom isn't Christian. Never has been. Remotely. How could it be? Marcus Aurelius was the last and best 'Christian' king in Europe.
[ 05. July 2017, 09:46: Message edited by: Martin60 ]
Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Crsos:
"I did not come to bring peace, but a sword".
Yep, that's a real clincher.
Looked at in its context, this verse unambiguously presents Jesus teaching that Christians should kill all obdurate heathen and heretics.
Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
Yep, that's a real clincher.
Looked at in its context, this verse unambiguously presents Jesus teaching that Christians should kill all obdurate heathen and heretics.
And now try to understand it from a context of regularly hearing Joshua.
You seem to be suggesting here that only yours is the natural understanding of the text.
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
quote:
Originally posted by Crsos:
"I did not come to bring peace, but a sword".
Yep, that's a real clincher.
Looked at in its context, this verse unambiguously presents Jesus teaching that Christians should kill all obdurate heathen and heretics.
You know Jesus was actually just using a figure of speech, as was his wont, and being unintentionally prophetic. To the literal minded from Constantine onwards at least, through the Crusades and the conquest of the Americas by nothing but members of the catholic church who destroyed African civilization to work that new world with slaves for nearly 400 years, it was utterly unambiguous. Despite Vatican teaching.
Internecine violence between overt Christians is the norm in European history you know. More so than Christian violence against non-Christians. Did you know that? Admittedly good Christians like Efraín Ríos Montt, a Pentecostal Evangelical, escalated the war against leftist guerilla insurgents as a holy war against atheistic "forces of evil". Hundreds of thousands died.
It's WJWHD obviously.
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
Yep, that's a real clincher.
Looked at in its context, this verse unambiguously presents Jesus teaching that Christians should kill all obdurate heathen and heretics.
And now try to understand it from a context of regularly hearing Joshua.
You seem to be suggesting here that only yours is the natural understanding of the text.
More broadly, the only natural hermeneutic. "Only look at the NT when determining acceptable behaviours" isn't how every Christian reads the Bible. Indeed even the people who profess this hermeneutic often apply it selectively, as Barnabas has pointed out. Be that as it may it remains true that this is not the only possible hermeneutic, and reading it back into European religious wars dating back to Constantine is more than a little anachronistic, if not egoistic.
Posted by Crsos (# 238) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
quote:
Originally posted by Crsos:
"I did not come to bring peace, but a sword".
Yep, that's a real clincher.
Looked at in its context, this verse unambiguously presents Jesus teaching that Christians should kill all obdurate heathen and heretics.
You know Jesus was actually just using a figure of speech, as was his wont, and being unintentionally prophetic.
Well yes. No one who reads that passage thinks Jesus is talking about a physical, made of metal sword.
Posted by Matt Black (# 2210) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
Admittedly good Christians like Efraín Ríos Montt, a Pentecostal Evangelical, escalated the war against leftist guerilla insurgents as a holy war against atheistic "forces of evil".
His brother was in charge of the Truth Commission charged with investigating his crimes. That must had made for interesting family reunions round the dinner table...
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Crsos:
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
quote:
Originally posted by Crsos:
"I did not come to bring peace, but a sword".
Yep, that's a real clincher.
Looked at in its context, this verse unambiguously presents Jesus teaching that Christians should kill all obdurate heathen and heretics.
You know Jesus was actually just using a figure of speech, as was his wont, and being unintentionally prophetic.
Well yes. No one who reads that passage thinks Jesus is talking about a physical, made of metal sword.
I'm hoist with my own ironic petard. And therefore take you at face value Sir. Christendom has behaved as if He were mind.
[ 05. July 2017, 19:13: Message edited by: Martin60 ]
Posted by Russ (# 120) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
if I disagree with Catholicism and label that "wrong" is blowing up Catholics vigilantism rather than terrorism?
If you use violence against Catholics in the belief that you are justly punishing their individual wrongdoing, then yes that's vigilantism.
If you use violence against Catholics in response to feelings of hate that you experience, that's just ordinary crime. Or hate-crime if you believe that's a meaningful category. Which is worse.
If you use violence against Catholics in an attempt to pressure the Vatican into changing its policy, that's terrorism. Which is worse again.
I fully appreciate that the difference may seem pretty academic to the Catholics on the receiving end of the violence.
But I don't see anything useful coming out of this sloppy interchangeability between any type of violence you can think of.
Seems like the proposition we're discussing is whether terrorism is intrinsically unChristian. In a way that it isn't intrinsically unIslamic.
We've had lots of examples of nominally-Christian states committing acts of war, of terrorists from Christian countries (including the one I live in) carrying out atrocities without religious motive, of Christian vigilantes.
But to my mind none of those quite make it as "Christian terrorism". To my mind that's a contradiction.
Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
And when will you engage in the argument rather than your view of my motives in making it?
I have been. We disagree on what the lack of evidence means.
quote:
Yes, Constantine gave Christianity massive momentum, as you say later, but it's worth reflecting on what went before. If Christianity gave him legitimacy it implies it was already quite powerful.
No. It implies it existed and he used it. That it was well known enough to be of use is a reasonable inference. That it was powerful? Not without more evidence.
quote:
It's also worth remembering that the Valentinian dynasty saw the rise of Arians again, and Julian brought back paganism.
Paganism had not left the empire, true. And that early Christian sects battled it out is also true. Doesn't change the legitimising force of Constantine.
I'm not saying Christianity could not have spread without the force of the state. I am saying it didn't. I think the preponderance of evidence leads this way. The same is true of Judaism and Buddhism. Likely any major religion, as well.
quote:
Look at the examples I gave above of Christianity in Freetown and in Coastal Kenya. Those were hardly at the end of a gun barrel.
Free town was settled by freed American slaves who got their Christianity how?
[QB][QUOTE]
A lot of the spread of Christianity in East Africa occurred before colonialism, and the greatest church growth in Kenya occurred after independence. Very substantial church growth has involved Pentecostal and free church denominations outside the mainstream that were not promoted during colonial rule.
Look, I am not saying that every person or group was forced to convert. I am saying that force was a major component in the predominance of Christianity in Africa and that the legacy of colonialism is entangled in it.
Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
Yep, that's a real clincher.
Looked at in its context, this verse unambiguously presents Jesus teaching that Christians should kill all obdurate heathen and heretics.
And now try to understand it from a context of regularly hearing Joshua.
You seem to be suggesting here that only yours is the natural understanding of the text.
Charlemagne might well have interpreted it in the light of Joshua, but if he did, he was wrong.
Its immediate context is a pericope about family members disagreeing over Christ, and its broader context is that of Christ's teaching in the Gospels, where he nowhere condones religious violence.
It's nothing to do with my understanding, but with recognised hermeneutical and exegetical principles, on the basis of which it would be impossible to see in the verse an exhortation to, or toleration of, religious violence.
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
It's nothing to do with my understanding, but with recognised hermeneutical and exegetical principles, on the basis of which it would be impossible to see in the verse an exhortation to, or toleration of, religious violence.
Recognized by whom, and when?
Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
Charlemagne might well have interpreted it in the light of Joshua, but if he did, he was wrong.
Using the categories of right/wrong seem to me to be a different question. Obviously I agree that the theology of violence is wrong otherwise I wouldn't be a pacifist.
But the issue I'm having with what you are writing is you insistence that these things are self-evidently wrong.
They're not.
quote:
Its immediate context is a pericope about family members disagreeing over Christ, and its broader context is that of Christ's teaching in the Gospels, where he nowhere condones religious violence.
No. But the scriptures are only ever understood in a particular context.
quote:
It's nothing to do with my understanding, but with recognised hermeneutical and exegetical principles, on the basis of which it would be impossible to see in the verse an exhortation to, or toleration of, religious violence.
No it isn't, don't talk garbage.
Fair enough to say that one theology is right and another wrong - but total shite to claim that there is a single recognised hermeneutical principle that is obvious to everyone backwards into history if they had bothered to study the bible enough.
The history of Christianity is of various theologies that make sense. Theologies that seek to harmonise the OT and NT, theologies that seek to explain the differences, theologies that are heavily influenced by the contemporary context. The question is not whether there is a single "recognised hermeneutical and exegetical" theology that everyone in their right mind would recognise as correct - because it is the only one that adds up and ticks all the boxes.
There are loads of theologies available that can do that.
The challenge is to identify reasons for thinking that some are bollocks, not for simply standing on a soapbox and declaring that your pet idea is self-evidently correct without any reasoning.
Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
We disagree on what the lack of evidence means.
I characterized your argument as claiming that lack of evidence was in fact evidence of absence. Are you sure that isn't a bit of a reach with near 2000 year old history?
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
It implies it existed and he used it. That it was well known enough to be of use is a reasonable inference. That it was powerful? Not without more evidence.
Maybe not powerful, but certainly a major issue for the empire with numerous and widespread converts. I'm not denying that Constantine was a turning point that made Christianity powerful in the empire, I am denying though that without Constantine Christianity wouldn't have been widespread in the Roman empire.
By any definition the first dark blue map is widespread (although with puzzling gaps that apparently get filled in under Constantinian sponsorship). And by all accounts Christianity (albeit Arian) did pretty well under the Goths, who weren't influenced by Constantine.
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
Look, I am not saying that every person or group was forced to convert. I am saying that force was a major component in the predominance of Christianity in Africa and that the legacy of colonialism is entangled in it.
Sure, I can agree to that. I would balance it with several observations I've made but won't belabour again. A parallel conversation to consider would be if I made a bald statement that force was a major component in the predominance of Buddhism in China and the legacy of the Tang dynasty is entangled in it. Technically true but made without context not much more than half the story.
Posted by beatmenace (# 16955) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
By any definition the first dark blue map is widespread (although with puzzling gaps that apparently get filled in under Constantinian sponsorship). And by all accounts Christianity (albeit Arian) did pretty well under the Goths, who weren't influenced by Constantine.
And also the Church of the East who separated from Rome quite early on and seemed to be more associated with being persecuted than persecuting different flavours of Christian. Achieved remarkable growth even reaching India and China.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_of_the_East
The article doesnt suggest they achieved their growth by identifying with the armies of Empire,although being recognised by the Persian Empire probably helped their ideas get disseminated.
No doubt someone with more background in history might be able to fill that out as i am but an Internet Scholar these days.
Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
total shite to claim that there is a single recognised hermeneutical principle that is obvious to everyone backwards into history if they had bothered to study the bible enough.
Patristic (eg Augustine's) allegorical/typological exposition of the Bible is shite.
Mediaeval interpretations of verses such as Matthew 10:34 which justify religious violence are shite.
Hermeneutical/exegetical relativism is shite.
Modern grammatical-historical exegesis is by no means a perfect science, and certainly cannot guarantee replicable, agreed upon conclusions, but the alternatives are shite.
Which is not to say that there is no value in studying the history of biblical scholarship, and trying to get inside the heads of our ancestors to understand why they thought as they did - in the same way as it is worth trying to comprehend why people once believed in phlogiston.
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
total shite to claim that there is a single recognised hermeneutical principle that is obvious to everyone backwards into history if they had bothered to study the bible enough.
Patristic (eg Augustine's) allegorical/typological exposition of the Bible is shite.
Mediaeval interpretations of verses such as Matthew 10:34 which justify religious violence are shite.
Hermeneutical/exegetical relativism is shite.
Modern grammatical-historical exegesis is by no means a perfect science, and certainly cannot guarantee replicable, agreed upon conclusions, but the alternatives are shite.
Which is not to say that there is no value in studying the history of biblical scholarship, and trying to get inside the heads of our ancestors to understand why they thought as they did - in the same way as it is worth trying to comprehend why people once believed in phlogiston.
Nice dodge. I think cheesy's (implied) question was a good one and was looking forward to your answer. Misplaced trust?
Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
Misplaced trust?
Fight the temptation to react with misanthropic cynicism for the rest of your life.
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
Misplaced trust?
Fight the temptation to react with misanthropic cynicism for the rest of your life.
I see. Another dodge. Misplaced trust it is, then.
Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
Patristic (eg Augustine's) allegorical/typological exposition of the Bible is shite.
Mediaeval interpretations of verses such as Matthew 10:34 which justify religious violence are shite.
Hermeneutical/exegetical relativism is shite.
Modern grammatical-historical exegesis is by no means a perfect science, and certainly cannot guarantee replicable, agreed upon conclusions, but the alternatives are shite.
Oddly, perhaps, I generally agree with this sentiment. But it isn't really the point I was making.
quote:
Which is not to say that there is no value in studying the history of biblical scholarship, and trying to get inside the heads of our ancestors to understand why they thought as they did - in the same way as it is worth trying to comprehend why people once believed in phlogiston.
So why are you insisting that it is so clear they are wrong, no question, no debate, no evidence offered?
My view us that they were wrong, but that they had good reasons to think that, including a body if theological thought. It's not good enough to simply dismiss them as bad theologians.
Posted by Jamat (# 11621) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
total shite to claim that there is a single recognised hermeneutical principle that is obvious to everyone backwards into history if they had bothered to study the bible enough.
Patristic (eg Augustine's) allegorical/typological exposition of the Bible is shite.
Mediaeval interpretations of verses such as Matthew 10:34 which justify religious violence are shite.
Hermeneutical/exegetical relativism is shite.
Modern grammatical-historical exegesis is by no means a perfect science, and certainly cannot guarantee replicable, agreed upon conclusions, but the alternatives are shite.
Which is not to say that there is no value in studying the history of biblical scholarship, and trying to get inside the heads of our ancestors to understand why they thought as they did - in the same way as it is worth trying to comprehend why people once believed in phlogiston.
Nice dodge. I think cheesy's (implied) question was a good one and was looking forward to your answer. Misplaced trust?
Why is this a dodge? Kaplan Corday has identified several flawed approaches that some may use. Hermeneutical approaches are all about the assumptions underlying the conclusions.
There are principles such as:
When the plain sense makes sense no other sense need be sought. This is mainly where I get my literalism from.
Then there is the law of double reference which observes the fact that a passage May speak of different persons or events separated in time. An eg is Zechariah 9:9-10. V9 refers to the first coming of Christ and v10 refers to the second. The two are blended so that there is no obvious time gap. This is only clear in retrospect. Another eg of the same point is Is 11:1-5.
Another is the law of recurrence. This is where there are several descriptions of the same event but subsequent descriptions adding detail. An eg is in Eze 38:1-23 and Exe 39:1-16 which repeats the first account but adds detail.
Then of course, there is context. Without a context you usually have a pretext. An eg is Zechariah 13:2-6. It is often taken as a reference to Christ but v6 tells us that it is about false prophets. Consequently it cannot refer to him unless he is a false prophet.
I suppose none of these apply if your underlying assumption is that OT scripture is an inconsistent Bronze Age collection of random Jewish writings and records.
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on
:
What fool straw man would?
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
Why is this a dodge? Kaplan Corday has identified several flawed approaches that some may use. Hermeneutical approaches are all about the assumptions underlying the conclusions.
But the challenge wasn't to identify failed approaches. The challenge was to defend his approach as paraphrased by mr cheesy:
quote:
there is a single recognised hermeneutical principle that is obvious to everyone backwards into history if they had bothered to study the bible enough.
Talking about other approaches is a dodge.
(If cheesy's paraphrase was bad, that would have been a non-dodgy thing to point out.)
Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on
:
Also, y'know, if there is an Evangelical hermeneutical approach which means that we in the 21 century have finally got to the right answer having proven beyond any question that those in the 6th, 8th, 15th etc centuries were completely and fundamentally wrong - then why doesn't this apply to all the other DH issues?
It seems like the most vociferous supporters of the status quo are those who like to try to point to it being "biblical" and "the thing that Christians have always believed" but then suddenly when it comes to things that people in the past believed but that we now think is wrong - oh well then they've got the wrong end of the "recognised hermeneutical and exegetical" that everyone obviously agrees with.
Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
Also, y'know, if there is an Evangelical hermeneutical approach which means that we in the 21 century have finally got to the right answer having proven beyond any question that those in the 6th, 8th, 15th etc centuries were completely and fundamentally wrong - then why doesn't this apply to all the other DH issues?
You are making very weather over something on which we all agree: that Christians in the past got some things wrong and some things right.
No-one thinks that everything in the Christian past was all correct or all wrong.
Rather banal and truistic, I'm afraid, but obviously needed to be said.
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
Sure, it needed to be said, but equally what mr cheesy and Mousethief and Martin 60 wrote also needed to be said.
To some extent there's some 'talking past each other' going on here but also a shed load of assumptions from those of a more conservative bent. I say that as someone who is theologically conservative.
For instance, Jamat claims to get his literalism from the text itself. No he doesn't, he applies that literalism to the text, or, rather, the text becomes a vehicle for his literalism.
Granted, the interaction between reader and text is more complicated than how I've described it there, but it's a lot more dynamic than picking up a text and taking it at face value - if such a thing were possible.
There's also the assumption that we have to have some kind of proof-text to hang everything on. Atheists and agnostics believe religiously motivated violence to be wrong. They don't need to cite a NT verse to come to that conclusion.
Charlemagne's violence was wrong not because there's a particular verse condemning it but because it goes against the tenor of the thrust of Christ's teaching and example - although he and his contemporaries wouldn't have necessarily thought so at the time. Not because they were shite theologically, necessarily, but because they operated within the thought patterns of their time - as we all do.
Sometimes they got things right, sometimes they got things wrong. We can't expect them to have applied later standard of biblical scholarship or interpretation. That doesn't condone or justify what they did, but it does set it in context.
In 150 or 200 years time Christians might look back at us and say, 'Heck, those 21st century Christians, what were they thinking? Couldn't they see X, Y or Z or that this, that or the other wasn't in line with the broad thrust of received tradition or the teaching of scripture?'
Posted by chris stiles (# 12641) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
Charlemagne's violence was wrong not because there's a particular verse condemning it but because it goes against the tenor of the thrust of Christ's teaching and example - although he and his contemporaries wouldn't have necessarily thought so at the time.
Actually, this is the original point that was being made. Charlemagne would have thought his violence was divinely sanctioned, and so in that sense it's completely correct to attach the tag 'Christian' to it. You and I may (and Kaplan) may think that he was completely wrong, but that's neither here no there.
[ 08. July 2017, 08:51: Message edited by: chris stiles ]
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by chris stiles:
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
Charlemagne's violence was wrong not because there's a particular verse condemning it but because it goes against the tenor of the thrust of Christ's teaching and example - although he and his contemporaries wouldn't have necessarily thought so at the time.
Actually, this is the original point that was being made. Charlemagne would have thought his violence was divinely sanctioned, and so in that sense it's completely correct to attach the tag 'Christian' to it. You and I may (and Kaplan) may think that he was completely wrong, but that's neither here no there.
Of course, I get that - and it was partly the point I was making / underlining.
It would no more have occurred to Charlemagne to think otherwise than it would occur to you or I (and Kaplan) that his violence was divinely sanctioned.
If he'd needed a proof-text, as Kaplan assumes he would have done, then he'd have found it in Romans 13:4:
http://biblehub.com/romans/13-4.htm
We wouldn't agree that the Saxons were 'wrong-doers' simply for remaining pagan instead of converting to Christianity, but Charlemagne and his contemporaries would have done.
I'm simply making the obvious point that we all interpret these texts through the lens of our particular traditions and world-view.
None of it is 'neutral'.
None of it is a 'plain-meaning of the text.'
There is no such thing as a value-free reading of the text, whether it's The Sun, The Guardian, Left-handed Plumbers Weekly or the Gospels.
That doesn't diminish the status of the NT as an inspired text or holy writ. Far from it. It's simply to acknowledge how these things work.
Posted by Russ (# 120) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
the interaction between reader and text is more complicated than how I've described it there, but it's a lot more dynamic than picking up a text and taking it at face value - if such a thing were possible.
Yes it's complicated.
Seems to me that the vast majority of text does have a plain meaning. And that learning a language equips someone to decipher that plain meaning.
Sure, some text has additional levels of meaning (e.g double entendre) and sometimes the plain meaning is not the intended one (e.g. sarcasm). Deciphering these involves cultural familiarity above & beyond knowing the language.
But we tend to be (?rightly?) suspicious of those who go against the plain meaning.
Who wants to be in the position of explaining to their boss why they disregarded the plain meaning of his instructions in order to follow some other interpretation of his words ? Or if someone is a member of our group only by a non-plain interpretation of the words that define us, is he really one of us ?
quote:
In 150 or 200 years time Christians might look back at us and say, 'Heck, those 21st century Christians, what were they thinking? Couldn't they see X, Y or Z or that this, that or the other wasn't in line with the broad thrust of received tradition or the teaching of scripture?'
That Christians often go along with ideas of the culture/place/time in which they find themselves is no big news. And baptise them, and own the result. Clearly there's a temptation (for anyone who believes in a Creator) to see the status quo as God-given.
But that's not the same thing as a religion leading the secular power. If 25th-century Christians deny the direction that 21st-century Christianity tries to take the world in, then you have to ask whether "Christian" (unqualified by time and place) has any meaning at all.
Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Russ:
Seems to me that the vast majority of text does have a plain meaning. And that learning a language equips someone to decipher that plain meaning.
Right. The idea that a modern person can easily translate a document of oral tradition and third hand accounts written in at least 3 different languages at least 2 millennia ago is patent bullshit. Even assuming it was all meant to have a "plain meaning" when it originated.
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on
:
Bliss. To understand the Qu'ran, first learn Arabic and then divest oneself of all Western thinking. Period. Perform all of its 'plain' abrogated requirements. THEN you will begin to 'understand'. The same with any tradition. I choose the Incarnation with a postmodern perspective. Your milage WILL vary.
[ 09. July 2017, 17:48: Message edited by: Martin60 ]
Posted by chris stiles (# 12641) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
None of it is a 'plain-meaning of the text.'
There is no such thing as a value-free reading of the text, whether it's The Sun, The Guardian, Left-handed Plumbers Weekly or the Gospels.
I don't dispute any of this - the point is that Kaplan's argument is primarily that such differing readings are therefore not 'Christian' in some essential way that mean that its impossible to describe Charlmagne's violence as 'Christian violence'
To which I'd say that this is not how most people have in fact constructed their theologies historically.
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
Indeed.
Posted by Russ (# 120) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by chris stiles:
Kaplan's argument is primarily that such differing readings are therefore not 'Christian' in some essential way that mean that its impossible to describe Charlmagne's violence as 'Christian violence'
To which I'd say that this is not how most people have in fact constructed their theologies historically.
If you want to use the phrase 'Christian violence" then perhaps you should make clear what you mean by it. Does it include, for example,
- violence perpetrated by soldiers who are Christians, acting under orders from their lawful superiors ?
- violence as part of the normal way of treating enemies, using the distinction Christian/nonChristian as the way to determine who are friends and who are enemies ?
- violence as a God-given imperative within the Christian belief system.
Because Jesus had something to say about how to treat one's enemies...
Posted by Soror Magna (# 9881) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Russ:
...
Because Jesus had something to say about how to treat one's enemies...
Yeah, but nobody actually follows Jesus' instructions regarding enemies. If peace and non-violence are an intrinsic part of Christianity, they've been well hidden under a bushel these last two millennia. (Just war, anybody?)
But if they are, this makes any violence committed by Christians even more egregious. After all, if a religion is (supposedly) intrinsically violent, then naturally, the faithful will engage in violence. If a religion is ostensibly non-violent but its followers are constantly finding reasons to be violent, it's clearly a religion that worships hypocrisy above all else.
quote:
CANDIDE (Raising his eyes to heaven, in furious despair). Is there no end? Must men always ravish, massacre? Must they always be brigands, cut-throats, cheats, rapists, fanatics, hypocrites and murderers?
DR. VOLTAIRE (As disembodied voice). Have sparrow-hawks not always slaughtered the pigeons that come their way? Why should what applies to pigeon-hawks not apply to men?
CANDIDE. But surely Man who was chosen by God as his image on earth . . .
DR. VOLTAIRE. His image! Maybe this is his image!
Candide, the 1973 libretto by Hugh Wheeler
Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by chris stiles:
the point is that Kaplan's argument is primarily that such differing readings are therefore not 'Christian'
No, my point is that readings of NT passages can be more or less credible on grammatical-historical principles of interpretation.
This does not mean that we can produce a list of black and white wrongs and rights, but it certainly means the possibility of some distinctively darker and lighter greys.
If Charlemagne did in fact try to justify slaughtering pagan Saxons on the basis of Romans 13:4, then he was wrong, as many Christians have been, and are, on many issues, because Paul was writing about a pagan government punishing criminals, and nothing in the rest of the NT states or implies any reason for using it to condone the killing of heretics or unbelievers.
The epistemological relativism (or nihilism) which says that any statement can mean anything or everything, and therefore nothing, might amuse and impress undergraduates doing literary theory courses, b ut no-one else takes it seriously, and it is sheer sophistry to pretend that it is a viable hermeneutic.
In Hume's famous words in the face of the impracticability of a radical and consistent scepticism: "Most fortunately it happens, that since reason is incapable of dispelling these clouds, nature herself suffices to that purpose, and cures me of this philosophical melancholy and delirium, either by relaxing this bent of mind, or by some avocation, and lively impression of my senses, which obliterate all these chimeras. I dine, I play a game of backgammon, I converse, and am merry with my friends; and when after three or four hours amusement, I would return to these speculations, they appear so cold, and strained, and ridiculous, that I cannot find in my heart to enter into them any farther"
Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
If Charlemagne did in fact try to justify slaughtering pagan Saxons on the basis of Romans 13:4, then he was wrong, as many Christians have been, and are, on many issues, because Paul was writing about a pagan government punishing criminals, and nothing in the rest of the NT states or implies any reason for using it to condone the killing of heretics or unbelievers.
So once again you are repeating the same point: these were not proper Christians and didn't know their bibles and didn't have sophisticated theology.
quote:
The epistemological relativism (or nihilism) which says that any statement can mean anything or everything, and therefore nothing, might amuse and impress undergraduates doing literary theory courses, b ut no-one else takes it seriously, and it is sheer sophistry to pretend that it is a viable hermeneutic.
It is a simple fact that proper Christians justified their crusades with reference to the bible. It is only you who seem to be wanting to claim that they lacked a viable hermeneutic because you disagree with it.
quote:
In Hume's famous words in the face of the impracticability of a radical and consistent scepticism: "Most fortunately it happens, that since reason is incapable of dispelling these clouds, nature herself suffices to that purpose, and cures me of this philosophical melancholy and delirium, either by relaxing this bent of mind, or by some avocation, and lively impression of my senses, which obliterate all these chimeras. I dine, I play a game of backgammon, I converse, and am merry with my friends; and when after three or four hours amusement, I would return to these speculations, they appear so cold, and strained, and ridiculous, that I cannot find in my heart to enter into them any farther"
You seem unable to distinguish between things you disagree with on one hand and viable hermeneutics on the other.
I'm starting to doubt your ability to identify viable hermeneutics and suspect you don't really have any idea of what those words mean yond "a theology I agree with".
Posted by Jamat (# 11621) on
:
quote:
It's a simple fact that proper Christians justified their crusades with reference to the bible. It is only you who seem to be wanting to claim that they lacked a viable hermeneutic because you disagree with i
It's also a simple fact that the NT writers would have abhorred such actions as crusades for obvious reasons. No apostle advanced social action or political or military power to advance the gospel and this only happened many centuries after the NT era when the church was thoroughly corrupt. Consequently, it's a safe bet that 'proper' Christians were few and far between at the time of Charlemagne. The medieval Papal church did not need any hermeneutic beyond its own authority.
Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
It's also a simple fact that the NT writers would have abhorred such actions as crusades for obvious reasons.
That's sort-of besides the point - given that none of us have a direct line to the Apostles, determining what they would have thought about anything is an interpretation.
quote:
No apostle advanced social action or political or military power to advance the gospel and this only happened many centuries after the NT era when the church was thoroughly corrupt.
You know this isn't an argument, right? This is just "the church has been thoroughly corrupted until it recently came around to my way of thinking".
Also, once again, it's irrelevant. The question is not whether one can make a theological argument that the crusades were wrong (of course I believe one can, given that I'm a pacifist) the question is whether those who believed in war were proper Christians.
It astounds me the levels to which people make excuses. They weren't proper Christians, they didn't read the bible enough, they didn't have a valid hermeneutic, the church was corrupted.
A simpler explanation is that they were proper Christians and they understood the scriptures within a context of state religion and warfare.
quote:
Consequently, it's a safe bet that 'proper' Christians were few and far between at the time of Charlemagne. The medieval Papal church did not need any hermeneutic beyond its own authority.
You don't even recognise that this is a circular argument, do you? I give up.
Posted by chris stiles (# 12641) on
:
[The original claim that started this particular thread was that "a christian terrorist would have to be quite an heterodox Christian".]
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
No, my point is that readings of NT passages can be more or less credible on grammatical-historical principles of interpretation.
and again, as a number of people have pointed out, there is no universal consensus that this should be primary principle by which a text should be interpreted - it isn't even universal among the writers of the NT.
quote:
The epistemological relativism (or nihilism) which says that any statement can mean anything or everything, and therefore nothing, might amuse and impress undergraduates doing literary theory courses, b ut no-one else takes it seriously
![[Roll Eyes]](rolleyes.gif)
This has nothing to do with a purely intellectual exercise, or attempting to find a specious excuse for a particular set of behaviours. Christians in the past coming to the text with fear, trembling and reverence, and believing the work of interpretation to have eternal bearing, have nonetheless come to conclusions that are different to the ones that you come to.
Posted by Jamat (# 11621) on
:
quote:
You don't even recognise that this is a circular argument, do you? I give up.
You probably should since you are in the strange little bubble that seems to argue that despite scripture being quite definitive on apostolic opinion, we can only doubt that they believed what they definitively wrote. Yep, give up.
If the argument is what is a proper Christian, which is a term I would not choose, then be my quest, define it. If you think the term can be validly used for any kind of behaviour legitimised by the medieval church then that is risible.
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
quote:
It's a simple fact that proper Christians justified their crusades with reference to the bible. It is only you who seem to be wanting to claim that they lacked a viable hermeneutic because you disagree with i
It's also a simple fact that the NT writers would have abhorred such actions as crusades for obvious reasons. No apostle advanced social action or political or military power to advance the gospel and this only happened many centuries after the NT era when the church was thoroughly corrupt. Consequently, it's a safe bet that 'proper' Christians were few and far between at the time of Charlemagne. The medieval Papal church did not need any hermeneutic beyond its own authority.
So the apostles didn't endorse God's assassination of Herod Agrippa by biological warfare? Or the Holy Spirit's hits on Ananias and Sapphira? Or the use of two hundred Roman infantry, two hundred spearmen and seventy cavalrymen to defend Paul? Let alone the looming massacre of humanity you look forward to in your flat, literal, cookbook, a-contextual, chilialist interpretation of Revelation.
[ 10. July 2017, 09:55: Message edited by: Martin60 ]
Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
You probably should since you are in the strange little bubble that seems to argue that despite scripture being quite definitive on apostolic opinion, we can only doubt that they believed what they definitively wrote. Yep, give up.
If the argument is what is a proper Christian, which is a term I would not choose, then be my quest, define it. If you think the term can be validly used for any kind of behaviour legitimised by the medieval church then that is risible.
It seems to me that there is an effort amongst some to claim that violence is a normal and standard interpretation of various religions including Islam but somehow abnormal when talking about Christianity.
And then we have claims about how violence is not justified obviously - because of "hermeneutical principles" and "because the apostles obviously didn't believe in it".
It is just an effort to claim that the only real and proper Christians are those you says are real and proper Christians. And which handily means you can disown violence perpetuated by Christians.
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
The point, of course, whether we like it or not, is that Charlemagne would have probably considered his actions completely in line with Romans 13:4 and so would most of his contemporaries I suspect.
Why? Because they didn't have a proper hermeneutic? Because they were part of a nasty, corrupt medieval Church?
Or was it simply because they lived when they did and that's how people thought. We have no idea whatsoever whether the Apostle Paul would have agreed with Charlemagne or not because the Apostle Paul lived in the first century not the 9th century.
We have no idea whatsoever whether Paul would have agreed or disagreed, because he was writing about a completely different context, pagan rulers rather than some kind of Christianised state, a situation that couldn't have been envisaged in the 1st century as the Christian movement had yet to attain critical mass.
On balance, I suspect he'd have disagreed but I say that not on the basis of proof-texts but because he was expecting the imminent end of the world most of the time and also because it fits my own bias and world-view for him not to have done.
I submit that this is the real reason that Kaplan and Jamat object to the idea too - because they are approaching the issue in the same way as I am - and the rest of us are - as post-Enlightenment, 21st century people not as Charlemagne did as an 8th or 9th century Frankish king with imperial ambitions and pretensions.
We are all of us projecting our own values and presuppositions here.
At least some of us are aware of that and aren't pretending we're going by the naked text or the plain-meaning of scripture.
Yes, I believe that Charlemagne's actions are incompatible and not at all commensurate with the overall thrust and tenor of the NT. But I can only say that because I live here in the 21st century and not in 8th or 9th century France.
Sure, it's not just evangelical Protestants who have an issue with Charlemagne. He's a baddy as far as most of the Orthodox are concerned because he tried to revive the Western Empire as a rival to the Byzantines and had a lot to do with what they see as the development of an overweening Papacy.
The irony, of course, is that some of those Orthodox who are the most critical of Charlemagne and those nasty, evil Popish Franks wouldn't be anywhere near as critical of Ivan the Terrible or of various cut-throat Byzantine emperors ...
But however we cut it, our shared repugnance at the actions of medieval rulers like Charlemagne is based on a lot more than simply thinking he didn't do enough Bible study or that his hermeneutic was wonky.
I really don't understand why we have to be so anachronistic as to suppose that Charlemagne was doing any other than acting in consistency with the prevailing world-view of his time. That doesn't condone or justify it, of course.
But neither is it to say, 'Look, I've got a better hermeneutic and a clutch of proof-texts and that's all there is to it.'
Taking about Franks, I'm frankly surprised that Kaplan thinks it's as simplistic as that. We're entering Jamat territory again. The Forestry Commission approach to scripture. Wooden.
Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
It seems to me that there is an effort amongst some to claim that violence is a normal and standard interpretation of various religions including Islam but somehow abnormal when talking about Christianity.
Now we're exposing the subtext to this discussion.
The fact is that some people find it very threatening that a very strong case can be made for religious violence from the Koran, but that no valid argument at all for religious violence can be made from the NT, and therefore they fight tooth and nail, and perform the most amazing hermeneutical and exegetical gymnastics, in order to avoid the latter.
{QUOTE]It is just an effort to claim that the only real and proper Christians are those you says are real and proper Christians. And which handily means you can disown violence perpetuated by Christians. [/QUOTE]
Nope.
There is no problem at all in recognising and acepting that real religious violence has been perpetrated by real Christians, and at the same believing that they were wrong to do it and to think that they were right.
Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
Now we're exposing the subtext to this discussion.
The fact is that some people find it very threatening that a very strong case can be made for religious violence from the Koran, but that no valid argument at all for religious violence can be made from the NT, and therefore they fight tooth and nail, and perform the most amazing hermeneutical and exegetical gymnastics, in order to avoid the latter.
Now we are exposing the bullshit in this discussion. When Christians use only the NT, your argument might have validity. But as of today, this is not true.
Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
I really don't understand why we have to be so anachronistic as to suppose that Charlemagne was doing any other than acting in consistency with the prevailing world-view of his time.
No-one (not I, at any rate) is suggesting otherwise.
So were RCs who burned Protestants and Jews, and Calvin when he burned Servetus.
But that worldview was wrong, and based on a wrong (conscious or unconscious) hermeneutic.
I am flabbergasted at your and Mr Cheesy's inability to keep two perfectly compatible concepts in your heads at the same time: first, that good history involves trying to get inside the heads of history's actors in an effort to understand why they acted as they did, but secondly, that good history can equally involve making intellectual and moral assessments of their weltanschauung (or zeitgeist).
It is not a matter of tout comprendre c'est tout pardonner, or of simplistic historical relativism.
Posted by Jamat (# 11621) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
quote:
It's a simple fact that proper Christians justified their crusades with reference to the bible. It is only you who seem to be wanting to claim that they lacked a viable hermeneutic because you disagree with i
It's also a simple fact that the NT writers would have abhorred such actions as crusades for obvious reasons. No apostle advanced social action or political or military power to advance the gospel and this only happened many centuries after the NT era when the church was thoroughly corrupt. Consequently, it's a safe bet that 'proper' Christians were few and far between at the time of Charlemagne. The medieval Papal church did not need any hermeneutic beyond its own authority.
So the apostles didn't endorse God's assassination of Herod Agrippa by biological warfare? Or the Holy Spirit's hits on Ananias and Sapphira? Or the use of two hundred Roman infantry, two hundred spearmen and seventy cavalrymen to defend Paul? Let alone
Ok Martin apples with apples?
Are we saying God's actions of judgement supernaturally engineered and recorded in scripture are the same as Man's acts of political aggression promoted by rapacious popes BECAUSE they are perpetrated falsely in God's name?
Did Paul insist on military protection from being torn apart by an angry Jewish mob or did the authorities of the time deem it wise?
quote:
the looming massacre of humanity you look forward to in your flat, literal, cookbook, a-contextual, chilialist interpretation of Revelation.
That is a beautiful piece of poetic fiction. I just had to enjoy it twice.
Posted by Jamat (# 11621) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
Now we're exposing the subtext to this discussion.
The fact is that some people find it very threatening that a very strong case can be made for religious violence from the Koran, but that no valid argument at all for religious violence can be made from the NT, and therefore they fight tooth and nail, and perform the most amazing hermeneutical and exegetical gymnastics, in order to avoid the latter.
Now we are exposing the bullshit in this discussion. When Christians use only the NT, your argument might have validity. But as of today, this is not true.
KC specifies the NT because Christ changed the rules regarding worship, obeying God and the necessity for observances. Ask any Jew if Christianity exists in the OT?
In the medieval period, the Catholic church and its popes claimed as they do now to be 'Vicarius Christus,' or acting in the place of Christ. Their supposed provenance came from the fiction of Peter as initial pope, a fabrication based entirely on a couple of New Testament verses badly exegeted. Consequently, you cannot with honesty, claim that papal conquests, crusades or persecutions or wars commanded at their behest or with their encouragement are merely a continuation of the OT ways of doing things.
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
I am constantly amazed at your apparent inability to read for comprehension, Kaplan.
What you are saying would be the case if either mr cheesy or myself were condoning or excusing Charlemagne, the Crusades or the medieval Popes.
Nowhere have we done so. We have both stated that we believe their actions to have been misguided, reprehensible and wrong.
The point I'm trying to make is that the kind of value judgement involved in that is based on a wider set of criteria than biblical exegesis taken in isolation - if such a thing were even possible.
Mr cheesy has stated that he is a pacifist. His pacifism will operate and be informed in a symbiotic relationship with his hermeneutic and his world-view more generally. Of course, you'd agree with that I'm sure. Mr cheesy is both a pacifist and a Christian. Other Christians are not pacifists in the way mr cheesy is.
All Christians have access to the same texts. Not all Christians have interpreted those texts in a way that leads them to adopt a pacifist position. Whatever else that tells us it tells us that there are other factors and criteria at play and that Christians come to different conclusions in good faith.
Evangelical Christians owned slaves. Other evangelical Christians campaigned to abolish slavery. Josiah Wedgwood was an abolitionist. He was also a Unitarian. What do we do? Condemn his Unitarianism or applaud his abolitionism?
If we applaud Calvin for his Trinitarian theology that doesn't mean we condone his role in the trial of Servetus.
We don't condemn the Apostle Paul - although some do - for his apparent acquiescence and acceptance of slavery as an institution - and I'd say the biblical evidence for Paul's position is ambiguous - but we approach and interpret the NT references to slavery in the context of the times. That doesn't mean we endorse or justify slavery - although there are some white Southern US fundagelicals who certainly do ...
The only point I'm making is that there's more going on than apparently straight forward exegesis.
Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
But that worldview was wrong, and based on a wrong (conscious or unconscious) hermeneutic.
I am flabbergasted at your and Mr Cheesy's inability to keep two perfectly compatible concepts in your heads at the same time: first, that good history involves trying to get inside the heads of history's actors in an effort to understand why they acted as they did, but secondly, that good history can equally involve making intellectual and moral assessments of their weltanschauung (or zeitgeist).
My point is far more basic than you are suggesting - to wit that it is not only possible to have a "viable hermeneutic" that justifies violence, but that it is actually quite hard to make Christianity peaceful.
I would agree that the hermenutic is wrong. I don't accept that this is just because of my cultural baggage, although I do agree that my understanding of the scriptures has necessarily been affected by my culture and that those living in other eras were affected by theirs. I think my understanding of a peaceful Christianity is better than the violent crusader version.
But this isn't the point I was making, despite your continued efforts to make it so.
The point is that there are "viable hermeneutics" where Christians justify various kinds of violence. That it is entirely reasonable to believe the bible as scripture and hold those positions. That a bible-believing Christian is just as likely to be violent as a Koran-believing Muslim - and that there is a mirror image of the effort it takes to make Islam peaceful as to make Christianity peaceful.
quote:
It is not a matter of tout comprendre c'est tout pardonner, or of simplistic historical relativism.
I never said anything about relavitism as far as I know. I'm simply objecting to the ideas that you're expressing which suggest that yours is the only "viable hermeneutic" and that if those who engaged in the crusades had thought a bit harder they'd have come over to your point of view because it is plainly obvious that the scriptures are peaceful. They're not.
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
I'm not sure anyone here is suggesting that those things are a legitimate continuation of the OT either, Jamat.
Again, it would be nice if people read for comprehension.
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
quote:
It's a simple fact that proper Christians justified their crusades with reference to the bible. It is only you who seem to be wanting to claim that they lacked a viable hermeneutic because you disagree with i
It's also a simple fact that the NT writers would have abhorred such actions as crusades for obvious reasons. No apostle advanced social action or political or military power to advance the gospel and this only happened many centuries after the NT era when the church was thoroughly corrupt. Consequently, it's a safe bet that 'proper' Christians were few and far between at the time of Charlemagne. The medieval Papal church did not need any hermeneutic beyond its own authority.
So the apostles didn't endorse God's assassination of Herod Agrippa by biological warfare? Or the Holy Spirit's hits on Ananias and Sapphira? Or the use of two hundred Roman infantry, two hundred spearmen and seventy cavalrymen to defend Paul? Let alone
Ok Martin apples with apples?
Are we saying God's actions of judgement supernaturally engineered and recorded in scripture are the same as Man's acts of political aggression promoted by rapacious popes BECAUSE they are perpetrated falsely in God's name?
Did Paul insist on military protection from being torn apart by an angry Jewish mob or did the authorities of the time deem it wise?
quote:
the looming massacre of humanity you look forward to in your flat, literal, cookbook, a-contextual, chilialist interpretation of Revelation.
That is a beautiful piece of poetic fiction. I just had to enjoy it twice.
Which part?
We are saying that the attribution to God of political assassination is false. There was nothing supernatural about it.
Oranges.
Posted by Huia (# 3473) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by simontoad:
How about criminals who clothe their insanity/personality disorder/general dissatisfaction with their place in the world by doing a Hakka before they commit an atrocity so as to identify themselves with the separatists on the South Island of New Zealand?
The word is haka and Kai Tahu the largest Iwi in Te Wai Pounamu (the largest 'tribe' in the South Island) have traditionally been the most peaceful - apart from that, the story you spin needs a taniwha, or two.(supernatural creatures like serpents or dragons)
And don't use the haka the All Blacks use, it is still forbidden on some Kai Tahu Marae because the writer massacred whole villages of people down here.
Huia
[ 11. July 2017, 07:39: Message edited by: Huia ]
Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
The point is that there are "viable hermeneutics" where Christians justify various kinds of violence. That it is entirely reasonable to believe the bible as scripture and hold those positions.
Absolutely.
But we are not talking about "various kinds of violence", but specifically about religious violence (ie the use of state violence by Christians to kill heretics and unbelievers) which is simply not taught in the NT.
Christians have done it, but only by betraying their religion.
That doesn't mean that that they weren't "really" Christians, but that in this particular at least, they got it wrong.
[ 11. July 2017, 10:19: Message edited by: Kaplan Corday ]
Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on
:
So what was the theological justification for the crusades?
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
The point is that there are "viable hermeneutics" where Christians justify various kinds of violence. That it is entirely reasonable to believe the bible as scripture and hold those positions.
Absolutely.
But we are not talking about "various kinds of violence", but specifically about religious violence (ie the use of state violence by Christians to kill heretics and unbelievers) which is simply not taught in the NT.
Christians have done it, but only by betraying their religion.
That doesn't mean that that they weren't "really" Christians, but that in this particular at least, they got it wrong.
So has God.
Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
Absolutely.
Good, so we're agreed that your comments previously about viable hermeneutics were completely wrong.
quote:
But we are not talking about "various kinds of violence", but specifically about religious violence (ie the use of state violence by Christians to kill heretics and unbelievers) which is simply not taught in the NT.
I'm not sure we were talking about that in particular, but let's run with it.
If you have an hermeneutic that says Jesus is a "greater than you can possibly imagine" version of Joshua (which isn't really so hard to do), then it isn't really too much of a leap to imagine that the Kingdom he was bringing in was a perfect version of the state described in Judges. And then it isn't too difficult to see oneself as needing to act as the state the violence implicit in the system.
I don't actually think it is so hard to incorporate the New Testament into this way of thinking and don't really see that it requires much shoehorning. If you read the gospels in the light of Joshua, you might get the idea that the new Kingdom to be established is indeed one where the heretics are burned and opposition is destroyed. And it isn't really so hard to see the peaceful message of Christ in terms of the afterlife and personal devotion.
It's a viable hermeneutic. Just saying you don't like it doesn't make it disappear in a puff of logic.
quote:
Christians have done it, but only by betraying their religion.
Nope.
quote:
That doesn't mean that that they weren't "really" Christians, but that in this particular at least, they got it wrong.
That's a different thing.
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on
:
Excellent. First class.
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
The point is that there are "viable hermeneutics" where Christians justify various kinds of violence. That it is entirely reasonable to believe the bible as scripture and hold those positions.
Absolutely.
But we are not talking about "various kinds of violence", but specifically about religious violence (ie the use of state violence by Christians to kill heretics and unbelievers) which is simply not taught in the NT.
Christians have done it, but only by betraying their religion.
That doesn't mean that that they weren't "really" Christians, but that in this particular at least, they got it wrong.
Yes, they got it wrong.
But at the risk of being accused of relativism, they got it wrong for entirely different reasons for those you've cited.
Arguably, they didn't 'betray' their religion at all, because their religion wasn't based on the same premise that you are using ie, that there has to be a NT proof-text for everything.
The NT doesn't teach animal husbandry, metallurgy, motorcycle maintenance nor how to run a political state. So of course it's not going to teach that it's ok to execute heretics or unbelievers.
However, Charlemagne and other medieval rulers wouldn't have seen any inconsistency whatsoever in applying Romans 13:4 or OT 'types' such as Joshua and the conquest of Canaan to their contemporary application of polity.
Neither did the Pilgrim Fathers in New England, come to that. They justified the massacre of Pequod non-combatants in the 1630s by referring to the Book of Joshua.
Sure, I agree with you that state-sanctioned religious violence is wrong. But I agree with you precisely because my hermeneutic isn't a million miles from yours and that I'm a post-Enlightenment, 21st century Protestant Christian and not an 8th or 9th century medieval Catholic one.
Can't you see what I'm saying?
It's all very well and good waving post-Reformation assumptions around when we are dealing with pre-Reformation forms of Christianity that had a different hermeneutic.
That doesn't mean that Roman Catholics or Orthodox - non-Reformed / non-reformed Christians would all agree that Charlemagne was within his rights to execute those Saxons who refused to convert.
Heck, I've seen enough Orthodox people online denigrating Charlemagne and the medieval West for religious coercion whilst protesting (falsely) that the Christian East never went in for religious coercion or the execution of heretics ...
Some of these folk would cry blue murder about Charlemagne and the medieval Papacy but start making excuses / special pleading when it comes to Ivan The Terrible or some of the more draconian Byzantine Emperors.
We can all be selective that way.
The Pilgrim Fathers had a hermeneutic that was closer to yours but that didn't stop them killing Pequod non-combatants and then looking to the scriptures for justification.
Oliver Cromwell had a hermeneutic that was closer to yours - as well as an Independent ecclesiology to match - and that didn't stop him writing, 'God made them as stubble to our swords,' nor from justifying the massacre of the garrisons of Drogheda and Wexford plus priests and monks and anyone else who happened to get in the way - although the RC clergy present do seem to have been specifically targeted rather than victims of 'collateral damage.'
Would I be letting Cromwell off the hook by saying that what he did was consistent with the rules of warfare at that time ie that a garrison that continued to resist once the walls had been breached had effectively no 'right' to sue for quarter?
No, I wouldn't.
He expressed regret for the deaths of townspeople and non-combatants but took the pragmatic view that the slaughter - regrettable as it was - hastened the end of Royalist resistance in Ireland.
The dropping of Atomic Bombs on Hiroshima and Nagaski were justified in a similar way closer to our time.
Saying that Charlemagne 'betrayed' his religion makes no sense whatsover - any more than that it makes sense for those fundagelical Protestants and ultra-conservative RCs and Orthodox I've come across who maintain that it's the jihadist Islamist terrorists who are closer to the teachings of the Quran than those moderate and 'apostate' Muslims who don't engage in jihad.
What's all that about?
They are setting themselves up as judge and jury not only on who is a 'proper' Christian but also on who is or isn't a 'proper' adherent of another faith.
They are not allowing room or space for there to be Muslims who see things in anything other than black-and-white Islamist terms.
Ok, I know you're not saying that - but it's something I hear a lot from the more conservative sections of both evangelicalism and traditional Roman Catholicism and the more hyperdox sections of Orthodoxy.
It would have made no more sense for Charlemagne to consider that his actions were inconsistent with scripture than it would to expect him to believe that the earth orbits the sun or that Australia existed.
You are taking your own hermeneutic, universalising it and applying it to people who lived centuries before that particular hermeneutic came into existence.
Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
KC specifies the NT because Christ changed the rules regarding worship, obeying God and the necessity for observances.
Once again for those of impaired cognition and/or focus: Christianity doesn't exclude the OT from its practice or justifications, Jesus said he wasn't displacing it∴ it is an active part of Christianity. One that cannot be waived away when inconvenient or switched on or off depending upon what one wishes to justify.
quote:
Ask any Jew if Christianity exists in the OT?
In the medieval period, the Catholic church and its popes
Cute, but the medieval church is your church unless you are orthodox.
Posted by Jamat (# 11621) on
:
quote:
Once again for those of impaired cognition and/or focus
Gratuitous insults are suddenly permitted here?
Please be civil.
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
@Lil Buddha, one of the things I have yet to whop cognitively impaired Orthodox over the head with - and I'm not referring to any Orthodoxen currently active on these boards - is the fact that as Charlemagne predates 1054 AD he is effectively part of 'their' Church too ...
So they can't distance themselves from Charlie that easily and pretend he's got nothing to do with them ...
It's a funny thing, but we can all be selective of course. The Orthodox are very quick to lay claim to all the pre-Schism Western Saints, but they are less quick (with justification) to acknowledge any linkage with Western figures of whom they disapprove ... such as Charlemagne ...
I don't begrudge them the Western Saints at all, not that it's within my 'gift' to determine whose Saints are whose ... but if they're going to have them then they also need to acknowledge (as many of them do, of course) that not everything pre-Schism was hunky-dory whether East, West or in the middle ...
Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
quote:
Once again for those of impaired cognition and/or focus
Gratuitous insults are suddenly permitted here?
Please be civil.
It is insulting to suggest a lack of focus? I have mentioned the inconsistency of application of the OT more than once and there has been no cogent response. Given it is directly relevant to to KC's statements, I thought, perhaps, others might have lost sight of it.
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
@Lil Buddha, one of the things I have yet to whop cognitively impaired Orthodox over the head with - and I'm not referring to any Orthodoxen currently active on these boards - is the fact that as Charlemagne predates 1054 AD he is effectively part of 'their' Church too ...
Everyone's hands are bloody. It is a dodge to suggest "sins of the past" and/or a disconnect with particular people/groups when one's own uses similar reasoning to do things Jesus pretty evidently would disapprove of.
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
@Lil Buddha, one of the things I have yet to whop cognitively impaired Orthodox over the head with - and I'm not referring to any Orthodoxen currently active on these boards - is the fact that as Charlemagne predates 1054 AD he is effectively part of 'their' Church too ...
So they can't distance themselves from Charlie that easily and pretend he's got nothing to do with them ...
Yes and no. Charlemagne was declared Roman Emperor when there already was a Roman emperor -- in an attempt to steal the center of empire away from the dynasty in Constantinople. It was a deliberate slap in the face to the Orthodox Church and the Byzantine court. That the Emperor happened to be an Empress at the time does not excuse the breach. The coronation of Charlemagne was an invitation to schism. That it took another 250 years before the breach was official is historical accident.
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
Sure. Not even the apparently peaceful Buddhists are as peaceable as one might expect them to be.
I can't think of any Christian group that hasn't got something or other to be ashamed of, although obviously some Christian traditions have been less violent than others ...
Meanwhile, at the risk of a tangent, I've been wondering why and on what grounds Kaplan supposes his particular hermeneutic to be universal and binding and somehow operational from the outset ... only to be lost or set aside at some stage down the line.
Where does this idea come from?
How do we know that 1st century Christians apparently operated using a 16th century/post 16th century hermeneutic?
I see no evidence whatsover to suggest they did.
That doesn't legitimise Charlemagne's actions or jiggery-pokery carried out in the name of Big T Tradition or any of the small t traditions ...
But it seems a pretty big assumption to make.
I'm not saying I've never thought about it before, but this thread has set the issue in sharp relief.
Kaplan assumes that it's incontrovertible that the early Christians operated with broadly the same kind of hermeneutic as he does.
On what basis?
How can he prove that they did?
Just curious, that's all ...
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
@Lil Buddha, one of the things I have yet to whop cognitively impaired Orthodox over the head with - and I'm not referring to any Orthodoxen currently active on these boards - is the fact that as Charlemagne predates 1054 AD he is effectively part of 'their' Church too ...
So they can't distance themselves from Charlie that easily and pretend he's got nothing to do with them ...
Yes and no. Charlemagne was declared Roman Emperor when there already was a Roman emperor -- in an attempt to steal the center of empire away from the dynasty in Constantinople. It was a deliberate slap in the face to the Orthodox Church and the Byzantine court. That the Emperor happened to be an Empress at the time does not excuse the breach. The coronation of Charlemagne was an invitation to schism. That it took another 250 years before the breach was official is historical accident.
Ok, but as far as I am aware, the jurisdiction of Byzantine Emperors and Empresses didn't extend to what had been the Western Roman Empire, which collapsed after 476 AD.
Some of your Orthodox co-religionists can be rather anachronistic in that respect, I find.
Some, but not all, talk as if the indigenous in the British Isles were somehow officially part of one or t'other of the Patriarchates in the East, rather than churches that were temporarily disconnected from the Roman Patriarchate for a while.
Sure, the mission of St Augustine of Canterbury in 597 AD was partly intended to reconnect the indigenous British churches with Rome - and if Bede is to be believed, Augustine was quite arsey to the Welsh bishops ...
But St David of Wales is said to have made pilgrimage to Rome in the 5th/6th century and for all the Orthodox rhetoric about the lovely Anglo-Saxon Church being clobbered by the nasty Papacy and its Norman lackeys (and yes, the Normans booted out all but one I think of the pre-Conquest bishops), King Alfred spent time in Rome as a boy. He didn't spend time in Constantinople.
Don't get me wrong, I'd side with the Orthodox over against an over-weening Papacy (although I think some of the Athonite monks make the late Rev Ian Paisley look like the wishy-washiest of ecumenists) but at the same time I think they over-egg the pudding ...
Rightly or wrongly, Charlemagne tried to revive the Western Roman Empire - as the Holy Roman Empire which, as any schoolboy knows, has been described as 'neither holy, Roman nor an empire ...'
What should he have done instead? Sworn fealty to the Empress and submitted to Byzantine rule?
The Roman Empire had been in two parts for some time before its collapse in the West. It seems to be that some kind of separation was going to be inevitable sooner or later.
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on
:
Most of the adherents of the "Orthodox Britain" fantasy put the moment that the dirty nasty stinking Papists clobbered the good wholesome righteous Orthodox at the Council of Whitby (664). And they will admit that the pro-Rome party was a growing faction (largely in the London/Canterbury sector) up till that time, but insist that the hinterlands were Orthodox.
It's not entirely a bunch of hooey, as there are some affinities there, especially in the monasteries. But it's predominantly hooey. There certainly was no ecclesial or even epistolary link.
It's an artifact of the people who talk about the capture of the Roman papacy by the northern Europeans (I forget the word they use as a synecdoche -- Goths? Visigoths? something.) Again there are bits of truth, but a whole lot more wishful thinking.
[ 11. July 2017, 19:46: Message edited by: mousethief ]
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on
:
Anent Charlemagne declaring himself HRE, it might have stung less in the Capital if he had included "Western" or "Latin" in there. Also if they hadn't explicitly said he was replacing Empress whatsername because she was a woman. On their own account they were claiming provenance over the East as well as the West.
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
Sure. Although the seeds of later overweening Papacy were undoubtedly there, the Pope was to all intents and purposes the Western Patriarch at that time and as Orthodox as the other Patriarchs.
If I were RC at this stage I'd be pointing out the parallels between Orthodox and Protestant historical fantasy la-la land.
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
Sure. Although the seeds of later overweening Papacy were undoubtedly there, the Pope was to all intents and purposes the Western Patriarch at that time and as Orthodox as the other Patriarchs.
If I were RC at this stage I'd be pointing out the parallels between Orthodox and Protestant historical fantasy la-la land.
Oh yes. The Catholics say the Orthodox were the first Protestants. The Orthodox say the Pope was the first Protestant. (I forget which one -- the first to claim provenance over all other patriarchs rather than primacy inter pares. Which was actually surprisingly early.)
Posted by Jane R (# 331) on
:
And you're still protesting about it... does that mean we're *all* Protestants? ![[Two face]](graemlins/scot_twoface.gif)
Posted by Jamat (# 11621) on
:
quote:
It is insulting to suggest a lack of focus? I have mentioned the inconsistency of application of the OT more than once and there has been no cogent response. Given it is directly relevant to to KC's statements, I thought, perhaps, others might have lost sight of it.
You did more than that with your insinuation..and you know it.
Your query re the application of the OT has been answered. You apparently do not understand the answer.
No one denies the OT use of force or uses it to justify 'Christian' medieval conquests. It is my position on this that such wars instigated by the medieval Catholic church are indefensible in Christian terms because nothing in the NT urges Christians to be militarily or politically active. The furthest it goes is that Christians need to remember the poor, wives and husbands should stay together, and slaves, if they have the opportunity to become free, should do so. There is no hermeneutic that could possibly allow a war of aggression and you have to work really hard to even justify self defence. Jesus admonished his followers to turn the other cheek and go 2 miles with the chap who could legally oblige them to go one.
Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on
:
Wow. Swing and a miss.
Regarding violence, modern Christians use the Bible as justification for violence.
But my point was more broad than violence and it is difficult to credit that a reasonable functioning adult could miss it so many times.
Christians use the OT to justify multiple issues that don't appear to be supported by Jesus. Until they don't, dismissing other OT as a factor is not a valid argument.
Posted by Jamat (# 11621) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
Wow. Swing and a miss.
Regarding violence, modern Christians use the Bible as justification for violence.
But my point was more broad than violence and it is difficult to credit that a reasonable functioning adult could miss it so many times.
Christians use the OT to justify multiple issues that don't appear to be supported by Jesus. Until they don't, dismissing other OT as a factor is not a valid argument.
You seem to like assertions of generalised ignorance.
Yes, the OT is relevant to Christianity which is light years from saying Christians endorse acts of political aggression. You probably are incapable of linking something 'christians' justify from the OT to a justification of a war of aggression but have go if you think you can.
Posted by Nick Tamen (# 15164) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
Wow. Swing and a miss.
Regarding violence, modern Christians use the Bible as justification for violence.
But my point was more broad than violence and it is difficult to credit that a reasonable functioning adult could miss it so many times.
Christians use the OT to justify multiple issues that don't appear to be supported by Jesus. Until they don't, dismissing other OT as a factor is not a valid argument.
You seem to like assertions of generalised ignorance.
Yes, the OT is relevant to Christianity which is light years from saying Christians endorse acts of political aggression. You probably are incapable of linking something 'christians' justify from the OT to a justification of a war of aggression but have go if you think you can.
This is sounding a lot like a No True Scotsman argument. It seems pretty undeniable that many Christians throughout history have endorsed wars of aggression and other acts of violence, and they have cited the OT and the NT to justify that violence. So the answer is that they were not True Christians?
Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
You seem to like assertions of generalised ignorance.
Need to work with the audience I have, not the audience I want.
quote:
Yes, the OT is relevant to Christianity which is light years from saying Christians endorse acts of political aggression. You probably are incapable of linking something 'christians' justify from the OT to a justification of a war of aggression but have go if you think you can.
I don't need to, it has been so used since at least the 4th century. I'm not saying it should be used this way, but it has consistently over Christianity's history.
And again you miss the broader point. Christians use the OT to justify their prejudices. Look in Dead Horses if you doubt. I'll need to go and look, but I'm fairly certain you have made arguments doing this very thing.
Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
You seem to like assertions of generalised ignorance.
Yes, the OT is relevant to Christianity which is light years from saying Christians endorse acts of political aggression. You probably are incapable of linking something 'christians' justify from the OT to a justification of a war of aggression but have go if you think you can.
The curious part of this argument is that the NT says nothing about creationism or other DH arguments - and yet you persist in making them as if the OT is ultimately authoritative.
I put it to you that you've got a self-selecting group of ideas from the OT you think are authoritative and another group you think are not relevant.
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Nick Tamen:
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
Wow. Swing and a miss.
Regarding violence, modern Christians use the Bible as justification for violence.
But my point was more broad than violence and it is difficult to credit that a reasonable functioning adult could miss it so many times.
Christians use the OT to justify multiple issues that don't appear to be supported by Jesus. Until they don't, dismissing other OT as a factor is not a valid argument.
You seem to like assertions of generalised ignorance.
Yes, the OT is relevant to Christianity which is light years from saying Christians endorse acts of political aggression. You probably are incapable of linking something 'christians' justify from the OT to a justification of a war of aggression but have go if you think you can.
This is sounding a lot like a No True Scotsman argument. It seems pretty undeniable that many Christians throughout history have endorsed wars of aggression and other acts of violence, and they have cited the OT and the NT to justify that violence. So the answer is that they were not True Christians?
Da DAH! Jamat is the only true one.
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
And however we cut it, we are all selective and our responses are influenced and conditioned by whatever Christian tradition / Tradition has influenced us the most.
So Orthodox Christians will tut-tut about Charlemagne but may resort to special-pleading when it comes to Ivan the Terrible (although I know plenty who think Ivan was a psychopath ...)
So evangelical or Reformed Protestants may fulminate against the violence used by the RC Spanish Conquistadores and um and ah and try to wriggle out of acknowledging the religious violence deployed by the Puritans in New England ... (Although many of course would readily acknowledge that too).
And there are gradations and shades along each of those spectrums (spectra?) ...
It's exactly the same when it comes to hermeneutics.
We each of us imagine our own to be the default one. Which is the point I've been trying to make to Kaplan and which seems to have 'flabbergasted' him.
I'm just as flabbergasted that he doesn't appear to realise that he's making a whole set of assumptions and presuppositions about how people 'should' approach and interpret the scriptures ie. the way he does - without taking into account the way previous generations handled these issues - ie. differently to him.
Or at least, whilst he acknowledges that he doesn't seem to realise / accept that things have never been the way he thinks they should have been.
If I'm doing him an injustice then he can correct me.
Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
If you read the gospels in the light of Joshua
If you read the NT in the light of the OT , then you have the precise opposite of what Christianity consists of.
{QUOTE]It's a viable hermeneutic. Just saying you don't like it doesn't make it disappear in a puff of logic.[/QUOTE]
It's a crap hermeneutic, and it has nothing to do one way or the other with whether or not I like it.
What's more, your argument is not only crap, but hypocritical, because you yourself admit that such a hermeneutic is invalid.
Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on
:
Sigh. This is so dull, constantly repeating your inane position doesn't make it interesting.
Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
dismissing other OT as a factor
No-one is dismissing the OT as a factor.
Christianity involves interpreting the OT in the light of the NT.
So, for example, "thou shalt not steal" remains valid because it is supported by the NT, and the sacrificial system of the Tabernacle and Temple is rendered obsolete because the NT teaches that it has been fulfilled and superseded by Christ.
It's not rocket surgery.
Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
It's exactly the same when it comes to hermeneutics.
We each of us imagine our own to be the default one.
We (you and I and Mr Cheesy and all contemporary Christians with even minimal theological awareness), don't merely "imagine" but know that much of the exegesis and hermeneutics in church history was shonky.
I challenge you to look me in the eye and state without a blush that you honestly believe that Augustine's allegorisation of a parable such as the Good Samaritan, or (and I have actually come across this) the teaching that the four anchors of Acts 27:29 represent prayer, Bible-reading, church fellowship, and I forget the fourth, which stabilise the ship of the Christian life, are, on the relativistic grounds that any interpretation is as good as another, as good an exposition of those passages (because the people who invented them thought so at the time) as the exposition of them by any recognised Bible scholar.
You can't do it, because you know that it is anti-intellectual obscurantism - not to say, bullshit.
Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
the Holy Roman Empire which, as any schoolboy knows, has been described as 'neither holy, Roman nor an empire ...'
I fear that about as many schoolboys know Voltaire's opinion of the HRE today, as knew "who imprisoned Montezuma and who strangled Atahualpa" in Macaulay's day.
Ichabod, Ichabod...O tempora, O mores.
Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
It's not rocket surgery.
How exactly you understand the bible is, by necessity, open to interpretation. Different people look and see different things within it.
It absolutely isn't the case that there is a single "good" hermeneutic and everything else can be dismissed as crap.
Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
We (you and I and Mr Cheesy and all contemporary Christians with even minimal theological awareness), don't merely "imagine" but know that much of the exegesis and hermeneutics in church history was shonky.
You don't seem to appreciate the difference between something which is wrong and something which is valid.
quote:
I challenge you to look me in the eye and state without a blush that you honestly believe that Augustine's allegorisation of a parable such as the Good Samaritan, or (and I have actually come across this) the teaching that the four anchors of Acts 27:29 represent prayer, Bible-reading, church fellowship, and I forget the fourth, which stabilise the ship of the Christian life, are, on the relativistic grounds that any interpretation is as good as another, as good an exposition of those passages (because the people who invented them thought so at the time) as the exposition of them by any recognised Bible scholar.
Can you stop doing this, please. Nobody is talking about relativism. Nobody is saying that all theologies based on the bible are as good as each other.
Until you actually understand what the words mean that you are using, it is impossible to discuss this with you.
quote:
You can't do it, because you know that it is anti-intellectual obscurantism - not to say, bullshit.
A Christian theology which supports state violence is valid. It is also, in my opinion, quite wrong.
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
the Holy Roman Empire which, as any schoolboy knows, has been described as 'neither holy, Roman nor an empire ...'
I fear that about as many schoolboys know Voltaire's opinion of the HRE today, as knew "who imprisoned Montezuma and who strangled Atahualpa" in Macaulay's day.
Ichabod, Ichabod...O tempora, O mores.
I'd imagine that some of them are able to read for comprehension though, which is more than you seem able to do ...
![[Razz]](tongue.gif)
Listen, it's not a case of my looking you in the eye and trying to convince you of the validity or otherwise of Augustine's overly allegorical interpretation of scripture - a charge I'd also level at some of the Plymouth Brethren to be frank for the way they 'spiritualised' the Parable of the Good Samaritan, The Sheep and The Goats and lots of other things besides, but no matter ...
Rather, it's a case of my looking you in the eye and asking you to demonstrate why you feel your particular hermeneutic applies equally to everyone at all times and in all places when it clearly isn't the only single, valid way to approach these issues?
You say it's not about personal preference and put as crudely as that, I'd agree ...
But we're not talking about things in those crude terms.
At least, I'm not.
You're beginning to sound as binary as Jamat and that's saying something.
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
Don't get me wrong, though. I'm not saying that all hermeneutical approaches are valid but that some are more valid than others - simply that it's completely unreasonable to expect someone like Charlemagne - or St Augustine - to have operated with a post-Reformation / post-Enlightenment hermeneutic because such a thing did not exist at that time.
Hence, it was perfectly valid for Charlemagne to assume that it was ok to wield the sword to enforce his authority because they'd have interpreted the scriptures in a way that encouraged that form of thinking.
We don't interpret the scriptures that way now because we operate according to a different set of principles and presuppositions.
Even if there was one, single over-archingly valid way of interpreting the NT on this particular point then it's hardly relevant to Charlemagne as it wasn't available to him. It wouldn't have become available to him for many centuries.
That's not to say that previous generations didn't have qualms about killing people, judicially or otherwise, of course they did - but it wouldn't have occurred to them to say, 'Hmmmm ... I don't find this in the NT ...' because that's not how they thought, not how they operated.
That doesn't justify it. Charlemagne was still wrong on that count and presumably a lot more besides.
The reason I don't agree with Charlemagne is because I live in the 21st century and am the product of centuries of post-Reformation / post-Enlightenment thought compounded with various forms of Modern and Post-Modern thinking ...
It's not simply because there isn't a verse in the NT that says, 'Oi! Better mind you don't go round executing heretics and unbelievers ...' but rather it's the culmulative effect of the cultural and religious influences I've been exposed to.
It wouldn't even have occurred to Charlemagne to think, 'I wonder whether the NT has anything to say about this ...?'
That's not how he thought. Even if it was there's no guarantee he'd have reached the same conclusion as you or I. He could just as easily have thought, 'Well, I'm a ruler, I can wield the sword to punish wrong-doers like the civil authorities the Apostle Paul alludes to in Romans ... not only that, I am a 'Roman' of sorts as I'm reviving the Roman Empire in the West ... all the more reason to wield the sword and I've got scripture on my side ...'
It doesn't side-step the issue by saying, 'Ah! But he got it wrong ... the Apostle Paul was talking about pagan Roman authorities ...'
That wouldn't have cut any ice with Charlemagne as an argument as he wouldn't have made that kind of distinction. Rulers were rulers, whether pagan or Christian. They had the right to wield the sword. The Saxons were wrong-doers. They were refusing to convert. Therefore he felt justified in killing them.
A shit-arse thing to do but in keeping with his world-view. You can't expect him to have thought like a 17th Anabaptist or a 20th century Plymouth Brother or a 21st century Roman Catholic, Quaker or whatever else ...
Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on
:
I think state violence is an understandable and perfectly valid way to understand Christianity, albeit utterly wrong.
It took a long time for people to break out of a particular worldview that said it was right and to think up other valid theologies to replace it.
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on
:
There is a(n almost certainly apocryphal) story about Catherine the Great. Somebody was talking to her, and asked how she could, as a Christian, run such a great country as Russia, which necessarily involves some pretty bloody decisions. Her answer was, "I rule Russia. That's my job. God forgives. That's His job." Whether or not we agree with this attitude, it's not a prima facie absurd attitude, as it would be if Kaplan Corday's hermeneutic were as obvious as all that.
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
You seem to like assertions of generalised ignorance.
Need to work with the audience I have, not the audience I want.
Nobody seems to have noticed this. It's brilliant.
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
So Orthodox Christians will tut-tut about Charlemagne but may resort to special-pleading when it comes to Ivan the Terrible (although I know plenty who think Ivan was a psychopath ...)
I don't personally know any who don't. There's a reason he was called the Terrible. People who think him wonderful are people who idolize an idealized pre-Soviet Russia, and everyone in it. Which is a problem, but a specifically Russian problem, not a specifically Orthodox problem. But when it comes down to it it's a human problem.
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
Sure. Please don't misunderstand me, I'm not for a moment suggesting that it's a majority view.
I'm simply suggesting that we tend to 'defend' our own side. I remember Ken of very Blessed Memory expressing surprise and bafflement when I pointed out that the Puritans in New England had behaved shittily towards the Native Americans - and indeed towards other types of Christian. He'd assumed that was something the nasty RCs did in South America.
I not singling Ken out, by the way, simply using this as an example.
Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
No-one is dismissing the OT as a factor.
Christianity involves interpreting the OT in the light of the NT.
So, for example, "thou shalt not steal" remains valid because it is supported by the NT, and the sacrificial system of the Tabernacle and Temple is rendered obsolete because the NT teaches that it has been fulfilled and superseded by Christ.
It's not rocket surgery.
Nor is it that Christians, real ones by any meaningful definition of the word, use the Bible to bash in ways that Jesus wouldn't.
Posted by Crsos (# 238) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
Don't get me wrong, though. I'm not saying that all hermeneutical approaches are valid but that some are more valid than others - simply that it's completely unreasonable to expect someone like Charlemagne - or St Augustine - to have operated with a post-Reformation / post-Enlightenment hermeneutic because such a thing did not exist at that time.
Hence, it was perfectly valid for Charlemagne to assume that it was ok to wield the sword to enforce his authority because they'd have interpreted the scriptures in a way that encouraged that form of thinking.
It doesn't take a lot of sophisticated hermeneutics to interpret New Testament passages like:
quote:
For [a ruler] is the minister of God to thee for good. But if thou do that which is evil, be afraid; for he beareth not the sword in vain: for he is the minister of God, a revenger to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil.
It does, however, take a lot of fancy rhetorical footwork to get to the position that Christianity actually teaches that rulers do "bear the sword in vain".
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
Indeed, and there's an added twist in that the passage doesn't say, 'rulers - apart from Christian ones - ' or 'Christian shouldn't be rulers'.
Of course, 'love your enemies, pray for those who despitefully use you,' ought to have come into play but I can't see anything to suggest that Charlemagne was acting contrary to the hermeneutics he had available to him. The hermeneutic Kaplan describes didn't come into existence for another 800 or 900 years or so and even then took a while to develop into the form Kaplan is familiar with.
That's not to say that Kaplan's hermeneutic is wrong, good, bad or indifferent, but it is to say that he can only talk as he does after about 25O years of evangelical riffing on a hermeneutic inherited from the Reformers 250 years prior to that, which in turn riffed on late medieval Scholastic approaches from 25O years or so previously ...
To suggest that anyone prior to 1500 would have recognised Kaplan's approach is anachronistic, although certainly some of the ideas Kaplan draws on were brewing for some considerable time.
Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Crsos:
It does, however, take a lot of fancy rhetorical footwork to get to the position that Christianity actually teaches that rulers do "bear the sword in vain".
It takes a mere modicum of conventional exegetical method and knowledge of NT context to get to the position that this passage can justify Christian support for governments' use of violence in lawkeeping and just war, but not for violence targetted at unbelievers to protect or propagate the faith.
Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
There is a(n almost certainly apocryphal) story about Catherine the Great. Somebody was talking to her, and asked how she could, as a Christian, run such a great country as Russia, which necessarily involves some pretty bloody decisions. Her answer was, "I rule Russia. That's my job. God forgives. That's His job." Whether or not we agree with this attitude, it's not a prima facie absurd attitude, as it would be if Kaplan Corday's hermeneutic were as obvious as all that.
If apocryphal, it is probably an adaptation of Heinrich Heine's last words: "Dieu me pardonnera, c'est son metier".
You have actually scored an own-goal with this anecdote, because true or not, it highlights the very real possibility that a Christian ruler (like we lower-profile Christianss, past and present) can be aware of what is self-evidently right, but choose to ignore it.
In an egregious demonstration of lack of historical imagination, Gamaliel and Mr Cheesy appear to have closed their minds to the possibility that other Christian rulers, such as Charlemagne, might have acted similarly.
[ 13. July 2017, 01:18: Message edited by: Kaplan Corday ]
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
You have actually scored an own-goal with this anecdote, because true or not, it highlights the very real possibility that a Christian ruler (like we lower-profile Christianss, past and present) can be aware of what is self-evidently right, but choose to ignore it.
I don't accept your interpretation. I would say rather that the ruler sees what has to be done, and sadly it is morally bad. Rulers have to make choices that are the moral equivalent of the Trolley Problem over and over and over again. There may be no option available that is not sinful in some way. ("If I kill these people, those people will live. If I let these people live, those people will die.")
It's not a job I'd take for any money. In the anecdote, Great Kate presumably is speaking to this problem.
I don't see this as an "own goal" but a mere flat statement that rulers sometimes must choose to do something immoral to prevent something even worse from happening. That's life as a ruler in a fallen world.
Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
a charge I'd also level at some of the Plymouth Brethren to be frank for the way they 'spiritualised' the Parable of the Good Samaritan, The Sheep and The Goats and lots of other things besides, but no matter ...
Sorry, but it does matter.
Enough already with the incessant, gratuitous sniping at my Brethren background.
First, I am not currently meeting with the Open Brethren.
Secondly, I have made it abundantly clear for my whole time on the Ship that I reject both the ultra-literalism (YEC, dispensationalism) and ultra-allegorisation (parables, minutiae of the Tabernacle, etc) that used to be common in the Brethren, but you just can't leave it alone.
Yes, of course all typologisation/allegorisation is questionable unless specifically condoned (eg "Christ our Passover"), whether it emanates from the patristic era or the nineteenth century - in fact, I understand that the allegorisation of the Good Samaritan was lifted by the early Brethren from the writings of Augustine.
Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
It takes a mere modicum of conventional exegetical method and knowledge of NT context to get to the position that this passage can justify Christian support for governments' use of violence in lawkeeping and just war, but not for violence targetted at unbelievers to protect or propagate the faith.
You have to do a lot better than constantly repeating the same point. This simply isn't a credible argument.
Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
rulers sometimes must choose to do something immoral to prevent something even worse from happening.
What was the horse a lesser evil than?
Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
You have to do a lot better than constantly repeating the same point.
That's because you haven't adequately answered it.
I'm still waiting for a NT justification of crusading-style violence by Christians that could have been respected in the eighth/ninth centuries and taken seriously today.
Attempts to argue that Charlemagne used pericopes such as Romans 13 (not that chapter divisions existed then) are risibly speculative.
It is far more likely that he and others like him either ignored or deliberately disobeyed the obvious NT teaching on this issue.
Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
That's because you haven't adequately answered it.
I have answered it. You just don't like the answer: it is perfectly credible to read the NT in the light of Joshua and believe that state-sanctioned violence is the way to go forwards.
quote:
I'm still waiting for a NT justification of crusading-style violence by Christians that could have been respected in the eighth/ninth centuries and taken seriously today.
Why aren't you listening? Why do you continue to repeat that your understanding is the only possible credible way of understanding the NT when there are many thousands of people and hundreds of years of history showing otherwise.
You're left in the uncomfortable position of having to claim that all this was a mistake because people didn't bother to read the NT. It is far easier to suggest, as I do, that state violence is entirely consistent with a valid reading of the scriptures. And that it took a lot of effort to get beyond that.
quote:
Attempts to argue that Charlemagne used pericopes such as Romans 13 (not that chapter divisions existed then) are risibly speculative.
It is far more likely that he and others like him either ignored or deliberately disobeyed the obvious NT teaching on this issue.
It is only obvious if you have already decided that this is what the NT teaches, that the NT has a special precedence over the other scriptures and other influences (including the OT, standard jurisprudence, the common understanding of war etc). Just as it was fairly obvious that slavery was ordained by God and not decried by the NT until we got around to realising that it was a bad thing.
Your position isn't credible. You're inflating your own interpretation and understanding to be the "plain and obvious" reading of the NT when it is fairly clear that this is nothing of the kind.
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
FWIW I've heard that the horse incident was equally apocryphal ...
But no matter ...
On my 'gratuitous' snipe at the Brethren, I only included them to demonstrate that egregious hermeneutics aren't the sole province of early medieval Catholics.
In the same ways as I cited the Puritans in New England to demonstrate that it wasn't only the RC Conquistadores who went in for religiously motivated violence - or who used religious justifications to condone their violence.
It obviously has escaped your notice that I'm being even-handed by spreading my examples across the board - RC, Protestant and Orthodox.
Again, it might help if you read my comments less selectively and read for comprehension.
Equally, you are still missing the point by a country mile.
The point I'm making is that the particular hermeneutic you are deploying didn't come into existence until after the Reformation and through further reflection/debate and tussling on into the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries until it became what you have now.
It simply wasn't available to Charlemagne. It wasn't available to Augustine. It wasn't available to the Apostle Paul either.
That doesn't mean that we can't see earlier echoes of it nor that people back in those days didn't entertain qualms about executions or violence.
Heck, there were Papal murmurings about slavery centuries before the abolitionist movement started - among Quakers, Unitarians and some evangelicals - in the 1700s ...
There were monastic and clerical voices raised against violence exercised by rulers throughout history - I can think of examples from 16th century South America and also the famous example of the monk who confronted Ivan The Terrible with a bleeding steak when he was in the midst of one of his rampages ...
I'm not for a moment suggesting that everything was uniform one way or t'other ...
You'll know better than me, probably, how there were different hermeneutical schools of thought back in Patristic times - the Alexandrian one more allegorical, the Antiochian one 'plainer' as it were ...
What gradually emerged was some kind of amalgamation of the two - and others besides.
That's how these things work.
It's not a lack of historical imagination on the part of mr cheesy and myself, it's a lack of historical perspective on yours - because you can't seem to envisage that there has never, ever been a single, one-size-fits all interpretative schema that matches your particular model. Even today your model is one among many and not everyone signs up for it.
Of course, given my particular background and culture I'm going to naturally incline more towards your position - with caveats - but that's a feature of those particular factors not because of anything intrinsic or inherent in the text itself somehow floating miraculously above context and conditioning.
It doesn't diminish the status of the scriptures in any way whatsoever if we acknowledge and accept those factors and forces that shape and determine our approach. Why should it?
I know you understand and acknowledge that but I'm sorry, it seems to me, from the way you right - and perhaps I'm not reading for comprehension - that you mightn't.
Just sayin'.
Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on
:
I'd go further than that and say that the idea that religious state violence was abhorrent only really became a viable hermeneutic with the anabaptists and quakers and other non-conformists - and I suspect that this was largely educated by the fact of having state violence inflicted upon them.
The idea that maybe one shouldn't have power over someone else and burn, destroy, torture (or whatever) him in the name of religion to a great degree was educated by outside cultural influences and is nothing about a simple or straight reading of the scriptures.
I'd also recall that even England - apparently as influenced by the puritans and Evangelicals to the highest levels - still managed to continue with torture and public execution until the 19 century. It simply didn't really occur to many that these things were incompatible with the state religion as they understood it.
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
Sorry, 'the way you write' - not 'the way you right' ...
There's me not reading my own posts for typos and comprehension ...
![[Hot and Hormonal]](icon_redface.gif)
Meanwhile, before anyone starts, I'm certainly not saying that there isn't any inherent meaning or indeed 'power' in the scriptures and that any meaning we apply to it comes from other sources. Some may seek to misrepresent my words that way ...
No, as we'd all agree, we have a synergistic and symbiotic relationship with the text - we read it,it reads us ... if I can put it that way - but not in some kind of hermetically sealed bubble.
On another thread Kaplan asserted that the Trinity was a 'given' and that's why Luther didn't see fit to challenge it but instead concentrated on justification by faith and what became the 'Solas' ...
Well, I winced when I read that. Why? Because it elides so much of the actual process that Luther and we ourselves have inherited.
Yes, you can argue the toss for the Trinity from a 'sola scriptura' position - although I'm sceptical about the degree you can do that without the influence of tradition (Big T / small t). The most you can say if you were to take that kind of apparently honed down approach is that the Trinity is consistent with the scriptures - although Arius and others of course argued otherwise and it's dead easy to see how one could come up with a Unitarian position if one applied a rigidly 'sola scriptura' approach ...
It's no accident that forms of Arianism re-emerged after the Reformation across whole swathes of the radical Reformation ...
Anyhow, I don't believe that a wholly 'sola scriptura' approach is even possible - but let's say it is for the sake of argument ...
I certainly don't think a 'SOLO scriptura' approach is tenable and most Reformed and many small r reformed Christians would acknowledge that - even if it involved a fair degree of reflection first.
The only point I'm making is that Kaplan's hermeneutic - which is an accumulated amalgamation of various Protestant strands - wasn't available to anyone pre-1500 - although obviously there were echoes, parallels and some early 'shoots' that fed into its development.
The onus is on Kaplan to prove that it was.
I'd lay odds - were I betting man - that he can't.
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
I'd go further than that and say that the idea that religious state violence was abhorrent only really became a viable hermeneutic with the anabaptists and quakers and other non-conformists - and I suspect that this was largely educated by the fact of having state violence inflicted upon them.
The idea that maybe one shouldn't have power over someone else and burn, destroy, torture (or whatever) him in the name of religion to a great degree was educated by outside cultural influences and is nothing about a simple or straight reading of the scriptures.
I'd also recall that even England - apparently as influenced by the puritans and Evangelicals to the highest levels - still managed to continue with torture and public execution until the 19 century. It simply didn't really occur to many that these things were incompatible with the state religion as they understood it.
Sure, and to be fair, within the Anglican Establishment itself there was a recoiling from the religiously motivated violence that characterised the 17th century. The Latitudinarians - for different reasons - were probably as opposed to restrictions on freedom of conscience - given the constraints of their position within the Establishment - as the non-conformists.
Heck, I've heard that even the Pope thought James II was going too far and being heavy-handed in the way he dealt with dissent - and Dissent ...
Although in other ways, James tried to introduce greater degrees of tolerance in order to alleviate pressure on the RCs.
Although geo-politics comes into all this too, of course, it suited the Pope after 1688 to have a Protestant power on Louis XIV's flank to distract the French from meddling in his affairs ...
OK, that's a bit broad brush, but the point is that these things are messy.
As far as I'm aware, the last time people were condemned / executed on religious grounds was during the reign of James II.
There were 'witches' executed in Scotland as late as the 1730s, I think ... but as far as I know none of the public executions that took place in the 19th century (the last one was in the 1860s) were carried out on religious grounds.
One could argue that the imprisonment of 'conchies' during WW1 or fines or prison sentences meted out to some non-conformists during the 'No Rome on the Rates' controversies of the early 20th century had a religious dimension to them.
But given that Catholic Emancipation was granted in the 1820s and the gradual opening up of Oxbridge to non-Anglicans then the 19th century should be regarded as a period of loosening things up religiously. That's certainly how it was regarded by contemporaries.
But yes, your point stands I think, mr cheesy. The change of attitude derives more from a culmulative reaction to the horrors of the 30 Years War and the English Civil Wars than it does to hermeneutics as such - although there was clearly a relationship between what was going on in society at large and how people approached and interpreted scripture.
Which rather puts the kibbosh on Kaplan's assumptions. No doubt he'll have something to say about that. I hope it's something new this time ...
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
quote:
Originally posted by Crsos:
It does, however, take a lot of fancy rhetorical footwork to get to the position that Christianity actually teaches that rulers do "bear the sword in vain".
It takes a mere modicum of conventional exegetical method and knowledge of NT context to get to the position that this passage can justify Christian support for governments' use of violence in lawkeeping and just war, but not for violence targetted at unbelievers to protect or propagate the faith.
It's easy when you have a church-state theocracy. As was the case since Constantine. An attack on Christianity was an attack on the state, on society.
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
Shhh ... Martin!
Don't say that too loudly or you'll have Steve Langton here again ...
Posted by Jane R (# 331) on
:
Gamaliel: quote:
There were 'witches' executed in Scotland as late as the 1730s, I think ... but as far as I know none of the public executions that took place in the 19th century (the last one was in the 1860s) were carried out on religious grounds.
I'm not convinced that the execution of witches was entirely motivated by religion; yes, there's the thing in the Bible about not suffering a witch to live, but on the other hand every village would have had someone providing traditional herbal remedies for illnesses. The reason why we no longer execute people for witchcraft is that we no longer believe in magic. If it were possible to harm or kill people by magic, why should witches be above the law?
Of course you could argue that a belief in magic is religiously motivated - but if so, it's not an exclusively Christian belief.
[ 13. July 2017, 14:54: Message edited by: Jane R ]
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
rulers sometimes must choose to do something immoral to prevent something even worse from happening.
What was the horse a lesser evil than?
1. Completely irrelevant to this conversation, perhaps a sign you realize you're losing the argument?
2. Apocryphal
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
Generally speaking, I'd say that most religiously motivated violence isn't motivated purely by religion. Of course, religion comes into it but so do other factors.
With someone like Charlemagne it'd have been issues of control as much as anything else.
As for the execution of witches, people were having doubts about the validity of testimonies about that quite early on - certainly there were those who felt very uncomfortable about the trial and execution of the Pendle Witches in 1612.
I've heard that there was quite widespread scepticism by the 1630s but the belief in witchcraft and the need to root it out was given a boost by Puritan zealotry during the Civil Wars - hence 'The Witch-finder General' and all that malarkey.
Certainly by the end of the 1600s there was a general reluctance to engage in Witch-hunts - other than for Popish Plots of course ...
The Salem Witch Trials in the New England of the 1690s were a late manifestation of the phenomenon ... and of course, there were all sorts of undercurrents going on - neighbourly rivalries and so on and so forth that could erupt into witch-hunt fever ...
I used the witch-craft example in a broad-brush kind of way - to refer to violence with a broadly 'spiritual' motivation.
The execution of Servetus in Geneva for his non-Trinitarian views would be an example of an execution on creedal grounds.
The execution of Protestant 'heretics' by Mary Tudor in the 1550s would be an example of people being executed for not believing the 'right things' too.
So would Elizabeth 1's execution of Jesuits and Catholic lay-people - although generally they weren't executed simply because they were Catholics but because - rightly or wrongly - they were seen to be engaged in plots against her. Although being a priest and found operating in England at that time was a capital offence.
Wed can't disaggregate religion and politics when we're looking back at those days. The Civil Wars of the 1640s/50s weren't primarily religious conflicts - although religion played a very strong part in them and was part of the causus belli - but there was inevitably a strong religious dimension.
That's one of the reasons why Kaplan is so anachronistic when he imagines Charlemagne - at an even earlier date of course - would have been capable of disaggregating religion from state-craft and applying a hermeneutic that didn't exist in his time and which only came into fruition many centuries later.
At the risk of a tangent, I remember being handed some artefacts during an open day at a museum. The curator passed me what she described as the oldest man-made object in their collection, a hand-axe that was some 70,000 years old.
It fitted my palm. It felt like something that had been wielded and plied again and again. The next object she gave me to handle was their second oldest man-made object, a bronze axe-head from 5,000 years ago.
Between the first object and the second were 65,000 years of summer and winter, rain and hail, sun and wind. 65,000 years of hunter gathering, the crafting of hand-axes and scrapers. 65,000 years of open fires, howling winds and scrape, scrape, scrape.
