quote:

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Originally posted by Dark Knight:
At the risk of breaking Godwin's law (there, it's done now), you don't need religion to convince people to sacrifice themselves to the cause, as demonstrated by the Third Reich. Unless you count nationalism as religion.

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quote:

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Originally posted by cliffdweller:
Boyd's point was that nationalism is a sort of highjacking of religious conviction.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Dark Knight:
At the risk of breaking Godwin's law (there, it's done now), you don't need religion to convince people to sacrifice themselves to the cause, as demonstrated by the Third Reich. Unless you count nationalism as religion.

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quote:

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Originally posted by mousethief:

quote:

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Originally posted by cliffdweller:
Boyd's point was that nationalism is a sort of highjacking of religious conviction.

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That seems like the converse of the One True Scotsman fallacy.

"Religion isn't the only reason people do evil things. Look at nationalism."

"Nationalism is really just a form of religion when it does evil things."

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quote:

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Originally posted by Crœsos:

quote:

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Originally posted by Dark Knight:
At the risk of breaking Godwin's law (there, it's done now), you don't need religion to convince people to sacrifice themselves to the cause, as demonstrated by the Third Reich. Unless you count nationalism as religion.

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But you can arrive at a similar program via religious reasoning. For example, Martin Luther's On the Jews and Their Lies outlines a very similar program to the one eventually enacted by the Third Reich. (Many have suggested that the writings of Germany's foremost theologian were one of the main reasons German antisemitism was so strong and persistent.) If religion is a palliative against violence, especially violence by the state, as DD suggests we wouldn't expect this to be possible.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Raptor Eye:
As I said it's easy to convince the masses if they are being fed the line by church and state that this is God's will. Adding that they would undoubtedly go to heaven as a consequence would help quell any dissent.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Crœsos:

quote:

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Originally posted by Dark Knight:
At the risk of breaking Godwin's law (there, it's done now), you don't need religion to convince people to sacrifice themselves to the cause, as demonstrated by the Third Reich. Unless you count nationalism as religion.

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But you can arrive at a similar program via religious reasoning. For example, Martin Luther's On the Jews and Their Lies outlines a very similar program to the one eventually enacted by the Third Reich. (Many have suggested that the writings of Germany's foremost theologian were one of the main reasons German antisemitism was so strong and persistent.) If religion is a palliative against violence, especially violence by the state, as DD suggests we wouldn't expect this to be possible.

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Originally posted by Raptor Eye:
If only everyone were honest, had integrity, and worked for the good of all, as per the teaching and example of Christ. Sigh.

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quote:

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mousethief: Then Christ wouldn't have needed to have died.

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quote:

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The Christian religion doesn't cause violence, nor was it violence that caused the religion, unless the violence against Jesus and his followers is counted.

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quote:

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Except that historically it very obviously has, Raptor Eye.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Steve Langton:

Eventually it became rather obvious that the Roman Catholic version didn't live up to the NT in all kinds of ways, precipitating the Reformation. Many of the Reformation churches initially remained state churches, but the new availability of the Bible led many to look afresh at the original teaching, and recover it and try to put it into practice, leading to the modern concept of religious toleration. We haven't yet got all Christians accepting the NT teaching on this, but if we do then Christianity will be removed from the list of religions practicing violence.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Steve Langton:

Eventually it became rather obvious that the Roman Catholic version didn't live up to the NT in all kinds of ways, precipitating the Reformation.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Steve Langton:

Many of the Reformation churches initially remained state churches, but the new availability of the Bible led many to look afresh at the original teaching, and recover it and try to put it into practice, leading to the modern concept of religious toleration. We haven't yet got all Christians accepting the NT teaching on this, but if we do then Christianity will be removed from the list of religions practicing violence.

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quote:

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Originally posted by mousethief:
That seems like the converse of the One True Scotsman fallacy.

"Religion isn't the only reason people do evil things. Look at nationalism."

"Nationalism is really just a form of religion when it does evil things."

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quote:

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Which would be arguable if true, but the result of "reading the Bible for oneself" was an immediate descent into civil war between all the factions, each one of which was "right" - except for the Mennonites, who refused to play and were therefore persecuted by everyone

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quote:

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To paraphrase Horseman Bree; cute, but inaccurate.
Luther hammering into a door might have been a spark, but much of the fuel was political.

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quote:

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Hmmm, the availability of education, the growing power and prosperity of the lower and middle classes especially as separate from the church; might have had some influence, yes?

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quote:

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Originally posted by Horseman Bree:
Which would be arguable if true, but the result of "reading the Bible for oneself" was an immediate descent into civil war between all the factions, each one of which was "right" - except for the Mennonites, who refused to play and were therefore persecuted by everyone (just as the Baha'i are today in the parallel case of Islam)

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quote:

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Originally posted by que sais-je:
"No True Scotsman" isn't quite right: religion and nationalism are both the sort of thing than can justify extreme violence but neither is reducible to the other.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Steve Langton:

by lilBuddha;

quote:

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To paraphrase Horseman Bree; cute, but inaccurate.
Luther hammering into a door might have been a spark, but much of the fuel was political.

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Of course much of the fuel was political - how would it not be in an established church situation? Another reason for the Mennonite reading of the texts....

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quote:

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Originally posted by Steve Langton:

The fact remains that the Anabaptist view is what the Bible teaches and if taken seriously would lead to Christianity being taken out of the religious violence issue

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quote:

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Originally posted by Steve Langton:
I thought that was what I said, actually. People did unfortunately take quite a while to get to the bits that reject establishment and similar; some, like the Anglican Church, still haven't got there.

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Originally posted by lilBuddha:
I believe human nature is all that humans need to commit violence. And that religion is more an excuse than cause. I also believe that, regardless of what is professed, an excuse will be found. I do not think Anabaptist strains are immune to this, they simply have not been tested as they exist within states which protect them.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Horseman Bree:
This situation lasted until they came up with the bright idea of "nation-states" who should be left to do their own religion, each in its own way, but only after rather more than a third of all Germans had been killed.

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quote:

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There really isn't a Biblical case to be made for the toleration of other religions. Nor for a religiously neutral state. Certainly not if your Bible includes the Old Testament.

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quote:

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The fact remains that the Anabaptist view is what the Bible teaches and if taken seriously would lead to Christianity being taken out of the religious violence issue.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Steve Langton:
Some of the Anabaptist groups were already pacifist before Munster. For others Munster itself caused them to ask the question “Are Christians meant to behave like this towards one another?” and they went back to the Bible where they found that Christians were indeed not supposed to behave like that, and that God had set forth in the NT a different way for His people to relate to the surrounding world, a way of separation from that world and of non-resistance. They have followed this way ever since.

<snip>

The Anabaptists were able to learn better and to reject Munster precisely because the alternative is there in the NT – thoroughly visible, Croesos, and NOT requiring a 'decoder ring'; perhaps it would help if you turned your good eye instead of your blind eye? Finally a quote, from Croesos;

quote:

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There really isn't a Biblical case to be made for the toleration of other religions. Nor for a religiously neutral state. Certainly not if your Bible includes the Old Testament.

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You're getting this a bit upside down. The case in the NT is not about having a 'Christian country' (or any other kind) that tolerates other religions. It is about Christians 'coming out' from the surrounding paganism and living as 'resident aliens' in a non-Christian state (or a state which unfortunately has ignored Jesus' teachings to set up a 'Christian country' and therefore more biblically faithful Christians like the Anabaptists must set that state a better Christian example). It is not a direct teaching that there should be a 'religiously neutral state' – however it does set the example that a plural state with accommodation between different religions and philosophies is a possibility (and surely a desirable one compared to the alternatives).

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quote:

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Originally posted by Steve Langton:
My Bible does include the Old Testament. However, 'there is a clue...' in that very phrase. The Old Testament is indeed 'old' and represents a period of preparation and learning which leads up to the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. In the light of that, the NEW Testament or Covenant both brings in a new way and also provides the framework in which non-resistance/pacifism makes sense as the appropriate conduct of God's people. Unfortunately not everyone gets it....

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quote:

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Originally posted by Steve Langton:
I repeat my earlier point;

quote:

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The fact remains that the Anabaptist view is what the Bible teaches and if taken seriously would lead to Christianity being taken out of the religious violence issue.

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Does anybody out there really believe that would be a bad thing?

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quote:

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Simply repeating the same assertions over and over is not the same thing as making a case. We have New Testament examples of members of the early church dying for their defiance of the church hierarchy (and that this kept the rest of the Church terrorized), the idea that the state is God's earthly representative (or at least appointed by God, so defiance of the state is defiance of the Almighty), and the idea that the Kingdom of Heaven is a totalitarian despotism, with uniform belief among members and non-members consigned to torture in Hell.

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quote:

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And yet the Second Testament contains a lot of fairly positive references to Elijah, to pick one example, who is most noted for killing (or having killed) adherents of rival faiths, supposedly at God's express command. While a series of holy wars and suppression of rival religions may indeed be "preparation and learning" for something, I don't think it's how to get along in a religiously pluralistic society.

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quote:

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I repeat my earlier point;
quote:

The fact remains that the Anabaptist view is what the Bible teaches and if taken seriously would lead to Christianity being taken out of the religious violence issue.

