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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Persecution of Christians
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Kaplan Corday
Shipmate
# 16119
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Posted
http://www.the-tls.co.uk/tls/public/article1168704.ece
The subject of this interesting TLS book review has a clunky title – Christianophobia - which is suggestive of a simplistic, one-sided championing of persecuted Christians, a genre which exists, but which is by no means the only variety of advocacy out there.
Despite their evangelical provenance, the advocacy organisations to which I subscribe are both ecumenical (criticising the ill-treatment of groups such as Roman Catholics and Coptic Christians as much as that of evangelicals) and honest (reporting the persecution of Christians by other Christians, as in Eritrea).
This book’s author, Rupert Shortt, also appears to have integrity, avoiding a Manichaean dichotomy in which all Christians are innocent victims and all Muslims (or communists, Buddhists, Hindus or whatever) are incorrigible persecutors.
That being said, the persecution of Christians undoubtedly is a huge and serious global phenomenon, and this review (and, presumably, the book, if the review is an accurate one) seems to me to raise at least two questions.
First, is in fact too little attention being paid by media and governments worldwide to the persecution of Christians?
Reporting ot events in the Middle East in recent years has highlighted the situation of Christians in countries such as Iraq, Libya, Egypt and Syria, who despite the appalling behaviour of Saddam Hussein, Gaddafi, Mubarak and Assad, might well finish up worse off under less secularist, more Islamist regimes.
There has also been some welcome media attention paid to the plight of Christians in Pakistan, largely as a result of the mistreatment of some adolescent Christian girls on trumped up “blasphemy” charges, and also to the situation of Christians in Burma, because of media interest in Aung San Suu Kyi and the liberalization movement.
However, the ill-treatment of Christians in places such as Laos, Vietnam, Sudan, the Indonesian province of Papua, and many other sites, tends to pass under the radar.
Secondly, the influence of the Enlightenment in the West produced religious toleration and pluralism, but also a militant secularism which recently, led by the so-called New Atheists such as Dawkins and Hitchens (who are both its result and its cause) has produced not so much persecution, but a trivialization, demonisation and marginalisation of Christianity which is attempting to force it out of the public square.
Oddly enough, both traditional Christians, and those remaining loyal to the Enlightenment project, are united in a belief in propositional truth, and in their opposition to what the reviewer, Brian Stanley, calls post-Enlightenment.
Post-Enlightenment presumably refers to post-modernity, with its suspicion of absolute truths and metanarratives.
Pomo (which, to subvert its own paradigm by using its own terminology of “playfulness”, must be recognized as essentially a game rather than a worldview that anyone can actually live by) is arguablyis even less likely than Enlightenment secularism to actually persecute Christianity, preferring to ignore or merely relativise it.
It has been asserted that Christianity is more threatened by Western Enlightenment and post-Enlightenment attitudes, than by active persecution, but sad to say, consistent sheer, brutal coercion can be very effective - for example there was a period when there were no known Christians in Hoxha’s Albania.
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Lamb Chopped
Ship's kebab
# 5528
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Posted
IMHO the persecution of Christians, particularly in non-Islamic places, goes mostly unreported because there is still a sense among many Westerners that Christianity is somehow "ours" (regardless of actual belief) and is therefore not to be given the same protections, courtesies, etc. as religions we consider "other." It's so much nobler-seeming somehow to stand up for suffering Buddhists etc. than to do so for Christians, because, well, my Grandma was a Christian (even if I'm not one myself) and it would smack of self-interest, right? And &*&E# forbid we should be caught doing anything that looks self-interested.
A weird psychological quirk. Maybe even humble in a perverted sort of way. But it's just as wrong to deny a brother or sister the help they need, because they are a brother or sister, as it is to deny outsiders because they are outsiders.
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Er, this is what I've been up to (book).
Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down!
Posts: 20059 | From: off in left field somewhere | Registered: Feb 2004
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Stetson
Shipmate
# 9597
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Posted
quote:
It has been asserted that Christianity is more threatened by Western Enlightenment and post-Enlightenment attitudes, than by active persecution, but sad to say, consistent sheer, brutal coercion can be very effective - for example there was a period when there were no known Christians in Hoxha’s Albania.