Then, gradual technological advance, the rise of animal husbandry, the cultivation of crops. Then smelting and casting and the miracle of bronze.
Expecting one of the earlier hunter-gatherers to imagine the bronze axe would be like expecting Charlemagne to be able to disaggregate his political position from his religious stance. It would not, could not have occurred to him to do so.
Sure, there were the 'my kingdom is not of this world' verses in the NT but how would he have understood those? Very differently to how we do, I suspect.
Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on
:
I think this is basically the problem: for many centuries it was very hard to separate the state from the church, and so an attack on one was an attack on the other.
Which obviously had impacts on how people understood the religion.
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
You have to do a lot better than constantly repeating the same point.
That's because you haven't adequately answered it.
I'm still waiting for a NT justification of crusading-style violence by Christians that could have been respected in the eighth/ninth centuries and taken seriously today.
Attempts to argue that Charlemagne used pericopes such as Romans 13 (not that chapter divisions existed then) are risibly speculative.
It is far more likely that he and others like him either ignored or deliberately disobeyed the obvious NT teaching on this issue.
It might be 'obvious' to you, it clearly wasn't obvious to them.
It's only obvious to you because you are so used to your particular hermeneutic that you assume that everyone else will have been familiar with it throughout history and if they acted otherwise then it must have been either a deliberate flouting of it or ignorance on their part.
When I mentioned the Romans 13 reference I wasn't envisaging Charlemagne with Strong's Concordance in one hand and an open Bible in the other - complete with chaper divisions and verses - poring over the scriptures to find out whether the NT legitimised his execution of those Saxons who refused to convert to Christianity.
That would be to engage in the same kind of anachronistic mind-games as you are.
For a kick-off, of course, Charlemagne would have had clergy to do his theological thinking - such as it was - for him.
For another none of them were operating with the particular hermeneutic you were using. It simply did not exist at that time. It would not exist in the form you are familiar with for another 800 or 900 years at least.
Heck, even the Pilgrim Fathers in New England, who were a lot closer to your favoured hermeneutic than Charlemagne's contemporaries would have been, applied the OT in a theocratic kind of way.
They saw themselves as God's chosen people, the Elect. Therefore, when faced with opposition from the Pequod they found an expedient way to get the tribes-people to withdraw further into the woods was to kill non-combatants as well as braves. They then justified this with proof-texts from the Book of Joshua.
I daresay you'd claim that they really should have known better and it's doubly dishonourable as they were Protestants and should have known better than medieval Catholics ...
That's as may be, but the point is that that's what they did and in their own eyes that would have been a legitimate application of scripture. They were the Elect weren't they? Didn't their attempt to create a thoroughly Christian society in the New World parallel the Conquest of Canaan?
It's reprehensible, but that's how they thought.
Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on
:
OK Gam, we've got it. You seem to have verbal diarrhea this afternoon.
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
I think this is basically the problem: for many centuries it was very hard to separate the state from the church, and so an attack on one was an attack on the other.
Which obviously had impacts on how people understood the religion.
Of course, and because - largely - we don't think that way any more that impacts on how we understand our religion.
It's our understanding that determines our hermeneutic, not the other way around.
(Waits for the thunder-clap and for the sky to fall in ...)
Kaplan's hermeneutic, like anyone else's, developed over time and in response to discussion, debate and reflection.
It doesn't drop ready-formed out of the pages of the New Testament.
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
OK Gam, we've got it. You seem to have verbal diarrhea this afternoon.
Posted by Russ (# 120) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
I'm certainly not saying that there isn't any inherent meaning or indeed 'power' in the scriptured and that any meaning we apply to it comes from other sources. Some may seek to misrepresent my words that way ...
...The only point I'm making is that Kaplan's hermeneutic - which is an accumulated amalgamation of various Protestant strands - wasn't available to anyone pre-1500
Trying not to misinterpret your words, what does your position imply about the meaning of the word "Christian" ?
I don't doubt that Kaplan is a Christian, and that Charlemagne was a Christian. But if Kaplan's ethic is so different from Charlemagne's ethic, does that not rob the term "Christian ethic" of meaning ?
Is there any limit on what the ethics of 25th-century people who self-identify as Christian might profess ?
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
I don't see how that follows.
Charlemagne would have subscribed to a broadly Judeo-Christian ethical framework just as the rest of us who belong to Christendom in the cultural sense. That doesn't mean that it's going to be identical to the ethics espoused by Christians in other centuries.
We've already had the instance of slavery cited on this thread. George Whitefield the revivalist had no moral or ethical qualms about slavery whatsoever, or at least thought it was a necessary evil.
John Wesley in the other hand, was vehemently opposed to slavery. Two Christians. Same century. Different viewpoints.
So it's hardly surprising that Christians separated by many centuries are going to differ on these things.
Charlemagne would presumably thought it was murder if someone went out and decapitated a passing Saxon. He would have thought it entirely legitimate for his troops to behead Saxons on his orders. His hermeneutic wouldn't have involved looking into the NT to check for proof-texts for or against ...
Had he done so then he would presumably have found justification enough in what he found as he'd have interpreted it in a way that confirmed to his world-view.
Same as the rest of us, generally of course, over less life and death issues.
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Russ:
I don't doubt that Kaplan is a Christian, and that Charlemagne was a Christian. But if Kaplan's ethic is so different from Charlemagne's ethic, does that not rob the term "Christian ethic" of meaning ?
"Mousethief's mother" and "Russ's mother" refer to two different people. Does that rob the term "mother" of meaning?
Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
FWIW I've heard that the horse incident was equally apocryphal ...
No doubt it is, but then according to you, people in the Christian past had no conception of any systematic or principled scheme of interpretation and application of Scripture, and saw no problem with using the OT indiscriminately when it suited them.
So if the story were true, she might well have been justifying her actions by treating Ezekiel 23:20 as an admonition and attempting to apply it.
[ 13. July 2017, 21:13: Message edited by: Kaplan Corday ]
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
Very droll, Kaplan. But you really don't understand what I'm getting at do you?
Either that or you are misrepresenting what I've actually said.
If that's your hermeneutical approach I'll stick with some others, thank you very much.
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
What I am saying is that people in the past had various systematic approaches and various ways of approaching the OT - allegorically, Christologically ...
These may not always coincide with yours or mine.
I don't see why that is so contentious. It seems obvious to me. To channel George Dubya Bush for a moment, I'm totally flabbergasticated.
Posted by Jamat (# 11621) on
:
quote:
Gamaliel: The only point I'm making is that Kaplan's hermeneutic - which is an accumulated amalgamation of various Protestant strands - wasn't available to anyone pre-1500
Which is utterly irrelevant to his point that whatever hermeneutics anyone had, you cannot possibly create any NT case for a violent imposition of Christianity. Consequently, attempts by popes, and Catholic rulers to do this at their behest, have NO possible spiritual justification.
They CANNOT be said in any sense to be Christian actions.
Any attempt to justify said actions by reference to Joshua's war of conquest of Canaan fails since Jesus superseded the OT methodologies with teachings such as ' My kingdom is not of this world.'
Unless someone was totally ignorant of NT teachings like this because they were illiterate, or uneducated then they could not be under any other impression. Ro 13 is a slender thread but not a hermeneutic. Charlemagne could use it to say 'I'm obeying the Pope and he knows the will of God' but this is no argument from scripture. Instead it is a simple justification by chain of command..' I'm obeying orders!'
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
Someone else who is missing the point.
Have you actually read anything I've posted on this thread?
Read.my.lips.
I am not saying that religiously motivated violence can be justified from the NT - nor the OT for that matter unless you uncouple it from the teachings of Christ or even latter Jewish thought.
What I am saying is that some - whether medieval Pope's or 17th century Puritans - have justified religiously motivated or sanctioned violence by using a different hermeneutic to the one you are using.
Is the Pope a Catholic?
People in the 8th century, the 16th century and even the 18th and 19th centuries thought differently to how we approach these things today. Funny that. I thought you'd have noticed.
That isn't to justify or condone what they did, but it's simply to out it into context.
Hermeneutical approaches develop differently in different contexts. The way the Ethiopian Orthodox approach these things is very different to the way all the other churches do. Why? Because they were in Ethiopia and away from developments elsewhere. Their context shaped and determined their hermeneutic.
Our context has shaped ours.
I really don't see why that's so difficult to grasp.
Things shift and change. The Roman Catholic Church doesn't apply St Augustine's overly allegorical approach to the NT parables any more - neither do the Open Brethren if what Kaplan tells me is true - although they certainly were doing so in the South Wales of the early 1980s.
But the RCC still operates with certain Scholastic and Tridentine influences - just as Reformed Christians still use concepts based on those of the Magisterial Reformers, however much they may have modified or adapted them over time.
Whatever else we might say about Charlemagne, he wouldn't have had access to the hermeneutical framework you guys are using.
Nobody did. It did not exist back then.
Yes, the NT existed of course, but not the theological lens you are using to interpret it in the way you are doing.
That's the point.
You can both huff and puff and bluster as much as you like but it's as simple as that. It did not exist.
That doesn't invalidate it, of course. I'd far rather a hermeneutic that held no truck with religiously motivated violence than on that seeks to justify such violence.
But that's a different issue.
There no point in complaining that Charlemagne didn't understand these things in the way contemporary evangelicals or other types of contemporary Christian do. He was a product of his time, warts and all.
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
Just as a matter of historical record, did the Pope 'order' Charlemagne to act as he did or did he do so off his own bat?
I rather get the impression that it was Charley who called the shots when it came to his relationship with the Papacy.
Yes, later Popes ordered and sanctioned the Crusades and the persecution of the Cathars.
It's often been said that the Carolingian Empire saw the Papacy develop a step further towards its later medieval form.
Can anyone enlighten me on the history here, without resorting to Chick Tract caricature, Jamat style?
Posted by Jamat (# 11621) on
:
quote:
Gamaliel: Someone else who is missing the point
This is really about whose point it is then?
I understand your point and have pointed out why it is wrong..hermeneutics of whatever flavour are not the issue.
You do not want to accept this.
I think the only way Charlemagne would be said to be acting Christianly would be if he felt that he was honestly following his conscience in being a tool of the papacy. He was certainly not a theologian or Bible scholar.
[ 13. July 2017, 22:44: Message edited by: Jamat ]
Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Russ:
But if Kaplan's ethic is so different from Charlemagne's ethic, does that not rob the term "Christian ethic" of meaning ?
It is scarcely a matter of "Kaplan's ethic versus Charlemagne's ethic", but of the ethic of the overwhelming majority of present-day Christians (ie all but a few freakish and loony outliers), plus vast swathes of Christians over the last two thousand years, who see and saw clearly that the NT does not sanction the Christian slaughter of unbelievers, versus the ethic of a Charlemagne and those like him.
Posted by Jamat (# 11621) on
:
quote:
Gamaliel :Can anyone enlighten me on the history here, without resorting to Chick Tract caricature, Jamat style?
quote:
From Wikipedia: He (Charlemagne)continued his father's policy towards the papacy and became its protector, removing the Lombards from power in northern Italy and leading an incursion into Muslim Spain. He campaigned against the Saxons to his east, Christianising them upon penalty of death and leading to events such as the Massacre of Verden. Charlemagne reached the height of his power in 800
I actually always enjoyed Mr Chick. But the remark reflects badly. Ad hominims are the resort of the lost cause usually.
Charlemagne probably did not take orders from the papacy as it was too weak at the time but he propped it up and undoubtedly justified his military actions by recourse to its authority.
Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
OK Gam, we've got it. You seem to have verbal diarrhea this afternoon.
It's chronic in we Welsh, look you.
Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
it is perfectly credible to read the NT in the light of Joshua and believe that state
Bullshit.
Christians in the past were just as aware as we are that you can't just treat the OT as if the NT doesn't exist.
For example, incidents such as Henry VIII's serial monogamy, and the sanction given by Luther, Melanchthon and Bucer to Philip of Hesse's bigamy notwithstanding, Chrisians have never dreamed of arguing that a Christian ruler should accumulate hundreds of wives and concubines because Solomon did so in the OT.
It is ludicrously ahistorical to suggest that Christians believed they could indiscriminately use the OT for whatever they wanted to justify, ignoring the NT in the process.
Charlemagne was either ignorant of the NT when it came to slaughtering pagans (his illiteracy would not have helped), or he chose to deliberately disobey it out of raison d'etat.
Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
It's chronic in we Welsh, look you.
Not sure what this is, but if it is some kind of satirical swipe at the way Welsh people speak, it fails. I'll be charitable and assume it is a typo.
Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
it is perfectly credible to read the NT in the light of Joshua and believe that state
Bullshit.
Christians in the past were just as aware as we are that you can't just treat the OT as if the NT doesn't exist.
For example, incidents such as Henry VIII's serial monogamy, and the sanction given by Luther, Melanchthon and Bucer to Philip of Hesse's bigamy notwithstanding, Chrisians have never dreamed of arguing that a Christian ruler should accumulate hundreds of wives and concubines because Solomon did so in the OT.
It's not bullshit, and pointing to sexual ethics has nothing to do with how people developed credible hermeneutics about state violence.
quote:
It is ludicrously ahistorical to suggest that Christians believed they could indiscriminately use the OT for whatever they wanted to justify, ignoring the NT in the process.
I absolutely didn't say that and it is tiring that you think I should be defending a position that I don't hold.
There is nothing "indescriminate" about a valid hermeneutic that supports state violence. It doesn't ignore that NT, it just understands it in a different way to you.
quote:
Charlemagne was either ignorant of the NT when it came to slaughtering pagans (his illiteracy would not have helped), or he chose to deliberately disobey it out of raison d'etat.
Or neither. Entirely possible that he just understood it in a different way to you.
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on
:
Peacemaking is a mandatory calling for Christians. I foolishly failed in that recently and was able to recover it, just. It was a fascinating, intense, experience of not having to go far to go to hell. Just me and another bloke. Judging an illiterate monkey warrior king of 1250 years ago, in a narrative tradition at least four times, therefore forty times, older in reality, for not measuring up to our theoretical, untested, idealized, unreal, evolved, unattainable, poetic standards is ... risible.
Posted by Golden Key (# 1468) on
:
Re Charlemagne:
I don't know much about him, let alone his faith, so I looked up "charlemagne king history faith".
--His Faith:
There's Wikipedia, of course. And also an edited translation of Einhard's "Tbe Life Of Charlemagne" (Christian History Institute).
The Wikipedia article touched on his faith in the "Church Reforms" and "Beatification" sections. Gradually, he also was more tolerant of Jews than was usual. (See "Jews In Charlemagne's Realm" section.)
The relevant Einhard excerpt sections are "26. Piety" and "27. Charlemagne And The Roman Church".
--His Literacy:
The thread made mention that he was illiterate. Per the Einhard article, he could read, but not write. Wikipedia is iffy about reading. (He did try to learn to write, late in life, but he just didn't get it. (Dysgraphia, maybe?) He also promoted literacy and the making of books. He was fond of St. Augustine's works.
Einhard, Section 26:
quote:
He took great pains to improve reading and singing there, for he was well skilled in both although he never read in public, or sang except quietly along with the congregation.
Wikipedia, "Education Reforms":
quote:
His great scholarly failure, as Einhard relates, was his inability to write: when in his old age he attempted to learnpractising the formation of letters in his bed during his free time on books and wax tablets he hid under his pillow"his effort came too late in life and achieved little success", and his ability to read which Einhard is silent about, and which no contemporary source supportshas also been called into question.[96]
I don't know why the articles differ.
Anyway, this might be helpful for other people who don't know much about Charlemagne.
BTW, there's a great engraving(?) of Charlemagne at the beginning of the Einhard article.
Posted by wabale (# 18715) on
:
I am struggling to understand why, precisely, Christians behaved in the way they did in their use of violence in, say, the crusades. Reading Thomas Aquinas on the subject of Law, Morality, and Politics is only helping a little. I always struggle a bit with the Medieval period in general, having to my eternal shame written, in an undergraduate essay, King John signed Magna Carta
, though I can vaguely remember one or two things Professor Southern said in a lecture.
I am interested in the argument, which I dont think Southern would have liked, that there was, beginning about the 11th Century onwards, a change in the Churchs attitude towards muslims, and various others. The argument, which some non-historians (or indeed some non-medievalists) might not be familiar with, is that profound changes began in (European) society and later spread to the Church in The High Middle Ages. These changes included the strengthening of feudal obligations from peasants towards lords, and a tightening of control over everyday life, in response to a general feeling that society was under attack. Phenomena like the crusades and the persecution of heretics arose out of these changing political, social and economic policies and activities, and the arguments advanced to support them.
The Churchs thinking (including no doubt some allusion to the Scriptures) followed.
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
I enjoyed Mr Chick's tracts too, but in a different kind of way to you, Jamat, I assume.
As something risible.
This whole debate is all about hermeneutics and all about context, something Kaplan and yourself appear not to be able to grasp, alongside your inability to read for comprehension.
Let me spell it out.
I am not saying Charlemagne - or any other ruler - who has deployed religiously motivated violence was right to do so. I am saying that they weren't.
All I am saying is that with a early medieval mindset that might be inclined to see the ruler as ordained and sanctioned by God - as the NT clearly does - then it's a short hop, skip and jump to justifying one's only violence in religious terms.
I hadn't known that Charlemagne enjoyed reading Augustine. If he did then this is commensurate with his world view, because Augustine also sanctioned state-violence.
I expect Augustine wasn't the only one.
I suspect those who didn't do so at that time were a tiny minority - if anyone did at all.
Heck, the Apostle Paul does in Romans 13. Ok, you or I would say that there's a different context to this and that it doesn't explicitly include religiously motivated violence to combat 'wrong-doing'.
But people in the early medieval period wouldn't have made that fine distinction.
In essence, Kaplan's and Jamat's argument boils down to a reductionist, 'Couldn't they read? It's so obvious. They must have either not read it or chosen to ignore it.'
As if their particular hermeneutic is self-evident within the pages of the NT itself.
Well it isn't. If never has been. No hermeneutic is self-evident but the result of a lengthy process of discussion and debate in the context of particular faith communities.
Do all Muslims agree on the 'plain meaning 'What and interpretation of their sacred texts? No, of course not. Same with Jews same with Christians.
The reason I mentioned Chick Tracts is because they are so reductionist.
Catholics - evil.
Fundamentalist Protestants - good guys.
For all his half-digested literary allusions and 1950s grammar school quotes Kaplan's approach is only mildly more nuanced than Jamat's.
He has no more grasp of how hermeneutical schemas develop and how the interpretative process works than Jack Chick had about nuclear fusion.
It boils down to, 'This is how I read it. It's so bleedin' obvious to me that if people take a different view there must be something wrong with them. So there.'
In a word, it's bollocks.
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on
:
What are we missing that KC & J get? Do we need to take a Black & Decker to our heads until we get it?
Posted by Golden Key (# 1468) on
:
Martin--
![[Biased]](wink.gif)
Only if a) you go first, and let us know how it goes; and b) you clean up your own mess afterwards.
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
Well, I don't know about Martin60 and his Black & Decker but my forehead is feeling pretty flattened through repeated engagement with the rigid wooden pit-props of Jamat's and Kaplan's Janet and John level hermeneutic.
![[brick wall]](graemlins/brick_wall.gif)
I've tried waxing lyrical, I've tried verbiage.
To no avail.
Time and again, all we get from the pair of them is effectively:
'It is at is because I say so ...'
They'll squeal and protest and say, 'Look, it's got nothing to do with me ...'
When in fact, it has everything to do with them (and with the environment, influences and contextual factors that have gone into making them who they are).
It's hard to have any kind of meaningful discussion with closed minds. The irony, of course, is that they are accusing everyone else of being the ones who are closed minded.
I really don't understand what's so contentious or hard to grasp about the following:
- People prior to the Reformation operated with a different hermeneutic.
- Some Christians still operate with a different hermeneutic to the one/s Jamat and Kaplan use.
- What is apparently 'obvious' to us in our context, with all the influencing factors that have contributed to its development, wasn't necessarily obvious to people in other times and other contexts who operated with a different set of criteria and different hermeneutics.
- It is possible even for Christians within the same milieux to come to different conclusions about the same issue and to cite proof-texts to support their viewpoint - Whitefield accepted slavery, Wesley opposed it.
- Our hermeneutics reflect our culture, background and religious tradition. Jamat is a highly conservative evangelical Protestant. His hermeneutic reflects that. Well, duh! Kaplan is a relatively conservative evangelical Protestant. His hermeneutic reflects that. Well, duh! Charlemagne was an early medieval Catholic, his hermeneutic ... (you've guessed the rest) ...
- It is unreasonable to expect Christians in pre-Reformation, pre-Enlightenment times to have operated by a hermeneutic that didn't exist until post-Reformation, post-Enlightenment times.
- Such an expectation is not only unreasonable but flies in the face of all historical evidence.
That's all I'm saying and I can't see how any of it is in any way contentious.
Hence my sore head ...
I'm still waiting for Jamat and Kaplan to come up with a more reasoned explanation for their position other than, 'Can't you read?' and 'Isn't it obvious?'
Which is tantamount to saying, 'Because I say so.'
Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
It's chronic in we Welsh, look you.
Not sure what this is, but if it is some kind of satirical swipe at the way Welsh people speak, it fails.
It is a reference to the fact that Gamaliel and I have Welsh ancestry in common.
See references in popular culture (eg Neil Kinnock/"Welsh Windbag"), or read some of David Lloyd George's rhetoric.
quote:
I'll be charitable
Golly, you must be a Christian.
Perhaps that explains why you have no sense of humour - some don't.
[ 14. July 2017, 21:27: Message edited by: Kaplan Corday ]
Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
it is perfectly credible to read the NT in the light of Joshua and believe that state
Bullshit.
Christians in the past were just as aware as we are that you can't just treat the OT as if the NT doesn't exist.
For example, incidents such as Henry VIII's serial monogamy, and the sanction given by Luther, Melanchthon and Bucer to Philip of Hesse's bigamy notwithstanding, Christians have never dreamed of arguing that a Christian ruler should accumulate hundreds of wives and concubines because Solomon did so in the OT.
It's not bullshit, and pointing to sexual ethics has nothing to do with how people developed credible hermeneutics about state violence.
Yes, you are quite right, sexual ethics is a different topic from state violence.
Well noticed.
However, an exegetical approach to each involves a consideration of how to treat OT material bearing on each.
To that extent, the hermeneutical aspects have some similarities.
Got it?
quote:
It is ludicrously ahistorical to suggest that Christians believed they could indiscriminately use the OT for whatever they wanted to justify, ignoring the NT in the process.
I absolutely didn't say that [/QUOTE]
You have absolutely implied it.
[ 14. July 2017, 21:37: Message edited by: Kaplan Corday ]
Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
my forehead is feeling pretty flattened through repeated engagement with the rigid wooden pit-props
Nice touch of (South) Welsh imagery there.
quote:
I've tried waxing lyrical, I've tried verbiage.
Certainly have.
I'm surprised you find time to eat!
quote:
- People prior to the Reformation operated with a different hermeneutic.
Well done - your very first point is hopelessly and unhistorically incorrect.
Certainly their hermeneutics could be wrong in various respects (allegorisation, misapplication of OT), but their underlying assumptions in attempting to understand, believe and obey what they read (or heard) were not radically different from ours, which is why we can agree with, and benefit from, so much that was written in the one and a half millennia before the Reformation.
Certainly biblical scholarship, along with the principles upon which it is based, have improved since the Reformation (and not just among Protestants), but that does not necessitate belief in an unbridgeable hermeneutical chasm between today and the past.
There is therefore nothing anachronistic in saying that aspects of Charlemagne's handling of the text can be criticised as dead wrong, and so were the lessons he drew from it - assuming that he had some sort of familiarity with it, and that if he did, he was not deliberately ignoring and disobeying it.
Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on
:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
quote:
were not radically different from ours,
The fuck they weren't. Paul's writing is filtered through his belief the 2nd coming would be in his lifetime, the earliest Christina's were really Jewish, the ones just after that were half pagan.
quote:
which is why we can agree with, and benefit from, so much that was written in the one and a half millennia before the Reformation.
This is historically ignorant as well as plainly ridiculous. If it were anywhere near true, we wouldn't be having this discussion.
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
Kaplan, I don't know what planet you are living on but Planet Exegesis it certainly isn't.
Planet Historically Illiterate?
For the millionteenth time, people in Charlemagne's time didn't operate with a post-Reformation hermeneutic.
Why is that so difficult to grasp?
They operated with an early medieval one.
Which is why they acted like they did.
You operate with an evangelical hermeneutic. That's why you act like you do.
Is that really so fucking difficult to grasp?
Why is that obvious point so bloody difficult to grasp?
It doesn't undermine / invalidate your particular take.
Why should it?
It simply puts it in its historical perspective. That.is.all.
I've got news for you.
The Apostle Paul wasn't an evangelical Protestant. Charlemagne wasn't an evangelical Protestant. There weren't any evangelical Protestants in the way that you or any other evangelical Protestants are evangelical Protestants until the 1730s onwards.
Why are you trying to insist that your hermeneutic was there from the get go when it clearly wasn't?
Nobody is trying to make out that Logical Positivism existed before it did.
Nobody is trying to make out that Existentialism existed before it did.
Why this whacko-jacko insistence that everyone could have or should have operated with your particular hermeneutic before the conditions existed for them to actually do so?
I've never heard anything so ridiculous and anachronistic in my life.
Posted by Jamat (# 11621) on
:
quote:
Lil Buddha: Paul's writing is filtered through his belief the 2nd coming would be in his lifetime.
Now there is a bone to chew. What makes you think that?
Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
quote:
Lil Buddha: Paul's writing is filtered through his belief the 2nd coming would be in his lifetime.
Now there is a bone to chew. What makes you think that?
Hebrews 10:37
quote:
For in just a very little while, He who is coming will come and will not delay
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
Which assumes the Apostle Paul wrote Hebrews ...
FWIW ISTM to that the Apostle Paul had Christ's imminent return as a general expectation, and that's certainly implied in several epistles, but he seems to have modified that expectation as circumstances changed and he found himself on Death Row.
On Kaplan's broad point about there being sufficient grounds for a common understanding throughout the Christian era, well yes, otherwise there'd be even more variations in understanding than there are now.
But that's a different issue to expecting a normative and consistent hermeneutic from the outset, particularly when, as Kaplan seems reluctant to acknowledge, one's own model and approach did not emerge for at least 1500 years, although there are anticipations and antecedents most certainly.
There's an irony here, of course, in that many Protestants scoff at those RCs and Orthodox who act as if the 1st century Church was exactly the same as that of the 4th, 5th, 9th or 13th centuries in every detail.
But who then do exactly the same thing and imagine the 1st century Church to have been a version of their own assemblies only wearing togas.
Of course, claims of antiquity need not necessitate the exaggerated claim that everything was uniform, including hermeneutics, from the outset.
Even on a cursory level it seems obvious to me that a Kaplan style hermeneutic couldn't possibly have existed at a congregational level before the NT was fully canonised and agreed and in wide circulation. Many churches wouldn't have possessed a complete NT for years and years and years.
It's no accident that a more Reformed approach/understanding of scripture developed alongside the advent of printing.
So, in the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th ... 8th ... 12th ...15th centuries, how did these things operate?
Not in the way Kaplan and contemporary evangelicalism does, that's for sure.
The conditions were completely different. Monasticism played its part. So did conciliar and collegial discussion and debate, so did the Papacy in the West ... etc etc.
The conditions that would have allowed or enabled Charlemagne to have a different view of his role as ruler did not yet exist. They only gradually came into existence and that through turmoil, debate, conflict and social change.
It's completely anachronistic to suggest, 'Ah, well if only he'd have read the NT properly like I do ...'
I am completely baffled, flabbergasticated and non-plussed at Kaplan's apparent inability to think historically and to project his own values and presuppositions back into a period of history so very different from our own.
I really, really don't get that.
The only conclusion I can reach is that he refuses to do so because he's scared that to acknowledge otherwise would be to undermine his own position and hermeneutic in some way.
I don't see how that follows.
He could still hold to an evangelical style hermeneutic whilst acknowledging it to be a more recent development than the models Charlemagne's contemporaries would have used.
I'm genuinely puzzled as to why he insists on holding such an untenable view when there are clearly more reasonable and rational explanations available.
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
Sorry, that should have read, 'And persists in reading back ...' etc
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
What is even more odd is that the NT writers themselves clearly didn't obey the hermeneutical rules that Kaplan appears to expect them to have done.
None of them would pass an exegetical paper set by a contemporary evangelical seminary.
His argument does not pass muster on any count or criteria other than his own.
Posted by Golden Key (# 1468) on
:
Gamaliel--
Depending on how you (gen.) view the NT and who wrote what, etc., they wouldn't even have needed a systematic hermeneutic, in the sense used on this thread, AIUI.
If they were actually present with Jesus, knew him, traveled with him, argued with him, laughed with him, partied with him, then they would have worked from their own experience in trying to understand their Teacher (and more). Plus their cultural and religious context. They'd have been applying that directly to Jesus and his teachings, not something someone wrote about him. (With the possible exception of other accounts written at the time.)
They might have applied some sort of systematic hermeneutic to the Torah and other scriptures, and how that might apply to Jesus. OTOH, sometimes people just soak up their religion and culture, without analyzing it. E.g., I was at an event where a Hindu author talked about her goddess a bit. Someone in the audience asked her if she really believed her goddess was real. The author kind of blinked, then said she really didn't think like that.
The gospel writers, AIUI, are supposed to have written their books many years later. Maybe it took that much time just to come to terms with everything, personally.
FWIW, YMMV.
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
Well yes, but as sure as eggs are eggs they certainly wouldn't have been operating by hermeneutical principles that didn't exist until at least 1500 years after their deaths.
That's the simple point I'm making and which Kaplan seems either not to grasp or to deliberately elide.
That's what I don't 'get', what I find hard to accept and why I've been giving him grief. He's an intelligent man. He ought to know better.
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on
:
KC & J have 'the one true immutable hermeneutic'. Completely different ones of course apart from where they happen to overlap, which isn't much. This hermeneutic has always been see-able for those that have ears to smell. All you have to do is read the bible and there it is. Go no further. Your enculturation plays no part IF you are pure enough.
Posted by roybart (# 17357) on
:
Excellent, concise summary of a very long series of posts. Thanks,Martin60.
Posted by Russ (# 120) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
It is scarcely a matter of "Kaplan's ethic versus Charlemagne's ethic", but of the ethic of the overwhelming majority of present-day Christians (ie all but a few freakish and loony outliers), plus vast swathes of Christians over the last two thousand years, who see and saw clearly that the NT does not sanction the Christian slaughter of unbelievers, versus the ethic of a Charlemagne and those like him.
Regardless of how we label them, you're agreeing that there are two different ethics here, both with some sort of claim to be Christian.
The question I'm struggling with us how we do and should use the word "Christian" in relation to this difference. In order to avoid double standards when we talk of Islam and those who support or condemn terrorist acts which the perpetrators say are carried out in the name of Islam.
Seems to me that either we understand Charlemagne's acts as:
a) Christian (i.e. carried out in response to what we recognise as a valid if militant interpretation of the content of the Christian faith, although not an interpretation we ourselves follow). This view says that Christianity is a good thing, and if one of the unfortunate side effects is that a load of people were massacred, that's a human misunderstanding that's just part of the price we pay for the light of Christ.
or
b) heretical. Protestantism (or some other label) is the true Christianity, and all right-thinking people disown the false Christianity that led to this evil massacre.
or
c) secular. No matter how it may have been dressed-up in religious terms (as part of spinning the Holy Roman Empire as the State embodiment of Christendom), this was basically a king behaving as kings did in those days, with no real connection to the Christian faith.
And in the same way see suicide-bombers as representing either a particularly miltant form of Islam, or a heretical Muslim sect that all orthodox Muslims disavow, or political activism that cynically wears Islamic clothes.
My view is that within this 3-way framework, Charlemagne's acts were secular, and suicide bombers are militant Muslims. You may disagree.
Posted by chris stiles (# 12641) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Russ:
My view is that within this 3-way framework, Charlemagne's acts were secular, and suicide bombers are militant Muslims. You may disagree.
But again, this is just an assertion without argument or evidence.
Posted by chris stiles (# 12641) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by chris stiles:
But again, this is just an assertion without argument or evidence.
And let me add, that most of those in this thread who are most confidently making this assertion seem to have a complete lack of understanding of their own hermeneutic tradition, let alone that of Islam.
[ 15. July 2017, 15:30: Message edited by: chris stiles ]
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by roybart:
Excellent, concise summary of a very long series of posts. Thanks,Martin60.
My irony detector is swinging from below zero to 11. Either way, you're welcome roybart.
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
Absolutely, Chris Stiles. Some on this thread seem almost blissfully unaware that they are applying a hermeneutical system at all ...
That might seem an exaggeration, but if it is, it's a slight one.
Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
quote:
Lil Buddha: Paul's writing is filtered through his belief the 2nd coming would be in his lifetime.
Now there is a bone to chew. What makes you think that?
Hebrews 10:37
quote:
For in just a very little while, He who is coming will come and will not delay
Name us one Bible scholar who thinks that Paul wrote Hebrews.
Posted by chris stiles (# 12641) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
Name us one Bible scholar who thinks that Paul wrote Hebrews.
I'll name two; Clement of Alexandria, Augustine.
Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on
:
An Orthoheretic and a Papist!
If Paul didn't think the second coming was coming soon, he sure wrote about it enough.
And, as I remember it, this is how many Christian sects resolve the discrepancy between Paul's emphasis on celibacy and their boink like bunnies policy.
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
I sure there are others.
Whether Paul wrote Hebrews or not, it seems that he was expecting the imminent end of the world, at least for much of the time.
Besides, what evidence is there that he operated with the same hermeneutical approach as contemporary evangelicals?
He was no more doing that than he was operating like a medieval Scholastic.
He was a 1st century Jewish Christian not an 8th century Catholic or a 16th century Protestant or a 20th/21st century evangelical.
Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by chris stiles:
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
Name us one Bible scholar who thinks that Paul wrote Hebrews.
I'll name two; Clement of Alexandria, Augustine.
Name one present-day Bible scholar who agrees with them.
Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
You operate with an evangelical hermeneutic.
I am not using an "evangelical hermeneutic" (whatever that is) but the grammatical-historical hermeneutic which is commonly acknowledged across all Christian traditions these days.
As I have pointed out already, it does not produce guaranteed uniform results, but it is the best we have, and it is the only one which anybody who thinks that the Bible as a text is important in Christianity's history, takes seriously.
You are exhibiting the very constipated binary thinking* which someone on the Ship (can't recall his name) is incessantly warning us against, because you are trying to pretend that we hold to such a hermeneutic today, but that it was non-existent in the past.
But you are not really ignorant of history, and you know as well as I do that a vast proportion of Christian writing and scholarship was based (perhaps not consciously and articulatedly) on just such a hermeneutic.
Otherwise (to reiterate) nearly everything from the Christian past would be unintelligible and useless if all its authors had lived on (to brazenly appropriate your felicitous imagery) another hermeneutical planet - but this is clearly not the case.
For example, today's Protestants, RCs and Orthodox can all read and appreciate Athanasius, even if we don't agree with every single thing he wrote.
An appreciation of past Christians' actions and writings, however, does not necessitate turning a blind eye to their hermeneutical errors when they arise.
That's all.
Now for goodness' sake sit down, take a deep breath and a stiff drink, and try to calm down.
You'll do yourself a mischief if you try to maintain your current maniacal intensity.
*Sometimes called "authoritarian personality", manifested by intolerance of ambiguity, and treated by some as a pathology.
Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
On Kaplan's broad point about there being sufficient grounds for a common understanding throughout the Christian era, well yes
Congratulations!
These are the birth pangs of a more nuanced and historically accurate outlook than you have hitherto managed.
Don't stop now - keep pushing!
[ 16. July 2017, 03:56: Message edited by: Kaplan Corday ]
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
Ha ha ...
This is the first time I've been accused of maniacal and authoritarian tendencies and I've been accused of lots of things ...
I'd been on cider at our local - and very good - free Music Festival so perhaps you can blame that ...
I do understand your point Kaplan and agree on the broad overlaps across all Christian traditions where a common hermeneutic - call it what we will - certainly applies. I once attended a study weekend led by Metropolitan Kallistos Ware on the Orthodox approach to the scriptures.
Unsurprisingly, perhaps, I found about 80 or 90% of it entirely commensurate with approaches I was familiar with from Protestantism. Nevertheless, there remained about 10% or so that was baffling to me as it derived from an alien hermeneutic that I had to grapple with or unpack before seeing how it operated.
I'm still not sure I succeeded in getting my head round it.
I'm sure if I went to an RC event on similar themes I'd have had a similar reaction. 'How did you arrive at that conclusion?'
However we cut it, though, it doesn't look to me that the NT writers were operating with anything like the hermeneutic you describe.
Be that as it may, we can't assume or even extrapolate with any certainty what they would have thought about issues that arose subsequently.
'What might have been is an abstraction
Remaining a perpetual possibility
Only in a world of speculation.'
T S Eliot, Burnt Norton, 'Four Quartets'
Ok,my guess would be that the Apostle Paul wouldn't have agreed with Charlemagne's execution of the recalcitrant Saxons, but that's based on a whole load of assumptions and suppositions I'm bringing to the table alongside and in tandem from anything I glean directly from the text.
The Orthodox, as I understand it, would also adopt a disapproving stance on Charlie's actions and don't believe that religious belief can be coerced or enforced in that way - for all the examples of such things that have undoubtedly occurred in their own history.
To me that's telling because their hermeneutic is closer in many ways to that which would have operated in the time of Charlemagne - although they do take full advantage of later scholarship and grammatical-critical approaches like Protestants and Catholics do.
As to whether the approach you describe is the only 'serious' one adopted by those who take the scriptures seriously, that's a rather bold claim and possibly on a par with your presumption in acting as an amateur psychologist as to my own mental state and personality.
If I were as maniacal and authoritarian as you suggest I'd be inviting you to join me in the Nether Regions at this point, but I won't. I will also resist the temptations to hold up a mirror ...
What I will do, though, is ask you to acknowledge that whilst there is obviously common ground hermeneutically across all the mainstream Christian positions and traditions, these things don't play out in isolation but the way we engage, approach and interpret these texts derives from our respective traditions and lenses.
That applies to you or I just as much as it does to Metropolitan Kallistos, the late F F Bruce, Barth, Tillotson, Pope Francis or anyone else.
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
Having reviewed your comments - and my own, I'd also suggest that you have misunderstood some of the points I've been making. This could be because I haven't articulated them clearly enough. It could be because you fail to read for comprehension.
I have never, ever suggested that there was a complete and total 'break' between how previous generations approached and interpreted the scriptures and how we approach them today - even assuming that there is a single, commonly accepted approach today - which, looking around, doesn't appear to be the case ...
I'm not suggesting that Paul, Augustine, Charlemagne or Aquinas, Luther, Calvin or anyone else lived in a completely different solar system.
But it's patently obvious that they didn't approach things the way we do. Duh!
I've clearly stated at several points that there were echoes, parallels and anticipations, if you like, of later approaches prior to the Reformation and prior to the Enlightenment. Of course there were.
We're not talking about some kind of late Permian mass-extinction event or the various other mass extinctions that have apparently occurred in the depths of geological time ...
And even with those it seems various wrigglies survived the catastrophes to develop into further wriggles and crawlies and so on. Otherwise none of us would exist today.
So, I would ask you, very politely, to read what I write and not what you think I write.
I would ask you very politely to try to understand what I am actually saying and not what you assume I'm saying.
I would ask you very politely, allowing for my verbiage and 'manical' and 'authoritarian' tendencies to do some close reading of what I've actually written - not what you assume I've written.
One pressumes you pay attention to close-reading when you apply your particular - and largely shared - hermeneutical approach to the scriptures.
I ask you to offer Shipmates a similar courtesy when you read what they write.
Thank you.
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
Perhaps it would help if I spelt this has out more plainly.
You are an evangelical Christian. Consequently, you apply historical-grammatical methods of biblical interpretation in an evangelical way, a way that is consistent with the interpretations favoured within that tradition.
Obviously.
Metropolitan Kallistos Ware is an Orthodox Christian. Consequently, he applies those same or similar principles within the framework of his Big T Tradition.
Surprise, surprise, on some issues his views would overlap with yours.
Equally unsurprisingly, on other issues there would be varying degrees of variance.
Got it so far?
The same applies when we look back at any period of history. Even if everyone were using prototype versions of the methods you favour it does not mean they would have been uniform in the conclusions they reached - as you have acknowledged.
It would be perfectly possible - but also, in my view wrong - for people to reach completely different conclusions about Church/State relationships without nefariously overlooking or ignoring 'The plain meaning of the text.'
For one thing, nobody approaches the text in isolation. For another all of us are shaped by the culture and thought-patterns of their own time.
What do I need to do or say to make myself any clearer than that?
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
You operate with an evangelical hermeneutic.
I am not using an "evangelical hermeneutic" (whatever that is) but the grammatical-historical hermeneutic which is commonly acknowledged across all Christian traditions these days.
They are one and the same. Acknowledged in what way? In the Roman Catholic magisterium and Orthodox allegorizing hermeneutic?
As I have pointed out already, it does not produce guaranteed uniform results, but it is the best we have, and it is the only one which anybody who thinks that the Bible as a text is important in Christianity's history, takes seriously.
Bollocks. Pathetically arrogant, ignorant bollocks.
You are exhibiting the very constipated binary thinking* which someone on the Ship (can't recall his name) is incessantly warning us against, because you are trying to pretend that we hold to such a hermeneutic today, but that it was non-existent in the past.
But you are not really ignorant of history, and you know as well as I do that a vast proportion of Christian writing and scholarship was based (perhaps not consciously and articulatedly) on just such a hermeneutic.
Otherwise (to reiterate) nearly everything from the Christian past would be unintelligible and useless if all its authors had lived on (to brazenly appropriate your felicitous imagery) another hermeneutical planet - but this is clearly not the case.
For example, today's Protestants, RCs and Orthodox can all read and appreciate Athanasius, even if we don't agree with every single thing he wrote.
An appreciation of past Christians' actions and writings, however, does not necessitate turning a blind eye to their hermeneutical errors when they arise.
That's all.
Now for goodness' sake sit down, take a deep breath and a stiff drink, and try to calm down.
You'll do yourself a mischief if you try to maintain your current maniacal intensity.
*Sometimes called "authoritarian personality", manifested by intolerance of ambiguity, and treated by some as a pathology.
As the historical-grammatical method is always poisoned by wooden inerrant literalism and is therefore fundamentally anti-intellectual, all of that is patronizing bollocks upon bollocks too.
You see I want to agree with you KC, but as with all the inspired, plain, enculturated bollocks I've believed in the past, the more I see it defended the more revolted I am by it.
I want it to be so that Christian peace-making on the trajectory to universal social justice is the plain meaning of scripture, and for me it is, by the second rate historical-grammatical method it ISN'T.
Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
I am not using an "evangelical hermeneutic" (whatever that is) but the grammatical-historical hermeneutic which is commonly acknowledged across all Christian traditions these days.
I wonder what you mean here. Are you saying that there are no Christian traditions that believe in state power? Or that nobody thinks genocide is acceptable? Or that nobody thinks heretics should be rooted out?
Because there clearly are Christians who believe that. So it clearly isn't the case that there is a hermeneutic on these issues which is universally accepted by everyone.
And if one is going to only look at a self selected group of traditions and then say that they all superificially have the same hermeneutic on violence then obviously it is highly likely that they'll agree.
I still don't think you know what the terms mean that you are using and that you are simply saying that those churches which agree with me on this issue agree with me. Well durr.
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
It looks like the only one who has got hot under the collar at Kaplan's patronising insistence that his is the only proper and kosher approach ... But perhaps I'm the only one so far that he has effectively accused of being mentally ill for daring to disagree with him ...
I used to think that Kaplan was on the more nuanced end of the scale occupied by Jamat at the more 'closed' end.
I now realise I was mistaken.
Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on
:
For example, I don't think it would be too surprising to learn that conservative Evangelicals exist who believe in executing heretics. And there clearly are examples of Christians who have been involved in war crimes. I guess it might be tough to show that these things would be part of a consistent theology as per the crusades, but I'm not so sure that every occasion it happens is unrelated to a systematic theological position.
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
Sure, although in fairness they'd be outliers whereas at times in the past they would have represented something akin to received wisdom.
Of course, that doesn't mean that everyone was comfortable with executing heretics back in the day and, contra Kaplan, I've never said they were.
Posted by Russ (# 120) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by chris stiles:
quote:
Originally posted by Russ:
My view is that within this 3-way framework, Charlemagne's acts were secular, and suicide bombers are militant Muslims. You may disagree.
But again, this is just an assertion without argument or evidence.
Yes - what I'm saying in this sentence is that this is where I'm starting from.
I know very little about Islam, and am open to evidence and argument that either the "heretical" or "secular" model would be a better way of looking at Islamic terrorism.
I guess my reasoning is that:
- people blowing themselves up in the expectation of heavenly reward seems psychologically more plausible than people blowing themselves up for political ends while cynically claiming religious motive. Martyrdom is not an unfamiliar concept to Christians. And our cultural expectation is that those about to meet their Maker are honest at the hour of their death.
- Islam seems, to an outsider, to be divided into Sunni and Shia "factions". One faction accusing the other of heresy wouldn't be news. For representatives of either faction to accuse their own extremists of heresy probably would be.
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on
:
Do the '80s count as back in the day?
Posted by chris stiles (# 12641) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
quote:
Originally posted by chris stiles:
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
Name us one Bible scholar who thinks that Paul wrote Hebrews.
I'll name two; Clement of Alexandria, Augustine.
Name one present-day Bible scholar who agrees with them.
Not every Christian lives in the present day. People have access only to the teaching that is common currency in their day.
But since you ask; RC Sproul (mentioned only because I've read a passage where he endorsed the view). I'm sure there are others - both pastors and scholars - at the more conservative end of the spectrum. Similarly, I assume that a significant number of their students/congregations take the same view, because that's what they've been taught for a large part of their life.
Which is entirely the point here.
[ 16. July 2017, 12:22: Message edited by: chris stiles ]
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
@Russ. It's not as simple as that. There are more subdivisions within Islam than Sunni and Shia and there are differing views within each just as there are within Judaism's and Christianity's subdivisions.
@Chris Stiles, whilst it was never 'officially' proclaimed or upheld in the restorationist churches I knew, it wasn't unusual for individuals and some preachers to entertain the view that Paul wrote Hebrews. They wouldn't have died in a ditch over the issue though.
And yes, we all assume the way we've been taught to approach things is normative, which is why this thread has meandered from the terrorism and violence issue to hermeneutics of course.
@Martin60, if you're thinking of loopy evangelicals like Rios Montte back in the '80s, then yes ... But characters like him were by no means representative. That said, I was disturbed when I met missionaries from US-style mission agencies who reckoned he was kosher and that the tales about his atrocities were all concocted 'by the Communists.'
Also, for a brief moment or two some of the UK restorationists who should have known better were saying, 'Hey, look at this, the guy is a charismatic Christian. This augurs well for the future of his country ...'
When it all boils down to it, expediency, special pleading, situational ethics and a whole load of loaded and thorny issues come into play whoever you are in a position of power - whatever your hermeneutics.
That applies to Charlemagne, Cromwell, Catherine the Great, Constantine (can we mention him?) or Clement Atlee.
There's no such thing as value-free hermeneutics anyway. Even if there were we'd soon taint it.
Posted by Callan (# 525) on
:
Originally posted by Russ:
quote:
Seems to me that either we understand Charlemagne's acts as:
a) Christian (i.e. carried out in response to what we recognise as a valid if militant interpretation of the content of the Christian faith, although not an interpretation we ourselves follow). This view says that Christianity is a good thing, and if one of the unfortunate side effects is that a load of people were massacred, that's a human misunderstanding that's just part of the price we pay for the light of Christ.
or
b) heretical. Protestantism (or some other label) is the true Christianity, and all right-thinking people disown the false Christianity that led to this evil massacre.
or
c) secular. No matter how it may have been dressed-up in religious terms (as part of spinning the Holy Roman Empire as the State embodiment of Christendom), this was basically a king behaving as kings did in those days, with no real connection to the Christian faith.
And in the same way see suicide-bombers as representing either a particularly miltant form of Islam, or a heretical Muslim sect that all orthodox Muslims disavow, or political activism that cynically wears Islamic clothes.
My view is that within this 3-way framework, Charlemagne's acts were secular, and suicide bombers are militant Muslims. You may disagree.
Well yes, I do. Charlemagne inherited a tradition that probably goes back to the bronze age, but which at any rate was common in antiquity which said that the government had a responsibility to regulate religion. The degree of regulation differed across religions and governments and eras but it was commonly acknowledged. Hence Athens(!) put Socrates to death for allegedly encouraging people to worship gods other than the gods of the City. Rome made distinction between permitted religions and superstition. Christian rulers suppressed or tolerated (as Thomas Paine pointed out they are two sides of the same coin) heresy and infidelity. Charlemagne didn't just pull this stuff out of his arse. He read his Bible (or had others read it to him) and came to the conclusion that as Emperor of the West it was his job to put down paganism in Saxony based on assumptions that had been pretty much par for the course in his part of the world for millennia. The reason we don't agree with Charlemagne nowadays is because we don't think that religious disagreement is dangerous. Anglicans disagree with Methodists but we don't think that they are dangerous subversives or that tolerating them will anger the Almighty and we don't have to deal with Anglicans who will turn on us if we allow the use of the Methodist Worship Book within the Realm. By and large this was not the case during the pre-modern period and Christians interpreted Scripture in the light of these positions, which were not as absurd as they seem, btw. Not all religious dissidents wanted to be left alone to worship God according to the dictates of their conscience. The modern insistence on freedom of conscience is, to my mind, vastly superior to the 8th Century approach, just as the automobile is a superior form of travel to horseback,, but to suggest that Charlemagne ignored the clear meaning of scripture or was purely interested in advancing the power of the Carolignian dynasty is to wrench him from his historical context. You might as well blame him for not owning a Nissan Note, rather than a horse.
Posted by chris stiles (# 12641) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
@Chris Stiles, whilst it was never 'officially' proclaimed or upheld in the restorationist churches I knew, it wasn't unusual for individuals and some preachers to entertain the view that Paul wrote Hebrews. They wouldn't have died in a ditch over the issue though.
Sure - though that doesn't invalidate the wider point (and I'm sure some might have contemplated the ditch as soon as non-apostles were mentioned as possible authors).
Going back to the Charlemagne example, and the general discussion on hermeneutics. Among contemporary hermeneutics, an argument somewhat along these lines could have different conclusions (by a different understanding of what comes under the eschatological heading)
http://themelios.thegospelcoalition.org/article/bearing-sword-in-the-state-turning-cheek-in-the-church-a-reformed-two-kingd
Van Drunen's existing argument as it is already sits reasonably comfortably with both military action by the state and the en-action of the death penalty (he is cautiously in favour of the latter).
Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on
:
That reminds me of Ed Feser's defence of the death penalty, a book with the splendid title of 'By Man Shall His Blood Be Shed: A Catholic Defense of Capital Punishment'. But then he is ultra right wing, I think.
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
...
@Martin60, if you're thinking of loopy evangelicals like Rios Montt[e] back in the '80s, then yes ... But characters like him were by no means representative. That said, I was disturbed when I met missionaries from US-style mission agencies who reckoned he was kosher and that the tales about his atrocities were all concocted 'by the Communists.'
Also, for a brief moment or two some of the UK restorationists who should have known better were saying, 'Hey, look at this, the guy is a charismatic Christian. This augurs well for the future of his country ...'
When it all boils down to it, expediency, special pleading, situational ethics and a whole load of loaded and thorny issues come into play whoever you are in a position of power - whatever your hermeneutics.
That applies to Charlemagne, Cromwell, Catherine the Great, Constantine (can we mention him?) or Clement Atlee.
There's no such thing as value-free hermeneutics anyway. Even if there were we'd soon taint it.
Aye G. That fine example of evangelicalism and the historical-grammatical method along with his evangelical US backers Falwell and Robertson for two. And me. I was a Cold War armchair warrior too. May God forgive me.
Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Russ:
For representatives of either faction to accuse their own extremists of heresy probably would be.
Seriously? You don't think that happens all the time?
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
Yes, Callan. Try telling that to Kaplan though. He'll probably accuse you of having some kind of person disorder too for having the temerity to challenge his historically dislocated view of how hermeneutics developed.
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
Sorry, 'personality disorder'...
Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
Sure, although in fairness they'd be outliers whereas at times in the past they would have represented something akin to received wisdom.
OK, but then how is one determining "outliers"? Measured against the RCC and Orthodox, all Reformation churches are outliers.
It is stupid, and circular, to make a universal claim of knowledge direct from the bible which clearly cannot be supported without a whole lot of interpretation and which owes a lot to a developing understanding of biblical interpretation developed by the very structures that Evangelicals claim that they can bypass and within the context of a theological structure they say that they don't need.
But it is even more stupid to claim that one's own hermeneutic is the only valid one and then to use that to measure whether or not other churches or movements are outliers.
This talk of outliers is just code with Evangelicals use to pretend that they can create theology in toto from the bible - and then use it as a stick to beat everyone else with.
[ 16. July 2017, 14:59: Message edited by: mr cheesy ]
Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Callan:
Hence Athens(!) put Socrates to death for allegedly encouraging people to worship gods other than the gods of the City.
That's not how Plato tells the story. According to Plato's Apology the problem was that Socrates was engaged in "corrupting the youth" and there is scholarship suggesting that it was really an act of self immolation given that the state gave him a relatively simple get-out which he refused to accept.
Simply saying it was about "encouraging people to worship gods other than the gods of the City" seems to be a very skewed understanding of the story.
Posted by Callan (# 525) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
quote:
Originally posted by Callan:
Hence Athens(!) put Socrates to death for allegedly encouraging people to worship gods other than the gods of the City.
That's not how Plato tells the story. According to Plato's Apology the problem was that Socrates was engaged in "corrupting the youth" and there is scholarship suggesting that it was really an act of self immolation given that the state gave him a relatively simple get-out which he refused to accept.
Simply saying it was about "encouraging people to worship gods other than the gods of the City" seems to be a very skewed understanding of the story.
Originally posted by Plato:
quote:
I have shown, Athenians, as I was saying, that Meletus has no care at all, great or small, about the matter. But still I should like to know, Meletus, in what I am affirmed to corrupt the young. I suppose you mean, as I infer from your indictment, that I teach them not to acknowledge the gods which the state acknowledges, but some other new divinities or spiritual agencies in their stead. These are the lessons which corrupt the youth, as you say.
{Meletus]Yes, that I say emphatically.
quote:
Then, by the gods, Meletus, of whom we are speaking, tell me and the court, in somewhat plainer terms, what you mean! for I do not as yet understand whether you affirm that I teach others to acknowledge some gods, and therefore do believe in gods and am not an entire atheist - this you do not lay to my charge; but only that they are not the same gods which the city recognizes - the charge is that they are different gods. Or, do you mean to say that I am an atheist simply, and a teacher of atheism?
[Meletus]I mean the latter - that you are a complete atheist.
According to Plato, then, the corruption of the young involved Socrates encouraging them to venerate different gods, and in Socrates being an atheist (the same complaint was levelled against the early Christian's, ironically enough, which indicates that the term may have been used as loosely as 'communism' was at a later date). Whatever we think of Plato's veracity or whether or not Socrates death was an early instance of suicide by cop, we can say that Plato could write a text aimed at educated Athenians, which held that the laws of Athens regulated divine worship and punished those who worshipped differently (or not at all, depending on context) and expect not to be laughed at. I therefore maintain that freedom of conscience, in the modern sense, did not exist in Athens in Socrates day, although only a fool would deny that it was one of the most free societies that existed in the pre-modern era.
Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Callan:
According to Plato, then, the corruption of the young involved Socrates encouraging them to venerate different gods
Very little would give me greater joy than discussing Plato and Socrates - it is a lot more complex than you're suggesting.
But I fear that this is a tangent too far for this thread. Maybe another time.
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
Sure, although in fairness they'd be outliers whereas at times in the past they would have represented something akin to received wisdom.
OK, but then how is one determining "outliers"? Measured against the RCC and Orthodox, all Reformation churches are outliers.
It is stupid, and circular, to make a universal claim of knowledge direct from the bible which clearly cannot be supported without a whole lot of interpretation and which owes a lot to a developing understanding of biblical interpretation developed by the very structures that Evangelicals claim that they can bypass and within the context of a theological structure they say that they don't need.
But it is even more stupid to claim that one's own hermeneutic is the only valid one and then to use that to measure whether or not other churches or movements are outliers.
This talk of outliers is just code with Evangelicals use to pretend that they can create theology in toto from the bible - and then use it as a stick to beat everyone else with.
I get that, but my point was a lot simpler - namely that within evangelical circles those who would advocate anything approaching state-owned violence against 'heretics' and unbelievers would be in a marginal minority.
That said, I don't think such views would be very far beneath the surface with some of the more right-wing evangelicals - although not in a very 'realised' or systematic way - more a vague kind of belief that the state should uphold their values in some way.
Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
within evangelical circles those who would advocate anything approaching state-owned violence against 'heretics' and unbelievers would be in a marginal minority.
That said, I don't think such views would be very far beneath the surface with some of the more right-wing evangelicals
"Marginal minority"?
It's not impossible that they exist, but I have never come across a single instance of a present-day evangelical who thinks that a "Christian" state should kill heretics or unbelievers.
On the other hand, there are definitely those on the ultra-nationalist extreme of Orthodoxy who want the state used against the non-Orthodox, though AFAIK that doesn't extend to wanting them actually killed.
Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by chris stiles:
RC Sproul
R C Sproul - now you're wheeling out the heavy artillery!
Seriously, Sproul is scarcely a Bible scholar in the academic sense of the word, and even if he were, popping up his name in the context of this issue would be like producing a Christian with a genuine science doctorate to refute the case for a four billion year-old earth and evolution.
Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
If I were as maniacal and authoritarian as you suggest I'd be inviting you to join me in the Nether Regions at this point, but I won't.
For fuck's sake settle down, Gamaliel.
If I called people to Hell every time they needled me, I'd spend my whole time on the Ship there, but I'm just not interested.
But if it makes you feel better, by all means go there and get it all out of your system.
Go nuts.
Knock yourself out.
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
I have settled down, Kaplan and that's why I'm not calling you to Hell.
If it makes you feel any better, I haven't come across any evangelicals who'd advocate the kind of violence I described upthread either, but that doesn't mean they don't exist.
There would be many of them, but they are out there - and largely in the US.
As for extreme and whacko Orthodox, yes, they exist too. I've come across Orthodox crackpots online although not, mercifully, in real life.
As for your irritating me to the point of a near-miss Hell call ...
No, you've not pushed me to the edge but think how irritating it'd be if I or anyone else here were to question your mental health, continually failed to read your posts for comprehension and continued to elide or dismiss any semblance of historical context in their remarks.
You'd get pissed off with them if anyone did that to you.
Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
think how irritating it'd be if I or anyone else here were to question your mental health
They come very close to it!
I would have thought that we know each other well enough for you to realise that my comments in this regard were part of the robust give and take of debate, but if you seriously feel that I have impugned your mental health, then I apologise unreservedly
quote:
continually failed to read your posts for comprehension
You'd get pissed off with them if anyone did that to you.
They do, all the time, and yes, I do get pissed off.
[ 17. July 2017, 01:48: Message edited by: Kaplan Corday ]
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
As for extreme and whacko Orthodox, yes, they exist too. I've come across Orthodox crackpots online although not, mercifully, in real life.
Oh God, yes. I've been on the receiving end of their venomous spite. There was even a whole board -- comparable to Ecclesiantics or Kerygmania -- on an Orthodox online site dedicated to attacking me personally. Fun! These same people opined that Jesus never pissed or shat because that would be "seeing corruption".
There are also Orthodoxen who think Rasputin should be made a saint. Others (or really probably the same people) want to make Stalin a saint also.
Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
Are you saying that there are no Christian traditions that believe in state power? Or that nobody thinks genocide is acceptable? Or that nobody thinks heretics should be rooted out?
Because there clearly are Christians who believe that. So it clearly isn't the case that there is a hermeneutic on these issues which is universally accepted by everyone.
I'm not sure that you know what a hermeneutic is.
It is a principle of interpretation, preferably the best on offer.
It does not refer to, as you imply, a method the efficacy of which is measured by whether or not it produces uniform results.
I have pointed this out a number of times.
A grammatical-historical hermeneutic will often throw up a number of acceptable possibilities, but it will also eliminate others as beyond the Pale.
Thus a hermeneutically sound exposition of the NT can be used to justify both just war and pacifism, but not the extermination of pagans.
Likewise it can be used to underpin a number of possible positions in ecclesiology, pneumatology, eschatology etc, but it cannot be used to to teach the prophetic content of the dimensions of the Great Pyramid, or that it is incumbent upon Christian kings to acquire one thousand sex partners.
It does not follow from the fact that some Christians in the past believed in killing the heathen, that their hermeneutic was as good as any other, and that there is therefore nothing to choose between hermeneutical systems.
It means that they were using a faulty hermeneutic, or misusing a sound one, or were ignorant, or were disobedient.
It doesn't work to trivialise or manipulate that into, "Sez you!", because all sane Christians (including yourself) believe that these days, as have countless Christians in the past.
[ 17. July 2017, 03:34: Message edited by: Kaplan Corday ]
Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on
:
No, you don't get to define words in a particular way because it suits your argument.
There is no sense that violence against heathens is a nonviable hermeneutic simply because better ideas are available. That's nonsense.
Because ultimately you don't get to be the judge to decide on whether other people have ideas which are viable.
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
FWIW, it's because I know you well enough and have met you real life and thought you were cool, that I haven't toppled over into Hell with this one ...
The robustness too, I like. It does me good. I'm British and can far too equivocal.
No, the thing that rankled is the same thing that appears to be mr cheesy's gripe - albeit less personally - that you apparently - I said apparently - feel that you have priveleged access to a position where you can act as judge and jury on the conclusions / attitudes of previous generations without fully grappling with the issues / conditions that led them to adopting those positions.
You can call me nutty as a fruitcake if you like. I don't mind. But it came across as if you felt your own view was so self-evident that if anyone disagreed they must have a screw or two loose.
Also, you'd apparently overlooked or misunderstood the point I was making about pre-Reformation and pre-Enlightenment hermeneutics, as if I were making out that they were a completely radical departure from what had gone before rather than a gradual divergence or development.
Other than that, I'm cool with your conclusions - just not convinced of the route you are taking to arrive at them.
Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
Other than that, I'm cool with your conclusions - just not convinced of the route you are taking to arrive at them.
I'm not. It is an effort to cast Christianity as inherently peaceful in contrast to Islam which is painted as inherently violent.
And, more importantly, it is bollocks. It is crap to say that it is impossible to believe a "theory of interpretation" of Christianity which is violent to non-believers.
It is perfectly possible to come up with a theory of interpretation which holds together that takes account of the NT and which understands it within the context of a spiritual kingdom after Joshua.
Believers in such a thing do not accept ideas or theories that are "non-viable", they're absolutely viable and consistent with a certain way to interpret the bible.
You don't have to make up a load of additional crap to believe that God is telling you to destroy his enemies, you just have to read the bible in a certain way.
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on
:
And it was not just possible but inevitable, mandatory, unavoidable in church-state theocracy from Constantine through Philip of Spain, Puritanism, all European colonialism and imperialism, taken up in US theocapitalism with sacred Israel.
This is the dominant Christian hermeneutic. That of the Beast and his prophet.
Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
This is the dominant Christian hermeneutic.
Mmm. I'm not sure that crusader-style destruction of "the other" is the dominent hermeneutic however it is clearly true even in our times that Christianity has no problem having power in societies that practice extreme violence.
Sometimes it is just that the dominant theology takes no account of political violence and is content to sit on the sidelines and say nothing. But there are clearly times when the political violence is sanctioned by the dominant Christian theology which has the power to act it out.
I think most of us would agree that only a few Christian extremists today would think they can justify genocide theologically. But a far larger number believe that they can justify dropping nuclear weapons on enemies, greater still that aggressive wars are justified, greater still that certain kinds of non-believers should have their rights removed.
Saying that few today believe in the kind of hideous terrorist acts we sadly associate with some corners of Islam ignores the fact that Christianity is tied to systems of power that oppress and commit state violence in other ways.
Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on
:
At the same time it seeks to downplay the acts of various forms of Christian extremists as those of crazed heretics whilst at the same time claiming that those who make the same kinds of horrible violence in the name of Islam are reflecting the central logic and position of that religion.
It is the double standard here that is absolutely sickening.
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on
:
Aye. We live in the spirit of that hermeneutic. We have institutionalized that evil above all. Resurrected Babylon. Confusion.
Posted by chris stiles (# 12641) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
quote:
Originally posted by chris stiles:
RC Sproul
R C Sproul - now you're wheeling out the heavy artillery!
Seriously, Sproul is scarcely a Bible scholar in the academic sense of the word
Well, I have no idea of why you asked lilbuddha the original question that led down this tangent - and you have cut the rest of my post that lends context.
My point was that there are theologians and teachers across the ages who have differed on something as relatively simple as the authorship of Hebrews.
Sproul taught at two conservative reformed seminaries, doubtless he has had an impact in shaping how the average Christian in the denominations fed from those seminaries think about all sorts of things. When society at large thinks in a particular way, the same thing happens at a more macro level.
In general, a large amount of effort has been expended in keeping theology 'reasoned' - the church wasn't just picking a grab bag of reasons to believe six impossible things before breakfast, or at least was trying not to. That you believe their stances to be wrong given the weight of an additional thousand years of thinking doesn't necessarily mean that they didn't have a reasoned defence of what they thought.
Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by chris stiles:
In general, a large amount of effort has been expended in keeping theology 'reasoned' - the church wasn't just picking a grab bag of reasons to believe six impossible things before breakfast, or at least was trying not to. That you believe their stances to be wrong given the weight of an additional thousand years of thinking doesn't necessarily mean that they didn't have a reasoned defence of what they thought.
Exactly. I understand that the JWs believe Hebrews was written by Paul. Presumably because this fits within a theological hermeneutic and metanarrative and worldview that they hold.
It seems nonsense to me to claim that the JWs have an "invalid" hermeneutic given that it holds together, it is worked out and gives an over-arching structure to understand the scriptures. If the measure of validity of a hermeneutic isn't internal consistency and that it gives a framework for understanding and interpretation, then what is it?
I can't see that pointing to or claiming certain historical authority figures that one happens to agree with is any kind of measure of hermeneutical validity, although I suppose a hermeneutic is unlikely to be invalid if a bunch of people have worked within it in different ways. But surely that cuts both ways - a bunch of JW theologians have worked within their hermeneutic, therefore in what sense can it be said to be invalid?
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
I get the points you are making, mr cheesy and am in broad agreement.
My point is that I agree with the conclusions Kaplan has reached - that it is wrong to kill pagans and heretics - but I don't believe for one moment that he has arrived at that conclusion purely by applying some kind of anti-Semitic, squeaky clean application of an historical-grammatical hermeneutic.
Rather, he has reached that conclusion by a whole set of influences, some of which wouldn't have been available to Charlemagne.
It's the anachronistic approach I am objecting to.
I don't believe in executing pagans and heretics not because there's a verse which tells me not to do so but because I'm the product of a whole range of cultural, theological and societal influences that says that it ain't a smart thing to do.
Kaplan - ITSM - is applying a later hermeneutic unrealistically, natively and anachronistically whilst trying to claim it is self-evident. Which is bollocks.
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
Bugger that predictive text! That should have read 'anti-septic' not 'anti-Semitic.'
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on
:
@mr cheesy, aye, guilty as I am of binary rhetoric above, I wouldn't formally declare an entire hermeneutic black or white. I've always liked functional decomposition, algorithm flow charts: an information science approach ... there must be a Bayesian network for all this.
But at the end of the day, what's whitest?
[ 17. July 2017, 09:46: Message edited by: Martin60 ]
Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on
:
The best theology is a different question as to whether something is or isn't a valid hermeneutic.
I happen to believe that all violence and state religion is wrong for the Christian. But other (wrong) views are available and I'm not trying to pretend that they're not to be understood as a real theological tradition within the religion.
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on
:
Understood, agreed. Inclusively looping back to the OP and beyond, extreme Islamist hermeneutics are similarly valid too.
[ 17. July 2017, 13:41: Message edited by: Martin60 ]
Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
Inclusively looping back to the OP and beyond, extreme Islamist hermeneutics are similarly valid too.
I don't know, but I suspect that they are - at least it appears that the violence is part of a particular framework which developed in order to understand the religion.
The only way I can see that it could be invalid would be if the extremist claimed it to be Islam but had nothing at all to do with it. So someone maybe claiming the name of Islam but in practice getting all their theological ideas from watching TV wrestling.
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
Surely it's for Muslims to decide whether or not extreme jihadism or Islamism uses a valid hermeneutic or not?
As for whether Charlemagne and his contemporaries were using a valid or an invalid approach, the whole point is that nobody's approach is value-free nor isolated in some way from their particular context.
Kaplan insists that the historical-grammatical method that is now apparently in vogue right across the board is 'the only one we have.'
Even if it was it's used alongside all sorts of other criteria and never used in isolation.
We have 'scripture, reason and tradition', we have Big T Tradition, we have small t tradition ...
What we don't have is a universally agreed hermeneutical method that is hermetically sealed in a box and which operates independently or us and independently of the accumulated wisdom (or otherwise) of the various Christian faith communities down the ages.
No-one has that kind of luxury. Not the Jews, not the Muslims, not the Christians ...
No-one.
Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
Surely it's for Muslims to decide whether or not extreme jihadism or Islamism uses a valid hermeneutic or not?
Mmm I don't know. It kinda stretches the meaning of words if the idea of valid/invalid is only determined by the people in a particular religion.
A more interesting question for me is about the point when a particular religion grows and changes to the extent that it isn't any longer the same thing.
So I've been pondering whether Bahai can be considered a valid hermeneutic of Islam and Mormonism of Christianity. I think it is hard to say - they're both valid at least in the sense that they make sense and give a structured way to understand their faith. But one might also argue that the faith they're seeking to understand isn't Islam/Christianity, at least as far as many others might understand it.
So I've been pondering whether we might say that violent Crusader Christians might be said to have a valid hermeneutic but that the thing they're believing in is no longer Christianity.
The problem is that there is no easy way to make that judgment, particularly when those engaging in this kind of activity in the Crusader era were clearly at the centre of the Christian religion as it was understood (at least in Western Europe).
So determining whether or not a violent person is correct in claiming that they're part of Islam or Christianity or whatnot must be an interpretation informed largely by the hermeneutic and worldview of the observer. No?
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
Sure, but there's also the communal or collegial dimension ... and that also begs the question as to how far we extend that and who we include.
Who decides whether X, Y, Z brand / subset of Islam, say, is 'heretical' or unorthodox? Islam doesn't have a Magisterium.
Who decides whether Mormons, JWs, Christadelphians or other 'marginal' groups with a base, originally, in broadly orthodox Christianity, should be included or excluded from the fold?
It's a similar question as to how we determine what constitutes canonical scripture ... easier for the NT perhaps, but even then ...
Who decides/determines whether the Ethiopian Orthodox, for instance, should have as many books in their Bibles? They have 77 I think, or at least a lot more than anyone else ...
The simple answer would be that they decide themselves. The rest of us can have an opinion on it but ultimately it's up to them to decide using whatever criteria it is they use ...
On the Crusades issue, on one level I'm not even sure we're asking the right set of questions when it comes to debating whether their hermeneutic was faulty or not ...
Why? Because, as ever, there were a lot more forces and influences coming into play than whether someone could find chapter and verse to justify this, that or the other ...
On one level, many historians believe that the Papal sanction of Crusades arose partly to provide some kind of external / common enemy focus to distract ruffianly knights from knocking 12 shades of shit out of one another across Western Europe.
As far as I understand it, the Eastern Church/es were broadly in favour of the Crusades initially as they welcomed military assistance against a common foe. That changed when the Crusaders started whacking 12 shades of shit out of them as well as the Saracens ...
And also, it has to be said, taking revenge for The Massacre of the Latins in 1182 which is something you don't hear the Orthodox say a great deal about, for all the understandable whining they do about the Sack of Constantinople in 1204.
See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massacre_of_the_Latins
Whatever the case, I think there's an interesting dynamic going on throughout the whole thing that goes beyond finding proof-texts or citing chapter and verse for this, that or the other - as important as that clearly is, if done 'properly' as it were.
I've recently been impressed by Larry Siedentop's 'Inventing The Individual' (Penguin/Random House 2014 ISBN 978-0-141-00954-4)
Siedentop makes the case that Western Christianity helped to break down the aristocratic family/nabob type approach of the classical period paving the way for modern ideas of equality and individual freedom.
He's quite good on Charlemagne and 'The Carolingian Compromise' and whilst he doesn't elide the familiar concerns about the Papacy, he treats the whole thing very differently to the standard, 'Nasty old Popes, nasty medieval Catholics ...' thing - because he sees the Church as playing a key role in moderating both classical and 'barbarian' tendencies to down-grade the individual ...
It repays a read whether we are convinced by his conclusions or not.
I, of course, took a both/and view ...
![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
At any rate, the point is, there's far more to it than finding proof-texts and citing chapter and verse against this, that or the other.
It's far more holistic than that.
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
Surely it's for Muslims to decide whether or not extreme jihadism or Islamism uses a valid hermeneutic or not?
Mmm I don't know. It kinda stretches the meaning of words if the idea of valid/invalid is only determi
How is "can perforce be determined by people outside the religion in question" part of the meaning of the words "valid" and "invalid"? That's not in, or implied by, any definition of the words I've ever seen.
Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
How is "can perforce be determined by people outside the religion in question" part of the meaning of the words "valid" and "invalid"? That's not in, or implied by, any definition of the words I've ever seen.
I'm not sure I understand what you've written here.
I was really reflecting on the words "valid hermeneutic" and whether one has to be a Muslim to know whether a given hermeneutic is or isn't valid. I did express some uncertainty, but I'm not entirely convinced that this must be the case.
Whilst it might be difficult for someone outside that worldview to be sure, it seems likely to me that it ought to be possible for someone who has studied Islam to determine whether violence is or isn't a valid hermeneutic for Muslims. As I said, the only way I can understand the term is to say that it is a broad methodology of theology to interpret the religion - with the validity related to whether the ideas hold together, have internal consistency and engage with the things that they're trying to explain.
A hermeneutic which would be invalid would be something on the level of saying that Muslims have to wage violent jihad because the robots are taking over the solar system and only people with curly eyebrows can save humanity. That seems to me to be invalid because it contains a whole load of stuff which can't be inferred from the writings, tradition etc of that religion.
Violence can reasonably be inferred from the bible and, I think, the Koran because there are various passages which seem to suggest it is a good idea. A theological methodology of interpretation which includes violence would therefore seem to be within the collection of theologies which could be validly held about those religions.
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
Surely it's for Muslims to decide whether or not extreme jihadism or Islamism uses a valid hermeneutic or not?
All depends on your hermeneutic hermeneutic.
Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
I don't believe in executing pagans and heretics not because there's a verse which tells me not to do so but because I'm the product of a whole range of cultural, theological and societal influences that says that it ain't a smart thing to do.
"Smart"?
You don't believe in executing pagans and heretics because it's not smart?
Posted by Russ (# 120) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Callan:
Originally posted by Russ:
quote:
Seems to me that either we understand Charlemagne's acts as:
a) Christian...
b) heretical...
c) secular... ...basically a king behaving as kings did in those days
Charlemagne inherited a tradition that probably goes back to the bronze age, but which at any rate was common in antiquity which said that the government had a responsibility to regulate religion...
Charlemagne didn't just pull this stuff out of his arse. He read his Bible (or had others read it to him) and came to the conclusion that as Emperor of the West it was his job to put down paganism in Saxony based on assumptions that had been pretty much par for the course in his part of the world for millennia...
but to suggest that Charlemagne ignored the clear meaning of scripture or was purely interested in advancing the power of the Carolignian dynasty is to wrench him from his historical context.
You think he saw his duty to God as providing strong and stable government ?
Your version lacks the cynicism of mine, but you locate the source of the act in pre-Christian ideas of the role of the monarch, rather than in the content of the Christian faith, so that's still a secular act rather than a Christian act.
Posted by Russ (# 120) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
I think most of us would agree that only a few Christian extremists today would think they can justify genocide theologically. But a far larger number believe that they can justify dropping nuclear weapons on enemies, greater still that aggressive wars are justified, greater still that certain kinds of non-believers should have their rights removed.
Saying that few today believe in the kind of hideous terrorist acts we sadly associate with some corners of Islam ignores the fact that Christianity is tied to systems of power that oppress and commit state violence in other ways.
Seems to me that Christianity has always been ambivalent about state violence. In the earliest days some Christians refused to serve in the Roman army, while others have interpreted "render to Caesar" as justifying participation in all the activities of the state that secular thinking deems morally licit.
And those differences have not, in general, been the cause of the major divisions in Christianity. Pacifism and militarism crop up in most denominations, without either position featuring in the lists of principal heresies.
Neither position is characteristically Christian. Individual Christians have believed each in good conscience.
Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
Kaplan insists that the historical-grammatical method that is now apparently in vogue right across the board is 'the only one we have.'
Even if it was it's used alongside all sorts of other criteria and never used in isolation.
We have 'scripture, reason and tradition', we have Big T Tradition, we have small t tradition ...
And as you know quite well, I have never denied the reality of Traditions/traditions, which can be beneficial, deleterious, or simply there to be acknowledged.
It doesn't follow that we forbidden to say things such as, "The slaughter of heathen by Charlemagne was driven by a tradition which distorted the best historical/grammatical interpretation of the biblical text".
The practice of good hermeneutics can never be perfect, but, as in the case of other values such as justice and impartiality, there is an ideal toward which should always persist.
We don't (or shouldn't) simply abandon the effort the effort because its too hard, and resign ourselves to relativism or mere subjective choice.
[ 18. July 2017, 00:58: Message edited by: Kaplan Corday ]
Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
It is an effort to cast Christianity as inherently peaceful in contrast to Islam which is painted as inherently violent.
Your thinking is distorted by political and ideological paranoia.
It is perfectly possible to argue objectively that no rational hermeneutic can extract a case for slaughtering unbelievers from the NT, but that a hermeneutically sound case can be made from the Koran for perpetrating violence against unbelievers, without any "Islamophobic" subtext.
quote:
It is crap to say that it is impossible to believe a "theory of interpretation" of Christianity which is violent to non-believers.
But nobody has said that.
Obviously it is possible, because we have historical instances of people (like Charlemagne) apparently believing that very thing.
It is what they believed, and the process (if any) by which they reached that belief which is crap.
[ 18. July 2017, 01:12: Message edited by: Kaplan Corday ]
Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
our thinking is distorted by political and ideological paranoia.
Riiiiight.
quote:
It is perfectly possible to argue objectively that no rational hermeneutic can extract a case for slaughtering unbelievers from the NT, but that a hermeneutically sound case can be made from the Koran for perpetrating violence against unbelievers, without any "Islamophobic" subtext.
And it is perfectly possible to argue the opposite. Why is your argument and view better than mine?
quote:
But nobody has said that.
Obviously it is possible, because we have historical instances of people (like Charlemagne) apparently believing that very thing.
It is what they believed, and the process (if any) by which they reached that belief which is crap.
But what does that even mean? How can a process of theological thinking be crap (invalid)?
It can be wrong: I acknowledge that there is a body of thinking which has developed in Sikhism. I don't believe it is correct.
But in saying that the process is crap, you're asserting that there was no way they could have possibly come to the conclusion that they did within the parameters of Christianity; and you're asserting that if they'd done a bit more thinking it would have been obvious that this was the case.
Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on
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I guess by "crap" one is going further than labeling a hermeneutic¹ incorrect and saying it is so badly incorrect that one could not have got it that badly wrong without negligence, weakness or deliberate fault. It implies bad faith or corruption. I think that would have to be shown rather than asserted.
¹ [Does that word just mean interpretation by someone signalling that they are theologically inclined or does it mean something more?]
Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
[Does that word just mean interpretation by someone signalling that they are theologically inclined or does it mean something more?]
I think it means a worked-out system of thought in a theological setting. I don't think it necessarily means that any given individual has done the thinking, just that they're moving within a space where the thinking has been done.
I don't suppose that every Mormon has completely understood all of the detail of their system of theology, presumably many just accept that this is the way things are and work/think within it.
But then I think I believe in something like an evolution of ideas. Individual theologians may influence how later worldviews and hermeneutics develop, I'm not sure that they've themselves normally created it by signalling that they're thinking theologically.
In another context, I'd say that Marx wrote stuff which became a political hermeneutic in the sense that it gave a backing and intellectual understanding for a particular way of thinking about the world. But I think it only became that after Marx, during his lifetime is was just another idea floating around, it only had power when it got taken on and accepted as foundational by a lot of people.
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on
:
We are such a slow, dumb, tiny minded species. It's not our fault. This is the body of death we are saved from in transcendence. We cannot shake off the body of death until we die or we're incredibly privileged by chance in this life and then we're still left with the damage done by having been bound to it. Intelligent, otherwise decent people are hopelessly enslaved by weird, nasty narratives all around. The vast majority of people of faith. What do we have to socially evolve to in a millennium or ten - after which hopefully none of our current institutions will exist, including English and Arabic - so that our biological subspecies can do best? Or do we have to wait for actual evolution to make us more intelligent, more plastic so that stories don't enslave us so easily? In at least hundreds of thousands of years?
As for our terrorists, nothing can be done for as long as the constitutional USA exists, when they wear a badge and carry a gun.
Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on
:
I think we have to consciously choose theologies which lead to peace and life. Not because it is plainly obvious from our scriptures, not because it is the plain truth from our traditions. And not because our interpretations are obviously invalid whereas those other interpretations are the only true, valid ones.
And I don't think we can even rely on the idea that these peaceful theologies were intended from the beginning - because I don't think it is possible to tell from this distance what was intended from the beginning.
Posted by chris stiles (# 12641) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Russ:
Pacifism and militarism crop up in most denominations, without either position featuring in the lists of principal heresies.
Neither position is characteristically Christian. Individual Christians have believed each in good conscience.
If that is the case, then that negates your previous claim that Charlemagne's acts were distinctively secular.
There's a separate problem posed too - that of teasing out the extent to which our current set of hermeneutics are defined and driven by what is currently secular - this is easier to see at a remove, and harder from close up. In that sense, there are probably parallels between historiography and the grammatical-historical.
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on
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@Mr cheesy, aye. The trouble is, do we have the time? Non-Muslim theologies are irrelevant in public discourse in Europe. Their throw weight is less than the mass of their adherents. And negative to playing catch-up with secular liberalism at best. In America it's much worse. The only discourse is going to be between European pluralism and European Islam and only in national, linguistic sub-cultures. Especially the English. And the German. What additional discourse is English Islam going to have to have internally that will enable it to transcend along the arc of the moral universe to a theology which leads to more peace and better life within a dominant secular pluralist culture? One that doesn't formally condemn? Or is this it? This is the best of all possible secular pluralist, growing Muslim minority (containing significant shuhada - 'witnesses' as in the Greek), Englands?
[ 18. July 2017, 13:05: Message edited by: Martin60 ]
Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
What additional discourse is English Islam going to have to have internally that will enable it to transcend along the arc of the moral universe to a theology which leads to more peace and better life within a dominant secular pluralist culture? One that doesn't formally condemn? Or is this it? This is the best of all possible secular pluralist, growing Muslim minority (containing significant shuhada - 'witnesses' as in the Greek), Englands?
I don't know. If Christianity is anything to go by, Islam will develop theologies which stands aghast when faced with promoting the religion via knife-wielding murderers.. but there is a lot of work to do before it is generally accepted that a state religion or caliphate is a bad idea and that all violence with a religious name is bad.
Christianity has done a lot of work on this but is still fatally compromised on state religion and violence. There is little hope that Islam will bypass us and develop more progressive and peaceful theology than we have at the moment.
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on
:
Ayyyye. Cuh. Fuh. As it invariably is, this IS the best of all possible worlds, of all possible trajectories of the moral universe. As for 'our' terrorists, i.e. terrorists from the dominant non-Muslim culture, they are so far only 1% as effective and as with Muslim terrorists, an open society is going to have to take hits and MAY BE learn to keep its fucking nose out of other people's back yards (despite Bliar's insane denial, we paid for Iraq and because of Cameron we paid for Libya and Iraq again), fuelling the whole cycle. I'm reading Ian M. Banks final masterpiece The Hydrogen Sonata and wondering what the Culture would do. Not a scenario it ever encountered internally.
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on
:
Banks' ...
Posted by Callan (# 525) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Russ:
quote:
Originally posted by Callan:
Originally posted by Russ:
quote:
Seems to me that either we understand Charlemagne's acts as:
a) Christian...
b) heretical...
c) secular... ...basically a king behaving as kings did in those days
Charlemagne inherited a tradition that probably goes back to the bronze age, but which at any rate was common in antiquity which said that the government had a responsibility to regulate religion...
Charlemagne didn't just pull this stuff out of his arse. He read his Bible (or had others read it to him) and came to the conclusion that as Emperor of the West it was his job to put down paganism in Saxony based on assumptions that had been pretty much par for the course in his part of the world for millennia...
but to suggest that Charlemagne ignored the clear meaning of scripture or was purely interested in advancing the power of the Carolignian dynasty is to wrench him from his historical context.
You think he saw his duty to God as providing strong and stable government ?
Your version lacks the cynicism of mine, but you locate the source of the act in pre-Christian ideas of the role of the monarch, rather than in the content of the Christian faith, so that's still a secular act rather than a Christian act.
Charlemagne was a medieval king so strong and stable government was pretty important to him.
As for defining his views as 'secular' on the grounds that they had pre-Christian antecedents, then you'd have to define quite a lot as secular on those grounds, including belief in God. In any event Charlemagne wouldn't have had a concept of the secular in the way the word is used nowadays.
Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
Ayyyye. Cuh. Fuh. As it invariably is, this IS the best of all possible worlds, of all possible trajectories of the moral universe. As for 'our' terrorists, i.e. terrorists from the dominant non-Muslim culture, they are so far only 1% as effective and as with Muslim terrorists, an open society is going to have to take hits and MAY BE learn to keep its fucking nose out of other people's back yards
I don't know that Christian terrorists are only 1% as effective as the current Islamic ones. It rather depends on what one defines as terrorism.
Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
Ayyyye. Cuh. Fuh. As it invariably is, this IS the best of all possible worlds, of all possible trajectories of the moral universe. As for 'our' terrorists, i.e. terrorists from the dominant non-Muslim culture, they are so far only 1% as effective and as with Muslim terrorists, an open society is going to have to take hits and MAY BE learn to keep its fucking nose out of other people's back yards (despite Bliar's insane denial, we paid for Iraq and because of Cameron we paid for Libya and Iraq again), fuelling the whole cycle. I'm reading Ian M. Banks final masterpiece The Hydrogen Sonata and wondering what the Culture would do. Not a scenario it ever encountered internally.
From the Iraqui point of view, or at least some people in Iraq, we are the terrorists. Granted, not Christian ones, particularly. I don't know how widespread this view is across the Middle East, or in fact, the world.
Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
Ayyyye. Cuh. Fuh. As it invariably is, this IS the best of all possible worlds, of all possible trajectories of the moral universe. As for 'our' terrorists, i.e. terrorists from the dominant non-Muslim culture, they are so far only 1% as effective and as with Muslim terrorists, an open society is going to have to take hits and MAY BE learn to keep its fucking nose out of other people's back yards (despite Bliar's insane denial, we paid for Iraq and because of Cameron we paid for Libya and Iraq again), fuelling the whole cycle. I'm reading Ian M. Banks final masterpiece The Hydrogen Sonata and wondering what the Culture would do. Not a scenario it ever encountered internally.
From the Iraqui point of view, or at least some people in Iraq, we are the terrorists. Granted, not Christian ones, particularly. I don't know how widespread this view is across the Middle East, or in fact, the world.
We are not terrorists by any meaningful definition of the word. We are invaders.
Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on
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Rushes off to buy 'On Western Terrorism' by Chomsky.
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
Ayyyye. Cuh. Fuh. As it invariably is, this IS the best of all possible worlds, of all possible trajectories of the moral universe. As for 'our' terrorists, i.e. terrorists from the dominant non-Muslim culture, they are so far only 1% as effective and as with Muslim terrorists, an open society is going to have to take hits and MAY BE learn to keep its fucking nose out of other people's back yards
I don't know that Christian terrorists are only 1% as effective as the current Islamic ones. It rather depends on what one defines as terrorism.
Indeed. The ones that make it to breaking news.
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
Sure, Kaplan. Killing pagans isn't a smart thing to do. It's also wrong.
It's wrong on all sorts of points as well as not being a smart thing to do.
It ain't smart, it ain't clever.
Neither is it very nice.
Posted by Russ (# 120) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Callan:
Charlemagne wouldn't have had a concept of the secular in the way the word is used nowadays.
That's quite likely. But that doesn't mean we can't make a distinction between the motive of being a strong king, the motive of working for the triumph of Christianity, and the motive of seeking to be Christ-like.
The more general question is what acts we call Christian.
Posted by Jamat (# 11621) on
:
quote:
Martin 60: As for 'our' terrorists, i.e. terrorists from the dominant non-Muslim culture, they are so far only 1% as effective and as with Muslim terrorists,
And considerably less than 1% as numerous.
Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
How can a process of theological thinking be crap (invalid)?
Very easily and all too commonly.
I have already cited the example of those who use Isaiah 19:19-20 to justify extracting revelatory material from the dimensions of the Great Pyramid (a Christian archaeologist friend of mine calls them "pyramidiots").
Another example that I like is the teaching that Amos 4:6 ("I have given you cleanness of teeth"KJV) constitutes a promise of dental welfare to those with the faith to appropriate it.
You could probably fill a book with similar crap if you had nothing better to do.
Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
Very easily and all too commonly.
I have already cited the example of those who use Isaiah 19:19-20 to justify extracting revelatory material from the dimensions of the Great Pyramid (a Christian archaeologist friend of mine calls them "pyramidiots").
Another example that I like is the teaching that Amos 4:6 ("I have given you cleanness of teeth"KJV) constitutes a promise of dental welfare to those with the faith to appropriate it.
It is quite hard to claim that those are hermeneutics because they're not fully worked out theories of interpretation of the faith, they're specific ideas about a detail.
And they're nothing like a hermeneutic that says state violence is justified.
Try again, this time try reading for comprehension.
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
quote:
Martin 60: As for 'our' terrorists, i.e. terrorists from the dominant non-Muslim culture, they are so far only 1% as effective and as with Muslim terrorists,
And considerably less than 1% as numerous.