Does anybody out there really believe that would be a bad thing?

Croesos;
Once again, just because you want something to be true or it would be convenient if it were true is not evidence that it is true. Simply re-asserting a point is not an argument.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Steve Langton:
Ananias and Sapphira didn't die for 'defiance of the church hierarchy', nor did those authorities kill them – they died for greed, hypocrisy and self-serving dishonesty when they definitely had better alternatives. Do you think God should have approved of their conduct?

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quote:

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Originally posted by Steve Langton:
Romans 13 – well for starters it should be read in context, which begins back in ch 12. And you might also consider the parallel (and longer) passage in I Peter. This is quite a nuanced statement about how Christians are meant to live in relation to the 'worldly authorities'; In an age when there was a fairly obvious temptation to think that 'God is on our side' meant behaving like the Jewish Zealots or modern Ulster paramilitaries, Romans, Peter and the rest of the NT set forth a different approach where you don't necessarily OBEY whatever ungodly thing a pagan emperor may require, (Acts 5; 29 - “we must obey God rather than men”) but when you must disobey, you still remain 'subject to' the earthly government and therefore you face martyrdom rather than getting out your machine-gun and starting a rebellion.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Steve Langton:
By Croesos;

quote:

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And yet the Second Testament contains a lot of fairly positive references to Elijah, to pick one example, who is most noted for killing (or having killed) adherents of rival faiths, supposedly at God's express command. While a series of holy wars and suppression of rival religions may indeed be "preparation and learning" for something, I don't think it's how to get along in a religiously pluralistic society.

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I'd need quite a bit of space to expound the detail of this. But there is a kind of paradox here that essentially 'New Covenant' living requires the New Covenant; and until that's set forth you can't fully operate it among people who don't know and understand it. The OT prepares the way for the New Covenant – and also foretells that covenant and says a lot about what it will ultimately involve. The New Covenant then becomes the pattern for God's people. One of the contrasts is that the preparation takes place in an ordinary earthly nation (well, OK, not quite so ordinary...) which needs worldly protection for the time being.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Steve Langton:
In the New Covenant things are no longer confined to one nation, and entry into that Covenant is now more clearly revealed as needing a spiritual rebirth; that spiritual change obviously happens at a personal and humanly speaking voluntary level, and not just by being born in the ordinary way in a supposedly 'Christian country'. Such spiritual birth cannot be made to happen by passing laws about it or waging a 'jihad' to enforce conversion.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Callan:
Three, if you count Simon Magus falling to his death when St. Peter made the Sign of the Cross when Simon was demonstrating his Jedi Levitation powers in front of the Emperor Nero.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Steve Langton:
Do you think God should have approved of their conduct?

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quote:

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Originally posted by Steve Langton:
One of these 'experiments' was the Munster group who were indeed technically 'Anabaptists' in the sense that they baptised converts to their group, and therefore in the eyes of the RCC and Protestants 're-baptised' or 'ana-baptised' those who had been baptised as infants in those other churches.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Steve Langton:
Unlike the RCC and most Protestants they learned from the Munster disaster and changed their ways.

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quote:

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Bizarrely (and surely more than a little hypocritically!), the RCC and Protestants continue to criticise Munster for the one aspect where the Munsterites behaved exactly like the RCC and Protestants themselves, while using the fact that the Munsterites were technically 'Anabaptists'

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quote:

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to criticise Anabaptists who have learned from and rejected the Munsterite aberration and do not behave like that.... I hope shipmates will avoid that hypocrisy in future!!!

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I think what shipmates want to criticize is the hypocrisy of saying, "We're so perfect" when it's clear it's not true. It gets old bloody fast. Indeed it's 430 years old already.

[ 02. November 2014, 04:02: Message edited by: mousethief ]
 

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Posted by Steve Langton (# 17601) on :
 
by Mousethief plus my comments;
(This doesn't quite follow the standard UBB; Where it didn't already come out clearly when I 'copied' it, I've added 'MT' to indicate Mousethief's words and 'SL' to indicate my original words. My new comments are all marked as 'SL response')
quote:
Originally posted by Steve Langton:
Do you think God should have approved of their conduct?

MT:
Couldn't he have disapproved without murdering them?
SL response;
That one is for further discussion when Croesos answers that question.... It does depend on how seriously you interpret their conduct; from a Christian viewpoint it's really bad.

quote:
Originally posted by Steve Langton:
One of these 'experiments' was the Munster group who were indeed technically 'Anabaptists' in the sense that they baptised converts to their group, and therefore in the eyes of the RCC and Protestants 're-baptised' or 'ana-baptised' those who had been baptised as infants in those other churches.

MT:Only "technically" anabaptists? Is that a One True Scotsman fallacy I smell?

SL response;
Can we please leave that Scotsman out of it? Reality is that religions develop over time and there is a really serious question to be asked whether any particular development has been a legitimate development or not, whether it truly follows on from the original teaching or whether the development is going in the wrong direction and needs to be ultimately rejected or at least revised. This kind of issue is completely different to the farrago of prejudice in the 'no true Scotsman' thing.

Deliberately considering a non-Christian case to make the point, there is surely a serious question whether the modern movement 'Islamic State' is or is not a legitimate development of the original teaching in the Quran and in the practice of Muhammad himself as Prophet and founder of Islam. That issue, a literal matter of life and death for many people, needs to be discussed properly on its merits and by the evidence, not derailed by glib clever-dick comments about Scotsmen.

(PS here; in the interests of keeping irrelevant Scotsmen from derailing threads generally, could I please have hostly opinion whether I've made a reasonable point here?)

'Anabaptist' was originally a term invented by the RCC/Orthodox/Protestants to describe people who in their eyes 'REbaptised' converts who had previously been baptised into those other (variously state-related) churches. Those who had that 'rebaptism' practice didn't themselves consider it rebaptism at all, of course.

Especially at the time of the Reformation the term 'Anabaptist' was used for many groups who had 'rebaptism' in common, usually of believers but sometimes of the infants of their own members, but might vary widely in other aspects of their beliefs.

The Munster group did 'rebaptise' in the eyes of the RCC etc, and therefore fitted the narrow meaning of the term - that is, as I said, they were 'technically' Anabaptists. They were not the only such 'rebaptising' group around, and like the various Protestants, these groups were still developing their ideas in various places all over Europe rather than being an absolutely rigid group like a modern formal denomination.

Since the Reformation, 'Anabaptist' has been adopted by a combination of traditional groups like the Mennonites, Amish and Hutterites, and also by newer groups sharing their key ideas, to identify the distinctive European tradition (small-T!!) which is significantly different to the English/USA 'Baptist' tradition (though at least where I live, those differences are rapidly eroding and mostly in favour of the Anabaptist version). That is, like 'Methodist' this is a case where a group has eventually adopted what was originally their opponents' derogatory name for them.

quote:
Originally posted by Steve Langton:
Unlike the RCC and most Protestants they learned from the Munster disaster and changed their ways.
MT:
Ah, so they WERE Anabaptists after all.

SL response;
ALL the groups under discussion were 'Anabaptist' in the sense stated above. The Munster group came to grief - deservedly, I guess; other groups had either already arrived at an NT-based pacifist/separation-of-Church-and-State position, or learned from what had happened at Munster and also adopted that position.

MT;
(Retaining, however, their arrogance and pride, I might note.)

SL response;
That is pretty rich coming from any of the RCC/Orthodox/Protestant opponents of the Anabptists - at least Anabaptist arrogance doesn't include burning dissenters at the stake or often, in the case of Anabaptists, ironically drowning them. If we occasionally are proud of having got to that peaceable non-persecuting position way ahead of other churches, well, the temptation to pride that the other churches present to us is massive!

quote:
SL:
Bizarrely (and surely more than a little hypocritically!), the RCC and Protestants continue to criticise Munster for the one aspect where the Munsterites behaved exactly like the RCC and Protestants themselves, while using the fact that the Munsterites were technically 'Anabaptists'.

MT:
This is getting dizzying. Were they truly anabaptists, or only technically anabaptists? Are today's Anabaptists their descendants, or merely nth cousins through a distaff line? You seem to want to distance yourself from these murderers, and yet claim them as your own. Which is it?

SL Response;
Definitely not claim the Munsterites as 'our own'!! No, in having, alongside their rebaptising, the idea of what was in effect an established Church, and certainly well within the wider unbiblical concept of a 'Christian country', the Munsterites were definitely 'YOUR OWN'. . Just that they also did what the other churches called 'rebaptising', and that one common point gets used to criticise other rebaptisers as if they were like the Munster lot in other ways too, when they weren't. The bizarre bit, as I said, is that the Munsterites are criticised for being pretty much like the RCC/Orthodox/established-Protestants. And then what is already for that reason a hypocritical criticism is thrown at groups which, however they got there, are definitely not like the Munsterites/RCC/Orthodox/established-Protestants and to whom that particular criticism does not apply.

quote:
SL;
to criticise Anabaptists who have learned from and rejected the Munsterite aberration and do not behave like that.... I hope shipmates will avoid that hypocrisy in future!!!

MT;
I think what shipmates want to criticize is the hypocrisy of saying, "We're so perfect" when it's clear it's not true. It gets old bloody fast. Indeed it's 430 years old already.