I suppose Christianity, as an entity in itself, might be more threatened by Western Enlgihtenment than by violent persecution. However, we really can't expect the general public to get that worked up about a litany of atrocities that can be summed up as "People are ignoring us and not taking our ideas seriously". There are zillions of political and religious sects, from Maoists to Scientologists, who could make the same complaint.
quote:
Secondly, the influence of the Enlightenment in the West produced religious toleration and pluralism, but also a militant secularism which recently, led by the so-called New Atheists such as Dawkins and Hitchens (who are both its result and its cause) has produced not so much persecution, but a trivialization, demonisation and marginalisation of Christianity which is attempting to force it out of the public square.
In my experience, "Christianity being forced out of the public square" is usually a hyperbolized way of saying something like "Biology teachers who try to tell their students that dinosaurs died in the Flood get reprimanded by the principal".
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Stetson
Shipmate
# 9597
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Posted
Lamb chopped wrote:
quote:
IMHO the persecution of Christians, particularly in non-Islamic places, goes mostly unreported because there is still a sense among many Westerners that Christianity is somehow "ours" (regardless of actual belief) and is therefore not to be given the same protections, courtesies, etc. as religions we consider "other." It's so much nobler-seeming somehow to stand up for suffering Buddhists etc. than to do so for Christians, because, well, my Grandma was a Christian (even if I'm not one myself) and it would smack of self-interest, right? And &*&E# forbid we should be caught doing anything that looks self-interested.
Possibly also a certain strain of Orientalism at play. People might find it more romantic to stick up for Tibetan Buddhists, 'cuz they seem so hip and cool to western eyes, than for Chinese Christians, who are preaching the same boring stuff that we grew up hearing in church every week.
That said, I think it helps if the religious persecution under consideration is taking place within the context of a struggle for national self-determination. For example, a lot of people in the liberal-left neck-of-the-ideological woods seemed sympathetic to South Sudan, which has more Christians compared to the Muslim North. But the sympathy was for them as South Sudanese, rather than as Christians.
[ 27. November 2012, 23:51: Message edited by: Stetson ]
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Kaplan Corday
Shipmate
# 16119
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Stetson:
In my experience, "Christianity being forced out of the public square" is usually a hyperbolized way of saying something like "Biology teachers who try to tell their students that dinosaurs died in the Flood get reprimanded by the principal".
That's probably not a good example, because (and I don't want to resurrect Dead Horses) it is about agreed science versus non-science.
In other words, it is about an "is" rather than an "ought".
A better example (and again, this is not to revive deceased equines)would be Christians who wish to argue the negative in the debate over abortion and euthanasia.
They are invariably accused of pushing their religion (and sure, their views are at least partly informed by their faith), as if this disqualifies them from contributing.
However these are "ought" issues, in which everybody's opinion is "religious" in that it is representative of a metaphysical, ethical worldview of chosen values which cannot by its very nature ever be "proved" to be the default correct position.
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Stetson
Shipmate
# 9597
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Posted
Kaplan:
Well, I guess I could just have gone with the example I originally was gonna use, ie. the disallowance of prayer in schools as somehow "driving religion out of the public square". That's probably closer to the majority of cases in which I hear "public square"-type complaints advanced.
I take the point that it would be illegitimate for someone to bring up the religion of a politician who was making arguments against abortion and euthanasia. Though I would say that the anti-abortion movement as a whole bears some responsibility for that rap, since they often frame their arguments and protests in religious terms, or sandwich abortion in with other concerns that are only relenavt to certain types of Christians and other religious people. When an ideologue mentions abortion and same-sex marriage in the same breath as being things he's against, it's hard to believe that he's just making a philosophical argument for when personhood should be recognized.
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ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Stetson:
In my experience, "Christianity being forced out of the public square" is usually a hyperbolized way of saying something like "Biology teachers who try to tell their students that dinosaurs died in the Flood get reprimanded by the principal".
Both the incoming and the outgoing Archbishops of Canterbury say things like that, though in posher language. And neither of them would touch YEC with a bargepole.
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Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
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Gamaliel
Shipmate
# 812
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Posted
It's all relative, but I'm not sure the persecution of Christians isn't reported - it may be 'under-reported' in relation to other issues but again, it's all relative.
I've certainly seen coverage of the persecution of Christians in The Guardian and on the main BBC News - for instance. I'm sure there are other examples too that I've not seen in the media channels I tend not to look at so often.