Can you quantify that?
Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
Can you quantify that?
He's using his own definitions of the word "terrorist" and "Christian", so of course it comes out numerically as lower than the thing he despises in Islam.
This is what really makes me sick: we amplify and exaggerate the things we most hate about others whilst simultaneously disowning, downplaying, rejecting, forgetting the dirty parts of our own religion.
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on
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I am of course wrong. The actual OOM figures for attacks with killed victims in the UK are 10:1 (11:2 actual not counting Jo Cox) for Islamist to non-Islamist killers and 100:1 (92:2 actual) for their killed victims. IOW non-Islamist attackers with killed victims are 10 x less numerous than Islamist attackers (not 100 x as I asserted) who are 10 x more lethal.
I'm wrong by 1 order of magnitude and Jamat is wrong by 2.
Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on
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Is that including IRA shootings? Or do they conveniently not count as Christian terrorism?
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on
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That's only Islamist : Islamophobic attacks with killed victims in the past 12 years.
Posted by Russ (# 120) on
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quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
Is that including IRA shootings? Or do they conveniently not count as Christian terrorism?
They count as terrorism. Politically-motivated violent crime directed at the general population.
I don't know what proportion of the IRA are atheists. It's probably safe to assume that at least some of them are at least nominally Christian.
What they're not doing is acting out the Christian faith.
If you choose to count all acts by self-professed Christians as acts of Christianity, then yes you'll probably conclude that no religion is better than any other. Reflecting the universal sinfulness of mankind rather than the content of any religious belief system.
That approach voids religion of content, reducing it to a tribal identifier.
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on
:
Nominally Christian, culturally Christian, i.e. not acting out the Christian faith in any visible, incarnational manner, is the only visible manifestation of Christian of the majority of self-identifying Christians apart from the minority that go to services (whatever is incarnational about that) apart from for rites of passage.
The PIRA were initially - 1969-71 - defenders (acting out the Christian faith) of the Catholic Christian community against Protestant Christian oppression.
[ 19. July 2017, 13:41: Message edited by: Martin60 ]
Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Russ:
What they're not doing is acting out the Christian faith.
The bizarre thing is that many of the Islamic terrorists we know of are not "acting out of the faith" if this is the criteria. Many seem to have been heavy drinkers and drug takers with little obvious serious links to the religion before becoming radicalised.
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on
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Surely they are once radicalized? They've repented, found God, are atoning?
Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
Surely they are once radicalized? They've repented, found God, are atoning?
That was Dubya, wasn't it? Killing a ton of people really makes your own shit fade away. Not sure about Blair, what was he atoning for?
Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
Surely they are once radicalized? They've repented, found God, are atoning?
No, many profiles include alcohol and promiscuity right up to the murderous act itself. People who study these guys often say it is political. (Of course a brand of politics full of Islamic language and Islamic culture).
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on
:
Thank you. Sod the 'politics', what's the psychology? It still looks like redemptive violence to me. "I can't stop shagging, drinking, drugs and I'll burn in hell unless I can martyr myself against this infidel shit that's bringing me down."?
Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on
:
I've not done an in depth study, but I understand the murderous martyrs tend to talk about caliphates, geopolitics and opposing the West more than the promise of paradise. But I've no doubt one can find examples of both by googling.
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on
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Thanks again. Intriguing. Is there a Guardian article on that?!
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on
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'strewth! Everything except redemptive violence! I'll try a factor list.
Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on
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quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
Is that including IRA shootings? Or do they conveniently not count as Christian terrorism?
AFAIK the RCC condemned the IRA, forbade RCs from joining it, and threatened to excommunicate those who did.
Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
Very easily and all too commonly.
I have already cited the example of those who use Isaiah 19:19-20 to justify extracting revelatory material from the dimensions of the Great Pyramid (a Christian archaeologist friend of mine calls them "pyramidiots").
Another example that I like is the teaching that Amos 4:6 ("I have given you cleanness of teeth"KJV) constitutes a promise of dental welfare to those with the faith to appropriate it.
It is quite hard to claim that those are hermeneutics because they're not fully worked out theories of interpretation of the faith, they're specific ideas about a detail.
And they're nothing like a hermeneutic that says state violence is justified.
Any approach to the Bible involves a hermeneutic of some sort, even if it is unconscious, perverse, self-justifying, or just shallow, jejune and crappy.
You can have a good hermeneutic or a bad hermeneutic, but you can't have no hermeneutic, in the same way that you can't have no weather, or no character, or no ethnicity.
quote:
Try again, this time try reading for comprehension.
You are blustering to cover up the fact that you are shooting your mouth off while possessing only the haziest concept of what a hermeneutic is.
Try again, this time after you have thought about it a little.
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
Is that including IRA shootings? Or do they conveniently not count as Christian terrorism?
AFAIK the RCC condemned the IRA, forbade RCs from joining it, and threatened to excommunicate those who did.
Shedloads of imams, entire organizations of them, have taken similar stances toward ISIS. May we conclude therefore that ISIS are not a Muslim terrorist organization?
Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
Is that including IRA shootings? Or do they conveniently not count as Christian terrorism?
AFAIK the RCC condemned the IRA, forbade RCs from joining it, and threatened to excommunicate those who did.
Shedloads of imams, entire organizations of them, have taken similar stances toward ISIS. May we conclude therefore that ISIS are not a Muslim terrorist organization?
ISIS openly, proudly and aggressively identifies as Muslim, and in fact regards its Muslim critics as either inadequately Islamic or not real Muslims at all.
Ihe IRA, AFAIK, was secular, political and nationalist rather than religious, and never identified as RC.
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
Is that including IRA shootings? Or do they conveniently not count as Christian terrorism?
AFAIK the RCC condemned the IRA, forbade RCs from joining it, and threatened to excommunicate those who did.
Shedloads of imams, entire organizations of them, have taken similar stances toward ISIS. May we conclude therefore that ISIS are not a Muslim terrorist organization?
ISIS openly, proudly and aggressively identifies as Muslim, and in fact regards its Muslim critics as either inadequately Islamic or not real Muslims at all.
And its critics say it's not really Muslim at all. Which can be seen by the things that it does, like killing non-combatants, killing during Ramadan, and so forth. Yet of the two you take the word of the murderers and not the peaceful ones. Why is that?
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
Because of his hermeneutic?
At any rate, I think the most we can say is that there is/was a distinct religious dimension in the Northern Irish Troubles and their aftermath.
There is no denying that.
The Provos had a broadly Marxist ideology but their roots were in the RC minority population in largely Protestant, loyalist Ulster. Some of them and their supporters saw no incompatibility with that and with their RC faith. Joe McCann, a 1970s IRA 'hero' was a devout and practising Catholic. Whilst the RCC officially condemned the violence it's incontrovertible that some clergy condoned and supported terrorism - as did many ministers on the Protestant, Loyalist side.
You can't begin to understand / discuss the Northern Irish issue without taking into account the religious dimension.
The same applies to ISIS. Their Muslim opponents recognise that. They aren't claiming that ISIS is unIslamic in the sense that it bears no relation to Islam, rather that it is a distorted and extreme version in a similar way to how the Westboro Baptists represent an extreme firm of Protestant fundamentalism.
We are into both/and not either/or territory again.
It does nobody any favours to play down or elide the religious dimension in any of this - whether Northern Ireland or the Middle East or Islamist support for a putative Caliphate in Syria.
There is a religious dimension. That is incontrovertible.
The issue then becomes whether one religion or another is more or less I equally prone to extremism and terrorist violence. At which point chauvinism kicks in and one side or t'other starts to demonise the other.
I would suggest that the issue isn't so much whether Christianity, Islam, Hinduism or any other faith can be marshalled to justify extremism or terrorism, rather, it's what socio-political, cultural, economic and other factors go into the mix to create a situation where faith can turn toxic in that way.
That would apply equally to disaffected youths being groomed by radical Jihadists to RC or Protestant sectarianism in Northern Ireland, religio-ethnic identity in the Balkans, the behaviour of right-wing conservative Christians in the US or the actions of theocratic rulers in the 8th century.
They are all part of a complex web of relationships and influences of which religion is undoubtedly a part.
Pointing the finger at this, that or the other tradition / Tradition or faith misses the point - the issue is broader than that.
I would say that it is always possible for religion to 'go wrong'. Given the right set of circumstances, any group can develop cultish tendencies. Equally, religion can be drawn into conflicts of identity, influence and hegemony.
Rather than seeking to elide that we should acknowledge the fact and look to redress those aspects and factors that contribute to this happening - so far as we can.
Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
Is that including IRA shootings? Or do they conveniently not count as Christian terrorism?
AFAIK the RCC condemned the IRA, forbade RCs from joining it, and threatened to excommunicate those who did.
Shedloads of imams, entire organizations of them, have taken similar stances toward ISIS. May we conclude therefore that ISIS are not a Muslim terrorist organization?
ISIS openly, proudly and aggressively identifies as Muslim, and in fact regards its Muslim critics as either inadequately Islamic or not real Muslims at all.
And its critics say it's not really Muslim at all. Which can be seen by the things that it does, like killing non-combatants, killing during Ramadan, and so forth. Yet of the two you take the word of the murderers and not the peaceful ones. Why is that?
I am accepting the self-assessment of each organisation.
If you think you know better, and want to argue that ISIS is "not really" Islamic because some Muslims think so, or that the IRA was "really"
Roman Catholic because some RCs were involved in it, then you are, of course, free to do so.
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on
:
Are Mormons Christians?
[ 20. July 2017, 04:34: Message edited by: mousethief ]
Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on
:
I think JWs, Mormons, Arians, Gnostics and Branch Davidians are all Christians by those criteria.
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on
:
"I don't know what you mean by 'glory,' " Alice said.
Humpty Dumpty smiled contemptuously. "Of course you don'ttill I tell you. I meant 'there's a nice knock-down argument for you!' "
"But 'glory' doesn't mean 'a nice knock-down argument'," Alice objected.
"When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to meanneither more nor less."
"The question is," said Alice, "whether you can make words mean so many different things."
"The question is," said Humpty Dumpty, "which is to be masterthat's all."
Alice was too much puzzled to say anything, so after a minute Humpty Dumpty began again. "They've a temper, some of themparticularly verbs, they're the proudestadjectives you can do anything with, but not verbshowever, I can manage the whole lot! Impenetrability! That's what I say!"
Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
Any approach to the Bible involves a hermeneutic of some sort, even if it is unconscious, perverse, self-justifying, or just shallow, jejune and crappy.
You can have a good hermeneutic or a bad hermeneutic, but you can't have no hermeneutic, in the same way that you can't have no weather, or no character, or no ethnicity.
Yes, but having a strange idea about a particular verse does not necessarily add up to a systematic theory of interpretation. I accept it might - but then you are the one who introduced the terms "hermeneutic" and "valid", not me. I was quite happy talking about worldviews.
quote:
You are blustering to cover up the fact that you are shooting your mouth off while possessing only the haziest concept of what a hermeneutic is.
Try again, this time after you have thought about it a little.
Yeah, yeah, of course. You make all kinds of claims with no justification whatsoever, assert this that and the other - but somehow I'm the problem because I'm not using the words in the way that you like.
I suggest that you are the one out of step here, not me. I suggest that almost everyone uses hermeneutics to suggest a pattern and theory of a framework of interpretation which individuals work within to understand their faith. I suggest that almost everyone accepts that "valid" and "wrong" are different ideas.
Further, I suggest that having a belief in the meaning of a particular verse does not in-and-of-itself make a hermeneutic. I accept that if someone believes something about the pyramids this might indeed be evidence of a particular framework of interpretation of the bible, but not necessarily. It might just be a passing thought, or it might be evidence of an all-encompassing theory and framework of interpretation of the bible that means the individuals believes that the world is controlled by aliens.
If you are introducing terms and asserting that they're to be used in a certain way, it is down to you to defend why they should be used in that way. I've been fairly clear about why I think they should be used but if they should be in the way you say you need to give some reasoning because you introduced them into this discussion.
[ 20. July 2017, 06:51: Message edited by: mr cheesy ]
Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
And its critics say it's not really Muslim at all. Which can be seen by the things that it does, like killing non-combatants, killing during Ramadan, and so forth. Yet of the two you take the word of the murderers and not the peaceful ones. Why is that?
I think it is an arguable point whether or not any given group is to be seen as from a particular religion or not. It is obviously true that the majority of Muslims do not accept Ahmadiyya as part of Islam even whilst they say that they are.
My point here is that there is an effort - which we've seen once again from Kaplan just above - to portray Islamic violence as quintessentially violent whilst at the same time disowning any violence committed by Christians. In my view that's a deeply flawed analysis.
If one wants to say that Christians who commit violence are not really Christians, that works as far as it goes but seems to be to come down to salami slicing with regard to what is or isn't a Christian action. Hence the focus here on talking about the crusades but not the dropping of a nuclear bomb, the carpet-bombing of Dresden, the use of drones and so on.
To me it certainly makes most sense to think of Christianity which is against all ideas of state religion and justification of violence - but if one is going to do that and say that all expressions of violence are somehow people way off the beam of the central tenants of Christianity, then why not allow that this might also be the case with Islam?
It can only be that there is a narrative that there is a battle of civilisations between Christianity and Islam and that Christianity represents the "good guys" and Islam "all that is wrong".
Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
I would say that it is always possible for religion to 'go wrong'. Given the right set of circumstances, any group can develop cultish tendencies. Equally, religion can be drawn into conflicts of identity, influence and hegemony.
Rather than seeking to elide that we should acknowledge the fact and look to redress those aspects and factors that contribute to this happening - so far as we can.
Which neatly returns us to the OP, well done.
One thing we haven't talked about is how exactly the things in your final paragraph are to be done. In the UK this is often seen to be a responsibility of government via the "Prevent strategy" to target those at risk of extremism.
But this seems to be a flawed idea on several levels; first like it or not, Christianity is embedded into the state so it is almost impossible to not see state interference in teaching religion as somehow associated with Christianity. Second, if course, the whole point about being an Islamic extremist is that you believe strongly the problems with the world are due to modern Western society - so it seems incredibly unlikely that representatives of that very society would be able to convince you to change your mind. Third, there seems to be a line being crossed when the state is the determinant of what is or isn't "right" theology.
More insidiously, it encourages a particular narrative about Islam that makes it look foreign and alien and the obvious source of violence in our own society. Something to be feared and condemned.
There was an example of this I heard about yesterday. I state funded Islamic school in Birmingham is in trouble with Ofsted, the education watchdog. Part of the issue appears to be about "segregation" of boys and girls within the school.
Now, of course one can have various views about education and boys and girls. But it cannot be that this is, as was claimed on the BBC's Moral Maze yesterday, a particular issue for Ofsted when boys and girls are taught in different classes in the same school building.
Because I happen to have experience of this. My child went to a school which was recently joined from two single-sex schools and where boys and girls are routinely taught in different classes until 14 and all the way to 16 for Maths and English.
I accept that there may be deeper issues at the Islamic school, but the perception here is that an Islamic school in Birmingham is being castigated for doing something that is not even mentioned by Ofsted when it occurs in a school of 99% white children in Kent.
[ 20. July 2017, 07:27: Message edited by: mr cheesy ]
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
Sure, and it becomes messier when ideologues from both ends of the political spectrum get involved with this sort of thing. There's a bit of a kerfuffle across the US religious Right (largely) at the moment about Ofsted allegedly putting pressure on a Jewish school her in the UK for it to teach LGBT rights in a way that currently isn't on their curriculum.
I've even seen US posters putting 'First they came for the Jews' on social media to imply that the nasty, wooly, politically-correct UK establishment is harbouring and nurturing incipient Fascism.
So whatever the 'Gummint' tried to do whether through Prevent or through apparently politically-correct legislation is going to come under fire from one direction or another.
I've recently read 'The Battle for British Islam' which is by a UK Muslim woman who appeared on the BBC's Question Time recently. It is equally as critical of some on the 'identity politics' Left as it is of aspects of Prevent. She calls for a concerted coalition of Muslims who believe in democracy and egalitarian values to resist and overturn the jihadist narrative. She's been getting it in the neck from all sides.
It's easier said than done, but the answers to any of these things - if there are any and one hopes there are - have to come from within the communities themselves.
I've come across right-wing US Christians, Orthodox, RCs and evangelicals, who seem to think that the only answer is to convert all Muslims to Christ - and one wonders, given their support for Trump, whether they'd expect, envisage state-support for that or even violent for in the style of Charlemagne ...
We live in dangerous times. 'The best lack all conviction while the worst are full of passionate intensity.'
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on
:
Wiki is not the only reference I've read since last night, but these sum up the exterior and interior issues as a proposition.
Motivations of Islamic terrorism
Citizenship
Economics
Identity
Ideology
Religion
Small-group dynamics
Western foreign policy
Profiles of Terrorists
In which displacement is significant. But doesn't explain 7/7 for example.
There is NOTHING about ultimate redemption from sin through violence.
Address the externals - righteousness = social justice - and that addresses the internals. There is no other way. And that's long and slow and expensive and chaotic. By the end of the century we'll know if it's working. If the death toll declines over several decades for a start. If Islam can transcend itself.
[ 20. July 2017, 11:42: Message edited by: Martin60 ]
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
I've even seen US posters putting 'First they came for the Jews' on social media to imply that the nasty, wooly, politically-correct UK establishment is harbouring and nurturing incipient Fascism.
Seriously, is that what you take from that? Harbouring and nurturing is not "coming for." Your interpreter is broken.
Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
I've even seen US posters putting 'First they came for the Jews' on social media to imply that the nasty, wooly, politically-correct UK establishment is harbouring and nurturing incipient Fascism.
Seriously, is that what you take from that? Harbouring and nurturing is not "coming for." Your interpreter is broken.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but you appear to be criticising Gam for an idea he is repeating not holding.
And anyway, I don't see that it is particularly off the wall.
Jewish schools unfairly investigated by authorities which leads to closure of those schools and attacks on Jews because they don't hold the supposed liberal values of the state. This allows a victory to the facists who want to destroy Jewish culture.
I can see how that chain of argument might be asserted. In what sense is the interpreter broken.
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on
:
@Mr cheesy, on "right" theology Karen Armstrong comes to mind; 'if your notion of God made you unkind, belligerent, cruel, or self-righteous, or if it led you to kill in God's name, it was bad theology'. The state can say that.
And Islam is 'foreign and alien' but NOT 'the obvious source of violence in our own society'. 1:60 murders are by Islamist terrorists.
Posted by Callan (# 525) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Russ:
quote:
Originally posted by Callan:
Charlemagne wouldn't have had a concept of the secular in the way the word is used nowadays.
That's quite likely. But that doesn't mean we can't make a distinction between the motive of being a strong king, the motive of working for the triumph of Christianity, and the motive of seeking to be Christ-like.
That's a distinction we make, not a distinction that would have occurred to Charlemagne. There is a letter of his, extant, to the Pope whereby he explains that he is the defender of the Church and the Pope's role is to pray for the success of his endeavours. The fact that no-one, today (with the possible exception of William T. Cavanaugh) regards this as remotely plausible doesn't alter the fact that Charlemagne held it entirely sincerely. The people who did disagree weren't Kaplanites. They were clerics who thought that smiting the bad guys was a necessary task to which kings were called but that the real custodians of Christendom were the ecclesiastical hierarchy. The first people to challenge this dichotomy are our mates the Anabaptists in the 16th Century and it basically falls to pieces during the 17th Century.
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
No, my interpreter isn't broken. The dude I'm thinking of is convinced that the liberal left is incipiently fascist and that any attempt to regulate gun ownership - for instance - or - as in this case, suggest what should or shouldn't be on particular school curricula is nanny-state interference that will lead ultimately to the infringement of hard-won liberties.
It's a trope I hear a lot from the US religious Right and from US libertarians.
Anything from gun control to environmental sustainability or a belief in Climate Change is seen as the thin end of a very large wedge that proceeds through abortion to euthanasia and the eradication of Christianity ...
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
Incidentally, the guy who quoted the 'First they came for the Jews ...' thing is Orthodox, a convert from a very conservative form of Reformed Christianity. I was too polite to point out to him that his present ecclesial affiliation doesn't exactly have a terrific track record when it comes to pogroms.*
* Although, of course, there are examples of individual clergy who opposed the pogroms in Russia and the very excellent example of Mother Maria Skobtsova and Fr Demetrius in WW2.
Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
Wiki is not the only reference I've read since last night, but these sum up the exterior and interior issues as a proposition.
Thanks for summing that up. I don't find it very intuitive given my own experience of religion, but I guess that just goes to show the value of actual observation over conjecture.
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on
:
Wow! I should say the same. You recalibrated me. Not for the first time!
Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
having a strange idea about a particular verse does not necessarily add up to a systematic theory of interpretation.
almost everyone uses hermeneutics to suggest a pattern and theory of a framework of interpretation which individuals work within to understand their faith.
First, a hermeneutic is simply a mode of interpretation, and is not necessarily systematic or even conscious.
Secondly, the term hermeneutics is not restricted to "faith" matters, but can be and is used far more generally.
And thirdly, "almost everyone"? Really? Sez who? You?
Posted by Jamat (# 11621) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
@Mr cheesy, on "right" theology Karen Armstrong comes to mind; 'if your notion of God made you unkind, belligerent, cruel, or self-righteous, or if it led you to kill in God's name, it was bad theology'. The state can say that.
And Islam is 'foreign and alien' but NOT 'the obvious source of violence in our own society'. 1:60 murders are by Islamist terrorists.
Karen Armstrong is not any kind of eg of a decent theologian.
She is a very good writer though and an eg of what the RCC did to people in the 1950s and 60s and still would given half a chance.
No one's notion of God makes them anything. It might create a rationalisation or justification or excuse for what they are already.
Posted by Nick Tamen (# 15164) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
First, a hermeneutic is simply a mode of interpretation, and is not necessarily systematic or even conscious.
But you didn't identify a mode of interpretation. You identified interpretations of two isolated verses. What is the hermeneutic you think either interpretation illustrates?
Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
seen once again from Kaplan just above - to portray Islamic violence as quintessentially violent whilst at the same time disowning any violence committed by Christians.
I'm not sure that you know what "quintessentially" means.
Why should "Islamic violence" (eg that of ISIS) be seen as any more violent than, say, Nazi violence, or communist (eg Khmer Rouge) violence, or intercommunal (eg Indian partition, or Hutu/Tutsi) violence?
Perhaps you meant "characteristically", and should have written "violence as characteristically Islamic".
OK, I have said that a case for religious violence can be legitimately made from the Koran, though not all Muslims do, and those who do, don't necessarily obey it (out of cowardice, common decency or whatever).
I have never "disowned" violence committed by Christians.
For a start, a genuine NT case can be made for violence committed by Christians in the course of a just war (as can a case for pacifism), so I am not about to "disown" Christians who fought Nazism.
But also, I have never tried to pretend that Christians such as Savonarola and Charlemagne who practised specifically religious violence, which cannot be justified from the NT, were not "really" Christians - just Christians who, for whatever reason, were not faithful to their religion in this particular.
It's possible to think that they were wrong, and to be ashamed of them, but not to "disown" them.
Try to read for comprehension, instead of for what you want to find even when it's not there.
[ 21. July 2017, 03:37: Message edited by: Kaplan Corday ]
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on
:
Kaplan Corday, this was for you:
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
Are Mormons Christians?
Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
For a start, a genuine NT case can be made for violence committed by Christians in the course of a just war (as can a case for pacifism), so I am not about to "disown" Christians who fought Nazism.
So, it is just to set up the conditions for a war as long as you do not fire the first shot? And then turn away the people being persecuted?
Interesting.
Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
I'm not sure that you know what "quintessentially" means.
Why should "Islamic violence" (eg that of ISIS) be seen as any more violent than, say, Nazi violence, or communist (eg Khmer Rouge) violence, or intercommunal (eg Indian partition, or Hutu/Tutsi) violence?
Perhaps you meant "characteristically", and should have written "violence as characteristically Islamic".
OK, yes I messed that up. I meant to write "to portray Islam as quintessentially violent".
To put it in language that you've used, the effort is to say that the only valid hermeneutic for Islam is violent whereas the only valid hermenutic for Christianity is peaceful [or at least non-crusader]
quote:
OK, I have said that a case for religious violence can be legitimately made from the Koran, though not all Muslims do, and those who do, don't necessarily obey it (out of cowardice, common decency or whatever).
So can we assume "legitimate" in the above is the same as your use of "valid"? That Islam can be seen as legitimately violent whereas Christianity cannot? That violence is an aberration when committed by crusader Christians but a legitimate (possibly "the" legitimate) understanding of Islam. Indeed you appear to be saying in the final sentence of your above paragraph that peaceful Muslims are basically an aberration.
quote:
I have never "disowned" violence committed by Christians.
For a start, a genuine NT case can be made for violence committed by Christians in the course of a just war (as can a case for pacifism), so I am not about to "disown" Christians who fought Nazism.
Well you're wrong on that. If you can say Crusader violence is invalid then I'm going to unilaterally say that Christian support for state violence is always wrong. And like you I'm not going to give any supporting reasoning at all. It is because I say so. Your theology is invalid. Suck it up.
quote:
But also, I have never tried to pretend that Christians such as Savonarola and Charlemagne who practised specifically religious violence, which cannot be justified from the NT, were not "really" Christians - just Christians who, for whatever reason, were not faithful to their religion in this particular.
No, you've said that their hermeneutic is invalid. That is disowning it because that's not just saying it is wrong, that's saying it is faulty, that there is no possible way that a Christian could honestly get to that conclusion because it is self-evidently incorrect if they'd bothered to read and think about the NT.
quote:
It's possible to think that they were wrong, and to be ashamed of them, but not to "disown" them.
As discussed above, you've gone beyond saying they're wrong and into the business of saying that their hermeneutic is invalid.
quote:
Try to read for comprehension, instead of for what you want to find even when it's not there.
Riiight, yeah.
[ 21. July 2017, 06:58: Message edited by: mr cheesy ]
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
Tangent alert: If Karen Armstrong is an example of what the RCC did to people in the 1950s and '60s and still would, given the chance, then we could say that Jamat is an example of what fundagelical Protestantism does to people and is still doing ...
Anyone can play at that game.
Meanwhile, I'm not sure that Kaplan is saying that Islam is inherently or intrinsically violent but I've come across plenty of evangelicals and very conservative Catholics and Orthodox who think it is.
Indeed, if Muslims aren't violent then they claim that this is because they are nominal or not practising their religion properly.
In this bizarre and reductionist way they end up supporting and affirming the extreme jihadist narrative of the likes of ISIS.
They aren't 'allowing' Muslims any other hermeneutic than a jihadist one.
In a similar way, perhaps, Jamat isn't 'allowing' the RCC to operate in any other way to how he remembers it doing in the 1950s and '60s.
Equally, I have to say, those of us who have gone through forms of Protestant evangelicalism and either abandoned it for a different Christian tradition or else modified it in some way, have to take care not to 'limit' our brothers and sisters in our former affiliations in a similar way.
That has implications for the way we approach the issue in the OP, I think.
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
@Mr cheesy, on "right" theology Karen Armstrong comes to mind; 'if your notion of God made you unkind, belligerent, cruel, or self-righteous, or if it led you to kill in God's name, it was bad theology'. The state can say that.
And Islam is 'foreign and alien' but NOT 'the obvious source of violence in our own society'. 1:60 murders are by Islamist terrorists.
Karen Armstrong is not any kind of eg of a decent theologian.
She is a very good writer though and an eg of what the RCC did to people in the 1950s and 60s and still would given half a chance.
No one's notion of God makes them anything. It might create a rationalisation or justification or excuse for what they are already.
She's very kind.
So near yet so far.
Posted by Barnabas62 (# 9110) on
:
Karen Armstrong tangent/
I would characterise Karen Armstrong as a religious historian, rather than a theologian. She strikes me as unusually perceptive about the varying histories of faiths and the current consequences of those histories.
I agree with Martin60. She comes across as kind. The keen eye does not get in the way of what I see as charitable and fair-minded instincts.
I noted this quote from the Wiki article.
quote:
Atheist activist Sam Harris criticizes Armstrong's "benign" view of Islam, contending that "Islam, as it is currently understood and practiced by vast numbers of the world's Muslims, is antithetical to civil society." Harris is also strongly critical of Armstrong's "religious apology" of Islamic fundamentalism, accusing her and like-minded scholars of political correctness. Armstrong has also attracted the criticism of Evangelical Christian philosopher and apologist William Lane Craig. In Craig's response to a debate between Armstrong and evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins published in the 12 September 2009 issue of The Wall Street Journal, Craig criticizes Armstrong's "anti-realist" views about statements concerning God, particularly her assertion that "'God' is merely a symbol that points beyond itself to an indescribable transcendence." Craig argues that Armstrong's view of God as ineffable is "self-refuting" and "logically incoherent". Craig also disputes Armstrong's characterization of the religious views of early Christians.
Well, if you get it in the neck from an atheist and an evangelical, maybe you're not so bad after all. As it happens, Karen's understanding of God as ineffable is entirely Orthodox (or orthodox), it is her historical critique of doctrinal development and its institutional enforcement which has made her heterodox in some eyes.
Through the medium of religious history, she has sought to reveal the truth to power. In my mind at least, she has landed some effective blows.
/Karen Armstrong tangent
Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on
:
Sadly the idea that Islam is "antithetical to civil society" is one of the few things that fundamentalists and atheists agree on.
And it is an idea which has a lot of traction in many countries - in Europe, North America and elsewhere.
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on
:
Agreed, I love my neighbourhood. It's the nicest I've ever lived in. Our full range middle class street feels like the pivot of Leicester. A quarter of the households are Muslim and we had a perfect street party on Saturday, now to be an annual event. The housing gets terraced red-brick at the north end and more Muslim. I am proud to have Muslim friends, Muslim men who walk up to me and shake my hand, invite me in to their homes, stop their taxi to chat; whose wives and daughters are 'allowed' to talk with me, shake hands, all from them.
On the high street, down the alley young Muslim men defer to me on the pavement as a white haired old man. I feel safe. The day a crazed Anglo guy stabbed a bus driver, two local lads apologized to me that the neighbourhood wasn't like that! Which I was happy to acknowledge.
I was invited to the masjid again on Saturday night by four French Muslim men in full shalwar kameez, who called at my home and all shook hands.
They might formally believe some strange, nasty things, who doesn't? Deal with people as they ARE. Neighbours as ourselves.
Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on
:
The line between good and evil, violence and peace, does not lie between Christian and Muslim or even between Theist and Atheist.
The line is in every human heart. We can all choose to believe that our religions give us justification for violence - and in my view that's an entirely reasonable way to understand Christianity. Or we can choose to believe that we want to live in peace with our neighbours and our neighbours want to live in peace with us.
It isn't self-evident, it's a choice we have to make.
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on
:
Perfect.
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
The line between good and evil, violence and peace, does not lie between Christian and Muslim or even between Theist and Atheist.
The line is in every human heart.
Aleksandr, is that you?
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on
:
He's channelling for Gospodin S!
Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
only valid hermeneutic for Islam is violent whereas the only valid hermenutic for Christianity is peaceful [or at least non-crusader]
As they say about crooked cops, you are "verballing" me.
For the umpteenth time read what I said, not what you want me to have said.
First, there are two possibly valid hermeneuticss of the Koran re religious violence, one for and one against.
Second, there two possibly valid hermeneutics for Christians re state violence, one of which is pacifism, and the other is the use of violence internally and externally to protect the state, which includes just war.
The third position for Christians is specifically religious violence, or crusading, which no valid hermeneutic can justify.
quote:
So can we assume "legitimate" in the above is the same as your use of "valid"?
Validity and legitimacy are not necessarily the same thing, but in this context, yes, "valid hermeneutic" is more or less synonymous with "legitimate hermeneutic".
quote:
That Islam can be seen as legitimately violent whereas Christianity cannot?
Yes, Islam can, on one of the valid understandings of the Koran, use religious violence, but Christianity can never legitimately use religious violence, though one of its hermeneutical options is to use other forms of violence.
quote:
That violence is an aberration when committed by crusader Christians but a legitimate (possibly "the" legitimate) understanding of Islam.
Precisely (with an emphasis on the "possibly").
quote:
Indeed you appear to be saying in the final sentence of your above paragraph that peaceful Muslims are basically an aberration.
I neither said nor implied any such thing.
You are just making that up.
There are violent Muslims who believe that the Koran condones and requires religious violence; peaceful Muslims who believe that the Koran does not teach religious violence; and peaceful Muslims who believe that the Koran enjoins the practice of religious violence on believers, but who, for a variety of reasons, choose not to obey it.
Only the last group represents an "aberration".
quote:
Well you're wrong on that. If you can say Crusader violence is invalid then I'm going to unilaterally say that Christian support for state violence is always wrong. And like you I'm not going to give any supporting reasoning at all. It is because I say so. Your theology is invalid. Suck it up.
Or, in Moleswothian paraphrase, "YAR BOO SUCKS TO YOU!"
Very pithy.
quote:
you've said that their hermeneutic is invalid. That is disowning it because that's not just saying it is wrong, that's saying it is faulty, that there is no possible way that a Christian could honestly get to that conclusion because it is self-evidently incorrect if they'd bothered to read and think about the NT.
you've gone beyond saying they're wrong and into the business of saying that their hermeneutic is invalid.
Your point is not at all clear.
Yes, of course I am disowning their crappy hermeneutic and the unChristian actions which resulted from it, but that is different from disowning them in the sense of pretending that that they were not really Christians at all.
I would not have thought that that was a very difficult distinction to grasp.
[ 22. July 2017, 01:58: Message edited by: Kaplan Corday ]
Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
The third position for Christians is specifically religious violence, or crusading, which no valid hermeneutic can justify.
Simply repeating the phrase doesn't make it true.
quote:
Yes, Islam can, on one of the valid understandings of the Koran, use religious violence, but Christianity can never legitimately use religious violence, though one of its hermeneutical options is to use other forms of violence.
Because you say so. Got it.
quote:
quote:
That violence is an aberration when committed by crusader Christians but a legitimate (possibly "the" legitimate) understanding of Islam.
Precisely (with an emphasis on the "possibly").
quote:
Indeed you appear to be saying in the final sentence of your above paragraph that peaceful Muslims are basically an aberration.
I neither said nor implied any such thing.
You are just making that up.
There are violent Muslims who believe that the Koran condones and requires religious violence; peaceful Muslims who believe that the Koran does not teach religious violence; and peaceful Muslims who believe that the Koran enjoins the practice of religious violence on believers, but who, for a variety of reasons, choose not to obey it.
Only the last group represents an "aberration".
I see. So now you are telling us you think that Islam is peaceful and that violence is an "invalid hermeneutic" for Islam?
I think you are pretty confused about what you are saying.
Posted by Barnabas62 (# 9110) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
The line between good and evil, violence and peace, does not lie between Christian and Muslim or even between Theist and Atheist.
The line is in every human heart.
Aleksandr, is that you?
It is indeed. A famous quote from Sozhenitsyn from Gulag Archipelago Part 2 in the Chapter "The Ascent".
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on
:
Ahead on style at least KC!
Fair's fair.
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
Thing is, though, Kaplan, the likes of Charlemagne and the Crusaders would presumably have claimed that their use of violence against 'infidels' fell into the 'just war' category.
They would presumably have maintained that, in the instance of Islamic occupation of Palestine / The Holy Land, that Islam was expansionist and threatened Christendom.
In the instance of the recalcitrant Saxons who refused to convert, Charlemagne would presumably have regarded them as an external threat - as the pagan Danes were to Anglo-Saxon England.
You appear to be disentangling what you consider to be 'valid' and 'invalid' hermeneutics from the cultural and social milieu in which they operate.
I see no reason why Charlemagne could have possibly seen his approach as inappropriate of invalid in the context of his own times. That doesn't make it 'right' but it does mean that we can't project what we consider to be valid or invalid hermeneutics onto cultures and societies very different from our own.
Callan has put this point several times and more succinctly and eloquently than I have.
For some reason you seem impervious to this point.
You insist that your own post-Reformation, post-Enlightenment hermeneutic was somehow available to people who lived hundreds of years before such a hermeneutic evolved.
I really don't understand how you can say such a thing when all the historical data contradicts your position.
It.does.not.make.sense.
It is anachronistic in the extreme.
Why can't you see that and acknowledge what is so patently obvious?
In doing so you are no more condoning religiously motivated violence than you are the execution of witches or a belief that the sun revolves around the earth.
I don't understand your recalcitrance on this.
It makes no sense to me whatsoever.
You are making a very eloquent case for a position that is completely untenable.
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on
:
But G's right of course.
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on
:
Also, are Mormons Christians?
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on
:
If Crusaders and Martin Luther and Rasputin and Efraín Ríos Montt and Robert Mugabe are, if not more so.
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
I'm not so bothered as to whether Kaplan considers Mormon s to be Christians or not, I'd like him to produce evidence that people prior to the 1600s or so operated with the kind of hermeneutic he favours and describes.
Luther didn't - 'Against the thieving, murdering hordes of peasants'.
Calvin didn't,although he seems to have distanced himself from the execution of Servetus to some extent.
Augustine certainly didn't and it seems that Charlemagne drew a fair bit from him, which is hardly surprising.
What evidence is there for KC's assertion other than his belief that they 'ought' to have known better if only they'd read their Bibles in the way here his?
None whatsoever.
Whilst there are certainly parallels and precursors in earlier writings and stances, it's historically unfeasible for anyone to have thought as Kaplan thinks they should have done until comparatively recently in historical terms.
His whole argument seems to be based on how he thinks things should have been rather than as they actually were.
Where is the evidence?
There is no evidence, except perhaps for a degree of early Patristic squeamishness about Christians serving in the army.
Kaplan's neat distinctions between a just war against external threats or internal rebellion wouldn't have existed in quite the same way in the time of Charlemagne.
It is completely anachronistic to suggest otherwise.
Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
So now you are telling us you think that Islam is peaceful and that violence is an "invalid hermeneutic" for Islam?
I think you are pretty confused about what you are saying.
So now you are telling us that you cannot see the difference between "some Muslims think that the Koran does not countenance religious violence and some do" and "violence is an invalid hermeneutic for Islam".
I think you are being mischievously and wilfully obtuse, possibly as an attention-seeking tactic.
Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
It.does.not.make.sense.
It.does.not.make.sense. that you cannot distinguish between comprehending the personal, historical, cultural, political, whatever reasons why people in the past thought as they did (which is the task of history) and realising that their process of interpretation and the conclusions it led to, were wrong.
You appear to be labouring under the delusion of some sort of "tour comprendre, c'est tout pardonner" fallacy, but in countless cases they in fact followed sound exegesis, so it's not as though they lived in a different interpretative universe and didn't know any better.
One can understand why Luther's anti-Semitism (I am currently reading Lyndal Roper's new biography of him) while denying the validity of the hermeneutic which underlay it.
It is high time that you stopped being so binary, and began to at least entertain the possibility that some things are both/and, instead of either/or.
[ 23. July 2017, 03:17: Message edited by: Kaplan Corday ]
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on
:
I begin to wonder if Kaplan Corday is avoiding answering my question. Making me wonder why he would do such a thing.
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
The irony of that last post is stunning, Kaplan.
It's not me who is struggling with both/and rather than either/or.
My point is simply this:
If you live in a society and culture where anti-Semitism is acceptable or where state-supported religious violence is seen as part of the natural order of things then it follows that your hermeneutics will reflect that.
If you live in a culture and society where anti-Semitism is frowned upon and where there has been a reaction against state-sponsored or supported religious violence then obviously your hermeneutic will reflect that instead.
Our hermeneutics don't float above the ground, independent of influences in our culture and society, they operate in a symbiotic way with those cultural and societal factors in a both/and kind of way.
I might be wrong,but ISTM that you are misguidedly trying to elide that in favour of some putative 'text-only' approach that is impossible to achieve and which does not exist.
It isn't being binary to suggest that it was virtually impossible for Charlemagne to have thought like a 20th/21st century evangelical or 'non-conformist'.
It is being binary to expect him and his contemporaries to have done so.
Sure, your hermeneutic isn't exclusive to evangelicals, but it is one that has been shaped by the Reformation, Enlightenment and other factors. It is a largely Protestant and Modernist approach.
It simply did not exist in its current form before the development of these factors.
The Fathers didn't operate with that hermeneutic. Neither did the Scholastics or the Magisterial Reformers.
The Orthodox don't operate with that hermeneutic today, although they are obviously cognisant with historical-grammatical methods of biblical interpretation. What they have done is applied those methods within the framework and context of their own Tradition. The RCs likewise.
Guess what? So have the rest of us in the context and framework of our own small t traditions.
It happens in a symbiotic and both/and way. Each shapes the other. It's a dialogue rather than a diktat.
That's the point I'm making.
Can I spell it out any more clearly?
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
You seem to be labouring under the illusion that there is one acceptable 'sound exegesis' that exists independently of our t / Traditions.
Exegesis is part of small t and Big T Tradition, not separate from it.
The reason you and I are Trinitarian is that we have inherited our Trinitarianism from previous generations of Christians who were Trinitarian. We may have probed and prodded and tested it to some extent but we're essentially Trinitarian because the ancient Councils affirmed it.
To come back to Mousethief's question about Mormons. If Mormons are to be considered Christians or not it depends on a range of criteria that determines the permissible boundaries of kosher Christian belief. Obviously.
How we arrive at that is some form of communal or collective consensus.
Anyhow, that's all obvious stuff ...
What I'm still puzzled about is how, after repeated statements I've made that I believe religiously motivated violence to be wrong you still accuse me of trying to condone or excuse it.
As if seeking to understand the mindset and actions of people in previous generations means that I'm giving them a get-out-of-jail free card.
That is what I find binary about your posts and why I feel somewhat exasperated at your repeated and apparent failure to read for comprehension.
If we could address that issue, then we might actually get somewhere.
Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on
:
I should give up. K obviously believes something is true when he thinks it is and that no further reasoning or thought is necessary. You can't have a discussion with that.
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
No, you can't, but having met him in real life and found him a most agreeable companion I'm less inclined to throw in the towel than I would be otherwise.
Another instance where context and both/and comes into play ...
Also, having come from an evangelical background myself, I understand where he's coming from even if it is frustrating when he apparently fails to see that his own hermeneutic is just as much formed by tradition as anyone else's.
I had to laugh when he lectured you about the meaning of hermeneutics. I wanted to quote it back at him as, ISTM he is saying one thing about it - acknowledging context etc - and doing another ie acting as if context and historical / cultural factors are irrelevant and that there is a single, over-arching, definitive hermeneutic - namely his own.
If I've got the wrong end of the stick n that, I'm prepared to be beaten with it.
Posted by Russ (# 120) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
I'm not sure that Kaplan is saying that Islam is inherently or intrinsically violent but I've come across plenty of evangelicals and very conservative Catholics and Orthodox who think it is.
Indeed, if Muslims aren't violent then they claim that this is because they are nominal or not practising their religion properly.
In this bizarre and reductionist way they end up supporting and affirming the extreme jihadist narrative of the likes of ISIS.
They aren't 'allowing' Muslims any other hermeneutic than a jihadist one.
Seems to me that we're caught in the tension between two models of religious text.
In the one model, religious text has a plain meaning. (Why would God give us an ambiguous Holy Book ?) If the plain meaning of the Koran is that Moslems should be merciless towards the enemies of Islam, then Martin60's decent and civilised Moslem neighbours are good people because they are bad Moslems who have compromised with secular humanism.
In the other model, religious text has no inherent meaning - any interpretation is possible. Islam is then no more and no less than the totality of what Moslems do (and the same behaviourist logic applies to Christianity).
I think we're probably all agreed that neither pole of this spectrum is adequate, and that some mix of inherent meaning and interpretation is always involved.
But that makes both models partly-true...
And the problem seems to be that the decent and civilised Moslems bring their children up to revere the Koran instead of revering the humane and civilised culture which leads them to choose the humane and civilised interpretation of their religious tradition.
In other words, the good Moslems are good people first and Moslems second, but they don't see it that way, and therefore don't teach their children that it should be that way round.
Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Russ:
In other words, the good Moslems are good people first and Moslems second, but they don't see it that way, and therefore don't teach their children that it should be that way round.
What a load of utter shite. Imagine if I'd said that about your tradition.
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Russ:
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
I'm not sure that Kaplan is saying that Islam is inherently or intrinsically violent but I've come across plenty of evangelicals and very conservative Catholics and Orthodox who think it is.
Indeed, if Muslims aren't violent then they claim that this is because they are nominal or not practising their religion properly.
In this bizarre and reductionist way they end up supporting and affirming the extreme jihadist narrative of the likes of ISIS.
They aren't 'allowing' Muslims any other hermeneutic than a jihadist one.
Seems to me that we're caught in the tension between two models of religious text.
In the one model, religious text has a plain meaning. (Why would God give us an ambiguous Holy Book ?) If the plain meaning of the Koran is that Moslems should be merciless towards the enemies of Islam, then Martin60's decent and civilised Moslem neighbours are good people because they are bad Moslems who have compromised with secular humanism.
In the other model, religious text has no inherent meaning - any interpretation is possible. Islam is then no more and no less than the totality of what Moslems do (and the same behaviourist logic applies to Christianity).
I think we're probably all agreed that neither pole of this spectrum is adequate, and that some mix of inherent meaning and interpretation is always involved.
But that makes both models partly-true...
And the problem seems to be that the decent and civilised Moslems bring their children up to revere the Koran instead of revering the humane and civilised culture which leads them to choose the humane and civilised interpretation of their religious tradition.
In other words, the good Moslems are good people first and Moslems second, but they don't see it that way, and therefore don't teach their children that it should be that way round.
You're not from round here are you? I don't suppose you meet many utterly uncompromising, devout, faithful Deobandi in Tory country?
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
Hmmm ...
Why do I think killing people for religious reasons is wrong?
Multiple choice question. Please choose the one that best fits:
1. Because the Bible says so.
2. Because I live in the 21st century not the 8th.
3. Because the Bible says so and I live in the 21st century not the 8th.
4. The Bible is full of people being killed for religious reasons, even in the NT - Ananias and Sapphira, Herod (although as it's God who does for them rather than people, it doesn't matter so much because I say so) ...
5. Although the Bible is full of people being killed for religious reasons, even the NT, we can explain all that by having the right hermeneutic.
6. The Bible seems to suggest it's ok not to be a pacifist and to kill people, providing it's not done for reasons I don't approve of - like refusing to convert from paganism to Christianity.
7. Because I've reached the conclusion that it's wrong by a whole set of cultural, social and historical factors which help shape how I read and interpret the scriptures within the context of the particular Christian traditions I've been most exposed to.
Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
quote:
Originally posted by Russ:
In other words, the good Moslems are good people first and Moslems second, but they don't see it that way, and therefore don't teach their children that it should be that way round.
What a load of utter shite. Imagine if I'd said that about your tradition.
People do say similar things about some Christians, and they are perfectly entitled to.
To say that a Muslim who believes that the Koran teaches religious violence but who refuses to practise it is a bad Muslim but a good person is entirely unexceptionable.
Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
To come back to Mousethief's question about Mormons.
Mousethief knows exactly what my position is re his "question", because I dealt with it a while back during an exchange over whether Spong is a Christian.
He is just playing some sort of silly game.
Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
The irony of that last post is stunning, Kaplan.
It's not me who is struggling with both/and rather than either/or.
Just rattling your cage, in view of your being the Ship's apostle of non-binary inclusiveness.
But that doesn't mean you are not guilty.
You should be able to live with the fact that there can be cultural factors influencing a particular Christian era's beliefs or practices and the fact that they were scripturally (and otherwise, if you like) wrong.
Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
Why do I think killing people for religious reasons is wrong?
It might help you if that were phrased more concretely.
Imagine a Christian friend who asked you to join them in trying to kill some Hindus (or Buddhists, animists or whatever) on the grounds that God's word teaches us through the example of Joshua that we as God's people are obliged to exterminate unbelievers.
There are, as you point out, a number of reasons why you would refuse, but one of them would be the exegetical principle that the teaching of the NT supersedes that of the OT.
This principle is one which has been applied from the first century to the present - it is one of the definitions of Christianity, and explains why, for example, we don't practise the sacrificial/sacerdotal system of the Tabernacle/Temple.
It is a hermeneutical axiom which, consciously or not, was recognised and applied in Charlemagne's 8/9th centuries as it is in the twenty-first.
There were no doubt cultural reasons why Charlemagne did not apply it consistently, and future generations of Christians will no doubt cite cultural factors to explain our blind spots, ie our failures to consistently apply it.
But it is absurd to just put your fingers in your ears and persist with the unhistorical mantra that such a hermeneutic did not exist until the present.
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
To come back to Mousethief's question about Mormons.
Mousethief knows exactly what my position is re his "question", because I dealt with it a while back during an exchange over whether Spong is a Christian.
He is just playing some sort of silly game.
I don't remember that post. This is a personal attack.
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Russ:
Seems to me that we're caught in the tension between two models of religious text.
In the one model, religious text has a plain meaning. (Why would God give us an ambiguous Holy Book ?) ...
In the other model, religious text has no inherent meaning - any interpretation is possible.
I have a third model. It has an inherent meaning but it's not obvious or plain, and God expects us to work at it. Perhaps God is telling us, "That's why I gave you brains, bitches. Work it out." Maybe not in those words (She speaks Slavonic).
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
It might help if you read for comprehension.
The reason I would say that it is scripturally wrong to carry out the pogrom you cite in your example is precisely because of the reasons I've cited - my cultural and historical context.
The 17th century Puritans didn't think it was was wrong to take the OT verse, 'Thou' shalt not suffer a witch to live' and apply it - even though they didn't adopt the dietary and ritual laws of the Old Testament.
We cannot separate and disaggregate our hermeneutic from our cultural and historical context.
It is physically impossible.
As I have tried to demonstrate, despite your unwillingness to listen, the idea of executing pagans who were believed to pose an existential threat wouldn't have appeared that outrageous to people in the 8th/9th century. They were operating by a different frame of reference.
It's not me who is covering up my ears and going 'La la la la la ...'
Scripture does not operate in isolation. It needs to be interpreted. It needs a hermeneutic. We all agree on that. That hermeneutic doesn't float six feet above the ground on a fluffy pink cloud. Rather, it is shaped by a whole range of cultural and historical factors.
It does not operate individually either, but as part of some kind of corporate, communal, received tradition.
If you operate within a tradition where executing pagans as enemies of the state is seen as a given, then you aren't going to read the NT in the same way as someone in a different context who thinks otherwise.
Why is that obvious point so objectionable?
It doesn't undermine any notion of the high status of scripture, its 'perperscuity' if we want to put it like that.
Neither does in condone the actions of Charlemagne or the Crusaders, Cromwell, Cardinal Richelieu or anyone else who has sought religious justification for their violent actions.
Once again, you miss the point. Once again you have failed to read for comprehension. Once again you tumble into binariness without realising you are doing it.
Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
To come back to Mousethief's question about Mormons.
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
Mousethief knows exactly what my position is re his "question", because I dealt with it a while back during an exchange over whether Spong is a Christian.
He is just playing some sort of silly game.
I'd be interested to see as well, and don't remember that exchange if ever I saw it.
The point is that if you think it's OK to say that Mormons, JWs or Branch Davidian's aren't Christians despite their protestations that they are, then presumably it's OK for Muslims to say that ISIS aren't Muslims despite their protestations that they are.
Having said that I personally don't buy either approach, I think we have to accept that those groups come out of religious traditions (Christianity and Islam, respectively) and while we might say their interpretations of those traditions are whacked we can't deny the link.
Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
People do say similar things about some Christians, and they are perfectly entitled to.
I didn't say he wasn't entitled to do it, I said it was shite.
More particularly what is shite is this idea that a "good Muslim" is the one who has accepted secularism rather than his religion.
In contrast to Christians, who are obviously more civilised.
quote:
To say that a Muslim who believes that the Koran teaches religious violence but who refuses to practise it is a bad Muslim but a good person is entirely unexceptionable.
That's not what he said.
But hey, whatever. I'm done talking to you.
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
Here is one last attempt ... (Sighs, takes a deep breath) ...
Allied to an appeal to read for comprehension.
What am I saying?
I am saying that the hermeneutic you are employing did not exist IN ITS CURRENT FORM until comparatively recently. The raw material for it certainly did. It's just that previous generations often put the pieces together differently.
Some still do.
You'll know as well as I do that:
- Various interpretative schemas co-existed in the early Church - the Alexandrian being more allegorical, the Antiochian more 'literal'. Eventually there was a kind of fusion between the two.
- Whilst the NT scriptures existed and were in use, they were in use alongside other documents that gradually assumed a lesser role - The Shepherd of Hermas etc. It wasn't until the 5th century that there was universal consensus on the NT canon. Even then there were outliers - the Ethiopians have a gazillion more books in their Bibles than anyone else and also operate a different hermeneutic, one with a more 'Jewish' flavour, arguably.
- Your Joshua inspired pogrom analogy doesn't fit Charlemagne exactly - although there are parallels. Charlemagne is more a fusion between that and a medieval understanding of the right of rulers to 'bear the sword' against malefactors. In a medieval context that would include pagans who refused to convert, despite, as Charlemagne believed, being given due choice, instruction and opportunity. In a medieval mindset that would be entirely in keeping with the NT - particularly Romans 12.
- Hermeneutics develop and evolve. They have never been entirely consistent throughout history. Whether it's the Puritan John Robinson - 'God hath yet more truth to reveal from his most holy word' - to the Papal Magisterium to the Orthodox idea of conciliarity and collegiality, all Christian traditions allow scope for some degree of development.
- I am not an expert on Patristics, but I have read enough of the sub-apostolic fathers and snippets of some of the big name Patristic figures to appreciate that they did not operate with the kind of hermeneutic you describe - although obviously there are parallels, echoes and anticipations. One thing is clear. They thought and approached things very differently to you or I.
Now. None of that excuses religiously motivated violence. None of that implies that the NT actively teaches religiously inspired state-sponsored religious violence.
We can say that because we operate with a hermeneutic that has developed and evolved over two millennia and which has been shaped in a symbiotic relationship both with the text iself and with external influences - social change, cultural and historical change etc etc.
Someone like Charlemagne or Cromwell wouldn't have thought or operated in quite the same way as we do. Consequently, at some points, for a whole range of reasons, their approach was always going to differ from ours.
Understanding that does not condone it.
There, is that clear enough?
If not,what evidence do you have that previous generations operated with the hermeneutic you describe, particularly when it's clear that the NT authors themselves didn't apply such a hermeneutic when dealing with what became the OT?
But that might be a thread for Kerygmania.
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on
:
Perfectly clear G. Yeah, but ...
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
Yeah, but what?
I really don't see what's so contentious about anything I've written, namely:
- That hermeneutics aren't neutral.
- That hermeneutics is part of tradition / Tradition.
- That hermeneutics develops in synergy and in a symbiotic relationship not only with the text itself but with cultural, societal and historical factors.
- That the hermeneutics any of us operate with now derives from past developments over two millenia of Christianity and didn't drop out of the pages of the NT fully formed.
- Whilst there will be consistent strands as we are all pretty much dealing with the same source material, it is only to be expected that there will be different emphases and interpretations depending on a whole range of factors and influences.
What is there about any of the above that is any way contentious?
The onus is on Kaplan to provide proof positive to the contrary.
The fact is, he either can't or won't.
Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
What is there about any of the above that is any way contentious?
The onus is on Kaplan to provide proof positive to the contrary.
The fact is, he either can't or won't.
I think the main contention is that Kaplan believes any right-minded Christian would read the scriptures and see that crusading wasn't the way for Christians.
So anyone who says anything different obviously has some defect with the way they're reading the scriptures.
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on
:
Hey G. baby, this is me. I have no yeah buts. The lead of the Sunshine Band will however, as mr cheesy says, due to his perfect, timeless, God breathed and once delivered hermeneutic.
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
What is there about any of the above that is any way contentious?
The onus is on Kaplan to provide proof positive to the contrary.
The fact is, he either can't or won't.
I think the main contention is that Kaplan believes any right-minded Christian would read the scriptures and see that crusading wasn't the way for Christians.
So anyone who says anything different obviously has some defect with the way they're reading the scriptures.
Well yes, I get that.
I don't believe that Crusading was the way for Christians either. For a whole shed-load of reasons. Hermeneutics is one factor. It's not the only one. Even if it were, my hermeneutics would depend on a whole range of factors including whether I lived in the 1st, 3rd, 6th, 9th, 14th or 25th centuries ...
Heck. LilBuddha is a Buddhist I assume. His/her opposition to Crusading isn't going to be based on Christian hermeneutics is it?
Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
I don't believe that Crusading was the way for Christians either. For a whole shed-load of reasons. Hermeneutics is one factor. It's not the only one. Even if it were, my hermeneutics would depend on a whole range of factors including whether I lived in the 1st, 3rd, 6th, 9th, 14th or 25th centuries ...
OK, I can totally believe that you don't believe in crusading. I think it is pretty unlikely that if someone came along with a theology of crusades that was fairly carefully argued with reference to Joshua etc that you'd just dismiss it as obviously invalid.
I'm fairly sure you'd accept that it was at least an attempt to get to grips with the various traditions and theologies that are available to us here in the 21 century - even though we'd all here accept that the conclusions were disgusting.
You wouldn't say it was invalid in the sense that someone answering the question "why is crusader violence outlawed for Christians?" with "because orange aliens want to come to take over the world and are using the biblical texts to brainwash people" might be considered invalid.
Posted by Callan (# 525) on
:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
quote:
I don't believe that Crusading was the way for Christians either. For a whole shed-load of reasons. Hermeneutics is one factor. It's not the only one. Even if it were, my hermeneutics would depend on a whole range of factors including whether I lived in the 1st, 3rd, 6th, 9th, 14th or 25th centuries ...
I don't believe that Crusading was the way for Christian's either but, if I were a Medieval Pope, and if the Byzantine Empire was menaced by the Seljuk Turks, and if I had a bunch of hairy arsed feudal knights bopping one another, I might well conclude that persuading the hairy arsed knights to stop bopping each other and start bopping the Seljuk Turks would solve two problems with one fell stroke.
People talk as if religious violence was some kind of specific problem, as opposed to merely being a subset of the more serious problem of violence per se.
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
Well yes, Callan.
Quite.
@mr cheesy, what I'd do in such circumstances is apply the customary scripture,reason and tradition thing I've imbibed from Anglicanism and also fully acknowledge I was also applying my own personal distaste for the idea, a distaste that derives from whole raft of cultural and contextual factors.
What I wouldn't do would be to pull a few proof-texts out of my arse and try to convince everyone that my views were completely commensurate with whatever view I believed should have been held from time immemorial.
To be fair to Kaplan, he's not channelling his own idiosyncratic views but drawing on a hermeneutic that has a wide acceptance and cachet.
The mistake he makes us to project it backwards into a time when that particular hermeneutic had not developed in the form he is familiar with.
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
Having said that I personally don't buy either approach, I think we have to accept that those groups come out of religious traditions (Christianity and Islam, respectively) and while we might say their interpretations of those traditions are whacked we can't deny the link.
I don't deny the link. I deny that the link trumps what they are actually doing/teaching.
Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on
:
It's tough to know where to draw the line though. On the one hand we have Pentecostals who say anyone who doesn't speak in tongues is a Christian (or Catholics who say anyone who does isn't for that matter) and on the other hand a position that says if the JWs say they are Christians the rest of us should accept that.
I'm not sure about the line, but what I would say is that we can't draw the line in one place for Christianity and another place for Islam. We can't for instance say that anyone who says they are a Muslim is a Muslim and on the other hand we'll pick and choose for the Christian club.
Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
Heck. LilBuddha is a Buddhist I assume. His/her opposition to Crusading isn't going to be based on Christian hermeneutics is it?
Actually, if I am discussing Christianity with Christians, I try my best to argue within a Christian framework. Or hermeneutics if you will.
It will make the most sense, most times.
Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
I think we have to accept that those groups come out of religious traditions (Christianity and Islam, respectively) and while we might say their interpretations of those traditions are whacked we can't deny the link.
D'accord, and that is pretty much what I said about Spong.
Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
More particularly what is shite is this idea that a "good Muslim" is the one who has accepted secularism rather than his religion.
No, a Muslim who has been influenced by secular humanism as regards one particular aspect of "his" religion, which is not the same as your blanket statement.
quote:
In contrast to Christians, who are obviously more civilised.
Nobody on this thread has denied that Christians have behaved as badly as, or worse than, Muslims.
quote:
I'm done talking to you.
I don't believe you.
Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
The mistake he makes us to project it backwards into a time when that particular hermeneutic had not developed in the form he is familiar with.
No, your mistake is a conflation of the fact that the hermeneutic has always existed, albeit in an inchoate, inadequately articulated and inconsistently applied form, with the myth that it did not exist at all for much of Christianity's history.
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
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Again, you fail to read for comprehension.
Do you actually read my posts?
Sure, they can be long and wordy, but what I actually said was that the raw material for the kind of hermeneutic you describe has existed for as long as Christianity - ie we all operate with pretty much the same source material - but the way it's been put together has varied down the years.
For some unaccountable reason you seem unprepared to accept that the hermeneutics we operate with are the sum total and result of the accumulated debates, reflections and cogitations of previous centuries.
You appear to be operating with an analogous view of hermeneutics to the view that E H Broadbent had of the Church. Everything was hunky-dory at the end of the 1st century but then it all went down hill from there until some brave souls turned things round ...
That the kind of hermeneutic you favour was some how operational in the early Church before the canon of scripture had even been agreed or ratified.
Someone in 2nd century Gaul, for instance, couldn't possibly have used your particular hermeneutic as - even if they were literate - they might only have had access to a fragment of a Gospel or Epistle and been using them alongside books that would later be determined to be pseudographical.
Of course, by Charlemagne's time the canon of scripture had been agreed, but that doesn't necessarily mean that people applied the kind of hermeneutical approach that you are advocating. They clearly didn't. Nor would it have occurred to them to have done so.
The kind of approach you advocate can only apply when there are social, cultural and societal conditions in place that enable it to do so.
Those conditions did not exist in the 8th/9th centuries.
It's not as if Charlemagne read the NT and thought to himself, 'Zut alors! I want to kill those pagan Saxons but there is no verse here that says I'm allowed to do so. Nevertheless ... I will set it aside with a Gallic shrug and kill them any way ...'
That's not how these things work.
@mdjon - you are also over-simplifying things.
Pentecostals don't believe that 'anyone' who speaks in tongues are necessarily or automatically a Christian. They fully accept that there can be 'counterfeit' tongues out there, or even 'demonic' versions of the same phenomena.
Nor do RCs believe that anyone who speaks in tongues isn't necessarily a Christian. There are charismatic Catholics around who speak in tongues.
Also, in my experience, unlike particular forms of fundagelicals, RCs don't tend to go around pontificating about whether this, that or the other individual is really a Christian or not - although I am sure there are RC zealots who do ...
Anyhow, coming back to Kaplan's challenge. I would like him to prove that the kind of hermeneutic he favours was fully operational from the earliest times of the Christian Church, rather than a stand-point that gradually emerged and developed in the kind of symbiotic way I've described.
The fact is, he can't, because that's not what happened and not how these things work. The fact that he insists otherwise doesn't make it so.
The Bible isn't like one of those cornflake packets with had as kids with a model inside and printed instructions on the back telling you how to put the model together.
No, as Kaplan well knows, the process of canonisation was long and drawn out. Equally, the various hermeneutical processes didn't drop out of the fly-leaf at the back. They developed over time. They are still developing.
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
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quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
Heck. LilBuddha is a Buddhist I assume. His/her opposition to Crusading isn't going to be based on Christian hermeneutics is it?
Actually, if I am discussing Christianity with Christians, I try my best to argue within a Christian framework. Or hermeneutics if you will.
It will make the most sense, most times.
Sure, that makes sense. My point, though, was that none of us are operating within hermetically sealed boundaries.
There's a symbiotic thing going on.
If we talk about Christians, Muslims or Jews being influenced by secularism or liberalism, for instance, it's because there's something that can be extrapolated from the Judeo-Christian - or broader 'Abrahamic' - traditions to feed into and nurturing that.
My compost heap doesn't grow spontaneously. It's the aggregate sum of whatever we put into it.
What goes into my garden and comes out if it is inextricably linked.
In a similar way, that's how theologies and hermeneutics develop. There's the raw material - sacred texts, traditions, mythology - in the C S Lewis sense - and it all goes into the mulch as it were.
If we apply that analogy to hermeneutics, then it stands to reason that a cabbage leaf in the compost heap is going to be a fully formed and fresh one at one point, a slimy one at another and at some point part of the crumbly rich compost in a way that is indistinguishable from the potato peelings and newspaper but which, although unnoticed and seen as part of the overall background, adds something unique and cabbagey to the mix.
In the same way, I'm agreeing with Kaplan that the raw material has been there from the outset but there needed/needs to be the process of composting for it all to coalesce.
I am not propagating a 'myth' as Kaplan suggests, simply highlighting as the process of how hermeneutics develop to the extent that we become so familiar bwith them that we forget that they weren't always the same shape and texture but have been subject to pressure, squeezing, challenge, stirring and internal and external influences for 2,000 years.
That's all I'm saying and I don't see why it is so contentious, unless it undermines some kind of 'myth' Kaplan's carrying around in his head.
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
You appear to be operating with an analogous view of hermeneutics to the view that E H Broadbent had of the Church. Everything was hunky-dory at the end of the 1st century but then it all went down hill from there until some brave souls turned things round ...
I don't know who Broadbent is/was, but certainly the view of church history I remember hearing from the fundagelicals of my acquaintance was not so much that things went downhill, but they ran into a brick wall. That brick wall collision happened either slightly after John the Revelator died, or five minutes before the first Council of Nicea, depending on whom you ask. At any rate the first Christians were all evangelical Protestants, then evil happened and the true Evangelicals went underground while the bad icky Catholics (and Orthodox, if we get a look-in at all, which is seldom) took over.
It is historical fiction of a high order. It is grossly absurd.
Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on
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It'd be quite interesting to see what a group did with the NT who had no exposure to all of our history and preconceptions.
I think it wouldn't be too extreme to imagine them going for mass murder, mass suicide, or going for some other kind of weird and extreme fundamentalism.
It is pretty unlikely that it'd naturally turn into Evangelicalism, in my opinion. Because that faith needs such a lot of extra biblical supporting information and ideas.
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
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Hmmm ...
It depends on the context in which these putative believers found themselves, mr cheesy.
The NT was written in the context of a group that developed and separated from an existing religion - Judaism.
So it would have been impossible for the first believers to have acted as if it had parachuted in from the skies without any context.
Of course, if your scenario panned out in a completely different context then the results would have been different - but not necessarily as lethal as you suggest.
Back in my GLE days there were all sorts of stories of unreached tribes who'd apparently had visions or dreams which instructed them in some of the salient points of the Christian faith before the missionaries arrived.
There was even one story I heard of how Protestant missionaries apparently found a 'church' operating in Korea when they first arrived because a few pages of the NT had been washed ashore from a ship-wreck ...
I take these stories with a pinch of salt.
There are similar ones in RC and Orthodox missiology, but there is seems to be more a case that the missionaries encountered practices that they could point to and adapt to suit their message - rather like the Apostle Paul in the Areopagus and the statue 'to an Unknown God.'
I suspect there's been a degree of embellishment in the RC / Orthodox missiological accounts too, just as there has been in Protestant ones.
However ...
On the Broadbent thing, I suspect Kaplan will accuse me of making yet another sly dig at evangelicalism or The Brethren - as Broadbent believed that the Brethren were the apogee of Christian development and a return to NT Christianity ...
Before he does so, I'd like to point out that I was using his approach as an analogy and not intending to get into a critique of restorationist / independent evangelical ecclesiology.
My point is simply that hermeneutical systems didn't arrive ready-shrink wrapped as special attachments to copies of the Bible circulating around the early Church - as we all know, most churches wouldn't have had the 'full set' of the NT books for many years.
Rather, hermeneutical systems developed in response to controversies and through discussion and debate.
Consequently, it's completely impossible for them to have existed in their current form five minutes after the ink was dry on the final section of St John's manuscript for Revelations.
Obviously, I'm being somewhat flippant and possibly doing Kaplan a disservice.
If I have done, then it's only a slight disservice as he clearly doesn't read my posts closely enough to grasp what I'm actually saying and not what he thinks I'm saying.
For someone who prides himself on a 'sound exegesis' his capacity for close reading seems somewhat limited.
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
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quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
It'd be quite interesting to see what a group did with the NT who had no exposure to all of our history and preconceptions.
I think it wouldn't be too extreme to imagine them going for mass murder, mass suicide, or going for some other kind of weird and extreme fundamentalism.
It is pretty unlikely that it'd naturally turn into Evangelicalism, in my opinion. Because that faith needs such a lot of extra biblical supporting information and ideas.
By the same token, one could say that it wouldn't naturally turn into Roman Catholicism or Orthodoxy either.
Which, of course it wouldn't - because whatever Christian tradition we belong to, ALL of them have developed with a lot of extra biblical supporting information and ideas.
The difference is that the RCs and Orthodox readily acknowledge that and indeed celebrate that fact.
They don't try to pretend otherwise.
Unlike some types of evangelical Protestant.
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on
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quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
It'd be quite interesting to see what a group did with the NT who had no exposure to all of our history and preconceptions.
I think it wouldn't be too extreme to imagine them going for mass murder, mass suicide, or going for some other kind of weird and extreme fundamentalism.
It is pretty unlikely that it'd naturally turn into Evangelicalism, in my opinion. Because that faith needs such a lot of extra biblical supporting information and ideas.
Exactly, it's all about what we bring to the party. Ian Banks' Transition explores this brilliantly.
Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
The difference is that the RCs and Orthodox readily acknowledge that and indeed celebrate that fact.
They don't try to pretend otherwise.
Unlike some types of evangelical Protestant.
No, but that's partly due to a difference in worldview. The RC and Orthodox understand the faith to be more than just what an intelligent person could derive from the scriptures.
Evangelicals often like to pretend the opposite: the faith is simply what a stupid person would accept if they were isolated in a room with only a bible. Of course that's complete nonsense.
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
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Mind you, here aboard Ship, Lamb Chopped claimed to have arrived at an understanding of the Trinity and other key Christian doctrines and emphases through shutting herself away in a closet (literally) with only the Bible and God the Holy Spirit for company ...
Much as I admire her, I don't believe her for one minute. I think she was reading her own subsequent reading, insights and understanding gleaned from being part of a church back into her initial experience.
I'm by no means suggesting she is being disingenuous or misleading. Far from it. I simply believe that she is interpreting her initial encounters with the scriptures retrospectively through her subsequent growth/development.
But that's another matter ...
I can't remember where I've come across the following, but I have heard of a short-story in which someone goes to a remote or cut-off tribe and relates to them the Christian faith - only for the tribes people to obligingly crucify them thinking that this is the right thing to do to please the stranger ...
However we cut it, we are all of us 'socialised' into our particular understandings of the Gospel and we all of us use hermeneutical systems which developed gradually over time.
What certainly isn't the case is that we are operating with ready-made systems that dropped out of the box like a free-gift in a cornflake packet.
I'm not suggesting that Kaplan considers that to be the case. I'm cutting him more slack than that, but I am accusing him of a lack of close reading of what I have actually been saying and of jumping to conclusions in assuming that what is so 'obvious' to him as a 21st century believer influenced by the Reformation, Enlightenment - and yes, secularism - as well as centuries of pre-Reformation and pre-Enlightenment theological thought - wasn't necessarily so obvious to people in past generations who didn't use the same approach as he does.
Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
Mind you, here aboard Ship, Lamb Chopped claimed to have arrived at an understanding of the Trinity and other key Christian doctrines and emphases through shutting herself away in a closet (literally) with only the Bible and God the Holy Spirit for company ...
Much as I admire her, I don't believe her for one minute. I think she was reading her own subsequent reading, insights and understanding gleaned from being part of a church back into her initial experience.
Nope. I believe that's a private delusion which in time has become the story upon which she has hung her whole life.
But, y'know, we all do that. I guess most of us have stories which are in slightly less day-glo colours, but I think we all basically choose stories as part of our identity.
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
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Sure, although I think 'delusion' is too strong a word for what we are talking about here.
It's more a case, I would suggest, of choosing an interpretative framework or lens through which we evaluate our past experiences.
There's been some interesting work done on oral-history interviews with WW1 veterans which showed how their attitudes to the conflict changed over time, from the 1920s to the 1960s. The anti-War sentiments tended to creep in later, partly, it would seem from the 'Oh What a Lovely War!' zeitgeist of popular culture.
I think you can see something similar in evangelical testimonies. People are 'trained' / conditioned to interpret their spiritual experiences through the lens of an evangelical paradigm - and the more the conversion stories are exchanged and repeated the more that paradigm is reinforced.
That's not to dismiss or deny the reality of the actual conversions, it's simply to state - yet again - that we are all wearing spectacles of one form or other.
The particular prescription that Kaplan has for his lenses developed over time - just like any other prescription.
I can't for the life of me imagine why he doesn't see this himself. It's as plain as the spectacles on the end of my nose.
Posted by Lamb Chopped (# 5528) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
Mind you, here aboard Ship, Lamb Chopped claimed to have arrived at an understanding of the Trinity and other key Christian doctrines and emphases through shutting herself away in a closet (literally) with only the Bible and God the Holy Spirit for company ...
Much as I admire her, I don't believe her for one minute. I think she was reading her own subsequent reading, insights and understanding gleaned from being part of a church back into her initial experience.
I'm by no means suggesting she is being disingenuous or misleading. Far from it. I simply believe that she is interpreting her initial encounters with the scriptures retrospectively through her subsequent growth/development.
But that's another matter ...
I can't remember where I've come across the following, but I have heard of a short-story in which someone goes to a remote or cut-off tribe and relates to them the Christian faith - only for the tribes people to obligingly crucify them thinking that this is the right thing to do to please the stranger ...
However we cut it, we are all of us 'socialised' into our particular understandings of the Gospel and we all of us use hermeneutical systems which developed gradually over time.
What certainly isn't the case is that we are operating with ready-made systems that dropped out of the box like a free-gift in a cornflake packet.
I'm not suggesting that Kaplan considers that to be the case. I'm cutting him more slack than that, but I am accusing him of a lack of close reading of what I have actually been saying and of jumping to conclusions in assuming that what is so 'obvious' to him as a 21st century believer influenced by the Reformation, Enlightenment - and yes, secularism - as well as centuries of pre-Reformation and pre-Enlightenment theological thought - wasn't necessarily so obvious to people in past generations who didn't use the same approach as he does.
Not a closet, dude. A bathroom (loo, to you folks overseas). Get it straight.
And as for your ridiculous contention--
I could bring you real-life witnesses, including my old confirmation instructor V. M. who suffered mightily at my hands, as I eyed him suspiciously every week, just waiting for him to slip up on his doctrine.* (Why, yes, I was an obnoxious** new convert--how did you guess?)
I bring him up because he can testify (I believe he's still living) that I had a mature understanding of the outline of all the basic doctrines, because that is what I was using to decide whether he was a false teacher or not (sorry, Pastor M!). Duh. If your contention is true, it would have been impossible for me to judge whether he was a false teacher or not. One can only compare two sets of doctrine if one actually HAS two sets to compare. There was the systematic set of doctrine*** he was teaching, and there was the set I walked in with--derived from late night readings in the loo. Got it?
Bear in mind that at this time I was still attempting to hide my conversion from my mother. It was she who drop-kicked me into the class (being under the mistaken impression it was a simple youth Bible study), not I who volunteered. None of us attended church, and we kids were yet unbaptized. You can judge by that just how much Christian training went on in my home.
After a couple years of this eagle-eyed comparison, I lightened up and agreed to join the Lutheran church. I thank God that we lived by the Lutheran church and not the Mormon church on the other side of town--my mother chose purely based on what was nearest.
* For those who wonder, I caught him in exactly one error, and it wasn't doctrinal, though I was too immature to realize that fact at the time--he said something about the flood lasting seven days. Yeah, of course I made myself a pain in the ass and jumped all over him. I was an idiot, okay? Looking back, I give him major credit for putting up with me and even rewarding my prickly, geeky doctrinal stance (I've got a minor award from that class tucked away somewhere).
** I had had very little contact at all with Christian communities prior to winding up in his classroom, and was just as phobic as you might imagine someone converted in a loo, in near-total isolation, to be.
*** Lest you try to wriggle out of it by imagining that the confirmation class was less than complete in its presentation of doctrine, Kelly can testify that LCMS confirmation classes tend toward the very rigorous--you don't get out of Luther's Small Catechism without full exposure to all the basic tenets of Christianity. And I was and remain a geek in all areas of my life. Lutheranism is geeky. What a surprise, I know.
ETA: Why in the hell do you say you admire me? I had nothing to do with this. Give it to the Holy Spirit, who watches over God's word and brings it to fruit, even in the life of a pain in the ass.
[ 25. July 2017, 21:39: Message edited by: Lamb Chopped ]
Posted by Lamb Chopped (# 5528) on
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quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
Nope. I believe that's a private delusion which in time has become the story upon which she has hung her whole life.
But, y'know, we all do that. I guess most of us have stories which are in slightly less day-glo colours, but I think we all basically choose stories as part of our identity.
![[Killing me]](graemlins/killingme.gif)
Well, if it's a delusion, I'm perfectly happy with it. Though I can't see how you would know.
Remind me some day to tell you a miracle story or two from our ministry, so you can have more to disbelieve.
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
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I admire your faith is what I meant.
Also, I don't doubt that you've seen some marvellous and miraculous stuff in your life/ministry.
Nor do I doubt that you'd be able to correct that fella on how long the Flood lasted and other details after a few weeks shut in the bogs (I was polite with my jokey use of the word 'closet' so will use some UK vernacular).
But sorry, I don't believe that you emerged from the lavs with a fully-orbed, creedally exact understanding of the finer points of Christian doctrine. Sorry, but there it is.
That said, I don't doubt that through the mysterious workings of Providence you had a profound and life-changing encounter with the Living God in the lavs.
Priscilla and Aquila had to explain 'The ways of God more accurately' to Apollos. We all need each other. That's how we learn.
I'm not for a moment doubting the reality of your conversion but neither do I believe that if we stuck someone in the John with only the Bible for company they'd come out spouting Nicene-Chalcedonian formularies.
Don't get me wrong, God moves in mysterious ways, his wonders to perform ...
I've met people who have been converted to Christ through cultic literature and who, somehow, recognised that it was otherwise wonky and sought out a more orthodox (small o) setting.
I once met an Orthodox monk who'd been converted from agnosticism by a striking encounter with an icon of the Theotokos and Christ-child in a Russian museum.
I don't doubt these things happen.
But 'spiritual formation' happens in a group context, by and large. Most of us are socialised into the Kingdom.
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
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Re-reading your account, I suspect there's an element of confirmation-bias going on and that the interaction between the catechist and yourself was more symbiotic than either of you realised at the time.
Again, that doesn't obviate your experience nor does it preclude your gaining a shed-load of Bible knowledge from your time stuck in the lavatory.
Heck, I used to be able to reel off and recite whole chunks of scripture and was generally reckoned to be 'a man of the word, mighty in the scriptures' in the somewhat narrow circles in which I moved.
Looking back, I knew hardly anything at all for all I could cite chapter and verse. They doesn't mean I hadn't encountered God. That doesn't mean I wasn't led in some way by the Spirit of Truth. I somehow instinctively knew that I should gravitate towards Trinitarianism and not go off to join the JWs or what-have-you.
I'd suggest that it's all but impossible to pinpoint the precise moment when one became more fully aware of this, that or the other aspect of Christian truth.
Rather, it's a cumulative thing and the speed and intensity of that will vary according to circumstances. If you're stuck in a lav with a Bible for hours at a a stretch then it's likely to be more intense than it is for someone brought up in Sunday school, say.
Besides, knowing how long the Ark was afloat or how many Philistines Shamgar slew with an ox-goad or whatever it was - I've forgotten already - isn't the same as trying to suss out whether the Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son, say or whether soteriology is monergistic or synergistic or whether Christ is somehow present in the Eucharist or ...
Posted by chris stiles (# 12641) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
But sorry, I don't believe that you emerged from the lavs with a fully-orbed, creedally exact understanding of the finer points of Christian doctrine. Sorry, but there it is.
Well, none of us grow up context free - and there are all sorts of bits of cultural Trappings that are influenced by Christianity that the average person brings to play. I'd be more impressed if this happened to someone born in Tibet in the 13th century.
That said it largely doesn't matter, the question is whether if not such a thing is normative, which of course it isn't.
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on
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quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
Mind you, here aboard Ship, Lamb Chopped claimed to have arrived at an understanding of the Trinity and other key Christian doctrines and emphases through shutting herself away in a closet (literally) with only the Bible and God the Holy Spirit for company ...
Much as I admire her, I don't believe her for one minute. I think she was reading her own subsequent reading, insights and understanding gleaned from being part of a church back into her initial experience.
Nope. I believe that's a private delusion which in time has become the story upon which she has hung her whole life.
But, y'know, we all do that. I guess most of us have stories which are in slightly less day-glo colours, but I think we all basically choose stories as part of our identity.
Mine all feel as if they've been blown to bits. None of my stories work, except as stories, the same for all other's. I've still got one coincidence that won't go away, that can only be rationalized as forgetting all the thousands of lottery tickets that didn't win and never forgetting the winning one. I want to believe the miracles testified to me personally from darkest Africa, which have far more appeal than LC's toilet epiphany, but they are just desperate confirmation bias, like my random win. And KC's Cheshire hermeneutic. Which I'd love to be real too. But it isn't. It's ALL delusional; pareidolia. Seeing what isn't there.
Posted by Lamb Chopped (# 5528) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
I admire your faith is what I meant.
No reason. This happened to me, I didn't cause it. I was a nobody hiding in a bathroom, and this is what happened. Who I am at core hasn't changed much. I just make it out of the bathroom a bit more often.
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
... But sorry, I don't believe that you emerged from the lavs with a fully-orbed, creedally exact understanding of the finer points of Christian doctrine. Sorry, but there it is.
Well, first of all, it really doesn't matter if you believe me or not. I'd probably feel some mild chagrin if I weren't still high from finding out my kid doesn't have melanoma, but that's about it.
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
I'm not for a moment doubting the reality of your conversion but neither do I believe that if we stuck someone in the John with only the Bible for company they'd come out spouting Nicene-Chalcedonian formularies.
You seem to have correct doctrine and understanding confused with doctrinal terminology. I did not "come out spouting Nicene-Chalcedonian formularies"--when asked, I explained things in the language I'd learned from the Bible. I tend to do that anyway, rather than getting into Substance and Persons and "in majesty coequal," even today. And I distinctly remember learning the technical theological terms "state of humiliation" and "state of exaltation" and thinking, "Oh, so that's what it's called." I had the content, but not the terminology. Which seems perfectly plausible to me. But then, it happened to me, and it didn't happen to you. So there's no reason really you should believe me.
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
Don't get me wrong, God moves in mysterious ways, his wonders to perform ...
I've met people who have been converted to Christ through cultic literature and who, somehow, recognised that it was otherwise wonky and sought out a more orthodox (small o) setting.
I once met an Orthodox monk who'd been converted from agnosticism by a striking encounter with an icon of the Theotokos and Christ-child in a Russian museum.
I don't doubt these things happen.
Of course these things happen. We also have people who show up in church because they've been told to come in a dream. Augustine's conversion process came to a head when he heard the voice of a child saying "Take it up; read it." I've known God to use JRR Tolkien references. He's very unscrupulous. And he doesn't give a rat's ass what we think of his methods.
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
But 'spiritual formation' happens in a group context, by and large. Most of us are socialised into the Kingdom.
I'll take your word for it. Why not? I never claimed my experience was normative or even common. It's just one of those freaky things God does sometimes.
And when it comes to the lavs, or Martin's "toilet epiphany," you might consider the criterion of embarrassment when attempting to determine how much weight to give my testimony. There aren't a whole lot of people eager to testify that they came to faith sitting on the john.
[ 26. July 2017, 01:22: Message edited by: Lamb Chopped ]
Posted by Lamb Chopped (# 5528) on
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Now here you bring up a wholly different and more important point.
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
That doesn't mean I wasn't led in some way by the Spirit of Truth. I somehow instinctively knew that I should gravitate towards Trinitarianism and not go off to join the JWs or what-have-you....
Besides, knowing how long the Ark was afloat or how many Philistines Shamgar slew with an ox-goad or whatever it was - I've forgotten already - isn't the same as trying to suss out whether the Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son, say or whether soteriology is monergistic or synergistic or whether Christ is somehow present in the Eucharist or ...
Your first quoted paragraph here deals with what I would call the work of the Holy Spirit. And his work is precisely to lead us into all truth (and to head us off the wrong turnings--not that we always listen). This work happens most commonly through what Lutherans call Word and Sacrament. In my own case, it was wholly Word and no Sacrament, as I didn't receive baptism till shortly before my confirmation.
This is all that I am claiming--that the Holy Spirit worked through God's Word to give me an orthodox and basic systemic understanding of orthodox trinitarian Christian faith. Which is no surprise since it all derives from the Scriptures if you dig back far enough. Steep yourself in the Scriptures, be desperate enough (and thus willing to listen), and God can do this kind of thing. I'm not the first and I won't be the last. (Heck, PAUL seems to have had a somewhat similar experience out in the deserts of Arabia.)
The listening is probably important, though. I happened to be at a very vulnerable and needy point in my life with basically no support whatsoever. God can do a lot with that. Maybe more than he can or will do with people in more comfortable circumstances.
You mention a couple examples of specifics I'd like to take up. Monergism vs. synergism--I won't quote the prooftexts here, but they exist, as I have no doubt you know. I was totally primed for Lutheran monergism, not only by the Scripture but by my own neediness and desperation. So this was a no-brainer.
Christ in the Eucharist--well, you probably won't believe this either, but I know of two people who were theologically naive on this subject--they knew only the Scripture--and both of them came to the Real Presence position as soon as they were asked what they made of the passage. And no leading questions, either. It appeared to be the default. For what it's worth. I would not be astonished to hear that someone else in the same position spoke differently. Still, I found it interesting.
Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
Well, if it's a delusion, I'm perfectly happy with it. Though I can't see how you would know.
Good for you. Doesn't change the fact for me that it is a clear delusion.
quote:
Remind me some day to tell you a miracle story or two from our ministry, so you can have more to disbelieve.
Don't bother.
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
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Sorry, mr cheesy, I find that rather perfunctory and dismissive. For my own part, I'm perfectly willing to accept that Lamb Chopped came to faith sitting on the John.
Why not?
I'm also perfectly prepared to accept that she gained a broad grasp of orthodox theology from her close Bible reading.
Nevertheless, I'm afraid I also believe there's a lot of 'back-filling' and some redaction going on - not consciously or deliberately mind ...
We all do it. If I were to share 'my testimony' now it'd sound somewhat different and a lot less dramatic than it would have done had you heard me as a 25 year old.
If you read Wesley's Journals you can see shifts of emphasis and all manner of undercurrents in the way he framed and described his own conversion.
I wouldn't want to start filleting things up and saying that I find 60% of Lamb Chopped's story credible but remain sceptical of the remaining 40% or anything like that.
All I am saying is that there was further input into Augustine than 'Tolle, lege', even though that may have been the catalyst, that even Apollos required further instruction and that whilst people may have dreams or prompts or whatever else, that's only part of the story.
I've met a Quaker lady who says she instantly knew that God was real during a near death experience in a car crash. When she emerged from the wreckage she determined to seek out more about the God she felt she'd encountered during the smash.
She knew little about churches and was sceptical of them, so her atheist father suggested she try the Society of Friends as he'd heard good things about them.
Fine. If we were to evaluate that in historic creedal terms we may find it wanting - what? No firm stance on the Trinity, Deity of Christ? No sacraments or ordinances. Apostolic Succession ... [Delete as appropriate and feel free to add whatever other issues you might deem important]
But that was how it was for her.
I'm not for a moment dismissing Lamb Chopped's experience, simply suggesting that the way we frame our narratives about such things also depends to a large extent to the traditions we find ourselves in.
Lamb Chopped is glad she didn't end up in the Mormons. I would hazard a guess that had she done so - heaven forbid - she would now be framing aspects of her on-the -john experience within the context of Mormon teachings rather than what came raw and apparently unmediated from the pages of the Bible.
Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
[QB] Sorry, mr cheesy, I find that rather perfunctory and dismissive.
<snip>
Lamb Chopped is glad she didn't end up in the Mormons. I would hazard a guess that had she done so - heaven forbid - she would now be framing aspects of her on-the -john experience within the context of Mormon teachings rather than what came raw and apparently unmediated from the pages of the Bible.
Well I've heard all kinds of claims of magical happenings from various different religions. This just sounds like all the others. The most natural explanation is framing of what happened after the event.
Otherwise we are left with a problem: if God is prepared to miraculously give someone a fully worked out Lutheran theology, why doesn't he do that to everyone else?
I don't believe in that, I don't believe that this happened. No big deal, plenty of people tell me things I don't believe.
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on
:
If one puts up ANY claim to personal divine intervention here in this maieutic environment, it cannot survive. I had an epiphany last week; a penny dropped. Steve Chalke is right that none of the alleged NT 'gay clobber' (... queer bashing) passages have anything to do with non-heterosexual pair bonding. I'm very grateful for God's provision in that. It was against my will, as I saw the argument initially as liberalism back projected and that Paul couldn't transcend his homophobic culture. Then Steve laughed at the risibility of normal non-heterosexual bonding being included in the litany of depraved abuse of sex-crazed power condemned by Paul. And I felt it. Holy laughter? No.
If claims of the HS' intervention on the toilet are true, then they must be made for everything. For every penny dropping as well as being spent. In all our rituals.
But that isn't acceptable is it? To those who make claims? It's only true as long as the really real miracles, which cannot be revealed to infidels, are believed.
Why am I thinking of my Hanafi Deobandi Sunni Muslim neighbours? One of whom, a couple of streets away, is one of the most influential men in the world in the third order of magnitude.
Because of the OP.
Because we need a better hermeneutic, story.
And there can't be one.
That would be a really real miracle.
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
Well, all that raises the issue of theodicy of course.
Why was I born in a Christianised culture with opportunities to be exposed to the Gospel and not in some animist, Hindu, Islamic or Buddhist / Whatever Else culture where I didn't have such opportunities readily available?
We could on and on and round and round in circles on all that sort of thing.
My point to Lamb Chopped isn't that her conversion experience on the john didn't happen - rather that how she has framed it subsequently owes a great deal to the meta-narratives of the particular group she then joined - in this case, the Lutherans.
Had she joined the Mormons she would interpret her experience through a Mormon lens not a Lutheran one.
That's all.
Seems an unexceptionable point to make.