SL response;
If only we were so perfect! But I still think that in terms of truth we are right on this particular issue, and the assorted 'Christian-state-minded' RCC/Orthodox/Protestants wrong on a very big scale which has already caused far too much grief.

Apologies if I have slipped up in transcribing/commenting - it wasn't easy)
 

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Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
No, the Munsterites weren't behaving like the contemporary Protestants and RCs were - they had descended into some kind of anarchic free-for-all where they were busily executing anyone in the city who didn't agree with them, re-introducing polygamy (on the basis that it was found in the OT) and essentially behaving like a bunch of Waco-esque cultists.

The reason there was a brief joint Protestant/RC alliance against them wasn't so much that they were 're-baptising' or 'baptising' people (whichever way round you want to see it) but because they were seen as some kind of threat to the social order. The poison could spread to other cities and all hell would be let loose ...

I don't think anyone here is suggesting that the rest of the Anabaptist movement or the other radical reformation groups were anywhere near as whacky. Menno Simmons and other early Anabaptist leaders were nothing if not peaceable and benign.

If I understand Mousethief correctly he's simply calling for some balance and equity here. For all its good points, the Anabaptist movement can come across as somewhat holier than thou, condemning the sins and short-comings of 'Christendom' and 'state-churches' and so on yadda yadda yadda whilst giving the impression - perhaps inadvertently - that they themselves are somehow beyond reproach.

I know that's not the 'official' Anabaptist line on things - but that's how it can come across. I've cited Richard Baxter before now as an example of a very eirenic Puritan who was hacked off by the kind of 'holier than thou' impression that Anabaptists can sometimes convey.

It's not that everyone is focused on Munster to the exclusion of anything and everything else that other Anabaptists stood for and continue to stand for ... it's simply that the Anabaptist position almost invariably invites and even warrants that kind of response.

'So you think you're so wonderful, eh? What about Munster ...'

It gets pretty boring after a while.

My own take on this is that the Anabaptist thing has a lot going for it and much to teach us - it's radical and highlights issues that we should all take more seriously - peace, justice, brotherly (or sisterly) love ...

An Orthodox priest friend (in real life) once quipped to me that the problem with Anabaptists was that they hadn't yet realised that they should all be 'religious' - that is monks or nuns ...

They've got a monastic calling and haven't realised it yet ...



More seriously, I think the Anabaptists have taken these values out of the cloister and into the community to some extent - but by the same token they have tended to retreat into holy huddles. One can understand this - they were going against the grain and they did suffer persecution.

They are very worthy but they can also be very wearing. They remind me of a prissy maiden aunt that one might respect but who can be a complete pain in the neck whenever she comes round to tea and glares disapprovingly at this, that or the other ...
 

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Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Steve Langton:
Can we please leave that Scotsman out of it?

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quote:

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Definitely not claim the Munsterites as 'our own'!!

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quote:

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That is pretty rich coming from any of the RCC/Orthodox/Protestant opponents of the Anabptists

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quote:

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Originally posted by Steve Langton:
If only we were so perfect! But I still think that in terms of truth we are right on this particular issue, and the assorted 'Christian-state-minded' RCC/Orthodox/Protestants wrong on a very big scale which has already caused far too much grief.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Gamaliel:
.... 'It all went pear-shaped in the 4th century,' is a nice convenient one.
...
There are equivalents in all Christian traditions....

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quote:

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Originally posted by Martin60:
Jesus' God was God the Killer.

To not embrace THAT and our mother the Church that rejects us in all its failure to transcend it in faith as He did, is to deny His humanity and our own.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Steve Langton:
That is pretty rich coming from any of the RCC/Orthodox/Protestant opponents of the Anabptists

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quote:

---

Originally posted by Steve Langton:
If only we were so perfect! But I still think that in terms of truth we are right on this particular issue, and the assorted 'Christian-state-minded' RCC/Orthodox/Protestants wrong on a very big scale which has already caused far too much grief.

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quote:

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Clearly it's not okay to call Anabaptists on Munster but it's okay to call modern Catholics on the Inquisition. And it's not hypocrisy. Fine. What-the-fuck-ever

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I'm not an Anabaptist or a Roman Catholic but it's not exactly rocket science to point out that there is a difference between a highly centralised organisation and a group of people who are primarily united by resemblances in outlook and religious praxis.

To use a secular example, if someone says that "the Communist Party of Great Britain were apologists for Stalinism" then they probably have a point. If they say "the British left were apologists for Stalinism" then they are talking bollocks because it is hardly difficult to think of British left-wingers who were not fans of Uncle Joe.

In the case of the Catholic Church, you have a highly centralised organisation, headed by the Pope and it was a Pope, IIRC, who founded the Inquisition. Indeed, said organisation still exists, albeit under the rubric of the CDF. On the other hand the Anabaptists of Munster were a standalone group who were not accountable to any other Anabaptist groups and said groups had no central Magisterium to which they all should have deferred.

Put it another way. You don't understand yourself, as an Orthodox Christian, to be bound by various pronouncements by the Russian hierarchy on the subjects of banging up Pussy Riot, the wonderfulness of Vladimir Putin and so forth because that's not the way Orthodoxy works. So if you expect us to extend that courtesy to you, you can't decently chuck Munster in the face of Anabaptists as most Anabaptists at the time weren't complicit in Munster, there is no Anabaptist Magisterium which suggests that Munster was a good thing and that Anabaptists have generally deplored Munster.
 

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Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
I think that's a fair point Callan, but I don't think that Steve Langton is extending anywhere near the same kind of courtesy as you are towards groups that don't share the same polity as he does.

I apologise to Steve in advance but his whole take on these issues seems pretty reductionist in the extreme.

As far as Steve is concerned, it seems to me, all other churches are compromised apart from those which have adopted an Anabaptist polity.

I completely agree with you that comparing an 'unaffiliated' group such as the Munsterites with a large, centrally controlled body such as the RCC is like comparing apples and pears - but Steve appears to want to have his cake and eat it.

He's forever banging the same drum here on these boards so I'm not surprised that Mousethief has become fed up with it. I can sympathise with both of them - I've been 'called' a fair few times for nagging away like a dog with a bone over various issues and not letting go even when it's irritating the heck out of other Ship Mates.

For all that though, what we have to appreciate is that Steve Langton isn't going to abandon or even modify his position on Anabaptism any more than Mousethief is going to compromise on his view that the Orthodox Church is the One True Holy Catholic and Orthodox Church ...

Nor should we expect him too.

I'm quite happy to let Steve Langton bang on and on and on about how wonderful the Anabaptist tradition is because - irritating though I find it at times - I will concede that there are aspects of Anabaptism as it is generally practised (abberations like Munster aside) that are worth listening to and observing.

On the whole, Anabaptists have a good track record on peace and social justice. Theirs is a witness we can learn from.

The flip-side, though - and everything has a flip-side - is that they've also had a track record of being other-worldly, somewhat exclusive at times and of being smug and holier-than-thou - which is one of the issues that Richard Baxter the Puritan divine had against them - whilst acknowledging their good points.

I'm not sure what Mousethief is expecting Steve Langton to do though, beyond admitting that Munster was pretty crap - and to be fair to Steve, he seems to acknowledged that already.

As you observe, Callan, saying that Patriarch Kyrill is a bit of a prat at times (a lot of a prat, I'd say) isn't tantamount to saying that everything about Orthodoxy in general or Russian Orthodoxy in particular is piss-poor.

So there's no harm in Steve acknowledging that Munster was gross and that Anabaptists get things wrong from time to time. He seems quite happy to do that.

What he won't do - and it's unfair to expect him to, if indeed such an expectation exists - is abandon his conviction that Anabaptism is THE only way to do things.
 

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Posted by Callan (# 525) on :
 
I take the point that Steve can bore for Ulster on the subject of the superiority of the Anabaptist/ pacifist strain of Christianity.

Still, speaking as a paid minister of a Christian Confession affiliated to the state and who will be keeping Remembrance Sunday in a few days time and who plans to Baptise an infant the week after, Munster is not, really, the conversation stopping 'Gotcha!' that some non-Anabaptists think it is.
 

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Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
Sure, I'd agree with that too, Callan.

Anabaptists must get as bored with non-Anabaptists mithering them about Munster as everyone else does about Anabaptists droning on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on about how terrible Constantine was and how wicked the Inquisition was and how wicked the Stuarts were and how people who aren't baptised as believers aren't properly baptised and how all the other churches in the whole wide world apart from theirs are somehow compromised and how ...


 

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Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on :
 
What ChastMastr, that the Son of Man was right and God is Killer?

May be so. But the Son of Man wasn't killer. And He's the ONLY God we've ever seen.
 

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Posted by Steve Langton (# 17601) on :
 
A quick one because I've just got back slightly knackered from a day out in (ironically perhaps!) Scotland, surrounded by true (!?) Scotsmen. I'll come back tomorrow with my responses to today's posts.

Thanks Michael Snow for the link re Romans 13; I've not had chance to look it up yet but I will.
 

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Posted by HughWillRidmee (# 15614) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by DangerousDeacon:
We have all heard the old canard "religion causes violence" (or even sillier, "all violence is caused by religion"). Now clearly religion and violence have been part of almost all societies, so you could argue a correlation of religion and violence. But correlation is not causation. Perhaps it is violence that causes religion?