I agree that it's a cause for concern but equally I would suggest that there are some agencies (I'm not naming names) who have over-egged things to an extent that has made some of us more wary about some reports than perhaps we should be ...
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Let us with a gladsome mind
Praise the Lord for He is kind.
http://philthebard.blogspot.com
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Stetson:
Well, I guess I could just have gone with the example I originally was gonna use, ie. the disallowance of prayer in schools as somehow "driving religion out of the public square". That's probably closer to the majority of cases in which I hear "public square"-type complaints advanced.
Except there is no "disallowance" of prayer in public schools in the US. What there is, is a discontinuance of faculty-led prayer*. Students are allowed to pray, and where student groups are not, the ACLU has stepped in repeatedly to defend their right to do so.
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*ETA: and prayer, or allowance of time for prayer, during instruction time.
[ 28. November 2012, 15:32: Message edited by: mousethief ]
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
It's all relative, but I'm not sure the persecution of Christians isn't reported - it may be 'under-reported' in relation to other issues but again, it's all relative.
That Christians are being driven out of the Middle East out of fear for their lives, I do not think can be controverted. Christian populations in the lands that were the cradle of the faith are dwindling at an accelerated pace. (Perhaps "dwindling" is too weak a term.)
But in the US, at least, when people talk about the "persecution" of Christians, they generally mean things like specifically-religious Christmas displays not being allowed in the public square, or Catholic agencies being made to give their employees the same full panoply of rights that other employers are made to.
Further down the ridiculous scale, but still quite vocal, are the complaints about Christianity being ridiculed by atheists, or (as noted above) the rejection of faith being taught as if it were science in the publicly-funded classroom. This is a large part of the "persecution of Christians" that some Evangelical or fundamentalist groups whine about, the poor dears.
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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Stetson
Shipmate
# 9597
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:
Originally posted by Stetson:
Well, I guess I could just have gone with the example I originally was gonna use, ie. the disallowance of prayer in schools as somehow "driving religion out of the public square". That's probably closer to the majority of cases in which I hear "public square"-type complaints advanced.
Except there is no "disallowance" of prayer in public schools in the US. What there is, is a discontinuance of faculty-led prayer*. Students are allowed to pray, and where student groups are not, the ACLU has stepped in repeatedly to defend their right to do so.
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*ETA: and prayer, or allowance of time for prayer, during instruction time.
Yes, by "prayer", I meant "teacher-led" prayer.
Posts: 6574 | From: back and forth between bible belts | Registered: Jun 2005
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Stetson
Shipmate
# 9597
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by ken:
quote:
Originally posted by Stetson:
In my experience, "Christianity being forced out of the public square" is usually a hyperbolized way of saying something like "Biology teachers who try to tell their students that dinosaurs died in the Flood get reprimanded by the principal".
Both the incoming and the outgoing Archbishops of Canterbury say things like that, though in posher language. And neither of them would touch YEC with a bargepole.
Point taken. And like I said, you can consider prayer-in-school to be my preferred example at this point.
But out of curiousity, when Messrs. Williams and Welby make complaints in the general vicinity of "Christianity being forced out of the public square", what sort of issues do they usually have in mind?
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I have the power...Lucifer is lord!
Posts: 6574 | From: back and forth between bible belts | Registered: Jun 2005
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Stetson:
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:
Originally posted by Stetson:
Well, I guess I could just have gone with the example I originally was gonna use, ie. the disallowance of prayer in schools as somehow "driving religion out of the public square". That's probably closer to the majority of cases in which I hear "public square"-type complaints advanced.
Except there is no "disallowance" of prayer in public schools in the US. What there is, is a discontinuance of faculty-led prayer*. Students are allowed to pray, and where student groups are not, the ACLU has stepped in repeatedly to defend their right to do so.
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*ETA: and prayer, or allowance of time for prayer, during instruction time.
Yes, by "prayer", I meant "teacher-led" prayer.
Sorry; that wasn't clear to me.
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
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Stetson
Shipmate
# 9597
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Posted
No problem. I was actually gonna put in a clarifying adjective, but figured my sentences are convoluted enough as it is.
Posts: 6574 | From: back and forth between bible belts | Registered: Jun 2005
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