It's not an unrelated point to the one I've been trying to make to Kaplan Corday - namely, that it isn't that the raw materials for his particular hermeneutic didn't exist back in the 3rd, 4th, 8th, 9th or whatever-th centuries, it's simply that those raw materials weren't necessarily put together in the way he is used to.
That's all.
Again, I don't see what is so contentious about that as straightforward observation and engagement with any of the sub-apostolic and Patristic texts - however cursorily - reveals that these folk weren't operating with the same suppositions and frameworks that we are. That doesn't mean that there aren't overlaps and parallels, that we are dealing with a completely different religion. No, of course we aren't.
But we are dealing with people who lived and operated in a very different context to our own and who reached very different conclusions on some issues that we would confronted with the same raw material.
That's all.
Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on
:
Yes, but I'd go further and say that it is really, really, really hard to see the world outside of the hermeneutic, worldview and/or frame that we find ourselves in.
Even if we reject the faith where we developed those ideas, we still tend to operate within the parameters of the frame.
Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
The particular prescription that Kaplan has for his lenses developed over time - just like any other prescription.
But it didn't emerge ex nihilo, but was there from the very beginning in a simple form which has been refined over two millennia.
Yes, of course this hermeneutic was often misapplied, or corrupted, or ignored, or simply got wrong, because of cultural and other factors, but that does not mean that it is fundamentally incorrect, or merely historically relative.
You can't avoid admitting that the approach to Scripture (even before it was canonised) had to involve a predominantly a historical-grammatical approach (because any subjective or "Gnostic" alternative, eg allegorical, would render the communal sharing of it impossible, then, and for us centuries later); you can't avoid admitting that Christianity involves dealing with the OT in the light of the NT; and you have admitted that actions such as crusading religious violence cannot be condoned from the NT.
You have painted yourself into a corner and (to change metaphorical horses in midstream) you are forced to say more and more in a vain attempt to extricate yourself.
And not only that, but when all else fails you resort to the obligatory but irrelevant ad hominem anti-Brethren swipe.
Broadbent, for fuck's sake!
We have discussed him before, you know quite well that I have no time for his thesis, but you can't resist it.
Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
you can't avoid admitting that Christianity involves dealing with the OT in the light of the NT; and you have admitted that actions such as crusading religious violence cannot be condoned from the NT.
No, he has said he doesn't believe religious violence is a correct interpretation of the NT, he hasn't made a blanket statement that it is obvious it cannot be condoned. Obviously it can be.
Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
Doesn't change the fact for me that it is a clear delusion.
What's a "fact for me". Facts that need qualification tend to be less factual, and those relative to individuals might be quite alternately factual.
I think you can say that based on your world view your conclusion is that it must be a delusion, I don't think you can go further than that.
(PS, Gamaliel I was talking about some RCs/pentecostals not all).
[ 26. July 2017, 09:34: Message edited by: mdijon ]
Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
What's a "fact for me". Facts that need qualification tend to be less factual, and those relative to individuals might be quite alternately factual.
I think you can say that based on your world view your conclusion is that it must be a delusion, I don't think you can go further than that.
Well I think it is stronger than that - I have reasons to believe this doesn't happen.
I'm prevaricating a bit because I also know that it is possible to make the argument that nothing can ever be proven. And I don't have all of the information of course.
But from what I do know, and from other information I believe is true, and from the worldview within which I operate, and from the theological hermeneutic that I accept, and so on - then for me it is a fact.
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
The particular prescription that Kaplan has for his lenses developed over time - just like any other prescription.
But it didn't emerge ex nihilo, but was there from the very beginning in a simple form which has been refined over two millennia.
Yes, of course this hermeneutic was often misapplied, or corrupted, or ignored, or simply got wrong, because of cultural and other factors, but that does not mean that it is fundamentally incorrect, or merely historically relative.
You can't avoid admitting that the approach to Scripture (even before it was canonised) had to involve a predominantly a historical-grammatical approach (because any subjective or "Gnostic" alternative, eg allegorical, would render the communal sharing of it impossible, then, and for us centuries later); you can't avoid admitting that Christianity involves dealing with the OT in the light of the NT; and you have admitted that actions such as crusading religious violence cannot be condoned from the NT.
You have painted yourself into a corner and (to change metaphorical horses in midstream) you are forced to say more and more in a vain attempt to extricate yourself.
And not only that, but when all else fails you resort to the obligatory but irrelevant ad hominem anti-Brethren swipe.
Broadbent, for fuck's sake!
We have discussed him before, you know quite well that I have no time for his thesis, but you can't resist it.
Again, you fail to read for comprehension.
I have never said that these things emerge ex nihilo. I am saying the opposite.
It's not me who is painting himself into a corner. You are.
I'm not 'avoiding admitting' anything. There is no avoidance whatsoever in anything I have written.
Again, do you actually read my posts?
Let's get this straight.
Read.my.fucking.posts.
Then you would see:
- That I acknowledge - not 'avoid accepting' - that the raw materials for the kind of approach you describe were there from the outset. I have said so again and again. You have ignored that.
- I have maintained, in keeping with the historical evidence, that a range of hermeneutical approaches existed in the early Church - some more allegorical in tone, others closer to the historical-grammatical approach and what gradually emerged was a kind of fusion/compromise if you will, between the two.
- I haven't 'admitted' as if it were against my will that the OT should be read in the light of the OT. That was clearly the case when the Gospels and other NT documents were being written - because they interpreted OT prophecies and so forth in a typological and Christological way and applied them to contemporary events ...
The issue there, of course, is whether they were adopting a hermeneutic that we'd recognise in the way they did this ... I suspect their methods wouldn't pass muster in contemporary seminaries of any stripe.
- If I've engaged in an anti-Brethren swipe it's because, rightly or wrongly, I consider your approach to be analogous to theirs. If it isn't, then I apologise. If it is, then if the cap fits ...
So, sorry Kaplan, no dice. I have not painted myself into a corner. You have.
@mdijon - point accepted about some Penties and some RCs.
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
Just in case any further clarification is required:
I am not simply saying that 'this hermeneutic was often misapplied, or corrupted, or ignored, or simply got wrong, because of cultural and other factors.'
Nor am I saying that it is 'fundamentally incorrect'.
What I am saying is that a hermeneutical framework is by its very nature determined by cultural and other factors. How can it possibly be otherwise?
How can an interpretative or hermeneutical approach of any kind - be it to the scriptures, be it to the 18th century novel, be it to the plays of Shakespeare, the films of Andrei Tarkovsky or the paintings of Reubens or Picasso - be developed in any other way than by a complex web of socio-cultural and other factors?
A system of exchange - whether in financial currency terms - or in terms of language and understanding can only operate within a framework that is shaped and defined by cultural factors.
The whole point I am making is that our particular cultural milieu 'allows' us to take the kind of view we take towards religiously motivated or state-sponsored violence with a religious tinge in a way that wouldn't necessarily have been the case in the 8th/9th centuries.
It isn't that Charlemagne and his contemporaries deliberately overlooked particular verses or NT emphases, rather that their particular worldview constrained and shaped their approach in the way our paradigm shapes ours.
So, for instance, our particular approach - right across the board, tends to be rather more personal and more individualistic than it would have been for previous generations. That doesn't mean that people in Augustine's time or Charlemagne's time were incapable of individuality or a personal response - simply that the over-arching paradigm they operated within was less individualised than ours.
On the cultural relativity issue, I'm not saying that these things are 'merely culturally relative,' any more than C S Lewis's and Richard Baxter's 'Mere Christianity' were actually 'mere' in any way either ...
Nothing is 'mere'.
We are large, we contain multitudes.
It's another of my both/and and not only but also things.
Hermeneutics is certainly culturally and historically relative, but it is not merely culturally and historically relative. There is more we can say about it.
Posted by Moo (# 107) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
Otherwise we are left with a problem: if God is prepared to miraculously give someone a fully worked out Lutheran theology, why doesn't he do that to everyone else?
Because God does not see us as all alike; he knows that what is good for one person is not necessarily good for another.
Moo
Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Moo:
Because God does not see us as all alike; he knows that what is good for one person is not necessarily good for another.
Moo
That makes no sense. These things aren't about the arrangement of the chairs or the timing of services. LC's witness is that she worked out the truth of theology on her own by the inspiration of the HS.
Unless somehow you think that God is going around telling different people different answers to the same question, there is no way to square that circle.
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
It also raises issues such as:
- Does God favour Lutheran theology over against RC theology, say or Presbyterian theology?
- Or isn't he bothered and happy that the Quaker lady's near-death experience led her to joining the Society of Friends or that Lamb Chopped's mum chose to send her to the nearest Lutheran Church rather than the Church of Jesus Christ and Latter Day Saints on t'other side of town?
- Or that the nominally Orthodox agnostic who had a striking encounter with the icon in a Russian museum went on to become an Orthodox monk rather than, say, gravitating towards Protestantism and putting his icons in the cupboard or into a jumble sale instead?
Or is it more of a case, as Mousethief has suggested, that the good Lord gives us the brains to work these things out for ourselves?
Which could be construed as overly Pelagian of course ...
Or is it, rather, a case of seeing all these things as mysteriously contributing in some way to the overall scheme of things?
Posted by Moo (# 107) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
Unless somehow you think that God is going around telling different people different answers to the same question, there is no way to square that circle.
I don't think that God gives different answers to the same question. I think people are asking different questions, and he gives an appropriate answer to each.
Moo
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
Incidentally, whilst I don't doubt Lamb Chopped's conversion experience and that aspects of her Bible reading on the john correlated with what she later heard in the Lutheran Bible class - which only stands to reason as they were both dealing with the same texts - I very much doubt that she absorbed a fully realised and worked-out Lutheran theology from her time on the john.
Lutherans have presumably been thrashing out their theology for the last 500 years.
5 minutes, 5 days, 5 months, 5 years sat on the john with an open Bible isn't going to replicate half a millenium of theological tussle and debate.
Posted by Lamb Chopped (# 5528) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
Lamb Chopped is glad she didn't end up in the Mormons. I would hazard a guess that had she done so - heaven forbid - she would now be framing aspects of her on-the -john experience within the context of Mormon teachings rather than what came raw and apparently unmediated from the pages of the Bible.
Oh hell no.
My big concern was that I would have been causing a ruckus--either there, by contradicting crap, or at home, by refusing to go. And I hate conflict and making a scene.
Posted by Lamb Chopped (# 5528) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
quote:
Originally posted by Moo:
Because God does not see us as all alike; he knows that what is good for one person is not necessarily good for another.
Moo
That makes no sense. These things aren't about the arrangement of the chairs or the timing of services. LC's witness is that she worked out the truth of theology on her own by the inspiration of the HS.
Unless somehow you think that God is going around telling different people different answers to the same question, there is no way to square that circle.
Language. I didn't "work it out." I'd be some sort of theo-genius to do that. I read it. The Holy Spirit did what he generally does if he finds someone messed up enough to let him.
I can see perfectly how he might choose to do that in and through community for other people, even most people. That was not an option for me at that time and place. Should he, then, have left me completely abandoned?
Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
Language. I didn't "work it out." I'd be some sort of theo-genius to do that. I read it. The Holy Spirit did what he generally does if he finds someone messed up enough to let him.
Maybe I misunderstood the story, but I understood it to mean that you read the scriptures and came away with Lutheran theology.
Posted by Lamb Chopped (# 5528) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
Incidentally, whilst I don't doubt Lamb Chopped's conversion experience and that aspects of her Bible reading on the john correlated with what she later heard in the Lutheran Bible class - which only stands to reason as they were both dealing with the same texts - I very much doubt that she absorbed a fully realised and worked-out Lutheran theology from her time on the john.
Lutherans have presumably been thrashing out their theology for the last 500 years.
5 minutes, 5 days, 5 months, 5 years sat on the john with an open Bible isn't going to replicate half a millenium of theological tussle and debate.
Here's where you go wrong. Lutheran theology (at least of the branch of Lutheranism I come from) was basically done and dusted on the basics back in the sixteenth century. After that look for some adjustments on issues of Christian life like dancing, life insurance, etc. but not doctrine. We're dinosaurs in the LCMS.
It's one reason my doctoral advisor at a Jesuit university had great fun pulling my tail--he said, "I've never met a sixteenth century Lutheran before." And his specialty was in Thomas More, so ...
Posted by Lamb Chopped (# 5528) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
quote:
Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
Language. I didn't "work it out." I'd be some sort of theo-genius to do that. I read it. The Holy Spirit did what he generally does if he finds someone messed up enough to let him.
Maybe I misunderstood the story, but I understood it to mean that you read the scriptures and came away with Lutheran theology.
I came away with "mere Christianity." As for Lutheran theology -- well, IMHO it varies from "mere Christianity" mainly in flavoring and chosen emphases (justification by grace, emphasis on the Scripture, monergism, Real Presence). Of course, it's obvious I'd say that, for who doesn't choose their church based on getting as close to the truth as possible?
me, anyway.
Posted by Lamb Chopped (# 5528) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
It also raises issues such as:
- Does God favour Lutheran theology over against RC theology, say or Presbyterian theology?
You seem to think there is a huge difference. We all have and say the Nicene Creed, and it is doctrines on that level that I'm addressing.
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
- Or isn't he bothered and happy that the Quaker lady's near-death experience led her to joining the Society of Friends or that Lamb Chopped's mum chose to send her to the nearest Lutheran Church rather than the Church of Jesus Christ and Latter Day Saints on t'other side of town?
I know very litle about Quakerism so won't comment. I am very grateful not to be in a cult (LDS), even if the most successful of American cults.
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
- Or that the nominally Orthodox agnostic who had a striking encounter with the icon in a Russian museum went on to become an Orthodox monk rather than, say, gravitating towards Protestantism and putting his icons in the cupboard or into a jumble sale instead?
Again, this is not a case of vastly different doctrine. The flavor is very very different--but vestments and liturgical style and the use of art (or not, or differently) and a tendency to emphasize the lives of the saints--this is not doctrine in the strict sense. It's the flavoring, the atmosphere, the markers on a given church that show the cultural matrix from which it has emerged. In the LCMS those would include organ music, a Bible study hour, vestments, lots of congregational singing, and a fondness for brats and beer. That's all just trappings, not doctrine.
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
Or is it more of a case, as Mousethief has suggested, that the good Lord gives us the brains to work these things out for ourselves?
You're asking for a general principle by which the Holy Spirit shall be expected to proceed. I'm not giving you that. I'm only reporting how he dealt with a single individual in a very fucked up and highly unusual situation 40 years ago. I put my example forward purely as a disproof of the idea that EVERYBODY without exception gets their Christian training in the way you appear to prefer it, in a community.
I am one who did not. God did something different that time. Deal with it. (And why should you care anyway?)
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
It's not a case of what I prefer, it's a case of how these things generally happen - ie in community.
It happened that way for you too, to a certain extent. You didn't say sat on the lav. You subsequently attended a Lutheran church and underwent a process of catechesis.
That doesn't mean that you hadn't already grasped elements of it all before you did so nor that you had absolutely no inkling whatsover of what they were going to teach. Sat on the john with an open Bible for some considerable length of time would certainly prepare you for that, as well as creating the risk of haemorrhoids ...
Heck, we can even see 'community' in action in the early days - way back in Acts of the Apostles. The Ethiopian Eunuch needed Philip the Evangelist to come along and explain Isaiah 53 to him as he was trundling along in his chariot.
That doesn't mean that God the Holy Spirit runs on tram-lines. Heck, he interrupted Peter's sermon in the household of Cornelius ...
Not that it's got anything to do with me, granted, but I suspect what happened is that you picked up sufficient from your Bible reading on the bog to take you so far into the catechetical process ... and the 'blanks' and details were filled in for you after that as you continued to engage with Christian community.
I 'date' my conversion from a particular Sunday afternoon in a poky bedroom in a student back-to-back in Leeds - although looking back I'm not so inclined to pin it down quite so definitely as I would have been in my GLE days.
Yes, I was on my own - although my pals were in the house - and no, I wasn't attached to any particular church - although I did have input from Christians in a remote-ish kind of way.
I then sought out churches and Christian student organisations in order to find out more.
So no, I'm not being as dismissive of your experience as it may sound.
I'm simply using it as an example in my discussion with Kaplan about the development of hermeneutics. It may not have been a good example to choose as it's very personal to you and it's understandable that you aren't going to take too kindly to people picking away at it and trying to analyse it.
Anyhow, on the monergism thing ... we pays our money and we takes our choice with that one. RCs and Orthodox would presumably claim that the scriptures clearly teach a synergist approach ...
I'm sure the Orthodox wouldn't consider their faith to be Lutheranism with knobs on either - a few extra pieces of window-dressing a bit more bling. I'm sure Mousethief would have something to say about that.
That said, unless they were insufferable zealots they would generally acknowledge the overlaps at the 'mere Christianity' level.
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
It also raises issues such as:
- Does God favour Lutheran theology over against RC theology, say or Presbyterian theology?
You seem to think there is a huge difference. We all have and say the Nicene Creed, and it is doctrines on that level that I'm addressing.
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
- Or isn't he bothered and happy that the Quaker lady's near-death experience led her to joining the Society of Friends or that Lamb Chopped's mum chose to send her to the nearest Lutheran Church rather than the Church of Jesus Christ and Latter Day Saints on t'other side of town?
I know very litle about Quakerism so won't comment. I am very grateful not to be in a cult (LDS), even if the most successful of American cults.
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
- Or that the nominally Orthodox agnostic who had a striking encounter with the icon in a Russian museum went on to become an Orthodox monk rather than, say, gravitating towards Protestantism and putting his icons in the cupboard or into a jumble sale instead?
Again, this is not a case of vastly different doctrine. The flavor is very very different--but vestments and liturgical style and the use of art (or not, or differently) and a tendency to emphasize the lives of the saints--this is not doctrine in the strict sense. It's the flavoring, the atmosphere, the markers on a given church that show the cultural matrix from which it has emerged. In the LCMS those would include organ music, a Bible study hour, vestments, lots of congregational singing, and a fondness for brats and beer. That's all just trappings, not doctrine.
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
Or is it more of a case, as Mousethief has suggested, that the good Lord gives us the brains to work these things out for ourselves?
You're asking for a general principle by which the Holy Spirit shall be expected to proceed. I'm not giving you that. I'm only reporting how he dealt with a single individual in a very fucked up and highly unusual situation 40 years ago. I put my example forward purely as a disproof of the idea that EVERYBODY without exception gets their Christian training in the way you appear to prefer it, in a community.
I am one who did not. God did something different that time. Deal with it. (And why should you care anyway?)
For community read culture. There are no exceptions. None. Ever. Including Jesus.
Posted by chris stiles (# 12641) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
I am one who did not. God did something different that time. Deal with it. (And why should you care anyway?)
As I said above, your experience - take it or leave it - isn't normative, so I'm not sure why it's relevant to this discussion.
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
Sorry Chris, it was my fault. I introduced it as an example by way of illustration. I wasn't really wanting to get into the detailed ins-and-outs of Lamb Chopped's 'testimony' (as it were) - although I can see how it was bound to get the reaction it did.
My point was that whilst we may certainly get a grasp of the overall trajectory and shape of Christian belief from the scriptures themselves, how we interpret and apply it is inevitably shaped by whatever culture and tradition we have or become part of.
I agree with mr cheesy that it is hard, if not almost impossible, to entirely shrug off the patterns and thought-forms we bring to the table.
George MacCleod, founder of the Iona Community, once quipped that Calvinism was like a virus, you never really get over it.
It's a bit like the 'once a Catholic' thing, I suppose.
But there we go ... I feel we're getting nowhere here when people find it hard to accept that a hermeneutic develops and is shaped by a whole range of influences and doesn't drop down from heaven ready-made ...
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Moo:
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
Otherwise we are left with a problem: if God is prepared to miraculously give someone a fully worked out Lutheran theology, why doesn't he do that to everyone else?
Because God does not see us as all alike; he knows that what is good for one person is not necessarily good for another.
Moo
What's God got to do with what good we get? Beyond His provision?
Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
you can't avoid admitting that Christianity involves dealing with the OT in the light of the NT; and you have admitted that actions such as crusading religious violence cannot be condoned from the NT.
No, he has said he doesn't believe religious violence is a correct interpretation of the NT, he hasn't made a blanket statement that it is obvious it cannot be condoned. Obviously it can be.
Obviously you can "condone" anything - rape, paedophilia, arson, you name it - if you choose to ignore the most elementary exegetical principles.
I told you I didn't believe that you would stop talking to me!
Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
- I have maintained, in keeping with the historical evidence, that a range of hermeneutical approaches existed in the early Church - some more allegorical in tone, others closer to the historical-grammatical approach and what gradually emerged was a kind of fusion/compromise if you will, between the two.
I think the heart of your problem lies in this pericope.
Yes, of course there were dodgy hermeneutical techniques, including allegory, used earlier in church history, and sometimes they are still used today.
It is highly misleading to imply, however, that a range of hermeneutics freely and equally competed in the exegetical market place.
A grammatical-historical approach was always overwhelmingly the norm, with stuff like allegory as aberrant accretions which were later identified, discredited and discarded - as we do today, for example with Augustine's fanciful dealings with the parables.
If a grammatical-historical approach had not been the central norm, then Christianity would not have survived, but would have crumbled into innumerable subjective versions dreamt up by innumerable individuals, with no meaningful communication betwen the versions possible.
The fact that the NT writers used allegory from time to time does not entitle us to do so when we feel like it.
The grammatical-historical approach has always been the norm, even when unacknowledged and unnamed, and it is not unjustifiable, albeit with 20/20 hindsight, to point out lapses from it - as long as we admit that we are probably being inconsistent too, in ways which future generations will no doubt point out.
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
A grammatical-historical approach was always overwhelmingly the norm, with stuff like allegory as aberrant accretions which were later identified, discredited and discarded - as we do today, for example with Augustine's fanciful dealings with the parables.
This is grossly overstated. The very evangelicalest Evangelicals do not think Christ literally meant the disciples were drinking his literal physical blood. It is an allegory for something, whatever that something is. People can overdo typology and try to find allegories in every jot and tittle, but that is an excess, and not a condemnation of the method as a whole. Christ himself finds allegories in the Old Testament, for instance Jonah's cetaceogastric sojourn he takes as an allegory of his own entombment.
Posted by Lamb Chopped (# 5528) on
:
You know, Gamaliel, how about you just stop trying to tell me what my experience is.
Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
Obviously you can "condone" anything - rape, paedophilia, arson, you name it - if you choose to ignore the most elementary exegetical principles.
That's the bible for you.
Actually it is far easier to construct a hermeneutic which promotes religious and state violence - if it is as I've defined it* - than one which justifies paedophilia from the bible. Because the text doesn't tell people to go out and do horrible things to children, whereas it certainly does say to kill heretics and destroy enemies in the name of the Lord.
quote:
I told you I didn't believe that you would stop talking to me!
Yeah. Well you have at least stopped saying the same thing over and over again so there is something different to respond to.
*ie one which holds together, is capable of being examined etc
[ 27. July 2017, 06:52: Message edited by: mr cheesy ]
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
You know, Gamaliel, how about you just stop trying to tell me what my experience is.
He's telling US. With his hermeneutic of yours.
Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on
:
Seems reasonable to me to think aloud about other people's experiences. I dare say that the majority of us think that Joseph Smith was deluded - are we not allowed to say so?
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
you can't avoid admitting that Christianity involves dealing with the OT in the light of the NT; and you have admitted that actions such as crusading religious violence cannot be condoned from the NT.
No, he has said he doesn't believe religious violence is a correct interpretation of the NT, he hasn't made a blanket statement that it is obvious it cannot be condoned. Obviously it can be.
Obviously you can "condone" anything - rape, paedophilia, arson, you name it - if you choose to ignore the most elementary exegetical principles.
I told you I didn't believe that you would stop talking to me!
And like all conservatives - please prove me wrong, PLEASE! For God's sake!! - you can justify God the Killer with a shrug. God the Genocidal Maniac, the destroyer of worlds, the nuker of cities, the commander of race murder. With ah well, His ways aren't ours (the IRONY!), He is holy and righteous so it must be OK.
Just like 'they' do.
PS, I was conservative.
Posted by Golden Key (# 1468) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Moo:
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
Unless somehow you think that God is going around telling different people different answers to the same question, there is no way to square that circle.
I don't think that God gives different answers to the same question. I think people are asking different questions, and he gives an appropriate answer to each.
This.
Also people will be heading towards the same point from different places. In sailing, there's something called "tacking", in which, due to various conditions, you have to sail in different directions than you want, and gradually work towards where you're going. So God might nudge someone in what seems like the wrong direction, the better to bring them Home.
What's Tolkien's line? "Not all who wander are lost."
And good grief, not everyone wants or needs a hermeneutic. There's more than one way to go about figuring out and living Christianity (or any other faith).
Posted by Golden Key (# 1468) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
Seems reasonable to me to think aloud about other people's experiences. I dare say that the majority of us think that Joseph Smith was deluded - are we not allowed to say so?
ISTM that would be a matter of time, place, and manner.
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
@Lamb Chopped. Fair do's. I have stopped.
I shouldn't have used your experience as an example. I should have made the same point by using a putative one.
On the point about not everyone not wanting or needing a hermeneutic, we can't not have one whether we want it or not.
@Kaplan, the only thing that seems consistent to me from my meagre reading of Patristics and church history is that there was an emphasis on working with what was taken to be the 'apostolic deposit' in the context of the community of faith.
I really don't see where you get this idea from that the historical-grammatical method was 'the norm' from the earliest times and nasty old Augustine and other more allegorical interpreters departed from it. Tertullian went in for some oddball feats of interpretation from what I can see, as did Origen.
The idea that there was a single over-arching system of interpretation from get-go is historically incorrect. Even the most cursory glance at these things shows that allegorical, historical-grammatical and literal approaches co-existed and coalesced to a certain extent, even in the approach taken by single individuals.
I am astonished that you even consider it to have been otherwise. What possible evidence do you have for these assertions?
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Golden Key:
And good grief, not everyone wants or needs a hermeneutic. There's more than one way to go about figuring out and living Christianity (or any other faith).
Any time you interpret something, you are using a heremeneutic, which is "a method or theory of interpretation." You may not have it all worked out in your head, but you are using some method, even if it's only to compare it to what your nurse taught you about treating other people fairly.
Posted by Golden Key (# 1468) on
:
mt--
Yes, I know , and I probably should've stated it. I was tired of posters who seemed certain sure that everyone should have a systematic theology, bound in a pure gold cover with blended pure gold and silk thread, and written in iron gall ink with a quill from a Himalayan phoenix; with a study outline, delineated down unto a nano level; in 19 esoteric languages; with an autograph from St. Jerome, John Wesley, Hildegarde of Bingen, Aimee Semple McPherson, or Sylvia Boorstein, depending on preference; and with a handy sign for the reader's lawn, nailing the hermeneutical colors to the mast. (Cheap knock-offs and abridged versions available at K-mart. Infomercial on a station near you, in 4-6 weeks. Bitcoin accepted.)
And they really need to stop hassling Lamb Chopped about her spiritual journey and the source of her hermeneutics.
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on
:
I love Hildegaard of Bingen!
Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
The very evangelicalest Evangelicals do not think Christ literally meant the disciples were drinking his literal physical blood. It is an allegory for something, whatever that something is.
You are confusing metaphor and allegory, though the two do overlap.
There is a difference between accepting "I am the door" as a metaphor, which everyone does, and treating the parable of the Good Samaritan as an allegory of the Christian life, which Augustine did, but which no-one with any respect for the most basic principles of exegesis does.
quote:
Christ himself finds allegories in the Old Testament, for instance Jonah's cetaceogastric sojourn he takes as an allegory of his own entombment.
The Second Person of the Godhead does not "find" or "take" allegories, but declares them.
Mirabile dictu, we do not possess the same right.
Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
The idea that there was a single over-arching system of interpretation from get-go is historically incorrect.
No, what is historically incorrect is to imply that there were a whole lot of competing interpretative schemes; that different ones were accepted as dominant or authoritative in different eras; and that at present the grammatical-historical method happens to have come out on top for no particular reason other than the vagaries of chronology.
The grammatical-historical method was always the default position, for the simple reason, as I keep pointing out, of the impossibility of meaningful communication without it.
Others, like allegory, were popular with certain writers and in certain epochs, and yes, were enmeshed with the grammatical-historical, but were always aberrations and always doomed.
[ 28. July 2017, 03:59: Message edited by: Kaplan Corday ]
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
quote:
Christ himself finds allegories in the Old Testament, for instance Jonah's cetaceogastric sojourn he takes as an allegory of his own entombment.
The Second Person of the Godhead does not "find" or "take" allegories, but declares them.
Mirabile dictu, we do not possess the same right.
![[Disappointed]](graemlins/disappointed.gif)
Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
Actually it is far easier to construct a hermeneutic which promotes religious and state violence - if it is as I've defined it* - than one which justifies paedophilia from the bible.
Actually, it is impossible to do either - -on the basis of your hermeneutic or anyone else's - while maintaining the slightest respect for the text
quote:
Because the text doesn't tell people to go out and do horrible things to children, whereas it certainly does say to kill heretics and destroy enemies in the name of the Lord.
The NT certainly doesn't, which from a Christian POV is all that matters in this context.
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on
:
No Name needed. God is Killer throughout. Tends to poison the waters.
Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
Actually, it is impossible to do either - -on the basis of your hermeneutic or anyone else's - while maintaining the slightest respect for the text
And... we're back to you trotting out the same old lines. Don't you get bored of saying that?
quote:
The NT certainly doesn't, which from a Christian POV is all that matters in this context.
Well history says that it isn't and hasn't been for centuries.
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
The NT doesn't stand alone. The Bible doesn't stand alone.
The only constant I can see in all of this is that the scriptures care received and understood in the context of community.
Even if we receive and understand it on the john, our understanding is further refined and developed as we interact with other people. That happens in churches, it also happens, I hope, here aboard Ship.
Yes, the historical-grammatical method has emerged as the dominant one right across the board. But that was part of a process. It did not exist from Day One. It BECAME normative because people gradually made it so as they riffed and experimented and tried things out.
Augustine wouldn't have been aware that there was some kind of Kaplan Corday approved Gold Standard approach out there that was apparently binding and normative.
No, he riffed on the scriptures using thought-patterns and frames of reference he was familiar with. In his case they happened to be very allegorical.
Also, there's strong historical evidence for all Kaplan's protestations to the contrary that particular areas and even particular Patriarchates put more emphasis on certain approaches more than others. So, Alexandria, for instance, tended to be seen as taking a somewhat more allegorical approach than Antioch did.
Not exclusively of course ...
So, what gradually emerged and what all of us have inherited today, irrespective of traditional or Tradition, is a broad consensus.
No-one takes Augustine's allegorising seriously today but people did in times past. There's no point in tut-tutting and criticising them for it.
Yes, we can certainly say they were wrong in that respect, in the same way that can say that Puritans during the Commonwealth period were wrong to apply particular verses or biblical prophecies in a literalist way to contemporary events.
What we can't do is imagine some kind of fixed Gold Standard of interpretation that somehow existed independently of them all and which was there anachronistically from the outset.
Hermeneutics developed as people engaged, discussed, canonised and debated the scriptures. It's not In The Beginning Were Hermeneutics ...
It's the other way round.
The Word came first, then the Church and the word (small w) through the Church - although we might prefer the formulary 'The Church through the word and the word through the Church' in classic both/and not either/or style.
Yes, the NT was there, but the issue then was how to interpret it, and that's where the long process of developing appropriate hermeneutical approaches started. The approach couldn't possibly have been fixed from the outset as the process had only begun.
It was bound to meander and develop. That's how these things work. The process was an iterative one. It wasn't like a chess game with predetermined and agreed rules. The rules developed as the process evolved.
It is a nonsense to claim otherwise. Completely and utterly unhistorical.
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on
:
@G. What dominates here is historical-critical interpretation. Historical-grammatical method as the dominant method is always subservient to 'distinctives'. I.e. some untransferable bias. As we see with the one true hermeneutic or any denominational one.
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
Actually, it is impossible to do either - -on the basis of your hermeneutic or anyone else's - while maintaining the slightest respect for the text
And... we're back to you trotting out the same old lines. Don't you get bored of saying that?
quote:
The NT certainly doesn't, which from a Christian POV is all that matters in this context.
Well history says that it isn't and hasn't been for centuries.
Ever.
Posted by Jamat (# 11621) on
:
quote:
Gamaliel: Yes, the NT was there, but the issue then was how to interpret it, and that's where the long process of developing appropriate hermeneutical approaches started. The approach couldn't possibly have been fixed from the outset as the process had only begun
The tedium of the repetition of this particular piece of nonsense..sigh.
You say it yourself. The text WAS always there. The text that was always there ALWAYS definitively demonstrated that Christ's message was inherently, authoritatively non political and non violent. It is utterly STUPID to assert otherwise. If you insist on debating this then go figure!
You CANNOT, with any intellectual honesty assert the contrary WHATEVER so called 'hermeneutics' you choose to employ, invent or imagine.
To use your own words, just read the text itself for meaning. Just to help you here is a quote.
"My kingdom is not of this world" said The Lord to Pilate. What could he possibly have meant I wonder?
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
quote:
Gamaliel: Yes, the NT was there, but the issue then was how to interpret it, and that's where the long process of developing appropriate hermeneutical approaches started. The approach couldn't possibly have been fixed from the outset as the process had only begun
The tedium of the repetition of this particular piece of nonsense..sigh.
You say it yourself. The text WAS always there. The text that was always there ALWAYS definitively demonstrated that Christ's message was inherently, authoritatively non political and non violent. It is utterly STUPID to assert otherwise. If you insist on debating this then go figure!
You CANNOT, with any intellectual honesty assert the contrary WHATEVER so called 'hermeneutics' you choose to employ, invent or imagine.
To use your own words, just read the text itself for meaning. Just to help you here is a quote.
"My kingdom is not of this world" said The Lord to Pilate. What could he possibly have meant I wonder?
Someone else who is apparently unable to read for comprehension.
'My Kingdom is not of this world, otherwise my servants would fight.'
Yes. Agreed.
'Here are two swords.' 'It is enough.'
Hang on, what does that mean? Let's try to get a handle on it. How do we do that? By debating and discussing it - in community.
'Rulers do not bear the sword for nothing.'
Again, what does that mean? Let's discuss it, let's debate it in order to arrive at a consensus.
Charlemagne: 'I'm a ruler. I am ordained by God to occupy that position, therefore I am entitled to wield the sword against malefactors and that includes those recalcitrant Saxons over there who refuse to convert and in so doing pose a fifth-column existential threat to my authority and the peace of my dominions ...'
Gamaliel / Kaplan Corday / Almost everyone else in one way or another: 'Hang on a minute, Charlie, look at this text and that text and the other text and consider the context. Is that exactly what the NT is saying? We don't think so ...'
Charlemagne: 'Well, now I come to think of it, you are absolutely right. I will change my mind and stop acting like an 8th/9th century potentate and act instead like a post-Reformation / post-Enlightenment less autocratic ruler because you have given me chapter and verse to convince me that this is how I ought to act ...'
Do you really think it works like that?
No. Simplifying things drastically, what happened in the early centuries of Christianity was this:
Christian A: Hey, look, we've got these verse here in this part of the scriptures, how do we approach them? How do we understand them?'
Christian B: 'I think we should understand them allegorically ...'
Christian C: 'No, let's take them literally ...'
Christian D: 'But we can't do it completely one way or the other - take this section, it's obviously allegorical and figurative - this other section seems to make more sense if understood literally and this one here seems to require elements of both ...'
Christian A: 'Ok, so let's discuss and debate these passages as and when we come up against issues where they may be pertinent and may be applied.'
And on it went ... the rest is history. The rest is how we are where we are.
What didn't happen was this:
Christian A: 'Hey guys, the lastest copie sof the Gospels and Epistles have arrived!'
Christians B, C and D: 'Yayyy!'
Christian A: 'And here's a ready-made set of instructions and hermeneutic which we can apply in order to understand them. It's called the historical-grammatical method ...'
Christians B, C and D: 'Wowser! Let's get on and apply it!'
Christian B: 'Hmmmm ... looking at it now, that makes sense, but I still think this passage should be understood allegorically ...'
Christian C: 'Allegorically my foot! It's obvious they should be understood literally ...'
Christian D: 'No, no, steady on! We have the historical-grammatical method already. Let's stick to that and all will be well ...'
I mean, c'mon ...
Which scenario is likely to fit more closely to the actual turn of events?
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
Ok.
Let's look at what I am not saying:
- I am not saying that state-sponsored religiously motivated violence is right or justifiable by any many of means.
- I am not saying that God the Holy Spirit isn't involved in the the way we interpret and understand scripture.
What I am saying is:
- Whilst I believe that scripture is inspired by God, it doesn't arrive with an in-built and intrinsic hermeneutical system embedded within it.
- Any hermeneutical system, an historical-grammatical one, historical-critical one, an allegorical one, a literal one, an Anything Else one, develops and evolves over time by an iterative process of engagement with the text, with the faith community involved and with external influences and circumstances.
I really don't see what is so 'nonsensical' about that.
It simply isn't the case that there was a single, over-arching, universally agreed hermeneutic from the Year Dot.
No, what happened is that what developed into the historical-grammatical method we all know and love came about through debate, discussion and in reaction to extremes on either side - whether extreme allegorisation on the one hand, or extreme literalism on the other. Origen wasn't the only one to have taken things so literally that he attempted to cut his own balls off ... the Church had to issue an edict about that - which implies that others were taking certain verses in an overly literal sense and doing damage to themselves ...
Which is one among many examples of what I'm saying about these things being determined and agreed in community.
No man is an island entire of itself.
That's all I am saying.
I can't for the life of me see what is so controversial or so whacky about it.
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
quote:
Gamaliel: Yes, the NT was there, but the issue then was how to interpret it, and that's where the long process of developing appropriate hermeneutical approaches started. The approach couldn't possibly have been fixed from the outset as the process had only begun
The tedium of the repetition of this particular piece of nonsense..sigh.
You say it yourself. The text WAS always there. The text that was always there ALWAYS definitively demonstrated that Christ's message was inherently, authoritatively non political and non violent. It is utterly STUPID to assert otherwise. If you insist on debating this then go figure!
You CANNOT, with any intellectual honesty assert the contrary WHATEVER so called 'hermeneutics' you choose to employ, invent or imagine.
To use your own words, just read the text itself for meaning. Just to help you here is a quote.
"My kingdom is not of this world" said The Lord to Pilate. What could he possibly have meant I wonder?
I wonder.
Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
The tedium of the repetition of this particular piece of nonsense..sigh.
You say it yourself. The text WAS always there. The text that was always there ALWAYS definitively demonstrated that Christ's message was inherently, authoritatively non political and non violent. It is utterly STUPID to assert otherwise. If you insist on debating this then go figure!
You CANNOT, with any intellectual honesty assert the contrary WHATEVER so called 'hermeneutics' you choose to employ, invent or imagine.
To use your own words, just read the text itself for meaning. Just to help you here is a quote.
"My kingdom is not of this world" said The Lord to Pilate. What could he possibly have meant I wonder?
Was it non-political though? It certainly didn't seem like either his opponents or the earliest disciples thought that it was a non-political movement.
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
Indeed, and on one live, Christ was arrested, tried and executed for political reasons - or perceived political reasons ... He was seen as a threat.
'Politics' isn't necessarily party-political politics. Politics is messy because it concerns issues around power, the preservation or challengin of vested interests and lots more besides.
Where there are people there are politics.
You can't avoid them.
There's politics within local voluntary groups and organisations just as there is within town and borough or state or national councils/governing bodies.
As sure as eggs are eggs there'll be politics going on in whatever local church congregation we attend or are involved with.
We can't avoid them.
Just as we can't avoid having a hermeneutic.
Just as we can't avoid or elide the community aspect I've been banging on about.
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
Anyway ...
Apologies to Lamb Chopped for using her experience as an example. I shouldn't have done that.
Apologies too for expecting Jamat and Kaplan to actually follow my drift and understanding what I'm trying to say.
They clearly can't or won't.
Therefore I will withdraw from this thread.
I'm wasting my time.
More fool me for not appreciating that the historical-grammatical method is magically embedded within the text itself and not something that evolved over time in the process of an iterative engagement with the text and with other believers.
How can I have been so naive?
I will withdraw from this thread until such time as my head-ache disappears ...
And until Jamat and Kaplan actually read what I write and not what they think I've written.
I might be gone for some time ...
Posted by Jamat (# 11621) on
:
quote:
Someone else who is apparently unable to read for comprehension
Nonsense. Your verbal diarrhoea is impossible not to comprehend, utterly tedious shite that it is.
Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
More fool me for not appreciating that the historical-grammatical method is magically embedded within the text itself and not something that evolved over time in the process of an iterative engagement with the text and with other believers.
I have not said this, and you know that I have not said this.
What I have pointed out is the very obvious fact that a grammatical-historical approach was and is the dominant and unavoidable (not unique or unalloyed) approach, because otherwise the faith would have disappeared in confusion shortly after 100AD.
quote:
I will withdraw from this thread until such time as my head-ache disappears
Wise choice.
And when you ave calmed down, try to take a step back and think instead of automatically generating standardisd Pavlovian responses.
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
None of which is true. All of which is patently incorrect on all sorts of levels.
The reason the Christian faith did not dissipate in confusion around 100 AD isn't because a particular hermeneutical method was the norm from the outset but because there was a degree of unanimity - but by no means uniformity - which gradually coalesced and was the means by which the generally agreed hermeneutical forms emerged.
You are putting the egg before the chicken. The chicken - the community - came first. The hermeneutic developed from that.
If you are saying that then I have no issue. But you don't appear to be.
As for Jamat, he doesn't even understand the point I am trying to make so I can see I am wasting my time with him. Kaplan less so.
The only place I want to see Jamat is in the Hell where he belongs receiving the pummellings he brings upon himself and so richly deserves. That's the Hell here aboard Ship, of course, before his overly literal hermeneutic makes him think I'm referring to the Other Place.
I'm out of this thread. It's not worth it. How can you debate with fellas who either don't understand or who refuse to understand what one is trying to say and try to take the moral high ground of their own ignorance?
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
quote:
Someone else who is apparently unable to read for comprehension
Nonsense. Your verbal diarrhoea is impossible not to comprehend, utterly tedious shite that it is.
Your nasty response is impossible not to comprehend, clone of any random Romanlion post that it is.
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
I will admit to typing at length and often tediously.
I have to watch that tendency.
It is innate but it is in part an attempt in this instance to explain myself to people who lack the wit, inclination or conceptual tools to follow my drift. Jamat, I'm looking at you.
I'm more disappointed with Kaplan. He's smarter and should know better.
He's asked me to think. I would like to see him doing the same.
I need a bit of shore-leave I think and that'll be in everyone's best interests.
I've got various dead-lines looming and all sorts of council and other community issues to wrestle with. Online cut and thrust here and elsewhere can be a welcome distraction but I think I'm reaching an impasse. That last comment is directed at me and isn't a criticism or value judgement of any one else.
Anyhow ... Enjoy the rest of this discussion. Try to keep open minds.
Posted by Jamat (# 11621) on
:
quote:
Gamaliel: It simply isn't the case that there was a single, over-arching, universally agreed hermeneutic from the Year Dot
Who do you think is saying there was?
I perfectly comprehend and agree with that.
But there is in my view, no possible way that one can find textual justification for Christian motivated violence whatever hermeneutic anyone chose to use. IOW, you have to go away from any text based hermeneutic to justify it. The justification would have to be irrelevant to hermeneutics which by definition must be attempts to interpret texts. My view is that Charlemagne's behaviour was not based in any such consideration. You may differ. I think he was merely a medieval military leader acting from self interest.
Gamaliel,
I do apologise for the angry comment above. You are a good chap.
Mousethief, please post personal comments on the hell thread you created for the purpose. Could a purg host please mediate on Mousthief's post above?
Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
But there is in my view, no possible way that one can find textual justification for Christian motivated violence whatever hermeneutic anyone chose to use. IOW, you have to go away from any text based hermeneutic to justify it. The justification would have to be irrelevant to hermeneutics which by definition must be attempts to interpret texts. My view is that Charlemagne's behaviour was not based in any such consideration. You may differ. I think he was merely a medieval military leader acting from self interest.
OK so defend that position. Show me the evidence that these leaders were not seeing within the biblical text justification (or even were not looking for it) for their actions.
Otherwise you're just talk.
Posted by Jamat (# 11621) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
But there is in my view, no possible way that one can find textual justification for Christian motivated violence whatever hermeneutic anyone chose to use. IOW, you have to go away from any text based hermeneutic to justify it. The justification would have to be irrelevant to hermeneutics which by definition must be attempts to interpret texts. My view is that Charlemagne's behaviour was not based in any such consideration. You may differ. I think he was merely a medieval military leader acting from self interest.
OK so defend that position. Show me the evidence that these leaders were not seeing within the biblical text justification (or even were not looking for it) for their actions.
Otherwise you're just talk.
That is a patently ridiculous demand. You prove the contrary.
You cannot of course. My reason not a proof but is simply what the text says..
'My kingdom is not of this world.'
Any justification must fly in the face of the Lord's or his apostles' stated words from which I could quote widely, and therefore cannot be based on them unless language can mean the opposite of what it says..which it can't.
Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
That is a patently ridiculous demand. You prove the contrary.
Wait - you want me to prove that the crusaders had a hermeneutic which justified violence from their reading of the bible?
That actually seems quite easy to do, see this book and this paper and so on.
Rather than being impossible, there is an impressive body of scholarship which showed that it existed.
quote:
You cannot of course. My reason not a proof but is simply what the text says..
'My kingdom is not of this world.'
Right, but that wasn't the question. Just because you can think it doesn't mean that those who disagree have somehow not got their ideas from the bible.
quote:
Any justification must fly in the face of the Lord's or his apostles' stated words from which I could quote widely, and therefore cannot be based on them unless language can mean the opposite of what it says..which it can't.
Or it could just be that they read it differently to you. Now there's a novel idea.
[ 29. July 2017, 09:16: Message edited by: mr cheesy ]
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
I will bow out for a while. It's in everyone's best interests. I will pause to acknowledge Jamat's very gracious apology. It is more than I deserve for insulting his intelligence.
FWIW I believe Charlemagne was acting out of self-interest too. But he was also a man of his time and acting in accordance with that. Sadly, at that time that involved wielding state-sponsored violence for religio-political ends. That's how it was, that's how they thought.
It's no accident that the missionary monks used to curry favour with rulers and that the monastery at Lindisfarne, for instance, was in sight of the royal Northumbrian seat at Bamburgh. What other means did they have at their disposal?
On the textual thing, I've got nothing further to add on that. I'll let mr cheesy address that one from now on.
I'll see you all around on another thread at some point. I'm done on this one.
It's ironic that I've been asked to 'think' when I'm one of the most over-thinky people I know and then some but that's the Ship for you ...
Anyhow, that's more than enough from me. Bye for now.
Posted by Jamat (# 11621) on
:
quote:
Mr Cheesy: Right, but that wasn't the question. Just because you can think it doesn't mean that those who disagree have somehow not got their ideas from the Bible.
Well, to me, it IS the question. You are free to have your view of course. The sources you quote? A book which may say..who knows.. and an article citing only the OT which is irrelevant, we've had that discussion already. We are dealing with Christianity,not Biblical Judaism.
If you claim the medieval war chiefs got their justifications from the NT, it is up to you to prove it. You can believe it but I doubt that it is based on anything more than your desire to do so.
Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
Well, to me, it IS the question. You are free to have your view of course. The sources you quote? A book which may say..who knows.. and an article citing only the OT which is irrelevant, we've had that discussion already. We are dealing with Christianity,not Biblical Judaism.
There is a body of scholarship which you are disagreeing with. And to which you're offering nothing but vague opinions.
quote:
If you claim the medieval war chiefs got their justifications from the NT, it is up to you to prove it. You can believe it but I doubt that it is based on anything more than your desire to do so.
Nope, it really isn't. First they said that their actions were justified by their religion and second there is a whole scholarship of study looking at how they justified and developed their hermeneutic from the bible.
So it is down to you to show how these scholars are wrong and how the crusaders actually didn't read the bible and how they were not actually interested in the New Testament and how they knew so little about Christian theology that they'd got the basic ideas of it completely wrong.
Posted by Jamat (# 11621) on
:
quote:
There is a body of scholarship which you are disagreeing with. And to which you're offering nothing but vague opinions
So you say..but you cite two sources which prove nothing. This mere bluster.
quote:
they said that their actions were justified by their religion and second there is a whole scholarship of study looking at how they justified and developed their hermeneutic from the bible.
Their religion might well have been cited but I would see that as a mere excuse for their actions. That any violent atrocity they did was justifiable via the NT is ridiculous.
Using religion to justify anything is NOT necessarily using a hermeneutic.
Posted by leo (# 1458) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
My reason not a proof but is simply what the text says..'My kingdom is not of this world.'.
No text is ever simple. The greek has the sense of ἐκ = 'from' this world - empowered by God, not humans.
Posted by Dafyd (# 5549) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
Your nasty response is impossible not to comprehend, clone of any random Romanlion post that it is.
The last time I looked Romanlion was an atheist.
Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
there is a whole scholarship of study looking at how they justified and developed their hermeneutic from the bible.
Would you care to suggest some representative examples?
Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
The last time I looked Romanlion was an atheist.
And you just couldn't look away I suppose?
Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
Would you care to suggest some representative examples?
I already gave accessible examples, it is now down to you to refute them, simply rubbishing or denying their existence isn't credible.
Posted by Dafyd (# 5549) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
There is a difference between accepting "I am the door" as a metaphor, which everyone does, and treating the parable of the Good Samaritan as an allegory of the Christian life, which Augustine did, but which no-one with any respect for the most basic principles of exegesis does.
Augustine wrote an exposition of the principles of exegesis: On Christian Doctrine. It's still considered an important contribution to hermeneutics.
If the Fathers were looking for a Biblical basis for allegory they could have found it in Paul. Paul cheerfully tells us that Abraham's two sons are an allegory for the two covenants. He does not tell us that he has the authority to declare an allegory and we don't, or tell us not to try this at home.
Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
He does not tell us that he has the authority to declare an allegory and we don't, or tell us not to try this at home.
He doesn't have to.
A few seconds' thought would show that the right of any Christian to allegorise anything anyhow would spell exegetical suicide.
Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
it is now down to you to refute them,
Which I have done all along by a.pointing out that Christianity prioritises the NT over the OT, and b. pointing out that the NT does not contain a single verse condoning religious violence.
If there is any refuting to be done, it is incumbent upon anyone who disagrees with either of those points, and so far no-one has done so successfully, because it is impossible.
quote:
denying their existence isn't credible.
Which I have never done - denying their validity and legitimacy is not the same as denying their explicit or implicit existence.
Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
Which I have done all along by a.pointing out that Christianity prioritises the NT over the OT, and b. pointing out that the NT does not contain a single verse condoning religious violence.
That's refuting the right-ness of the hermeneutic not the fact that the hermeneutic exists and that scholars have studied and written about it.
You seem unable to grasp the difference.
quote:
If there is any refuting to be done, it is incumbent upon anyone who disagrees with either of those points, and so far no-one has done so successfully, because it is impossible.
No, it really isn't.
Jamat doesn't believe that the hermeneutic existed. Scholars showed that it did. You don't believe that the hermeneutic is credible -
except that people did actually believe it. So in fact it was credible to them.
Simply coming back and repeating your opinion is not refuting or answering anything at all.
quote:
Which I have never done - denying their validity and legitimacy is not the same as denying their explicit or implicit existence.
Good, maybe you can tell that to Jamat and instead of piling in when he pretends that scholarship doesn't exist you could try posting with a little more nuance. If you don't like the scholarship, then refute it or take it up with the scholars. It isn't my problem that historians are finding things you two don't like.
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
Hear, hear.
(Sorry, I'm lurking)
I'll get me coat ...
Otherwise I'll get drawn in again and it's futile because Kaplan fails to differentiate between a text and how we understand or approach a text. He'll tell me otherwise but the way he's been posting suggests to me that he hasn't thought this one through.
From what I've read about the way 1st century Jews approached the scriptures they believed that there was an infinite number of meanings that could be derived from them - from allegorical to literal from whacky to sensible to ...
I don't see any of the NT writers operating within the kind of neat grammatical-historical hermeneutic that Kaplan favours. They just didn't.
Ok, Jesus is Jesus and Paul was Paul and we aren't.
But even so ...
It's obvious to anyone who has read any of the early Christian writings that whilst there was a broad consensus on what consituted the 'apostolic deposit' - and we can see/infer that from the NT text itself ... what there wasn't (as yet) was a consistent hermeneutic other than in embryonic form.
It's not as if there was a hermeneutical gold-standard from which St Augustine and others were later to depart. Rather there were overlapping and interlocking approaches that either diverged or coalesced over time.
And in the context of community.
I've said enough.
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
it is now down to you to refute them,
Which I have done all along by a.pointing out that Christianity prioritises the NT over the OT, and b. pointing out that the NT does not contain a single verse condoning religious violence.
If there is any refuting to be done, it is incumbent upon anyone who disagrees with either of those points, and so far no-one has done so successfully, because it is impossible.
quote:
denying their existence isn't credible.
Which I have never done - denying their validity and legitimacy is not the same as denying their explicit or implicit existence.
As I close the door gently on my way out ... (yes, I am going to leave this particular thread, honest)
a) Yes, Christianity does prioritise the NT over the OT. Nobody is suggesting otherwise. I doubt Charlemagne would have suggested so either.
b) The NT does not condone religiously-motivated violence. It does appear to condone slavery - and many Christians believed it did for a very, very long time.
It also appears to condone state-sponsored violence against malefactors. One can readily see, surely, that if a ruler thinks of themselves as 'appointed by God' ('Look, the Apostle Paul says that even pagan Roman authorities are God's appointed ministers ... how much more should I be as a Christian king/emperor?') then they are going to think that offering violence or punishment to recalcitrant, potential fifth-column pagans is justifiable ...
And no, the NT doesn't talk about setting up theocratic governments either, but neither does it talk about motorcycle maintenance, methods of contraception, garden design or quantum mechanics ...
Context, context, context.
If you are an 8th or 9th century ruler then you are going to bring the presuppositions and world-view that this entails both to your understanding of the NT and to the way you act.
If you are an 18th, 19th, 20th or 21st century believer, or a 13th, 6th, 12th or umpteenth century one then the same applies.
We've addressed this a million times. And yes, Jamat and Kaplan agree on that, but still continue to argue as if hermeneutics don't actually exist (Jamat) or that one's own hermeneutic is the obvious and 'given' one (Kaplan).
I'm no expert but from what I can gather historians claim to have discerned at least 35 variations of Christian belief in the early centuries. Some of them in line with what emerged as received orthodoxy, others somewhat Gnostic to some extent or other and some completely 'out-there' by anyone's standards ...
We get tantalising glimpses of some of this in the pages of the NT itself. Who were the Nicolaitans for goodness sake?
So, yes, there was an emerging and recognised consensus of what was 'kosher' in an 'apostolic deposit' sense from the outset. This doesn't mean that everything was a done-deal. Heck, had things worked out somewhat differently the Arians could have won ...
The same applies to hermeneutics. You can protest until you are blue in the face but the onus is on you to demonstrate that there was some kind of hermeneutical consensus from around 100 AD.
Early Christianity was somewhat chaotic. I think we can all see that. The only ones who might be inclined to deny such a thing are arch zealot Orthodox or extreme RC traditionalists on the one hand - who believe that St Luke painted the first icon of the Virgin Mary or who imagine the earliest Christian gatherings to have been like High Mass at the Brompton Oratory or a full-on Byzantine rite ...
Or fundamentalist or very conservative Protestant evangelicals on the other who fondly imagine that everyone was (or should have been) operating with IVP hermeneutical credentials from the end of the 1st century - and that naughty people like Augustine subsequently fell away from this received standard.
Nowhere, nowhere, nowhere have I seen any historical evidence to indicate that there was a single, dominant hermeneutical consensus from the earliest times. Nowhere.
That isn't to say that what emerged as the grammatical-historical method didn't exist in some form. It clearly evolved from somewhere otherwise it wouldn't have come into existence.
I'm no Patristic scholar. I've only read snippets. But from what I have read of these guys' writings they seem to employ a whole range of hermeneutical approaches at the same time - and in a sometimes contradictory way - from our perspective.
It's all about perspective. All about viewpoint.
What it isn't about is insisting that something is the case in the face of all the evidence to the contrary and having the audacity to accuse other people of not 'thinking' when they arrive at a different conclusion to oneself.
This isn't a door-slam or a flounce, but it is an explanation as to why I'm withdrawing from this thread.
It's got nothing to do with Pavlovian conditioning or whatever else I've been accused of.
It's got everything to do with this:
Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
As I close the door gently on my way out ... (yes, I am going to leave this particular thread, honest)
I see you've attended that speaking class, Gam:
1. Say what you're going to say
2. Say it
3. Say what you said again
Posted by Baptist Trainfan (# 15128) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
And no, the NT doesn't talk about ... garden design.
Perhaps not: but what about urban planning for garden cities? ![[Devil]](graemlins/devil.gif)
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
As I close the door gently on my way out ... (yes, I am going to leave this particular thread, honest)
I see you've attended that speaking class, Gam:
1. Say what you're going to say
2. Say it
3. Say what you said again
Yeah, but the speaking class also taught me not to talk bollocks. Shame some of the others here didn't attend the same one.
Posted by Jamat (# 11621) on
:
quote:
Kaplan C: Which I have never done - denying their validity and legitimacy is not the same as denying their explicit or implicit existence.
Mr Cheesy: Good, maybe you can tell that to Jamat and instead of piling in when he pretends that scholarship doesn't exist you could try posting with a little more nuance. If you don't like the scholarship, then refute it or take it up with the scholars. It isn't my problem that historians are finding things you two don't like.
You have not shown that any scholarship exists that legitimately supports your view. You may be able to find a revisionist historian or two but this is not relevant. It is the assertion that the NT can be used to support violence is what does not fly here.
Gamaliel, welcome back.
quote:
Gamaliel : If you are an 8th or 9th century ruler then you are going to bring the presuppositions and world-view that this entails both to your understanding of the NT and to the way you act.
The assumption in here seems the essence of the argument. I do not see that they way they acted can be sheeted back to anything in the NT which, to me, it would have to be if it was to be genuinely 'Christian'.
Certainly, they had a world view; certainly it was shaped by medieval Catholicism. Why do you think that this was in any way hermeneutical? They were all about power and politics motivated by their agendas. God's will to that lot was what the Pope thought it was but why does this mean their actions are NT based or in fact in any way 'Christian'? Those actions fly in the face of Jesus' injunctions and stated purpose.
[ 31. July 2017, 14:27: Message edited by: Jamat ]
Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
You have not shown that any scholarship exists that legitimately supports your view supports your view. You may be able to find a revisionist historian or two but this is not relevant. It is the assertion that the NT can be used to support violence is what does not fly here.
No, stop talking bilge. The crusaders had a hermeneutic that justified violence via their reading of the bible.
It is only you who seems to think it didn't exist. And you supply zero evidence for this position other than bluster.
At least I have actually supplied something, Jamat. Even though it is something you disagree with, it is still something.
You've supplied exactly nothing.
Posted by Jamat (# 11621) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
You have not shown that any scholarship exists that legitimately supports your view supports your view. You may be able to find a revisionist historian or two but this is not relevant. It is the assertion that the NT can be used to support violence is what does not fly here.
No, stop talking bilge. The crusaders had a hermeneutic that justified violence via their reading of the bible.
It is only you who seems to think it didn't exist. And you supply zero evidence for this position other than bluster.
At least I have actually supplied something, Jamat. Even though it is something you disagree with, it is still something.
You've supplied exactly nothing.
The whole of the NT is what I supply. Nothing there supports you. Prove the opposite if you can but there is no proof is there?
And forget about telling me crusaders were Bible scholars. That is risible.
Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
The whole of the NT is what I supply. Nothing there supports you. Prove the opposite if you can but there is no proof is there?
And forget about telling me crusaders were Bible scholars. That is risible.
Ye gods, what is wrong with you.
People exist who read the bible differently to you. People in the past existed who read the bible differently to you.
The fact that you don't see violence in the NT says nothing about whether it is possible to see violence in the NT. In fact, the historical evidence is that it is perfectly possible to see violence justified by the bible - including the NT.
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
It is certainly possible if you have a hermeneutic that makes it possible.
The Crusaders had a hermeneutic that made it possible. Oliver Cromwell had a hermeneutic that made religiously motivated violence permissible - 'God made them as stubble to our swords.'
I know you want to blame everything on medieval Catholicism but it's more complicated than that.
You are still talking as if you can have a NT without a hermeneutic. You can't.
You and I have a hermeneutic that doesn't find religiously motivated state-sponsored violence in the NT.
Other people in previous generations didn't.
Dutch Reformed Christians used to have a hermeneutic that found white-supremacy in the Bible. You and I don't. Or at least I assume you don't.
White slave-owners in the Southern US and elsewhere had a hermeneutic that found justification for slavery in the NT. Medieval Popes didn't.
You have no idea what you are talking about. You can parrot Bible verses til the cows come home but have no idea whatsoever how hermeneutics operate and how we interpret and interact with texts. It's embarrassing even discussing these things with you on account of your monumental ignorance of the processes involved.
Kaplan isn't as bad but he ought to know better. He thinks that if he says something often enough it becomes fact despite all the overwhelming evidence to the contrary.
Anyhow - I'm supposed not to be posting here but I'm aghast at the level of ignorance some posters are bringing to this thread.
'I'm bringing the whole of the NT.'
No you aren't. You are bringing YOUR interpretation of the NT. It happens to accord with mine in this instance, but at least I'm aware that my interpretation is an interpretation ...
Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on
:
I don't understand why the idea that other people ("people in the past") having different ways to understand the bible is such a radical concept.
It seems to me, Jamat, that you've already decided that the NT decries crusader violence and therefore it follows that it cannot possibly be the case that the crusaders justified themselves with reference to the NT.
That's circular, and plain wrong given that we have evidence of crusaders doing exactly that: justifying their actions within the framework of a Christian understanding of the bible.
Posted by Sioni Sais (# 5713) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
Early Christianity was somewhat chaotic. I think we can all see that. The only ones who might be inclined to deny such a thing are arch zealot Orthodox or extreme RC traditionalists on the one hand - who believe that St Luke painted the first icon of the Virgin Mary or who imagine the earliest Christian gatherings to have been like High Mass at the Brompton Oratory or a full-on Byzantine rite ...
Chaotic or not they all refer back to and use what we now call the Old Testament. Full of smiting and sacrifices but tempered by justice and mercy.
If there was a difference it is that the OT was driven by a material God, while the NT depends more on the Holy Spirit.
YMMV.
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Sioni Sais:
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
Early Christianity was somewhat chaotic. I think we can all see that. The only ones who might be inclined to deny such a thing are arch zealot Orthodox or extreme RC traditionalists on the one hand - who believe that St Luke painted the first icon of the Virgin Mary or who imagine the earliest Christian gatherings to have been like High Mass at the Brompton Oratory or a full-on Byzantine rite ...
Chaotic or not they all refer back to and use what we now call the Old Testament. Full of smiting and sacrifices but tempered by justice and mercy.
If there was a difference it is that the OT was driven by a material God, while the NT depends more on the Holy Spirit.
YMMV.
![[Ultra confused]](graemlins/confused2.gif)
![[Eek!]](eek.gif)
No, my mileage doesn't vary. I have no idea what you are talking about ...
God is Spirit. He was no more 'material' in the OT than he is in the NT - if we can put it that way.
If anything, through the Incarnation God is MORE material in the NT than in the Old.
Sorry, Sioni, but this is cobblers.
I can see that I don't just need to leave this thread, I also need to have a long lie down ...
Before I do so, here's my two-happ'orth ...
Yes, the OT is chaotic, the NT is chaotic - the early Church was chaotic. The Christian scene today is chaotic.
Yet, somehow, through it all, God the Holy Spirit is working and active ... and the Incarnation is the key to the whole thing.
There. Sorted. If only it were that simple and everyone was as sane and balanced as me ...
Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on
:
I think it is quite hard to believe that Pope Urban II didn't understand the crusades in the context of the New Testament - he clearly saw himself as the leader of the church.
quote:
Most beloved brethren, today is manifest in you what the Lord says in the Gospel, "Where two or three are gathered together in my name there am I in the midst of them." Unless the Lord God had been present in your spirits, all of you would not have uttered the same cry. For, although the cry issued from numerous mouths, yet the origin of the cry was one. Therefore I say to you that God, who implanted this in your breasts, has drawn it forth from you. Let this then be your war-cry in combats, because this word is given to you by God. When an armed attack is made upon the enemy, let this one cry be raised by all the soldiers of God: It is the will of God! It is the will of God!
from here
Of course one can criticise it, one could presumably argue that the records are wrong or fake.
But one cannot in all seriousness suggest that the crusades and Urban II were not working from a particular Christian hermeneutic. Diss it, criticise it, hate it.
But stop saying it didn't exist.
Posted by Jamat (# 11621) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
The whole of the NT is what I supply. Nothing there supports you. Prove the opposite if you can but there is no proof is there?
And forget about telling me crusaders were Bible scholars. That is risible.
Ye gods, what is wrong with you.
People exist who read the bible differently to you. People in the past existed who read the bible differently to you.
The fact that you don't see violence in the NT says nothing about whether it is possible to see violence in the NT. In fact, the historical evidence is that it is perfectly possible to see violence justified by the bible - including the NT.
None of that is in dispute and all of it beside the point apart from one wee thing. Let's say for argument's sake that a medieval warlord could and did read the NT. It is yours to prove they justified violence from it.
Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
None of that is in dispute and all of it beside the point apart from one wee thing. Let's say for argument's sake that a medieval warlord could and did read the NT. It is yours to prove they justified violence from it.
As I've posted above - twice now - there is scholarship showing that they did and there are records suggesting that they did.
Posted by Crsos (# 238) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
None of that is in dispute and all of it beside the point apart from one wee thing. Let's say for argument's sake that a medieval warlord could and did read the NT. It is yours to prove they justified violence from it.
As mr cheesy points out, mediæval popes would seem to qualify as both "warlords" and "people who read the New Testament". They even used the New Testament on occasion use it to justify violence.
Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on
:
Also found this in a book:
quote:
The charity texts of the New Testament insisting on forgiveness were interpreted as applicable only to private persons and not to the behaviour of public authorities, to whom, both Gospel and Pauline texts could be marshalled to show, obedience was due. In Jerome's Latin version of the Bible, the Vulgate, which became the standard text in the medieval West, the exclusive word for enemy in the New Testament is inimicus, a personal enemy not hostis a public enemy. Paul, conceding that 'kings and those in authority' protect the faithful in a 'quiet and peaceful life' sanctioned public violence to police a sinful world.
Christopher Tyerman (2004) Fighting for Christendom - holy war and the crusades
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
Yep. Paul's appeal to obey civil authorities applied to state-sanctioned religious violence.
We can carp, we can criticise, we can deplore. But that's how they thought.
The evidence is all on this side of the argument. I wish it wasn't, but it is.
Anyhow, I shouldn't come back - I'll get a sword up my backside for saying one thing and doing another.
Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
the fact that the hermeneutic exists
Which I have never denied.
It existed and was crap.
How many times do I have to say it?
When are you going to start thinking about what you are saying instead of replying with mindless kneejerk recordings?
Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
As I close the door gently on my way out ... (yes, I am going to leave this particular thread, honest)
I don't believe you.
You stage more comebacks than Nelly Melba.
quote:
imagine that everyone was (or should have been) operating with IVP hermeneutical credentials from the end of the 1st century
You are still setting up straw men.
There is a difference between claiming that everyone from the first century on operated with a conscious and articulated grammatical-historical hermeneutic, and recognising that such a hermeneutic was (and had to be) the default position, with all its corruptions and perversions, if Christianity were to exist and survive.
You are intelligent enough to see the difference, but for some reason you cannot bring yourself to admit it.
Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
But stop saying it didn't exist.
I'll keep saying this in the (probably vain) hope that it will eventually sink in:
No-one is saying that it did not exist; it existed and was crap.
Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
as me ...
as I...
Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
Also found this in a book:
quote:
The charity texts of the New Testament insisting on forgiveness were interpreted as applicable only to private persons and not to the behaviour of public authorities, to whom, both Gospel and Pauline texts could be marshalled to show, obedience was due. In Jerome's Latin version of the Bible, the Vulgate, which became the standard text in the medieval West, the exclusive word for enemy in the New Testament is inimicus, a personal enemy not hostis a public enemy. Paul, conceding that 'kings and those in authority' protect the faithful in a 'quiet and peaceful life' sanctioned public violence to police a sinful world.
Christopher Tyerman (2004) Fighting for Christendom - holy war and the crusades
Any attempted acrobatic leap across the exegetical chasm between what Paul actually says in Romans 13, and the assertion that the Bible requires governments to slaughter heathens and heretics, involves hermeneutical contortions so tortuous as to ensure inevitable death.
Once again, the fact of such an attempt's existence is in no way incompatible with its interpretative crappiness.
Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
I'll keep saying this in the (probably vain) hope that it will eventually sink in:
No-one is saying that it did not exist; it existed and was crap.
Serious question: are you actually reading what Jamat is writing?
Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
Once again, the fact of such an attempt's existence is in no way incompatible with its interpretative crappiness.
Everyone agrees it was crap.
It was you who suggested it wasn't 'valid' and it was Jamat who tried to suggest it didn't exist and that the scholarship I introduced were from off-the-wall historians who didn't know shit.
It was valid, it was biblical, it was believed by Christians who understood it within the context of the New Testament.
That you don't agree with it is irrelevant.
Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
There is a difference between claiming that everyone from the first century on operated with a conscious and articulated grammatical-historical hermeneutic, and recognising that such a hermeneutic was (and had to be) the default position, with all its corruptions and perversions, if Christianity were to exist and survive.
What are you talking about? How was that the "default position" and what does that even mean?
Posted by Jamat (# 11621) on
:
There is an interesting comment below that backs up the idea that crusading warfare was defended on Christian grounds despite being indefensible on Christian grounds.
There was not really a hermeneutic to justify their actions however much the crusaders and Pope Urban 2nd would have liked there to be one. So what they did according to Tyernan or this reviewer of his book at any rate was to invent one. There is a kind of smashing together of Christian ethics with apocalyptic texts from the book of Revelation to justify the first crusade.
IOW, their so called "hermeneutic" was rubbish. What they did was what they were determined to do not they were convinced they should do as Christians nor what any sane reading of the NT or Christian ethics would have urged them to do. Here
I think in the wash-up, you may say that they sought a hermeneutical justification but that would be as far as it goes. I do not think you can reasonably say they found what they were looking for.
Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
]
There was not really a hermeneutic to justify their actions however much the crusaders and Pope Urban 2nd would have liked there to be one.
OK, now you need to define how you are using the term hermeneutic.
Kaplan, I hope that you are now seeing that Jamat is in denial that there was a hermeneutic.
Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on
:
Also I don't think that review whilst interesting (a) does justice to the book or (b) says what you think it says.
You seem to be suggesting that Pope Urban made up something to justify the crusades.
But that's not quite what the review says:
quote:
Tyerman answers carefully: By the time of the Crusades Western Christianity had become only indirectly a scriptural faith. The Church Fathers, Origen, Ambrose, Augustine, and Gregory I, accomplished the task of translating the New Testament's "inappropriate, obscure, incomplete, contradictory or idealistic apothegms into an intelligible and satisfying system of thought and action within the context of the institutions of an active religion, a temporal church and the daily lives of believers." (29). In other words, detours had to be found around the Sermon on the Mount.
Yet Tyerman is no iconoclast. He goes on to point out that the teaching of the Fathers was not so much a violation of the ideals of the New Testament as one might think. Pacifism and forgiveness pertained to the behavior of the private person. On the other hand, John the Baptist had told soldiers to remain in the army, and Christ told his disciples to pay taxes to Caesar. The Apocalypse of John is full of violence, and the Old Testament is a story of wars that were pleasing to God. The New Testament, then, is an ambiguous heritage, and out of that ambiguity came the thinking of those who preached the Crusades.
As always, it is worth seeking out the actual book in question rather than just poorly paraphrasing a short review.
Posted by Jamat (# 11621) on
:
quote:
mr Cheesy :I hope that you are now seeing that Jamat is in denial that there was a hermeneutic.
You wish! I would contend that their justification for violence was a never a valid hermeneutic or even one at all!
A hermeneutic, since you bring it up is not about justifications for actions via a text, but about a method of interpreting or discerning what a text is saying. It would begin with the text itself. Obviously much more should be said about this but not here.
I never suggested crusaders did not try to justify their actions via a Christian meta narrative but that is rather different.
Posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider (# 76) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
Your nasty response is impossible not to comprehend, clone of any random Romanlion post that it is.
The last time I looked Romanlion was an atheist.
Obnoxious superior stupidity has no particular faith position.
[ 01. August 2017, 07:43: Message edited by: Karl: Liberal Backslider ]
Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
quote:
mr Cheesy :I hope that you are now seeing that Jamat is in denial that there was a hermeneutic.
You wish! I would contend that their justification for violence was a never a valid hermeneutic or even one at all!
You seem to be disagreeing with yourself here and then agreeing with me that you are in denial that they had a hermeneutic.
Also you don't seem to understand the term "valid", it is distinct from "correct" as I have pointed out many times.
quote:
A hermeneutic, since you bring it up is not about justifications for actions via a text, but about a method of interpreting or discerning what a text is saying. It would begin with the text itself. Obviously much more should be said about this but not here.
A hermeneutic is a framework of understanding scripture. Now explain using terms that are generally agreed (and not in a way that only you understand) how this is not a hermeneutic.
Unless the Pope stood up and said some stuff that he didn't actually believe, I fail to see how he wasn't expressing a framework for understanding scripture.
quote:
I never suggested crusaders did not try to justify their actions via a Christian meta narrative but that is rather different.
How is it? How are you defining these words?
Posted by Dafyd (# 5549) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
A few seconds' thought would show that the right of any Christian to allegorise anything anyhow would spell exegetical suicide.
As far as I'm aware the early Church thought that the right of any Christian to employ any exegetical method including grammatical-historical hermeneutics would spell exegetical suicide.
The early Church went from a period in which eyewitness testimony was considered of critical importance to a period in which Apostolic succession was considered of critical importance. There's no trace of a period in which unmediated access to Scripture was considered authoritative.
Unless literacy was far more widespread than we believe, unmediated access to Scripture could never have been held the primary authority.
Posted by Moo (# 107) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
There's no trace of a period in which unmediated access to Scripture was considered authoritative.
Unless literacy was far more widespread than we believe, unmediated access to Scripture could never have been held the primary authority.
Not only was literacy not widespread, but texts were relatively rare, and most of them were in the possession of groups of Christians, rather than private individuals. The texts were read aloud in churches and this is how ordinary Christians came to know them.
Moo
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
As I close the door gently on my way out ... (yes, I am going to leave this particular thread, honest)
I don't believe you.
You stage more comebacks than Nelly Melba.
quote:
imagine that everyone was (or should have been) operating with IVP hermeneutical credentials from the end of the 1st century
You are still setting up straw men.
There is a difference between claiming that everyone from the first century on operated with a conscious and articulated grammatical-historical hermeneutic, and recognising that such a hermeneutic was (and had to be) the default position, with all its corruptions and perversions, if Christianity were to exist and survive.
You are intelligent enough to see the difference, but for some reason you cannot bring yourself to admit it.
Well, thank you for damning with faint praise.
Yes, I do stage far too many come-backs. Mea culpa.
Perhaps it's my ego. Mea culpa. However it is difficult not to post when I see comments like yours.
It's not that I am intelligent enough to grasp your point but so recalcitrant as to admit it, rather it's the opposite.
I do grasp your point but don't agree with it.
Why? Because it is unhistorical.
The reason Christianity continued to exist and survive wasn't because there was a particular default hermeneutic to sustain it - as much as I like, admire and share your commitment to the grammatical-historical approach.
Rather, it was because there was a community of faith which gathered around a particular apostolic deposit in such a way as to ensure its continuance.
That community of faith used various hermeneutical models, many of which, quite rightly, we are rubbishing or distancing ourselves from here.
Despite your protestations to the contrary, it ain't that big a leap for medieval Christians to have applied the Apostle Paul's observations about civil authorities to what they considered to be appropriate conduct by Christian rulers.
I very much doubt that Charlemagne had those pagan Saxons executed simply because they were pagans, rather it was because he felt they'd become some kind of 5th column once he'd absorbed Saxony into his empire.
Had a wandering Saxon trader ventured into his dominions I very much doubt he'd have had them arrested and executed. But a whole bunch of them defying what he'd have considered a reasonable request to convert, that was a different matter ...
I'm not justifying it or condoning it. It's a bollocky thing to do by anyone's standards.
But given the theocratic hermeneutical framework these guys were operating with then it makes some kind of twisted sense.
Where I will agree with you is that it would clearly have made Christianity harder to sustain if everyone adopted a completely allegorical approach. Of course, no-one ever adopted a totally allegorical approach - not even Augustine although he could be prone to that, of course.
As could the Apostle Paul, as has been pointed out upthread.
But nobody, apart perhaps from some very extreme fundies, has ever taken a completely literal approach either.
No, what we've ended up with is a fusion of various approaches with what we now know as the grammatical-historical method effectively coming out on top - within the framework of received Tradition or small t traditions of course.
Whatever else I believe, I do believe in the workings of God the Holy Spirit in history, through people and through the Church / churches - however we might define them within the framework of broadly historic, creedal Christianity in the overlapping Venn Diagram sense.
As do you.
So we are on the same page there, I think.
To a certain extent I think we are talking past each other, but equally, I'm afraid, I do think you are redacting your own particular position into history to some extent and assuming that it was always somehow the default position.
Which is disputable, I would suggest.
Which is why I've been disputing it.
I don't know what it is that I am refusing to 'admit'. That you are right and I am wrong?
You haven't even scratched the surface let alone provided any compelling evidence for your assertion other than to claim that it's obvious that Christianity would have collapsed and fragmented if your unfounded claims hadn't been the case.
I'm saying it's not obvious and you haven't proven that it is.
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
But nobody, apart perhaps from some very extreme fundies, has ever taken a completely literal approach either.
Actually not even them. They're just either not self-aware enough to realize it, or not honest enough to admit it.
Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
Yes, I do stage far too many come-backs. Mea culpa.
On which topic I had this to say. This isn't a hell call, just I couldn't say it here.
Posted by Russ (# 120) on
:
Setting on one side for a moment the question of whether the actions of the State can be terrorism.
Seems to me that the logic of Kaplan's position is that Charlemagne wasn't a Christian terrorist because he was a medieval Catholic rather than a real Christian. He's too polite to put it so baldly, but is saying that such a massacre is outside the range of acts that (modern reformed = real) Christianity would countenance.
Whereas the logic of Gamaliel's position is that the massacre wasn't an atrocity - something self-evidently wrong that only an evil person would do. But was just a mistake - a moral error that a good Christian could commit in good faith.
Indeed, you might even say that if history had taken a different turn we might be looking back on that massacre as the good and noble act of a wise king. So it's only a moral wrong by today's standards ?
Or is that not what you mean ?
Posted by Jamat (# 11621) on
:
quote:
Russ: It seems to me that the logic of Kaplan's position is that Charlemagne wasn't a Christian terrorist because he was a medieval Catholic rather than a real Christian
Well, no doubt he will clarify this himself but upthread somewhere he denied this. The contention AFAI understand it is that despite these violent actions being perpetrated by Christians, they were not 'Christian' actions because they cannot be justified by any authoritative teaching from the New Testament...with which I agree.
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
But they can be justified if you have a hermeneutic that works that way. Which is what Charlemagne and his contemporaries had.
The whole issue is around context and hermeneutics.
Having a hermeneutic that justifies it doesn't make it right.
That's the point.
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Russ:
Whereas the logic of Gamaliel's position is that the massacre wasn't an atrocity
How the fuck do you get that from anything Gamaliel has said?
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
Russ is even worse for not reading for comprehension.
FWIW, I believe it was an atrocity.
Because it would be logically possible to justify it using a medieval, theocratic hermeneutic doesn't diminish that.
Because Cromwell's massacre of the garrisons of Drogheda and Wexford could be justified by the rules of engagement in warfare at that time doesn't make that any less an atrocity either - and there was a religious dimension to that as RC clergy and monks were put to the sword as well as combatants and civilians caught up in 'collateral damage.'
So, no, I'm not saying it was an ickle mistake. I'm saying it was wrong on all sorts of levels.
Carry on ...
Posted by Russ (# 120) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:
Originally posted by Russ:
Whereas the logic of Gamaliel's position is that the massacre wasn't an atrocity
How the fuck do you get that from anything Gamaliel has said?
If you read the rest of the sentence, you'll see that I'm suggesting that "atrocity" carries the sense of something self-evidently wrong. Or maybe evil.
If something is justifiable, then it's not self-evidently wrong.
How can it be an atrocity and at the same time something that it's perfectly reasonable to do, as a valid interpretation of Christianity ? For someone who believes in Christianity ?
I'm not seeing how you can square this circle...
Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
It was valid, it was biblical, it was believed by Christians who understood it within the context of the New Testament.
It was never valid or biblical, and those Christians who believed otherwise were wrong.
Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Moo:
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
There's no trace of a period in which unmediated access to Scripture was considered authoritative.
Unless literacy was far more widespread than we believe, unmediated access to Scripture could never have been held the primary authority.
Not only was literacy not widespread, but texts were relatively rare, and most of them were in the possession of groups of Christians, rather than private individuals. The texts were read aloud in churches and this is how ordinary Christians came to know them.
Moo
True but irrelevant.
Amongst those who were literate, had access to the texts, and participated in theological dialogue, the underlying hermeneutic had to be essentially (though never uncorruptedly) historical-grammatical, because the arbitrary and subjective alternatives (such as freewheeling allegory) would have rendered communication and discussion and development impossible.
Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
Where I will agree with you is that it would clearly have made Christianity harder to sustain if everyone adopted a completely allegorical approach. Of course, no-one ever adopted a totally allegorical approach - not even Augustine although he could be prone to that, of course.
Arbitrarily rather than "totally".
Augustine inherited his allegorising indirectly from from Origen and directly from Ambrose, and found it useful for dealing with criticisms of the Bible from sources such as his old mates the Manichaeans, by using it to pretend that difficult passages were 'really' allegorical.
quote:
As could the Apostle Paul, as has been pointed out upthread.
You don't need me to spell out for you the problems with the implied proposition; "the inspired and canonical writer Paul used allegory, therefore all subsequent Christians are entitled to do so when and as they are inclined".
quote:
But nobody, apart perhaps from some very extreme fundies, has ever taken a completely literal approach either.
There is not, never was, and never will be, a "complete" literalist, "fundy" or otherwise.
The term literalist is lazy and meaningless when used generally, and can only be used in specific contexts such as YEC, dispensationalism, and sacramentalist controversies ("hoc est corpus meum").
[ 01. August 2017, 23:02: Message edited by: Kaplan Corday ]
Posted by Jamat (# 11621) on
:
quote:
Gamaliel:But they can be justified if you have a hermeneutic that works that way.
Not if it is a real hermeneutic rather than an eisigetical justification, which is really what is clear from the Tyernan review link posted above.
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Russ:
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:
Originally posted by Russ:
Whereas the logic of Gamaliel's position is that the massacre wasn't an atrocity
How the fuck do you get that from anything Gamaliel has said?
If you read the rest of the sentence, you'll see that I'm suggesting that "atrocity" carries the sense of something self-evidently wrong. Or maybe evil.
You don't get to redefine words. You have to use the words we have with the meanings they have, or make your own. Otherwise we are not communicating at all, just mouthing sounds (or typing and reading them) and talking past one another. Repeat: to communicate, you must use words with their accustomed meanings. You may not make up new meanings for old words.
An atrocity is "an extremely wicked or cruel act, typically one involving physical violence or injury." Not "self-evidently wrong."
Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
It was valid, it was biblical, it was believed by Christians who understood it within the context of the New Testament.
It was never valid or biblical, and those Christians who believed otherwise were wrong.
This is the crux of the failure of your analysis - a lack of imagination.
According to the normal definition of words that most people accept, the ideas were a hermeneutic (they were part of a system of thought for understanding the bible), it was valid (it added up and was internally consistent etc) and it was biblical (it was strongly based on the bible).
You can say otherwise but only by redefining words.
The fact is, despite your repeated claims with no evidence whatsoever, that one can read the bible and believe it is telling you to commit gross acts of violence. It doesn't require much effort.
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
A duff hermeneutic is still a hermeneutic.
I'm not saying that Charlemagne's actions were justifiable.
I'm saying that they can only be justified by using a hermeneutic that makes them justifiable. Which is what medieval people seem to have done
Can you not see the difference - Russ, Kaplan, Jamat?
Neither am I saying that because the Apostle Paul allegorised then we all have carte-blanche to allegorise arbitrarily.
As for the reasons he did so, yes, I agree with the reasons Kaplan had outlined.
However, I would add that allegorising was certainly part of the interpretative tool-kit on a wider scale back then than it is now. From what I can gather, the Alexandrian Patriarchate was generally more allegorical in its approach than the others. Antioch was particularly noted for a more literal and less allegorical approach. The others, presumably, embodied elements of both.
All I'm saying is that they were operating with a whole web and mesh of approaches and understandings. We do today, but in a different kind of way.
That doesn't mean that we don't deplore those actions they took that we find wide of the mark - executing pagans or heretics, burning witches, exiling dissidents, going on Crusades, drilling holes in people's tongues for blasphemy as the Puritans did and everything else that we can think of that goes against the grain ...
But it is to acknowledge that they operated with hermeneutical models that made such things possible and which justified them in their eyes at the time.
That doesn't mean that those hermeneutical frameworks were 'right'. Nor does it condone their actions.
But it is to provide an historical perspective and to use more imagination than some posters here appear capable of doing.
Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on
:
I think maybe this talk of hermeneutics is actually making this harder work than it needs to be.
I think most people accept that we understand the scriptures in particular because of various factors; historical, cultural, our tradition etc. These inform the way we see the world, to the extent that when we read the biblical text we see things as natural readings that other people don't see there.
We might be able to say that certain readings of the bible are wrong, that's a point to argue. But we can't in all seriousness claim that particular people in a particular circumstance were not able honestly to see violence as justified by the bible. Because it is clear that they did.
The only other option is that they were dishonest and had other reasons to believe in violence and were dressing it up in theological explanations. If that's what you are arguing, kindly offer some evidence beyond "I don't like this" arguments.
Posted by Jamat (# 11621) on
:
quote:
Mr Cheesy: according to the normal definition of words that most people accept, the ideas were a hermeneutic (they were part of a system of thought for understanding the bible), it was valid (it added up and was internally consistent etc) and it was biblical (it was strongly based on the bible)
Well you have to redefine what a hermeneutic does to believe this. It actually helps you to interpret and understand the text.
According to the authority you cited, Christopher Tyernan, Pope Urban actually used the text to justify the first crusade in a way that was quite blatantly cynical. What he did according to Tyernan, was preach in 1095, that war was called for to:
" aid Byzantium and the eastern Christians and recapture the holy city enmeshed with the transcendent purpose of serving God by liberating the holy sepulchre as an individual and collective act of piety and redemption."
It is admitted that nothing in the New Testament requires Christians to possess Jerusalem or the holy sepulchre. I would argue that you cannot say that his method was a valid hermeneutic.
Contrary to what you are asserting here he was not using a cogent method of textual exposition, it was not internally consistent and so it was certainly not valid.
[ 02. August 2017, 08:51: Message edited by: Jamat ]
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
quote:
Gamaliel:But they can be justified if you have a hermeneutic that works that way.
Not if it is a real hermeneutic rather than an eisigetical justification, which is really what is clear from the Tyernan review link posted above.
Your hermeneutic is real and wrong. It denies science and is homophobic.
Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
quote:
Mr Cheesy: according to the normal definition of words that most people accept, the ideas were a hermeneutic (they were part of a system of thought for understanding the bible), it was valid (it added up and was internally consistent etc) and it was biblical (it was strongly based on the bible)
Well you have to redefine what a hermeneutic does to believe this. It actually helps you to interpret and understand the text.
According to the authority you cited, Christopher Tyernan, Pope Urban actually used the text to justify the first crusade in a way that was quite blatantly cynical. What he did according to Tyernan, was preach in 1095, that war was called for to:
" aid Byzantium and the eastern Christians and recapture the holy city enmeshed with the transcendent purpose of serving God by liberating the holy sepulchre as an individual and collective act of piety and redemption."
It is admitted that nothing in the New Testament requires Christians to possess Jerusalem or the holy sepulchre. I would argue that you cannot say that his method was a valid hermeneutic.
Yes, but a hermeneutic is a way of understanding the scriptures, it isn't saying that there are no extensions beyond it or that everything is justified by scripture alone.
The fact is that they believed violence was justified, they also believed that the epistles pointed to the Pope being God's representative on the earth. They then - fairly reasonably - thought that this meant if the Pope declared a holy war then that was a war fought on the side of Good. They then - fairly reasonably - thought that this meant they needed to defend Jerusalem.
The whole thing was a package of understanding built upon and reinforcing itself. That's what a hermeneutic is.
quote:
Contrary to what you are asserting here he was not using a cogent method of textual exposition, it was not internally consistent and so it was certainly not valid.
Bullshit. What are you talking about?
Posted by Crsos (# 238) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Russ:
Setting on one side for a moment the question of whether the actions of the State can be terrorism.
I'd argue that certain states rule through terror, but if you feel more comfortable discussing non-state actors in this context I've already mentioned the Ku Klux Klan, a well-known terror organization that saw themselves as explicitly Christian.
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
It is admitted that nothing in the New Testament requires Christians to possess Jerusalem or the holy sepulchre. I would argue that you cannot say that his method was a valid hermeneutic.
Contrary to what you are asserting here he was not using a cogent method of textual exposition, it was not internally consistent and so it was certainly not valid.
I'm pretty sure your suggested hermeneutic of 'if it's not explicitly required by the New Testament, it's inherently un-Christian' isn't valid either. It's also something that seems very selective in its application. There's nothing in the New Testament that requires Christians to possess Jerusalem or the holy sepulchre, therefore doing so is un-Christian. There's also nothing in the New Testament requiring Christians to go on pilgrimages to places like Santiago de Compostela, but very few would argue that real and proper Christianity forbids such an activity.
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
Jamat would.
The Bible was written by Protestants. Didn't you know that?
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
Joking aside, it would be very easy to construct a hermeneutic to argue that the tenor of the NT is against pilgrimages and the setting aside of places as places of significant spiritual significance.
I know. I've followed that hermeneutic myself.
I would also suggest that it wouldn't be that difficult to create one to justify theocracy and its attendent hegemonic control if conditions, context and setting coincided in a way that encouraged that to happen. As in the middle ages.
Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on
:
I just think this whole "it's not a hermeneutic unless I say so" project is doomed to failure because it is blatantly stupid.