By this I mean (I think!) that inherent in violence as an instrument of the state, is a reaction to said violence. Drawing on the inspiration of our spirituality, religious practices and precepts are put into place to limit or tame the violence.

Any thoughts?

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I'm not sure that religion per se is responsible for violence - though I suspect that many religions play a major part, directly or indirectly, in providing an environment in which increased levels of violence occur.

I don't know if the correlation is actually between violence and religion so much as between, on the one hand, the extent of inhibition of physical affection in mother/child bonding and the suppression of youthful sexuality (which is often done in the name of religion) and, on the other, violence.

I conducted cross-cultural studies on 49 primitive cultures distributed throughout the world and was able to predict with 100% accuracy the peaceful and violent nature of these 49 primitive cultures from two predictor variables: a) the degree of physical affectional bonding in the maternal-infant relationship; and b) whether premarital adolescent sex was permitted or punished. There were 29 peaceful and 20 violent cultures in this study sample. There is no other theory or data base that I am aware of that can provide such a prediction of peaceful or violent behaviors and that can relate such findings to specific sensory processes and brain mechanisms of the individual.

Perspectives On Violence: James W Prescott, Ph.D.
 

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Posted by Dark Knight (# 9415) on :
 
Awesome! Positivism! We can actually predict violence now, so next time we see people who didn't get enough cuddles from mummy, perhaps we should just lock them up pre-emptively. After all, we can predict that they will be violent, right?
Out of date social theories based on dubious presuppositions (what would Prescott have found if his criteria was blue eyes or brown eyes as predictors of violence, I wonder?) that lead to truly horrifying conclusions aside, I do generally agree with Gamaliel's assessment of the disagreement between mt and Steve. I do empathise with mt, as Steve's posts seem to dwell on the anachronism that latent in "true" Christianity is the separation of church and state. While I actually happen to agree with the principle of separation as important in modern societies, I'm yet to see anything in his posts that lead me to the conclusion it is a significant part of the NT, for example.
 

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Posted by HughWillRidmee (# 15614) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Dark Knight:
Awesome! Positivism! We can actually predict violence now, so next time we see people who didn't get enough cuddles from mummy, perhaps we should just lock them up pre-emptively. After all, we can predict that they will be violent, right?

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quote:

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Originally posted by HughWillRidmee:

quote:

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Originally posted by Dark Knight:
Awesome! Positivism! We can actually predict violence now, so next time we see people who didn't get enough cuddles from mummy, perhaps we should just lock them up pre-emptively. After all, we can predict that they will be violent, right?

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Yeah - and people who are religious and have access to guns are more likely to shoot people than atheists without guns - therefore you want to lock up all NRA members who go to church?

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We inherit a brain with a range of developmental options - which of those options develop, and to what degree, is down to nurture. Those who grow up deprived of affection and subject to guilt-based control are more likely to become aggressive and anti-social. Those who were abused are more likely than average to become abusers. Sparta produced a fearsome army based on removal of the son from it's family at age seven. Some of the most committed defenders of Berlin were kids who had been indoctrinated through the Hitler Youth from an early age. The Bible belt has higher incidences of divorce, murder, teenage pregnancy and STD infections than the rest of the US.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Martin60:
What ChastMastr, that the Son of Man was right and God is Killer?

May be so. But the Son of Man wasn't killer. And He's the ONLY God we've ever seen.

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But I'll take what I understand to be His word for the nature of God. If killing is in there, then perhaps we don't rightly understand killing.

What do you do with, say, St. Michael wielding his sword in your theology?
 

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Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Callan:
Put it another way. You don't understand yourself, as an Orthodox Christian, to be bound by various pronouncements by the Russian hierarchy on the subjects of banging up Pussy Riot, the wonderfulness of Vladimir Putin and so forth because that's not the way Orthodoxy works. So if you expect us to extend that courtesy to you, you can't decently chuck Munster in the face of Anabaptists as most Anabaptists at the time weren't complicit in Munster, there is no Anabaptist Magisterium which suggests that Munster was a good thing and that Anabaptists have generally deplored Munster.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Dark Knight:
Apart from the fact that such positivistic "research" as you [HighWillRidMe] have cited does not prove anything, and simply establishes correlations (and DD already began this thread with the correlation between religion and violence that is often brought up, so I don't see that we need another one), I think attempting to predict behaviour in this way is quite dangerous, precisely because I don't want to see people locked up based on dubious correlations. I would have though that was obvious.

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quote:

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“You seem to have missed my point, which is that Steve Langton was dissociating himself from the Munsterites, but not allowing anybody else to dissociate themselves from their churches' past. I'm not arguing for my right to throw Munster in Anabapists' faces. I'm arguing against the kind of Anabaptist hypocrisy that says "we are pure while you are soiled by your past." 

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quote:

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Originally posted by Steve Langton:
Second; I'm not only concerned with the past but the present. As I analyse it, what allows things like the Crusades/Inquisitions/Wars-of-Religion/etc., is a particular view of relationships between the Church and the World, which still exists in various ways in far too many churches to this day. For 'shorthand' I refer to this as 'establishment' or 'the Christian country idea' but it is a wide range all basically including the idea that Christianity should in some way be specially influential or privileged in the state. . . . Pope Francis has impressed Anabaptists as very nearly a 'Mennonite Pope' – but I know he's also faced doubts because continued 'Catholic country' thinking made for some very dodgy relationships in his native land between the RCC and appalling military juntas.

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quote:

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Originally posted by mousethief:

quote:

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Originally posted by Callan:
[qb]Put it another way. You don't understand yourself, as an Orthodox Christian, to be bound by various pronouncements by the Russian hierarchy on the subjects of banging up Pussy Riot, the wonderfulness of Vladimir Putin and so forth because that's not the way Orthodoxy works. So if you expect us to extend that courtesy to you, you can't decently chuck Munster in the face of Anabaptists as most Anabaptists at the time weren't complicit in Munster, there is no Anabaptist Magisterium which suggests that Munster was a good thing and that Anabaptists have generally deplored Munster.

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You seem to have missed my point, which is that Steve Langton was dissociating himself from the Munsterites, but not allowing anybody else to dissociate themselves from their churches' past. I'm not arguing for my right to throw Munster in Anabapists' faces. I'm arguing against the kind of Anabaptist hypocrisy that says "we are pure while you are soiled by your past."

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quote:

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Originally posted by Dark Knight:
What you have suggested here is the old nature versus nurture chestnut, which you then attempt to support via further correlations. I'm not going to bother showing you why that doesn't actually establish anything. What I am going to say is that I do not accept the kind of determinism that this kind of thinking inevitably leads to.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Steve Langton:
It seems to me that if churches make that claim to 'Tradition' they shouldn't be allowed to easily dissociate themselves from the inconvenient things they've done – they can't have that both ways either.

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This whole business is right up-to-date and not just about things centuries ago. I'm delighted to be told that Orthodox like yourself and Anglicans like Gamaliel don't hold with it – but I'm having a little trouble wondering why you keep going on at me, with whom you agree on this, and don't seem to be having a go at the hierarchies in your own churches who don't seem to have caught up with you yet....

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And please, I'm not saying that we Anabaptists are perfect – just that we're probably right on this particular thing. I take the imperfection on our side for granted, I just therefore don't feel the need to keep going on about it.

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quote:

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This 'Christian country' business and its equivalent elsewhere, for example in 'Islamic State' is getting people killed – why shouldn't I say something about it?

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quote:

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Originally posted by HughWillRidmee:

quote:

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Originally posted by Dark Knight:
What you have suggested here is the old nature versus nurture chestnut, which you then attempt to support via further correlations. I'm not going to bother showing you why that doesn't actually establish anything. What I am going to say is that I do not accept the kind of determinism that this kind of thinking inevitably leads to.

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No - it's not nature versus nature - it's the interplay of both - sometimes contradictory and sometimes complementary - and, I suspect, always too complex to be individually predictable - probably for ever.
The marketing industry is highly successful - largely because it is highly effective - not necessarily at the level of the individual, but at the group/tribe level. This is based on the scientific method and is frighteningly effective - to the degree that when we see an advertisement that we consider ineffective it is extremely likely that we're looking at an advertisement that isn't targeted at us.

Like you I find the concept of determinism distasteful, but until the evidence is clear I'll keep an open mind. There is a growing body of experimental evidence which strongly suggests that what we usually mean by "free will" is a myth; that our decisions are made at the subconscious level based on our individual mix of the totality of our nature and our nurture (determinism). Should the inevitability of our reactions be conclusively demonstrated it would have massive implications for society. No doubt there would also be those who make a nice living out of cheerleading denial of the evidence - as with evolution and global warming.

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quote:

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quote:
Originally posted by Steve Langton:
It seems to me that if churches make that claim to 'Tradition' they shouldn't be allowed to easily dissociate themselves from the inconvenient things they've done – they can't have that both ways either.

Mousethief;
Why not? Why can't we say, "We are proud of these things, and ashamed of those things"? And who are you to tell us otherwise? And can you not see your argument's smugness here? "We don't have a past, so we're untainted. Ahahahahaha! Ahahahahaha! Sucks to be you!"

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quote:

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quote:
SL:
And please, I'm not saying that we Anabaptists are perfect – just that we're probably right on this particular thing. I take the imperfection on our side for granted, I just therefore don't feel the need to keep going on about it.

MT:
Then why do you keep going on about it? In the very next sentence you say

quote:
SL:
This 'Christian country' business and its equivalent elsewhere, for example in 'Islamic State' is getting people killed – why shouldn't I say something about it?

SL:
Which is it? Are you going to go on and on about it, or not? I know which I'd prefer.

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quote:

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You appear to be saying Anabaptism is an inherently non-violent strain. I say it is because they, as a movement, do not have access to power as has RCC, COE, etc.
The Munsterites, ISTM, are not the exception you purport them to be. They are a point of data for the hypothesis that it is power, not philosophy, that is the wellspring of violence. And that given power, all philosophies will fail the test.
A reason that Anabaptist sects do not precipitate violence is because of the Munsterites, not despite them.

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quote:

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It's not that Anabaptists don't have a past, or that we're not very concerned/ashamed/etc when things have gone wrong - we're just related to that past in a different way. Specifically, the Anabaptists I belong to are not institutionally directly related to the Munsterites in the way modern Orthodoxy, through that doctrine of 'Tradition', is directly related to the Crusades.

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quote:

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That's just wrong. The Orthodox Church had severed its relationship with the Catholic Church when the the First Crusade was proclaimed by Pope Urban and, as I am sure Mousethief is gagging to tell you, the Fourth Crusade led to the sack of Constantinople by avaricious Venetians. Orthodox Christianity is as about as related to the Crusades as the British Government is related to the German invasion of Poland.

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quote:

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Even though you win hands down Callan, you can't win.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Steve Langton:
by Callan;

quote:

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That's just wrong. The Orthodox Church had severed its relationship with the Catholic Church when the the First Crusade was proclaimed by Pope Urban and, as I am sure Mousethief is gagging to tell you, the Fourth Crusade led to the sack of Constantinople by avaricious Venetians. Orthodox Christianity is as about as related to the Crusades as the British Government is related to the German invasion of Poland.

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Ooops! Yes, I think you're right there. My apologies. But I was under the impression that the Orthodox did in fact seek support from the West against Muslims, even if what happened was far from ideal? And that the Orthodox in many parts of their own territory fought in their own right against Muslims in holy wars which were Crusade-like and the bad consequences of which have echoed down to the present in areas like the former Yugoslavia? Orthodoxy was not different from the RCs in principle in that area.

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quote:

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And I don't think it's just my impression that the Orthodox have run an awful lot of State Churches which have done lots of questionable things. My basic argument above about the role of 'Tradition' in that, and the implications when modern Orthodoxy wants to disclaim its past, still stands, I think.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Steve Langton:
Of course you can say you're proud of one thing and ashamed of another. But if you operate with (capital-T) 'Tradition', some of the things you end up ashamed of have actually been done on the basis of that claim to 'Traditional' authority; your church is institutionally related to them in a way that would not apply if you were operating on the simpler basis of (small-t) tradition under constant review by God's word.

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quote:

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The irony being, of course, that if your forebears had listened to the Bible instead of priding yourselves on the Tradition, they'd have done a great deal fewer things that present Orthodox need to be ashamed of....

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quote:

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On the other hand, where I feel I'm simply factually right about something, and therefore have something true and useful to say against bad ideas which often result in ungodly mayhem, surely it would be irresponsible for me to keep quiet?????

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quote:

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Originally posted by Steve Langton:
But I was under the impression that the Orthodox did in fact seek support from the West against Muslims, even if what happened was far from ideal? And that the Orthodox in many parts of their own territory fought in their own right against Muslims in holy wars which were Crusade-like and the bad consequences of which have echoed down to the present in areas like the former Yugoslavia?

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The Orthodox fought for their own EXISTENCE against the Muslims. How evil of them. You twist the record.

If you stop playing "Slag off the RCC, Protestants, and Orthodox" -- and stop distorting the record to make us look bad -- I can stop playing "point out the hypocrisy" -- or as you incorrectly refer to it, "slag off the Anabaptists."
 

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Posted by ChastMastr (# 716) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Martin60:
It would seem that those who concocted the ancient texts and nearly all of us who are influenced by them have separation anxiety issues and hard regime potty training.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Dark Knight:
(1) That marketing is only effective until you are aware what they are trying to do. Hence the importance of critical thinking.
(2) I am a bit tired of having this conversation on these threads, but the idea that you can "prove" or "disprove" a phenomenon as unmeasurable and central to being human as free will is wrongheaded. We are not very simple robots, waiting for The Singularity to perfect us into Cybermen. But I digress. If you can come up with a definition of free will that is somehow measurable using the kind of methods you appear to be lauding, I will be more than happy to critique the living shit out of it. Until then, people are investigating something we haven't actually defined, and so basically trying to measure something without figuring out what it is. Which is insane.

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quote:

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Originally posted by HughWillRidmee:

quote:

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Originally posted by Dark Knight:
(1) That marketing is only effective until you are aware what they are trying to do. Hence the importance of critical thinking.
(2) I am a bit tired of having this conversation on these threads, but the idea that you can "prove" or "disprove" a phenomenon as unmeasurable and central to being human as free will is wrongheaded. We are not very simple robots, waiting for The Singularity to perfect us into Cybermen. But I digress. If you can come up with a definition of free will that is somehow measurable using the kind of methods you appear to be lauding, I will be more than happy to critique the living shit out of it. Until then, people are investigating something we haven't actually defined, and so basically trying to measure something without figuring out what it is. Which is insane.

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(1) - Unfortunately not true - if marketing is truly effective it taps into our desires - and those don't change simply because we know we're being marketed to.

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quote:

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(2) We are undoubtedly not simple robots - it may be, though, that we are extremely complex, and rather unreliable, machines capable of carrying out a complex series of actions automatically (robots).

You can find definitions and research details in such as Incognito and Free Will . Your critiques will be interesting I'm sure.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Martin60:
I don't believe that you believe that the Bible is a flat cook book. That it was OK to burn witches and stone children and now it isn't.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Martin60:
ChastMastr believes in God the Killer based on a selective literalist, inerrantist hermeneutic. Like the one the gives us sacraments.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Dark Knight:
You have quite spectacularly missed the point again. You are suggesting that advertising effectively abrogates our free will by tapping into our subconscious desires. If we are aware of what an advertisement is trying to do in targeting those ideas, they are no longer subconscious. The fact that we may still want the stuff that is being flogged to us is therefore not deterministic, but precisely an activity of our free will.

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quote:

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Do you really expect me to purchase books in order to find out what you mean when you say free will? Because that is not going to happen. How about you give me yours?

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quote:

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And I'm hardly likely to read a book by Sam Harris, who had his arguments flattened on Bill Maher's show by the towering intellect that is Ben Affleck (yes, the actor). I came away from that thinking the guy was a moron. If you can give me evidence I should think otherwise, I'm happy to consider it.

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quote:

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Originally posted by HughWillRidmee:

quote:

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Originally posted by Dark Knight:
You have quite spectacularly missed the point again. You are suggesting that advertising effectively abrogates our free will by tapping into our subconscious desires. If we are aware of what an advertisement is trying to do in targeting those ideas, they are no longer subconscious. The fact that we may still want the stuff that is being flogged to us is therefore not deterministic, but precisely an activity of our free will.

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If we have no free will advertising can't abrogate it, can it?

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quote:

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If our desires are based on the subconscious balances of our genetic inheritance and our lifetime experience the only way that those desires are normally going to vary is through additional life experience - the gathering of which is the function of our conscious mind. Sometimes the further input(s) may cause a rebalancing that changes our position - but the change occurs in our subconscious and is not an act that is arbitrarily chosen and independent of automatic processes (i.e. free will), merely an inevitable consequence of additional data.

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quote:

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quote:

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Do you really expect me to purchase books in order to find out what you mean when you say free will? Because that is not going to happen. How about you give me yours?

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Libraries?

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quote:

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quote:

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And I'm hardly likely to read a book by Sam Harris, who had his arguments flattened on Bill Maher's show by the towering intellect that is Ben Affleck (yes, the actor). I came away from that thinking the guy was a moron. If you can give me evidence I should think otherwise, I'm happy to consider it.

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Where to start

I don’t get the show so don’t know if I’d agree with your analysis – can you provide a link?

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quote:

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I may be misreading your meaning but you seem to think that being an actor precludes towering intellect? I note that you give your Occupation as “Ivory Tower Academic”. I’ve known enough clever people to understand that academic ability is not always an indicator of ability outside a specialism. (start with Linus Pauling – whom I did not know). My ex, whilst at teacher training college, opined that "those who can - do, those that can't - teach, and those that can't teach - teach teachers". In truth human beings tend to over-value (often in competition with other peoples) that at which they believe they excel, and downplay others’ achievements. Hence top sportsmen may think themselves generally superior to non-sportsmen, those who inherit great wealth may regard that as a sign that they are favoured because they are in some way better people than those less fortunate and some women with multiple grandchildren may feel smug when in the presence of the childless. (As an aside - a removal contractor customer of mine many years ago told me {generalisation alert} that the dirtiest houses were those who's occupants were vicars or teachers).