And also misunderstands what it is that is being said about hermeneutics anyway; namely that they're very powerful ways of understanding the scriptures and the world which have fairly predictable outcomes but may be essentially meaningless and unfathomable to someone outside of the mindset.
The fact that a 21 century evangelical can't get his head around how a 10 century Pope justified the crusades does not somehow mean the latter didn't have a hermeneutic.
Which is obvious to everyone who doesn't hold Jamat's hermeneutic, I suppose.
Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on
:
Aren't a lot of these arguments about semantics? Whether something is valid, whether something flows from a hermeneutic - these seem to be subjective issues to me. You can't objectively extract an interpretation from a text, can you?
As to saying that 'X is wrong, when he says that these texts permit us, or enable us, or impel us, to do such and such', again this seems subjective to me, unless there is a direct citation.
Violence is certainly an interesting issue, as the Hebrew Bible (OT) doesn't seem to shrink from it, whereas the NT does. I assume that Christians have historically given different weight to these.
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
Arguably, the NT doesn't shrink away from violence. It's perfectly permissible for the civil authorities to inflict violence on offenders, the Apostle Paul declares. Not only that, they are appointed by God so presumably have a God-given mandate to do so.
Therefore, the logic in Charlemagne's case would go like this:
- The Apostle Paul says it is permissible for rulers - who are all appointed by God, even if they are pagan - to wield the sword against wrong-doers.
- I am a ruler.
- Those pagan Saxons who are refusing to convert are wrong-doers.
- Therefore, as a divinely appointed and sanctioned ruler I am perfectly within my rights to kill them.
It's crass and wrong on all sorts of counts, but it's by no means illogical given that mindset.
The text doesn't say:
'It is permissible for the civil authorities to kill malefactors, unless of course they happen to be Christians in which case they shouldn't, or in cases of religious diversity in which case we should respect individual consciences and not execute people purely on the basis of their beliefs ...'
It doesn't say that and we can only interpret it that way by applying a hermeneutic that favours that interpretation.
I happen to agree with that interpretation but it is not implicit in the text itself. The text isn't dealing with that particular issue.
Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
Aren't a lot of these arguments about semantics? Whether something is valid, whether something flows from a hermeneutic - these seem to be subjective issues to me. You can't objectively extract an interpretation from a text, can you?
I think a hermeneutic is basically descriptive. So unless we're into some kind of situation where someone is being deceptive - and pretending that they're doing something from a religion when in fact they're not at all - then if someone has acted from their understanding of the biblical text, then that's a hermeneutic.
The whole issue of "validity" is a red herring unless one is going to try to argue that it is all a fake. And the two people pushing this stuff about it being invalid and/or not being a hermeneutic haven't made that argument.
quote:
As to saying that 'X is wrong, when he says that these texts permit us, or enable us, or impel us, to do such and such', again this seems subjective to me, unless there is a direct citation.
That's certainly the point as far as I'm concerned.
To wit: there are plenty of ways to read the biblical text, and some of them appear to justify violence. One can't get around biblically inspired violence simply by saying that the participants weren't reading the bible.
quote:
Violence is certainly an interesting issue, as the Hebrew Bible (OT) doesn't seem to shrink from it, whereas the NT does. I assume that Christians have historically given different weight to these.
Again, the bible has been read in many different ways. Hence many different people have many different ideas which have sprung from the same text.
Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on
:
Gamaliel wrote:
quote:
Arguably, the NT doesn't shrink away from violence. It's perfectly permissible for the civil authorities to inflict violence on offenders, the Apostle Paul declares. Not only that, they are appointed by God so presumably have a God-given mandate to do so.
And I assume many Christians since have used a similar argument, especially in wars. I was browsing stuff about the US civil war, and saw this comment, We are working out a great thought of God, declared the South Carolina Episcopal theologian James Warley Miles, namely the higher development of Humanity in its capacity for Constitutional Liberty.
But I suppose also that setbacks in battle would be seen as providential, or a 'scourge of God'.
https://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/04/27/the-south-the-war-and-christian-slavery/
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
Of course, quetzacoatl.
Are Christians right to make these sort of claims?
If so, when?
Oliver Cromwell is said to have observed, 'every man that wages war believes God to be on his side. I'll warrant that God must often wonder who is on his.'
Which sounds droll and reasonable until we read that he also wrote, 'God made them as stubble to our swords.'
He certainly believed that God was on his side.
He regretted that non-combatants were killed at Drogheda and Wexford but felt it was justifiable in hastening the end of hostilities in Ireland.
The atomic bombs at Hiroshima and Nagasaki were justified using the same kind of reasoning in WW2.
Were the allies justified? Was Cromwell justified? Who decides?
It's easy to say, 'An authoritative New Testament ...' as if there's a proof-text for every eventuality.
Things are never that simple.
Posted by Crsos (# 238) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
Oliver Cromwell is said to have observed, 'every man that wages war believes God to be on his side. I'll warrant that God must often wonder who is on his.'
To borrow another quote from a leader on both sides invoking the same God in war:
quote:
Both read the same Bible and pray to the same God, and each invokes His aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God's assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men's faces, but let us judge not, that we be not judged. The prayers of both could not be answered. That of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has His own purposes.
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
quote:
Mr Cheesy: according to the normal definition of words that most people accept, the ideas were a hermeneutic (they were part of a system of thought for understanding the bible), it was valid (it added up and was internally consistent etc) and it was biblical (it was strongly based on the bible)
Well you have to redefine what a hermeneutic does to believe this. It actually helps you to interpret and understand the text.
According to the authority you cited, Christopher Tyernan, Pope Urban actually used the text to justify the first crusade in a way that was quite blatantly cynical. What he did according to Tyernan, was preach in 1095, that war was called for to:
" aid Byzantium and the eastern Christians and recapture the holy city enmeshed with the transcendent purpose of serving God by liberating the holy sepulchre as an individual and collective act of piety and redemption."
It is admitted that nothing in the New Testament requires Christians to possess Jerusalem or the holy sepulchre. I would argue that you cannot say that his method was a valid hermeneutic.
Contrary to what you are asserting here he was not using a cogent method of textual exposition, it was not internally consistent and so it was certainly not valid.
Nothing in the New Testament? What no reading of Revelation?
Posted by Russ (# 120) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
An atrocity is "an extremely wicked or cruel act, typically one involving physical violence or injury." Not "self-evidently wrong."
You don't think being extremely wicked and cruel is self-evidently wrong ?
You don't think Christianity is inherently opposed to wicked and cruel acts ? That Christianity as a belief system is inherently indifferent to such acts, so that an interpretation that favours such acts is just as Christian as one that rejects them ?
Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
A duff hermeneutic is still a hermeneutic.
If you actually read what I wrote you would have noticed that I have never tried to pretend that a crap hermeneutic is not a hermeneutic.
There is a hermeneutic behind the belief in the revelatory significance of the measurements of the Great Pyramid.
So please give this point a rest.
quote:
Neither am I saying that because the Apostle Paul allegorised then we all have carte-blanche to allegorise arbitrarily.
As for the reasons he did so, yes, I agree with the reasons Kaplan had outlined.
I gave reasons for Augustine's, not Paul's, allegorising.
Once again, you don't read what I write.
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Russ:
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
An atrocity is "an extremely wicked or cruel act, typically one involving physical violence or injury." Not "self-evidently wrong."
You don't think being extremely wicked and cruel is self-evidently wrong ?
Certainly. From that it does not follow in the least that "atrocity" means "self-evident wrong." You might want to say it's a TYPE of self-evident wrong. But 2+2=5 is self-evidently wrong, and NOT an atrocity. Again, stop trying to force words to mean something they do not. Why not just take them as they come? Why the need to redefine?
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
A duff hermeneutic is still a hermeneutic.
If you actually read what I wrote you would have noticed that I have never tried to pretend that a crap hermeneutic is not a hermeneutic.
There is a hermeneutic behind the belief in the revelatory significance of the measurements of the Great Pyramid.
So please give this point a rest.
quote:
Neither am I saying that because the Apostle Paul allegorised then we all have carte-blanche to allegorise arbitrarily.
As for the reasons he did so, yes, I agree with the reasons Kaplan had outlined.
I gave reasons for Augustine's, not Paul's, allegorising.
Once again, you don't read what I write.
Right. My comments about denying that a crap hermeneutic is actually a hermeneutic were aimed at Jamat not you. I should have made that clear. But I am tempted to quote Carly Simon ...
On t'other issue, about allegorising. I typed quickly and lazily again and should have reviewed my post.
I meant to make two points, one about Paul, one about Augustine. Looking at it now, I didn't make that clear in my rush and clumsiness.
What I meant was that I agreed with your point about the reasons Augustine allegorised so arbitrarily.
So apologies for posting at length and without due care and attention. Mr cheesy and others are taking me to task about that in Hell.
On the Augustine thing, it also occurs to me that he has to share the 'blame' for the kind of Charlemagne / Crusader approach we all deplore. He believed it was fine for rulers to impose religious uniformity by force. From what someone has uncovered upthread it would seem that Charlemagne had a penchant for 'Gussie's writings.
Cromwell's 'God made them as stubble for our swords' also, I submit, also largely derives from the Augustinian strand in Western theology and thought.
What I don't buy, and forgive me here if I contest something here that you aren't claiming, is the idea that the crappier aspects of Augustine's approach were a falling away from previous high standards, as it were. Rather, they were a logical development from previous emphases - that should have been tempered - and a response to particular influences.
That's not a million miles from your position in that we both agree that those elements are far from ideal.
Posted by Jamat (# 11621) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
Jamat would.
The Bible was written by Protestants. Didn't you know that?
The Bible was written by Jews.
Gamaliel I am not what you think. You have this tendency to box and categorise rather indiscriminately.
On the topic in hand, my concept of a 'hermeneutic' is that it is in this context, a word to do quite specifically with Biblical exposition. If you treat it as a wider idea than that, then it seems to become simply a means of using a Christian meta narrative that encompasses church practice and tradition as a means of justification for political and military action.
While such a justification was obviously exercised by Bernard of Clairveau and Pope Urban 2 when they began the crusade, I have a hard time applying the word 'hermeneutic' to that or defining such action as Cromwell's even, as based in a truly Biblical hermeneutic.
He thought obviously that he was the Lord Protector under God and that he was doing God's will, but what pushed his decisions was the political climate as much as his faith. I think he probably of all the Christian political 'terrorists' of history, was the one most likely to have followed his conscience but I think he would have struggled to justify his actions in Ireland from the New Testament.
Posted by Dafyd (# 5549) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Russ:
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
An atrocity is "an extremely wicked or cruel act, typically one involving physical violence or injury." Not "self-evidently wrong."
You don't think being extremely wicked and cruel is self-evidently wrong ?
Being extremely wicked and cruel is self-evidently wrong; but it is not always self-evident what is extremely wicked and cruel. (I'd go off into a discussion of de dicto and de re self-evidence but I think it would only confuse matters further.)
Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on
:
Jamat wrote:
quote:
He thought obviously that he was the Lord Protector under God and that he was doing God's will, but what pushed his decisions was the political climate as much as his faith. I think he probably of all the Christian political 'terrorists' of history, was the one most likely to have followed his conscience but I think he would have struggled to justify his actions in Ireland from the New Testament.
You're getting close to the no True Scotsman fallacy - that Cromwell had his own theological reasons for what he did, but they were not correct, or something like that. Which often means, I don't agree with them.
Looking back at the various examples in this thread, including Cromwell and the Civil War preacher, it's striking how people tend to identify their own position as God's.
Similarly, it's quite tempting to say that I have a hermeneutic, and you have an eisegetical interpretation. I can feel a conjugation coming on.
Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
quote:
Originally posted by Russ:
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
An atrocity is "an extremely wicked or cruel act, typically one involving physical violence or injury." Not "self-evidently wrong."
You don't think being extremely wicked and cruel is self-evidently wrong ?
Being extremely wicked and cruel is self-evidently wrong; but it is not always self-evident what is extremely wicked and cruel. (I'd go off into a discussion of de dicto and de re self-evidence but I think it would only confuse matters further.)
It's also confusing semantics with real world knowledge. Most people would agree that burglary is wrong, but the meaning of 'burglary' isn't 'wrong'. Similarly, the meaning of atrocity isn't. Interestingly, 'murder' does seem to carry the meaning 'illegal' or something like that. Hence, the difference between do not kill, and do not murder.
Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
While such a justification was obviously exercised by Bernard of Clairveau and Pope Urban 2 when they began the crusade, I have a hard time applying the word 'hermeneutic' to that or defining such action as Cromwell's even, as based in a truly Biblical hermeneutic.
Then you've simply reinterpreted the word to make it mean what you want it to mean. In the process actually subverting what it is that the term is supposed to be describing.
Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on
:
Apologies for 3rd post, but I forgot to say that David Hume famously cited Cromwell's massacres as preventing further rebellions. Pretty much the Hiroshima argument, I suppose (somebody has already mentioned this). But Hume's argument is a secular one really, which is interesting.
Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
While such a justification was obviously exercised by Bernard of Clairveau and Pope Urban 2 when they began the crusade, I have a hard time applying the word 'hermeneutic' to that or defining such action as Cromwell's even, as based in a truly Biblical hermeneutic.
Then you've simply reinterpreted the word to make it mean what you want it to mean. In the process actually subverting what it is that the term is supposed to be describing.
But, a word means what I choose it to mean, neither more nor less.
Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
It's also confusing semantics with real world knowledge. Most people would agree that burglary is wrong, but the meaning of 'burglary' isn't 'wrong'. Similarly, the meaning of atrocity isn't. Interestingly, 'murder' does seem to carry the meaning 'illegal' or something like that. Hence, the difference between do not kill, and do not murder.
Words change their meaning over time anyway - I think we all appreciate that.
To me this is less about a semantic discussion and more about an effort led by Jamat to say that something isn't a hermeneutic when he hasn't defined that term (and is in fact using it in a way that is different to almost everyone else) and Kaplan claiming that something is valid without defining that term (and in fact using it in a way that is different to almost anyone else).
The combined effect is that they're together claiming something doesn't match up to a standard that they've self-defined. And then they've gone on to claim that they don't even need any evidence to show that it has (or hasn't) met their arbitary standard, it is in fact self-evident.
I don't think I've seen such a ridiculous argument in a long time.
[ 03. August 2017, 10:24: Message edited by: mr cheesy ]
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
Jamat would.
The Bible was written by Protestants. Didn't you know that?
The Bible was written by Jews.
Gamaliel I am not what you think. You have this tendency to box and categorise rather indiscriminately.
On the topic in hand, my concept of a 'hermeneutic' is that it is in this context, a word to do quite specifically with Biblical exposition. If you treat it as a wider idea than that, then it seems to become simply a means of using a Christian meta narrative that encompasses church practice and tradition as a means of justification for political and military action.
While such a justification was obviously exercised by Bernard of Clairveau and Pope Urban 2 when they began the crusade, I have a hard time applying the word 'hermeneutic' to that or defining such action as Cromwell's even, as based in a truly Biblical hermeneutic.
He thought obviously that he was the Lord Protector under God and that he was doing God's will, but what pushed his decisions was the political climate as much as his faith. I think he probably of all the Christian political 'terrorists' of history, was the one most likely to have followed his conscience but I think he would have struggled to justify his actions in Ireland from the New Testament.
Yes, of course I know the NT was written by Jews ...
I was teasing you.
If anything, you are exemplifying the point I am trying to make and putting yourself into the box you claim I'm trying to slot you into.
What possible reason do you have for asserting that - although wrong - Cromwell was acting more in tune with his conscience than a Bernard of Clairvaux, say or a Pope Urban II other than the fact that he was a Protestant and they were Catholics?
You are also still hung up on this thing about justifying actions 'from the New Testament' rather than people's understandings of the New Testament.
As though you can somehow disaggregate the two.
As Lord Protector of England, Cromwell would have certainly believed that he had the right to wield the sword against those he considered enemies of the state.
Heck, even before he became Lord Protector and was still fighting against the King he believed he had a divine mandate for what he was doing.
'The Lord made them as stubble to our swords,' he wrote after the Battle of Marston Moor.
He clearly believed it was right to kill one's enemies in the context of a rebellion. I can't remember which historian it was who made the trenchant observation that Cromwell started out rebelling against the 'Divine Right of Kings' and ended up believing in 'the Divine Right of Cromwell.'
As for the NT thing. No, I don't believe it's right or possible to justify this sort of thing from the NT. Why not?
Because that's not how I understand and interpret the NT.
If I were Charlemagne, Cromwell or even some US Civil War general then I probably wouldn't find as much inconsistency as I do know. Why not? Because I'd have thought like them and used the same hermeneutical principles they used.
I've said this already. Many times. You still not don't get it.
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
mr cheesy has said it better than I.
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
On the topic in hand, my concept of a 'hermeneutic' is that it is in this context, a word to do quite specifically with Biblical exposition. If you treat it as a wider idea than that, then it seems to become simply a means of using a Christian meta narrative that encompasses church practice and tradition as a means of justification for political and military action.
To address this point specifically ...
What I am others are saying is that whilst a hermeneutic is quite specifically to do with Biblical exposition, such exposition never, ever takes place in isolation.
I think you understand that point.
As soon as any of us begin to exegete we do so within the framework and context of ... well, our own particular framework and context.
That applies to medieval theologians. That applies to Oliver Cromwell. That applies to US Civil War generals. That applies to you and I.
We cannot disaggregate exegesis from a wider Christian metanarrative. Exegesis takes place within a wider metanarrative.
Exegesis or eisegesis or anything else - gesis doesn't happen in glorious isolation.
Exegesis is part of tradition - small t or Big T.
Exegesis is itself part of a metanarrative.
Posted by Russ (# 120) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:
Originally posted by Russ:
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
An atrocity is "an extremely wicked or cruel act, typically one involving physical violence or injury." Not "self-evidently wrong."
You don't think being extremely wicked and cruel is self-evidently wrong ?
Certainly. From that it does not follow in the least that "atrocity" means "self-evident wrong." You might want to say it's a TYPE of self-evident wrong. But 2+2=5 is self-evidently wrong, and NOT an atrocity. Again, stop trying to force words to mean something they do not.
I'm not forcing words to mean anything.
I'm suggesting that some actions are so wrong that it's hard to believe that anyone could not have an inkling that they are wrong. That some things are so bad that anyone with a shred of moral sense would have some perception of their wrongness.
You may reject that idea, and think there is no crime so heinous that a good man can't be persuaded to commit it ?
Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Russ:
I'm not forcing words to mean anything.
I'm suggesting that some actions are so wrong that it's hard to believe that anyone could not have an inkling that they are wrong. That some things are so bad that anyone with a shred of moral sense would have some perception of their wrongness.
Really. You are honestly telling me that nobody can commit genocide without thinking that there is something wrong with what they're doing?
I think you have a rather optimistic outlook on the human condition.
Posted by Crsos (# 238) on
:
The insistence on a New Testament justification for anything to be considered "Christian" seems like a whole lot of special pleading designed to reach a pre-desired answer. The evidence for this is the way such a standard is not applied to a lot of other human endeavors. Take a look at the What if Christianity never existed thread for an example of people claiming as "Christian" a whole bunch of stuff not explicitly authorized by the New Testament. When it's comes to music, or architecture, or even the scientific method the thinnest connection is considered justification for considering such things "Christian", even in the absence of New Testament justifications for such things. But when it comes to human endeavors we don't think so highly of, like terrorism or war or slave trading, suddenly a different and much more stringent standard is applied to determine the "Christian-ness" of such activities.
I'm not seeing a standard much more consistent than "we want all the credit for the stuff we consider 'good' and none of the blame for things we consider 'bad'".
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Russ:
I'm suggesting that some actions are so wrong that it's hard to believe that anyone could not have an inkling that they are wrong. That some things are so bad that anyone with a shred of moral sense would have some perception of their wrongness.
You may reject that idea, and think there is no crime so heinous that a good man can't be persuaded to commit it ?
Suggest away. Just do it without twisting the meanings of words.
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
Yes, of course I know the NT was written by Jews ...
Luke wasn't a Jew.
Posted by leo (# 1458) on
:
though probably a 'Godfearer' - sort of honarary Jew.
Posted by Crsos (# 238) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
Yes, of course I know the NT was written by Jews ...
Luke wasn't a Jew.
Debatable. There are some who will advance the argument that he was a Hellenized Jew.
Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on
:
Does it matter?
Posted by Crsos (# 238) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
Does it matter?
The identity of authors only matters to the extent that authorial context and authorial intent matter.
Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Crsos:
The identity of authors only matters to the extent that authorial context and authorial intent matter.
OK, but I'm not sure it matters in the context of this discussion given that presumably we all accept that from fairly early on there were non-Jewish Christians.
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
The point is, they weren't 16th century, 18th century nor 21st century Protestants, neither were they 13th century Roman Catholics or 9th century Byzantine Emperors or Empresses nor blokes called Charley who wanted to revive the Western Roman Empire ...
Posted by Russ (# 120) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
You are honestly telling me that nobody can commit genocide without thinking that there is something wrong with what they're doing?
Something like that, yes. That good people don't just happen to commit the massacre of the innocents on the honestly-mistaken belief that this is a good thing to do. That such acts require deliberately embracing one's own dark side. Or being actively deceived by real evil.
Because asserting the contrary - that people have no moral intuition at all - undermines all moral judgments.
And if you believe that we humans have some sort of moral intuition - albeit imperfect, that we struggle to disentangle from our other feelings - then to call something an atrocity - extremely wicked - is to say that it is something that a functioning moral intuition ought to be urging you against doing.
Posted by Russ (# 120) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
The point is, they weren't 16th century, 18th century nor 21st century Protestants, neither were they 13th century Roman Catholics or 9th century Byzantine Emperors...
There is truth in what you say.
But if you go all the way with that, is there any such thing as Christianity ?
Life's messy. We're dealing with sets of ideas not entirely identical but not entirely dissimilar either.
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Russ:
But if you go all the way with that, is there any such thing as Christianity ?
We're talking about the ethics of just war here, not the basics of Christian belief.
Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Russ:
Something like that, yes. That good people don't just happen to commit the massacre of the innocents on the honestly-mistaken belief that this is a good thing to do. That such acts require deliberately embracing one's own dark side. Or being actively deceived by real evil.
Riiiight.
I think it is a simpler explanation that people actually thought it was the right thing to do at the time.
Posted by Dafyd (# 5549) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Russ:
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
You are honestly telling me that nobody can commit genocide without thinking that there is something wrong with what they're doing?
Something like that, yes. That good people don't just happen to commit the massacre of the innocents on the honestly-mistaken belief that this is a good thing to do.
It does appear looking at history that otherwise good people have approved of things that look unconscionable now. There were always people who condemned the slave trade; however, rather more than we might wish seem to have found they could live with it. People have always managed to think that massacres committed by their side are more excusable than massacres committed by their enemies.
A faith that moral intuition is always sufficient to avoid moral wrongdoing seems to me morally reckless. I don't think we're capable of moral infallibility; behaving as if we are is a good way to exacerbate our moral failings. It would also I think imply that we are always capable of an accurate assessment of our own moral state; I think that's clearly untrue.
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on
:
Excellent. The uselessness of Evangelical piety, conservative and traditional distinctives comes to mind.
Posted by stonespring (# 15530) on
:
Going back to the OP - is anyone here trying to argue that Christianity is harder to legitimately interpret in a way that endorses terrorism or other acts of violence than Islam? Can't we all agree that any religion with over a billion adherents, spread across very different cultures, and over a thousand years of history, not to mention many different strands of theology and (Gamaliel's favorite word in this thread) hermeneutics that developed over that history, cannot have a neat fence put around what are legitimate interpretations of its scripture and other doctrinal texts?
Posted by Jamat (# 11621) on
:
quote:
it's quite tempting to say that I have a hermeneutic, and you have an eisegetical interpretation.
And it is obvious which is which. One begins with the text and some principal methods of demystifying it, the other begins with a conviction or determination and attempts to justify it from the text.
Posted by Jamat (# 11621) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
Excellent. The uselessness of Evangelical piety, conservative and traditional distinctives comes to mind.
Martin, any kind of piety is better than none. Evangelical piety connotes Calvin in a hard knocker to me and that is not my kind particularly if it is anti science and homophobic. However, YMMV.
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
quote:
it's quite tempting to say that I have a hermeneutic, and you have an eisegetical interpretation.
And it is obvious which is which. One begins with the text and some principal methods of demystifying it, the other begins with a conviction or determination and attempts to justify it from the text.
Ouch.
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
Ha ha ...
Yes, my irony-ometer began to emit a shrill tone when I read that too!
Jamat, what is 'obvious' to you isn't always so to everyone else. Also what you think of as 'obvious' is itself a product of a range of factors, influences and conditions.
We none of us have simply the text.
Yes, yes, I know, I've said it before. So have lots of other people. But you still don't get it.
Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
Martin, any kind of piety is better than none.
Unless one is a pious Muslim, Hindu etc.
quote:
Evangelical piety connotes Calvin in a hard knocker to me and that is not my kind particularly if it is anti science and homophobic. However, YMMV.
Creationism is anti-science. Maybe you didn't get the memo.
Posted by Jamat (# 11621) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
Ha ha ...
Yes, my irony-ometer began to emit a shrill tone when I read that too!
Jamat, what is 'obvious' to you isn't always so to everyone else. Also what you think of as 'obvious' is itself a product of a range of factors, influences and conditions.
We none of us have simply the text.
Yes, yes, I know, I've said it before. So have lots of other people. But you still don't get it.
Just the text? Not suggesting anyone has just the text or that anything is obvious itself in itself. That's why you need hermeneutics. The question is first what is one and second,what is a good one.
Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
And it is obvious which is which. One begins with the text and some principal methods of demystifying it, the other begins with a conviction or determination and attempts to justify it from the text.
In all seriousness, Jamat, I believe that beginning "with a conviction or determination and attempts to justify it from the text" is exactly what conservative creationist Evangelicalism is doing.
If you can't see that this is how others perceive your theological tribe, then you might do well to look in a mirror.
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
Excellent. The uselessness of Evangelical piety, conservative and traditional distinctives comes to mind.
Martin, any kind of piety is better than none. Evangelical piety connotes Calvin in a hard knocker to me and that is not my kind particularly if it is anti science and homophobic. However, YMMV.
But you ride all the dead horses thanks to your wooden saddle hermeneutic, polished with good English. I don't understand.
Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
On the Augustine thing, it also occurs to me that he has to share the 'blame' for the kind of Charlemagne / Crusader approach we all deplore. He believed it was fine for rulers to impose religious uniformity by force. From what someone has uncovered upthread it would seem that Charlemagne had a penchant for 'Gussie's writings.
Gussie? Mr. Ofhippo to you.
Yes, he was guilty of more than one crappy approach to Scripture, both allegorising it, and twisting it to suit his anti-Donatist obsession.
Christian state persecution of heretics predated his dominance, however.
The first victim, Priscillian, was executed at about the time of Augustine's conversion.
quote:
Cromwell's 'God made them as stubble for our swords' also, I submit, also largely derives from the Augustinian strand in Western theology and thought.
Possibly, along with the singing of Psalm 68, "Let God arise, His enemies be scattered" after his trouncing of the Scotch at Dunbar.
quote:
What I don't buy, and forgive me here if I contest something here that you aren't claiming, is the idea that the crappier aspects of Augustine's approach were a falling away from previous high standards, as it were.
I have never argued for a golden age of sound hermeneutics from which subsequent exegetes lapsed.
What I would maintain is that there was an underlying and continuing grammatical-historical approach, with all sorts of corruptions of it in different areas and by different expositors in different eras, ie there was never an absolute exegetical free-for-all with no criteria at all,, which permitted anyone to say anything about how to interpret the Bible.
Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
What I would maintain is that there was an underlying and continuing grammatical-historical approach, with all sorts of corruptions of it in different areas and by different expositors in different eras, ie there was never an absolute exegetical free-for-all with no criteria at all,, which permitted anyone to say anything about how to interpret the Bible.
An assertion you've made numerous times without evidence or reasoning and which flies in the face of history.
Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
What I would maintain is that there was an underlying and continuing grammatical-historical approach, with all sorts of corruptions of it in different areas and by different expositors in different eras, ie there was never an absolute exegetical free-for-all with no criteria at all,, which permitted anyone to say anything about how to interpret the Bible.
An assertion you've made numerous times without evidence or reasoning and which flies in the face of history.
What flies in the face of history is any attempt to explain the survival and development of Christianity in the face of the alleged simultaneous existence of innumerable discrete, atomised, exclusive and subjective methods of interpretation - hermetically sealed hermeneutics, as it were.
Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
I think it is a simpler explanation that people actually thought it was the right thing to do at the time.
He's right, Russ.
Read a recent history of the Holocaust, Rees or Cesarani for example.
Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
What flies in the face of history is any attempt to explain the survival and development of Christianity in the face of the alleged simultaneous existence of innumerable discrete, atomised, exclusive and subjective methods of interpretation - hermetically sealed hermeneutics, as it were.
I don't understand how your last six words apply to the rest of your rant. Maybe you can enlighten me.
And maybe you could also give some kind of evidence for your claims. That'd be nice. Then we'd know that you are more than just the sound of a nail going down a blackboard and are actually putting forward some kind of valid* analysis.
*where I'm using valid in the correct sense.
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
What I would maintain is that there was an underlying and continuing grammatical-historical approach, with all sorts of corruptions of it in different areas and by different expositors in different eras, ie there was never an absolute exegetical free-for-all with no criteria at all,, which permitted anyone to say anything about how to interpret the Bible.
An assertion you've made numerous times without evidence or reasoning and which flies in the face of history.
What flies in the face of history is any attempt to explain the survival and development of Christianity in the face of the alleged simultaneous existence of innumerable discrete, atomised, exclusive and subjective methods of interpretation - hermetically sealed hermeneutics, as it were.
I don't think anyone here is claiming that there were 'innumerable, discrete, atomised, exclusive and subjective methods of interpretation - hermetically sealed hermeneutics, as it were.'
If I've misunderstood your position regarding a putative golden-age of biblical exposition from which subsequent generations declined, then you may have understood the point I've been trying to make ...
One doesn't have to be a card-carrying RC or Orthodox to see that the unifying factor throughout the early centuries wasn't so much a single, unifying hermeneutic - although something akin to that gradually emerged - but a sense of what was or wasn't within the boundaries of received orthodox belief and the 'apostolic deposit'.
You can see the embryonic growth of that from some of the earliest Patristic writers. It's certainly there in Iranaeus.
So it was the community of faith working with the received texts in a symbiotic kind of way.
Nothing hermetically sealed about that.
Hence, there was room and scope for Origen's allegorising and even some of Augustine's more out-there views ... up to a point.
To this day one Augustus of Hippo is counted as, 'our father among the Saints' among the Orthodox just as St Basil, St John Chrysostom and the two Gregorys are ...
But that doesn't mean that they take on board some of the wilder extremes of his writings - they don't go in for double-predestination, of course, nor the whole Augustinian schema of Original Sin as understood in what became the Western sense.
It's an historical fact that certain Patriarchates were associated with particular hermeneutical models. As I've mentioned several times, the Alexandrians tended to adopt a more allegorical approach, the Antiochians a more literal one ...
You keep asserting that the historical evidence is on your side but have yet to demonstrate it.
No, there was never an exegetical free-for-all. If there had been then the Orthodox wouldn't have reservations about Augustine or some of the wilder ideas of Origen. Although their mileage seems to vary with him ...
What there was instead was a sense of a unifying body of core doctrines agreed upon by a particular community of faith. Of course, there were blurred edges, variations, but essentially it was a community and text thing, a community tradition and text thing ...
Which is what we have everywhere, of course. It's a community and text thing whether we are talking about Rome, the Orthodox, the Presbyterians, Anglicans, Methodists or a store-front church in the Southern United States.
It's not the community without the text nor the text without the community.
Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
What I would maintain is that there was an underlying and continuing grammatical-historical approach, with all sorts of corruptions of it in different areas and by different expositors in different eras, ie there was never an absolute exegetical free-for-all with no criteria at all,, which permitted anyone to say anything about how to interpret the Bible.
An assertion you've made numerous times without evidence or reasoning and which flies in the face of history.
But discussions like this are full of such evidence-free assertions. I can see that supplying evidence for such assertions is no mean feat - since you have to demonstrate both continuity and exceptions, but then what is the value of the assertions anyway? I don't get it.
Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
But discussions like this are full of such evidence-free assertions. I can see that supplying evidence for such assertions is no mean feat - since you have to demonstrate both continuity and exceptions, but then what is the value of the assertions anyway? I don't get it.
It's about respecting the norms of the discussion. I'm not asking for a doctoral thesis, I'm simply asking for something which is capable of being examined and discussed beyond just a phrase written on this website.
Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
But discussions like this are full of such evidence-free assertions. I can see that supplying evidence for such assertions is no mean feat - since you have to demonstrate both continuity and exceptions, but then what is the value of the assertions anyway? I don't get it.
It's about respecting the norms of the discussion. I'm not asking for a doctoral thesis, I'm simply asking for something which is capable of being examined and discussed beyond just a phrase written on this website.
Sure, I'm not expecting a full-length demonstration of an assertion. However, there are solutions to this - obviously, first, reference to a full-length work which does demonstrate it, and secondly, rein back on assertions without evidence. They are meaningless, aren't they?
Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on
:
I don't think assertions which claim that things are self-evident from reading the bible have much value. And the other assertions made in this thread seem to stem from a particular understanding of the scriptures and then extend backwards to interpret history.
Personally I don't think that's a particularly helpful way to understand history.
Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on
:
It reminds me, I have been arguing with someone about evolution, and how it works, and it's ridiculous for me to make blind assertions, but I did cite a major work on the Galapagos finches. I can see that theology is different, since it is not empirical, but historical statements surely should be backed up by something.
Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on
:
Well. I've been taken over the coals about this before, but I believe that history is by necessity subjective. That there is no truly "objective" way to understand it and thus one needs a framework within which to put the known facts in order to understand them.
Which is why I think the term "valid" matters, if we are using it in the sense of an understanding that at leasts attempts to explain the facts and put them into some kind of systematic method understanding.
Now, I'd agree that this is in itself an assertion and I know not everyone agrees with it.
But I think that kind of assertion - as to the nature of the underlying metanarrative needed to understand the past - is a different kind of thing than the claim that a given metanarrative is the only one which can be used.
I can't prove the former, but one can at least give some pointers as to why one might think the latter.
[ 04. August 2017, 12:06: Message edited by: mr cheesy ]
Posted by Dafyd (# 5549) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
Amongst those who were literate, had access to the texts, and participated in theological dialogue, the underlying hermeneutic had to be essentially (though never uncorruptedly) historical-grammatical, because the arbitrary and subjective alternatives (such as freewheeling allegory) would have rendered communication and discussion and development impossible.
As far as I'm aware, the early church, rightly or wrongly, would not have thought rendering development impossible was a problem. I'm not sure they'd have been up for communication and discussion in the senses you're thinking of either.
quote:
Yes, he was guilty of more than one crappy approach to Scripture, both allegorising it, and twisting it to suit his anti-Donatist obsession.
I don't think it is fair to describe Augustine's attitude as an obsession.
quote:
What I would maintain is that there was an underlying and continuing grammatical-historical approach, with all sorts of corruptions of it in different areas and by different expositors in different eras, ie there was never an absolute exegetical free-for-all with no criteria at all,, which permitted anyone to say anything about how to interpret the Bible.
You appear to allow only two options: the grammatical-historical approach, which is essentially unaffected by 'corruptions', and 'an absolute exegetical free-for-all with no criteria at all.
One criterion that we know was adopted was fidelity to tradition.
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
Call me proto-Catholic or proto-Orthodox but fidelity to tradition seems to be the one 'constant' from those early centuries.
I know that begs all sorts of further questions and I've been grappling with those for years ...
But I'm sure it doesn't boil down to the binary divide that Kaplan appears to posit, that it's either the grammatical-historical method on the one hand or an unregulated hermeneutical free-fall on the other with added allegory on top. With ice.
Posted by Jamat (# 11621) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
Call me proto-Catholic or proto-Orthodox but fidelity to tradition seems to be the one 'constant' from those early centuries.
I know that begs all sorts of further questions and I've been grappling with those for years ...
But I'm sure it doesn't boil down to the binary divide that Kaplan appears to posit, that it's either the grammatical-historical method on the one hand or an unregulated hermeneutical free-fall on the other with added allegory on top. With ice.
The two shapers of tradition though, Augustine and Origen, were the very reason I would reject it. That and the separation of Christianity from Jewish hermeneutical approaches.
You are suggesting here that tradition is the answer while implying it is the problem. You can't have it both ways.
The one actual constant we do have is the Bible. Tradition has evolved and changed. If you look at The centuries between Augustine and Aquinas you have to ask, if you are Catholic, what validity has a tradition that took so long to form?
And thinking about Aquinas, his conception of the 'real presence' separating the 'accidents' from the reality in the mass actually created the Eucharistic Christ. So how could something conceptualised so late in the history of the church, have any validity?
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
You could say the same about your favoured doctrines, Jamat.
How come dispensationalism didn't gain traction until the 19th century?
As far as tradition goes, it's both part of the problem and part of the solution.
The Bible is a constant. The way people have approached and interpreted it has changed over the years.
How can it not have done?
Whatever one's tradition or Tradition there's also been a constant in the form of a community of faith - the Church (however we define that).
No Church, no Bible. No Bible no Church.
Both/and not either/or.
Do yourself a favour, think it through.
Posted by Russ (# 120) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
I think it is a simpler explanation that people actually thought it was the right thing to do at the time.
Nothing wrong with that explanation. Just note that it's "time" that's doing the work. If the consensus among 21st-century Christians, Buddhists and humanists is that massacring your enemies is an evil act, but the consensus among 8th-century Christians, zoroastrians and pagans of various sorts is that massacring your enemies from time to time is the rightful act of a strong king, then that says something about how cultural changes can happen over time. But doesn't say much about Christianity - we're back to the act being secular.
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
Well it's not 'secular' if it was done for religious reasons or with some kind of religious justification.
Posted by chris stiles (# 12641) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
That and the separation of Christianity from Jewish hermeneutical approaches.
Except that these 'Jewish hermeneutical approaches' run through the NT.
quote:
So how could something conceptualised so late in the history of the church, have any validity?
Aquinas was proposing a mechanism for an explanation rather than an explanation itself - from the earliest era in church history folk like Ignatius talked about the Eucharist in terms that are profoundly at odds with a purely memorialist understanding.
Crudely speaking you are proposing a kind of Trail of Blood view of church history.
[ 04. August 2017, 21:42: Message edited by: chris stiles ]
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
Kaplan told me off for alluding to EH Broadbent but his shade haunts this thread, even if Jamat hasn't read him.
As for the Christian church departing from a Jewish hermeneutic, as Chris Stiles says, that runs through the NT and from what I can gather Jewish hermeneutics could be pretty allegorical as well as literal - and all stations in between.
Posted by Nick Tamen (# 15164) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
The two shapers of tradition though, Augustine and Origen . . . .
The two shapers of tradition? Two of the shapers, yes, but the two shapers, no, not by a long shot.
quote:
The one actual constant we do have is the Bible.
Tradition has evolved and changed.
Chicken and egg. Without the Tradition, there would be no Bible as we know it. It was the Traditionthe teaching "transmitted" or "handed down" (tradere)that enabled the early church to discern which writings to accept as canonical and which ones to reject.
quote:
If you look at The centuries between Augustine and Aquinas you have to ask, if you are Catholic, what validity has a tradition that took so long to form?
Once again, the irony is remarkable. And I say that as a Protestant.
quote:
And thinking about Aquinas, his conception of the 'real presence' separating the 'accidents' from the reality in the mass actually created the Eucharistic Christ. So how could something conceptualised so late in the history of the church, have any validity?
Tradition pretty uniformly taught the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist from the earliest days of the church until the time of the Reformation. (And the Lutherans, Reformed and Anglicans continued to teach it, albeit with different understandings.) Transubstantiation was an attempt in the Western church to explain the Real Presence. In other words, it was a new spin on a very old teaching.
Posted by Jamat (# 11621) on
:
quote:
Nick Tamen: Once again, the irony is remarkable. And I say that as a Protestant.
So..Let me guess. This is more about a monumental lack of self awareness? Thanks for the heads up. I feel so educated.
Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
Call me proto-Catholic or proto-Orthodox but fidelity to tradition seems to be the one 'constant' from those early centuries.
I know that begs all sorts of further questions and I've been grappling with those for years ...
But I'm sure it doesn't boil down to the binary divide that Kaplan appears to posit, that it's either the grammatical-historical method on the one hand or an unregulated hermeneutical free-fall on the other with added allegory on top. With ice.
I think you are kicking an own-goal.
One of the reasons why the apostolic tradition survived during the early centuries was that the church, using what was basically a grammatical-historical approach, protected it against fanciful idiosyncratic versions of it, such as that of the Gnostics.
Posted by Jamat (# 11621) on
:
quote:
Gamaliel: Kaplan told me off for alluding to EH Broadbent but his shade haunts this thread, even if Jamat hasn't read him.
Have you read him? Or do you know just enough to skim the top? I think he must have been a truly great man.
Posted by Nick Tamen (# 15164) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
So..Let me guess. This is more about a monumental lack of self awareness?
No, it's about the selective questioning of the validity of teachings that developed later in the church's history.
Posted by Jamat (# 11621) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Nick Tamen:
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
So..Let me guess. This is more about a monumental lack of self awareness?
No, it's about the selective questioning of the validity of teachings that developed later in the church's history.
First I heard of that, then. Please continue.
Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
quote:
Yes, he was guilty of more than one crappy approach to Scripture, both allegorising it, and twisting it to suit his anti-Donatist obsession.
I don't think it is fair to describe Augustine's attitude as an obsession.
Depends how you define obsession.
Richard Price, in the Fount Christian Thinkers series, points out that Augustine "produced over thirty years a whole series of works reiterating patiently, if monotonously, the great lines of the anti-Donatist cause", and suggests that his "defence of state oppression which drove many Donatists to suicide borders on the obscene".
Robin Lane Fox, in his Augustine: Conversions and Confessions reminds us that in his Expositions of the Psalms he proposes that Psalm 10 be sung in specific opposition to the Donatists, whom he describes as "fierce teeth who tear the body of Christ and put poison in the milk of their childlike followers".
Posted by Jamat (# 11621) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
You could say the same about your favoured doctrines, Jamat.
How come dispensationalism didn't gain traction until the 19th century?
As far as tradition goes, it's both part of the problem and part of the solution.
The Bible is a constant. The way people have approached and interpreted it has changed over the years.
How can it not have done?
Whatever one's tradition or Tradition there's also been a constant in the form of a community of faith - the Church (however we define that).
No Church, no Bible. No Bible no Church.
Both/and not either/or.
Do yourself a favour, think it through.
You are dodging. You want tradition but you realise it is full of anomalies whereby church doctrine was shaped and altered continually and for Catholicism, was not fully settled till after Aquinas. You also know that the medieval church was a political monster that punished opposition. This continued right through to the Dominicans and the Jesuits. Relatively recently in historical terms. And yet you treat it as some kind of necessary litmus test of truth? I think, yes, the ' church' always was preserved..but which one? Probably, Broadbent's 'pilgrim' church.
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
Of course I've read Broadbent.
Heck, even Kaplan recognises how unhistorical he could be ...
As for this being the first time your selective reading of church history and the development of Christian doctrine goes, you clearly haven't been listening as people have been pointing that out to you here in the Ship for as long as I can remember.
FWIW, I'd suggest that if we wanted to pin-point the precise period when Roman Catholicism became more distinctive,if you like, then I'd posit the 1200s, the Lateran Council of 1215, followed by further developments in the later middle ages and then Trent as THE defining moment in the 16th century.
If we wanted to identify defining moments in the development of evangelical Protestantism we could cite the First Great Awakening of the mid-1700s, the growth of missionary societies in the late 1700s/early 1800s and then the various millenarian movements of the mid-1800s ...
Jamat writes as if it's only the nasty RCs who have undergone development and as if his brand of fundagelicalism has remained constant from the outset - rather being a development from forms of 18th and 19th century Protestantism.
On Kaplan's own goal charge, I'd like a referee's decision on that. I suspect a linesman would tell us that the ball didn't even cross the line let alone hit the back of the net as Kaplan fondly imagines.
No goal.Not even an open goal.
The goalie had two hands. Scripture and tradition. Both/and.
It ain't one or the other. It's both.
Posted by Gee D (# 13815) on
:
IIRC, the proud boast of the Jesuits was that they were never involved in the Inquisition or any other persecution. There was a fair bit of punishment of the opposition on the other side as well. Perhaps a fair amount of that conducted under Elizabeth I can be attributed as much to political as to religious concerns, but the judicial murders following the Synod of Dordt were purely religious.
Posted by Jamat (# 11621) on
:
quote:
Gamaliel: Jamat writes as if it's only the nasty RCs who have undergone development and as if his brand of fundagelicalism has remained constant from the outset - rather being a development from forms of 18th and 19th century Protestantism
Not at all. My point is that you claim church tradition as a truth story or perhaps a security blanket of reliable truth, but you cannot do this to such a moving target. While certainly not sanitising Protestantism or even evangelicalism as you appear to claim, I still look back to scripture as that security blanket even acknowledging the interpretive and hermeneutical issues.
As for Roman Catholicism, the actions of this church, when it was a political force, tell the tale of whether it spoke for God. If I had been a French Huguenot I fear I would rather have doubted it did.
Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on
:
Well that's evangelicalism as a candidate voice of God in the US under Trump done for in the same breath then.
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
Jamat.
Read.my.lips.
I am not defending or condoning medieval Roman Catholicism, the Inquisition or the Papal Magisterium.
All I am saying is that you can't have the Bible as a comfort-blanket as you put it without a tradition to go with it.
Our hermeneutical methods and approaches are all part and parcel of that tradition.
That is the case even if we are sat on the john in glorious isolation with only the Bible and the Holy Spirit for company.
As for the Huguenots, yes, they were treated appallingly. They also did bad things in return. Same as the Covenanters in Scotland. They were persecuted. Yes. They also carried out acts we would today regard as terrorism.
No-one comes out of these things smelling of roses.
Posted by Russ (# 120) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
Well it's not 'secular' if it was done for religious reasons or with some kind of religious justification.
But mr cheesy's theory is that the reason is not to be found in the difference between religion and no-religion, or in the difference between Christian and other faiths. But rather in the difference between 8th-century thinking and 21st-century thinking. That was just how people thought and behaved at the time.
That people justified the act to themselves and to others in terms of their own religious culture is unsurprising. But that's just how they excused what they did. If you believe the "at the time" explanation, the cause of their behaviour is secular rather than any doctrine that is peculiar to or characteristic of Christianity.
You argue that Christianity is diverse - that the range of allowable interpretation is wide. I don't disagree (although I see that as only half the story). But the more you argue that, the harder you make it to pin the blame for any act on Christianity as such, rather than on the time-and-place culture which drove the interpretation.
Posted by Russ (# 120) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by stonespring:
Going back to the OP - is anyone here trying to argue that Christianity is harder to legitimately interpret in a way that endorses terrorism or other acts of violence than Islam?
Focussing on terrorism rather than other acts of violence, yes.
I perceive terrorist acts in the world today, driven by Islamic doctrine, and condemned by those of every religion and none.
Whereas the examples of "Christian violence" being discussed are arguably where Christians went along with and failed to challenge prevailing secular standards of moral behaviour.
Do you see the difference ?
Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Russ:
But mr cheesy's theory is that the reason is not to be found in the difference between religion and no-religion, or in the difference between Christian and other faiths. But rather in the difference between 8th-century thinking and 21st-century thinking. That was just how people thought and behaved at the time.
That people justified the act to themselves and to others in terms of their own religious culture is unsurprising. But that's just how they excused what they did. If you believe the "at the time" explanation, the cause of their behaviour is secular rather than any doctrine that is peculiar to or characteristic of Christianity.
No, that's clearly not the case. It wasn't a post-factum excuse, it was the reason for doing the thing - namely that people thought that they were acting on behalf of the deity and therefore the usual rules of probity didn't apply.
quote:
You argue that Christianity is diverse - that the range of allowable interpretation is wide. I don't disagree (although I see that as only half the story). But the more you argue that, the harder you make it to pin the blame for any act on Christianity as such, rather than on the time-and-place culture which drove the interpretation.
I'm not sure why you are making such heavy weather of this.
People are influenced in their thinking by many things and the crusaders committing things we'd all agree are atrosities were acting because of the situation they were in, commonly agreed acceptable behaviours and the specific hermeneutic of the scriptures. It isn't possible to separate them out.
But the one thing that we can clearly say is that it is possible to read the scriptures and see a justification for extreme violence.
It is entirely possible that this reading is onl makes any sense in a particular cultural setting. But you can't then somehow claim that this means that those committing the violence are just trying to cover the acts - which they know are bad and evil and wrong - with religion after the event.
Because that's nonsense.
Posted by Russ (# 120) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
It does appear looking at history that otherwise good people have approved of things that look unconscionable now. There were always people who condemned the slave trade; however, rather more than we might wish seem to have found they could live with it. People have always managed to think that massacres committed by their side are more excusable than massacres committed by their enemies.
A faith that moral intuition is always sufficient to avoid moral wrongdoing seems to me morally reckless. I don't think we're capable of moral infallibility; behaving as if we are is a good way to exacerbate our moral failings. It would also I think imply that we are always capable of an accurate assessment of our own moral state; I think that's clearly untrue.
Just to say that I'd pretty much agree with all of that. But that doesn't deny moral intuition, only stresses its weakness and fallibility. If moral intuition were sufficient, we wouldn't need moral philosophy. If moral intuition were non-existent, moral philosophy would have nothing to reason about.
Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Russ:
Just to say that I'd pretty much agree with all of that. But that doesn't deny moral intuition, only stresses its weakness and fallibility. If moral intuition were sufficient, we wouldn't need moral philosophy. If moral intuition were non-existent, moral philosophy would have nothing to reason about.
Yes but "God told me" is a stronger motivator than moral intuition. See Kierkegaard's Teleological Suspension of the Ethical.
Simply suggesting that people can't possibly think that massacres are the right thing to do shows a dismal understanding of history, a lack of empathy and a failure of philosophy.
[ 05. August 2017, 10:26: Message edited by: mr cheesy ]
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
Russ, I'm not trying to pin the 'blame' on Christianity or on the NT - heck, I'm not an atheist.
If I were, then I might pursue that line of argument.
'All religion, any religion is wrong because look what happens ... it's supporters kill people and claim religious justification for their actions ...'
Which would be a pretty crass argument. Nevertheless, it's one that some atheists make.
I'm not trying to condone, excuse or justify any act of religiously motivated violence, be it carried out by Dark Age rulers, medieval Crusaders, 16th and 17th Catholics or Protestants or Islamic jihadists or anyone else ...
All I am saying is that given particular sets of circumstances - theocratic rulers applying Pauline injunctions about the legitimate powers of civil authorities to themselves - and so on, it is possible to use these texts to do so.
That's not saying that the hermeneutic is justifiable.
It's just to acknowledge that our hermeneutic isn't separate from our settings, context and traditions but part and parcel of the same.
Our hermeneutics do not operate independently of our settings and context.
I really don't know understand why that is such a controversial view to hold.
It doesn't undermine any special authority invested in or intrinsic to the scriptures.
It's simply an observation as to how these things work.
Posted by Dafyd (# 5549) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
Depends how you define obsession.
I would define obsession as an irrational preoccupation with a particular subject or a tendency for ones thoughts to return to a subject resulting in insufficient attention being paid elsewhere.
Conflicts between Donatists and Catholics were ongoing in Augustine's province; it's not surprising that Augustine paid the matter ongoing attention.
Posted by Dafyd (# 5549) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Russ:
But that doesn't deny moral intuition, only stresses its weakness and fallibility. If moral intuition were sufficient, we wouldn't need moral philosophy. If moral intuition were non-existent, moral philosophy would have nothing to reason about.
It depends upon what you mean by 'moral intuition'. If you give the term full weight it refers to a belief that:
moral facts are a separate category of fact from non-moral facts;
and that we sense or intuit moral facts directly without having to derive them from the non-moral facts.
There would be a reasonable analogy with colour vision, for example: while one can make educated assumptions about the colour of things one can't see, by analogy or knowledge of chemical composition, that doesn't amount to direct awareness of colour.
I don't think either of those statements are true; I don't think there are separate categories of moral and non-moral facts, and I don't think we can intuit morally relevant facts by any means other than the usual five-odd bodily senses.
Posted by Nick Tamen (# 15164) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
quote:
Originally posted by Nick Tamen:
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
So..Let me guess. This is more about a monumental lack of self awareness?
No, it's about the selective questioning of the validity of teachings that developed later in the church's history.
First I heard of that, then. Please continue.
As noted, it has been for discussed many times before. Dispensationalism, the Rapture, even the understanding of PSA prevalent among many Evangelicals.
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Russ:
Whereas the examples of "Christian violence" being discussed are arguably where Christians went along with and failed to challenge prevailing secular standards of moral behaviour.
I hardly see bombing abortion clinics as a secular standard of behavior.
Posted by Jamat (# 11621) on
:
quote:
Gamaliel:
I am not defending or condoning medieval Roman Catholicism, the Inquisition or the Papal Magisterium.
All I am saying is that you can't have the Bible as a comfort-blanket as you put it without a tradition to go with it.
Our hermeneutical methods and approaches are all part and parcel of that tradition.
OK, so by tradition, you don't mean the traditions of the church that developed over the centuries? What exactly do you mean?
ISTM you simply mean the baggage everyone brings. IOW tradition is a purely subjective 'personal background radiation'? An aura we all carry which is personal and distinctive from everyone else's? I think, if this is right, that I am not dismissing 'tradition' either, because it does not preclude the possibility of God speaking to hearts, of the truth dawning on someone who seeks the Lord through the scriptures.
Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
I don't think there are separate categories of moral and non-moral facts
Strictly speaking, the term moral fact is like the term clockwork orange - it is a category error.
It is impossible to derive an ought from an is, impossible to rationally or empirically demonstrate a moral proposition to be true.
As a Christian, I believe by faith in the existence of moral facts, but I can't in any sense prove them to be "facts", other than in the sense that is a fact that some people, for different reasons, believe them to be true.
Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
Depends how you define obsession.
I would define obsession as an irrational preoccupation with a particular subject
Such as believing that a particular Psalm was inspired by God with your particular bete noire in mind - similar to the belief of some Protestants that the Antichrist refers specifically to the pope?
Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
On Kaplan's own goal charge, I'd like a referee's decision on that. I suspect a linesman would tell us that the ball didn't even cross the line let alone hit the back of the net as Kaplan fondly imagines.
No goal.Not even an open goal.
The goalie had two hands. Scripture and tradition. Both/and.
It ain't one or the other. It's both.
Yes, yes, good clean healthy fun, but you are evading the issue, which is that the preservation and transmission of the apostolic tradition was not a free for all which permitted any individual or group to interpret it in any way which suited them.
Posted by Jamat (# 11621) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Nick Tamen:
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
quote:
Originally posted by Nick Tamen:
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
So..Let me guess. This is more about a monumental lack of self awareness?
No, it's about the selective questioning of the validity of teachings that developed later in the church's history.
First I heard of that, then. Please continue.
As noted, it has been for discussed many times before. Dispensationalism, the Rapture, even the understanding of PSA prevalent among many Evangelicals.
So these are relvant to current discussion..how
Posted by Nick Tamen (# 15164) on
:
The relevance is that your questioning in this thread of the validity of teachings that developed later in the church's history is undercut or made to appear selective by your dismissal of similar questioning on these teachings in other threads.
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
On Kaplan's own goal charge, I'd like a referee's decision on that. I suspect a linesman would tell us that the ball didn't even cross the line let alone hit the back of the net as Kaplan fondly imagines.
No goal.Not even an open goal.
The goalie had two hands. Scripture and tradition. Both/and.
It ain't one or the other. It's both.
Yes, yes, good clean healthy fun, but you are evading the issue, which is that the preservation and transmission of the apostolic tradition was not a free for all which permitted any individual or group to interpret it in any way which suited them.
Where did I say it was?
You are the one who insists that I am making that claim.
I'm not.
What I am saying is that what became the orthodox standard to which the mainstream of Christianity adheres - at least in theory - allowed a certain degree of latitude in terms of hermeneutical approaches. Just as Judaism did and does.
Obviously, there were and are blurred edges as well as sharp ones between what might be tolerated as a 'valid' approach - there's the 'v' word again - and what was seen to topple over into Gnostic la la land or arbitrary allegorisation.
Even people who were regarded as within the pale of mainstream orthodoxy would cross those lines at times - Tertullian did, Origen did, Augustine did on some issues ...
I'm sure if we restricted our scope to subsets within Christianity bas a whole we would find similar instances. John Wesley was well within the pale in the broad trajectory of his theology, but on certain emphases he toppled over into questionable territory.
I'm not disputing that what emerged as the standard yardstick in hermeneutical terms was the grammatical-historical approach, mediated of course, by variations in terms of stress and emphasis, across the various traditions / Traditions - Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant.
What I am saying is that at various times, due to a combination of factors and influences, it would have been perfectly logical - but no less reprehensible - for people within the broad trajectory of mainstream Christendom to reach hermeneutical conclusions which we would deplore.
Charlemagne using his imperial authority to slaughter pagan Saxons is one instance. George Whitefield's enthusiasm for slavery as a 'civilising' force would be another.
@Jamat - no, that's not what I am saying. I am not saying that tradition is some kind of purely subjective or individualistic response - which is what I understand you to be saying here, correct me if I'm wrong.
Rather, it is a collective body of belief that we inherit and which is both shaped by the scriptures and shapes our response and approach to the scriptures.
You operate within a very conservative evangelical tradition which shapes how you interpret the scriptures.
Mousethief operates within the Orthodox Tradition which shapes how he interprets the scriptures.
What neither of you have is a Bible that exists outside of a tradition / Tradition that helps you approach and interpret it.
Posted by Dafyd (# 5549) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
I would define obsession as an irrational preoccupation with a particular subject
Such as believing that a particular Psalm was inspired by God with your particular bete noire in mind - similar to the belief of some Protestants that the Antichrist refers specifically to the pope?
I do not remember Fox's book saying that, although I can't check as I got the copy from the library.
That God is omniscient and in God's providence inspired the Bible to be polyvalent in meaning, so that whoever faithfully and prayerfully reads the Bible can hear it as addressing their specific situation, is a belief that has been widely held by Christians of all stripes down the ages. It may be obnoxious to secularists and liberals may want to qualify it, but I think it is fundamental to any serious doctrine of inspiration.
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
That God is omniscient and in God's providence inspired the Bible to be polyvalent in meaning, so that whoever faithfully and prayerfully reads the Bible can hear it as addressing their specific situation, is a belief that has been widely held by Christians of all stripes down the ages.
I need some references to this. The idea of the random Joe interpreting the Bible by himself is not an Orthodox idea, and I can't imagine it's very Catholic either. It screams "Reformation."
Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
I do not remember Fox's book saying that, although I can't check as I got the copy from the library.
Do you mean George Fox? If so, he fairly regularly called the Pope, the Roman Catholic Church, Anglicans, Baptists, other Protestants and anyone else he didn't like the Antichrist. For example here.
I haven't read much other writing from the time, but I assume that the accusation of being the Antichrist was something that was published regularly in pamphlets.
Posted by Dafyd (# 5549) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
I do not remember Fox's book saying that, although I can't check as I got the copy from the library.
Do you mean George Fox?
Robin Lane Fox, the historian. Mentioned by name in Kaplan Corday's post to which I was replying.
Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on
:
Sorry pardon.
Posted by Nick Tamen (# 15164) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
That God is omniscient and in God's providence inspired the Bible to be polyvalent in meaning, so that whoever faithfully and prayerfully reads the Bible can hear it as addressing their specific situation, is a belief that has been widely held by Christians of all stripes down the ages.
I need some references to this. The idea of the random Joe interpreting the Bible by himself is not an Orthodox idea, and I can't imagine it's very Catholic either. It screams "Reformation."
Careful there. I can't speak for Lutherans, Anglicans or Anabaptists, but Calvin and the Reformed confessions explicitly reject individual interpretation.
That said, I think there can be two things at issue: authoritative interpretation and personal understanding. The former, we would say, can only be done by the church as community. But within that framework, individuals can read Scripture and find meaningnot necessarily contemplated by the authoritative interpretation but not inconsistent with it eitherthat speaks to their own needs and circumstances. I took that to be what Dafyd is talking about.
Posted by Dafyd (# 5549) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
That God is omniscient and in God's providence inspired the Bible to be polyvalent in meaning, so that whoever faithfully and prayerfully reads the Bible can hear it as addressing their specific situation, is a belief that has been widely held by Christians of all stripes down the ages.
I need some references to this. The idea of the random Joe interpreting the Bible by himself is not an Orthodox idea, and I can't imagine it's very Catholic either. It screams "Reformation."
Maybe I'm overgeneralising. Also even though I used the word 'reading' as if I were talking about some random Joe reading by himself I was thinking as much about someone preaching from the text which is the Augustinian context.
But am I right to think that historically most Orthodox theologians would not have found it as insane of Augustine as Kaplan Corday does to say while preaching that the Psalm he was expounding was speaking to the situation of their congregation?
Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
The idea of the random Joe interpreting the Bible by himself is not an Orthodox idea, and I can't imagine it's very Catholic either. It screams "Reformation."
Serious question: Would Orthodox Christians hold any mid-week meetings that might parallel what a Protestant would call a mid-week bible study? Or sit and read the scriptures and think "That seems to be speaking to me."?
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
I'm not sure about the second part of your question, but I have come across Orthodox parishes which hold mid-week Bible study type sessions from time to time and there's also a study course called The Way which is rather like an Orthodox version of the Alpha course.
Incidentally, whenever I've attended an Orthodox study or an RC lectio-divina session during Lent, I've always found them sticking more closely to the text than some evangelical Bible studies I've been involved with in the past.
Sure, they introduce iconography, Patristic material and words from their hymnody into the equation - all part and parcel of Tradition, but as far as the text itself goes their approach doesn't strike me as that dissimilar to anything you might find in a decent Protestant Bible study.
Of course, aspects of their typology differs from Protestant approaches, various incidents and verses from the OT applied to the Virgin Mary for instance - such the Burning Bush in Exodus.
But as far as their approach to the Gospels and Epistles go, it seems very familiar to this Protestant ... Although it's obviously less Augustinian in tone of course.
Short answer to the first question, 'Yes.'
I don't know about the second, but I don't get the impression that they'd tend to go in for the pietistic 'God said this to me through that verse,' thing which tends to be a feature of some forms of evangelicalism. Some may do, for all I know, or else couch it in somewhat different terms. They do seem to talk about a sense of God's providence and guidance but not in the kind of language you find among some evangelicals and Pentecostals.
My overall impression is that they are more guarded and cautious when dealing with such things. It's not that they don't believe these things can happen, rather they are wary of people getting puffed up with funny ideas and personal illuminism.
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
The idea of the random Joe interpreting the Bible by himself is not an Orthodox idea, and I can't imagine it's very Catholic either. It screams "Reformation."
Serious question: Would Orthodox Christians hold any mid-week meetings that might parallel what a Protestant would call a mid-week bible study? Or sit and read the scriptures and think "That seems to be speaking to me."?
Before you thought a passage of scripture was "speaking to you" you would run it by your priest or abbot/abbess.
Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
What I am saying is that what became the orthodox standard to which the mainstream of Christianity adheres - at least in theory - allowed a certain degree of latitude in terms of hermeneutical approaches.
You are being very broadbrush.
Yes, of course there was and is "a certain degree of latitude", but that does not mean there are no boundaries (even if the boundary is more of a wideish DMZ rather than a single fence or wall).
A proposition such as "the NT teaches that Christians should use the state to kill all heathen and heretics" is not hermeneutically valid and is outside that boundary.
quote:
Even people who were regarded as within the pale of mainstream orthodoxy would cross those lines at times - Tertullian did, Origen did, Augustine did on some issues ...
Something which I have more than once in this discussion explicitly recognised.
Posted by Jamat (# 11621) on
:
quote:
Gamaliel: @Jamat - no, that's not what I am saying. I am not saying that tradition is some kind of purely subjective or individualistic response - which is what I understand you to be saying here, correct me if I'm wrong.
Rather, it is a collective body of belief that we inherit and which is both shaped by the scriptures and shapes our response and approach to the scriptures.
All of which adds up to a kind of amorphous vagueness. What things do you consider reside within this collective body of belief?
What about the perpetual virginity of Mary for instance? which is (probably) part of what you would consider handed down tradition, but which one can argue is specifically denied in the gospels.
I bring that up only because ISTM that when you use the word tradition, you are avoiding specifics except when happily 'informing' me what mine is.
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
What about the perpetual virginity of Mary for instance? which is (probably) part of what you would consider handed down tradition, but which one can argue is specifically denied in the gospels.
One could. But one would be wrong. One can argue a lot of things are denied in the gospels that aren't. Or things are in the gospels that aren't.
That's what Tradition is for.
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
quote:
Gamaliel: @Jamat - no, that's not what I am saying. I am not saying that tradition is some kind of purely subjective or individualistic response - which is what I understand you to be saying here, correct me if I'm wrong.
Rather, it is a collective body of belief that we inherit and which is both shaped by the scriptures and shapes our response and approach to the scriptures.
All of which adds up to a kind of amorphous vagueness. What things do you consider reside within this collective body of belief?
What about the perpetual virginity of Mary for instance? which is (probably) part of what you would consider handed down tradition, but which one can argue is specifically denied in the gospels.
I bring that up only because ISTM that when you use the word tradition, you are avoiding specifics except when happily 'informing' me what mine is.
No you can't.
Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
A proposition such as "the NT teaches that Christians should use the state to kill all heathen and heretics" is not hermeneutically valid and is outside that boundary.
Bullshit. Are you ever going to give reasoning for this false statement beyond simply repeating it?
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
No, I'm sorry but I don't accept that what I am proposing is an 'amorphous vagueness' (contra Jamat) nor lacking in boundaries (contra Kaplan Corday).
Granted, my concept of tradition is fluffier and more woolly than Mousethief's Big T Tradition or the RC equivalent.
But that doesn't make it an amorphous mush nor so lacking in boundaries and so broad-brush as to be of no practical use.
There's a balance somewhere between ratcheting things up to such an extent that they become a strait-jacket - which is, I'm afraid what I consider RC Tradition to have become - with them painting themselves into a corner with issues like Papal Infallibility ...
The Orthodox corset seems laced up rather tightly to me, too ... but not to the extent that it's almost impossible to breathe.
The issue I have with the whole conservative evangelical fixation with inerrancy and infallibility and so on is that it is highly selective ... the bits they like and approve of become infallible and inerrant ... and those parts that don't fit their nice, neat schema they either ignore or pretend that they fit ...
But I know I'm being very broad-brush there and that not all conservative evangelicals tighten the straps so firmly that they almost asphyxiate themselves ...
Perhaps I do need to tighten things up lest I trip over on my own trailing laces. But there's a balance between tripping over on the one hand and effectively garroting oneself with one's own interpretative boot-straps on the other.
My mixed metaphors abound but still ...
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
Meanwhile, once again Kaplan, please read for comprehension.
I am not saying that the NT exhorts rulers to kill all heathens and heretics.
I very much doubt that even Charlemagne believed that either - in such bald terms, but was reacting to circumstances.
Faced with recalcitrant pagans in annexed Saxony who had led a rebellion against him, he ordered some 4,500 to be executed - the Massacre of Verden. He then decreed that all Saxons who subsequently refused baptism be put to death - although there doesn't seem to be any evidence as to whether or not this was enforced. I suspect most of the Saxons complied anyway as the threat was there ...
All very reprehensible. But comparable, I submit, to the massacres Cromwell carried out at Drogheda and Wexford.
I have never said that the NT decrees any such thing.
What I have said, if you'd bothered to read my posts properly, is that given the circumstances - a theocratic Dark Age king trying to establish an empire - it is easy to see how the Pauline comments about the legitimate use of force by civil powers could have been cited or invoked by Charlemagne's contemporaries to justify vengeance or punishment on the rebellious Saxons.
As a ruler he was not 'wielding the sword for nothing.'
Please do try to read for comprehension. I have asked you very politely several times. Each time you have completely ignored my request and continued to reply with binary comments that demonstrate that you have either misunderstood or refused to understand what I am actually trying to say.
Posted by Dafyd (# 5549) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
A proposition such as "the NT teaches that Christians should use the state to kill all heathen and heretics" is not hermeneutically valid and is outside that boundary.
Firstly the NT teaches that the Old Testament is authoritative except where superseded, or rather, except where clarified by the New Testament. The principle that the OT is only authoritative where the NT restates it is not Christian. The restriction of your argument to the NT seems curiously ad hoc.
If you have ever addressed this in the course of this thread I have missed it.
Secondly you admit that the NT can be read to justify just war. But the NT does not anywhere offer non-tautologous criteria for differentiating between just and unjust war.
As such, while justifying persecution or crusades from the NT is I believe a wrong interpretation I do not think we can say it is as obviously wrong as you do. Really objecting to it depends more largely on fleshing out broader concepts of love and justice than on attention to the letter of the NT.
Posted by Jamat (# 11621) on
:
quote:
Dafyd: .. the NT teaches that the Old Testament is authoritative except where superseded, or rather, except where clarified by the New Testament. The principle that the OT is only authoritative where the NT restates it is not Christian. The restriction of your argument to the NT seems curiously ad hoc
It is only ad hoc if you ignore well understood interpretive standards otherwise it is far from ad hoc.
Personally, I think a main principle involved is not to do with restatement though that does occur, but to see the OT as clarified and amplified by the NT.
For instance, the NT teaches justification by faith, supported by Paul quoting a verse from Psalms viz: 'The just shall live by his faith'. Paul here is pointing out faith was always necessary in the OT, thus explaining that in committing to keep the Torah, one was balancing out the idea of whether it was the assiduous keeping of the law that mattered, or the heart attitude behind this intention, the desire to live a godly life.
To say, though, that marrying multiple wives was OK in the OT so it is OK in the NT as Mormons would like to do, is actually contradicted in the NT by both the Lord and Paul. In the beginning, it was clear God gave the man a wife not wives. Paul enjoins a man to love his wife, not his wives and in the great metaphor, the Lord has one bride, not multiple brides. Seeing it this way is not ad hoc but just a matter of understanding and applying a genuine hermeneutical principle.
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on
:
Which is what?
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
What Dafyd said. He's spot-on.
It's one thing to say that the NT justifies the concept of a 'just war', quite another to actually define what the criteria for such a thing actually is. Augustine made some attempts to do so.
His criteria and presumably Charlemagne's criteria and the Crusaders' criteria, are all going to differ from ours.
Why? Because we all live at different times and have different socio-cultural influences and values.
Also, there's no set of NT proof-texts that settle the matter for us. We have to work these things out for ourselves, drawing on the spirit rather than the letter, of the overall tenor and thrust of the NT as we understand it.
Same as the slavery thing. The NT doesn't 'condemn' slavery - although 'slave traders' are listed by Paul among those who 'will not inherit the kingdom of God'.
By the same token, whilst he clearly felt it was a good thing if slaves could obtain their freedom, he didn't condemn the institution of slavery as such either ... as a 1st century Jew he accepted the status quo in that respect.
I've come across white-supremacist Southern US fundamentalists on-line who insist that slavery was fine and that the 'godly' Southern plantation owners had every right to own slaves and that the naughty Northern States had no right to interfere ...
There'd be no point proof-texting with these people because there ain't any proof-texts that settle the matter one way or t'other. We have to work these things out for ourselves, based on the overall thrust and tenor of the NT and our own understandings of it ... which are, by the very nature of things, largely going to be shaped by whatever the influences have been on our own spiritual formation.
So, no, nobody here is going to make out a case that it's ok to have multiple wives because OT Patriarch's did so ...
Nobody here, I presume, would make out a case for slavery either - not because there's a set of texts that settle the matter one way or t'other - but because, by and large, we're a fairly liberal bunch and not ultra-conservative white-supremacists from Texas or Alabama.
Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
To say, though, that marrying multiple wives was OK in the OT so it is OK in the NT as Mormons would like to do, is actually contradicted in the NT by both the Lord and Paul. In the beginning, it was clear God gave the man a wife not wives. Paul enjoins a man to love his wife, not his wives and in the great metaphor, the Lord has one bride, not multiple brides. Seeing it this way is not ad hoc but just a matter of understanding and applying a genuine hermeneutical principle.
In the beginning apparently nobody wore clothing. I take it that this isn't something you think it relevant to your situation.
This isn't logic, this is just stoopid.
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
Be fair, mr cheesy, Genesis tells us that Adam and Eve made clothing out of skins ...
So that settles it, using a Jamat-ian hermeneutical principle.
Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
Be fair, mr cheesy, Genesis tells us that Adam and Eve made clothing out of skins ...
No, initially they didn't have clothing. I was listening that week in Sunday School.
quote:
So that settles it, using a Jamat-ian hermeneutical principle.
No it doesn't - he's saying "the best" is the earliest, and the earliest is nudity. Therefore he should be either nude or wanting to be nude.
Of course there is a secondary issue in that if there were only one-man-and-one-woman then at some point in the early generations there must have been some... I'm sure you get the picture. I don't think anyone seriously is suggesting that this is supposed to be a model for everyone else for the rest of time.
This whole "earlier is better" project is BS.
[ 07. August 2017, 14:51: Message edited by: mr cheesy ]
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
Thing is, plenty of people play the 'earlier is better' card to some extent or other.
The RCs and the Orthodox by saying, 'Look, we were here first ...'
Conservative evangelicals do it by fondly imagining everything to have been settled by AD 60 or by AD 90 or whenever it is they think it was ...
Like as if everyone was walking around with a complete NT, a Strong's Concordance and a full set of IVP study-aids before the close of the 1st century and before those nasty Catholics and Orthodox got hold of everything and ruined it by introducing metropolitan bishops and departing from 'the plain meaning of scripture' ...
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
Be fair, mr cheesy, Genesis tells us that Adam and Eve made clothing out of skins ...
No, initially they didn't have clothing. I was listening that week in Sunday School.
And A&E made clothing out of leaves. It was God who made the clothing out of skins. I read that part at University.
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
Yes, and as I was always taught in evangelical circles, typologically it showed that blood-sacrifice was required from the outset ... and that God himself would ultimately pay the required price ...
Posted by Jamat (# 11621) on
:
quote:
Gamaliel: What Dafyd said. He's spot-on
What he said is not what is claimed,ie
quote:
The principle that the OT is only authoritative where the NT restates it is not Christian
While the NT does restate things, this is not a principle of hermeneutics.
There are many things that are authoritative in the OT that the NT does not restate.
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on
:
Like rainbows?
Posted by Jamat (# 11621) on
:
quote:
Gamaliel: No, I'm sorry but I don't accept that what I am proposing is an 'amorphous vagueness' (contra Jamat) nor lacking in boundaries (contra Kaplan Corday).
Granted, my concept of tradition is fluffier and more woolly than Mousethief's Big T Tradition or the RC equivalent.
But that doesn't make it an amorphous mush nor so lacking in boundaries and so broad-brush as to be of no practical use.
But you use the term tradition as if it is somehow self evident what it is, without ever mentioning any of the specific beliefs that it must include that you think are true.
Are there any?
I mentioned the perpetual virginity of Mary. Would you include that in the body of church hand-me-downs you commit to?
What about 'holy water' we always had some in the house in a little container below a crucifix. Is that, in your view part of a valid body of legitimate truth?
Posted by Jamat (# 11621) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
Like rainbows?
Hi Martin, you gotta admit they are beautiful.
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
Define tradition?
Well, a good definition from a Big T direction came from Jaroslav Pelikan, a Lutheran turned Orthodox:
'Tradition is the living faith of the dead, Traditionalism the dead faith of the living.'
Essentially, of course, it's what's been handed down and it's what provides the lens or frameworks we use to assess and interpret things.
Hence the idea that scripture interprets scripture, for instance, is a Protestant tradition. It's an idea that is applied to the scriptures through a particular frame work or lens. If you wear a different set of specs then things don't necessarily look the same.
On the perpetual virginity of Mary, there's been a thread on that recently. That might help outline the arguments for and against.
It's an example of how our respective traditions shape how we approach things, of course. If you're asking what my own views are on the matter, well, it depends on how we approach it doesn't it? If I were to swap my Protestant specs for RC or Orthodox ones then I'd see things differently to how I see them now, just as you did when you exchanged your cradle Catholic specs for a pair of conservative Protestant ones.
The same applies to holy water, of course. If you are a member of a tradition that insists on having a specific chapter and verse reference for each and every practice that takes place in church then no, you're not going to be into holy water. If, however, you are involved in a Tradition that doesn't expect everything to be backed up by specific references but which believes that the tenor of scripture points to physical objects and elements being channels of divine grace - such as Peter's shadow or Paul's handkerchief, then you might think differently.
That's one of the points I'm trying to make. It's a fairly obvious one.
I'm not out to demonstrate the or defend the validity or otherwise of individual traditions. I'm simply saying that we all have them and they inform the way we see things.
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on
:
One definition (although that's really to strong a term, I think) of tradition is, "Tradition is the vote we give our ancestors in our current-day religion."
Both Mary and Holy Water are essentially the same principle -- can things become and remain holy, and become a secondary source of holiness, passing on God's holiness to others/other things?
Protestants would say no. Catholics and Orthodox would say yes. Once you have that category it just becomes a matter of what things fall into it.
Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
That's what Tradition is for.
Which one?
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
One's own, of course.
Same as in small t tradition ...
Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
A proposition such as "the NT teaches that Christians should use the state to kill all heathen and heretics" is not hermeneutically valid and is outside that boundary.
Bullshit. Are you ever going to give reasoning for this false statement beyond simply repeating it?
What's bullshit is pretending that there is a skerrick of justification for such a proposition in the NT.
Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
Firstly the NT teaches that the Old Testament is authoritative except where superseded, or rather, except where clarified by the New Testament.
Which is what I have stated a number of times in this discussion, and which rules out any Christian justification for religious genocide a la Joshua.
Posted by Jamat (# 11621) on
:
quote:
Gamaliel: What there was instead was a sense of a unifying body of core doctrines agreed upon by a particular community of faith. Of course, there were blurred edges, variations, but essentially it was a community and text thing, a community tradition and text thing ...
Which is what we have everywhere, of course. It's a community and text thing whether we are talking about Rome, the Orthodox, the Presbyterians, Anglicans, Methodists or a store-front church in the Southern United States.
It's not the community without the text nor the text without the community.
OK, then, you say here there are core doctrines in your concept of tradition but not even once, have you intimated what any of them are. If you expect to convince then you should have a few of these at your finger tips.
What do you think about baptismal regeneration. Is that in your grab bag?
It is pretty meaningless to cite the ubiquitous nature of tradition without any identification of content. FWIW I do not disagree with the fact that no one exists with out a background of preconceptions but you seem to use this as either a reason to say everything is questionable or, on the other hand, that whatever anyone says about anything Christian cannot be questioned, as their tradition, whatever it might be, validates it.
[ 08. August 2017, 06:41: Message edited by: Jamat ]
Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
I am not saying that the NT exhorts rulers to kill all heathens and heretics.
I am quite aware of that.
And I am quite aware that Christian leaders such as Charlemagne (and Cromwell) might well have used creatively pragmatic ("valid" in the descriptive rather than prescriptive sense of that ambiguous term) interpretations of the Bible to justify religious violence.
And aware that we need to remember that very thing, as we try to get inside the heads of our ancestors and attempt to assess their motivation.
I dare say Charlemagne might have used Joshua to justify his slaughter of the heathen Saxons - and Solomon to justify his multiple wives and concubines.
In either case, sincere or not, he would have been wrong
quote:
I have never said that the NT decrees any such thing.
Once again, I realise that, and I am sorry if I have carelessly and inadvertently suggested otherwise.
Besides, if you did believe it, a person of your integrity would have been bound to act on on it, and I am sure that would have made the headlines even over here on the other side of the world.
[ 08. August 2017, 06:43: Message edited by: Kaplan Corday ]
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
Like rainbows?
Hi Martin, you gotta admit they are beautiful.
Authoritatively so.
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
Ha ha ha ...
There is, of course, a difference between people using the scriptures - either the OT or the NT - to justify their use of religiously motivated violence and claiming that the NT actively 'commands' us to engage in religiously motivated violence.
Yes, of course Charlemagne was wrong to massacre those Saxons but in the context of his times it would have been justified or condoned as a means to deter future rebellion or further violence - which is exactly how Cromwell justified his actions in Ireland - or how the US justified the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki come to that.
As I keep saying, because I seek to understand the context it doesn't mean I condone the actions.
On the tradition thing, I'd be more than happy to list aspects of Christian belief that fall into that category, most of which we all share in common.
If I were to restrict the discussion to one particular strand of Christianity, for the purposes of illustration, then one could say that Dispensationalism is an aspect of a certain kind of evangelical tradition, but is by no means universal across evangelicalism as a whole.
Or that close church-state relations are certainly part of the tradition across some of the historic Churches and those that arose from the initial stages of the Reformation, but is by no means binding or a dogmatic requirement across those Churches at all times and in all places.
I'm not getting into the woods of the detail as to which traditions I accept, reject or am agnostic about - that's not the point at issue.
All I am asserting is that our hermeneutical methods are themselves part and parcel of our traditions and colour how we interpret the scriptures.
That's all.
It's a fairly obvious and uncontentious point.
Posted by Dafyd (# 5549) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
Firstly the NT teaches that the Old Testament is authoritative except where superseded, or rather, except where clarified by the New Testament.
Which is what I have stated a number of times in this discussion, and which rules out any Christian justification for religious genocide a la Joshua.
Nowhere does the New Testament condemn religious genocide. The NT does not explicitly supersede / clarify the OT on this point.
And to repeat: nowhere does the NT offer any non-tautologous criteria that allow one to distinguish between just and unjust wars.
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on
:
Aye, Jesus couldn't not believe in Himself as having been God the Killer. The ultimate case of cognitive dissonance. Luckily His true divine nature transcended that human limitation.
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
Firstly the NT teaches that the Old Testament is authoritative except where superseded, or rather, except where clarified by the New Testament.
Which is what I have stated a number of times in this discussion, and which rules out any Christian justification for religious genocide a la Joshua.
Nowhere does the New Testament condemn religious genocide. The NT does not explicitly supersede / clarify the OT on this point.
And to repeat: nowhere does the NT offer any non-tautologous criteria that allow one to distinguish between just and unjust wars.
Sure, which is one of the reasons I have difficulty with the somewhat wooden proof-text approach that some seem to favour.
The NT doesn't specifically condemn arson either, but neither does it promote it.
But yes, I agree with your main point, the onus in deciding what does or does not constitute a just war lies with us.
There isn't a text we can cite to settle the issue one way or another.
Were Cromwell and the Parliamentarians justified in taking up arms against Charles I?
The answer to that isn't going to be found in some neat and incontrovertible proof-text.
Charlemagne and the Crusaders would presumably have claimed that their cause was just.
Again, there's no stand-alone NT text that tells us that it wasn't.
I happen to think they were wrong, but that's not because there's a text lurking in Romans somewhere that says, 'Rulers are entitled to use violence to mete out justice - unless they happen to be Christian rulers in which case they shouldn't even think about it - and as for using force to impose religious uniformity ...'
Of course, I believe that Charlemagne's actions go against the grain and the whole tenor and thrust of the NT. But he wouldn't have done. Neither would his contemporaries.
For some reason I'm getting some stick for pointing that out as if in so doing I'm claiming that the NT condones or even commands such activity.
The binariness of it all is truly beyond.
Posted by Jamat (# 11621) on
:
quote:
Gamaliel: The answer to that isn't going to be found in some neat and incontrovertible proof-text.
Charlemagne and the Crusaders would presumably have claimed that their cause was just.
Again, there's no stand-alone NT text that tells us that it wasn't.
This seems to suggest to me that you are dismissing any Biblical evidence as proof texting.
To me proof texting is a justification exercise and is pretty identifiable. You want to make a point so you quote a verse that backs you, probably ignoring context.
Is anyone doing this? What is being argued is that Jesus and the apostles focused on regeneration via the cross, not social change via politics or war. You can disagree but where is the justification? The tenor of scripture argues this is the case.
There is as Kaplan Corday says, no way you can exegete the NT to justify what many would quite like to..that Christianity, can be justifiably used as an authority to force conversions or to conquer territory as Islam undoubtedly can.
Also, regarding tradition. As you have now stated you do not intend to identify any specific traditional elements that you believe in, or think might be justifiable, it is hard to know what you mean by the term.
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
(Sighs)
Is it just me?
Is it just Jamat and me?
Is anyone else here having difficulty follow my drift and understanding what I'm getting at?
I will try again ...
On proof-texts. Yes, I agree with your definition. I also happen to think that you do it fairly regularly.
But it's a secondary point here.
My main point isn't that the NT teaches religiously motivated violence. I don't believe it does.
However, if, like Charlemagne or some other early mediaeval ruler, you have a tradition that favours a monocultural, monolithic state with one religious expression in the interests of peace and harmony, then you are going to interpret the NT in the light of that.
Consequently, whilst you might not go out and commit genocide, you might not be that squeamish about using state control to enforce religious conformity.
It's only been in comparatively recent times that socio-political and cultural factors have supported versions of religious diversity and the exercise of individual conscience. Ok, the Roman Empire was fairly tolerant of diverse religious expressions, provided you also declared that 'Caesar is Lord' alongside that.
So it's hardly surprising that people in times past didn't interpret the NT as encouraging see kind of religion / state separation and freedom of conscience in terms of individual belief. The conditions for that did not exist.
On the issue of tradition, I'm using that term to refer to whatever milieu, framework or set of interpretative tools, approaches and conditions that help to form and shape the way we tackle and understand the scriptures and express our faith.
Those traditions overlap and are congruent to a great extent, but there are also variations and differences, mostly over issues that could be described as secondary.
I have given several examples to illustrate my point.
For instance, within evangelicalism you'll find evangelicals who favour Dispensationalism. You'll find plenty of others who don't. So Dispensationalism is an evangelical tradition but not one to which all evangelicals adhere.
Equally, I've alluded to how a belief in close church-state relations has been a feature of many of the historic Churches. That doesn't mean that all Catholics, Orthodox, Lutherans or Anglicans favour close church-state links or Established Churches. Mousethief is Orthodox. That doesn't mean he wants his native USA to have a Tsar and become a latter-day version of Holy Russia or the Byzantine Empire.
The simple point is that our traditions, whatever they are, help determine and shape our approach.
If you are a Dispensationalist you will approach the scriptures that way.
If you believe in close church-state relations then that will influence how you interpret and apply the scriptures.
Of course, these aren't the only influences and for the most part they operate in a symbiotic way with the text rather than running parallel to it in a kind of dislocated way.
Acknowledging that these things exist and influence us doesn't diminish the authority or inspiration of the texts themselves, rather it is a matter of observation about how these things work in practice.
We all of us operate in the context of one tradition or other or a range of influences drawn from a variety of traditions and sources.
In the case of Charlemagne, Cromwell or Charles 1st, this helped shape and inform their particular actions.
On the case of a St Francis of Assisi, say, it led to other courses of action.
All this, I would say, is axiomatic.
I really don't understand why you are making such heavy weather out of this.
None of us read the Bible in isolation. None of us approach these things outside of a tradition, even if we might have done at one time. We are all of us shaped and influenced by the environments we inhabit. You, me, Kaplan, Charlemagne, everyone else.
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
For someone who puts a great emphasis on correct exegesis, Jamat, you aren't making a very good job of exegeting what other people here write.
Neither is Kaplan.
I acknowledge that I can be long-winded.
But I can't see how I nor anyone else here can make it clearer that whilst we don't believe the NT teaches the use of force to impose religious uniformity or to combat heresies or deal with pagans - it is possible to see how people in medieval times wouldn't have shared the same conviction.
That doesn't mean we condone it.
Nor does it mean we don't take the NT seriously or sit loosely by sound exegesis.
It is very hard you know,and very frustrating to discuss things with people who either wilfully ignore and misunderstand what one is trying to say or else twists one's remarks to make them say something else again.
The reason I've not gone into detail as to which Christian traditions I personally do or don't accept is because it isn't pertinent to the main point I'm making.
This isn't about what Gamaliel believes do much as how bodies of people approach and interpret texts in the light of their own particular socio-cultural and historical context.
Whether I am a credo-baptist, a paedobaptist, a sacramentalist, a Dispensationalist,a Pentecostal or whatever else isn't the issue here.
The issue is historical context.
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
quote:
Gamaliel: The answer to that isn't going to be found in some neat and incontrovertible proof-text.
Charlemagne and the Crusaders would presumably have claimed that their cause was just.
Again, there's no stand-alone NT text that tells us that it wasn't.
This seems to suggest to me that you are dismissing any Biblical evidence as proof texting.
To me proof texting is a justification exercise and is pretty identifiable. You want to make a point so you quote a verse that backs you, probably ignoring context.
Is anyone doing this? What is being argued is that Jesus and the apostles focused on regeneration via the cross, not social change via politics or war. You can disagree but where is the justification? The tenor of scripture argues this is the case.
There is as Kaplan Corday says, no way you can exegete the NT to justify what many would quite like to..that Christianity, can be justifiably used as an authority to force conversions or to conquer territory as Islam undoubtedly can.
Also, regarding tradition. As you have now stated you do not intend to identify any specific traditional elements that you believe in, or think might be justifiable, it is hard to know what you mean by the term.
How old is the universe?
Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
Nowhere does the New Testament condemn religious genocide.
Obviously true and overwhelmingly pointless.
Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
As I keep saying, because I seek to understand the context it doesn't mean I condone the actions.
We agree that a past piece of exegesis can be unsatisfactory, that the actions which flowed from it cannot be condoned, and that there are reasons historically specific to the era for why and how the dodgy exegesis (implicit or explicit) took place.
But you repeatedly prop at that point, and come up against some sort of mental block which prevents your taking the next step and simply admitting that the unscriptural action and its unscriptural rationale were and are simply wrong.
Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
But you repeatedly prop at that point, and come up against some sort of mental block which prevents your taking the next step and simply admitting that the unscriptural action and its unscriptural rationale were and are simply wrong.
Because genocide, intolerance, rape, murder and various other things are biblical. Just stating that they're not doesn't change anything.
Posted by Jamat (# 11621) on
:
quote:
Gamaliel: I can't see how I nor anyone else here can make it clearer that whilst we don't believe the NT teaches the use of force to impose religious uniformity or to combat heresies or deal with pagans - it is possible to see how people in medieval times wouldn't have shared the same conviction
It is only possible if they were not acting from a Christian motive,mentality or mindset.