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quote:

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I've offered you the evidence you ask for –

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quote:

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read his book and check out the dozens of references to published experiments. “Sam Harris combines neuroscience and psychology to lay this illusion* to rest at last”{*free will}.

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For academic relevance your “moron” (Dr Harris) received a degree in philosophy from Stanford University and a PhD in neuroscience from UCLA. My copy of Free Will comes with recommendations from Jerry A Coyne; Professor of Ecology and Evolution @ University of Chicago, Paul Bloom; Professor of Psychology @ Yale University, and V S Ramachandran; Director of the Center for Brain and Cognition @ UCSD. There is no recommendation from Dr K E Hovind who obtained his masters degree and doctorate in Christian Education from Patriot University.

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quote:

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additionally - “David Eagleman PhD is a neuroscientist at the Baylor College of Medicine, where he directs the Laboratory for Perception and Action....”. He was a Guggenheim Fellow in 2011 (neuroscience) and was awarded the Science Educator Award by the Society for Neuroscience.” His scientific research is published in Journals from Science to Nature.”

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quote:

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Originally posted by Dark Knight:
Assuming a proposition you have completely failed to demonstrate. We're off to a good start ...

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quote:

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We can assess our desires and act upon them, fulfilling them, rejecting them or delaying fulfilment of them, because we have free will.

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I saw it online, where you will find it. Because the Internet.

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the whole of this rambling snark is a massive generalisation about my profession

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And my assessment of Ben Affleck is based on the film Good Will Hunting, which he co-wrote. It's an abomination.

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That's super, but this is firstly a metaphysical issue. If Harris as assiduously avoids defining free will as you have, I really don't see the point. .......................... As I've said, it is a metaphysical question, not a scientific one, so someone who specialises in scientific research may not be that helpful, no matter how impressive their publications might be.

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quote:

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Originally posted by HughWillRidmee:

quote:

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Originally posted by Dark Knight:
Assuming a proposition you have completely failed to demonstrate. We're off to a good start ...

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If, as I said, I’d be right though, wouldn’t I?

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quote:

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quote:

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We can assess our desires and act upon them, fulfilling them, rejecting them or delaying fulfilment of them, because we have free will.

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I think you’ll find that the experimental evidence disagrees with your opinion. You do seem to be getting close to closing the circle don't you?

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quote:

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quote:

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I saw it online, where you will find it. Because the Internet.

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There’s a massive amount of Bill Maher on the internet.

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quote:

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quote:

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the whole of this rambling snark is a massive generalisation about my profession

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a) It’s a generalisation about people – not just academics, b) I give the grounds for my statements and admit that I generalise – my father was a vicar, my sisters and my ex. were teachers. c) If the cap fits....

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quote:

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quote:

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And my assessment of Ben Affleck is based on the film Good Will Hunting, which he co-wrote. It's an abomination.

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You’re entitled to your opinion

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quote:

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– I don’t think I saw the film. However it was critically acclaimed universally, was nominated for nine Oscars (Best Picture included) and received two, one being for Best Original Screenplay. It cost $10m to make and grossed more than $225m in theatres alone. A lot of people in Hollywood would give their right arm for such an abomination.

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quote:

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That's super, but this is firstly a metaphysical issue. If Harris as assiduously avoids defining free will as you have, I really don't see the point. .......................... As I've said, it is a metaphysical question, not a scientific one, so someone who specialises in scientific research may not be that helpful, no matter how impressive their publications might be.

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Just because you want to argue metaphysically doesn't mean the question is not scientific. Perhaps if you read the science you’d be able to dismiss it from knowledge?

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quote:

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Originally posted by DangerousDeacon:
given that the State operates, in extremis with violence, does that mean that we Christians are implicitly involved in violence, and does that reflect on our religion or faith?

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quote:

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Originally posted by DangerousDeacon:
given that the State operates, in extremis with violence, does that mean that we Christians are implicitly involved in violence, and does that reflect on our religion or faith?

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quote:

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But the sort of religious people who see that as a big issue (the secular world failing to live up to the standards of the Christian faith) whilst declining to engage with the issue of religious differences as an aggravating factor in violence between communities (religion failing to live up to the standards of the secular world) bring to mind that other great Christian saying involving a plank...

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Everybody knows that when the soldiers came to Jesus asking him, "What should we do?" He told them to quit the military immediately lest they be a party to violence.

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It might be very useful for you to have this single cause narrative of everything going pear-shaped in the 4th century but real life isn't as simple as that.

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Most violence is a matter of power, politics and economics - and always was. And religion was once a much more totally integrated part of our complicated, violent societies.

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Originally posted by Steve Langton:
Gamaliel, I'm well aware that MT is American and even that be believes in the state church idea much less than many in the 'Religious Right' over there. That's why I'm having some trouble with his constant objecting to what I say about it myself!

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quote:

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Of course it's 'not that simple' - this is sinful humans we're talking about. And I'll 'get over it' when the assorted state church people stop disobeying Jesus over the issue and generally fudging it.

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Will you get over it when that happens and non-state church people still disobey your interpretation of Jesus? Or will you keep railing on about how they are state churches? Because that's where we are in the United States.

[ 10. November 2014, 00:54: Message edited by: Palimpsest ]
 

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Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on :
 
Greater things shall we do.

And they didn't come to ask Him.

[ 10. November 2014, 07:16: Message edited by: Martin60 ]
 

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Posted by DangerousDeacon (# 10582) on :
 
There is always going to be a mythologising of the past - at its worse, "All early Christians were pacifist", through to "The Crusades were all God's fault". My thinking is that the truth is far more nuanced than that - for example, the British Empire was founded with a fair dose of religion (along with trade, etc) and therefore some religious figures were involved in state sanctioned violence (e.g. Samuel Marsden, the "flogging parson", who was a magistrate in the early history of New South Wales). If Church and State are not separate, then a religious state is easily seen as violent with religion inspiring violence.

Yet members of the same church - indeed, even Samuel Marsden himself - worked for peace in the South Pacific. Marsden has a very different reputation in New Zealand cf. New South Wales. I think in particular of the early missionaries in Melanesia who saw it as their role to prevent warfare, protect indigenous people (both converts and non-converts) from British gunships, and in later times with the same religious inspiration literally stood in the middle of no-man's land between the warring parties in a civil war.

Perhaps religion as a human institution (albeit with divine inspiration) shares in the foibles of humans - but in that case, it seems unfair to blame religion for violence, but on the other hand seems incumbent on believers to try and sort out some principled way of dealing with violence.
 

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Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on :
 
He told them anyway of course.
 

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Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
What Palimpsest said.

Mousethief seems to have replied to this point too - only he's done it on a different thread.

I will do him the favour - perhaps - of quoting him here.

In response to your riposte to me about being well-aware that MT is an American and that because of this you are puzzled as to why myself - and others - challenge you on what we take to be your single-track approach to these issues, MT posted:

'That could be because there is more than one possible way to relate to a non-church-state as a Christian, and you're assuming there is only yours.'

Which hits the nail on the head.

I'm sorry, but you seem to have this one-size-fits all approach which singles out one particular aspect from Church history and isolates it as the cause of all subsequent ills - as if it's some kind of Post-Fall Fall ...

I don't know how many times one or other of us here has to point out that nobody here is championing the Crusades or the Inquisition or condoning religious violence in any way, shape or form - all we get is the same reaction ...

Which is, 'La la la la ... I'm not listening ... you are all from nasty State Churches and even if you aren't you are acting like you are and everything went wrong under Constantine and only the Anabaptists can put it right and some of you aren't even properly baptised as believers and ... and ... and ...'

Then you wonder why we either nod off or lose patience with you.

Because your apparently simplistic, one-size-fits-all view of the world doesn't address the complexity of things as they actually are.

All the various 'State' or 'Established' churches from Europe have had to develop a different modus operandi in the USA. That's obvious. They've all dealt with these issues in different ways within a political context where there is constitutional separation between church and state.

Some of them - particularly those of a more theocratic bent from within the Puritan tradition - want to establish some kind of closer link in some wierd and wonderful way best known to themselves.

Others, like Mousethief, who belongs to an historic Church which has enjoyed (or endured) close relationships with the State in some of its Eastern European heartlands - take a different view.

Just because MT is Orthodox it doesn't imply that he will be on the same page as some kind of rampant, Holy Russia Putin enthusiast ...

Any more than the fact that Palimpsest is American it means that he's going to sign up for the kind of worldview espoused by Westboro Baptist or Joel Osteen or whoever else we might mention ... be they bonkers or benign.
 

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Posted by Steve Langton (# 17601) on :
 
by Palimpsest;

quote:

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While you may be fascinated by problems of established churches or some other religious practice such as adult baptism, it's really not relevant in many places despite how many times you try to derail the conversation into that discussion.

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quote:

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A) One of the major reasons why 'religion and violence' are associated is that so often 'religions' make the claim that they ought to be running the state and/or privileged above others in the state. This is of course pretty much a recipe for all kinds of violence, discrimination, etc., which you shouldn't need me to spell out in detail.