Regarding tradition though, your refusal to be specific about what traditions you think are right over the 2000 odd years of Christian history makes me think your references to tradition are just a smokescreen so you can hedge your bets regarding truth and not commit to anything you don't want to just because it is manifestly scriptural, on the grounds that "It's not as simple as that!" Also, I do not proof text.
Martin 60 the universe is as old as its tongue and a bit older than its teeth but we've had that discussion elsewhere.
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
Which brings us back to the 'No True Scotsman Fallacy.'
You or I wouldn't consider Charlemagne and the Crusaders to be acting with a 'Christian motive, mentality or mindset' but that's not how they would have viewed their actions, nor would it have been the view of most - if not all - of their contemporaries.
Are you saying that nobody whatsoever in the 8th or the 12th centuries etc were operating with Christian motives, mentality or mindsets?
You've already indicated that you believe that Oliver Cromwell was acting in accordance with his conscience ... why do you believe that of him, for instance, and not of the Crusaders or Charlemagne?
Why were his actions in Ireland any more credible or commendable on conscientious grounds than the actions of Charlemagne or the Crusaders?
On the tradition thing, no I'm not hedging my bets in order to lay a smokescreen in order to avoid accepting things that are 'manifestly scriptural.'
I accept plenty of things I believe to be scriptural. What I don't do is pretend that tradition isn't a factor in deciding what is or isn't 'manifestly scriptural'.
As for your not proof-texting. I can't be the only one here who has noticed your being challenged about that several times here aboard Ship. With good reason.
Posted by Nick Tamen (# 15164) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
On the issue of tradition, I'm using that term to refer to whatever milieu, framework or set of interpretative tools, approaches and conditions that help to form and shape the way we tackle and understand the scriptures and express our faith.
Gamaliel, can I suggest that this might be part of the problem. In the context of understanding Scripture and doctrine, Tradition (sacred Tradition/Holy Tradition) has a specific meaning. It refers to the body of teaching believed to be passed down from the apostles. Even in Protestant usage, it can refer to something fairly definite in terms of a doctrinal and ecclesial approach, such as in reference to the Reformed Tradition.
The definition you give above is, I think, much broader, and pulls in a variety of other factorspolitical, world-view, social etc.beyond just "the teaching handed down" in a given strand of Christianity. Perhaps a different word would serve you better.
Posted by Dafyd (# 5549) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
Nowhere does the New Testament condemn religious genocide.
Obviously true and overwhelmingly pointless.
I feel like Michael Palin in the Monty Python argument sketch.
'Argument is an intellectual process. Contradiction is just the automatic gainsaying of anything the other person says.'
'No, it isn't.'
You are either saying it is overwhelmingly pointless because you believe on rational grounds that it is overwhelmingly pointless, or else you are saying it because you want it to be overwhelmingly pointless and think that if you shout it often enough you can shout down any opposing view to the contrary.
At the moment there is little to no evidence for the former hypothesis.
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
quote:
Gamaliel: I can't see how I nor anyone else here can make it clearer that whilst we don't believe the NT teaches the use of force to impose religious uniformity or to combat heresies or deal with pagans - it is possible to see how people in medieval times wouldn't have shared the same conviction
It is only possible if they were not acting from a Christian motive,mentality or mindset.
Regarding tradition though, your refusal to be specific about what traditions you think are right over the 2000 odd years of Christian history makes me think your references to tradition are just a smokescreen so you can hedge your bets regarding truth and not commit to anything you don't want to just because it is manifestly scriptural, on the grounds that "It's not as simple as that!" Also, I do not proof text.
Martin 60 the universe is as old as its tongue and a bit older than its teeth but we've had that discussion elsewhere.
Tongues and teeth evolved four hundred million years ago on Earth. Earlier elsewhere obviously. So not 6 'days' ago.
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Nick Tamen:
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
On the issue of tradition, I'm using that term to refer to whatever milieu, framework or set of interpretative tools, approaches and conditions that help to form and shape the way we tackle and understand the scriptures and express our faith.
Gamaliel, can I suggest that this might be part of the problem. In the context of understanding Scripture and doctrine, Tradition (sacred Tradition/Holy Tradition) has a specific meaning. It refers to the body of teaching believed to be passed down from the apostles. Even in Protestant usage, it can refer to something fairly definite in terms of a doctrinal and ecclesial approach, such as in reference to the Reformed Tradition.
The definition you give above is, I think, much broader, and pulls in a variety of other factorspolitical, world-view, social etc.beyond just "the teaching handed down" in a given strand of Christianity. Perhaps a different word would serve you better.
Ok. Any suggestions?
I was primarily thinking of Christian traditions rather than what we might call 'external' influences such as socio-economic, cultural and other factors - although they are certainly part of the equation too, of course.
So, for instance, I was making what I felt was a rather obvious point -
- That if you are Pentecostal you read the scriptures through a Pentecostal lens.
- If Reformed, a Reformed lens ...
And so on ...
So, by extension, if you are Charlemagne in an early medieval, post-Augustinian but pre-Reformation / pre-Enlightenment setting ... then, guess what? You are going to read the scriptures in a way that is commensurate with that.
But I take the point you're making.
Posted by Nick Tamen (# 15164) on
:
I get that you were thinking mainly of Christian traditions along the lines you describe, Gamaliel. But I think that for this discussion, use of "tradition" may get in the way. I assumed a more limited, term-of-art meaning until I read your description.
It seems to me that what you're describing is really experience. We read Scripture through the lens of our experience. That experience is largely shaped by the understandings, beliefs and, in some cases, Traditionsometimes accurately conveyed to us, sometimes notof our particular room in the Christian household, be it Catholic, Reformed, Anglican, Pentecostal or whatever.
But it's also shaped by the world we live in and the place we hold in that world. If all we know is a world where a king rules by divine right and all subjects of that king must share the king's religion, our lens will be different from that of someone living in a modern liberal democracy, or someone living as a tolerated-only-to-a-point religious minority.
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
Yes, that's what I've been trying to say.
Posted by Russ (# 120) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
Of course, I believe that Charlemagne's actions go against the grain and the whole tenor and thrust of the NT. But he wouldn't have done. Neither would his contemporaries.
For some reason I'm getting some stick for pointing that out as if in so doing I'm claiming that the NT condones or even commands such activity.
The binariness of it all is truly beyond.
Seems to me it's more of a trinary. I'm struggling to see how anyone can reconcile the three legs of the trilemna:
- I stand fully for Christianity
- this was in every sense a Christian act
- this was a horribly wrong act that I totally condemn.
You're not the sort of atheist who denies the first ("religion is responsible for so many evils...")
I don't believe you're the sort of mealy-mouthed apologist who denies the third ("Christianity brought the Saxons so many benefits, we really shouldn't make too much of one little misunderstanding...")
But you don't seem to want to deny the second, either in the way Kaplan does (not real NT-based soundly-exegetical true Christianity, but instead what is in effect a heresy pretending to the name of Christianity) or in the way I do (not an act rooted in Charlemagne's Christianity but in his 8th-century ideas of strong kingship)
You've convincingly and repeatedly argued that interpretation is both inescapable and coloured by cultural context. But if anything, that seems to point to a fourth way of resolving the tension, a way which denies that talk of Christianity as such is meaningful. There are only Christianities - yours, mine, Charlemagne's - and having one's own doesn't imply any agreement with anyone else's. Interpretation is everything.
But if I understand you right, you're not saying that either.
So how do you resolve that 3-way tension ?
Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
You are either saying it is overwhelmingly pointless because you believe on rational grounds that it is overwhelmingly pointless, or else you are saying it because you want it to be overwhelmingly pointless and think that if you shout it often enough you can shout down any opposing view to the contrary.
I am stating it is pointless on the same grounds as you think it is pointless.
I do not believe for one second that you seriously imagine that the absence of an explicit repudiation of religious genocide in the NT leaves the question open as to whether or not the NT condones the protection and propagation of the Christian faith by means of religious genocide.
Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
Because genocide, intolerance, rape, murder and various other things are biblical.
You are playing the same silly semantic game with the ambiguous term "biblical" as you did with the ambiguous term "valid".
Biblical can mean "referred to in the Bible" or "commanded by the Bible".
Yes, religious genocide is commanded by God of Israel in the OT (which, as I have said in the past, I freely admit to neither understanding nor supporting), but is not commanded, and in fact is implicitly forbidden, in the NT, which for Christians is the last word.
Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
Because genocide, intolerance, rape, murder and various other things are biblical.
You are playing the same silly semantic game with the ambiguous term "biblical" as you did with the ambiguous term "valid".
Biblical can mean "referred to in the Bible" or "commanded by the Bible".
Both of which are options.
quote:
Yes, religious genocide is commanded by God of Israel in the OT (which, as I have said in the past, I freely admit to neither understanding nor supporting), but is not commanded, and in fact is implicitly forbidden, in the NT, which for Christians is the last word.
Only because you interpret it like that. You are constantly mistaking your own interpretation for the only-possible-reading. Wrong.
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
Those are good points and good questions, Russ, but I'm not so sure the 'trilemma' is as 'trinary' as it might at first appear.
Like you, I believe that Charlemagne's actions primarily derived from 8th or 9th century notions of strong kingship.
That would have applied equally had Charlemagne been an Arian, a pagan,a Muslim ruler or whatever else.
However, as a ruler in a society and context that had become 'Christianised' in the broad sense - in a kind of Constantinian and state-sanctioned way - then he would be bound to draw on what contemporaries may have seen as direct or indirect biblical precedents.
That doesn't make the scriptures the motivation for his actions, as it were, rather he may have drawn some form of precedence or justification from them.
In a similar way, the early settlers in New England cited Joshua to justify the massacre of Pequod non-combatants or Cromwell saw his victories as a mark of divine favour and Providence.
I am not for a moment suggesting that the NT 'commands' genocide not that it 'teaches' the imposition of religious uniformity by force - but then that was never a possibility for a small religious sect in the 1st century, so it's not the sort of thing we would reasonably expect the NT to cover directly. That wasn't a pressing issue.
However, what I am suggesting is that in a secondary sense, early medieval rulers would undoubtedly understood the Pauline observations about rulers wielding the sword legitimately as justification for any violence they meted out.
Charlemagne's execution of 4,500 Saxons followed a rebellion. That would have legitimised it under the rules of engagement at that time. Because it was essentially a highly 'religious' society then it's hardly surprising that religious justification ran in parallel with that.
Some historians believe that the figure of 4,500 is exaggerated, but even if it were 4, 45 or 450 it was still reprehensible - and the more so that it was followed by a threat to execute anyone else who didn't get baptised.
The point I'm making of course, is about context and conditions. I don't see how that posits a competing range of individual or conditional 'Christianities' though.
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on
:
The love of God is on a long, endless and worse, Sisyphean uphill trajectory against culture, our institutionalized herd behaviour.
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
Because genocide, intolerance, rape, murder and various other things are biblical.
You are playing the same silly semantic game with the ambiguous term "biblical" as you did with the ambiguous term "valid".
Biblical can mean "referred to in the Bible" or "commanded by the Bible".
Yes, religious genocide is commanded by God of Israel in the OT (which, as I have said in the past, I freely admit to neither understanding nor supporting), but is not commanded, and in fact is implicitly forbidden, in the NT, which for Christians is the last word.
Come, come, Kaplan, you should have realised by now that there are 'tools' available within the various Christian hermeneutical approaches that can help us deal with the conumdrum of the OT genocides ...
We can allegorise them, for a kick-off.
We can take them as 'myth' (in the C S Lewis sense) rather than historiography in the modern sense - although based on actual historical events and a particular historical context ...
To all intents and purposes, of course, our approach to the Hebrew scriptures have been 'Christianised' and this process started with the Gospel writers themselves.
It's one thing to claim, as Jamat does, that we need to recover a 'Jewish' way of reading the scriptures - and I can understand why he suggests that - but when you look at the implications that ain't always going to be the healthiest option ...
I'll forgo a tangent at this point.
So, yes, I agree that the NT 'supersedes' or rather fulfils the Hebrew scriptures - and no, it doesn't 'command' or 'teach' us to enforce religious uniformity with the sword.
I would agree with you that the implicit teaching of the NT and the whole thrust and tenor of it is against that ...
But at the risk of repeating myself yet again, that is only because you and I live in a society and context where we have been conditioned not to expect the opposite.
You seem unable to take the imaginative leap to put yourself in the shoes of an 8th century believer in a Christianised Western Europe that still bore some elements and vestiges of bully-boy pagan warlord society ... as well as a harping back to its imperial Roman past.
That's where I find Larry Siedentop's argument of interest in 'Inventing The Individual'.
It took centuries for these things to work themselves out. Christianity took hundreds of years to become embedded in Anglo-Saxon, Frankish and Visigoth societies and it was to be many hundreds of years more before it spread into Lithuania and the Baltic region - sadly, through conquest and the sword ...
I really don't understand why you would expect an 8th century monk to necessarily reach the same conclusions as you or I do from reading the scriptures when they were operating within a completely different paradigm and mindset.
We can yell, 'But that's not in the NT!' until we are blue in the face but that doesn't alter the fact that they were operating in a different kind of way, applying a whole different way of thinking, a different set of hermeneutical principles too - as well as some that overlap with our own of course.
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on
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Homophobia in any modern sense isn't in it either of course. That doesn't stop the Church.
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
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Again, a Dead Horse tangent, Martin60, surely?
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on
:
Really? It makes the point about what is and what is not in the NT being irrelevant to the Church now let alone historically.
Posted by Dafyd (# 5549) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
I do not believe for one second that you seriously imagine that the absence of an explicit repudiation of religious genocide in the NT leaves the question open as to whether or not the NT condones the protection and propagation of the Christian faith by means of religious genocide.
The argument that the NT condemns the profit motive and the accumulation of wealth is far stronger than the argument that the NT condemns genocide but condones war to defend minorities of another religion. And I think there are a lot of good Christians who find the argument that the NT condemns the accumulation of wealth unconvincing.
You keep saying 'NT' instead of 'Bible' or 'Scripture'. This amounts to a tacit admission.
Posted by Jamat (# 11621) on
:
quote:
KaplanCorday;
Yes, religious genocide is commanded by God of Israel in the OT (which, as I have said in the past, I freely admit to neither understanding nor supporting), but is not commanded, and in fact is implicitly forbidden, in the NT, which for Christians is the last word.
MrCheesy:
Only because you interpret it like that. You are constantly mistaking your own interpretation for the only-possible-reading. Wrong.
The assumption behind this is that I can take any text and in the name of 'validly interptreting,' I can say it does not say what it says and no one is allowed to tell me I am mistaken.
Kaplan Corday's claim is extremely straightforward and readily verifiable by a child of 10 who can read English.
Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
Kaplan Corday's claim is extremely straightforward and readily verifiable by a child of 10 who can read English.
I see. So obviously anyone who said any different was thicker than a child of 10.
Posted by Jamat (# 11621) on
:
quote:
Gamaliel: I really don't understand why you would expect an 8th century monk to necessarily reach the same conclusions as you or I do from reading the scriptures when they were operating within a completely different paradigm and mindset
This suggests though that mindsets and cultural paradigms cannot be overcome. But they can. Pretty well every one of the reformers was aCatholic priest who read the scriptures and thought something like, "Oi,this can't be right! No indulgences in here." The Holy Spirit's way of reaching people is often directly via the scriptures.
Posted by Crsos (# 238) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
Because genocide, intolerance, rape, murder and various other things are biblical.
You are playing the same silly semantic game with the ambiguous term "biblical" as you did with the ambiguous term "valid".
Biblical can mean "referred to in the Bible" or "commanded by the Bible".
Yes, religious genocide is commanded by God of Israel in the OT (which, as I have said in the past, I freely admit to neither understanding nor supporting), . . .
Which would seem to make it "Biblical" no matter how you parse the term.
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
. . . but is not commanded, and in fact is implicitly forbidden, in the NT, which for Christians is the last word.
"Implicitly forbidden"? Is that one of those liberal theological "if you take the general arc and context . . . " type of arguments that usually get such short shrift in other contexts?
Still, if you've got an New Testament exhortation to rulers to put wrongdoers to the sword and still maintain that it is wrong to worship non-Christian deities (i.e. it's a form of "wrongdoing"), the implication would seem exactly contrary to what you claim.
Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
This suggests though that mindsets and cultural paradigms cannot be overcome. But they can. Pretty well every one of the reformers was aCatholic priest who read the scriptures and thought something like, "Oi,this can't be right! No indulgences in here."
The Holy Spirit's way of reaching people is often directly via the scriptures.
IMO the Holy Spirit rarely works directly via the scriptures. If one is being prodded to change paradigm, that's rarely due to increasing the reading of scripture and everything to do with influences from elsewhere which give an alternative view on what scripture says.
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
I'm not suggesting that paradigms can't be overcome. Of course they can. It takes time, though.
How long did it take to abolish slavery, for instance?
On the Indulgences example, as far as I know they still exist within the RCC but not in quite the same way as they did in the early 1500s.
So that particular paradigm hasn't entirely disappeared.
The sort of mindset I'm referring to with my 8th century example is deeper than that, though - it's more to do with 'might is right' and concepts such as the Divine Right of kings ...
You don't have to look very far for scriptural support for that if your societal and cultural background inclines in that direction. After all, even pagan rulers are 'appointed by God' according to no less an authority than the Apostle Paul and have the right to wield the sword against malefactors.
It's not a giant imaginative leap to see how 8th centuries rulers would apply that to themselves when faced by what they saw as rebellions against their authority.
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
quote:
KaplanCorday;
Yes, religious genocide is commanded by God of Israel in the OT (which, as I have said in the past, I freely admit to neither understanding nor supporting), but is not commanded, and in fact is implicitly forbidden, in the NT, which for Christians is the last word.
MrCheesy:
Only because you interpret it like that. You are constantly mistaking your own interpretation for the only-possible-reading. Wrong.
The assumption behind this is that I can take any text and in the name of 'validly interptreting,' I can say it does not say what it says and no one is allowed to tell me I am mistaken.
Kaplan Corday's claim is extremely straightforward and readily verifiable by a child of 10 who can read English.
No such average 10 year old could believe that the universe is 6000 years old.
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
Besides,Luther may have opposed Indulgences but that didn't stop him being anti-Semitic nor from calling on the state to use violence against the rebellious peasants.
Calvin didn't feel it remiss to hand Servetus over to the civil authorities for trial and execution for heresy in Geneva either ... although I understand his personal role in this wasn't as clear-cut as his detractors claim.
Non-conformists and other non-Anglicans weren't allowed into Oxford University until the mid-1800s.
Paradigms can change, but they change slowly.
What seems obvious to us would not seem obvious to people in times past or in different cultures.
I'd have thought that was obvious.
Posted by Nick Tamen (# 15164) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Crsos:
Still, if you've got an New Testament exhortation to rulers to put wrongdoers to the sword . . . .
Which, according to at least one American Evangelical pastor with friends in very high places, is justification for using "whatever means necessary," including assasination or war. And of course, war means killing a lot more people than just the wrongdoer.
Posted by Jamat (# 11621) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
quote:
KaplanCorday;
Yes, religious genocide is commanded by God of Israel in the OT (which, as I have said in the past, I freely admit to neither understanding nor supporting), but is not commanded, and in fact is implicitly forbidden, in the NT, which for Christians is the last word.
MrCheesy:
Only because you interpret it like that. You are constantly mistaking your own interpretation for the only-possible-reading. Wrong.
The assumption behind this is that I can take any text and in the name of 'validly interptreting,' I can say it does not say what it says and no one is allowed to tell me I am mistaken.
Kaplan Corday's claim is extremely straightforward and readily verifiable by a child of 10 who can read English.
No such average 10 year old could believe that the universe is 6000 years old.
Martin 60, Please do not post about dead horses here..junior hosting off.
Posted by Jamat (# 11621) on
:
quote:
Gamaliel: What seems obvious to us would not seem obvious to people in times past or in different cultures
Why so? They are less aware of their mindsets? They lacked post modern insights? Unlikely. I think God spoke via scripture in past ages.
[ 10. August 2017, 23:23: Message edited by: Jamat ]
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
Of course. But 'We know in part and we prophesy in part.'
I'm not saying God doesn't speak through scripture. I believe he does and always have. That doesn't mean we always get the right end of the stick, not now, not then.
And as I keep saying, there's always the issue of interpretation and context and all the unavoidable factors that shape and determine our response.
As far as obeying the scriptures and living lives that are fully commensurate with the teachings of Christ. None of us can claim to be doing that adequately, we all fall short.
Hopefully, we don't fall short in ways that involve mass murder or violent suppression of anyone who doesn't agree with us ...
But we are all of us complicit in wider structural and societal wrongs and imbalances as well as our own, personal, besetting sins.
That isn't a call for doom and gloom or a withdrawal from the world, it's an acknowledgement of imperfections, constraints and the need to examine ourselves, exercise continuing repentance and to press on towards the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.
We are where we are and we have to work with what we've got. It was the same for believers in every age.
What other way did the Celtic and Anglo-Saxon monks have to spread the Gospel other than to work hand-in-glove with the rulers and warrior chieftains of the day? It's no accident that Lindisfarne is within sight of the royal stronghold of Bamburgh.
How could Luther, Calvin, Cromwell or anyone else have acted in a way that wasn't commensurate with the notes and attitudes of their time, however much they might have challenged things otherwise?
None of these happen in a vacuum.
The scriptures weren't written in a vacuum. They weren't received in a vacuum. They are not understood and interpreted on in a vacuum. There are two sides to the conversation. Well, more sides than that ...
There are the scriptures, God the Holy Spirit, us - and all the accompanying social, cultural and other influences that shape how we think, how we act and how we are.
That doesn't diminish the power and authority of the scriptures. It simply sets out how things are. How things will always be until the Parousia.
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
Sorry, 'mores' not 'notes'.
This isn't about post-modern insights. This is about people operating within the paradigms they inherited and which have gradually changed over time.
It would not have occurred to someone in the 8th century that church and state should be separated. Hence, they wouldn't have seen church-state separation in the scriptures.
You can only see church-state separation in the scriptures - even implicitly - if you are operating with a mindset that conceives that such a thing is feasible or desirable.
The NT does not directly address the issue of church-state separation, although it certainly provides material and emphases we can use to construct such a belief.
But we can only construct such a belief if the circumstances, cultural conditions and other facilitating factors exist for us to do that.
Those conditions gradually developed over time.
How could it have been otherwise?
Are you suggesting it would have been possible for Charlemagne to have read (or have someone read) some of the passages you've cited - 'My Kingdom is not of this world' - and thought, 'Zut alors! I've got this wrong. I'm going to dismantle my Holy Roman Empire, which is neither Holy, Roman, nor an Empire and become an Anabaptist living in Hutterite simplicity or else a Protestant fundamentalist like Jamat with a huge chip on my shoulder about my Roman Catholic upbringing ...I'll sign up for some correspondence course from some ultra-conservative Bible college in the yet to be discovered United States and interpret the scriptures in a Dispensationalist way that emphases the role of Israel in the End Times ...'
Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Crsos:
Still, if you've got an New Testament exhortation to rulers to put wrongdoers to the sword and still maintain that it is wrong to worship non-Christian deities (i.e. it's a form of "wrongdoing"), the implication would seem exactly contrary to what you claim.
Oddly enough, I do have a NT, but there is no way I would have been aware that it contained Romans 13 if you hadn't been kind enough to link it.
Wow, proof-texting gets a lot of bad press these days, but you have demonstrated just how exegetically potent and irrefutable it can be!
Let's see now:
Paul says that rulers bear the sword in order to deal with those who do wrong.
Practising any religion other than Christianity is wrong.
Ergo, Paul is exhorting rulers to kill all heretics and heathen.
Works for me - it's a watertight case.
No doubt you'll get captious carpers who want to argue that Paul is referring to ordinary law and order; that he couldn't be referring to the use of religious violence in support of Christianity when he commends rulers, because no ruler at the time was practising it; and that there is not the remotest hint of condoning governmental pro-Christian religious violence as a means of propagating the faith in the words of Christ, or anyone else in the NT.
One look at your post will silence them.
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on
:
So?
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
One look at your post will silence them.
Who's trying to shut down the opposition on this thread? Let me scroll up.
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
You just don't get it do you Kaplan?
Of course people with a medieval mindset wouldn't see any clear disparity between Paul's comments about the right of rulers to bear the sword and the kind of thing Charlemagne did in Saxony.
Why not?
Because that was the prevailing world-view at that time. If gradually changed. It took many hundreds of years. But it gradually changed.
That doesn't mean that Charlemagne or any other medieval ruler would have executed out of hand any Jew, Muslim or other non-Christian who happened to wander into their domains. As I've said upthread, he'd have probably regarded it in a similar way to how Cromwell regarded the massacres in Ireland, as just retribution for earlier atrocities committed or allegedly committed by his opponents and as a way of deterring further resistance.
It's reprehensible, abhorrent and worthy of all condemnation, but it's how they thought and they'd have understood the scriptures in that way too.
No amount of bleating on your part is going to alter that. We don't interpret the scriptures that way now, but they did so then. There's nothing we can do about that. We can't go back in a time machine and stop them.
I really don't see your problem. In acknowledging the historical context and the difference in world-view between previous centuries and our own we aren't undermining or relativising the scriptures in any way.
All we are doing is making an observation about how these things work. At any one time you are going to have people who live closer to Christ's example and teaching than others. At any one time and indeed during the course of any single day, you or I or any other Christian around are going to further or closer to the 'ideal' as it were than we are at other times - and we are always going to fall short.
Sure, genocide and the expulsion of Muslims and Jews in Reconquista Spain and such like - the Massacre of the Latins in 12th century Constantinople, the Crusader atrocities against Orthodox Christians, Muslims and Jews, the St Bartholomew's Day Massacre, The Thirty Years War and mutual persecutions by RCs and Protestants are all pretty shitty.
No-one is saying otherwise.
All we are saying is, like it or not, Christians are capable of some pretty heavy and unjustifiable shit.
Banging on and on about particular hermeneutical models doesn't alter that.
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
All we are saying is, like it or not, Christians are capable of some pretty heavy and unjustifiable shit.
And they are capable of justifying it (to their own satisfaction) from the Bible.
Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
In acknowledging the historical context and the difference in world-view between previous centuries and our own we aren't undermining or relativising the scriptures in any way.
You're not relativising, but that's only because you can't bring yourself to go where your logic inexorably leads.
You admit that Charlemagne and others were mistaken in theory and practice, and that there were historical reasons for that - so far, so good - but you won't take the next unavoidable step and say they were wrong, not just in our terms, but in what they should have realised were their own.
The only way out of your dilemma is historical relativism, ie they were actually right in terms of the then hegemonic ideology, and therefore we can't blame them, but you can't bring yourself to say that because you are frightened of being labelled relativist.
I say it gain, you have painted yourself into a corner.
Sorry to go Godwinian on you, but the obvious illustration is the Holocaust.
There are historical and cultural explanations for anti-Semitism in the first half of the twentieth century, but reasons are not the same as excuses or justifications.
Tout comprendre is not tout pardonner.
It would be obscene to say, "Well Nazi anti-Semitism was deplorable, but we have to remember a whole host of factors such as Christian anti-Semitism dating back to Luther, and the preponderant volkisch exclusivism, and the popularity of "scientific" race and eugenics theories, and German discontent which required a scapegoat after WWI, and the Depression, and the authoritarian strand in German history, etc, etc, so it would be meaningless to judge them by our 2017 standards".
[ 12. August 2017, 06:51: Message edited by: Kaplan Corday ]
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
Ah, Godwin's Law rears it's ugly head again.
Listen, it's not me who has painted themselves into a corner. You have.
I'm more than happy to acknowledge that Charlemagne and others 'should' have realised that what they did was wrong but in order for them to do so there would have had to been a completely different way of running and organising their societies.
In theory, I'd accept that had people adhered more closely and consistently to the Sermon on The Mount then, by the 8th century, societies would have developed in ways that made Charlemagne style bully-boy tactics obsolete or unfeasible.
Had everyone, rulers included, lived a devoted, Christ-like life doing no harm to man nor beast, then perhaps the culture would have changed to the extent that religious pluralism was tolerated and encouraged and instead of warrior-king 'heroic societies' we'd have ended up with something akin to what, by the 8th century?
Parliamentary democracy?
Some kind of kibbutz?
A Hutterite style communal approach to things?
It's interesting to speculate how things would or could have turned out had Christianity not become the official religion of the Roman Empire but simply a widespread sect but one of many on a pluralist late Roman Empire. Would it have survived the barbarian invasions and the collapse of the Western Empire?
If it had, what form would it take?
In some ways I'd argue that the drive towards monasticism from the mid-3rd century onwards - before Constantine and Theodosius - was in part an attempt to resolve some of these dilemmas. The early monastics, rightly or wrongly, believed it was impossible to reform society at large and so withdrew into the desert.
They sought 'white martyrdom'now that the 'red martyrdom' of persecution was receding.
Essentially, we can see the Church of the first 500 years being shaped by three main factors, persecution, the attempt to achieve and define a consensus and official acceptance and ratification.
The next 500 years saw growth and consolidation but also growing tensions and eventual Schism. The next 500 years saw the fall-out from that ... and on goes.
If Charlemagne had sat down and thought to himself, 'Sacre Bleu, I've got this wrong. There is no NT mandate for me to enforce Christianity on the pagan Saxons ...'
Then what would have been the options open to him at that time?
He could have jacked it all in and become a monk, perhaps.
But how could he have altered his modus operandi in terms of kingly rule when his was the only model available at that time? Heck, the British monarchy only became a 'constitutional' one in the late 17th century. The French and Russian monarchies never did, although both had introduced reforms by the time they were overthrown.
Are you seriously suggesting that Charlemagne could have initiated or completed a process of reforming the way rulers operated that took hundreds of years - and much bloodshed - to work out?
Rather than telling me where my logic inexorably leads think about the whacky logic of your own untenable position.
It is unhistorical, unrealistic and complete moonshine.
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
Besides (and another thing ...) If you are going to play the Godwin card, a sure sign that you are losing the argument, then it could be said that what makes the Nazi atrocities even more obscene - if that were possible - is that the came as some kind of degenerate Romantic post - and anti - Enlightenment impulse that dredged back into the darker waters of Europe's past.
They would have been obscene at any time, of course, but coming after increased pluralism, improvements in health and social welfare and the other more positive benefits of 'progress' (and I'm aware that's a loaded term) then arguably that takes them to an even higher level of obscenity - if such a thing can be graded on those terms.
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on
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G. You can't get that he won't get it.
Posted by Dafyd (# 5549) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
You admit that Charlemagne and others were mistaken in theory and practice, and that there were historical reasons for that - so far, so good - but you won't take the next unavoidable step and say they were wrong, not just in our terms, but in what they should have realised were their own.
In any area where there is genuine objective knowledge to be had, and therefore genuine progress to be made in understanding, there is no conflict between judging an action both absolutely in comparison to what would be good overall and relative to the knowledge and circumstances available to the agent at the time of acting.
On a neo-Aristotelian account of ethics, ethics is both a skill and a theoretical enquiry. That means that there are three aspects to ethical judgement: what someone did, what it was best and right for that someone to do considered absolutely, and what could reasonably have been expected of that someone given their previous development in that skill or the course of the enquiry so far.
So Bobby Fisher might be judged the greatest chess player in the history of the game even if many of today's grandmasters could beat him, just because it is from Fisher's innovations in tactics and strategy that today's grandmasters have learnt to play chess better than Fisher could.
To say that ethical statements are objectively true or false or right or wrong is to say that their truth and falsehood cannot be reduced to the best available judgement of the ethical agents who make them. To identify the best available judgement of an ethical agent with the absolute right or truth of the matter is therefore implicitly to abandon objectivity of ethical statements.
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on
:
Stir-RUTH man! I take it all back, me comment 5 minutes ago on the Social Progressive thread. That last paragraphic peak requires oxygen for me. I'll have a go at deconstructing it for plebs on the basecamp bus like meself.
Posted by Dafyd (# 5549) on
:
It's possibly worth reflecting on why this argument is important. It's not as if anyone really wants to persuade conservative evangelicals that genocide is consistent with their religious and hermeneutical commitments.
What I'm trying to argue is not that genocide is consistent with the Bible but that it is not simple nor easy to show that genocide is consistent with the Bible. There is no simple refutation of the point that no reader competent in the grammatical-historical method could possibly reject.
There are three consequences:
First, that one ought to be cautious about asserting that violence is consistent with other people's Scriptures. If one is tempted to say that quote:
a case for religious violence can be legitimately made from the Koran, though not all Muslims do, and those who do, don't necessarily obey it (out of cowardice, common decency or whatever)
then one should be aware that one's ground may be just the same as that of the Muslim who says the reverse about the Bible. Exegetical humility about other people's traditions, especially when one is making contrasts with one's own, is in order.
Secondly, the realisation that other people for what they took to be good reasons justified things from the Bible that we now see were unjustified ought to awaken us to the possibility that we may be in the same position. Even if we have what we take to be good reasons to read the Bible in a certain way we ought to be aware that we may still be wrong. If we think that the only way to justify what we consider ethically unconscionable things is to make clear and simple errors of interpretation we can convince ourselves that we can't be justifying anything unconscionable ourselves.
Thirdly, and most theoretical, I don't believe the Christian hermeneutic is purely grammatical-historical. The Christian hermeneutic is Christocentric and requires the interpreter to be prayerful and charitable. It's been a longstanding theme of Christian hermeneutics that the reader who has sinful habits will be unable to read the Bible in the spirit of charity in which it discloses its true meaning. Thus a reader who has been brought up in habits of avarice (or of sinful contempt for created goods) will be unable to correctly interpret passages of the Bible that deal with money and the use of created goods. While use of grammatical-historical methods may raise questions about such readings they cannot decisively convince the reader of their sin.
Posted by Crsos (# 238) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
Oddly enough, I do have a NT, but there is no way I would have been aware that it contained Romans 13 if you hadn't been kind enough to link it.
But apparently you don't own an Old Testament. For some reason you seem to reject anything there as invalid, even if backed up by the New Testament. For example, the slaughter of wrongdoing Baal worshipers backing up Paul's support of state violence against wrongdoers.
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
Let's see now:
Paul says that rulers bear the sword in order to deal with those who do wrong.
Practising any religion other than Christianity is wrong.
Ergo, Paul is exhorting rulers to kill all heretics and heathen.
Works for me - it's a watertight case.
No doubt you'll get captious carpers who want to argue that Paul is referring to ordinary law and order; that he couldn't be referring to the use of religious violence in support of Christianity when he commends rulers, because no ruler at the time was practising it; and that there is not the remotest hint of condoning governmental pro-Christian religious violence as a means of propagating the faith in the words of Christ, or anyone else in the NT.
Does Paul make a distinction between "ordinary" wrongdoing and "extraordinary" wrongdoing? If he does, I'm not aware of it. State punishment of religious malefactors was fairly commonplace in Paul's day.
The fact that no ruler at the time was a practicing Christian is only relevant if we conclude that Paul opposed the idea of Christians serving in government, something else for which there is no (as far as I can tell) scriptural basis either.
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on
:
@Dafyd. It's me I'm sure but should [not] be there: "What I'm trying to argue is not that genocide is consistent with the Bible but that it is not simple nor easy to show that genocide is [not] consistent with the Bible."?
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
Is it a case of what they 'should have realised', Kaplan or what they 'could have realised'?
If Charlemagne and others 'should' have realised that the NT doesn't sanction religiously-motivated violence - and they wouldn't have separated out the religious realm from the secular in the way we tend to do today - then what 'could' they have done about it?
Over on the Kerygmania thread on Romans 13 hatless has dismissed the possibility of the verses in question being Pauline. He suggests that they were a later addition to the text on the grounds that they don't sound Pauline to him and also because he doesn't like them.
Rightly or wrongly, I submit that he doesn't like them because they can easily be used to justify state-sponsored violence of one form or other - including, presumably, religiously motivated state-sponsored violence in settings where that might be expected to be 'the norm' - as it would have been in Charlemagne's time.
I like what Dafyd has said.
It's not as if anyone here wants evangelicals - or anyone else - to embrace the possibility of using scriptural texts to justify violent oppression of religious minorities or heretics.
All we are saying is that if one is of a mind to do that and if one lived in a society where there was the expectation that the ruler set the religious polity for the territory itself, then that would probably be the default position. That was the default position for centuries. It took years and years and years for it to shift.
I don't 'get' why you don't 'get' it.
Nor do I 'get' why you keep arguing a case that is so palpably unhistorical that it belongs in the Museum of Palpably Unhistorical Curiosities.
Nor do I understand why some of the more evangelical posters here are arguing in a sphincter-clenchingly anal way that suggests that they were apprenticed to Tight Arse and Gradgrind.
Or why they are posting in so fuckingly binary a way as to imply that they are employees of the Fuckingly Binary Manufacturing Company Inc of No Nuance Ville, Binary County, Minnesota.
No, I don't believe the NT teaches or endorses genocide, religious oppression or anything of the kind.
That might not have been so apparently self-evident to Charlemagne, to the Crusaders, to Cromwell to anyone else who operated with a different kind of world-view to the one we are operating with.
It's less 'should they have realised' given the 'plain meaning of the NT', more a case of 'could they have realised' when they were reading the NT in the light of the particular circumstances, conditions and influences they were influenced by.
There's no Godwin's Law thing to bring in there.
Contextualise your history, unclench your sphincters, resign from that company in Minnesota and wake up and smell the coffee.
Posted by Dafyd (# 5549) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
@Dafyd. It's me I'm sure but should [not] be there: "What I'm trying to argue is not that genocide is consistent with the Bible but that it is not simple nor easy to show that genocide is [not] consistent with the Bible."?
You are correct. The second 'consistent' should be 'inconsistent'.
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
All we are saying is, like it or not, Christians are capable of some pretty heavy and unjustifiable shit.
And they are capable of justifying it (to their own satisfaction) from the Bible.
And the aroma of the coffee wafting into the room says that Mousethief is on the money.
They are capable of justifying it to what?
Gamaliel's satisfaction?
Kaplan's satisfaction?
Mr Cheesy's satisfaction?
Jamat's satisfaction?
Mousethief's own satisfaction?
No.
'To their OWN satisfaction.'
That might be the missing piece of the jig-saw here. I don't know.
Like it or not, Christians are perfectly capable of committing some pretty hefty heavy shit and of using the scriptures to do so.
That doesn't mean they are right to do so.
Of course not.
It's simply saying that they can and do, and that they did.
That neither impugns the NT nor its authors, nor does it relativise the whole thing either.
Get over it already. Here's a cup of coffee. Smell it. Taste it. Allow it to relax your screwed tight sphincters. You'll feel the better for it.
Posted by Jamat (# 11621) on
:
quote:
Gamaliel: All we are saying is that if one is of a mind to do that and if one lived in a society where there was the expectation that the ruler set the religious polity for the territory itself, then that would probably be the default position. That was the default position for centuries. It took years and years and years for it to shift
And 'all we are saying...', begs the question of how it could possibly rely on any justification from the New Testament.
It can only do so if you eliminate all objectivity and all commonsense and pretty well all context from your reading of it thus merely creating a pretext to somehow justify the position that Christianity can somehow be seen as inherently able to justify enforcement of itself by military or political means.
Can't be done.
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on
:
'...is give peace a chance'.
[ 12. August 2017, 17:46: Message edited by: Martin60 ]
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
It can and it has. I have demonstrated how. It depends on having a medieval mindset.
Try to pay attention Jamat.
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
And 'all we are saying...', begs the question of how it could possibly rely on any justification from the New Testament.
No, no it does not. Here is your huge gaping blind spot. It is a problem for justification from the New Testament given YOUR exegetical principles. But not given theirs. You see yourself as coming to the text with "objectivity and commonsense." So did they.
"But they were wrong!" you cry. Yes, I see them as being wrong also. I do think our exegesis here is more objectively valid than theirs. But they don't have our exegesis, they only had theirs.
Our descendants may look back and see us as just as heinously wrong on the dead horse issues of our day as we see Charlemagne wrong about this. Exegetical frameworks change and evolve.
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
But Mousethief, they did have the same exegetical methods as us ...
Kaplan says so ...
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
Mind you, it makes you realise how bad things have got on this thread when it's the Orthodox who are talking about evolution and change ...
Posted by Jamat (# 11621) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
It can and it has. I have demonstrated how. It depends on having a medieval mindset.
Try to pay attention Jamat.
You really do have a blind spot.
There is no connection between having a medieval mindset, (which incidentally Is no excuse more than having any other flavoured mindset. God cuts through cultures with his word and his spirit and the thing called conscience cannot be turned off by culture,) and what the NT states. Assuming they could read it or wanted to, conquerors find no justification for their actions there.
Posted by Jamat (# 11621) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
'...is give peace a chance'.
What did I say about dead horses?..Junior hosting off.
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
Yes, God's word speaks to us but in the context of our culture and milieu.
It took centuries for people to move away from ideas about imposing or defending a particular, unified belief system on society at large. I would argue that the Gospel helped that process, but these things don't happen overnight.
Christianity arrived in these islands some time during the early centuries of the Christian era but it didn't achieve full critical mass until around the 7th century - and even then it was necessarily expressed in terms that fitted the culture and society of that time. We do the same now, only in our case we don't go round imposing our faith by force because that's no longer how we see these things.
I'm not the one with the blind-spot here.
You seem to find it impossible to comprehend that other people in other generations didn't necessarily understand these things in the same way that you or I do. We think the way we do because of centuries of accumulated debates, disagreements, development and change.
None of this happens in a vacuum. Not for you, not for me, not for anyone else.
The Word became flesh and dwelt among us. When? At a particular time and in a particular place, in a particular context. The scriptures come to us in particular times, places and contexts. We all see in part and prophesy in part. But we still see.
How come slavery wasn't abolished until comparatively recently?
How come Cromwell didn't seem to find it incompatible with his faith to see the destruction of his enemies as providential?
You keep banging on and on and on about how the scriptures can't possibly be used to justify such things when it pretty clear from history that they have. That doesn't make it right, of course. But in order for any of us to understand Romans 13 in the way you or I or Kaplan understand it requires the necessary conditions for us to do so.
Those conditions weren't there in the 8th century.
You may as well complain that the monks on Lindisfarne didn't hold a Billy Graham style rally instead of courting the favour of the Northumbrian kings to further their mission.
Yes, they were counter-cultural to some extent, St Aidan is said to have given a horse the king gave him to a poor man. St Cuthbert famously stood in the freezing North Sea reciting the Psalms.
Yet as far as their missionary methods went, they could only operate within the thought-patterns of their time. Same applies to you and me.
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
It can and it has. I have demonstrated how. It depends on having a medieval mindset.
Try to pay attention Jamat.
You really do have a blind spot.
Um, yeah.
quote:
There is no connection between having a medieval mindset ... and what the NT states.
This is the huge blind spot of the 21st century American Evangelicalism. We don't have direct access to what the NT states. Nobody does. Each of us brings our exegetical framework to the text, and we read it through that as if through spectacles. It is on this point that trying to discuss the Bible with Evangelicals founders. "We have the bare meaning of Scripture; you all have interpretations," they believe. And it's daft.
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
It's so ingrained that Jamat doesn't even realise he's doing it.
'But they had the NT in the 8th century. That means they should have interpreted it the same way as I do.'
Kaplan's arguments look more sophisticated at first sight but they bear little more scrutiny either.
I really don't know what to say or do next. Jamat doesn't understand. I think Kaplan does but for whatever reason doesn't seem to want to back down and see sense.
Posted by Jamat (# 11621) on
:
quote:
Gamaliel: 'But they had the NT in the 8th century. That means they should have interpreted it the same way as I do.'
Not at all. What I would suggest is that interpretation is not the issue at all here. You are so focused on the difference culture makes that you totally ignore the way the exact same motives and impulses operate through all ages. Charlemagne had a conscience and also all the desire for power of any dictatorial leader. What he did was human. It was not Christian. It can not be sheeted home to Jesus' teaching.
Posted by Jamat (# 11621) on
:
quote:
Gamaliel: You keep banging on and on and on about how the scriptures can't possibly be used to justify such things when it pretty clear from history that they have
What clear from history is that people then as now used lots of excuses and justifications for unjust actions. IMV, this does not come under the definition of hermeneutics.
Posted by orfeo (# 13878) on
:
I've been through this before with Christian terrorism vs Islamic terrorism. Lots of people will insist that you "can't" justify this that or the other from the Bible, furiously ignoring the fact that people already HAVE.
Whether it's RIGHT to justify this that or the other from the Bible is not the same question.
And it seems many people are incapable of grasping the disconnect between focusing on what HAS been justified in the name of Islam while insisting that for Christianity we must only look at what it is RIGHT to justify.
Posted by Jamat (# 11621) on
:
quote:
Orfeo: I've been through this before with Christian terrorism vs Islamic terrorism. Lots of people will insist that you "can't" justify this that or the other from the Bible, furiously ignoring the fact that people already HAVE.
The fact that they claim to have done this, if in fact they have, does not mean that the Bible is their justification. Mostly this is self deception. They simply claimed something was done for God that was on their own selfish, worldly, agenda.
Posted by Crsos (# 238) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
The fact that they claim to have done this, if in fact they have, does not mean that the Bible is their justification. Mostly this is self deception. They simply claimed something was done for God that was on their own selfish, worldly, agenda.
Isn't that equivalence a form of Bibliolatry?
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
The point I'm making, Jamat is that it IS about hermeneutics as whatever hermeneutic schema we use it's inevitably conditioned by a whole range of factors - cultural, educational, which particular Christian traditions we've been exposed to ...
You seem to believe that we can disaggregate our hermeneutic from our context. We can't.
Acknowledging that in no way diminishes the authority of the scriptures, nor justifies or condones abusive actions such as those of Charlemagne or Cromwell or you or I on an off day - for all of us fall short of the ideal - even if we don't go round putting people to the sword in the mistaken belief that we have some kind of providential warrant or right to do so.
Posted by Jamat (# 11621) on
:
quote:
Gamaliel : You seem to believe that we can disaggregate our hermeneutic from our context. We can't.
And you want to describe zeitgeist as a hermeneutic. That is what doesn't work. Can a 'hermeneutic' be unconsciously employed? To be a hermeneutic in the sense that I understand it, you'd have to show that specific reasons for actions were genuinely motivated by Biblical convictions and not just by the culture of the day or by Biblical 'justifications' ie cynically using the text.
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
Consciously or otherwise, we are influy by the zeitgeist and that, among other things, shapes which hermeneutical models we use.
Charlemagne was shaped by his zeitgeist.
We are shaped by ours.
It shapes what we have for breakfast as well as however might approach and understand the scriptures.
Besides, you seem to want to reduce everything to sitting down with a Bible.
There's more to everyone's faith than Bible study. Besides, it's anachronistic to expect people in the 8th century to have done that in the way we do - not that they didn't study the Bible in those days, monks and theologians did, of course, but they didn't come at it in the way you or I might. They came at it in an early medieval way.
We come at it in a 21st century way drawing on all the influences and developments that have shaped that. You come at it wearing conservative evangelical specs. Mousethief is wearing Orthodox specs. We are all wearing specs.
So, no, we can't disaggregate our hermeneutic from our particular tradition or context. No-one ever has. No-one ever will. I can't see why there's a problem with that. It doesn't reduce everything to a mush of relativity. It simply acknowledges the way things work.
Posted by Jamat (# 11621) on
:
quote:
Gamaliel: so, no, we can't disaggregate our hermeneutic from our particular tradition or context. No-one ever has. No-one ever will. I can't see why there's a problem with that
That is why I think you have a blind spot. You are mixing disparate things. Hermeneutics, to me is about finding the word of truth which necessarily is going to transcend the current wisdom. It will do this because God is always outside of the zeitgeist.
Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
And it seems many people are incapable of grasping the disconnect between focusing on what HAS been justified in the name of Islam while insisting that for Christianity we must only look at what it is RIGHT to justify.
As I pointed out upthread, a genuine case can be made both for and against religious violence from the Koran, and there are Muslims on both sides, but no genuine case can be made for religious violence from the NT.
Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
I'm more than happy to acknowledge that Charlemagne and others 'should' have realised that what they did was wrong
No-one - not me, anyway -is arguing that there were not cogent cultural reasons for the way Christians got things wrong in the past,.
No doubt future generations will nail the cultural reasons for the ways we Christians are getting some things wrong now.
But if wrong is wrong (and you yourself admit that Christian religious violence was wrong) then it can't be rationalised away by resort to historical relativism which, deny it as often and as prolixly and hyperbolically as you like, is effectively what you are doing.
Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
Besides (and another thing ...) If you are going to play the Godwin card, a sure sign that you are losing the argument, then it could be said that what makes the Nazi atrocities even more obscene - if that were possible - is that the came as some kind of degenerate Romantic post - and anti - Enlightenment impulse that dredged back into the darker waters of Europe's past.
They would have been obscene at any time, of course, but coming after increased pluralism, improvements in health and social welfare and the other more positive benefits of 'progress' (and I'm aware that's a loaded term) then arguably that takes them to an even higher level of obscenity - if such a thing can be graded on those terms.
By the same reasoning, Charlemagne had innumerable precedents in the lives of Christians who lived before him, and did not indulge in the slaughter of heretics and the heathen, for abstaining from the practice himself.
So did Cromwell, whom you cite ad infinitum.
It is sheer unmitigated, unhistorical bullshit to pretend that there was such a monolithic, continuous and hermetically sealed-off tradition of Christian religious violence from the NT onward, that figures such as Charlemagne were incapable of thinking outside it.
Posted by Dafyd (# 5549) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
As I pointed out upthread, a genuine case can be made both for and against religious violence from the Koran, and there are Muslims on both sides, but no genuine case can be made for religious violence from the NT.
What are your qualifications for saying this about the Qur'an? How much do you know about Islamic jurisprudence?
I would guess that a Muslim who knows as little about the Bible as you know about the Qur'an could make out a case for religious violence from the Bible easily.
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
God transcends the zeitgeist, Jamat. We don't.
We see 'in part' until the Parousia.
We do see, though and we see enough to recognise that state-sponsored religious violence is unacceptable. We can see that because we live now and not in the time of Charlemagne.
@Kaplan. What do I need to do to get you to read for comprehension? I did not say that there was a single, mono-fucking-lithic interpretative framework in place from the end of the 1st century to the time of Charlemagne that made religiously motivated violence justifiable.
All I am saying, if you bothered to take your head out of your arse and read my posts properly, is that there are/were times when conditions conspire to make that possible and when it does, the perpetrators, be they Charlemagne, the Crusaders or Cromwell - whom I only include to show our friend Jamat that these things aren't restricted to his standard bete-noir of Roman Catholics - see no reason not to believe that they are acting in accordance with divine fiat.
It's appalling. But it has happened.
The point about our hermeneutic being shaped and influenced by our zeitgeist has been amply made on your own posts. Your example of Augustine's arbitrary allegorising for instance and his reaction / over-reaction to the Donatists.
Had Augustine lived in another era he probably wouldn't have allegorised so freely nor would the Donatist issue been a factor. Something else would have been a factor.
You are also still accusing me of seeking to justify religious violence. I'm not. Far from it. Stop making baseless accusations.
Listen, I can understand why you might want to assert that the Quran is genuinely capable of justifying religious violence and that the Christian scriptures aren't.
But again, that's binary-ville territory, Binary Ville, Northern Territory, north west of Alice Springs ...
People have understood Romans 13 in a way that would include state-sanctioned imposition and defence of a unified, corporate religious affiliation.
Why? Not because the NT 'teaches' such s thing but because they lived in societies which wouldn't have expected anything else.
Same with slavery.
It's you who are being unhistorical, not me. Unhistorical Ville, Queensland, somewhere in the rain forest north east of Cairns.
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
Reading for comprehension would be welcome in your case too, Jamat.
I am not saying that the zeitgeist is a hermeneutic.
I am simply saying that it helps shape and inform our hermeneutic.
Can you not see the difference?
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
@Kaplan, I would submit that the reason nobody previously acted as Charlemagne did with the Saxons is that the conditions to facilitate such an action did not exist - although there were some presaging precedents in the way the later Roman emperors enforced religious uniformity.
Who was Charlemagne? Effectively a barbarian king (Frankish) with pretensions to revive Western Roman Empire with all that entailed from the perspective of his contemporaries - ie these things are to be achieved by force.
That was the context. I suspect he'd have felt very guilty had he committed sodomy or adultery or any other big sins from the perspective of his times - but he probably wouldn't have felt a great deal of compunction about executing people he considered to be rebels nor if imposing his own religion on others, by force if necessary. We don't like it and even Big T Tradition distances itself from such things these days - although that could change if right-wing hardliners had their way ...
So no, it is worthy of condemnation on all counts.
The context helps us to understand but not condone.
Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on
:
The thing is that if one is working within a paradigm, within a mindset, within a worldview and within a hermeneutic, it is extremely hard to see outside of it. It isn't good enough to simply state "oh well they ought to have been able to see that this was wrong", when they clearly didn't. It's a childish way to understand history to suggest that people in the past did things because they were stupid.
The naysayers are also downplaying the power of perception. I was thinking today that there is quite a difference between those who drive on the road in cars and those who drive on a motorbike. The same problems look different to the person who has a different perception and it is quite hard to learn to appreciate another perception. A person who has only ever been in a car isn't necessarily going to do well on the road on a motorbike.
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
Yes, exactly.
Except the naysayers here aren't saying that people in previous generations were stupid. They are saying that what the Bible says is so obvious that you must either be wicked and evil or else to deliberately shut down your ability to understand it correctly in order to understand it differently or overlook the clarity of its teaching.
But your car and motorbike analogy still holds as they lack the imagination to perceive how the world might look from a different perspective.
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on
:
Do the fascist Christians to a man (like most fascists) who descended on Charlottesville think for one moment that in the bowels of Christ they might be mistaken? Did the 10,000 strong overwhelmingly Christian mob who lynched Jesse Washington? Did any of these good, God fearin', Sunday-go-to-meetin' folk question their hermeneutic?
[ 13. August 2017, 13:00: Message edited by: Martin60 ]
Posted by orfeo (# 13878) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
quote:
Orfeo: I've been through this before with Christian terrorism vs Islamic terrorism. Lots of people will insist that you "can't" justify this that or the other from the Bible, furiously ignoring the fact that people already HAVE.
The fact that they claim to have done this, if in fact they have, does not mean that the Bible is their justification. Mostly this is self deception. They simply claimed something was done for God that was on their own selfish, worldly, agenda.
It feels like you read my post, yet decided to completely ignore its meaning and carry out exactly the same mismatch of concepts I was describing.
Posted by orfeo (# 13878) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
And it seems many people are incapable of grasping the disconnect between focusing on what HAS been justified in the name of Islam while insisting that for Christianity we must only look at what it is RIGHT to justify.
As I pointed out upthread, a genuine case can be made both for and against religious violence from the Koran, and there are Muslims on both sides, but no genuine case can be made for religious violence from the NT.
And you too. Do you not get that your own assessment of whether the case is genuine is completely beside the point I was making?
I specifically comment on Christians only looking at whether it is right to justify violence from the Bible... and you go ahead and answer that question by saying no, it's not right.
And yet, people go ahead and do it anyway despite the fact that you, Kaplan Corday, say it is not right to do so. Your objection completely fails to restrain Christian terrorists from justifying themselves by reference to the Bible. Your power of persuasion mysteriously fails.
What are you going to do about it?
[ 13. August 2017, 13:18: Message edited by: orfeo ]
Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
What are you going to do about it?
He's just going to state the same stock phrase again, as if adding zero to zero enough times eventually makes 1.
Posted by leo (# 1458) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
And it seems many people are incapable of grasping the disconnect between focusing on what HAS been justified in the name of Islam while insisting that for Christianity we must only look at what it is RIGHT to justify.
As I pointed out upthread, a genuine case can be made both for and against religious violence from the Koran, and there are Muslims on both sides, but no genuine case can be made for religious violence from the NT.
No - both the Qur'an and the NT can be (mis)interpreted to command violence.
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
Apropos of the Big T Tradition angle on all of this, I've noticed that the Orthodox tend to be very critical of Charlemagne's actions too and maintain that violent enforcement of religious uniformity was never part of their own Tradition ... Although most of them will hold up their hands and acknowledge that it has been ...
Interestingly enough, perhaps, I've seen Orthodox online calling for their bishops to be more vocal in their condemnation of white-supremacy in the wake of the Charlottesville violence.
Others have cited instances of Orthodoxen who have been excommunicated for holding such views.
I'm not surprised the picture is mixed. I'd imagine it's always been that way.
To say that bozos like Charlemagne and the 'Confederate' activists of Charlottesville presumably thought / think that their actions are commensurate with the Gospel by no means undermines the NT in anyway.
Neither does recognising and acknowledging that we all approach the scriptures wearing specs.
Posted by Jamat (# 11621) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
quote:
Orfeo: I've been through this before with Christian terrorism vs Islamic terrorism. Lots of people will insist that you "can't" justify this that or the other from the Bible, furiously ignoring the fact that people already HAVE.
The fact that they claim to have done this, if in fact they have, does not mean that the Bible is their justification. Mostly this is self deception. They simply claimed something was done for God that was on their own selfish, worldly, agenda.
It feels like you read my post, yet decided to completely ignore its meaning and carry out exactly the same mismatch of concepts I was describing.
No, you are saying that atrocities have, historically been justified by the Bible. I said such justifications were hypocritical and bogus. Hitler's rationale for the 'final solution' for instance.
Are you now going to insist that if some idiot claimed a Biblical rationale for the moon being made of green cheese, that he would be following genuine hermeneutics?
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
Jamat, as far as I can remember, there are no references to cheese of any colour in the Bible, but there are plenty of references to violence, even in the NT.
Posters have already gone to considerable lengths to explain how, given certain approaches and mind-sets, people could and would have understood these things differently in times past.
You don't appear to have read them and, if you have, you don't appear to be able to understand.
Yes, I'd agree it was a misinterpretation on their part. No-one is saying otherwise.
I think mr cheesy's analogy about cars and motorcycles is pertinent here.
I once knew an RC priest who observed to me that whilst he admired a lot of Protestant biblical scholarship, he couldn't understand how or why Protestants didn't understand the sacraments in the same way as the RCC. To him it seemed completely obvious and completely biblical to understand the sacraments / ordinances in an RC way.
Why was that?
Because he was RC.
He was riding a motorcycle, say, and not a car. Someone on a pushbike, driving a car or riding on the top deck of a double-decker bus, would undoubtedly see the same stretch of road differently and their own particular travel experience would be of a different order.
That's the point I'm making. Someone on the same stretch of road would 'interpret' that road according to the vehicle or mode of transport they were using. It's the same with 'tradition' and the same with hermeneutics.
I can't see how I could make the point any clearer. I also can't understand how you can keep missing the point completely.
Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
And yet, people go ahead and do it anyway despite the fact that you, Kaplan Corday, say it is not right to do so.
No, people go ahead and derive religious violence from the NT by either deliberately ignoring what it says, or using a shitty eisegetical approach to find what they have put there themselves.
On the other hand, acceptable exegesis can extract both religious violence and its opposite from the Koran.
Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
It's a childish way to understand history to suggest that people in the past did things because they were stupid.
Stupidity?
On the contrary, it can require extremely acute casuistry to get around something as obvious as the absence of any approval of religious violence in the NT.
quote:
I was thinking today that there is quite a difference between those who drive on the road in cars and those who drive on a motorbike.
Obviously a deep thinker.
Seriously, that is possibly the tritest analogy I have ever come across ( and yes, I have driven both cars and motor bikes).
Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
I suspect he'd have felt very guilty had he committed adultery
Seems unlikely in view of his record in this department.
Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
Obviously a deep thinker.
Seriously, that is possibly the tritest analogy I have ever come across ( and yes, I have driven both cars and motor bikes).
So I guess this means you really don't understand that people can exist in the same space and perceive things differently. Even though you yourself have done it.
Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
You are also still accusing me of seeking to justify religious violence.
Please read what I write instead of using it as a trigger for yet another interminable rant, replete with incomprehensible arcane references to Australian geography.
For the gazillionth time, I accept that you don't approve of religious violence, that you don't believe that it is taught in the NT, and that you would rather that it had never been practised.
What you cannot or will not do, with a contumacy that puts Balaam's ass to shame, is recognise that there was always an alternative to those who used it.
They were never completely helpless and ignorant prisoners of their zeitgeist and circumstances.
We can therefore make the effort to understand why they did what they did, but we can also justifiably say that they were wrong, even by their own lights ( as our descendants will no doubt with equal justification say about us and our shortcomings).
That's all.
[ 13. August 2017, 21:51: Message edited by: Kaplan Corday ]
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
I never said there wasn't an alternative. What I have said is that it often took a long time for the alternative to be fully realised and worked out - it still is, with our own, current short-comings.
Take slavery for instance. Medieval Popes railed against that long before the Abolitionists.
Thanks for the heads-up on Charlemagne's matrimonial deficiencies - I was making an assumption on that one.
Posted by orfeo (# 13878) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
quote:
Orfeo: I've been through this before with Christian terrorism vs Islamic terrorism. Lots of people will insist that you "can't" justify this that or the other from the Bible, furiously ignoring the fact that people already HAVE.
The fact that they claim to have done this, if in fact they have, does not mean that the Bible is their justification. Mostly this is self deception. They simply claimed something was done for God that was on their own selfish, worldly, agenda.
It feels like you read my post, yet decided to completely ignore its meaning and carry out exactly the same mismatch of concepts I was describing.
No, you are saying that atrocities have, historically been justified by the Bible. I said such justifications were hypocritical and bogus. Hitler's rationale for the 'final solution' for instance.
Are you now going to insist that if some idiot claimed a Biblical rationale for the moon being made of green cheese, that he would be following genuine hermeneutics?
Who gives a sweet flying fuck whether his hermeneutics are genuine? He certainly doesn't care whether YOU think his hermeneutics are genuine. That's what I'm saying.
Posted by Jamat (# 11621) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
quote:
Orfeo: I've been through this before with Christian terrorism vs Islamic terrorism. Lots of people will insist that you "can't" justify this that or the other from the Bible, furiously ignoring the fact that people already HAVE.
The fact that they claim to have done this, if in fact they have, does not mean that the Bible is their justification. Mostly this is self deception. They simply claimed something was done for God that was on their own selfish, worldly, agenda.
It feels like you read my post, yet decided to completely ignore its meaning and carry out exactly the same mismatch of concepts I was describing.
No, you are saying that atrocities have, historically been justified by the Bible. I said such justifications were hypocritical and bogus. Hitler's rationale for the 'final solution' for instance.
Are you now going to insist that if some idiot claimed a Biblical rationale for the moon being made of green cheese, that he would be following genuine hermeneutics?
Who gives a sweet flying fuck whether his hermeneutics are genuine? He certainly doesn't care whether YOU think his hermeneutics are genuine. That's what I'm saying.
In that case what you are saying is not relevant to the discussion which is about the validity of his hermeneutic not the opinion I may have of it.
That validity is not a subjective judgement on my part but based on criteria agreed as being laws of language interpretation
Posted by Jamat (# 11621) on
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quote:
Gamaliel:I never said there wasn't an alternative. What I have said is that it often took a long time for the alternative to be fully realised and worked out - it still is, with our own, current short-comings.
You certainly argue as if people are totally captured by their worldview and unable to escape its gravity. IMV this would probably be so if the Lord did not bring us up short at times by his word and his Holy Spirit. People of any era also had this possibility and the commensurate opportunity to respond. Traditionally, this process could be called repentance.
Posted by Jamat (# 11621) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
Do the fascist Christians to a man (like most fascists) who descended on Charlottesville think for one moment that in the bowels of Christ they might be mistaken? Did the 10,000 strong overwhelmingly Christian mob who lynched Jesse Washington? Did any of these good, God fearin', Sunday-go-to-meetin' folk question their hermeneutic?
I would see the terms fascist Christian and Christian mob as oxymoronic. The emphasis would be on the moronic if any of these mindless cretins thought what they were doing was 'Christian'. That said Did you ever see 'Deliverance'? it creates a case for Christian devolution.
Posted by Crsos (# 238) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
And yet, people go ahead and do it anyway despite the fact that you, Kaplan Corday, say it is not right to do so.
No, people go ahead and derive religious violence from the NT by either deliberately ignoring what it says, or using a shitty eisegetical approach to find what they have put there themselves.
I don't think it takes much creativity to say that the teachings of the guy who wants his followers to always be at each other's throats might include religious violence. The straightforward literal meaning of the text (the standard all the Fundamentalists and Evangelicals claim to love) would seem to be sufficient.
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
On the other hand, acceptable exegesis can extract both religious violence and its opposite from the Koran.
Acceptable to who? Accepted by whom? You? What makes you the world's foremost authority on Islamic theology?
Posted by orfeo (# 13878) on
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Jamat, the whole notion of LAWS of language interpretation flies in the face of how people actually work with language.
The best that can be said is that there are conventions that most people adhere to. And that those conventions don't cover everything.
Words most certainly do not have fixed meanings. To pick up a couple of examples I'm aware of, the English word "with" has undergone an almost complete reversal from its original meaning close to "against", and the English word "nice" has shifted through 5 or 6 concepts.
Within the last century or so the word "gay" has had 3 different connotations: happy, homosexual or pathetic.
Posted by Jamat (# 11621) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
Jamat, the whole notion of LAWS of language interpretation flies in the face of how people actually work with language.
The best that can be said is that there are conventions that most people adhere to. And that those conventions don't cover everything.
Words most certainly do not have fixed meanings. To pick up a couple of examples I'm aware of, the English word "with" has undergone an almost complete reversal from its original meaning close to "against", and the English word "nice" has shifted through 5 or 6 concepts.
Within the last century or so the word "gay" has had 3 different connotations: happy, homosexual or pathetic.
Its called semantic shift and is irrelevant to the current discussion which is about hermeneutics, the craft of identifying the criteria one can use to reliably ascertain meanings of texts. Those criteria exist however much some might wish to deny them.
Posted by orfeo (# 13878) on
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Okay I'm done here.
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
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I found Kaplan's response to my latest rants better than his previous objections.
However, like Jamat's call for repentance, it elides a significant aspect.
Repentance has to start at an individual level. Yes. But societal shifts can be tectonic and take many generations. The 'metanoia' shown by many of the South African leaders towards the end of Apartheid was surprisingly swift, yet it followed decades of recalcitrance.
I'm grateful to Kaplan for the information about Charlemagne's adultery. I'm sure he was a helluva bastard. I'd imagine, though, that it would have been easier to 'convict' him of that - unless his conscience had been seared as with a hot iron - than it would have been to convince him that his religious policies were wrong.
'Thou shalt not commit adultery,' is an easier concept to understand - if not obey - than, 'Thou shalt not use force to impose religious conformity within your domains even though this is standard practice in your society and has been for many hundreds of years ...'
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
Jamat, the whole notion of LAWS of language interpretation flies in the face of how people actually work with language.
The best that can be said is that there are conventions that most people adhere to. And that those conventions don't cover everything.
Words most certainly do not have fixed meanings. To pick up a couple of examples I'm aware of, the English word "with" has undergone an almost complete reversal from its original meaning close to "against", and the English word "nice" has shifted through 5 or 6 concepts.
Within the last century or so the word "gay" has had 3 different connotations: happy, homosexual or pathetic.
Its called semantic shift and is irrelevant to the current discussion which is about hermeneutics, the craft of identifying the criteria one can use to reliably ascertain meanings of texts. Those criteria exist however much some might wish to deny them.
Wooden literalism exists as a delusion.
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
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I'm not surprised Orfeo is 'done here.'
Of course the criteria for hermeneutic analysis exists. No-one is denying that.
What people are saying is that these criteria are contextualised in the same way as any other field of human activity is contextualised - or any field of human/divine interaction.
The Incarnation was contextualised. It happened at a particular time and invaded particular place.
You keep posting, Jamat, as if these things occur in a hermetically sealed vacuum floating a few feet above the ground.
To even engage in hermeneutics in the first place requires a whole conceptual and contextual framework. You write as if these texts exist in isolation, as if we ourselves exist in isolation. It's like Lamb Chopped's sitting on the john testimony stretched to the nth degree.
You are clearly having difficulty understanding what everyone else is saying here.
Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
Take slavery for instance. Medieval Popes railed against that long before the Abolitionists.
Actually, various degrees of misgiving about slavery can be found in the patristic era, in fourth century figures such as Constantine, Augustine, Chrysostom and Gregory of Nyssa.
quote:
Thanks for the heads-up on Charlemagne's matrimonial deficiencies - I was making an assumption on that one.
For anyone thinking of basing a soapie on his life, there is a useful table in his Wikipedia entry setting out his wives, concubines and their offspring.
Posted by Jamat (# 11621) on
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quote:
m not surprised Orfeo is 'done here.'
Of course the criteria for hermeneutic analysis exists. No-one is denying that.
What people are saying is that these criteria are contextualised in the same way as any other field of human activity is contextualised - or any field of human/divine interaction.
The Incarnation was contextualised. It happened at a particular time and invaded particular place.
You keep posting, Jamat, as if these things occur in a hermetically sealed vacuum floating a few feet above the ground.
To even engage in hermeneutics in the first place requires a whole conceptual and contextual framework. You write as if these texts exist in isolation, as if we ourselves exist in isolation. It's like Lamb Chopped's sitting on the john testimony stretched to the nth degree.
You are clearly having difficulty understanding what everyone else is saying here.
No, I grasp what you are saying, I just don't think context, world view, zeitgeist or whatever you term it, it's the same thing, is an immutable law that cannot be transcended.
We can do interpretation within a viewpoint that transcends that viewpoint. It is called learning. You seem to argue that somehow the medieval period was a kind of bubble that no one born within it could possibly transcend. That is not true.
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
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No, that's not what I'm saying. I am saying that these socio-cultural influences can be transcended, modified and changed - but it doesn't tend to happen overnight.
Feudalism started to collapse after the Black Death, for instance, but it didn't disappear within a fortnight.
Nor do I believe the middle-ages to have been one of unmitigated misery and horror either. As at any other time in history, it was a mixed bag.
All I am saying is that for Charlemagne to have turned out differently he'd have had to have gone through a massive paradigm shift in an unfeasibly short period of time.
You mentioned Luther in terms of a paradigm shift earlier in the thread. The Reformation didn't happen in a vacuum. There'd been tensions for some considerable time. The Indulgences thing was simply the catalyst, the final straw as it were. There'd been undercurrents for some time. Besides, Luther didn't become an 'evangelical' in the contemporary sense of the term - although he did, of course, pave the way for subsequent developments.
Ok, do not all early medieval rulers committed genocide in the way Charlemagne did - and we don't know whether the figure of 4,500 Saxons slain is an accurate figure. But I have no doubt that King Alfred the Great would have been capable of mass-executions or punitive measures had the defeated Guthrum and the Danes not acquiesced so readily to baptism. Perhaps they'd heard what happened with Charlemagne and the Saxons?
The past is another country, they do things differently there.
Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
The past is another country, they do things differently there.
You have such a original way of putting things!
Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Crsos:
I don't think it takes much creativity to say that the teachings of the guy who wants his followers to always be at each other's throats might include religious violence.
Golly, you're right.
The difference between on the one hand people disagreeing over Christ's person and mission, and on the other hand Christians feeling under an obligation to go out and slaughter heretics and heathens, is virtually indistinguishable!
The first leads to the latter seamlessly and automatically!
I can't believe I've never noticed that before!
Particularly in view of the fact that the rest of the NT backs up this interpretation of Christ's words with innumerable unambiguous admonitions to go out and practise religious violence.
You're quite the Bible scholar, Croesos.
Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
Actually, various degrees of misgiving about slavery can be found in the patristic era, in fourth century figures such as Constantine, Augustine, Chrysostom and Gregory of Nyssa.
The existence of alternatives is not evidence that a worldview or hermeneutic doesn't exist.
In a country where most road-users are in cars, most people perceive the road as car-users. That some are on motorbikes doesn't change that. That some are on moped doesn't mean that the prevailing worldview is that of a car-driver and that many cannot understand the mindset or worldview of being a moped driver.
Most Christians are Trinitarian. That non-trinitarians exist is no evidence that Trinitarianism isn't somehow a hermeneutic and a worldview.
Obviously.
Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
You're quite the Bible scholar, Croesos.
Are you posting drunk?
I only ask because it must be fairly obvious to almost everyone that Croesos is not claiming the theology as his own but simply saying that such a reading is possible.
Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
No, I grasp what you are saying, I just don't think context, world view, zeitgeist or whatever you term it, it's the same thing, is an immutable law that cannot be transcended.
I don't think anyone claimed that a worldview cannot be changed or transcended, just that patterns of thinking and behaviour have a real effect and power on a person and that thinking outside of those confines is difficult.
quote:
We can do interpretation within a viewpoint that transcends that viewpoint. It is called learning. You seem to argue that somehow the medieval period was a kind of bubble that no one born within it could possibly transcend. That is not true.
And once again we're back to the idea that people in the past were stupid and/or didn't do enough bible study.
Posted by Jamat (# 11621) on
:
quote:
Gamaliel: No, that's not what I'm saying. I am saying that these socio-cultural influences can be transcended, modified and changed - but it doesn't tend to happen overnight.
But it is exactly what you have stated interminably, that earlier ages did not really have any way to grasp a sensible Biblical hermeneutic cos they lived back in the dark ages of vice and ignorance. The only thing true about it is they did live back then. They were men of intelligence with choices and they also had the scriptures. They were not neanderthalic throwbacks who had no morality. You actually have strongly implied they were. No one needs a Protestant, evangelical, hermeneutic to know murder, rape, pillage and arson are wrong and you do not need a lot of time to evolve out of ignorance. Look at the relative suddenness of the reformation.
Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
But it is exactly what you have stated interminably, that earlier ages did not really have any way to grasp a sensible Biblical hermeneutic cos they lived back in the dark ages of vice and ignorance.
It isn't about ignorance, it is about the reality that thinking within certain boundaries means that one reads scripture in a certain way that other people who haven't been living in that worldview find hard to understand.
quote:
The only thing true about it is they did live back then. They were men of intelligence with choices and they also had the scriptures. They were not neanderthalic throwbacks who had no morality. You actually have strongly implied they were. No one needs a Protestant, evangelical, hermeneutic to know murder, rape, pillage and arson are wrong and you do not need a lot of time to evolve out of ignorance. Look at the relative suddenness of the reformation.
Oh right, I see. What they needed to do was read the scriptures, get the right ideas and get on with the reformation. What held them back for so long?
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
quote:
Originally posted by Crsos:
I don't think it takes much creativity to say that the teachings of the guy who wants his followers to always be at each other's throats might include religious violence.
Golly, you're right.
The difference between on the one hand people disagreeing over Christ's person and mission, and on the other hand Christians feeling under an obligation to go out and slaughter heretics and heathens, is virtually indistinguishable!
The first leads to the latter seamlessly and automatically!
I can't believe I've never noticed that before!
Particularly in view of the fact that the rest of the NT backs up this interpretation of Christ's words with innumerable unambiguous admonitions to go out and practise religious violence.
You're quite the Bible scholar, Croesos.
There was no disagreement.
Posted by Jamat (# 11621) on
:
quote:
Mr Cheesy: It isn't about ignorance, it is about the reality that thinking within certain boundaries means that one reads scripture in a certain way that other people who haven't been living in that worldview find hard to understand
Well in your view that may be a reality, that the boundaries of culture and tradition create a totally deterministic environment that is impossible to break out of. It is not my view. You and I will differ on the nature and power of the insights possible through reading scripture. I do not see it as beyond possibility that a medieval person could read and grasp divine truth from the scriptures. It is, latterly in history, exactly what the reformers did. It does not mean at all they would see things with a modern lens but they could certainly have understood that wars of conquest were not 'Christian' behaviour.
Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
Well in your view that may be a reality, that the boundaries of culture and tradition create a totally deterministic environment that is impossible to break out of.
Where did I say it was impossible to break out of? I just am making the point that it the reality is that people tend to think in certain ways and even though we all wish they'd thought differently, they didn't. The violence made sense within the hermeneutic that they operated within.
quote:
It is not my view. You and I will differ on the nature and power of the insights possible through reading scripture. I do not see it as beyond possibility that a medieval person could read and grasp divine truth from the scriptures. It is, latterly in history, exactly what the reformers did. It does not mean at all they would see things with a modern lens but they could certainly have understood that wars of conquest were not 'Christian' behaviour.
Well OK. I think that's nonsense - but the stark thing is that you say this but are unprepared to allow Muslims to say the same thing about their faith.
That's the real problem here; you're making all kinds of excuses about the things you don't like about your own religion whilst saying that the same things are an integral part of someone else's religion.
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
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Jamat, you aren't reading for comprehension.
I am not saying that medieval people were ignorant and full of vice any more than people in any other era
Neither - horror of horrors - am I saying that the Protestant Reformation was full of sweetness and light and resolved all the problems. I'm some ways it created new ones.
Mr cheesy has understood the point I was making. You don't.
If anything, Kaplan has reinforced the point I'm trying to make by alluding to reservations and misgivings about slavery in the Patristic period. I was aware that some of the medieval Popes had expressed misgivings about slavery but unaware of some of the Patristic concerns. So once again, I am grateful to Kaplan on a point of information.
I am also grateful to him for reinforcing my point, that it can take centuries to change a paradigm.
These guys were expressing doubts and concerns about slavery in the 4th and 5th centuries. The Abolition movement didn't gain traction until when, the late 1700s?
Why did it take so long?
Because the conditions to facilitate that didn't exist until the 1700s.
You seem to think that all anyone needs is a Bible to read and a john to sit on and everything is instantly ok.
I'm saying it's a lot more complicated than that and there's often a slow process involved.
Meanwhile, @Kaplan, no, I don't claim originality. I am working within a tradition. As do you. Otherwise you wouldn't have recognised the reference.
However we cut it though,although the raw materials have been there, people haven't always put them together in the same kind of way. If they had then we wouldn't even be having this conversation.
Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on
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Still, I suppose with Jamat we can be glad that so much of the church has heard the Holy Spirit and turned from their wicked ways on Dead Horse subjects. Right, Jamat?
Posted by Jamat (# 11621) on
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quote:
Mr Cheesy: Where did I say it was impossible to break out of? I just am making the point that it the reality is that people tend to think in certain ways
If you say, a crusader or a medieval robber baron acted from his 'Christian' hermeneutic, as Gamaliel certainly has, you imply that that hermeneutic determines his behaviour and so that action was 'Christian' according to his lights.
There is a strong suggestion of determinism here.
Regarding Islam, I think it was Kaplan Corday above, who made the comment about that.
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
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Besides, Cromwell, a Protestant, apparently had few qualms about killing people in what he felt was a divinely sanctioned cause. He had the scriptures, he had the Reformation.
George Whitefield, another Protestant, thought slavery was necessary.
Again, he had the scriptures, he was reformed.
The Apartheid regime in South Africa ...
Need I go on?
If anything, by your lights and by your argument, these guys were worse than Charlemagne and early mediaeval Catholics because they lived THIS side of the Reformation.
The point I'm making isn't aimed at medieval Catholics or 17th century Protestants exclusively, but simply that entrenched attitudes and paradigms can take a heck of a long time to shift.
If I were to become RC or Orthodox it'd take me a good while to stop thinking like a Protestant and start thinking like an RC or Orthodox - and the same would apply the other way round.
If you were to shift your position on something, whether spiritually, politically or in whatever way, the same would apply.
All these shifts take time.
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
quote:
Mr Cheesy: Where did I say it was impossible to break out of? I just am making the point that it the reality is that people tend to think in certain ways
If you say, a crusader or a medieval robber baron acted from his 'Christian' hermeneutic, as Gamaliel certainly has, you imply that that hermeneutic determines his behaviour and so that action was 'Christian' according to his lights.
There is a strong suggestion of determinism here.
Regarding Islam, I think it was Kaplan Corday above, who made the comment about that.
Yes, it was Kaplan who said that.
As for what I've been saying, you clearly haven't been paying attention nor reading for comprehension.
Determinism doesn't come into it. Conditioning does. Conditioning can and does change. But it can take a long, long time.
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
quote:
Mr Cheesy: It isn't about ignorance, it is about the reality that thinking within certain boundaries means that one reads scripture in a certain way that other people who haven't been living in that worldview find hard to understand
Well in your view that may be a reality, that the boundaries of culture and tradition create a totally deterministic environment that is impossible to break out of. It is not my view. You and I will differ on the nature and power of the insights possible through reading scripture. I do not see it as beyond possibility that a medieval person could read and grasp divine truth from the scriptures. It is, latterly in history, exactly what the reformers did. It does not mean at all they would see things with a modern lens but they could certainly have understood that wars of conquest were not 'Christian' behaviour.
Your view has no evidence to support it whatsoever. Ever.
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
quote:
Mr Cheesy: Where did I say it was impossible to break out of? I just am making the point that it the reality is that people tend to think in certain ways
If you say, a crusader or a medieval robber baron acted from his 'Christian' hermeneutic, as Gamaliel certainly has, you imply that that hermeneutic determines his behaviour and so that action was 'Christian' according to his lights.
There is a strong suggestion of determinism here.
Regarding Islam, I think it was Kaplan Corday above, who made the comment about that.
Yes, it was Kaplan who said that.
As for what I've been saying, you clearly haven't been paying attention nor reading for comprehension.
Determinism doesn't come into it. Conditioning does. Conditioning can and does change. But it can take a long, long time.
Oooh I dunno, conditioning is deterministic.
Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
If you say, a crusader or a medieval robber baron acted from his 'Christian' hermeneutic, as Gamaliel certainly has, you imply that that hermeneutic determines his behaviour and so that action was 'Christian' according to his lights.
There is a strong suggestion of determinism here.
I'm sorry - the difference between the past and the present is that we know what happened, if only to a limited extent.
It'd be deterministic if one said that a worldview held today inevitably led to some outcome tomorrow.
It clearly isn't deterministic to say that someone did something in the past because of their theological outlook. Especially if they wrote about their theological outlook and said that they were acting in certain ways because of it.
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
quote:
Mr Cheesy: Where did I say it was impossible to break out of? I just am making the point that it the reality is that people tend to think in certain ways
If you say, a crusader or a medieval robber baron acted from his 'Christian' hermeneutic, as Gamaliel certainly has, you imply that that hermeneutic determines his behaviour and so that action was 'Christian' according to his lights.
There is a strong suggestion of determinism here.
No, Gamaliel certainly hasn't said that. You haven't understood the point I've been trying to make. That might be one of the reasons why I've been trying to make it interminably.
Please try to read for comprehension.
Listen, I'll try to spell it out to you in simple terms.
- Crusaders and medieval robber-barons lived in a society that was outwardly 'Christianised' but that doesn't mean that every aspect of that society had been transformed.
- Their world-view was shaped by vestigial heroic-society 'barbarian' influences - Franks, Northmen (Normans) etc - combined with some kind of notion of a restored Western Roman Empire (in the case of Charlemagne).
- Consequently, this influenced how they behaved and would also influence how they approached issues of faith and how they interpreted the scriptures. Just as our milieux influences ours.
- Our milieux differs from theirs in many important respects.
- Consequently, we views things differently to how they did.
There's no 'determinism' in that.
Yes, they had the scriptures but they didn't necessarily approach them in the same way as we do.
You've only got to read snippets from the Fathers and medieval theologians and you'll see that they approached things differently.
Heck, if you read Gerald of Wales's account of his journey through Wales in 1188 recruiting for the Third Crusade you'll find it baffling how he could have believed some of the whacky things he evidently took on trust - a guy being eaten to death by toads when hiding in a tree, a man being impregnated by a bull ...
Now, he wasn't thick or ignorant, he used close observation in his accounts of his travels. But he inhabited a world where belief in sprites and wierd and wonderful wonders was common-place.
Had he written about the same journey in 1788 or 1988 he'd have done it very differently.
Please read for comprehension and please try not to be so binary in your approach. I am not saying that the zeitgeist is a hermeneutic, simply that it influences our hermeneutic.
So, for instance, in the points we've all been making about the right of rulers to use force to maintain order it is axiomatic TO US that this needn't, wouldn't or shouldn't include imposing religious uniformity by such means.
It would not have been axiomatic TO THEM.
It would only have become so through a dramatic paradigm shift.
That paradigm shift didn't happen at the Reformation - the Magisterial Reformers still insisted on imposing religious uniformity by force.
No, it only happened gradually and that over many hundreds of years.
It did not happen overnight with someone sitting on the john and reading the Bible.
Sorry, it'd be nice if life were that simple. Sadly, it isn't.
Posted by Jamat (# 11621) on
:
quote:
Gamaliel: I am not saying that the zeitgeist is a hermeneutic, simply that it influences our hermeneutic
Right, and I am saying that what YOU are saying amounts in effect, to the same thing. It boils down to the poor Neanderthals couldn't help it, therefore cos they justified what they did using a 'Christian' word view, then you CAN justify it using a CHRISTIAN world view.
Try to recognise what you are saying here.
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
quote:
Gamaliel: I am not saying that the zeitgeist is a hermeneutic, simply that it influences our hermeneutic
Right, and I am saying that what YOU are saying amounts in effect, to the same thing. It boils down to the poor Neanderthals couldn't help it, therefore cos they justified what they did using a 'Christian' word view, then you CAN justify it using a CHRISTIAN world view.
Try to recognise what you are saying here.
No, no, no ...
I am not saying they were 'Neanderthals'.
Far from it.
Read.my.post.
I cited Gerald of Wales as an example. He wrote a vivid account of 12th century Wales. He was far from Neanderthal.
I didn't say he was stupid or anything of the kind.
What I did say was that he lived at a time when people believed things that we would recognise as fantastical.
This is what I said. I suggest you read it for comprehension.
'Now, he wasn't thick or ignorant, he used close observation in his accounts of his travels. But he inhabited a world where belief in sprites and wierd and wonderful wonders was common-place.'
Had he written about the same journey in 1788 or 1988 he'd have done it very differently.'
Where does that suggest he was thick, ignorant or Neanderthal?
Where have I suggested that the Crusader or medieval robber-baron world-view was a legitimate 'Christian' one?
I have said no such thing.
Please do me the courtesy of reading what I write and not what you think I write.
Read.for.comprehension.
I bet Gerald of Wales was able to do that. You don't seem to be capable of it.
Otherwise I will do you the discourtesy of calling you to Hell where I'd apply some choice epithets about your apparent lack of ability to:
- Contextualise the simplest concepts.
- Read for comprehension.
- Talk out of your mouth instead of your ...
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
Bloody hell, Jamat, I am saying the opposite of what you are accusing me of saying.
For the gazillionth time:
- I am not condoning or justifying the actions of Charlemagne or the Crusaders.
- I am simply putting it in context in order to understand how people who were otherwise 'Christianised' to a certain extent could do things that the rest of us find deplorable and not in the least sanctioned by scripture.
How much clearer can I be?
Are you really so incapable of reading for comprehension?
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
The point being is that trying to justify these things by reference to a broadly Christian framework is contingent on various factors.
It is the contingency that you are not taking into account and that might be why you continue to misunderstand what I am trying to say.
It is contingent on having a medieval world-view that assumes:
- The ruler has the right to impose a unified religious system on their subjects.
- Anyone who doesn't conform to that single religious system is a malefactor or potential 5th columnist.
If you have that world-view than it is easy to see how Romans 13 could be applied - or misapplied - in that way.
If you don't have that world-view then it looks nuts to understand Paul in that way.
If it would never occur to you that the ruler didn't have the right to regulate the religious adherence of their subjects then it wouldn't surprise you too much of the ruler used force to maintain the status quo.
That's got nothing whatsoever to do with ignorance, Neanderthalism or an inability to engage with the scriptures. It's got everything to do with context.
Gradually, that world-view changed. That's why we no longer act that way. It isn't that we are smarter or that they were stupid. It's all about changing contexts.
Why is that such a difficult concept to grasp?
Posted by Jamat (# 11621) on
:
quote:
Gamaliel: What I did say was that he lived at a time when people believed things that we would recognise as fantastical
Right, and what I am saying is there never WAS such a time. You are mistaken to believe there was. To believe that there was reduces people of the medieval past to half-baked idiots with no moral compass. In fact they had all their faculties and if they used them, could have acted in a civilised manner and not tried to justify rapacity by recourse to Christianity because let's face it, you can't.
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on
:
What, people didn't ever believe nonsense like the universe is only 6000 years old and took four days to make?
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
What, people didn't ever believe nonsense like the universe is only 6000 years old and took four days to make?
Seven. Please, let's not be totally absurd.
Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on
:
Well he rested on the Seventh day.
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on
:
Anything billed counts as work, even if it's lunch.
Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
Are you posting drunk?
Some of the stuff I have to cope with on the Ship is enough to drive me to drink.
quote:
I only ask because it must be fairly obvious to almost everyone that Croesos is not claiming the theology as his own but simply saying that such a reading is possible.
It must be fairly obvious to almost everyone that such a reading is possible but arrant crap - in the same way as a reading of Isaiah 19:19-20 as a reference to the revelatory function of the measurements of the Great Pyramid is also possible but arrant crap.
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
What, people didn't ever believe nonsense like the universe is only 6000 years old and took four days to make?
Seven. Please, let's not be totally absurd.
I think you'll find, Sir, that the entire non-biological realm, the at least 78 GLY radius universe, fantastical as it might seem to the faithless, was completed on the first Wednesday.
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
quote:
Orfeo: I've been through this before with Christian terrorism vs Islamic terrorism. Lots of people will insist that you "can't" justify this that or the other from the Bible, furiously ignoring the fact that people already HAVE.
The fact that they claim to have done this, if in fact they have, does not mean that the Bible is their justification. Mostly this is self deception. They simply claimed something was done for God that was on their own selfish, worldly, agenda.
It feels like you read my post, yet decided to completely ignore its meaning and carry out exactly the same mismatch of concepts I was describing.
No, you are saying that atrocities have, historically been justified by the Bible. I said such justifications were hypocritical and bogus. Hitler's rationale for the 'final solution' for instance.
Are you now going to insist that if some idiot claimed a Biblical rationale for the moon being made of green cheese, that he would be following genuine hermeneutics?
Who gives a sweet flying fuck whether his hermeneutics are genuine? He certainly doesn't care whether YOU think his hermeneutics are genuine. That's what I'm saying.
In that case what you are saying is not relevant to the discussion which is about the validity of his hermeneutic not the opinion I may have of it.
That validity is not a subjective judgement on my part but based on criteria agreed as being laws of language interpretation
What laws make the wooden interpretation of the language of Genesis 1-2 literally true?
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
quote:
Gamaliel: What I did say was that he lived at a time when people believed things that we would recognise as fantastical
Right, and what I am saying is there never WAS such a time. You are mistaken to believe there was. To believe that there was reduces people of the medieval past to half-baked idiots with no moral compass. In fact they had all their faculties and if they used them, could have acted in a civilised manner and not tried to justify rapacity by recourse to Christianity because let's face it, you can't.
Have you actually read what I wrote?