B) Rather too many Christians who have made such 'religious state' claims on behalf of Christianity need to go back to their New Testaments and ask whether in fact Jesus and his original Apostles taught that Christianity should be done in the religious state way, or whether they taught a different way for Christians to be related to the surrounding 'World'. (OK, in my opinion, but I think the evidence is also broadly with my opinion in this case)

C) Having realised (I hope...) that Jesus did teach a different, better and more peaceable way, those Christians need to repent of their past disobedience to Jesus and follow his teachings better in future. Not exactly 'Simples!', but it would improve things if that happened.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Steve Langton:
I've now more than once been told “Mousethief is an American; he believes in separation of church and state”. And I'm finding myself asking what has Mousethief's nationality got to do with it?

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quote:

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Originally posted by Martin60:
It's all right mousethief. It's a common mistake. Made it myself in my time I'm sure. Nothing to be ashamed of, being wrong.

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Nor is being condescending.
 

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Posted by Eliab (# 9153) on :
 
We've go a whole board where you can call other people condescending. You know where it is.

Some people's patience appears to be growing thin on this thread. If you recognise yourself in that description, please take a step back, and post only when you can address your comments to the discussion topic rather than the failings of others.

Eliab
Purgatory Host
 

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Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
There are several reasons why you've been told more than once that Mousethief is an American, Steve Langton.

Do I need to spell them out?

Firstly, America is a country where the separation of church and state is enshrined in the Constitution. So there's the first clue ...

That's what Mousethief's nationality has to do with it.

Mousethief is, among other things, a husband and father, a human being, a citizen of the USA, a a Christian, a member of the Orthodox Church, an employee of ... (wherever he works or does for a living) ...

His nationality is only of relevance insofar as it has a bearing on the separation of church and state. As an American, it does has a bearing on him because that's the system where he happens to live.

If he lived in Greece or Russia or Azerbaijan or wherever else things might be different.

We all live in a particular context.

As for Mousethief having different views on aspects of church/state relations to some of his fellow Orthodox - why shouldn't he?

There's nothing within Orthodoxy which states that all Orthodox believers should be on the same page when it comes to questions of the relationship between the church and state.

I've seen articles in which Orthodox argue that close church/state relations are a logical corollary of the Incarnation.

I know other Orthodox who would say that this was a daft argument.

The way they resolve those issues is the same as the way in which anyone else would attempt to resolve disagreements - by discussion and debate.

If anything, you are the one who is closing down discussion and debate by saying 'The Bible says ...' End Of.

We could close down any discussion or argument we wanted by saying, 'The Bible says ... and that's the end of it.'

You may rail all you like about this Tradition with a Capital T business but as sure as eggs are eggs you, me and everyone else here has a tradition of one form or other - be it a small t tradition or a Capital T tradition.

In most traditions and Traditions there is room and scope for disagreement and debate.

You don't appear to believe that there is. For you it's as simple as 'The Bible says ... so that's it.'

I repeat what I have said a million times ...

I am not advocating some kind of theocracy or religious state simply because I happen to attend an Anglican parish church.

Mousethief is not advocating some kind of theocracy or religious state because he is an Orthodox Christian. He can quite easily be an Orthodox Christian and disavow Serbian or Russian nationalism - if you ever go onto an Orthodox discussion board you'll see the Orthodox debating and discussing their various nationalist issues quite robustly.

Nobody here is arguing for religious violence.

No-one. Not a single person.

The problem is, you don't believe us.

I'm wondering whether that's your problem or ours.
 

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Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
Meanwhile, on the Constantine thing ... I came across a Catholic the other day who argued that one of the reasons Constantine moved the capital from Rome to Constantinople was to avoid the Church getting caught up in all the bureaucracy and politics ...

Yes, I was surprised to hear that too ...



But is it any more caricatured and one-dimensional a view that suggests that he was some kind of fire-breathing monster who went around eating babies for breakfast and who completely wrecked what had been all pristine, pure and lovely up until that point?

It strikes me there are exaggerations on all sides and what's needed is a balanced view not a sloganeering easy-answers one.
 

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Posted by Steve Langton (# 17601) on :
 
This thread is about religion and violence. I am not accusing anybody of believing in that. I am rather trying to defend Christianity against sundry non-Christians who seem to think that violence is taught by Christianity from square one rather than being a late import related to the 'Christian country' idea which goes back to the 4th Century CE and a line of events starting with a well-meaning but misguided Constantine and proceeding via Theodosius who finally made Christianity the compulsory state religion rather than merely tolerated and favoured.

Even after the Roman Empire pretty much collapsed this was perpetuated by the RC and Orthodox churches in the successor states, and then by many Protestants who set up varying degrees of 'Christian country' ranging from the Anglican and Lutheran national churches (which technically are more extreme than the RC version, BTW) to such groups as Ian Paisley's and the USA 'Religious Right'. This is still very much a live issue (and still a potentially lethal one in Ulster and other countries.

The world also currently faces at least one major problem of another religion, Islam, whose breaches of the peace seem clearly to be related to their version of the religious state idea; and a similar factor can be seen in several other religions. Even Buddhism can get well violent when you have declared or try to set up a 'Buddhist state'.

I am on this thread to discuss the issues of religion and violence. And in particular that
there is, in original Christianity, a better way of doing things. I am trying really hard to get out from under two people in particular who seem to want to believe I'm personally attacking them, and get the issues discussed.

I refer back to the challenge I've now repeated in more than one post, which both makes a general point about religion and violence and asks Christians to define their position on the Christian side of that point - why don't you want to discuss it?
 

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Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
Ok - It's not true that two people on this thread are construing your remarks as some kind of personal attack.

Some of us are getting a little tired of the same old half-truths and highly partial 'takes' on things that you are using to back up your case.

If you want to take issue with the idea that particular non-Christians might have that Christianity supports religious violence then take it up with them - not with people here who aren't advocating any form of religious violence whatsoever.

I can't speak for Mousethief but it's not a question of not wanting to discuss these issues - it's simply that some of us are fed up with the constant banging on and on and on about Constantine and about this, that or the other evil thing that the RCs, the Orthodox, Ian Paisley and every man and his dog about from the squeaky clean Anabaptists have done.

I'm more than happy to discuss these things if I thought we'd have a sensible debate.

We're not.

All we're getting is, 'The Bible says so because I say it does and State Churches are a bad example and encourage parallel movements such as radical Islam and also implicitly encourage the view points of extremist like Ian Paisley and ... and ... and .. and ... and Constantine was wrong and so are the RCs, the Orthodox, the Anglicans and everyone else in the whole wide world apart from me.'
 

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Posted by Palimpsest (# 16772) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Steve Langton:
This thread is about religion and violence. I am not accusing anybody of believing in that. I am rather trying to defend Christianity against sundry non-Christians who seem to think that violence is taught by Christianity from square one rather than being a late import related to the 'Christian country' idea which goes back to the 4th Century CE and a line of events starting with a well-meaning but misguided Constantine and proceeding via Theodosius who finally made Christianity the compulsory state religion rather than merely tolerated and favoured.

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quote:

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The problem is, you don't believe us.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Steve Langton:
I am rather trying to defend Christianity against sundry non-Christians who seem to think that violence is taught by Christianity from square one rather than being a late import related to the 'Christian country' idea which goes back to the 4th Century CE and a line of events starting with a well-meaning but misguided Constantine...

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quote:

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Originally posted by Palimpsest:
Once again I ask for your statement of dates of the period when a majority of people who called themselves Christians were following your original Christianity and not committing acts which you hand wave away by defining the violent as "people who thought they were Christians".


Every time I point out the holes in your excuses you suddenly develop pressing other obligations that require you to leave promising future explanations and pop up later having forgotten to do so.
So if you are claiming that "square one" was fabulous give the dates of that square.

My view is that it seems to go wrong at least as early as the point that the Gentiles were converted as shown in the incident at Antioch.
Are you still trying to feebly make excuses for the libel against the Jews in the Gospel according to St John? The evidence we have is not that it was all wonderful and then... Constantine, but of a growing anti-Semitism starting from when the Gentiles entered the Church that continued to get worse.

So, Steve, What are the dates of this original Christianity.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Steve Langton:
I am rather trying to defend Christianity against sundry non-Christians who seem to think that violence is taught by Christianity from square one ...

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quote:

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Originally posted by Steve Langton:
MT, the dates of 'original' Christianity are essentially from Pentecost to c.311CE after which the state entanglement did change things. I would point out that I'm not asserting a 'golden age' as Palimpsest keeps implying, just that the NT teaches one thing about church-and-state which is a radical departure from other religions and that the changes after 311 obscured that teaching and led to particular problems. 'Original' refers more to the idea that it is the original NT teaching rather than about detailed dates.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Steve Langton:
Russ; I also "Don't think anyone's arguing that Christianity is uniquely violent". More that some people are trying to argue that Christianity is 'violent from the beginning like all the others', which I believe is a position in conflict with the evidence of the NT.

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Translation: Our movement's official propaganda documents paint us in a much better light than you're implying!
 

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Posted by DangerousDeacon (# 10582) on :
 
I would have thought the canonical New Testament is ambiguous on the issue of church and state - not surprising, given that people of that time did not think in those terms. There is no explicit exclusion of believers from positions in the state - the closest we come to that is Matthew giving up being a tax collector, but that was sinful not because of its connections with the state, but because of the theft involved.

Jesus makes it clear that his Kingdom is not the same as the Empire - Jesus obviously transcends worldly kingdoms. But what does he tell soldiers? Be content with your pay. He does not ask them to give up their profession, just be honest in it. So I am not sure that the New Testament lends itself unambiguously to a pacifist, Church removed from state interpretation.
 

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Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on :
 
I think if you look at Jesus' teachings as a whole instead of picking pieces, you will find he doesn't really support violence as a means.
That is the justification for violence that goes to the heart of the real problem.
Religion is not the ultimate source or cause of violence. But neither does religion seem to be very effective at avoiding it. And that is a problem.
 

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Posted by Steve Langton (# 17601) on :
 
by Croesos;

quote:

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You're projecting Enlightenment-era ideas where they don't exist.

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quote:

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Our movement's official propaganda documents paint us in a much better light than you're implying!

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quote:

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I would have thought the canonical New Testament is ambiguous on the issue of church and state - not surprising, given that people of that time did not think in those terms.

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quote:

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But neither does religion seem to be very effective at avoiding it. And that is a problem.

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quote:

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What I do take issue with is this idea you're presenting that somehow there was some almighty 'Constantinian' take-over of some kind of pristine Church which involved trying to cover its tracks by obscuring and hiding the NT.

To read your posts one might get the impression that the post-Constantinian authorities went around impounding or burning all the copies of the NT it could get its nasty, evil hands on ...

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quote:

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But no-one here is claiming that religions should be running the state. I'm not. Mousethief isn't. Nor is anyone else from what I can see. Take this up with those who do believe such things.

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quote:

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the NT doesn't contain any prescriptive detail on how to run political states.

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quote:

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What Christians are you talking about? Which of us here are failing to live in a 'different, better and more peaceable way'? How do you know that they are? How can you tell? We all of us fall short of the mark. Pointing the finger at putative Christians somewhere in the ether and suggesting that they repent of their 'past disobedience to Jesus' isn't going to get us very far.

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quote:

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Who are these people who have a 'past disobedience' to Jesus? Is a contemporary RC 'disobedient to Jesus' because of the actions of the Inquisition 300 or 400 years before they were born?

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quote:

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It's not 'simples' as you say - it's sloppy. It's difficult to engage and address these issues because they beg all sorts of questions which you apparently haven't taken into account.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Steve Langton:
And Paul's statement that "Our warfare is not with physical weapons"

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quote:

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developed Anabaptist thought currently says that if we aren't supposed to fight for our faith, what other cause could justify it?

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quote:

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Originally posted by Steve Langton:
Gamaliel;

quote:

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But no-one here is claiming that religions should be running the state. I'm not. Mousethief isn't. Nor is anyone else from what I can see. Take this up with those who do believe such things.

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First off, if by 'no one here' you mean on the Ship, I've certainly had encounters with people willing to argue for a state church in which they clearly believed themselves.

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quote:

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And some of Ad Orientem's comments in the thread on Russian anti-gay legislation at least sound as if he's in favour of some form of Christian country... Gamaliel and Mousethief may not hold that belief - but some on the Ship do.

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quote:

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Secondly; outside the Ship this is a very live issue in all kinds of ways, and therefore it should be discussed on the Ship - especially in a thread on 'religion and violence' where it is directly relevant. We clearly have some different views about it - surely the better we can understand these matters and each others' views, the better we will be able to help the outside Church and world with the problems this stuff poses. Shouldn't we therefore be discussing it?

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quote:

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What [the NT] does contain is instructions on how to run churches - or more accurately, THE CHURCH, God's holy nation on earth.

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quote:

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The 'Protestants' in NI aren't 'putative' or in the ether, nor are the rocks they throw. The 'Religious Right' of the USA aren't 'putative', nor are the nationalistic Eastern Orthodox who Mousethief disapproves of even though they are nominally of the same 'communion' or whatever.

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quote:

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I may have put the point academically to try and defuse some of the heat that was developing on the thread, but the real-world examples are not at all academic, and insofar as they claim to be Christian and represent Jesus, they and the people they affect are the legitimate pastoral concern of Christians here on the Ship.

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quote:

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But as an example, so long as the Anglicans remain a formally established Church, they are rather directly connected to their rather nastier past as well.

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quote:

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Shouldn't they be considering a rethink of the idea of establishment?

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quote:

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And might not some of the ideas I'm putting forward be helpful in sorting out differences between the various Orthodox branches about these issues?

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quote:

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Yes, the real world is messy; but wouldn't a lot of that messiness be reduced if we Christians sorted ourselves out on these issues

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quote:

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and possibly as a result even, among other things, make ecumenism and church unity more of a reality?

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quote:

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Originally posted by Steve Langton:
by Croesos;

quote:

---

Once again, I think you're reading your personal preferences into the New Testament. There's not a lot about church-and-state relations there, certainly nothing that unambiguously states a clear division of the two. You're projecting Enlightenment-era ideas where they don't exist.

---

Except, of course, that the Enlightenment ideas owed quite a bit to Anabaptists and others who were exploring the biblical teaching in opposition to a dominant Church whose 'Traditions' had ended up contradicting the Bible in various ways; and without those Christian pioneers of religious freedom the atheists would have continued oppressed and their bit of the Enlightenment would have struggled to happen.

---

quote:

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Originally posted by Steve Langton:
Also by Croesos;

quote:

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Our movement's official propaganda documents paint us in a much better light than you're implying!

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There's a bit of a built-in contradiction there, isn't there? Thing being, though the 'Constantinians' were able to eventually forcibly 'establish' Christianity, they weren't able to get rid of the existing documents, the NT, which eventually provided the material to counter that wrong approach. The 'movement's official propaganda documents' were propaganda for the original movement, NOT for the 'Constantinian' distortion.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Steve Langton:
And what I'm arguing is that it is, if not entirely, certainly mostly the case that violence related to religion, Christian or otherwise, involves the 'religious state' idea.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Steve Langton:
And that therefore the Christian teaching which counters that idea is worthy of a great deal of attention.... That Christians need to get it right within their community, and understand the Christian reasons for it, not just reasons from a surrounding secular culture; and that the Christian teaching on this could support the truth of Christianity against other religions which are actually set up on the 'religious state' principle.

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quote:

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The NT 'doesn't believe in a state church'.

How can the NT 'believe' in anything, Steven?

The NT isn't a person, it's a collection of writings - inspired writings yes - but it doesn't 'believe' as you put it.

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quote:

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I don't believe in a state-church either

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quote:

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But I really don't believe that Anglican Establishment is the big issue here - it's not the big be-all and end-all of this debate.

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quote:

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Besides, as I've pointed out innumerable times, it's only the Church of England that is Established. The Church in Wales hasn't been Established since 1920 and it's made no difference whatsoever as far as I can see.

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quote:

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The whole idea that there was some kind of wonderful, squeaky clean form of Christianity around in the 2nd and 3rd centuries that was then 'spoiled' by Constantine is complete and utter moonshine.

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quote:

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Besides, as has been said, the canonisation of scripture - as well as the era of the Ecumenical Councils - coincided with the 4th century and Constantine ...

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quote:

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People in the Middle Ages - Catholics and otherwise - generally believed that the world was some kind of disc and that there were mysterious regions around the periphery of it where people had their faces in their chests ... does this mean that contemporary RCs have to bear the 'blame' for that?

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quote:

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It ain't for thee or me to tell the Orthodox how to organise their affairs.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Gamaliel:


Besides, as has been said, the canonisation of scripture - as well as the era of the Ecumenical Councils - coincided with the 4th century and Constantine ...

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quote:

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As to whether I believe that the continuation of Anglican Establishment in England (not Wales or Ireland) in some way perpetuates religious violence in Northern Ireland or with ISIS in Syria and Iraq ... well, sorry, no I don't. I don't see Anglican Establishment has having anything whatsoever to do with how certain extremists behave in Northern Ireland nor how radical Islamists carry on.

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quote:

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All I've been trying to do is to show that the whole history and development of Christianity in all its facets is nowhere near as simple as you appear to believe it to be.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Gamaliel:
And yes - I've overstepped the mark ...

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Duly noted and relayed.

/hosting
 

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Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 


Ok - Hell, Steve Langton ... now ...
 

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Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Steve Langton:

by lilBuddha;

quote:

---

But neither does religion seem to be very effective at avoiding it. And that is a problem.

---

And what I'm arguing is that it is, if not entirely, certainly mostly the case that violence related to religion, Christian or otherwise, involves the 'religious state' idea. And that therefore the Christian teaching which counters that idea is worthy of a great deal of attention.... That Christians need to get it right within their community, and understand the Christian reasons for it, not just reasons from a surrounding secular culture; and that the Christian teaching on this could support the truth of Christianity against other religions which are actually set up on the 'religious state' principle.

---

quote:

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Originally posted by Gamaliel:
Rant over.

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quote:

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Originally posted by lilBuddha:
religious violence. It is in our nature as humans and no creed variation is proof against it.

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quote:

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Originally posted by lilBuddha:
religious violence. It is in our nature as humans and no creed variation is proof against it.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Martin60:
The Bible and therefore Christianity (the Koran and Islam fundamentally so; all the major religions INCLUDING Buddhism) are perichoretically, inseperably suffused with the myth of redemptive violence from beginning to end.

We ALL need to move along the arc.

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