I don't think I've ever met anyone who fails to read for comprehension as much as you do.
I gave instances of 'fantastical things' that Gerald of Wales believed. He took seriously stories of people being eaten by toads or a fella being impregnated by a bull.
That doesn't mean he was an idiot with no moral compass.
If you read my posts properly instead of going off on your usual knee-jerk reactions when confronted by something you don't like or which you fail to understand you would perhaps begin to see what I'm getting at.
For some reason you can't.
That's your problem, not mine.
It took hundreds of years before slavery was abolished. Fact.
It took hundreds of years before people, whether Catholics, Protestants or whatever else stopped believing that it was ok to impose religious uniformity by force. Fact.
It wasn't because they were stupid. No, it was because they were operating within paradigms where such things were sern as acceptable to some extent.
That doesn't mean that individual Church Fathers or medieval Popes didn't have misgivings about slavery, for instance.
There may well have been people who had misgivings about Charlemagne executing those 4,500 Saxons, if that's how many there were. If so, they weren't in a position to do much about it.
Things could only be done about that sort of thing when social and cultural conditions had changed to the extent that there was a mechanism to do so.
That hadn't happened in the 8th century.
Medieval people were as bright as we are. Brighter in many ways given the constraints they were operating within. You can't criticise them for not landing a lunar module on the moon.
I'm not criticising Gerald of Wales for his credulity when it came to tall tales.
You quotes from my posts are highly selective. If you were to apply the same approach to the Bible as you do to what I write then you'd end up in a right hermeneutical pickle.
Posted by Jamat (# 11621) on
:
quote:
on your usual knee-jerk reactions
Everything in your last post is pretty well same old, same old. Your primary assumption is what I think is wrong, ie that there IS some kind of mental and theological process that occurred over time to change paradigms. I do think change happened mind, but I do NOT think it was because of that. I think that revelation on scripture was always, and is currently, possible.
Posted by Jamat (# 11621) on
:
quote:
Martin 60 :What laws make the wooden interpretation of the language of Genesis 1-2 literally true?
None.
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
quote:
on your usual knee-jerk reactions
Everything in your last post is pretty well same old, same old. Your primary assumption is what I think is wrong, ie that there IS some kind of mental and theological process that occurred over time to change paradigms. I do think change happened mind, but I do NOT think it was because of that. I think that revelation on scripture was always, and is currently, possible.
And where have I said it isn't or wasn't?
I'm not saying that revelation from scripture hasn't always been possible.
What I am saying is perfectly consonant with a 'high' view of scriptural inspiration and the idea that God can and does reveal his will through the sacred texts.
Nothing I have written denies that.
You are reading my posts eisegetically.
Please read what I write not what you think I write. Please try to be capable of something beyond binary reactions based on a lack of understanding of historical contexts and how interpretative processes actually work.
Try to think for once.
Posted by Jamat (# 11621) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
quote:
on your usual knee-jerk reactions
Everything in your last post is pretty well same old, same old. Your primary assumption is what I think is wrong, ie that there IS some kind of mental and theological process that occurred over time to change paradigms. I do think change happened mind, but I do NOT think it was because of that. I think that revelation on scripture was always, and is currently, possible.
And where have I said it isn't or wasn't?
I'm not saying that revelation from scripture hasn't always been possible.
What I am saying is perfectly consonant with a 'high' view of scriptural inspiration and the idea that God can and does reveal his will through the sacred texts.
Nothing I have written denies that.
You are reading my posts eisegetically.
Please read what I write not what you think I write. Please try to be capable of something beyond binary reactions based on a lack of understanding of historical contexts and how interpretative processes actually work.
Try to think for once.
Gamaliel, ISTM you deny the implications of what you continually assert. You are making huge assumptions about historical contexts and interpretive processes that I do not think are true.
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
quote:
on your usual knee-jerk reactions
Everything in your last post is pretty well same old, same old. Your primary assumption is what I think is wrong, ie that there IS some kind of mental and theological process that occurred over time to change paradigms. I do think change happened mind, but I do NOT think it was because of that. I think that revelation on scripture was always, and is currently, possible.
And where have I said it isn't or wasn't?
I'm not saying that revelation from scripture hasn't always been possible.
What I am saying is perfectly consonant with a 'high' view of scriptural inspiration and the idea that God can and does reveal his will through the sacred texts.
Nothing I have written denies that.
You are reading my posts eisegetically.
Please read what I write not what you think I write. Please try to be capable of something beyond binary reactions based on a lack of understanding of historical contexts and how interpretative processes actually work.
Try to think for once.
Gamaliel, ISTM you deny the implications of what you continually assert. You are making huge assumptions about historical contexts and interpretive processes that I do not think are true.
So is Genesis all literally true?
Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
Gamaliel, ISTM you deny the implications of what you continually assert. You are making huge assumptions about historical contexts and interpretive processes that I do not think are true.
So to be absolutely clear: you say those people who did things in the past which you don't like cannot have thought they were right or justified if they'd been reading their bibles. If they did think they were right or justified, it was because they hadn't read the bibles.
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
What, people didn't ever believe nonsense like the universe is only 6000 years old and took four days to make?
Seven. Please, let's not be totally absurd.
I think you'll find, Sir, that the entire non-biological realm, the at least 78 GLY radius universe, fantastical as it might seem to the faithless, was completed on the first Wednesday.
Furthermore, even if we include the creation of man, that's 6 days. Anyone can do that. But 4!
Posted by Curiosity killed ... (# 11770) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
quote:
Gamaliel: What I did say was that he lived at a time when people believed things that we would recognise as fantastical
Right, and what I am saying is there never WAS such a time. You are mistaken to believe there was. To believe that there was reduces people of the medieval past to half-baked idiots with no moral compass. In fact they had all their faculties and if they used them, could have acted in a civilised manner and not tried to justify rapacity by recourse to Christianity because let's face it, you can't.
So, if we all have this moral compass, how can the genocides in Joshua and Judges happen? Surely the moral compass of Joshua should have meant that he did not put whole cities to death?
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
No, I'm not making huge assumptions about historical processes.
You have misunderstood the points I'm making.
I've said that it took hundreds of years for slavery to be abolished. That's not an assumption. It's an historical fact.
I've said that it took many centuries before people changed their views on the right of rulers to impose religious uniformity by force. That's not an assumption. It's an historical fact.
I've said that Gerald of Wales was credulous when it came to accepting the veracity of tall tales he heard on his travels. That a man sleeping in a tree was eaten by toads as just recompense for his sins, that a man engaged in unnatural vice with a bull became pregnant and died giving birth to human-bovine hybrid calf ...
That's not an assumption. That's what he wrote.
None of that implies that people in times past were stupid or incapable of understanding the scriptures.
All it does is reinforce the incontrovertible - and for some reason unpalatable to you - fact that all of us view the world through the particular mindsets and conditions of our times.
Horror of horrors, that also applies to the way we read and understand the scriptures.
That doesn't nullify them, deaden them, truncate them nor undermine them. It simply means that 'we see in part' and that at any one time all of us are going to have blind-spots of one kind or other.
Hopefully, those blind-spots aren't going to be as egregious as those of Charlemagne ... but 'who can discern his errors? Forgive oh Lord, my hidden faults.'
We all fall short. Hopefully not to the point of executing 4,500 Saxon captives ...
If what I am saying isn't true then the onus is on you to prove it.
Fact is, you can't.
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
quote:
Martin 60 :What laws make the wooden interpretation of the language of Genesis 1-2 literally true?
None.
So your pre-modern hermeneutic, including of hermeneutics, is untransferably subjective.
Posted by Jamat (# 11621) on
:
quote:
Gamaliel: fact that all of us view the world through the particular mindsets and conditions of our times
Certainly, but they do not totally capture us. IOW, we can transcend them. More importantly, the Lord is able to sidestep them to reach us. Still more so, he can use scripture to do it.
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
quote:
Gamaliel: fact that all of us view the world through the particular mindsets and conditions of our times
Certainly, but they do not totally capture us. IOW, we can transcend them. More importantly, the Lord is able to sidestep them to reach us. Still more so, he can use scripture to do it.
How has he sidestepped your wooden literalism and your untransferable hermeneutic?
Posted by Jamat (# 11621) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
quote:
Gamaliel: fact that all of us view the world through the particular mindsets and conditions of our times
Certainly, but they do not totally capture us. IOW, we can transcend them. More importantly, the Lord is able to sidestep them to reach us. Still more so, he can use scripture to do it.
How has he sidestepped your wooden literalism and your untransferable hermeneutic?
If you want a dead horse discussion, I will engage with you there, not here. Post on the Scientific dating thread. Bet you don't.
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on
:
No need. You have a pre-modern and a strangely modern epistemology: in reaction against the Enlightenment, science, postmodernism you harken back to a golden age of subjective ignorance. It's all the same.
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
quote:
Gamaliel: fact that all of us view the world through the particular mindsets and conditions of our times
Certainly, but they do not totally capture us. IOW, we can transcend them. More importantly, the Lord is able to sidestep them to reach us. Still more so, he can use scripture to do it.
I did not say they 'totally capture us', I said we 'know in part.'
I did not say that we cannot transcend them. We can. Sometimes that takes a long time. Hence the example I gave with slavery.
I did not say that God doesn't use scripture to do these things.
For goodness sake man, read what I write not what you assume I write. Read.for.comprehension.for.goodness.sake.
Posted by Jamat (# 11621) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
quote:
Gamaliel: fact that all of us view the world through the particular mindsets and conditions of our times
Certainly, but they do not totally capture us. IOW, we can transcend them. More importantly, the Lord is able to sidestep them to reach us. Still more so, he can use scripture to do it.
I did not say they 'totally capture us', I said we 'know in part.'
I did not say that we cannot transcend them. We can. Sometimes that takes a long time. Hence the example I gave with slavery.
I did not say that God doesn't use scripture to do these things.
For goodness sake man, read what I write not what you assume I write. Read.for.comprehension.for.goodness.sake.
You definitely suggest the medieval lot were captured by or blinded by their mindset and consequently, they possibly thought they were acting 'Christianly'. That is what is in dispute here.
Posted by Jamat (# 11621) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
No need. You have a pre-modern and a strangely modern epistemology: in reaction against the Enlightenment, science, postmodernism you harken back to a golden age of subjective ignorance. It's all the same.
Sorry mate, I do not understand all your backstory. If you don't wish to discuss a dead horse then fine, I do not wish to discuss it either.
Posted by Jamat (# 11621) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Curiosity killed ...:
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
quote:
Gamaliel: What I did say was that he lived at a time when people believed things that we would recognise as fantastical
Right, and what I am saying is there never WAS such a time. You are mistaken to believe there was. To believe that there was reduces people of the medieval past to half-baked idiots with no moral compass. In fact they had all their faculties and if they used them, could have acted in a civilised manner and not tried to justify rapacity by recourse to Christianity because let's face it, you can't.
So, if we all have this moral compass, how can the genocides in Joshua and Judges happen? Surely the moral compass of Joshua should have meant that he did not put whole cities to death?
If you use the word genocide you have already judged the Biblical God as Joshua was his agent as Moses was. If you do that there is nothing left to learn. All that is left is a defiant challenge. The sort of thing Martin 60 does with constant references to 'killer God'. A moral compass for me is based on quite a few markers. However, I cannot be the judge of other people's.
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
quote:
Gamaliel: fact that all of us view the world through the particular mindsets and conditions of our times
Certainly, but they do not totally capture us. IOW, we can transcend them. More importantly, the Lord is able to sidestep them to reach us. Still more so, he can use scripture to do it.
I did not say they 'totally capture us', I said we 'know in part.'
I did not say that we cannot transcend them. We can. Sometimes that takes a long time. Hence the example I gave with slavery.
I did not say that God doesn't use scripture to do these things.
For goodness sake man, read what I write not what you assume I write. Read.for.comprehension.for.goodness.sake.
You definitely suggest the medieval lot were captured by or blinded by their mindset and consequently, they possibly thought they were acting 'Christianly'. That is what is in dispute here.
Only by you, as far as I can see. Or possibly Kaplan.
FWIW, I wouldn't say 'captured' or entirely 'blinded', it's more a case that they were limited by their mind-set ... in a similar way to how we all are to some extent or other.
As I have said several times - to no avail it seems - that although we 'see as in a glass darkly', we still see.
David Jones made a similar point in one of the footnotes he made to his long poem, The Anathemata. He observed that a poet writing around 1200 could have made use of the then widespread, but mistaken, belief that a hill outside Jerusalem marked the geographical epicentre of the world.
One writing in the 17th century could have drawn on ideas of gravitational pull.
Both could only draw on thought-forms current at that time.
If I'm repeating myself it's because you repeatedly fail to understand what I'm actually saying and are accusing me of saying things I am not saying.
The fault is entirely on your side due to your abject failure to read for comprehension and to accept what is clearly incontrovertible from the witness of history.
If that sounds harsh, then I make no apologies. You clearly do not understand what I am saying.
Posted by Jamat (# 11621) on
:
quote:
you repeatedly fail to understand
I hear your frustration Gamaliel. The other possibility of course is that you do not understand yourself what it is you have been saying here.
When you say:
quote:
I wouldn't say 'captured' or entirely 'blinded', it's more a case that they were limited by their mind-set ... in a similar way to how we all are to some extent or other
You are actually softening what you said before and of course, really if you go down the road of judging medieval self-awareness as you have, the result will be a conclusion like:
" medieval rulers like Charlemagne, acted as they did in ignorance of what Christianity was really about because they had no other lights to go by other than what the political medieval church encouraged them to believe, therefore, their hermeneutic was sincere though mistaken and they can be said to have acted in good faith"
The opposing view though is that no one can rape, pillage and murder in good faith according to any sort of Christian hermeneutic, therefore, we must look elsewhere for their motives.
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
No, I haven't 'softened' what I've said earlier. You misunderstood it.
Besides, I'm not saying Christians back in those days got everything wrong. Nor am I saying that the Church at that time became entirely 'political' or compromised beyond all recognition - which is what you seem to be suggesting.
FWIW, my understanding is that the Papacy was at its most corrupt in the 9th century, even more so, I'm told, than it was under the Medicis.
Caesaro-Papism was also an issue across the Eastern Churches. Arguably, it still is in Russia, in a vestigial form.
That doesn't mean that all Truth ever disappeared from the medieval Western Church nor the ancient Churches of the East.
What it does mean is that there was a mix of things going on, some good, some bad, some indifferent. Gradually, though, we see abuses and misunderstandings, misapplications and malpractices recognised and rectified. Not as quickly as we might like ...
Of course, what some may think of as errors, others may not - but we all of us seem to be agreed that the actions of a Charlemagne are unjustifiable on any grounds.
If you misunderstand my posts as suggesting they can and should be then that's not what I've been saying or implying.
I can go on at length even though I type quickly and marshall my thoughts clumsily. But as far as I can tell, no-one else here has misunderstood my point as completely as you have done.
Well done! Claim the misapprehension prize ...
Posted by Jamat (# 11621) on
:
Still seems like an own goal. BTW, no one even once has suggested you approve of the medieval bully boys. The issue is you think they can be sincerely 'Christian' in their bullying.
Posted by Curiosity killed ... (# 11770) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
If you use the word genocide you have already judged the Biblical God as Joshua was his agent as Moses was. If you do that there is nothing left to learn. All that is left is a defiant challenge. The sort of thing Martin 60 does with constant references to 'killer God'. A moral compass for me is based on quite a few markers. However, I cannot be the judge of other people's.
Jamat, as an answer to a genuine question, your answer is pretty judgemental and dismissive. Phrases like:
quote:
If you use the word genocide you have already judged the Biblical God
quote:
If you do that there is nothing left to learn. All that is left is a defiant challenge.
quote:
However, I cannot be the judge of other people's [moral compass]
are not conducive to a discussion and feel as if they are judging me as wanting and not a proper Christian in your terms.
Describing the "curse of destruction" in Joshua 6 and 7 as genocide - when that means the total destruction of Jericho (Joshua 6), of everything except Rahab, with repercussions for failure to comply with this requirement (Joshua 7:10 onwards) - is not a misuse of language. The definition of genocide is:
quote:
the deliberate killing of a large group of people, especially those of a particular nation or ethnic group.
If Joshua is an agent of God, in your opinion is he following God's will, as he believes he is in this story? If he isn't following God's will what else do you think is happening here?
Because if Joshua can believe he is following God's will, why can Charlemagne not believe this too?
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
No need. You have a pre-modern and a strangely modern epistemology: in reaction against the Enlightenment, science, postmodernism you harken back to a golden age of subjective ignorance. It's all the same.
Sorry mate, I do not understand all your backstory. If you don't wish to discuss a dead horse then fine, I do not wish to discuss it either.
There's nothing to discuss there or here due to your occult back story. Mine is implicitly obvious. I have partially recovered from fundamentalism, you cannot as you imprinted on it after losing your Catholic faith. It fell in your vacuum.
Posted by Jamat (# 11621) on
:
quote:
CK: because if Joshua can believe he is following God's will, why can Charlemagne not believe this too?
First I apologise if my reply seemed terse. Genocide is a pejorative term. It is reminiscent of the Holocaust. I do not view God or Joshua that way. Others here do. I have no idea what you think in that regard.
The answer to the question is covered best by the exchange between Mousethief and Kaplan Corday above when they say:
quote:
Mousethief: What is so different with Charlemagne than any other Christian king killing heathens? Why would they need any other justification than the conquest of Canaan?
Kaplan Corday: Because a Christian (king or otherwise) by definition recognises that the NT supersedes and takes precedence over the OT (which is why you don't practise the OT sacrifices), and in NT terms religious violence is heretical.
Posted by Jamat (# 11621) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
No need. You have a pre-modern and a strangely modern epistemology: in reaction against the Enlightenment, science, postmodernism you harken back to a golden age of subjective ignorance. It's all the same.
Sorry mate, I do not understand all your backstory. If you don't wish to discuss a dead horse then fine, I do not wish to discuss it either.
There's nothing to discuss there or here due to your occult back story. Mine is implicitly obvious. I have partially recovered from fundamentalism, you cannot as you imprinted on it after losing your Catholic faith. It fell in your vacuum.
Well, in that case stop the cheap shots or if you cannot, man up elsewhere.
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on
:
?
Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
First I apologise if my reply seemed terse. Genocide is a pejorative term. It is reminiscent of the Holocaust. I do not view God or Joshua that way. Others here do. I have no idea what you think in that regard.
Look Jamat, the reasoning is not hard to follow: God told Joshua to do this thing in the past; therefore this thing is not totally outlawed by God; therefore when I read that God told Joshua to do something and think that God is telling me to do something then that isn't an unreasonable thing to think.
That's it. Having an exemplar in the bible means that some readers can legitimately think it applies also to them. That's how religious texts work.
quote:
The answer to the question is covered best by the exchange between Mousethief and Kaplan Corday above when they say:
quote:
Mousethief: What is so different with Charlemagne than any other Christian king killing heathens? Why would they need any other justification than the conquest of Canaan?
quote:
Kaplan Corday: Because a Christian (king or otherwise) by definition recognises that the NT supersedes and takes precedence over the OT (which is why you don't practise the OT sacrifices), and in NT terms religious violence is heretical.
And as others have pointed out to you many many times this isn't how it works. There are multiple ways to read and understand the relationship between the OT and the NT - even if one does believe that the latter "supercedes" the former, and this includes the idea that a model after Joshua can be followed alongside the NT.
And it is no good you continuing with the line that it can't - it can. People in the past did it.
Posted by Nick Tamen (# 15164) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
quote:
CK: because if Joshua can believe he is following God's will, why can Charlemagne not believe this too?
First I apologise if my reply seemed terse. Genocide is a pejorative term. It is reminiscent of the Holocaust. I do not view God or Joshua that way. Others here do. I have no idea what you think in that regard.
The answer to the question is covered best by the exchange between Mousethief and Kaplan Corday above when they say:
quote:
Mousethief: What is so different with Charlemagne than any other Christian king killing heathens? Why would they need any other justification than the conquest of Canaan?
Kaplan Corday: Because a Christian (king or otherwise) by definition recognises that the NT supersedes and takes precedence over the OT (which is why you don't practise the OT sacrifices), and in NT terms religious violence is heretical.
But in this contextGod directed Joshua to kill entire populations, but the NT supersedes the OT in that regard and tells us that religious violence is (now) wrongsounds an awful lot like "the God of the NT is not the God of the OT." It seems you're saying that religious violence was commanded by the God of the OT but is deemed heretical by the God of the NT.
And I disagree that genocide is a perjorative term. It is a descriptive term, describing a particular form of mass murder.
Posted by Curiosity killed ... (# 11770) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
quote:
First I apologise if my reply seemed terse. Genocide is a pejorative term. It is reminiscent of the Holocaust. I do not view God or Joshua that way. Others here do. I have no idea what you think in that regard.
So how do you regard God and Joshua through the story in Joshua 6 and 7?
quote:
The answer to the question is covered best by the exchange between Mousethief and Kaplan Corday above when they say:
quote:
Mousethief: What is so different with Charlemagne than any other Christian king killing heathens? Why would they need any other justification than the conquest of Canaan?
Kaplan Corday: Because a Christian (king or otherwise) by definition recognises that the NT supersedes and takes precedence over the OT (which is why you don't practise the OT sacrifices), and in NT terms religious violence is heretical.
There are inherent assumptions in Kaplan Corday's reply. He assumes that there is an unchanging definition of a Christian king, which neither history demonstrates, nor does the current identification of the American far right as Christian. Also there is an assumption that the NT can be demonstrated to supersede the OT on religious violence when not only is that image of Jesus saying he is not to bring peace but war and all the apocalyptic imagery in Revelations. (The NT can be demonstrated to supersede the OT on sacrifices as verses that indicate this.)
Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
I wouldn't wipe your arse with The Express. And what has that got to do with actual attacks?
quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
I'm sure there are some publications that rise above this, but the point is there's a double standard in sections of the press that are widely read. Can you imagine the express running a headline saying "Jewish plot to kill pope"?
This headline made me remember that previous exchange. It seems you can get away with saying all sorts of things about Muslims that you could never say about Jews.
Posted by Jamat (# 11621) on
:
Curiosity Killed, I had that this parallel discussion on the Death of Darwinism thread P 39, in DH. We were discussing Samuel's command to kill the Amalekites. The post below is from there and the other participants were Karl LB and Martin 60. What I said there about it is probably what I would still say.
quote:
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
And in his commanding the slaughter of every Amalekite man, woman and child.
You see that in Jesus?
Jamat: So this is the real issue? a genocidal God?
Consider reasons why might God have done this and does he have a right to?
Well he does; he is God. end of story. Do you have the right to poison a wasps' nest in your garden?
Leaving that aside, consider the history of these Amalekites and that they particularly were used by Satan to disrupt he Exodus and consequently through Moses, God pronounced a judgement on them. He would have war on Amelek through all generations. So we have in Samuel's decree the exercise of a judicial judgement by God against Amelek.
KRl LB: So your God believes in brutally slaughtering babes in arms because of who their ancestors were?
Fuck that shit. Fuck it to hell and beyond. Because one thing I will not do is pretend to swallow that sort of evil to get on the right side of your genocidal murderous God.
Jamat: If it was a person we were talking about I'd agree with you; but consider where does that kind of attitude get you? God is not genocidal. 'Man,' if he did the same thing would be. That kind of category error somehow seeks to judge God on our terms and we simply are not in the position of knowledge or power to do it.
Posted by Curiosity killed ... (# 11770) on
:
So if you can understand that God may need to exterminate a wasps next in and use that as an analogy to the killing of the Amekelites, could not Charlemagne see his killing of the Saxons in the same way?
Posted by Jamat (# 11621) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Curiosity killed ...:
So if you can understand that God may need to exterminate a wasps next in and use that as an analogy to the killing of the Amekelites, could not Charlemagne see his killing of the Saxons in the same way?
Not unless he could claim some kind of Divine authority for his action. Samuel and Joshua both could do this.
Posted by Crsos (# 238) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
quote:
Originally posted by Curiosity killed ...:
So if you can understand that God may need to exterminate a wasps next in and use that as an analogy to the killing of the Amekelites, could not Charlemagne see his killing of the Saxons in the same way?
Not unless he could claim some kind of Divine authority for his action. Samuel and Joshua both could do this.
God made Charlemagne king. Says so right there in Romans. And God sanctions putting wrongdoers (like those who don't worship Him) to the sword (also Romans). How much more do you need?
Regarding the wasp thing, justifying genocide by comparing the victims to vermin is a very common tactic.
[ 17. August 2017, 14:41: Message edited by: Crsos ]
Posted by Jamat (# 11621) on
:
quote:
Croesus: God made Charlemagne king. Says so right there in Romans. And God sanctions putting wrongdoers (like those who don't worship Him) to the sword (also Romans). How much more do you need?
Quite a lot..like the authority Joshua and Samuel had.
Interestingly, When Holland was invaded in WW2, the Germans demanded compliance from the Dutch Christians on the basis of Romans 13.
Posted by Crsos (# 238) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
quote:
Croesus: God made Charlemagne king. Says so right there in Romans. And God sanctions putting wrongdoers (like those who don't worship Him) to the sword (also Romans). How much more do you need?
Quite a lot..like the authority Joshua and Samuel had.
Interestingly, When Holland was invaded in WW2, the Germans demanded compliance from the Dutch Christians on the basis of Romans 13.
Yep, it's kind of a Biblical catch-all for justifying the acts of whoever's in power at the time. But it does fit the criteria you and KC have demanded, coming from the "good" part of the Bible.
Posted by Curiosity killed ... (# 11770) on
:
Didn't the medieval and later kings believe in the divine right of kings? It's certainly something Shakespeare was using in Macbeth to reflect James I (VI) belief in his right to rule. It's what caused Charles I some of his problems. And Charlemagne is also mentioned in this wiki article.
Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Crsos:
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
quote:
Croesus: God made Charlemagne king. Says so right there in Romans. And God sanctions putting wrongdoers (like those who don't worship Him) to the sword (also Romans). How much more do you need?
Quite a lot..like the authority Joshua and Samuel had.
Interestingly, When Holland was invaded in WW2, the Germans demanded compliance from the Dutch Christians on the basis of Romans 13.
Yep, it's kind of a Biblical catch-all for justifying the acts of whoever's in power at the time. But it does fit the criteria you and KC have demanded, coming from the "good" part of the Bible.
And coming from Junior Jesus, even.
Posted by Russ (# 120) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
It seems you can get away with saying all sorts of things about Muslims that you could never say about Jews.
Frankly, the more strongly Gamaliel argues that it's really difficult to go against the culture you're born into, the more one suspects that in British Muslim culture terrorism isn't really all that bad...
I don't see any comparable evil in British Jewish culture.
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on
:
So why were they all so frightened after the Finsbury Park mosque attack?
I don't think the Ahmeds At Number 7 would like it if Jihadists cut my throat on the drive and I certainly wouldn't like it if C18 torched his house.
Posted by Jamat (# 11621) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Curiosity killed ...:
Didn't the medieval and later kings believe in the divine right of kings? It's certainly something Shakespeare was using in Macbeth to reflect James I (VI) belief in his right to rule. It's what caused Charles I some of his problems. And Charlemagne is also mentioned in this wiki article.
The assumption of a divine right to rule of a politician is not endorsed in the NT. In the Old Testament, kings of Israel ruled by prophetic revelation. Saul reigned by Samuel's word, so did David. David's line was guaranteed and ultimately, that promise continues and the greater son of David, Jesus Christ, will rule. In the divided kingdom, there was no divinely approved line. It occurred by prophetic approbation and moved between different families until the conquest by Assyria.
After, the Babylonian captivity, the different gentile kingdoms were established and disestablished by God. Nebuchadnezzar, learned to his cost, that he ruled by God's permission. Whenever a gentile ruler got arrogant, God took him down such as what happened to Sennacherib the Assyrian conqueror. Cyrus the great when he conquered Babylon was amazed to discover his reign was predicted by Isaiah hundreds of years before. That's why he let the Jews go home.
All of this is OT Bible but in the NT, the Lord Jesus specifically refused political power on more than one occasion. This was the issue the Jews had with him..'If you are the king,where is the kingdom'. In fact there will be a divine kingdom as prophesied by Daniel, but it waits for the second coming. In his first coming, Christ came to deal with sin.
All of this to say that Charlemagne never had a divine right to rule. Neither did Pope Urban 2, or the mighty Innocent 3. Neither did Charles 1. One of the things I respect about Cromwell with all his issues was that he never tried to become royalty. He knew that there was no such right in the present age. Anyone who considered there was or is will learn the truth to their cost.
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
But Romans 13 tells us that rulers are appointed by God.
Cromwell didn't 'try to become royalty' in the monarchical sense, but he did consider it at one time - because there was very little precedent for anything else at that time other than Republican Rome from classical antiquity.
Besides, he did try to found a 'dynasty' by passing on the succession as Lord Protector of England to his son. He also, after various attempts to govern by other means, effectively set himself up as an absolute ruler in what was effectively a 'monarchical' type of way without actually being a king in the traditional anointed sense.
Just because rulers and governors might not have been understood to be completely theocratic in the OT sense, that doesn't mean they wouldn't have regarded themselves as being appointed by God in the Romans 13 sense.
Cromwell certainly did. Charlemagne would have done too, but in a more medieval and quasi 'sacramental' way, if I can put it like that.
All you have done is demonstrated your very selective and partial view of history and your failure to grasp the point I've been making about us all - Cromwell, Charlemagne, the Queen, Trump, Marcon, Merkel, Putin and everyone else - being constrained and limited to some extent or other by the times and milieu in which we live.
Cromwell certainly believed himself and his cause to be an instrument of divine judgement - 'God made them as stubble to our swords.'
What makes Charlemagne 'different' if you like, is more a question of degree. He saw himself as reviving the Empire of the West. He saw himself as an annointed ruler with incontestable executive powers alongside the Pope as God's representative and 'ruler' in spiritual matters. Although later medieval conceptions of the Papacy had yet to fully form, Charlemagne played a key rule in that process.
He wasn't the first ruler to impose a homogeneous religious system on his subjects, nor, as Kaplan has reminded us, was he the first to execute anyone who stepped out of line in that respect. The scale of it was unprecedented though, if the story of 4,500 Saxons is to be believed.
What form of government could he have adopted and exercised instead?
As a medieval ruler, what could he have learned and implemented from the NT as an alternative to the monarchical system?
Even a millennium later, Cromwell found it difficult to develop any other model - and ended up imposing a dictatorship.
What could Charlemagne have done - other than not executing pagan Saxon 'rebels' - that would have been different?
That's not deterministic, that's contextual.
Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Crsos:
God made Charlemagne king. Says so right there in Romans.
And God made Nero emperor.
Says so right there in the Bible.
quote:
And God sanctions putting wrongdoers (like those who don't worship Him) to the sword (also Romans).
And Paul was martyred under Nero, as were other Christians.
So under your idiotic wooden exegesis, Paul was disobeying his own precept in Romans 13 by not apostatising in obedience to Nero.
There is only one viable interpretation of Romans 13, which I explained when I took to pieces the line you are running in this post earlier in the thread.
Paul is obviously referring to the role of a ruler (whether Christian or not) in keeping ordinary law and order.
Any other interpretation leads to self-evident absurdities,such as that rulers are to kill all heretics and heathen in flat contradiction tot the whole of the rest of the NT, or that rulers are justified in slaughtering Christians.
quote:
How much more do you need?
I have given you and explanation, but what you need is an understanding, which I can't give you.
[ 18. August 2017, 05:55: Message edited by: Kaplan Corday ]
Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Curiosity killed
Also there is an assumption that the NT can be demonstrated to supersede the OT on religious violence when not only is that image of Jesus saying he is not to bring peace but war
I have already dealt with the hermeneutical and exegetical idiocy of using Matthew 10:34-9 to jump from "different reactions to Jesus would bring division between family members" to "Jesus taught that Christian rulers were to slaughter heretics and heathen".
quote:
and all the apocalyptic imagery in Revelations.
Revelation, pace groups such as the Fifth Monarchy Men, is descriptive, not prescriptive.
It no more teaches that Christians are to use religious violence, than it teaches we should dress up as creatures with surplus appendages (however tempting the latter prospect might appear).
Posted by Curiosity killed ... (# 11770) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
All of this is OT Bible but in the NT, the Lord Jesus specifically refused political power on more than one occasion. This was the issue the Jews had with him..'If you are the king,where is the kingdom'. In fact there will be a divine kingdom as prophesied by Daniel, but it waits for the second coming. In his first coming, Christ came to deal with sin.
All of this to say that Charlemagne never had a divine right to rule. Neither did Pope Urban 2, or the mighty Innocent 3. Neither did Charles 1. One of the things I respect about Cromwell with all his issues was that he never tried to become royalty. He knew that there was no such right in the present age. Anyone who considered there was or is will learn the truth to their cost.
Jamat is it not that that is your reading of the Bible and what it should mean to kings and rulers? James I (& VI) did not believe that. In a speech to Parliament in 1610 he said:
quote:
The state of monarchy is the supremest thing upon earth, for kings are not only God's lieutenants upon earth and sit upon God's throne, but even by God himself they are called gods. There be three principal [comparisons] that illustrate the state of monarchy: one taken out of the word of God, and the two other out of the grounds of policy and philosophy. In the Scriptures kings are called gods, and so their power after a certain relation compared to the Divine power. Kings are also compared to fathers of families; for a king is truly parens patriae [parent of the country], the politic father of his people. And lastly, kings are compared to the head of this microcosm of the body of man. Quoted in the Wikipedia article on The Divine Right of Kings
We do not now believe in the divine right of kings, but the medieval and later kings believed they were ruling by God's will and that they were divinely ordained by Romans 13:
quote:
13 Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. For there is no power but of God: the powers that be are ordained of God.
² Whosoever therefore resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God: and they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation.
³ For rulers are not a terror to good works, but to the evil. Wilt thou then not be afraid of the power? do that which is good, and thou shalt have praise of the same:
4 For he is the minister of God to thee for good. But if thou do that which is evil, be afraid; for he beareth not the sword in vain: for he is the minister of God, a revenger to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil.
5 Wherefore ye must needs be subject, not only for wrath, but also for conscience sake. Romans 13:1-5 KJV
They genuinely believed they were "the minister of God, a revenger to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil." And being human they made the decisions about who was good and who was evil.
Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Curiosity killed
Because if Joshua can believe he is following God's will, why can Charlemagne not believe this too?
Charlemagne could have believed anything he liked - that he was the incarnation of the angel Gabriel, or that he was the fulfilment of one of the beasts in Revelation.
The pertinent question is whether, as a Christian, he had any NT justification for liquidating the heathen, and he didn't.
As for Joshua, in contrast to the many silly pseudo-problems thrown up about the Bible, the genocide which accompanied the Conquest is a very genuine one, for which I freely admit to having no satisfactory explanation whatsoever.
Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
It no more teaches that Christians are to use religious violence, than it teaches we should dress up as creatures with surplus appendages (however tempting the latter prospect might appear).
I agree with this. But I can see how someone might not work that out if they simply sat down and read the Bible. It seems from all the foregoing that you would argue they could only get that wrong through wilful misinterpretation.
In a sense I also agree but I also think my interpretation that it *can't* be advocating religious violence is almost as wilful, in that it is based on very strong prior views that I bring to the text.
Posted by Curiosity killed ... (# 11770) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Russ:
quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
It seems you can get away with saying all sorts of things about Muslims that you could never say about Jews.
Frankly, the more strongly Gamaliel argues that it's really difficult to go against the culture you're born into, the more one suspects that in British Muslim culture terrorism isn't really all that bad...
I don't see any comparable evil in British Jewish culture.
Russ, that is a sweeping generalisation about British Muslim culture. British Muslim culture is far more varied than you are assuming, I hope from ignorance. I work with Muslim colleagues and Muslim students and see a wide range of cultures. I also hear how frightened these Muslim colleagues and young people are by the way they are being attacked in the media and in the British psyche.
Posted by Jamat (# 11621) on
:
quote:
Curiosity Killed: Jamat, is it not that that is your reading of the Bible and what it should mean to kings and rulers
Yep, Can I help it if I'm right?
Regarding the genocide in Joshua, I agree that as long as we insist on judging God as if he was one of us, we will have this problem. If so, though, there is no end of things we can accuse God of. The fact that we get sick, old and helpless and die, bad weather, and the fact that there are not enough parking spaces.
But God is not one of us.
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on
:
No Jesus then?
Posted by Curiosity killed ... (# 11770) on
:
But isn't the whole point of this thread that different people interpret the Bible differently? So it is possible to interpret the Bible in a way to justify violence and genocide, whether we now agree with that or not?
Having reinterpreted the Bible so that slavery is not now acceptable and to allow women to minister in many churches, is it not likely that we will continue to reinterpret the Bible in different ways in the future.
Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Curiosity killed ...:
But isn't the whole point of this thread that different people interpret the Bible differently? So it is possible to interpret the Bible in a way to justify violence and genocide, whether we now agree with that or not?
Having reinterpreted the Bible so that slavery is not now acceptable and to allow women to minister in many churches, is it not likely that we will continue to reinterpret the Bible in different ways in the future.
Kaplan and Jamat don't allow that any interpretation which is different to theirs can be considered "Christian" - and therefore the justification for it must have come from outside.
It's a ridiculous monotone argument, but they seem to think it passes as intelligent comment.
Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Russ:
I don't see any comparable evil in British Jewish culture.
Oh, the evil of the Jews is in their cut-throat business practices. Just think about James Goldsmith and Ronald Cohen.
Is that anti-Semitic by the way? If so then why is it OK to talk about the evil in British Muslims?
Posted by Jamat (# 11621) on
:
quote:
Curiosity Killed: But isn't the whole point of this thread that different people interpret the Bible differently? So it is possible to interpret the Bible in a way to justify violence and genocide, whether we now agree with that or not
Your first sentence is certainly true but your second does not follow from it. I think that no reasonable hermeneutic can justify violence and genocide in the present age because the NT teaches clearly a non military and even a non political way of life. In gethsemane, Jesus told Peter to put up his sword. He told Pilate his kingdom was not of this world. Paul's teaching in Romans 13 is clearly directed to allow Christians to live with the legitimate government of the day, not to submit to a regime of evil.
This issue devolves into one's view of the Bible. There is no doubt that honest and capable expositors will differ on aspects of what it teaches and implies.
I think that the Bible is a record of God's interactions with humanity. My views, I guess, are conclusions from 40 years of reading and studying it. But as you see, they have no want of detractors. Each of us is on a journey in this regard. We need to find individually satisfactory answers and that is always a process.
Posted by Curiosity killed ... (# 11770) on
:
But Jamat you have agreed that people interpret the Bible differently, but you ignored my point about the ways the hermeneutic has changed for slavery, for example. The Biblical justification for violence has continued, because the 'just war' argument was used for World War 2, against fascism, as it is on the "Nazis come to town thread'.
Posted by Jamat (# 11621) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Curiosity killed ...:
But Jamat you have agreed that people interpret the Bible differently, but you ignored my point about the ways the hermeneutic has changed for slavery, for example. The Biblical justification for violence has continued, because the 'just war' argument was used for World War 2, against fascism, as it is on the "Nazis come to town thread'.
Regarding slavery, tolerance of it through necessity is not approval. Paul states that if possible a Christian should become free.
The question of a 'just' war is a vexed one, too big for a few sentences. I do not know the answer to that one except that, not resisting Hitler would have been unthinkable to my parents generation who were actively involved in resisting him.
There is also the vexed, ethical question of whether the use of force is violence under circumstances where it is used to protect or defend against evil. For instance, if one intervenes to stop an assault.
The discussion on this thread has been different. It has been over how there could possibly be aggression, legitimised by a Christian ethic, or how could such a thing as a crusade be sanctioned in the name of Christ.
Posted by Curiosity killed ... (# 11770) on
:
But the ethic of taking part in the WW1 and WW2 was seen as Christian - with encouragement to enlist in WW1 and participation preached from pulpits. Unlike the Falklands War when Robert Runcie famously preached against it.
Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on
:
Yes, my grandfather came back from WWI incensed by all the clergy who encouraged them to go over the top. And that was not against Nazis.
Posted by Brenda Clough (# 18061) on
:
A brief search on line will find you the sermons from 150 years ago, in which preachers proclaimed from the pulpit that the slavery of black persons was the will of God. There were of course pastors in the northern states preaching exactly the opposite, citing texts from the exact same Bible.
Or go back and look at the history of Southern Baptists. Why did they split off from the rest of the Baptist communion? Take a guess.
Posted by Dafyd (# 5549) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
So under your idiotic wooden exegesis, Paul was disobeying his own precept in Romans 13 by not apostatising in obedience to Nero.
There is only one viable interpretation of Romans 13, which I explained when I took to pieces the line you are running in this post earlier in the thread.
Paul is obviously referring to the role of a ruler (whether Christian or not) in keeping ordinary law and order.
This presumably would be why the New Testament doesn't ever use the phrase 'ordinary law and order' or any phrase equivalent to 'ordinary law and order' or define the limits of what ordinary law and order might be or tell us what makes some law and order ordinary and some not.
Nevertheless, that's what he's obviously referring to.
Presumably ordinary law and order is what is maintained by a standing police force. I know London didn't have a standing police force to maintain ordinary law and order until the eighteenth century. I've never seen any evidence that Rome ever had a standing police force. It would be anachronistic therefore to project what we might think when we hear 'ordinary law and order' back to Paul's Rome; it's equally anachronistic to believe that the Christians of any period inbetween could or ought to have found it obvious that the passage meant what we think of by the phrase 'ordinary law and order'.
Nevertheless, that's what he's obviously referring to.
Every Roman official believed that the lynchpin of ordinary law and order in the Empire was worship of the Empire and its gods. So your interpretation seems also to have Paul disobeying his own precept by not apostasing; and the interpretation is therefore no superior on those grounds alone.
Nevertheless, ordinary law and order is what Paul's obviously referring to.
quote:
Any other interpretation leads to self-evident absurdities,such as that rulers are to kill all heretics and heathen in flat contradiction tot the whole of the rest of the NT, or that rulers are justified in slaughtering Christians.
You've already conceded that there is no passage in the rest of the NT that flatly forbids killing all heretics and heathen. Your argument was up until this point that there was no verse that someone could use to justify it from the NT.
quote:
quote:
How much more do you need?
I have given you and explanation, but what you need is an understanding, which I can't give you.
Oh well that settles it. Clearly you couldn't have written that unless it was true. Just as you couldn't have called Croesos' exegesis 'idiotic' unless it was actually idiotic and you couldn't have said your interpretation was obviously the only possible interpretation unless it was obviously the only possible interpretation. Your fingers would have seized up. Your computer would have refused to send the signal to the internet. The Angel of the Lord would have descended and smote your city so that no inhabitant remained, nay not even a hamster.
Posted by Crsos (# 238) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
quote:
Curiosity Killed: But isn't the whole point of this thread that different people interpret the Bible differently? So it is possible to interpret the Bible in a way to justify violence and genocide, whether we now agree with that or not
Your first sentence is certainly true but your second does not follow from it. I think that no reasonable hermeneutic can justify violence and genocide in the present age because the NT teaches clearly a non military and even a non political way of life. In gethsemane, Jesus told Peter to put up his sword. He told Pilate his kingdom was not of this world.
That doesn't seem particularly "clear", it seems more inferential. One could just as easily argue that Jesus' instructions to Peter were specific to that particular situation rather than a generally applicable instruction to all Christians. That's the usual favorite dodge for Christians faced with a Biblical passage they don't like, right? Absent a specific passage that says something like "no Christian may be a soldier" or "never have anything to do with the state, including paying taxes" I don't think you can claim that this is the clear teaching of the Bible.
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
Paul's teaching in Romans 13 is clearly directed to allow Christians to live with the legitimate government of the day, not to submit to a regime of evil.
The idea that Christians don't have to submit to a "regime of evil" is nowhere explicitly stated in Romans 13. For context, the regimes Paul was most familiar with (because he lived under them) include those of Caligula and Nero Cæsar. Given that these are the kinds of governments Paul tells Christians they're supposed to submit to, I'm not sure where you'd draw the line to qualify something as a "regime of evil" if Caligula and Nero don't qualify.
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
So under your idiotic wooden exegesis, Paul was disobeying his own precept in Romans 13 by not apostatising in obedience to Nero.
There is only one viable interpretation of Romans 13, which I explained when I took to pieces the line you are running in this post earlier in the thread.
Paul is obviously referring to the role of a ruler (whether Christian or not) in keeping ordinary law and order.
This presumably would be why the New Testament doesn't ever use the phrase 'ordinary law and order' or any phrase equivalent to 'ordinary law and order' or define the limits of what ordinary law and order might be or tell us what makes some law and order ordinary and some not.
It's also not readily apparent that a first century Christian or Jew would regard theft or perjury as any less of a violation of God's law than worshiping the wrong gods. The distinction between God's law and "ordinary law and order" is more of a modern distinction, not anything you could Biblically justify.
Posted by Jane R (# 331) on
:
Dafyd: quote:
I've never seen any evidence that Rome ever had a standing police force.
You mean, apart from the cohortes urbanae? [= urban cohorts, under the command of the urban prefect]
[ 18. August 2017, 15:51: Message edited by: Jane R ]
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
As we live in societies, are involved in the 'polis', then it is hard to see how it is possible to live a 'politics free life.'
Where there are people, there's politics. We can't avoid it. It may not be 'party political' but it's still political.
There are politics within scout groups, cricket clubs, voluntary organisations, and, who could possibly believe it? - within and between churches ...
None of this stuff happens in a vacuum.
Posted by Jamat (# 11621) on
:
quote:
I'm not sure where you'd draw the line to qualify something as a "regime of evil" if Caligula and Nero don't qualify
Roman law is pretty fundamental to our rule of law and was bigger than individual administrations. Jesus specifically told the Jews who had a big issue in this regard, to render to Caesar what belongs to Caesar. He did not, in doing so, incite rebellion against him.
Paul's injunction to converts was that in the normal course of life, to work,earn a living and if possible be at peace with all men. The teaching of NT Christianity is that the church can live and fit within the ethos of whatever civil government in which it found itself. It was never to set up as a political entity but rather to be an example of godliness, light and salt if you like and of course, Christians are enjoined to pray for rulers.
You need to look at Romans 13 in context instead of thinking in terms of 'there's no verse against this or that'. The teaching of the NT supports the rule of law but there is a clear instruction to resist evil as well. There is no conflict between being a law abiding chap and taking a stand against wrong doing.
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
I don't think anyone is disagreeing with that, Jamat.
Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
Oh, the evil of the Jews is in their cut-throat business practices. Is that anti-Semitic by the way?
Yes, it is.
quote:
If so then why is it OK to talk about the evil in British Muslims?
Has anyone talked about "the evil in British Muslims"?.
There are good and bad Muslims, just as there are good and bad Jews, Christians, and just about any other religious or ethnic grouping you could think of.
It the mindless, monolithic, stereotypical generalisation, such as yours about Jews, which is the problem.
Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
I've never seen any evidence that Rome ever had a standing police force.
Thanks for the history lesson.
Previously we all imagined that Roman law enforcement involved a standing police force identical to modern ones, except that they used swords instead of pistols, and chariots instead of cars.
Who would have thought....?
quote:
So your interpretation seems also to have Paul disobeying his own precept by not apostasing
It is not I who has the problem.
"My" (because I am the first person, of course, to ever hold it) interpretation (ie that the NT tells believers to obey the civil law except when it tells them to betray their faith) makes sense of Paul's words in Romans 13, and the rest of the NT (eg Acts 4:18-19), and Paul's refusal to apostatise.
It is other interpretations (ie that Romans 13 teaches Christian rulers to slaughter non-Christians) that lead inexorably to absurdity.
quote:
You've already conceded that there is no passage in the rest of the NT that flatly forbids killing all heretics and heathen.
In the same way as I "concede" that there is no passage in the rest of the NT which flatly (ipsisima verba) forbids the torture and sexual abuse of small children - or arson, or cruelty to animals, or online fraud.
quote:
Your argument was up until this point that there was no verse that someone could use to justify it from the NT.
On the contrary, I have pointed out on numerous occasions that you could fill a library with examples of exegetically and hermeneutically loony biblical justifications for just about anything.
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
Except that no-one is saying that anyone, not even Charlemagne, interpreted Romans 13 to mean that Christian rulers should slaughter all non-Christians and pagans.
What has actually been said is that it would have been commensurate with the world-view at that time to expect rulers to establish a single religious polity within their domains and to protect and enforce that by violent means when necessary. That doesn't mean they would have necessarily envisaged genocide as part of that process, but they would have expected some form of state-enforcement of whatever polity was the dominant one in whatever territory it happened to be.
It's already been explained way, way upthread how, within the medieval mindset, how the obligations of citizens were understood and applied - and how concepts such as forgiving enemies and so on were understood in a different kind of way.
That doesn't mean that different standards should apply in the way we judge or evaluate their actions - other than to say that we need to understand the background and culture,as we do with any culture that differs from our own.
Would Charlemagne have annihilated every single Saxon, had such a thing even been logistically possible, had they continued bto defy him? Who knows. All that can be said with certainty is that he executed a large number of capture Saxon 'rebels' - or 'resistance fighters' - choose which term you will - and threatened the death penalty for future non-compliance.
It would appear that 4,500 is a figure disputed by historians - but that a 'large number' were executed seems likely.
Whatever the case, it's very hypothetical, anachronistic and a circular argument to say that it should have been obvious to them that Romans 13 doesn't teach that Christian rulers shouldn't execute 'malefactors' on religious grounds because it wouldn't have been obvious to them at all.
That isn't to say that the NT actively teaches and promotes those kind of actions - of course it doesn't - but it simply suggests that - for a whole range of socio-cultural reasons, they wouldn't have understood these things in precisely the way we do.
Acknowledging that does not in any way - contra Jamat - justify or condone understanding these issues the way that medieval people did - which seems to be what the concern is here.
If it is, then it's an unfounded one.
Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
There are good and bad Muslims, just as there are good and bad Jews, Christians, and just about any other religious or ethnic grouping you could think of.
Well exactly. And yet posters here use "the evil in Muslim culture". Whereas "the evil in Jewish culture" would be unacceptable.
In both instances one could defend oneself by saying "Of course there are good and bad individuals". But in both instances the phrase is unacceptable in implying a fundamental problem with a group of people.
[ 19. August 2017, 05:12: Message edited by: mdijon ]
Posted by Jamat (# 11621) on
:
quote:
Gamaliel: which isn't to say that the NT actively teaches and promotes those kind of actions - of course it doesn't - but it simply suggests that - for a whole range of socio-cultural reasons, they wouldn't have understood these things in precisely the way we do.
I think your problem is right here. No one thinks anyone in a past mindset would understand things the way you do. However you are strongly suggesting another subtle step viz they would therefore, not have grasped the import of the text.
I do not think that is true.
Posted by Curiosity killed ... (# 11770) on
:
So how do you interpret the speech from James I (of England and VI of Scotland) made in 1610 and quoted above? In that speech he explains what he believes the role of the king to be and how much was ordained by God.
Posted by Curiosity killed ... (# 11770) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Russ:
quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
It seems you can get away with saying all sorts of things about Muslims that you could never say about Jews.
Frankly, the more strongly Gamaliel argues that it's really difficult to go against the culture you're born into, the more one suspects that in British Muslim culture terrorism isn't really all that bad...
I don't see any comparable evil in British Jewish culture.
@Kaplan Corday - this the post that implied British Muslims are evil and was being challenged
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
quote:
Gamaliel: which isn't to say that the NT actively teaches and promotes those kind of actions - of course it doesn't - but it simply suggests that - for a whole range of socio-cultural reasons, they wouldn't have understood these things in precisely the way we do.
I think your problem is right here. No one thinks anyone in a past mindset would understand things the way you do. However you are strongly suggesting another subtle step viz they would therefore, not have grasped the import of the text.
I do not think that is true.
Again, you misunderstand me. It's not that I think they were incapable of understanding 'the import of the text', simply that they understood the role and reach / responsibilities of rulers in a different way to us and because of that would have understood the texts through that lens and filter.
Posted by Jamat (# 11621) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Curiosity killed ...:
So how do you interpret the speech from James I (of England and VI of Scotland) made in 1610 and quoted above? In that speech he explains what he believes the role of the king to be and how much was ordained by God.
Well, I am not an expert expert on James1 but for mine it is a thinly disguised attempt to claim divine authority for his power and position. Bearing in mind he inherited at a time England was pretty well over despotic monarchal rule but needing monarchy for constitutional purposes. His rule was a continual struggle to balance the tension of traditional kingly power with emerging democratic pressure? If I am wrong please correct me.
Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on
:
So let's say that's true. Did his speech work? History suggests it did.
Which implies that a lot of people genuinely believed him. Or it wouldn't have worked.
Posted by Curiosity killed ... (# 11770) on
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James I (& VI)'s son Charles I also believed in he divine right of kings, so there is evidence that the Stuart kings had this view of Romans 13
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
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Just a further point, Jamat, would you not accept that it's possible to have a fuller grasp of some aspects of divine revelation at the same time as having a less comprehensive or flawed grasp of others?
So, for instance, whilst theologians in Charlemagne's day had thrashed out and agreed their understanding of things like the Trinitarian nature of the Godhead, there were other things they may not have worked out so clearly?
You seem to have this expectation that everyone 'ought' or should be on the same page at the same time. That doesn't appear to be a practical expectation - as my example of slavery demonstrates.
Yes, there were Patristic misgivings about slavery and yes, a Pauline suggestion that obtaining one's freedom was desirable if circumstances allowed - and my insert of Roman slavery is that it wasn't always intended to be a permanent state for the enslaved - but it took many centuries for there to be a consistent and coherent position on slavery across the churches.
The same thing applies, surely, to things like the Divine Right of Kings and so forth.
Posted by Dafyd (# 5549) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
I've never seen any evidence that Rome ever had a standing police force.
Thanks for the history lesson.
Previously we all imagined that Roman law enforcement involved a standing police force identical to modern ones, except that they used swords instead of pistols, and chariots instead of cars.
Who would have thought....?
You've been sarcastic. You can't possibly have ducked the point if you've been sarcastic. Only the one whose interpretation is correct can be sarcastic.
You may think the above strengthens your position. It doesn't. It looks like an attempt to distract from the fact that you haven't addressed the substantial point I made.
quote:
quote:
So your interpretation seems also to have Paul disobeying his own precept by not apostasing
It is not I who has the problem.
"My" (because I am the first person, of course, to ever hold it) interpretation (ie that the NT tells believers to obey the civil law except when it tells them to betray their faith) makes sense of Paul's words in Romans 13, and the rest of the NT (eg Acts 4:18-19), and Paul's refusal to apostatise.
You need to show not tell.
I presume by 'civil law' you mean criminal law and not civil law.
Also you need to show that you can clearly demarcate the bits of the 'civil law' that are obviously the government's business from the bits of the 'civil law' that are overstepping the government's business and asking Christians to betray their faith.
For example, suppose the law forbids people from feeding or otherwise giving charity to illegal immigrants. 'Civil law' or asking Christians to betray their faith?
quote:
It is other interpretations (ie that Romans 13 teaches Christian rulers to slaughter non-Christians) that lead inexorably to absurdity.
Again you need to show not tell. The word 'absurdity' is here merely pejorative. It carries no rational nor persuasive force. If someone isn't already convinced that slaughtering the heathen is wrong under all circumstances they will not find your conclusion absurd.
quote:
quote:
You've already conceded that there is no passage in the rest of the NT that flatly forbids killing all heretics and heathen.
In the same way as I "concede" that there is no passage in the rest of the NT which flatly (ipsisima verba) forbids the torture and sexual abuse of small children - or arson, or cruelty to animals, or online fraud.
Yes. I read that bit. You're not addressing the actual argument here.
Your argument is I presume that although nothing in the NT flatly contradicts the killing of heathen to spread the Gospel it is clearly ruled out by the general sense and spirit of the NT; and therefore any interpretation of any difficult passage that seems to allow it must therefore be a wrong interpretation.
Well, I'm certainly willing to accept that line of argument is valid. As an illustration I and many other Christians would argue that although nothing in the NT flatly permits same-sex sexual activity forbidding same-sex sexual activity is ruled out by the general sense and spirit of the NT; and therefore any interpretation of relevant difficult passages that seem to forbid same-sex marriage must be therefore a wrong interpretation.
My point here is that I wouldn't use the word 'clearly' for that. Because people do disagree. And so since your argument is logically equivalent, your argument cannot be clear or obvious either.
By the way, if you think killing all heretics and heathen and cruelty to animals are equally clearly contrary to the Gospel that mean factory farming is as clearly against the Gospel as killing heretics is?
Posted by Sighthound (# 15185) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Curiosity killed ...:
James I (& VI)'s son Charles I also believed in he divine right of kings, so there is evidence that the Stuart kings had this view of Romans 13
They did indeed so believe, and so misdirected themselves. Every sovereign of England since 1399 (bar Edward IV and Edward V) has been established by Parliamentary authority. This was recognised as long ago as the 1530s, in the famous discussion between Thomas More and Richard Rich, in which they agreed that Parliament could (in theory) make Richard Rich king. (Indeed he probably had as valid an hereditary claim as Henry VII.)
Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
You've been sarcastic.
Well-perceived.
Point?
What "point"?
The trite revelation that there were not direct correspondences to modern standing police forces in the ancient world?
I'm not sure why I bothered to respond to it at all.
quote:
I presume by 'civil law' you mean criminal law and not civil law.
Yes, mea culpa, I did mean criminal law - or rather, just the day to day law and order that all governments of all religious and political complexions attend to as their minimal raison d'etre.
This is what Paul obviously - yes, obviously - is referring to.
quote:
The word 'absurdity' is here merely pejorative.
No it's not, it is precisely the mot juste.
It is your job to show not that people have derived Christian religious violence from the Bible (because obviously they have) but to show why it is not absurd to derive Christian religious violence, ie the duty of a Christian government to kill heretics and heathen, from Paul's words in Romans 13 in the context of the rest of the NT.
You can't do it.
quote:
By the way, if you think killing all heretics and heathen and cruelty to animals are equally clearly contrary to the Gospel that mean factory farming is as clearly against the Gospel as killing heretics is?
Hmmm, and does it mean that I think that because the NT condemns explicitly neither setting fire to a crowded venue, nor making an unkind remark about someone's outfit, that the one is "as clearly against the Gospel" as the other?
Scholasticism is clearly staging a comeback.
This sort of bizarre equivalence-mongering reminds me of Doctor Johnson's satirical doggerel:-
"If a man who turnips cries,
Cries not when his father dies,
'Tis a proof that he had rather
Have a turnip than a father".
Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Curiosity killed ...:
quote:
Originally posted by Russ:
quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
It seems you can get away with saying all sorts of things about Muslims that you could never say about Jews.
Frankly, the more strongly Gamaliel argues that it's really difficult to go against the culture you're born into, the more one suspects that in British Muslim culture terrorism isn't really all that bad...
I don't see any comparable evil in British Jewish culture.
@Kaplan Corday - this the post that implied British Muslims are evil and was being challenged
It is obviously wrong to state or imply that all Muslims are evil, but most Muslims themselves (including the ones I know) would think that there is an "evil", ie a propensity on the part of a minority to practise or sympathise with indiscriminate terrorist violence, present within the broader Muslim community.
In the same way, many Jews as well as non-Jews would have been prepared to acknowledge an "evil" within the broader Jewish community in the days of the indiscriminate terrorist violence of the Irgun and the Stern Gang.
[ 19. August 2017, 23:41: Message edited by: Kaplan Corday ]
Posted by Jamat (# 11621) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Curiosity killed ...:
James I (& VI)'s son Charles I also believed in he divine right of kings, so there is evidence that the Stuart kings had this view of Romans 13
Yes..and the point is.? You cannot possibly be suggesting it is a correct interpretation. It is patently decontextualised and self-interested.
Posted by Jamat (# 11621) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
quote:
Gamaliel: which isn't to say that the NT actively teaches and promotes those kind of actions - of course it doesn't - but it simply suggests that - for a whole range of socio-cultural reasons, they wouldn't have understood these things in precisely the way we do.
I think your problem is right here. No one thinks anyone in a past mindset would understand things the way you do. However you are strongly suggesting another subtle step viz they would therefore, not have grasped the import of the text.
I do not think that is true.
Again, you misunderstand me. It's not that I think they were incapable of understanding 'the import of the text', simply that they understood the role and reach / responsibilities of rulers in a different way to us and because of that would have understood the texts through that lens and filter.
Yep but that seems beside the point. Does what you have said imply they could honestly believe and act in a manner utterly contrary to the sprit of Christ? I do not think so.
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
It's not beside the point, it is the point.
As to whether they could honestly and sincerely have believed that what they were doing was commensurate with the spirit of the Gospel, well, neither you or I are in a position to assess that. They will have to give account for their actions before the Judgement Throne of Christ, as will we all.
The judgement throne of Jamat and Gamaliel in the meantime may very well declare their actions to have been wrong - even if they were sincerely misguided as it were.
You can be sincerely wrong but still wrong.
Whether they were sincerely wrong or insincerely wrong, they were still wrong.
You keep coming back on the sincerity thing as if this is the ultimate litmus test or as if I'm trying to condone or justify their actions by seeking to understand their historical context.
Kaplan keeps making this mistake too, hence his descent into Godwin territory earlier.
I believe that was a sincere mistake on his part.
It was a still a mistake.
I believe that you are sincere when you continue to misunderstand the point I'm making.
But you still misunderstand.
Posted by Jamat (# 11621) on
:
quote:
Gamaliel: As to whether they could honestly and sincerely have believed that what they were doing was commensurate with the spirit of the Gospel, well, neither you or I are in a position to assess that. They will have to give account for their actions before the Judgement Throne of Christ, as will we all.
You have made an assessment of it. You think they could have. I disagree.
I think you actually misunderstand the implications of what you have been asserting here. The whole deal about, 'they did not have our hermeneutic, we cannot judge them, ' means you have actually validated their hermeneutic, even though you do not approve of where it took them.
That is where your reasoning leads.
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
No it doesn't. It only does so if you take an entirely binary approach as you appear to be doing.
I haven't evaluated their position and validated it. I think their position was wrong.
What you or I are unable to judge is the sincerity or otherwise of their actions. Sincere or insincere, they were wrong.
Whether you or I think they were sincere or otherwise adds nothing to the discussion.
You seem to conflate an attempt to understand the context with an attempt to justify the action.
Then you accuse me of not appreciating the implications of my arguments but it's obvious you haven't even understood them in the first place either because you don't read for comprehension or for some other reason.
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on
:
It's the story of the story which is always more informative. We're ditchists. Engaged with culture in trench warfare. If a Roman Catholic position is overrun inside our heads we may find ourselves in a fundamentalist one. An overrun evangelical redoubt can drive us to Orthodoxy.
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
Sure, and exchanging different sets of problems along the way, but reading for comprehension and avoiding binary conclusions where such things are not required is surely something that should apply right across the board.
Sadly, those characteristics can be found in all Christian confessions.
Posted by Russ (# 120) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
the evil of the Jews is in their cut-throat business practices. Just think about James Goldsmith and Ronald Cohen.
Is that anti-Semitic by the way?
It is entirely possible to deplore cut-throat business practices wherever they occur. And to observe that statistically speaking Jewish communities have been particularly prone to this evil. (Alongside some Protestant communities...).
Where it becomes wrong is when you personalize it, if that's the right word when talking of a class of people rather than individuals. When this becomes a brush to tar all Jews with whether they're in business or not. When the fact of who's accused of a wrong is more important than whether or not it is a wrong.
Condemning massacres ordered by medieval kings in general seems uncontroversial. Painting Charlemagne's act as a Christian act - trying to make it say something about Christianity - is the controversial bit.
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on
:
No G. That's a common sense, rational view. It doesn't apply to Jamat's or Kaplan Corday's viewing. There is no dialectical basis there.
Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Russ:
And to observe that statistically speaking Jewish communities have been particularly prone to this evil. (Alongside some Protestant communities...).
Even with the alongside modifier this is still anti-Semitic. You have no actual statistics to speak of, you simply imagine them. The act of imagining such statistics is therefore an act of prejudice. At least you seem to be even handed about the way you point it though.
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Russ:
quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
the evil of the Jews is in their cut-throat business practices. Just think about James Goldsmith and Ronald Cohen.
Is that anti-Semitic by the way?
It is entirely possible to deplore cut-throat business practices wherever they occur. And to observe that statistically speaking Jewish communities have been particularly prone to this evil. (Alongside some Protestant communities...).
Where it becomes wrong is when you personalize it, if that's the right word when talking of a class of people rather than individuals. When this becomes a brush to tar all Jews with whether they're in business or not. When the fact of who's accused of a wrong is more important than whether or not it is a wrong.
Condemning massacres ordered by medieval kings in general seems uncontroversial. Painting Charlemagne's act as a Christian act - trying to make it say something about Christianity - is the controversial bit.
Show me.
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
I don't think anyone is presenting Charlemagne's execution of rebellious pagan Saxons as a 'Christian act.'
Here's someone else who needs to read for comprehension.
Rather, it's been asserted that Charlemagne, as an early medieval ruler, acted in a way that was commensurate with that within a society that had yet no concept of the separation of church and state.That's not controversial.
Posted by Jamat (# 11621) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
quote:
Gamaliel: As to whether they could honestly and sincerely have believed that what they were doing was commensurate with the spirit of the Gospel, well, neither you or I are in a position to assess that. They will have to give account for their actions before the Judgement Throne of Christ, as will we all.
You have made an assessment of it. You think they could have. I disagree.
I think you actually misunderstand the implications of what you have been asserting here. The whole deal about, 'they did not have our hermeneutic, we cannot judge them, ' means you have actually validated their hermeneutic, even though you do not approve of where it took them.
That is where your reasoning leads.
[QUOTE] Rather, it's been asserted that Charlemagne, as an early medieval ruler, acted in a way that was commensurate with that within a society that had yet no concept of the separation of church and state.That's not controversial.
QUOTE]
Which means Gamaliel, that you HAVE validated the position that the poor chap was a victim of his time. Please read your own posts for comprehension instead of asserting you are not understood. It is getting tedious.
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
How does that follow?
Acknowledging that Charlemagne acted in ways that were commensurate to some extent with the prevailing worldview of his time is one thing. Using that to validate his worldview is quite another. As is the suggestion that this somehow exonerates him from being a brutal warlord.
It does not such thing.
You think you have given a clever reply and undermined my argument. You have done neither.
All you have done is shown that you are a 'victim of the times' yourself - a victim of the woodenly fundamentalist literalist mindset that appears to render you totally incapable of nuanced debate, reading for comprehension and stringing a coherent argument together.
That's what's tedious.
Posted by Jamat (# 11621) on
:
quote:
How does that follow?
What you said is essentially that the chap was a victim of his time. Certain things follow from that.
E.G.
He could have therefore acted sincerely
Christianity was a different animal back then
His hermeneutic was valid..for him.
It amounts to relativism. 'Christianity' was different in his time so that legitimised his actions...not according to our lights, mind, just according to his.
You seem not to realise what you are saying.
Posted by Dafyd (# 5549) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
I did mean criminal law - or rather, just the day to day law and order that all governments of all religious and political complexions attend to as their minimal raison d'etre.
This is not true.
This is the point you ducked when you talked about police forces.
It's simply not the case that all governments have taken the maintenance of day to day law and order as their minimal raison d'etre. You will struggle to get that from Plato. You will certainly not get that from Aristotle. Nor I think will you get it from any Roman author. If you had to pick a leading candidate from government inscriptions from the ancient world I think the most obvious raison d'etre for government would be military glory.
quote:
This is what Paul obviously - yes, obviously - is referring to.
You can say the word 'obviously' as much as you like; you can say the word 'obviously' until your face goes from red to purple: it doesn't make it true.
quote:
It is your job to show not that people have derived Christian religious violence from the Bible (because obviously they have) but to show why it is not absurd to derive Christian religious violence, ie the duty of a Christian government to kill heretics and heathen, from Paul's words in Romans 13 in the context of the rest of the NT.
And then once we've shown it's not absurd, it will be our job to show that we've shown it? And then it will be our job to show that we've shown that we've shown it?
Your burden of proof argument is ridiculous. If both sides insist that the burden of proof lies with the other no debate is possible. Argument merely degenerates into a shouting match. If debate is to aim at truth and persuasion it must assume that each side responds to what the other says rather than merely asserting that the other has not met a burden of proof.
Therefore, if someone comes up with a derivation of Christian violence it is then your job to refute it.
quote:
quote:
By the way, if you think killing all heretics and heathen and cruelty to animals are equally clearly contrary to the Gospel that mean factory farming is as clearly against the Gospel as killing heretics is?
Hmmm, and does it mean that I think that because the NT condemns explicitly neither setting fire to a crowded venue, nor making an unkind remark about someone's outfit, that the one is "as clearly against the Gospel" as the other?
So not everything that is contrary to the Gospel is clearly contrary to the Gospel?
quote:
Scholasticism is clearly staging a comeback.
Thank you for the compliment.
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
And you don't appear to have understood a word I've written.
Pay attention.
Gerald of Wales was a man of his time. He believed all sorts of tall tales. Fine. He couldn't help that. He didn't kill anyone though.
Charlemagne was a man of his time. He believed rulers had the right to impose religious uniformity by force. He killed people. That's rather more serious.
How is that exonerating people for carrying out acts of violence in the name of religion?
It isn't.
Can you not see the difference?
Posted by Jay-Emm (# 11411) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
quote:
How does that follow?
What you said is essentially that the chap was a victim of his time. Certain things follow from that.
E.G.
He could have therefore acted sincerely
Christianity was a different animal back then
His hermeneutic was valid..for him.
It amounts to relativism. 'Christianity' was different in his time so that legitimised his actions...not according to our lights, mind, just according to his.
You seem not to realise what you are saying.
The relativist bit doesn't follow
Charlemagne reads the bible (or listens to those he sponsors those who read it for him) and sincerely asserts he has God given duties to defend God's people from the pagan invaders who are at the borders of his country. Furthermore this is obvious because ... ... ... (and so ... needs to be read in the light of this)
Jamat reads the bible (with someone else having done the translation) and sincerely asserts that he doesn't. Further more this is obvious because ... (and so ... ... ... needs to be read in the light of this)
I can quite happily believe one of you is right about the outcome and the other is wrong. What none of us can do in good faith (unless we find Charlemagne's/Jamat quote is actually from King Lear, or clearly* out of context) is claim it's obvious [without doing that second bit of work].
* which requires a decent bit of work.
[ 20. August 2017, 21:21: Message edited by: Jay-Emm ]
Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
I think the most obvious raison d'etre for government would be military glory.
To a few perhaps, but hardly to hoi polloi.
I Timothy 2:2 indicates that Paul, a Roman citizen, certainly didn't see government in terms of military glory.
In any case, the two are scarcely mutually exclusive.
quote:
Therefore, if someone comes up with a derivation of Christian violence it is then your job to refute it.
No-one has produced a "derivation of Christian violence" from Romans 13 that is remotely convincing - that is anything other, in fact, than a desperate debating point with no exegetical backing.
The facts that neither Paul nor any other NT figure explicitly teaches Christian religious violence; that the whole of the NT (especially Christ) explicitly rejects Christian religious violence; and that in religious matters Paul and others in fact defy the authority of the very government to which Paul refers; constitute a refutation which no-one has countered.
The onus of proof continues to lie with those who (claim to) believe that Paul in Romans 13 is teaching the obligation of governments to practise Christian religious violence.
quote:
Thank you for the compliment.
If you are prepared to accept that as a compliment you must be pretty needy.
Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Russ:
It is entirely possible to deplore cut-throat business practices wherever they occur. And to observe that statistically speaking Jewish communities have been particularly prone to this evil.
Any link to those statistics?
Posted by Jamat (# 11621) on
:
quote:
Gamaliel: Acknowledging that Charlemagne acted in ways that were commensurate to some extent with the prevailing worldview of his time is one thing. Using that to validate his worldview is quite another.
No, You once again misunderstand.
It is not that his worldview is validated, just the fact that he can legitimately have such a worldview. That is what your position validates.
And if that is the case, then he was or could have been, acting in good faith, according to what he thought was a 'Christian' motive.
However, no such motive could possibly be called Christian in any valid hermeneutical sense despite whatever his yours or anyone else's worldviews was.
You are also, despite denying it, suggesting he was a victim of his worldview.
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
I am making fine distinctions which are clearly too subtle for you to understand.
Being a product of one's environment doesn't mean that one is a 'victim' to it.
Even if Charlemagne had sincerely believed that it was ok to kill people in order to enforce religious uniformity - which would have been seen as part and parcel of keeping the peace in those days - it doesn't follow that he was compelled I'm at deterministic sense,to follow that through.
He could have shown clemency. He didn't.
Being a product of his time doesn't give him a free pass or let him off the hook any more than you or I are off the hook because we operate according to the mores and values of our own time to some extent or other, despite our adherence to the Gospel.
Charlemagne is an extreme example, of course.
I've cited Cromwell as another example. What can we say in his case? Some good things, some bad things, some indifferent. Same with Charles 1st.
Very few rulers have been complete and utter pantomime villains. Ivan The Terrible was clearly a psycho, though. Then there was Rios Montte in Guatemala, hardly a glowing adornment to the Gospel.
In all these cases we can cite socio-economic and cultural influences that helped shape the way they acted. That doesn't legitimise what they did.
I don't see why you are making such heavy-weather out of this.
My only conclusion has to be that you find it threatening in some way to your very brittle, black-and-white approach to the Bible and to matters of faith - as if to acknowledge contextual influences is some kind of slippery slope towards relativism and permissiveness.
Either that or you are unable to understand what I am actually trying to say because you lack the capacity to apply nuanced thought.
I rather think it's the former, but either way, it's your problem not mine.
Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on
:
I don't think it lets him off the hook exactly, but at least to some extent makes him less culpable.
Imagine if we're transported into the future and we find that we're taken to a court to stand trial for something which wasn't a crime in our time but was just part of conventional wisdom.
Let's say plane travel: our future descendants decide that the damage is so terrible that they're going to go back and take us to trial.
We'd probably stand in the dock in incomprehension. We might understand the words that were being used but would likely find it extremely hard to understand why this was a crime given it was a normal part of life in our time.
Just like our societies are set up with the assumption that driving and flying are morally neutral (despite widespread understanding of the impacts of burning fossil fuels), theirs was set up with a different understanding of religious violence to ours.
And it wasn't as if they had plenty of other examples of better behaviour or religious traditions which challenged the widespread view. It was part and parcel of the common understanding of the time of what it meant to be Christian.
[ 21. August 2017, 08:17: Message edited by: mr cheesy ]
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
Sure, but not all rulers in Christendom carried out mass executions on the scale Charlemagne is meant to have done - and equally, as Kaplan has pointed out, it's not as if Charlemagne was assiduous in observing other stipulations such as, 'Thou shalt not commit adultery ...' which was something that wasn't tolerated in his time - unless you were a ruler and could get away with it ...
I think we have to bear a few things in mind here, namely that the Saxons Charlemagne executed were seen as rebels and had slaughtered some of Charlemagne's subjects. That doesn't make the mass execution any less terrible, but to some extent Charlemagne and his contemporaries would have seen it as just recompense for what they'd have considered war-crimes.
The fact that they'd annexed Saxony and barged into someone else's territory would have been seen as irrelevant.
The British colonial authorities in Kenya justified mass detentions, torture and even summary execution of Mau Mau insurgents on similar grounds.
Yes, the Mau Mau had committed atroctities. The colonial authorities also committed atrocities and grave abuses of human rights in their counter-insurgency measures. Big time.
So, it's not as if the 4,500 Saxons were executed purely because they were pagans. They were executed partly in retribution for their 'rebellion' and partly to deter others.
Ok, the blanket edict that if any of the Saxons didn't get baptised in future is far more problematic, but again, at that time it was the expectation that subjects would conform to whatever the ruler's religion happened to be.
It's one thing to say, 'Ah, they had the New Testament, if they'd had read it properly they'd have realised ...'
But the fact is, as mr cheesy points out, they didn't have any readily available models of how else societies should or could be run.
That's why I cited slavery as an example.
Sure, there were qualms about slavery from the earliest times - you can see a certain ambivalence in the NT itself - 'slave traders' are listed among those who will not 'inherit the kingdom of God.'
But the particular conditions required to facilitate the abolition of slavery as an institution - even if such a thing had been contemplated - didn't come into play for many hundreds of years.
That's the point I'm making and which Jamat, with his typical wooden reductionism, is contesting.
'They had the NT, they should have known better ...'
I've got the New Testament. In and of itself, that doesn't stop me being a sinner or doing things every single day that are in contradiction to its teachings and the faith I profess.
Charlemagne and his advisors had the NT. That didn't stop them behaving in ways that we now consider at variance with its teachings.
It takes many centuries for these things to work themselves through and for the leaven to work its way through the lump. We are always living in the tension between the now and the not yet.
Was Charlemagne's society 'Christianised'? Yes, to some extent. That doesn't mean it was completely transformed in every respect.
Any more than it means that a particular congregation of Christians anywhere in the world have got everything completely sussed.
Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
Sure, but not all rulers in Christendom carried out mass executions on the scale Charlemagne is meant to have done - and equally, as Kaplan has pointed out, it's not as if Charlemagne was assiduous in observing other stipulations such as, 'Thou shalt not commit adultery ...' which was something that wasn't tolerated in his time - unless you were a ruler and could get away with it ...
OK, I don't know how he justified that. Maybe he looked at the biblical example of Solomon and decided that if he was a leader anointed by the deity that normal rules didn't apply.
Or maybe he was just conflicted and his sexual urges contradicted the theology he said he believed in. I've no idea.
But there does seem to me to be a big difference between being conflicted and/or making excuses for actions that you know deep-down are in conflict with your beliefs on one hand and in believing something is part and parcel of your belief on the other.
Kaplan and Jamat seem to be arguing, against all historical evidence, that those who believed in the Crusader model must have somehow known that what they were doing was unchristian.
The harder truth, which appears to be supported by the historical evidence, is that the people who had that mentality saw it as being entirely consistent with their theology.
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
Yes, absolutely.
I suspect it's because both Kaplan and Jamat find it hard to conceive of theology and hermeneutics operating in any way other than the models they are used to.
Kaplan less so.
Consequently, there's the assumption that if any of us try to understand how theology worked in a medieval context then we are somehow seeking to validate it or condone it.
They both ought to get out more.
Posted by Jamat (# 11621) on
:
quote:
I am making fine distinctions which are clearly too subtle for you to understand.
No, Gamaliel, what you are continually doing is denying the implications of what you are asserting. You are wanting to have and eat your cake mate. It comes down to culture blinded them but they are still responsible? Nah mate.
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
Why are you so binary?
If someone does something that is socially conditioned to some extent, it doesn't absolve them of responsibility.
I've said that Charlemagne could have shown clemency. That would have been an option open to him even with an early mediaeval mindset.
He chose not to exercise clemency.
What Cromwell did at Drogheda and Wexford was, technically speaking, in line with the rules of warfare at that time. In each case the garrison fought on after the walls were breached which meant that an attacking force was not obliged to show quarter. Cromwell wiped them out, and plenty of non-combatants with them, including priests and monks.
Because it fell within the accepted rules of engagement and conventions of the time, does that make it any less heinous?
Was the allied bombing of Dresden any less horrific because the Germans had bombed British cities?
For some reason you appear completely incapable of nuanced thought. Consequently you not only misinterpret what I am saying but you presume to tell me what I really mean and that I am incapable of understanding the implications of what I am saying.
The irony of that is completely beyond. It beggars belief. I have never, ever in all my born days come across anyone as apparently incapable of nuanced thinking as your good self.
I am utterly astonished.
Either you work very hard at it or it comes naturally. I suspect it's a matter of conditioning.
If it is the latter, does that exonerate you in any way? No, it doesn't. It explains but does not excuse.
That's what I've been trying to do with the Charlemagne thing. Explain but not excuse.
Somehow you can't seem to grasp the difference.
Posted by Dafyd (# 5549) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
No-one has produced a "derivation of Christian violence" from Romans 13 that is remotely convincing - that is anything other, in fact, than a desperate debating point with no exegetical backing.
The facts that neither Paul nor any other NT figure explicitly teaches Christian religious violence; that the whole of the NT (especially Christ) explicitly rejects Christian religious violence; and that in religious matters Paul and others in fact defy the authority of the very government to which Paul refers; constitute a refutation which no-one has countered.
You're simultaneously arguing that the whole of the NT explicitly rejects religious violence and arguing that although the NT doesn't explicitly reject religious violence the NT doesn't need to do so any more than it explicitly rejects cruelty to animals and arson.
I can think of two lines of argument that can lead from the NT to justify religious violence. While they're wrong, your position is not merely that they're wrong but that they're obviously wrong.
1) Romans 13 says the governing authorities are there to punish wrongdoers. The NT nowhere clearly states the limits of wrongdoing that the governing authorities are there to punish.
Take the Noachide laws as an example. Non-Christian Jews put them forward as the seven laws that if followed would qualify a Gentile as righteous. They are: do not deny God; do not blaspheme against God; do not murder; do not engage in illicit sexual relations; do not steal; do not eat from a live animals; and set up courts to enforce all of the above laws.
Modern liberal readers take it that 'do not deny God' and 'do not blaspheme against God' are in a different category from 'do not murder' and 'do not steal' in that they are not proper subjects for the courts to enforce. Whereas the writers of the Noachide laws clearly believed that they fell under the same category and were proper subjects for the laws to enforce. Someone who comes to Romans 13 and says 'do not deny God' is not the kind of wrongdoing that the governing authorities should enforce is just as much bringing their assumption to the text as a believer in the Noachide laws who thinks 'do not deny God' is bringing their assumption.
Most Christians throughout history have not found a clear condemnation of the secular death penalty in Romans 13. If injunctions to forgiveness, turning the other cheek, and love of one's enemies do not amount to a clear condemnation of the death penalty it appears that they don't amount to a clear condemnation of other forms of violence.
Likewise, it is possible for a believer to believe that the NT justifies violence in a just cause. But it nowhere clearly states what is and is not a just cause.
2) The NT says that all of the OT is useful for teaching truth, refuting error, etc etc. Therefore it says that the exploits of Joshua and the commands of Samuel against the Amalekites are useful etc etc. You may think that they can't be teaching that genocide is sometimes morally acceptable, because you already think that genocide is never morally acceptable. But someone who doesn't already think that on other grounds is not going to reject the conclusion. To argue that the NT clearly rejects religious genocide you have to argue that the rejection is clearer than the statement in Joshua and Samuel that religious genocide has sometimes been commanded.
quote:
most Muslims themselves (including the ones I know) would think that there is an "evil", ie a propensity on the part of a minority to practise or sympathise with indiscriminate terrorist violence, present within the broader Muslim community.
I might equally say that many Christians, including most of those I know, think there is a propensity on the part of many present within the broader Christian community to practice or sympathise with xenophobia and racism and to overly quickly justify or refrain from condemning violence against the targets of those.
Posted by Jamat (# 11621) on
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quote:
but you presume to tell me what I really mean
Well, you do not seem to grasp that all this nuanced thinking leads down a path of dissonance.
You have to say he was wrong but still Christian. I say, no 'Christianity' is involved because in any age, violent aggressive Christianity, if the 'christian' is real,is an oxymoron.
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
Again,you don't appear to understand what I am actually saying.
Saying that someone behaved in a manner that they believed was 'Christian' does not mean that it actually was fully Christian.
It's a bit like saying that if I've got a half full glass of water rather than a full one, I don't actually have a glass of water. I can still drink from that glass, but I don't have a full one.
The irony here is that you are accusing me of relativism and dissonance whilst demonstrating double-standards and relativism yourself.
You've already indicated that you are prepared to cut Cromwell more slack than Charlemagne - on the grounds that Cromwell, in your view, acted in a way that was commensurate with his conscience and that for all the bad things he did,vat least he didn't proclaim himself King ...
If that's not a case of moral relativism, I don't know what is.
But for some reason that's less reprehensible in your view than what Charlemagne did. Granted, Cromwell was more pluralistic and tolerant on his religious polity than medieval rulers would have been - but that's because he lived several hundred years later and shifts and changes had taken and were taking place.
So you are already demonstrating a certain selectiveness, which is something that the fundamentalist mindset always does whilst insisting otherwise.
Yes, I think that acts of 'Christian' violence are oxymoronic, but history shows that Christians of various stripes are perfectly capable of sanctioning or carrying out acts of violence. Sadly.
That doesn't make it right or acceptable.
It's simply to acknowledge that it can and does happen.
I really hope that the current simmering political tensions in the USA don't spill over into further and widespread violence and civil unrest. If they do, and I pray they don't, then I am afraid I'd fully expect conservative and fundamentalist Christians of various stripes to be engaged in the violence alongside those with no discernible faith position.
Of course, not all of them would be. But some would and they'd twist and distort the scriptures to justify it.
Again, to explain is not to excuse. Whatever grounds they might use to justify their behaviour would be wrong. Charlemagne was wrong to act how he did. We can put it into context and try to understand the medieval world-view but that doesn't condone it.
I really don't see why that is such a difficult concept to grasp unless someone has some kind of blind-spot or a completely black-and-white and unnuanced position.
Which is the conclusion I've long since come to in your case, I'm afraid.
Posted by Jamat (# 11621) on
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quote:
Yes,I think that acts of 'Christian' violence are oxymoronic, but history shows that Christians of various stripes are perfectly capable of sanctioning or carrying out acts of violence. Sadly
That's your dissonance,right there. You cannot say acts like that carried out in Christ's name,are not 'Christian', if they are done by Christians. So you continually prevaricate with your 'nuancing'.
Posted by Curiosity killed ... (# 11770) on
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This seems to be where the dissonance is. Jamat, you seem to be saying that if an action, whether carried out in the past or present, does not fit within actions you perceive as Christian it is not a Christian action. Full stop.
For me, and it seems others posting on this thread, I am having problems with a number of issues:
- that different Christian traditions interpret christian themes in different ways, so I assume (from your posting history as well as this thread) that you are saying that you do not perceive the majority of those who believe themselves Christian to be Christian?
- that past actions carried out by those who perceived themselves as acting in a Christian way, such as that of James I (& VI) and Charles I, who were both known to be religious men in their times, but you cannot perceive them as Christian as their actions are not as you see as Christian actions should be;
- that there are inherent problems within the Bible - Kaplan Corday has agreed with me that the killing of every living thing in Jericho, excepting Rahab, does not seem to be a Christian action. This then suggests the Old Testament God is not the same as the New Testament God, which you have explained as being our lack of understanding of God.
Does this seem to summarise the issues?
(Sorry to disappear, but I was moving my daughter over the weekend, again, and only had a phone with me, so I have been reading, but not posting)
[ 22. August 2017, 06:39: Message edited by: Curiosity killed ... ]
Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on
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It seems to me that it is even more problematic than that: Evangelicalism evolved as a distinct paradigm built step-by-step on theology set out by those whom Jamat is claiming were unchristian.
That's like saying King James was an evil degenerate who had no truth in him - but that KJV is the only accurate version of the bible.
Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
Imagine if we're transported into the future and we find that we're taken to a court to stand trial for something which wasn't a crime in our time but was just part of conventional wisdom.
Let's say plane travel: our future descendants decide that the damage is so terrible that they're going to go back and take us to trial.
We'd probably stand in the dock in incomprehension. We might understand the words that were being used but would likely find it extremely hard to understand why this was a crime given it was a normal part of life in our time.
Imagine instead that today's Christians were transported into the future and accused by Christians centuries hence of having lived lives of luxury (which, compared to those of most people in the developing world, we do, even if our lifestyles are modest by Western standards) in defiance of Christ's words about sharing and caring and loving and providing.
We know now that we are guilty and would have no defence.
In other words, it is perfectly possible to do what is scripturally wrong out of pragmatism, inertia, cultural pressure and laziness - but not ignorance.
"Could not have done otherwise given their historical and cultural milieu" is a straw person.
[ 22. August 2017, 07:12: Message edited by: Kaplan Corday ]
Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
Imagine instead that today's Christians were transported into the future and accused by Christians centuries hence of having lived lives of luxury (which, compared to those of most people in the developing world, we do, even if our lifestyles are modest by Western standards) in defiance of Christ's words about sharing and caring and loving and providing.
We know now that we are guilty and would have no defence.
I don't see that this example has to do with anything other than asserting that those in the past were doing things they knew were wrong and unchristian.
quote:
In other words, it is perfectly possible to do what is scripturally wrong out of pragmatism, inertia, cultural pressure and laziness - but not ignorance.
Rubbish. It is perfectly possible to read the bible in different ways to you and then to act without a troubled conscience in ways you find disgusting.
quote:
"Could not have done otherwise given their historical and cultural milieu" is a straw person.
Why is it? How can you possibly know that they knew what they were doing was wrong - given all the historical evidence suggests the opposite?
Once again, asserting your view is not evidence for your position.
Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on
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quote:
The NT nowhere clearly states the limits of wrongdoing that the governing authorities are there to punish.
Does not clearly state, but very clearly implies in a variety of ways, including the complete absence of any reference in Christ's words to Christian state religious violence as the vehicle of protecting and propagating his message - something of an oversight if in fact that was what he intended.
quote:
The NT says that all of the OT is useful for teaching truth, refuting error, etc etc.
It is no more difficult to understand a NT discontinuation of OT religious violence on the part of the people of God, as a NT discontinuation of the Tabernacle/Temple sacrificial system.
quote:
While they're wrong, your position is not merely that they're wrong but that they're obviously wrong.
Your position is that that they are "obviously" wrong also, or you would be busy teaching and practising them instead of wasting time setting out crappy hypothetical justifications for them which you don't believe.
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on
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People have always gone along with 'what the Bible says' against their conscience.
Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
People have always gone along with 'what the Bible says' against their conscience.
Yeah, that too.
Posted by Dafyd (# 5549) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
Your position is that that they are "obviously" wrong also, or you would be busy teaching and practising them instead of wasting time setting out crappy hypothetical justifications for them which you don't believe.
"Obviously" is your word, IIRC. Certainly you were insisting upon it earlier. Now you seem to be implying that you recognise no difference between 'wrong' and '"obviously" wrong'.
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
It's only 'obviously wrong' if you believe that it would have been 'obviously wrong' to Charlemagne and his contemporaries.
Yes, Charlemagne had the option of showing clemency. That would have been valued as a virtue in the middle-ages just as much as at other times.
It certainly wasn't the case that people in medieval times weren't aware that there was something problematic about violence - and that hasn't been what I've been suggesting.
We can laugh, despair, roll our eyes or stand open jawed at the way they sought to get around some of these things - Bishop Odo carrying a mace into the Battle of Hastings rather than a sword, for instance, in order to comply with the prohibition on clergy bearing the sword ...
If your brains are knocked out by a knobbly club you are still just as dead as you would be if you were slashed or run through with a sword ...
Who was the cleric who wielded a mace against the Saracens at the Battle of Roncesvailles according to the Chanson de Roland?
Let's not get too binary here - if that is at all possible for some posters.
The more nuanced position I'm trying to put forward doesn't lead to prevarication at all.
I don't know how many times I have to state it but Jamat refuses to accept that seeking to explain or understand something isn't the same as condoning or excusing it.
In law we have concepts such as 'diminished responsibility'. That doesn't elide culpability.
It's almost as if Jamat - and Kaplan too to some extent - think that if we accept that people like the Crusaders and Charlemagne were acting in accordance with their understanding of the Christian faith then the faith itself is somehow compromised.
Just because they understood it in a way that we find repugnant doesn't mean that the faith itself is thereby compromised.
Once again, I submit that it betrays a lack of understanding - particularly on Jamat's part - of how interpretative frameworks operate.
Kaplan's point of view makes more sense and is subtly different to Jamat's but to all intents and purposes I think he makes a similar mistake.
How does Jamat deal with the example of George Whitefield, for instance? Whitefield's theology was closer to Jamat's than that of the medieval Catholics, of course, but Whitefield believed that slavery was a good thing.
Plenty of Southern US Christians believed that in the 19th century too, that it wasn't ideal but something ordained providentially in order to 'civilise' black people ... yadda yadda yadda ...
To us that sounds absolutely crass and indefensible. Yet that's what they believed and they quoted chapter and verse to prove it.
Posted by Russ (# 120) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
quote:
Originally posted by Russ:
It is entirely possible to deplore cut-throat business practices wherever they occur. And to observe that statistically speaking Jewish communities have been particularly prone to this evil.
Any link to those statistics?
I have no idea whether anything of the sort can be demonstrated with any statistics that exist this side of the pearly gates.
My point is that to qualify as anti-Semitic or anti-Catholic or anti-Muslim or anti-anything someone needs to have a certain animosity towards the group in question. There has to be an axe to grind, a sense that the who is more important than the what. An "any stick will do to beat a dog with" attitude.
A belief that as a matter of fact some cultures are more prone to some evils than others - even a mistaken belief along those lines - isn't enough to qualify.
Posted by Russ (# 120) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
I don't think anyone is presenting Charlemagne's execution of rebellious pagan Saxons as a 'Christian act.'
So the relevance of that act to Islamic terrorism is ?
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
It's relevant in an indirect way.
Some here are trying to present violent jihadism as a position that is consistent with an Islamic hermeneutic ie - it can legitimately be derived from the Quran whereas 'Christian' terrorism can't be derived from the Bible unless you are some kind of bastard or you misinterpret the 'plain meaning.'
What I've been suggesting to responses of 'la la la la we're not listening' from one particularly reductionist poster whose name begins with J and other less reductionist but equally myopic arguments presented by someone whose name begins with K, is that such acts can be carried out by people with a broadly Christian worldview provided there are particular conditions in place.
This does not make them 'Christian acts' as such but acts, lamentably, that are carried out by people who operate within a broadly Christian frame of reference.
The bankruptcy of my opponents arguments can be demonstrated by their selectivity, lack of nuance and sketchy grasp of history in the one case as well as a complete misunderstanding of how we interpret texts in the context of our milieux.
On the other, there's an unhistorical insistence that there's always been a particular way of understanding the scriptures and that any deviation from that should have been obvious from the outset.
Both dislocate the interpretation of scripture from the social, cultural and historical context and fail to appreciate that there are other factors at play beyond reading the Bible on the john.
In a nutshell, it boils down to a claim that other people can be terrorists but proper Christians can't, at least not those you disagree with such as Catholics.
Protestants like Cromwell can be given a free pass to some extent because they were sincere and at least weren't kings, because the Bible says we shouldn't have those.
That's how ridiculous an argument it is.
Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Russ:
So the relevance of that act to Islamic terrorism is ?
The relevance is that given particular circumstances is it entirely possible to read the bible and see it demanding the worst kind of atrosities from Christians.
That it is, in fact, no different in that respect from the Koran.
Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Russ:
My point is that to qualify as anti-Semitic or anti-Catholic or anti-Muslim or anti-anything someone needs to have a certain animosity towards the group in question. There has to be an axe to grind, a sense that the who is more important than the what. An "any stick will do to beat a dog with" attitude.
Really. So systematic discrimination - which might not include active animosity by a given individual - doesn't exist for you.
What a bizarre idea.
quote:
A belief that as a matter of fact some cultures are more prone to some evils than others - even a mistaken belief along those lines - isn't enough to qualify.
![[Confused]](confused.gif)
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
I've worded that last bit clumsily.
The argument runs:
- It's obvious that the Bible doesn't teach state-sanctioned violence to enforce religious uniformity.
- Therefore it should have been obvious to rulers such as Charlemagne despite there being no readily accessible alternative models in societies at that time.
- Cromwell was different as he was sincere and at least he belonged to a position I approve of.
That's how shallow it gets.
Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Russ:
It is entirely possible to deplore cut-throat business practices wherever they occur. And to observe that statistically speaking Jewish communities have been particularly prone to this evil.
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
Any link to those statistics?
quote:
Originally posted by Russ:
I have no idea whether anything of the sort can be demonstrated with any statistics that exist this side of the pearly gates.
My point is that to qualify as anti-Semitic...
So you seemed to think that statistics on Jewish Businessman existed, but when challenged admitted that you actually have no idea whether such statistics exist.
So what was your motive and reasoning for thinking such statistics existed in the first place?
(Imagining the worst of someone without any basis is usually evidence of animus).
Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
So what was your motive and reasoning for thinking such statistics existed in the first place?
(Imagining the worst of someone without any basis is usually evidence of animus).
It was a bizarre thing to say IMO. I don't think that such statistics exist, I don't believe that Jewish businessmen are worse than any other kind of businessmen.
Why say that? Why then subsequently claim that to be anti-semitic one needs to have a certain animosity towards the group in question.
That idea seems to suggest we can imagine all kinds of things about other people, that we can claim all kinds of things about named groups, that we can assert all kind of statistics exist to prove what "we all know" about a group - but hey I don't have any animosity to Jews so I'm just sayin'.
What other way is there to read Russ' comments?
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
quote:
Originally posted by Russ:
quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
the evil of the Jews is in their cut-throat business practices. Just think about James Goldsmith and Ronald Cohen.
Is that anti-Semitic by the way?
It is entirely possible to deplore cut-throat business practices wherever they occur. And to observe that statistically speaking Jewish communities have been particularly prone to this evil. (Alongside some Protestant communities...).
Where it becomes wrong is when you personalize it, if that's the right word when talking of a class of people rather than individuals. When this becomes a brush to tar all Jews with whether they're in business or not. When the fact of who's accused of a wrong is more important than whether or not it is a wrong.
Condemning massacres ordered by medieval kings in general seems uncontroversial. Painting Charlemagne's act as a Christian act - trying to make it say something about Christianity - is the controversial bit.
Show me.
I challenged your antisemitism immediately here Russ, but of course you couldn't respond. As you can't to this.
Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
It was a bizarre thing to say IMO.
Ironic that I started the idea off responding to statements about Muslims and assuming it was more obviously beyond the pale when a similar sentiment was voiced about Jews. But Russ thought it was fine.
Perhaps I should have said that while I had nothing against the Irish, I did believe that as a group they were rather feckless and lazy, prone to alcoholism and violence, but otherwise fairly charming and jocular as a race.
Can I say that without any possible animus towards Irish people?
Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
Perhaps I should have said that while I had nothing against the Irish, I did believe that as a group they were rather feckless and lazy, prone to alcoholism and violence, but otherwise fairly charming and jocular as a race.
Can I say that without any possible animus towards Irish people?
I think one might fairly be able to say that there are particular issues with alcoholism in Ireland and that the Irish craic is a known phenomena. I don't think there is any evidence whatsoever to show that Jews are ruthless in business. That's a simple slur without any basis whatsoever.
Even though the issues with alcoholism are well known in Ireland, we still can't make blanket claims about the Irish. How much less can we make claims about the Jews?
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
So, the question for Russ, then, is broader than whether either terrorism or state-sanctioned religiously motivated violence can be seen as 'Christian acts' but whether anti-semitism can be seen as a legitimate Christian position?
In which case, similar principles apply.
Some Christians have been - and are still - anti-semitic and have and do use verses from the NT to justify their twisted position.
Just as some Christians have justified violence in a similar kind of way.
That doesn't 'validate' or legitimise their position, it's simply to acknowledge that it exists and needs to be dealt with.
The question in the OP was what should we do about 'our own' terrorists - or, by extension I presume - those who would seek to justify violence of any kind to maintain some kind of privileged position for their own particular understanding of faith.
Or, in the case of Cromwell, justifying violence to overthrow someone else's understanding of faith (among other things) in order to replace it with one's own ...
Although I think Kaplan is well-wide of the mark in terms of his diagnosis, I agree with him on the treatment ... which is to seek to establish a more rounded hermeneutic that demonstrates that such things are incompatible with the broad thrust of the NT.
Posted by Golden Key (# 1468) on
:
Russ--
Re Jews and business:
Respectfully, I'm going to take a guess at the ideas to which you might have been exposed--by any chance, was it the Rothschilds and their businesses (Wikipedia)?
The Rothschild conspiracy theories aren't true (Rational Wiki). But, even if they were, that family's business is surely not typical.
FWIW.
Posted by Eliab (# 9153) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
I challenged your antisemitism immediately here Russ, but of course you couldn't respond. As you can't to this.
There's only one place on the Ship where it is appropriate to accuse another shipmate of anti-Semitism, and that's Hell.
This does not mean you can't challenge anti-Semitic posts or arguments, but directly attributing anti-Semitism to a person is a personal attack, and that is not allowed on this board.
There have been a number of comments (not by you) above that are also close to the line, and all posters on this thread are gently encouraged to turn down the temperature a little.
Eliab
Purgatory host
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
This is by no means the only take nor the last word on the matter, but this article is interesting in terms of the light it sheds on how early Christians approached the Bible:
https://www.christiantoday.com/article/did.early.christians.interpret.the.bible.literally/112362.htm
It suggests that the literal reading was taken as read - so yes, they'd have believed in the miracles, presumably a literal 6-day creation and so on ... but they certainly had qualms about the apparent discrepancies between the Gospel accounts and so on.
Rightly or wrongly, the scholars here suggest that it was the allegorical or spiritualised interpretations that they tended to favour ...
No surprises there then, given the approach St Augustine took ...
That's not to say that I concur with over-allegorisation, of course ...
Posted by Dafyd (# 5549) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Russ:
My point is that to qualify as anti-Semitic or anti-Catholic or anti-Muslim or anti-anything someone needs to have a certain animosity towards the group in question.
Let's set aside the question of why someone might hold that kind of opinion without animosity.
It's putting the cart before the horse to say that a subjective sentiment of animosity is required in order for an act or opinion to qualify as anti-anything.
The reason that the animosity is bad is because it leads one to anti-anything acts. The badness of the animosity is derived from the badness of the acts rather than the reverse. The primary thought is that someone is morally culpable if they've committed a bad act (or hold a belief that tends to lead to bad acts). Then one might bring in absence of animosity as possibly an exculpating feature.
As I've quoted Chesterton approvingly earlier, I'll mention him as someone who held terribly anti-semitic views. By all accounts he held no personal animus against any Jewish people he actually interacted with (and he condemned Hitler's anti-semitism). But the obnoxiousness of his opinions is due to the injustice done to the people the opinions are about rather than any subjective attitude.
Posted by Russ (# 120) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Golden Key:
Russ--
Re Jews and business:
Respectfully, I'm going to take a guess at the ideas to which you might have been exposed
The suggestion that there is a moral issue around Jews and business came from mdjon, not from me.
I should add that I have no doubt that he was seeking my reaction to a view he perceives to be prevalent in popular culture, rather than expressing his own view.
My reply was intended to defend (against the charge of anti-Semitism, or in the more general case hatemongering) those who hold in good faith a view that they believe to be founded on evidence (hence the mention of statistics).
Because the alternative - to be morally obliged to believe that every culture holds every vice and virtue in precisely equal amounts - is clearly ridiculous.
Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Russ:
My reply was intended to defend (against the charge of anti-Semitism, or in the more general case hatemongering) those who hold in good faith a view that they believe to be founded on evidence (hence the mention of statistics).
Oookay, but you now agree that there are no such statistics. So you're imagining someone who believes in statistics that don't exist and claiming that this person isn't anti-semitic.
I put it to you that this person absolutely is anti-semitic and the fact that he believes something "in good faith" is irrelevant.
quote:
Because the alternative - to be morally obliged to believe that every culture holds every vice and virtue in precisely equal amounts - is clearly ridiculous.
I've no idea what you mean by this. I'm not forced to believe anything about individual or collective cultures.
Posted by Russ (# 120) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
quote:
Originally posted by Russ:
So the relevance of that act to Islamic terrorism is ?
The relevance is that given particular circumstances is it entirely possible to read the bible and see it demanding the worst kind of atrosities from Christians.
That it is, in fact, no different in that respect from the Koran.
I thought we'd reached a general agreement that Charlemagne's behaviour was demanded by prevailing secular ideas of kingship rather than by the Bible.
An act "demanded by" the Bible seems like a good candidate for a "Christian act".
The fact that a wide range of different behaviours can be (and have been) justified from the Bible is not saying that all such acts are Christian acts.
Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Russ:
I thought we'd reached a general agreement that Charlemagne's behaviour was demanded by prevailing secular ideas of kingship rather than by the Bible.
I'm pretty sure I've never agreed to that.
I think he read the bible in a particular way because he was a person of his time and because there was general acceptance that this was the way to read it. But these things tend to be cyclical, I'm not sure it is possible to put a finger on what exactly was culture influencing the bible reading and what is bible reading influencing culture.
I'm sure it is true that the bible had a greater influence on ordinary life in those days than it would for most people in our day.
quote:
An act "demanded by" the Bible seems like a good candidate for a "Christian act".
The fact that a wide range of different behaviours can be (and have been) justified from the Bible is not saying that all such acts are Christian acts.
This sounds like meaningless sophistry to me. If a wide range of behaviours are justified from the bible, it sounds to me like you are trying to argue that Christian acts don't exist, and have therefore put them outside of the simple definition of "acts committed by Christians".
Posted by Russ (# 120) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
The reason that the animosity is bad is because it leads one to anti-anything acts. The badness of the animosity is derived from the badness of the acts rather than the reverse. The primary thought is that someone is morally culpable if they've committed a bad act (or hold a belief that tends to lead to bad acts). Then one might bring in absence of animosity as possibly an exculpating feature.
I consider animosity to people bad in itself, even if one is in no position to commit any bad acts.
If one happened to live on an island where by sheer chance all the Jews were ruthless businessmen, how would recognition of that fact compel one to commit bad acts ?
Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Russ:
I consider animosity to people bad in itself, even if one is in no position to commit any bad acts.
If one happened to live on an island where by sheer chance all the Jews were ruthless businessmen, how would recognition of that fact compel one to commit bad acts ?
I don't understand why you are still talking about slurs on Jewish businessmen. I'm not engaging with this thought experiment because I think it's stupid and a dead-end.
Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
As I've quoted Chesterton approvingly earlier, I'll mention him as someone who held terribly anti-semitic views. By all accounts he held no personal animus against any Jewish people he actually interacted with (and he condemned Hitler's anti-semitism). But the obnoxiousness of his opinions is due to the injustice done to the people the opinions are about rather than any subjective attitude.
There is a great deal to be said for Chesterton as a writer, but his anti-Semitism was more serious than you portray it.
https://simonmayers.com/2013/09/25/g-k-chesterton-discussing-hitler-and-the-jews-1933-1936/
Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
It is perfectly possible to read the bible in different ways to you and then to act without a troubled conscience in ways you find disgusting.
"Different" in this context is a bullshit weasel word.
It is not a matter of being "different" but of being hopelessly and disgustingly and culpably wrong without any sound exegetical justification whatsoever for what you are doing - no matter how sincerely.
Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
Who was the cleric who wielded a mace against the Saracens at the Battle of Roncesvailles according to the Chanson de Roland?
I don't think there's any passage in the Chanson which limits Turpin's arms to a mace.
quote:
It's almost as if Jamat - and Kaplan too to some extent - think that if we accept that people like the Crusaders and Charlemagne were acting in accordance with their understanding of the Christian faith then the faith itself is somehow compromised.
That is a bizarre idea.
How is the faith "compromised" by heresy, however sincere, whether that of Charlemagne, the Crusaders, Cromwell, and Christians who participated in Nazi atrocities, or Joseph Smith and Charles Taze Russell?
Heresy is to be opposed on the grounds of truth, not brand image and public relations.
[ 23. August 2017, 22:28: Message edited by: Kaplan Corday ]
Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
Protestants like Cromwell can be given a free pass to some extent because they were sincere
Protestants like Cromwell are more culpable because they are more likely to be acquainted with what the Bible actually does and does not say.
Sincerity is irrelevant.
Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
Some here are trying to present violent jihadism as a position that is consistent with an Islamic hermeneutic ie - it can legitimately be derived from the Quran whereas 'Christian' terrorism can't be derived from the Bible unless you are some kind of bastard or you misinterpret the 'plain meaning.'
Precisely.
Religious violence is one exegetically legitimate interpretation of the Koran, but it can only be eisegetically extracted (oxymoronic but usable!) from the NT by stupidity, ignorance, obtuse bastardry, raison d'etat, realpolitik, inertia, cowardice or laziness in the face of cultural pressure, or whatever.
Using inverted commas to pour sarcasm on 'plain meaning' doesn't work - like it or not, it is the meaning which everyone on the thread agrees is correct (ie no-one here thinks the NT teaches religious violence), and it would be impossible, I imagine, to produce a a contemporary NT scholar of almost any theological complexion who believes that it does.
Posted by Russ (# 120) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
Ironic that I started the idea off responding to statements about Muslims and assuming it was more obviously beyond the pale when a similar sentiment was voiced about Jews.
I think you're probably right that saying anything less-than-positive about Jews collectively is socially unacceptable (politically incorrect ?) in the circles of people you mix with.
And you're right to identify this double-standard as a bad thing.
I'm just suggesting resolving this double-standard by being more open and straught-talking about Jews (and Irish and everyone else) rather than more tiptoeing around the sensibilities of Muslims (and Irish and everybody else).
Without, of course, either hating anyone, or denying individuals the possibility of being unrepresentative of the culture they come from.
Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Russ:
I'm just suggesting resolving this double-standard by being more open and straught-talking about Jews (and Irish and everyone else)
Quoting non-existent statistics is straight talking?
Posted by Golden Key (# 1468) on
:
Yes, I was wondering about the mentioned statistics, too. AIUI, they supposedly show that Jewish-owned businesses are the nastiest, greediest, least fair?
I could maybe see a sociologist doing a wide-ranging study of business dealings with a range of ethnic groups.
But that is such a fraught topic (in the US, anyway) that I can only think of anti-Semitic persons/groups as the only people who would do such a study. And publish it.
Posted by Jamat (# 11621) on
:
quote:
Gamaliel: How does Jamat deal with the example of George Whitefield, for instance? Whitefield's theology was closer to Jamat's than that of the medieval Catholics, of course, but Whitefield believed that slavery was a good thing
Why must I deal with his mistaken belief, if in fact he had it?
He was wrong.
Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Golden Key:
But that is such a fraught topic (in the US, anyway) that I can only think of anti-Semitic persons/groups as the only people who would do such a study. And publish it.
The logical corollary of that is that claiming such statistics exist when they don't is also an anti-Semitic statement.
On second thought the other motive for studying and publishing it would be to rebut vexatious claims, although I expect most groups would conclude it was too high risk a strategy with potential for negative publicity and stoking up fear and misinterpretation. But in any case that motive can't justify fictitious negative claims.
[ 24. August 2017, 05:16: Message edited by: mdijon ]
Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
Why must I deal with his mistaken belief, if in fact he had it?
He was wrong.
So are you saying that there is no difference between Whitefield and the Crusaders - ie that both were influenced by unchristian ideas?
If so, how do you determine which of the idea that you've inherited are Christian and which ones are the extension of unchristian influences?
Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
It is perfectly possible to read the bible in different ways to you and then to act without a troubled conscience in ways you find disgusting.
"Different" in this context is a bullshit weasel word.
It is not a matter of being "different" but of being hopelessly and disgustingly and culpably wrong without any sound exegetical justification whatsoever for what you are doing - no matter how sincerely.
For the millionth time, I've never said it was right. I've simply stated that it was a Christian idea, held by Christians, defended with recourse to the bible, as part of a hermeneutic which was considered to be normal and right at the time.
And, furthermore, it is a completely natural and straight way to read the bible.
There is no difference between this and seeing violence in the Koran.
Posted by Dafyd (# 5549) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
Religious violence is one exegetically legitimate interpretation of the Koran
And your authority for making this pronouncement is what?
quote:
but it can only be eisegetically extracted (oxymoronic but usable!) from the NT by stupidity, ignorance, obtuse bastardry, raison d'etat, realpolitik, inertia, cowardice or laziness in the face of cultural pressure, or whatever.
You have been repeatedly challenged to demonstrate this.
You have evaded, ducked, resorted to ad hominem (you don't believe it therefore nobody could), repeated yourself as if reiterating makes it true, and blustered.
What you haven't done is demonstrated it.
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
I think the problem is that Kaplan and Jamat, in varying degrees, see their 'take' as self-evident ...
Rather in a US Declaration of Independence kind of way ...
Consequently, they find it difficult, if not impossible, to think themselves into the shoes of anyone for whom - for a range of reasons - these things weren't necessarily self-evident.
Consequently, they appear to believe that those of us who don't see things the way the rest of us here do are somehow either minimising our reactions of disgust and disapproval of Charlemagne-like and Crusader-like activity ...
I'm no expert on Islam nor on the Quran, but from what I've read in Muslim sources it seems to me that some of them acknowledge that the Quran can be used to justify religiously-motivated violence, but that doesn't mean that it should ...
Rather than pontificate about someone else's religious texts, I'd rather let them debate that themselves. I can only look on as an observer.
Now, neither Kaplan nor Jamat seem prepared to accept that Christians can possibly justify religiously-motivated violence by recourse to the scriptures.
The scriptures must be kept inviolate and beyond all taint. Therefore any suggestion that medieval or other people could use the scriptures, particularly the NT as a pretext for religiously-motivated violence must be resisted at all costs.
To give way on that issue would be to deny the integrity and authority of the scriptures as they see them.
Hence the vehemence with which they are holding their position/s.
I can understand their point of view. Heck, I've come up through evangelicalism and can well understand the desire to defend and preserve the integrity of the scriptures.
Give way on that and the sky falls in.
Nevertheless, I don't think that's the issue here at all. Nobody is saying that medieval warlords and what-not were right to see things the way they did - but given the times and circumstances in which they lived, the lack of alternative models and so on, it's hardly surprising that they thought and acted in that way.
That doesn't excuse and condone it, of course ...
Which is why I've tried to introduce other examples, such as Whitefield (and yes, Jamat, he did believe that slavery was justified), Cromwell and others to demonstrate that we can see similar examples in other traditions - including those that are closer to the ones Jamat and Kaplan espouse.
The problem, as I see it, is that both fellas have ratcheting things up so tightly that they can hardly breathe.
Jamat's got this fundamentalist strait-jacket on that is laced up so tightly he can hardly move.
Kaplan has loosened some of the strands and let some air in, but it's restricting his movements and his arguments are somewhat clumsy and increasingly strident as a result ...
In their commendable efforts to defend the Holy Scriptures against all taint and misinterpretation they are drawing the laces and the laager so tightly that they are restricting their own capacity to move and think with any agility.
It's like they are lumbering around in suits of armour whilst imagining themselves to be lithe and agile.
Yes, Whitefield was wrong to believe that slavery was justifiable - but plenty of Christians back then did believe that to be the case - and they quoted scripture to support their view.
Scripture neither forbids nor condones slavery. It strikes me that all the scriptural evidence here can be taken either way. It's up to us to use our minds and common sense and to draw our own conclusions on slavery.
We have done so. After many hundreds of years.
These things take time.
It took centuries for idea that a nation or region should have one single form of religious expression to change too.
That's how these things work out in practice.
How long does it take any of us to change a bad habit? It takes time and practice.
The same applies to major tectonic shifts in society and so on.
Posted by leo (# 1458) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
[QUOTE]Originally posted by Gamaliel:
[qb] Some here are trying to present violent jihadism as a position that is consistent with an Islamic hermeneutic ie - it can legitimately be derived from the Quran
No it can't, unless you quote it out of context.
Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
I'm no expert on Islam nor on the Quran, but from what I've read in Muslim sources it seems to me that some of them acknowledge that the Quran can be used to justify religiously-motivated violence, but that doesn't mean that it should ...
I'm no expert either, but it is clear from those who are, that there are Muslims who genuinely believe, on sound exegetical grounds, that the Koran does no teach religious violence; those who believe, on equally sound exegetical grounds that it does, and who attempt to obey it; and those who believe it does, but choose, for a number of reasons (some more noble than others) not to obey it in this particular.
This is not pontificating but explicating, and to deny these points is obfuscating.
quote:
Now, neither Kaplan nor Jamat seem prepared to accept that Christians can possibly justify religiously-motivated violence by recourse to the scriptures.
Perhaps I should have recourse to a language other than English, because English is clearly not getting through.
Here goes for the eighty-seventh time (I still have vestiges of faith and hope, but am quickly running out of charity): "Yes, of course Christians have justified religious violence from the Bible - but without any exegetical validity".
Since we agree that this is the case, and that there are various historical factors which explain their doing so, and that the NT does not teach religious violence, and that the very idea of Christian religious violence is not only unjustifiable but repulsive, I do not see what point you are still trying to argue.
quote:
Heck
Language!
quote:
I've come up through evangelicalism and can well understand the desire to defend and preserve the integrity of the scriptures.
The stereotypical pomposity and cocksureness of the convert - or deconvert: "I can understand your condition because, believe it or not, I was once lost in it myself before the light broke in!"
[ 25. August 2017, 04:11: Message edited by: Kaplan Corday ]
Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
there are Muslims who genuinely believe, on sound exegetical grounds, that the Koran does no teach religious violence; those who believe, on equally sound exegetical grounds that it does, and who attempt to obey it; and those who believe it does, but choose, for a number of reasons (some more noble than others) not to obey it in this particular.
This is not pontificating but explicating, and to deny these points is obfuscating.
Can you not see how that could be re-written with Christians and Bible?
The only get-out, it seems to me, is the "sound exegetical grounds". In which case you are making yourself the judge of what are sound exegetical grounds in both Islam and Christianity.
Posted by Golden Key (# 1468) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Brenda Clough:
A brief search on line will find you the sermons from 150 years ago, in which preachers proclaimed from the pulpit that the slavery of black persons was the will of God.
At least some of that is from the old idea of "the curse of Ham", one of Noah's sons. Except the curse was from *Noah*, not God.
tl;dr:
After the Flood, the ark landed on Mt. Ararat. When it was dry enough, Noah & co. disembarked and set up tents. Noah got very, very drunk, and passed out in his tent.
Ham went in, saw that the old man was naked, told his brothers, and joked about it. There was evidently a huge taboo about seeing a parent naked. So Shem and Japheth got a cloak, held it behind them, walked into the tent backwards, and covered their dad without looking.
When Noah woke up (presumably with a world-sized hangover) and found out what happened, he uttered a stern curse on Ham. IIRC, it was the standard "and a pox on all your descendants" sort, which usually is cited as a valid reason for the Hebrews to hate their enemies, with the twist of "and you know how *they* got that way, heh heh heh". (Another example: Lot's daughters raping him, while he was asleep, and producing loathsome races.) IIRC, Ham left. Somewhere along the line, someone got the bright idea that God had cursed Ham and his descendants, and that black Africans were his descendants. Therefore, some people thought/think it's ok to enslave them.
Note: I don't believe that, and never did.
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
Heck (again) ...
If I'm being pompous in a 'deconvert' kind of way - and I prefer 'development' to deconversion - then how come you aren't being pompous for:
- Making your own point-of-view the gold-standard for sound exegesis not only within your own faith but other people's?
- Acting as judge and jury on the motives of those who choose not to carry out violent extremist actions even though they apparently believe the Quran demands it of them?
If I am being at all 'pompous' in my reactions to evangelicalism, then I've only got to look at some of the daft things evangelicals post to recognise that I'm doing myself a favour in moving beyond its bounds ...
(But there are daft things everywhere and no tradition has a monopoly on them)
On the point about the justification of violence from the NT being an invalid interpretation. Well yes, I'm not saying it is a valid interpretation, but what I am saying is that it could be a horribly consistent and internally tenable approach within a society - such as medieval ones - which didn't have alternative models to draw on.
Which is why I have kept drawing on slavery as an example and on Cromwell as another. What models did Cromwell have on how to run a country other than monarchy and the republican examples from classical antiquity?
Does the NT give him a blueprint as to how to organise Parliament or manage the economy?
The whole point I am trying to make is that none of us use the NT in isolation. Also, by and large, we only get all exegetical when we are discussing theology or trying to work out a doctrinal position. It'd be nice if we did more than that ...
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on
:
Why is poor Charlemagne singled out in a constant litany of Christian atrocities since Constantine?
What extant hermeneutic (was there any that wasn't literal-allegorical?) spoke out against the Crusades? Or Hypatia being butchered alive with broken glass by a priest led mob? Or the lynching of Jess Washington? Or the Sabra-Shatila massacre? Or ... ?
Posted by leo (# 1458) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
[QBthere are Muslims who genuinely believe, on sound exegetical grounds, that the Koran does no teach religious violence [/QB]
But they are reading INTO the text - eisegesis, not exegesis, not 'sound'.
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
I'd like to know on what grounds Kaplan believes his take on what the Quran says in an 'exegetically sound' way is exegetically sound ...
And in what way leo believes it to be otherwise - ie. not 'sound' but an example of eisegesis.
Meanwhile, in response to Martin60's question about Charlemagne ... I don't think he's being singled-out necessarily ... it's simply that he's become a form of short-hand on this thread for any ruler who has sought to impose religious uniformity by the use of force.
The point I've been trying to make is that even if Kaplan is right and Charlemagne was acting out of synch with what people 'ought' to have known from their reading of the NT ... what other models did he have for the way to rule?
Religious conformity was the expected norm at that time, across both the Christian and the Islamic worlds.
I have no idea if the same thing applied in China, in Mezo-America or the South Seas at that time - and neither would anyone in Europe at that time either.
So Kaplan and Jamat can huff and puff for all they're worth but they can't demonstrate that rulers in those days could have acted differently if only they'd read the NT properly.
That's the point I'm trying to make. Even if someone in a monastery or a parish somewhere was the soundest and most exegetically exact person who ever lived they wouldn't have been in a position to influence how Charlemagne ruled or acted.
The US Deep South is full of very conservative Christians who believe that they've got a proper and sound handle on the scriptures - but that doesn't alter the high teenage pregnancy rates, the incidences of gun-crime and violence, the level of consumption of pornography and all manner of other ills ...
It's this reductionist, 'If only they'd understood the scriptures as well as I do, then everything would have been ok' schtick that's been getting to me and why I have been sticking to my guns - to the point of tedium.
Why? Because Kaplan's and Jamat's position/s is/are simplistic in the extreme - however much they try to dress it up otherwise.
Bloody reductionism.
Kaplan's view is more subtle and nuanced but it's still as reductionist as reductionism gets.
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on
:
Your point can only be made to the converted G. And conversion in these matters is Damascene. Takes massive external intervention. Or decades of neglect. All coming here does for any of us is refine our positions.
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
No, I don't think 'conversion' in these matters, if conversion it is, has to be Damascene.
I've been moving away from traditional evangelicalism for decades and the Ship has played a major part of that process.
Warning to conservative evangelicals: Stay away from the Ship.
I'd still say I was 'evangelical' though, in the sense of having a concern for the Gospel and for mission. At base level, I'm keen to see everyone have that sense of a 'personal relationship with Christ' - even though I don't go round shoving tracts into people's hands ...
My differences with Kaplan are probably more a matter of emphasis than anything else. In some ways they are semantic and I can certainly see why he's been getting frustrated with my persistence in challenging him on this thread.
I may not be on the same page as him on all issues but I'm certainly in the same book and the same chapter. I won't say I'm a few pages further on than he is because that'd sound pompous and he'd be well within his rights to kick me up the arse over it.
However we cut it, though, I have moved beyond bog-standard evangelicalism and broadened out in my thinking and approach. That doesn't mean I disparage evangelicalism per se - although I'm certainly highly critical of aspects of it - particularly where it bleeds into the kind of Jamat style fundamentalist approach ... or where it fails to respect traditions and acts as if it isn't one itself ...
But that's a different issue to the question in hand here.
I'm not out to convert anyone. I can only speak as I find.
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on
:
It's taken decades for me and thee G. That can't work for KC & J. They can't read Brian McLaren or Rob Bell.
Posted by Crsos (# 238) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
I'm no expert on Islam nor on the Quran, but from what I've read in Muslim sources it seems to me that some of them acknowledge that the Quran can be used to justify religiously-motivated violence, but that doesn't mean that it should ...
I'm no expert either, but it is clear from those who are, that there are Muslims who genuinely believe, on sound exegetical grounds, that the Koran does no teach religious violence; . . .
Who exactly are these anonymous experts you claim to be citing? Is it someone more specific than "well, everyone just knows that"?
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
. . . those who believe, on equally sound exegetical grounds that it does, and who attempt to obey it; and those who believe it does, but choose, for a number of reasons (some more noble than others) not to obey it in this particular.
I find that truly amazing. These (anonymous) experts not only acknowledge the possibility of different interpretations of the Qur'an but they're able to determine that contrary interpretations as precisely and "equally sound" in their validity! Despite the fact that such exact equivalence of exegesis never seems to occur in Christianity so that experts never seem to agree that there are two equally valid interpretations of anything it seems to happen a lot in Islam. At least according to experts with no names.
quote:
Originally posted by Golden Key:
quote:
Originally posted by Brenda Clough:
A brief search on line will find you the sermons from 150 years ago, in which preachers proclaimed from the pulpit that the slavery of black persons was the will of God.
At least some of that is from the old idea of "the curse of Ham", one of Noah's sons.
They also argued that the kidnapping and enslavement of Africans was God's plan for bringing the Gospel to those savages. You occasionally get modern Christians (e.g. Doug Wilson) making this argument.
I've even heard from experts, whose names and exact arguments elude me at the moment , that this argument is exactly and equally sound exegetically as the idea that enslaving people to religiously convert them is contrary to Christianity.
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
I've read very little McClaren and less Bell, Martin 60.
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on
:
You didn't have to G.
Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
society - such as medieval ones - which didn't have alternative models to draw on.
This is as wrong as someone who is really, really wrong while wearing a cloak of wrongness and an absurdly wrong hat.
It assumes that the only Christian model of government which had ever existed since the first century was that of a Christian- captured state theocracy which killed all heretics and heathen, and that therefore it was impossible therefore for someone like Charlemagne to conceive of any alternative.
quote:
What models did Cromwell have on how to run a country other than monarchy and the republican examples from classical antiquity?
You could hardly choose a worse example than Cromwell because, despite his failures such as Drogheda and Wexford, he in fact gave England unprecedented religious freedom, even if it wasn't all that we would like.
In other words, Cromwell is a classic demonstration of the possibility of progressively transcending the limitations of one's predecessors.
[ 26. August 2017, 03:08: Message edited by: Kaplan Corday ]
Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Crsos:
exact equivalence of exegesis never seems to occur in Christianity so that experts never seem to agree that there are two equally valid interpretations of anything
Rubbish.
There are many areas in Christianity - pneumatology, eschatology, ecclesiology, and others - in which there are competing views which each have sound exegetical backing.
Christians often have to either opt for one of them while respecting those who disagree with them, because they can understand their reasons for believing what they do, or else just remain uncommitted and open on that particular issue.
Here on the Ship, for example, adherents of pacifism and just war can agree to differ because they recognise that each can be argued on NT grounds.
But there are some options which are beyond the pale.
I do not know of one single, solitary NT scholar who believes that the NT requires Christians to practise religious violence against heretics and heathens.
If you know of one, I would be genuinely interested to hear of him/her.
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
I do not know of one single, solitary NT scholar who believes that the NT requires Christians to practise religious violence against heretics and heathens.
I think for the purposes of this thread the issue is not requires but allows.
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
FFS Kaplan, you're doing it again.
Read for comprehension why don't you?
Cromwell is EXACTLY the right example as he illustrates my point perfectly.
Which is that it can take hundreds of years for paradigm shifts to take place.
Also, that there are degrees of ambivalence, contingency and all manner of other complications going on while these tectonic processes are taking place.
The same Cromwell who allowed the Jews back into England and tolerated even the more outlandish Protestant sects believed that the massacres at Drogheda and Wexford were justified and wrote 'God made them as stubble to our swords' after the battle of Marston Moor.
All that was happening at one and the same time. He was large, he contained multitudes.
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
FFS Kaplan, you're doing it again.
Read for comprehension why don't you?
Cromwell is EXACTLY the right example as he illustrates my point perfectly.
Which is that it can take hundreds of years for paradigm shifts to take place.
Also, that there are degrees of ambivalence, contingency and all manner of other complications going on while these tectonic processes are taking place.
The same Cromwell who allowed the Jews back into England and tolerated even the more outlandish Protestant sects believed that the massacres at Drogheda and Wexford were justified and wrote 'God made them as stubble to our swords' after the battle of Marston Moor.
All that was happening at one and the same time. He was large, he contained multitudes.
So Cromwell is precisely the right example as he was part of the shift, part of the transition.
As for Charlemagne, please can you supply details of any 8th or 9th century societies that he would have been aware of where rulers did not expect all their subjects to share the same religion as they did?
Tell me once you've found one.
Read for comprehension and stop thinking anachronistically.
When the NT was written, during the Pax Romana, there was certainly a degree of religious pluralism. The Romans were eclectic and simply added other people's gods to their pantheon. Which is why Judaism and Christianity proved problematic to them as the Jews and early Christians wouldn't play ball.
By the time of Charlemagne, things had changed. There was an expectation that each territory would have a single religious expression so far as was practically possible.
It's hardly surprising then, that they read the NT in that context. The conditions for religious pluralism which we find in the 17th century did not then exist.
Show me how people in the 8th century could possibly have understood things differently given their particular context and I'll take your arguments more seriously.
Currently they are risible.
Posted by Russ (# 120) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
I've simply stated that it was a Christian idea, held by Christians, defended with recourse to the bible, as part of a hermeneutic which was considered to be normal and right at the time.
And, furthermore, it is a completely natural and straight way to read the bible.
There is no difference between this and seeing violence in the Koran.
First question is whether there is such a thing as a "natural and straight" way to read anything.
And the answer has to be "partly".
Gamaliel has argued at great length against a simple "Yes" to that question.
But the opposite position - a total "No" - is the belief that you can interpret anything to mean anything. That there is no inherent meaning. Which no-one seems to be arguing for.
So we're left in the messy in-between of "to some extent".
We can then ask whether - to the extent that one can talk about a plain meaning - the Bible is saying something different than the Koran is on the subject of violence.
Is the Biblical position - to the extent that there is one - that the individual should not be violent but should submit to the legitimate authority of the State ?
Is the Koranic position - to the extent that there is one - that all the faithful should be militant against the infidel ?
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
I do not know of one single, solitary NT scholar who believes that the NT requires Christians to practise religious violence against heretics and heathens.
I think for the purposes of this thread the issue is not requires but allows.
Perfect. And how far does scholarship go back in that definition of scholar? Was Luther a scholar? Augustine?
Posted by wabale (# 18715) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
As for Charlemagne, please can you supply details of any 8th or 9th century societies that he would have been aware of where rulers did not expect all their subjects to share the same religion as they did?
...... Show me how people in the 8th century could possibly have understood things differently given their particular context and I'll take your arguments more seriously.
Well, 8th Century Muslim Spain springs to mind. It was next door, and as you pointed out about a hundred years ago Charlemagne made an incursion into it. Sorry, no details - not my period.
Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
But there are some options which are beyond the pale.
I do not know of one single, solitary NT scholar who believes that the NT requires Christians to practise religious violence against heretics and heathens.
If you know of one, I would be genuinely interested to hear of him/her.
I think possibly the problem here is that you are expressing a faulty theory of knowledge and assuming people in the past were able to think in ways that you think are obvious.
Here's an simple example of what I'm talking about.
There was once a guy called Socrates. He had an annoying habit of questioning people about received wisdom.
One of the people he influenced was Plato, who extended his ideas to develop various more formal theories of philosophy and political theory.
He taught Aristotle at the Academy in Athens. Aristotle then went off in various directions from Plato's ideas (sometimes building on them, sometimes refuting them).
The question is whether Aristotle would have been able to build his theories without having philosophical forebears in Plato and Socrates. Some of his ideas are quite different to Plato however it is clear that some of what he taught was a reaction to the ideas from the school of thought that developed around Plato and Socrates.
Aristotle developed some ideas in logic. Together with other ideas in thinkers in mathematics and philosophy, mathematics and eventually the scientific theory became established.
Each step builds on the steps of the ones before. And - it is strongly argued - each step opens up thinking in order to create new tangents and new ideas built upon them.
Would Socrates have been impressed by Aristotle? Probably not, the miserable bastard.
Would Aristotle have been impressed with modern ideas of logic used in computing and electronics? Hard to say. I suspect he'd be impressed with how people had developed his ideas and would (maybe) be eventually able to see how the newer ideas worked.
But if you went to Aristotle with a problem which had been developed from logic in use 2000 years after him, you wouldn't be surprised if he just didn't understand the question - because it was so far outside of his thinking as to make no sense.
--
It is perfectly obvious to most Christians we know today that there is no justification for genocide in the name of religion. All of the theologians we know argue about just war but take off the table any idea of righteous crusading war.*
But people in the past didn't have access to the peace traditions which have influenced our thinking in the present. The theologians hadn't worked out a hermeneutic of non-violence.
We might not be able to point at theologians today who say that Christian crusading violence is biblical and justified today but such things certainly existed in the past because the crusades were justified in biblical terms.
It clearly isn't the case that someone reading the bible cold would see that violence is off the table whereas someone reading the Koran see it as an instruction. Both religious texts require interpretation, both have violence deeply embedded within them.
Christianity, in general, has stopped crusading and instead has accepted that warfare is a role of the state. Islam has a more complicated relationship with the state and so - perhaps - more Muslims feel that it is their role to go out fighting for the religion.
But the relationship that Christians in the West have with the state isn't necessarily common across the world; and has only developed relatively recently in many other places.
Islam hasn't paralleled Christianity exactly, but it is quite striking that many of the ideas which were discussed theologically about religious violence during Crusader times are reflected in the rhetoric of the Islamic radicals.
Those Islamic teachers who decry random acts of violence are left trying to simply assert theologically that it is not the correct understanding of Islam. Over time perhaps they'll gain more traction and we'll see that these ideas are almost entirely rejected all the branches of Islam as they have since Crusader times in branches of Christianity.
*but I would also say that this might just be the hermeneutic we know and the theologians we are aware of because there are clearly Christians who believe in this stuff and it wouldn't be too weird to learn that there were theologians who have developed a hermeneutic to justify it. Some of the rhetoric we hear (perhaps just outside our own earshot) in our own cultures isn't so far from justifying religious violence IMO.
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
My understanding is that whilst 8th century Muslim Spain was comparatively pluralistic by the standards of the time, it wasn't entirely so. I do know that by the time of the Reconquista in the 15th century the only Christians in Grenada were slaves.
All these things are relative, though. Christians were always somewhat down-trodden during the days of the Ottoman Empire for example, but the level of down-troddenness varied from place to place and time to time.
As far as Islamic Spain goes - and I'm no expert either - my impression is that they were pretty tolerant of Jews and Christians up to a point.
As I've said a million years ago, I doubt very much that Charlemagne would have expelled or executed any Jews, Muslims or pagans who happened to be traveling or trading across his domains, but if he'd conquered pagan territory, as he did in the instance of Saxony, he'd have expected them to convert or else ...
As I've also said, the notion of clemency wouldn't have been an alien one and he could, had he so chosen, shown mercy. He chose not to.
I would expect degrees of compliance and enforcement across all the power blocks of that time.
So Muslim Spain may well have been less rigid in that respect than Charlemagne's Holy Roman Empire, but it probably wouldn't have been as pluralist as Cromwellian England just as the English Commonwealth wasn't as pluralist as 19th or 20th century Britain.
There are gradations in all these things.
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on
:
Peerless mr cheesy. But it can only reinforce KC's & J's thinking. My thinking was worse, which is perhaps why it was susceptible to reason coming from the 'right' sources. In my case my cult leader's enlightenment. I'd have been completely lost to wrong thinking but for that. Similarly I've been moved along the evangelical spectrum by enlightened evangelicals: Bell, McLaren and Chalke.
Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
Peerless mr cheesy. But it can only reinforce KC's & J's thinking. My thinking was worse, which is perhaps why it was susceptible to reason coming from the 'right' sources. In my case my cult leader's enlightenment. I'd have been completely lost to wrong thinking but for that. Similarly I've been moved along the evangelical spectrum by enlightened evangelicals: Bell, McLaren and Chalke.
Well yeah, I'm sure that there is something in what you say. We are all so attached to comfortable ways of thinking that it is difficult to think outside them even when it makes little rational/logical/historical sense.
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on
:
It's a matter of education. Nobody with a liberal arts degree or even 'A' levels in English literature and history could think in such a faulty way.
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
society - such as medieval ones - which didn't have alternative models to draw on.
This is as wrong as someone who is really, really wrong while wearing a cloak of wrongness and an absurdly wrong hat.
It assumes that the only Christian model of government which had ever existed since the first century was that of a Christian- captured state theocracy which killed all heretics and heathen, and that therefore it was impossible therefore for someone like Charlemagne to conceive of any alternative.
quote:
What models did Cromwell have on how to run a country other than monarchy and the republican examples from classical antiquity?
You could hardly choose a worse example than Cromwell because, despite his failures such as Drogheda and Wexford, he in fact gave England unprecedented religious freedom, even if it wasn't all that we would like.
In other words, Cromwell is a classic demonstration of the possibility of progressively transcending the limitations of one's predecessors.
You are the wrong un.
I did not say, nor did I suggest that there was no other model than a Christian theocracy between the 1st century and the time of Charlemagne. You are reading my posts eisegetically.
But by the time of Charlemagne, post-Constantine, post-Theodosius, that was the only option there was.
The Cromwell example, far from contradicting my argument, fits it perfectly. Things were a lot more pluralist in the 1650s than they were in the 1550s. By the 1850s they were even more pluralist again.
We've discussed Siedentop, 'Inventing The Individual', before.
I find myself wondering whether you actually understood him when you read him, given that you consistently fail to miss the rather obvious points I'm making in order to make things fit your binary schema and outlook.
I'm afraid I've come to the conclusion that you are simply a better-read version of Jamat. You don't read for comprehension, you don't appear able to place things in historical context either.
Yes, Charlemagne had the NT. But with the best will in the world, even if he'd been a cuddly bunny and not a complete bastard, how could he possibly have moved beyond his own environment when it came to his understanding of how rulers should rule?
Sure, Cromwell made some shifts but he was also constrained by the ideologies and attitudes of his own times, as indeed we all are. As many historians have argued, he ended up replacing the Divine Right of Kings with the Divine Right of Cromwell. Nice try, but no cigar.
The guy was a highly complex and often contradictory figure, like most of us.
I'm not arguing for a nice, neat Whig view of history, but I am trying to demonstrate that paradigm shifts take a long time.
Serious opposition to slavery emerged a the Quakers in the American colonies in the 1750s. Slavery wasn't abolished in the USA until the 1860s.
These things take time.
I doubt if the Emperor Theodosius thought that by making Christianity compulsory he was paving the way for Charlemagne's atrocities. He may not have cared less. I don't know. But he set in train a chain of events that led that way, just as how other people's actions many centuries later were part of a process that reversed all that.
Action and reaction. That's how these things work.
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on
:
As ever G. an excellent reinforcement of KC's bet-a-buck thinking.
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
It's a matter of education. Nobody with a liberal arts degree or even 'A' levels in English literature and history could think in such a faulty way.
Ha ha ha ...
I now await notification from Jamat and Kaplan as to what particular qualifications they have and their reactions to such 'pomposity' ...
Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on
:
I think Cromwell was a bastard. The idea that some seem to think he was a hero sickens me.
Could he have behaved in anything less than a sick way that he did? I don't know.
That seems to me to be a more nuanced and complicated question - as by that stage the whole concepts of religion-and-the-state was under attack from different directions due to the Enlightenment and there were Other Options Available. That's not quite the same as looking back at Crusader times IMO.
But that could just be because it is much closer to the present so we've got much more of a feel for the different ideas that we floating around in Cromwell's time compared to the Crusader time.
But then the one thing we can be fairly sure about is that both Cromwell and the Crusaders said that they were getting their ideas from the bible, it was an integral part of how they saw themselves.
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
Well, when did the Enlightenment start? We can see seeds of it in the Renaissance, but generally it's reckoned to have 'started' from around the 1650s/60s onwards.
As for Cromwell as hero or villain, it depends on where you're standing. No surprises, but I'd say a bit of both - although I find moderate Parliamentarians like Sir Thomas Fairfax far more attractive and moderate Puritans like Richard Baxter far more engaging.
The point is, all these changes and developments are cumulative as you say. No Reformation, no Cromwell. He couldn't have acted as he did in 1550 let alone 1450 or 1150 or 850 or 750 as Kaplan would appear to have us believe.
And yes, both Cromwell and Charlemagne would have believed that what they did was in accordance with scripture as conventionally understood in their times.
Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
Well, when did the Enlightenment start? We can see seeds of it in the Renaissance, but generally it's reckoned to have 'started' from around the 1650s/60s onwards.
As for Cromwell as hero or villain, it depends on where you're standing. No surprises, but I'd say a bit of both - although I find moderate Parliamentarians like Sir Thomas Fairfax far more attractive and moderate Puritans like Richard Baxter far more engaging.
The point is, all these changes and developments are cumulative as you say. No Reformation, no Cromwell. He couldn't have acted as he did in 1550 let alone 1450 or 1150 or 850 or 750 as Kaplan would appear to have us believe.
Right. And more than that even. His direction on religious freedoms etc had an impact down from his time to ours.
He was a bastard, but he was our bastard and we can't deny the impact his direction had on later generations.
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
I tend to think in terms of currents and shifts rather than individuals, although individuals certainly play a part in the former. Things could never be the same after Cromwell and although Charles II had his own run-ins with Parliament and James II only tolerated the Dissenters in order to let the RCs off the hook as well, things were bound to loosen up to some extent.
You also had the Latitudinarian reaction against the religious certainties of the Puritans.
What we've never had is some kind of golden age when everything was hermeneutically kosher and pristine in KC terms and everyone read their Bibles 'properly' on the john and everything was marvellous and they all lived happily ever after.
Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
What we've never had is some kind of golden age when everything was hermeneutically kosher and pristine in KC terms and everyone read their Bibles 'properly' on the john and everything was marvellous and they all lived happily ever after.
You are quite ware that I have never suggested anything remotely like this.
I'm sorry but is reading a Bible "on the john" a UK idiom, because I have never encountered it, and cannot conceive the point or motivation of anyone's inventing it?
Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
I do not know of one single, solitary NT scholar who believes that the NT requires Christians to practise religious violence against heretics and heathens.
I think for the purposes of this thread the issue is not requires but allows.
Suit yourself.
Which NT scholar believes the NT allows the killing of heretics and heathen?
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
Which NT scholar believes the NT allows the killing of heretics and heathen?
Sadly we don't have any scholars from Charlemagne's era to ask.
Posted by Lamb Chopped (# 5528) on
:
Gamaliel, just let it go already. Sheesh.
Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
this might just be the hermeneutic we know and the theologians we are aware of
Ah, so it is theologians we don't know about who believe the Bible teaches violence against heretics and heathen!
Well, one thing you can say for that position is that it certainly enjoys the advantage of being irrefutable!
quote:
because there are clearly Christians who believe in this stuff
Really?
Which Christians believe that the NT requires them to kill heretics and heathen?
quote:
Some of the rhetoric we hear (perhaps just outside our own earshot) in our own cultures isn't so far from justifying religious violence IMO.
If it's outside our earshot, how do we hear it?
Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
Cromwell is EXACTLY the right example as he illustrates my point perfectly.
For you, Cromwell is EXACTLY an own goal.
You are correct to point out that he (like every human being) encompassed contradictions, but you still can't bring yourself to break your mind-forged manacles of historical determinism and admit that:
1. He had access to church history, which was not a continuous record from its beginning of using violence against heretics and heathen
2.His granting of an unprecedented degree of religious freedom demonstrated not only his awareness of historical cultural constraints, but awareness of the possibility of ignoring and moving beyond them
3.He had the example of the Anabaptists (or the overwhelming majority; Munster is generally conceded to be unrepresentative of them) in the previous century, and Quakers in his own, of Christians who had renounced religious violence
4.Our own failures as 21st century Western Christians are evidence that it is possible to know what is right and choose not to do it, and therefore to be culpable, not ignorant or mentally helpless by reason of our ambient culture
Charlemagne likewise had access (indirectly, given his literacy problems) to the NT and church history, and also knew that it was not an unmitigated record of non-stop religious violence.
In short, the idea that either was a powerless mental prisoner of their era is sheer historical obscurantism.
It is rigidly binary to imagine that they can only be conceived of as either totally incapable of conceiving any alternative whatsoever to religious violence or anachronistic paragons of modern liberal pluralism.
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
The 'on the john' jibe is an Americanism and a bit of a Jan at Lamb Chopped's claims - discussed at length upthread - that she arrived at a working understanding of essential Christian (and to some extent specifically Lutheran) doctrines on her own with only the Bible and the Holy Spirit for company.
She's asked me to leave it out.
So I will.
My citing it again recently came out of exasperation both at your failure to read for comprehension and apparent insistence that Charlemagne, Cromwell or anyone else, living or dead, OUGHT to be able to avoid egregious errors simply by reading their Bibles with the 'right' hermeneutic - namely, the one you believe yourself to use.
If you'd read what I actually wrote and not what you think I wrote, you'd see that rather than operating within mind-forged manacles of historical determinism, I'm actually saying something far more subtle than that.
Yes, Cromwell had access to those ideas/influences you cite, but he had them alongside other influences too. None of this stuff happens in isolation. They wouldn't have been sufficiently strong influences on him to turn him into a Gandhi.
He wasn't an Anabaptist by any manner of means for all his 'independent' polity.
As for Charlemagne, if you'd read my posts properly you'll have seen that I don't let him off the hook for culpability in a deterministic sense. He could have shown clemency. He chose not to.
All I am saying is:
- However we cut it the NT (however interpreted) isn't the sole and isolated influence on how we think, believe and act. Even if it were there's no guarantee we'd get it 'right'.
- The only models available to Charlemagne's contemporaries as to how to run a country were those from classical antiquity and those from the surrounding countries, none of which would have given an immediately workable alternative. The comparative religious pluralism of the Pax Romana no longer existed. How could it have been reintroduced?
I'm sorry, KC, I'm not scoring own goals. Martin, Dafyd, mr cheesy and plenty of others are putting ball after ball in the back of your net and you're not even noticing or else are crying 'foul' and appealing to the referee.
This game isn't going to end on penalty points, you're already trailing by a wide, wide margin but you won't admit it.
Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
Ah, so it is theologians we don't know about who believe the Bible teaches violence against heretics and heathen!
Well, one thing you can say for that position is that it certainly enjoys the advantage of being irrefutable!
I see. So you know all about the theology in places where Christians have been implicated in genocide and terrible religious violence - including Rwanda, Indonesia, South Sudan etc - and so you can state confidently that there are no hermeneutics in play in these situations, can you?
Bullshit. You've got no idea at all, you're talking about the English language theologians you are aware of - who are clearly a small subsection of the theologies that exist.
quote:
Really?
Which Christians believe that the NT requires them to kill heretics and heathen?
What, other than those Christians implicated in genocide and other crimes against humanity?
quote:
quote:
Some of the rhetoric we hear (perhaps just outside our own earshot) in our own cultures isn't so far from justifying religious violence IMO.
If it's outside our earshot, how do we hear it?
What I was thinking was that there are some who express support for state warfare in religious terms - I was thinking about some Conservatives in the USA, but presumably it also happens elsewhere - and who seem to be mixing up ideas of religion and the state. I meant that it was outside of earshot that they're perhaps voices that you and I don't tend to listen to because they're outside of the circles we move in.
Of course something doesn't have to be within earshot to know that it exists or to hear about it.
[ 27. August 2017, 07:46: Message edited by: mr cheesy ]
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
It's a matter of education. Nobody with a liberal arts degree or even 'A' levels in English literature and history could think in such a faulty way.
Ha ha ha ...
I now await notification from Jamat and Kaplan as to what particular qualifications they have and their reactions to such 'pomposity' ...
Hmmmm. Early days I suppose. KC, like Russ, can't stoop to respond to me directly, but Jamat should.
Anybody aware of any contemporary academic or writer who thinks like them?
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
The only goals that have been scored in this match are the ones going into the back of your net, Kaplan.
It's an open goal and you're the only one here who can't see it.
You are making my points for me without realising you are doing it. You may as well face it as you are facing the wrong way and booting ball after ball into your own net.
Yes, Cromwell would have been aware of the peaceful witness of the Quakers in his own day and that of the Anabaptists in previous generations. Charlemagne and the Crusaders wouldn't.
It's not just Drogheda and Wexford as blips. Sure, he was aware of the seriousness of that and regretted the loss of life in his report to Parliament. But his whole world-view was one where Providence would smile on his particular cause because he believed it to be just, even though it would involve the spilling of blood and of a degree of 'collateral damage.'
I don't know how anyone's blood wouldn't go cold when they read, 'God made them as stubble to our swords ...'
Yes, in granting an unprecedented degree of religious freedom, Cromwell went part way towards your 'ideal' and what all of us here would consider the right state of affairs in terms of religious pluralism.
I would argue that he would not have been able at that time to go the whole way and tolerate Anglicans (in their pre-civil war form) and RCs. It would have been a step too far for political reasons.
That isn't historical determinism in the cast iron sense you are accusing me of.
We are constrained by our conditioning but that does not remove our culpability.
Charlemagne couldn't have introduced a full Parliamentary democracy in the modern pluralist sense. That option wasn't open to him. He could have shown clemency towards his enemies. That option was and he didn't take it.
Unlike mr cheesy, I don't see the need to introduce putative theologians living or dead or out of earshot.
Your goal has been open since the start of this thread. You have no effective defences, no goalie. Not only that, you are facing the wrong way and kicking your balls into the back of your own net whilst blithely imagining you are performing well mid-field and that your forwards are undertaking spectacular crosses down each wing.
It's fun to watch but it's beginning to look rather pathetic.
Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
Unlike mr cheesy, I don't see the need to introduce putative theologians living or dead or out of earshot.
Excuse me? He made some tower of argument based on the fact that nobody could name a theologian who believed in religious violence - but that might just be because we only have a small frame of theological reference as we are coming from a English-speaking theological background.
I don't think anyone has brought this particular point up before.
Maybe you should stop posting things that just reiterate what you already said. How about that?
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on
:
Please Sir, I thought I implicitly made the point here?
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
My point was that his argument has long been dead in the water so there's no need to introduce any further argument until he's accepted the paucity of his position so far.
Trouble is, that lays me open to reiterating points I've already made. I see that now.
The irony is that Kaplan thinks he's winning and can't see how he's scoring own goal after own goal.
If he could read the runes he'd concede defeat, relieve the pressure on his balls, breathe more easily and be able to take stock, review the match clips and realise how many goals he's allowed into his own net and how few he's put into other people's.
In the instance you've raised of putative out-of-earshot theologians, I'm not sure I'd grace whatever 'thinkers' and commentators the extreme US Right are drawing on with the epithet 'theologians'.
Otherwise, your point is well made.
As you were ...
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
Also, if I repeat or reiterate points I've made previously it's often because Kaplan misunderstands or chooses to misinterpret them - as per his accusation that I'm applying some kind of cast-iron determinism when I've done abso-fucking-lutely nothing of the kind.
If he bothered to read for comprehension or was capable of doing so, he'd have seen that.
Sorry, but there we are.
Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
In the instance you've raised of putative out-of-earshot theologians, I'm not sure I'd grace whatever 'thinkers' and commentators the extreme US Right are drawing on with the epithet 'theologians'.
And that is perhaps the root of this discussion: who is a theologian, when is a hermeneutic valid (can a hermeneutic be invalid if many people believe and act upon it), etc and so on.
I use fairly broad definitions. If people believe in a worked-out theology, it is a hermeneutic even if we don't understand or like it. If someone is some kind of Christian leader (writer, preacher, commentator) with some kind of following, I find it hard to believe that he's not a theologian (or at least working within a school of thought).
The key point isn't simply whether or not our group accepts the theology, whether it makes sense to us in our particular culture etc.
It doesn't really matter whether we accept someone as a theologian or what they express as a hermeneutic. Surely the only thing that matters is whether they're speaking for anyone other than themselves.
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
Sure, I get that. There's a Russian saying, 'The one who prays, they are a theologian.'
As a definition though, that surely only takes us so far. The KKK pray. Does that validate their warped theology?
But yes, I take the point you're making and it does lie at the root of this thread. How do we interpret scripture and how do we validate or invalidate particular viewpoints whilst taking into account conditions, context and all the other factors.
Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
Sure, I get that. There's a Russian saying, 'The one who prays, they are a theologian.'
As a definition though, that surely only takes us so far. The KKK pray. Does that validate their warped theology?
I was reflecting on the Moonies - who have a fairly advanced and complicated theology, albeit one we'd all likely agree is a long way off-beam.
I suppose for me the critical thing is whether the group themselves self-describe as Christians.
And both the KKK and the Moonies are quite a long way from the Holy Roman Empire wrt their position within Christianity - at best the former are at the edges of what can be described as Christian today whereas in the past it was a central belief of the main branch of Christianity.
On the other hand, I suppose that if your definition of what can possibly be Christian excludes those who commit religious warfare and genocide, then it isn't really saying anything much to insist that those who do it can't be Christian.
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
What I don't understand is how we can reasonably expect Charlemagne or Cromwell to have acted like a 20th or 21st century politician - or indeed anything other than what they were - 8th century or 17th century rulers, simply because they both had the NT.
When it should be blindingly obvious to anyone with more than a basic three R's education that these things developed over time.
We have no idea whatsoever what kind of government the Apostle Paul would have favoured because there weren't a great deal of options open to him and he seemed to accept what was going - with some caveats.
As a Roman citizen it's hard to see what else he could have done.
What sort of view he'd have taken had he lived in the 8th century, the 17th century or today can only be a matter of speculation.
Since when has the NT been a blue-print for absolutely everything? It's there to lead us to Christ and to help conform us to his image - which surely precludes violence - but what seems obvious to us about it wouldn't have necessarily been obvious to people at other times - particularly those where alternative models of government and society weren't available.
It took the Black Death to demolish the feudal system, it took lobbying, legislation and wars to abolish slavery.
It didn't happen overnight as the result of a couple of people poring over the NT.
Posted by Russ (# 120) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
KC, like Russ, can't stoop to respond to me directly, but Jamat should.
Happy to respond to you, Martin. I just can't decode some of your more cryptic one-liners.
Posted by Russ (# 120) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
Quoting non-existent statistics is straight talking?
I was trying to make concisely the distinction between
on the one hand believing anything negative about Jews because one has an underlying animosity to Jewish culture & religion (which attitude I'm happy to call antisemitic)
and on the other hand believing that Jewish culture is below-average in one particular respect because that's the way that one's experience and encountered evidence seems to point (with no emotional investment in finding one way or the other, which isn't anti-anything).
The word "statistically" was intended to convey a mode of neutral evidence-based belief that something is actually factually true.
Not to assert that I personally have seen such statistics or believe that if collected they would necessarily say anything in particular.
I'm sorry if this was unclear.
Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on
:
Even reading back I can't see that made clear.
I would say that the idea that any statistic or personal experience would lead one to conclude that a culture was inferior in a particular respect is problematic. All one can say is that this particular group of people has a particular characteristic. Labelling a culture as if it has an intrinsic property based on that is deeply problematic, as if culture is a euphemism for race and we are still in the Victorian age of assigning human races characteristics.
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Russ:
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
KC, like Russ, can't stoop to respond to me directly, but Jamat should.
Happy to respond to you, Martin. I just can't decode some of your more cryptic one-liners.
My unreserved apologies Russ. NOW I understand. Thank you.
Posted by Russ (# 120) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
I would say that the idea that any statistic or personal experience would lead one to conclude that a culture was inferior in a particular respect is problematic. All one can say is that this particular group of people has a particular characteristic. Labelling a culture as if it has an intrinsic property based on that is deeply problematic, as if culture is a euphemism for race and we are still in the Victorian age of assigning human races characteristics.
If the particular group of Jewish people I've met have things in common which I find admirable, am I compelled in your view to conclude that this is pure coincidence ? Is it so inconceivable to you that the concept of "Jewish culture" could possibly have meaning ?
Or are we to take it that your view on Islamic terrorism is that it is your policy not to have a view on any aspect of Islamic culture because you're afraid of being thought a racist ?
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
Come back Kaplan, all is forgiven ...
Give me your myopic pontifications any day of the week compared to Russ's twaddle.
Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
you can state confidently that there are no hermeneutics in play in these situations, can you?
Of course there are hermeneutics in play in such situations - really shitty, inadequate hermeneutics, with all the exegetical sophistication of deriving guidance from the dimensions of the Great Pyramid on the basis of Isaiah 19;19-20, or deliberately drinking poison on the basis of Mark 16:18, or going out and slaughtering the reprobate because God has "told" you to do so through one of the more lurid passages in Revelation.
Your elusive NT scholars whom we don't know about (untheologians?) but who definitely believe the NT teaches/requires/allows the killing of heretics and heathen, are beginning to look more and more like the "...little man upon the stair/A little man who wasn't there".
Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on
:
I feel a bit inadequate responding with only one post after your six (at last count) since my last post which specifically name me - I don't know when you find time to eat!
Perhaps I should feel flattered....
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
Yes, Cromwell would have been aware of the peaceful witness of the Quakers in his own day and that of the Anabaptists in previous generations.
Amongst other factors, and could have therefore have acted differently.
quote:
We are constrained by our conditioning but that does not remove our culpability.
Charlemagne couldn't have introduced a full Parliamentary democracy in the modern pluralist sense. That option wasn't open to him. He could have shown clemency towards his enemies. That option was and he didn't take it.
You are contradicting yourself.
You want to have your cake (given their historical circumstances, Charlemagne, Cromwell et al could not have even conceived of acting differently from how they did) and eat it (they were culpable because they could have conceived and acted differently).
You have regressed obdurately and immediately to your besetting sin of rigid binary positioning.
And just as an exercise in nostalgia to remind you of your shameful evangelical past, here is a verse to reinforce the rebuke: "As a dog returns to its vomit, so a fool repeats his folly" Proverbs 26:11).
It is not a matter of two alternative positions, ie Charlemagne and Cromwell should have acted like 21st century liberal pluralists, versus Charlemagne and Cromwell were irrevocably locked into the limitations of their prevailing worldview.
They were both in a position to understand, on the basis of examples in church history, other Christians, and Scripture, the principle that Christians are not intended to kill heretics and heathen per se, ie simply on the grounds that they were heretics and heathen.
[ 28. August 2017, 02:51: Message edited by: Kaplan Corday ]
Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Russ:
Is it so inconceivable to you that the concept of "Jewish culture" could possibly have meaning ?
The concept of culture has a meaning that doesn't involve statistics on the frequency of cut-throat capitalists. That's not what culture is.
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
You really can't see it, can you, Kaplan?
Read what I write, not what you think I've written.
I have written that we are constrained and conditioned by our culture and context.
We all agree on that.
What I have not said is that this means we are completely incapable of independent thought or action.
In Charlemagne's context that means that whilst he could have certainly shown clemency, introducing a more pluralist religious policy was not an option open to him at that particular time and context.
That's not contradictory or binary.
That's simply an historical observation and one you appear to wish to elide.
Equally, in Cromwell's case, because of changes in society, culture and conditions, he was able to exercise a greater degree of pluralism than would have been available to his predecessors - but not as much as those who came after him.
I really don't see why that's so difficult a concept to comprehend.
It's not me who is being binary. You are. And the irony is, you can't see it.
Don't flatter yourself in terms of the volume of my posts. I post quickly. I type fast. I shoot from the hip.
If I've posted inveterately here it's because I'm exasperated by your simplistic, binary, a-historical and untenable arguments.
I'd call you to Hell but you'd be flattered by that.
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
Also, if you'd read my posts properly, you'll have seen that I've speculated that not even Charlemagne - most of the time - would have considered it legitimate to kill people simply because they were heathen of heretics.
I've posted this a number of times.
I wouldn't be surprised if he'd have executed hundreds of Saxon 'rebels' had the Saxons already been Christians or Christianised when he annexed Saxony.
I doubt very much that he randomly executed any Jews, Muslim or pagan who happened to be traveling within his borders.
Equally with Cromwell, other than the Jesuit priests and the monks and nuns found within the walls of Drogheda and Wexford, those who perished there weren't killed simply because they were Catholics.
It's not an exact analogy, but it would be like saying that the very Catholic population of Nagasaki was nuked for being Catholic rather than for being Japanese.
Nobody is saying that the NT 'requires' or 'commands' rulers to execute heathen or heretics, all that's been said is that to a certain extent rulers like Charlemagne and Cromwell would have understood their 'God-given' authority in a way that could encompass that at times.
If your world-view is one of, 'God gave them as stubble to our swords' - then it's not hard to see how they could take things to that kind of conclusion.
They brought that world-view with them when approaching the scriptures.
We might not like that, but that's how they thought.
You have not proven otherwise. Because you can't and all the historical evidence is against you.
Please do me the courtesy of reading what I write and not what you think I write. And do yourself a favour by reading for comprehension. That way you'd score fewer own goals and stop revealing your own ignorance.
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on
:
G., why is it so hard for you to understand, the KC Sunshine hermeneutic shines through all of time and shone in the eyes of Charlemagne and all those that deliberately chose to look away since Constantine.
Posted by Golden Key (# 1468) on
:
{tangent}
Martin--
I'll see your KC & the Sunshine Band, and raise you "Let The Sun Shine In", from "Hair".
{end tangent}
[ 28. August 2017, 08:22: Message edited by: Golden Key ]
Posted by Jamat (# 11621) on
:
quote:
Gamaliel: the irony is, you can't see it.
The irony actually is that you lost the argument back about page 10 because you refuse to admit the implication of what you assert. You want to argue the defining power of culture, but then you deny that that argument actually excuses behaviour which in no sense ever, by any definition could be genuinely Christian. Sorry..you lost.
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
It's a matter of education. Nobody with a liberal arts degree or even 'A' levels in English literature and history could think in such a faulty way.
Ha ha ha ...
I now await notification from Jamat and Kaplan as to what particular qualifications they have and their reactions to such 'pomposity' ...
Hmmmm. Early days I suppose. KC, like Russ, can't stoop to respond to me directly, but Jamat should.
Anybody aware of any contemporary academic or writer who thinks like them?
Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm. You'd think that anyone with a liberal arts education or a non-savant medico-scientific one who had such an anti-intellectual, irrational hermeneutic would proclaim the cradle of their thinking and be able to find a single contemporary intellectual who agreed.
GK. I was THERE! I seen 'em. NEKKID! In the age of Aquarius. Backlit by the light of KC's Sunshine Hermeneutic!!!
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
quote:
Gamaliel: the irony is, you can't see it.
The irony actually is that you lost the argument back about page 10 because you refuse to admit the implication of what you assert. You want to argue the defining power of culture, but then you deny that that argument actually excuses behaviour which in no sense ever, by any definition could be genuinely Christian. Sorry..you lost.
Nonsense.
Just because you appear unable to deal with paradox doesn't mean the rest of us can't.
Both KC and yourself ratchet everything up into such black-and-white terms that you appear unable to appreciate that the rest of us see the world in shades of grey.
If I've lost any argument it's through trying to argue with people who are colour-blind or who are unable to make out chiaroscuro because their theological lenses won't allow them to.
There is no argument to lose. You don't even have an argument.
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
To return to the OP ...
What's the best strategy?
To pretend or deny that Christian individuals, groups or organisations can be capable of the most heinous wrongs?
'Oh, they couldn't possibly have been Christians in the first place ...'
Or to recognise that things can and do go badly wrong and to seek to address and redress that? Which yes, involves hermeneutics - among other things.
Both approaches work towards the same goal, which is prevention.
We may have different starting points but the same end in view at least.
Posted by Jamat (# 11621) on
:
quote:
Gamaliel: deal with paradox
Sorry Mate, this is not paradox, this is a denial of an obvious corollary of your argument.
I repeat, you lost this argument 10 pages back.
Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
...I repeat...
Sorry to selectively quote, but it does sum up a lot of this thread.
Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
...I repeat...
Sorry to selectively quote, but it does sum up a lot of this thread.
Pretty much why I stopped bothering with it awhile ago.
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
More fool me for continuing with and making 'come-backs' when it had become obvious that neither Jamat or KC are prepared to read for comprehension or even listen to alternative views.
Rather than engage with what myself and others have been trying to say they cover up their ears and go 'la la la la' whilst trying to tar me with the same binary brush they use to brush their teeth in the morning, teeth that are located in a somewhat different anatomical location to other people's.
They apparently cannot distinguish between varying degrees of social and cultural influence and conditioning from being trapped in a deterministic way by the prevailing zeitgeist.
They clearly don't understand the social and historical forces at work between the time of Charlemagne and the time of Cromwell nor those between Cromwell's time and our own.
Nor do they have any inkling of the complex processes involved in reading and interpreting texts.
Worse, because ignorance is excusable to a certain extent, they have misrepresented my arguments and twisted my words.
For that I call them both to Hell.
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on
:
They can't help it G. They are their uneducated, old, unscholarly, incorrigible hermeneutics. As a man thinketh, so is he. In grinding all grist to his mill down to chaff.
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
That's more deterministic than I've been accused of being, Martin60.
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on
:
I should hope so G. That's why they are so forgivable. In fact there's nothing to forgive. Only understand. The wind changed a long time ago.
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
Hmmmm ...
Well, Jamat is 'uneducated' - at least in a liberal arts type sense it seems to me. Kaplan isn't. He has less of an excuse. So yes, there are things to forgive.
Just as I've done stupid stuff too and am in need of forgiveness. Verbosity. Repetition ... even assuming certain people are capable of listening and reading for comprehension ...
Posted by Jamat (# 11621) on
:
quote:
Well, Jamat is 'uneducated'
Sigh! I certainly am not prepared to be educated by you. However, I think it a mistake take anything personally. It is all just a matter of following the trail till you find the rabbit. Take a cooky. By the time you finish eating it you'll forget all about this conversation.
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
The problem isn't that you are unprepared to be educated by me, you are unprepared to be educated aboard Ship by anyone who doesn't hold to your untenably wooden interpretation of scripture.
Now where's the biscuit (cookie) tin?
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
Hmmmm ...
Well, Jamat is 'uneducated' - at least in a liberal arts type sense it seems to me. Kaplan isn't. He has less of an excuse. So yes, there are things to forgive.
Just as I've done stupid stuff too and am in need of forgiveness. Verbosity. Repetition ... even assuming certain people are capable of listening and reading for comprehension ...
I'm sure KC has a the excuse of a conservative background like Anne Coulter: "I'm a Christian first and a mean-spirited, bigoted conservative second...". I think she gets the order wrong, but hey, don't we all. But that doesn't excuse the lack of basic intellect and any scholarship in his hermeneutic once delivered. Even Coulter wouldn't argue that absurdity.
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
Conservative Christianity is one thing, and I'm pretty conservative theologically, repeated failure to read for comprehension is something else again.
It was beginning to look like deliberate obfuscation and misrepresentation. Once or twice I could overlook but arguing that black = white and 2+2 = 5 isn't something I can stomach.
Hence the Hell-call.
Posted by Russ (# 120) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
The concept of culture has a meaning that doesn't involve statistics on the frequency of cut-throat capitalists. That's not what culture is.
Please do expand on what you think culture is, if it's not something that could conceivably be measured by statistics.
Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on
:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culture
Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
For that I call them both to Hell.
If you want to post in Hell and call me names, then by all means go ahead.
Knock yourself out.
Go nuts.
May heaven speed your keyboard, and may the letting off of steam make you feel better afterwards.
You will pardon me (or perhaps you won't) if I decline to reciprocate, but I have better things to do.
It is not immediately apparent why you have become so paranoically and hyperbolically reactive, so passionately involved at a personal level over what is, when all is said and done, a fairly abstruse issue.
After all, we more or less agree on most of the points involved, but it still seems to press your buttons.
Perhaps it is an example of what Freud called "the narcissism of small differences".
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
Or being driven to distraction by people who don't or can't read for comprehension and who persist in arguing a-historical points?
But yes, I do feel better for having vented in Hell.
Carry on, sergeant ...
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
Conservative Christianity is one thing, and I'm pretty conservative theologically, repeated failure to read for comprehension is something else again.
It was beginning to look like deliberate obfuscation and misrepresentation. Once or twice I could overlook but arguing that black = white and 2+2 = 5 isn't something I can stomach.
Hence the Hell-call.
Conservative how?
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
Conservative in the sense that I assent to the historic Creeds and believe in the Trinity, the Resurrection etc ...
Not conservative in the sense that I am a biblical literalist or fundamentalist in Jamat terms.
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on
:
Ah. Me too. We share the same last line in the sand.
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
Or line in the water?
I think we're probably both dotty, too.
No doubt Jamat and Kaplan will think so, bless 'em.
Posted by Eliab (# 9153) on
:
Kaplan Corday
Since there is a Hell thread on which you could respond if you wanted to, it would be appreciated if you took either express or implied accusations of paranoia and narcissism there.
Same goes for everyone else. Hell's there so that if you want to get personal, you can. If you don't want to use that facility, fine, but then don't make personal insinuations in Purgatory.
Now that there is a Hell thread arising from this very discussion, and as posting here takes exactly as many key-presses as posting there does, there's no excuse for testing the limits of personal comment here. Take it to Hell.
Eliab
Purgatory host
Posted by Clutch (# 18827) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
Conservative in the sense that I assent to the historic Creeds and believe in the Trinity, the Resurrection etc ...
Not conservative in the sense that I am a biblical literalist or fundamentalist in Jamat terms.
So do I Gamaliel, but I don't consider that "conservative" Theologically speaking that's orthodox.Small o used on purpose.
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
Or line in the water?
I think we're probably both dotty, too.
No doubt Jamat and Kaplan will think so, bless 'em.
Just join up the dots ....
Clutch is right of course. We're 'o'. Not 'c'!
Posted by Curiosity killed ... (# 11770) on
:
But orthodox is not always seen as properly Christian; do you remember when the liberal Christians on the Ship were called to Hell for not being proper Christians? That OP quoted something I'd said, which I had very carefully made sure was a properly orthodox Christian statement.
Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Curiosity killed ...:
But orthodox is not always seen as properly Christian; do you remember when the liberal Christians on the Ship were called to Hell for not being proper Christians? That OP quoted something I'd said, which I had very carefully made sure was a properly orthodox Christian statement.
The root problem here is that Evangelicalism is an idea that has only really been around for a few hundred years but (some) Evangelical believers absolutely believe that it is the be-all-and-end-all of all Christianity and therefore that they can measure the "soundness" of everyone else against their own standard(s).
Which just seems mental to anyone else.
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
Hence my exasperation which Kaplan puts down to paranoia and narcicism on my part.
It can't possibly be anything on his part, can it?
I mean, don't we realise he has a time-machine and has used it a few times to put the Apostles straight on a thing or two?
I mean, it's so obvious that everyone should have interpreted the scriptures in an IVP type way from the outset ...
Why can't the rest of us see that?
Posted by Barnabas62 (# 9110) on
:
Gamaliel
What Eliab said.
Kindly take these kinds of personal comments to the hell thread you started.
Barnabas62
Purgatory Host
[ 01. September 2017, 08:48: Message edited by: Barnabas62 ]
Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
Hence my exasperation which Kaplan puts down to paranoia and narcicism on my part.
It can't possibly be anything on his part, can it?
Mm, but you'd have to admit that it is part-and-parcel of a particular worldview, mindset, hermeneutic - right?
You're asking them to deny something fundamental about their whole outlook.
Posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider (# 76) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Curiosity killed ...:
But orthodox is not always seen as properly Christian; do you remember when the liberal Christians on the Ship were called to Hell for not being proper Christians?
Oh bugger. I missed that one. But then these days I'm happy to go with Improper Christian. They're only labels, they mean what the person using them takes them to mean (yeah, I know, it's a bit Humpty Dumpty isn't it?, but if Christian means homophobia, right-wing politics and fanatical support for the modern state of Israel to someone, it'd be a bit misleading for me to describe myself as Christian to them. It's rapidly losing its usefulness as a label because it means so many different and contradictory things).
Call me what you like, I say to these people, you're not going to make me believe a load of hateful tosh by labelling it "Christianity", however I self-define.
Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
Call me what you like, I say to these people, you're not going to make me believe a load of hateful tosh by labelling it "Christianity", however I self-define.
It seems to me that all flavours of Christianity are basically assertions and one has to decide whether one is going to agree or disagree with them - corporately and individually.
The irony for me is that there often seems more openness to changes of behaviour on DH subjects from those who see themselves firmly within forms of Traditional Christianity* than from those within relatively recent movements.
I conclude that for some Christians, their sense of identity is about belonging to a community of faith, so it isn't really a great threat to admit that ideas and practices have changed, that mistakes were made in the past, that NOW is the time to embrace and welcome rather than push away excluded people and groups.
Whereas for Evangelicals it often feels like the most important thing is holding to correct ideas and theology (which is nonsense in a way, given that there are so many different evangelical theologies - which is the "correct" one?) even when they make no rational or logical sense and are clearly unfit to meet the challenges of the present and future.
* of course this is an over-generalisation - some traditional Christians are horrible.
Posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider (# 76) on
:
Yes, but there's a faultline within evangelicalism, I think. Not long ago I reckon most evangelicals in the UK would have happily signed up to the Nashville Statement, but there are plenty now who are as appalled by it as any wishy-washy liberal compromising type who's sold himself out to the contemporary secular worldview etc. etc. like yours truly here.
And I think it is a faultine rather than a spectrum. At least, it's a gorge with a bloody great cliff on one side, no matter how gentle the slope on the other; for the people on the cliff it's their view or nothing.
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
Hence my exasperation which Kaplan puts down to paranoia and narcicism on my part.
It can't possibly be anything on his part, can it?
Mm, but you'd have to admit that it is part-and-parcel of a particular worldview, mindset, hermeneutic - right?
You're asking them to deny something fundamental about their whole outlook.
Or to see sense?
No, but you're right and I've been pushing against a closed door and getting frustrated when it hasn't even begun to creak open.
This is about fixed ideas and entrenched positions not people. So apologies for the Hellishness here rather than in the Hell thread created for the purpose.
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
I feel a bit inadequate responding with only one post after your six (at last count) since my last post which specifically name me - I don't know when you find time to eat!
Perhaps I should feel flattered....
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
Yes, Cromwell would have been aware of the peaceful witness of the Quakers in his own day and that of the Anabaptists in previous generations.
Amongst other factors, and could have therefore have acted differently.
quote:
We are constrained by our conditioning but that does not remove our culpability.
Charlemagne couldn't have introduced a full Parliamentary democracy in the modern pluralist sense. That option wasn't open to him. He could have shown clemency towards his enemies. That option was and he didn't take it.
You are contradicting yourself.
You want to have your cake (given their historical circumstances, Charlemagne, Cromwell et al could not have even conceived of acting differently from how they did) and eat it (they were culpable because they could have conceived and acted differently).
You have regressed obdurately and immediately to your besetting sin of rigid binary positioning.
And just as an exercise in nostalgia to remind you of your shameful evangelical past, here is a verse to reinforce the rebuke: "As a dog returns to its vomit, so a fool repeats his folly" Proverbs 26:11).
It is not a matter of two alternative positions, ie Charlemagne and Cromwell should have acted like 21st century liberal pluralists, versus Charlemagne and Cromwell were irrevocably locked into the limitations of their prevailing worldview.
They were both in a position to understand, on the basis of examples in church history, other Christians, and Scripture, the principle that Christians are not intended to kill heretics and heathen per se, ie simply on the grounds that they were heretics and heathen.
Show me.
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
you can state confidently that there are no hermeneutics in play in these situations, can you?
Of course there are hermeneutics in play in such situations - really shitty, inadequate hermeneutics, with all the exegetical sophistication of deriving guidance from the dimensions of the Great Pyramid on the basis of Isaiah 19;19-20, or deliberately drinking poison on the basis of Mark 16:18, or going out and slaughtering the reprobate because God has "told" you to do so through one of the more lurid passages in Revelation.
Your elusive NT scholars whom we don't know about (untheologians?) but who definitely believe the NT teaches/requires/allows the killing of heretics and heathen, are beginning to look more and more like the "...little man upon the stair/A little man who wasn't there".
As elusive as the C9th and C17th scholars saying otherwise.
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
Meanwhile, if it helps, Kaplan and I are having some amicable off-site exchanges. We are pals really. But I will keep away from posting Hellishly here.
I do feel better for having vented in Hell, even though neither Jamat or Kaplan have joined me there.
But I do wonder whether this thread has run its course ... it probably had pages ago ...
Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
Yes, but there's a faultline within evangelicalism, I think. Not long ago I reckon most evangelicals in the UK would have happily signed up to the Nashville Statement, but there are plenty now who are as appalled by it as any wishy-washy liberal compromising type who's sold himself out to the contemporary secular worldview etc. etc. like yours truly here.
And I think it is a faultine rather than a spectrum. At least, it's a gorge with a bloody great cliff on one side, no matter how gentle the slope on the other; for the people on the cliff it's their view or nothing.
Mmm. I'm not quite sure how to order my thoughts, but I think I both agree and disagree with you here.
I think there is a danger of the mindset illustrated here with Evangelicals - but also applicable to others - which goes beyond simply being on this or that side of the issues.
If every Evangelical suddenly rejected this statement from Nashville, I'm not sure that'd change much if they continued with the same mindset - viz that they measure "rightness" of other religion by their own arbitrary standards, where their own ideas are elevated to being the "obvious, inarguable, simple reading of scripture" and where logical and theological inconsistencies are simply brushed away.
The reality is that the of locus of the centre of truth in Christianity is not for Evangelicals to say. When one argues with an Evangelical idea (which is to say little more than "an idea held by a group of Evangelicals"), one is not arguing with God, or scripture, or the central doctrine of Christianity - because those things rarely overlap and things are not central just because someone asserts that they are from their viewpoint and therefore must be.
So, tbh, I'd be pretty wary of an Evangelical who stood up and said that it was "obvious from scripture that women should be preachers" just as much as the one who stands up and says "it is biblical that women shouldn't preach in church" because that's turning the argument back onto the Evangelical to be the arbitrator.
That's not accepting the stupid, tedious argument that all ideas are equal, that all cultural practices need to be accepted, that Nazism is a perfectly acceptable idea - or any of that crap.
But it is to say "I don't really care what you think" when the Evangelical puts out yet another boring statement as if what they farted out yesterday as any theological importance. It is to reject the idea that the centre of Christianity is simply an area that is asserted by an Evangelical. It is to refuse to participate in the same stupid dance articulated by evangelicals that says accepting gays or trans kids is simply about whether or not the dance-moves meet the approval of their self-appointed leaders.
I'm done with this whole conversation that there is an objective truth on what the bible says about trans or gays or male/female leaders - and that we all have to listen open-mouthed to Evangelicals as if they're rational beings talking logical and theological sense.
Most of the time they're not.
Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on
:
In my private email exchange with Gamaliel I asked whether he inferred that I was accusing him of narcissism or paranoia in any strict clinical sense, thereby implying that he suffered from some sort of mental deficiency.
He assured me that such was not the case, and that he was not offended.
I find it difficult to believe that anybody could fail to understand the employment of the term paranoic in its common polemical sense (analogous to schizophrenic, which is found from time to time on the Ship), or could be so ignorant of the cultural and psychological context of Freud's "the narcissism of small differences" as to imagine that it was some sort of casual personal insult on the same level as "you're a loony".
Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
I find it difficult to believe that anybody could fail to understand the employment of the term paranoic in its common polemical sense (analogous to schizophrenic, which is found from time to time on the Ship), or could be so ignorant of the cultural and psychological context of Freud's "the narcissism of small differences" as to imagine that it was some sort of casual personal insult on the same level as "you're a loony".
So: "I'm very sorry you were offended, it was due to your obvious ignorance.."
Posted by Eliab (# 9153) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
In my private email exchange with Gamaliel I asked whether he inferred that I was accusing him of narcissism or paranoia in any strict clinical sense, thereby implying that he suffered from some sort of mental deficiency.
He assured me that such was not the case, and that he was not offended.
I find it difficult to believe that anybody could fail to understand the employment of the term paranoic in its common polemical sense (analogous to schizophrenic, which is found from time to time on the Ship), or could be so ignorant of the cultural and psychological context of Freud's "the narcissism of small differences" as to imagine that it was some sort of casual personal insult on the same level as "you're a loony".
As a human being and fellow Christian, my heart is warmed by this sudden outbreak of good-will.
As a host, my concern is to facilitate open discussion within the rules of this site, which means that:
1) Anything that looks like a personal attack gets said in Hell, or nowhere. I can't speak for the other Purgatory hosts, but in evaluating the nature of an apparently personal comment my cultural ignorance should be presumed to the same extent as my lack of ability to read minds.
2) Questioning hostly warnings or rulings is done in the Styx, not on the thread in which the warning appears. Anything more than a simple acknowledgment (or, on the rare occasions that someone is so minded, a brief apology) risks de-railing the thread.
Eliab
Purgatory host
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
In my private email exchange with Gamaliel I asked whether he inferred that I was accusing him of narcissism or paranoia in any strict clinical sense, thereby implying that he suffered from some sort of mental deficiency.
He assured me that such was not the case, and that he was not offended.
I find it difficult to believe that anybody could fail to understand the employment of the term paranoic in its common polemical sense (analogous to schizophrenic, which is found from time to time on the Ship), or could be so ignorant of the cultural and psychological context of Freud's "the narcissism of small differences" as to imagine that it was some sort of casual personal insult on the same level as "you're a loony".
You either mean paranoiac or paranoid. Noun or adjective. Which? Schizophrenic is, appropriately, both. Whatever happened to schizophrene?
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
No, I wasn't offended but I could understand the Hostly warning.
That applied to me too.
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