…reading Christian history suggests just how wrong just an analysis would be. Out-of-control clergy, religious demagogues with their consecrated militias, religious parties usurping the functions of the state ”” these were the common currency of the Christian world just a few decades after the Roman Empire made Christianity its official religion. Whatever he might have thought of his theology, Cyril the Christian bishop would immediately have a strong fellow-feeling for al-Sadr the Islamic mullah. Like al-Sadr, Cyril, too, disciplined his followers with pronouncements that cast deviants beyond the protection of the church and the law: Christians then called them “anathemas”; Muslims today call them “fatwas.”
In retelling the story of Christian atrocities, I’m not trying to blacken the reputation of the church but rather to suggest that, given the appropriate social and political circumstances, given a sufficiently weak state mechanism, any religion can be used to justify savagery and extremism. None of the violence or intolerance commonly seen in modern-day Islam is, so to speak, in the DNA of that religion, any more than of Christianity. Change the circumstances, and any religion, too, can become the basis of a sane and peaceful society.
Jenkins falls into the trap of thinking that all of a religion’s adherents will always fully grasp its teachings and always put them into practice.
Those Christians who engaged in violence chose to ignore Christianity’s uniqueness: God not only became one of us but suffered for us, didn’t strike back when he was arrested and crucified, though he could have done. And this is the example he said time and time again we are to follow.
I think Philip Jenkins has fallen victim to the academic dogma prevalent in America that it is heresy to see any real differences in various religions–especially on any negativities like a penchant for violence. One must take any negativity that is being discussed and make sure to come up with matching lists of examples (even if many might not be apt)— not hard to do when most popular religions today go back thousands of years. Colorful anecdotes do not necessarily make a case.
One example of how complicated this can get is how the Crusades are portrayed–they could be put on either a list of wars of defense (good by most modern academic standards)— Western Christians FINALLY coming to the aid of Middle Eastern Christians who had been overrun by Islamic fire and sword– or wars of colonialist expansion (bad by most modern academic standards).
Noted scholar Rodney Stark’s most recent book is “God’s Battalions–The Case FOR the Crusades.” It’s dust jacket even has an endorsement from Philip Jenkins.
Unfortunately, Jenkins’ column here reads in part as if he ascribes to the academic dogma that all religions are really the same. But, as a historian, would he claim that all political parties are really the same because they are political parties. No difference between American Democrats, Communists, Nazis, etc.?????
Oh, come on now!
A man holds up a convenience store and kills its clerk.
Of course, you could say that any man could hold up a conveniencve store and kill its clerk.
But, at the moment that the robbery and murder are taking place, we are not concerned with the universe of potential robbers and killers, we are concerned about THAT SPECIFIC ROBBER AND KILLLER and HIS CRIME.
Going back in history to find “inclusive” examples that try to say, “See we were/could be just as bad as he is” just doesn’t ‘cut it.’
Why should we tear ourselves down? We should be talking about how the Salvation promised in the Gospel, if accepted by Muslims, could put an end to such violence. Their religion speaks of violence as a means to an end, the Gospel doesn’t.
Well allow me to retort!
I’m not trying to blacken the reputation of secularism but rather to suggest that, given the appropriate social and political circumstances, given a sufficiently weak religious mechanism, the state can and will be used to carry out savagery and extremism.
I beg pardon, but I have a copy of the Koran here, an official copy sanctioned by the leaders of the mosque in Mecca and distributed there. The exhortations to violence are definitely in the DNA of the religion, that is, the Koran and the hadiths, and peaceful Muslims must either ignore those things or interpret them as not being binding on them. The religion was, from the time of the hegira, when Mohamed was driven out of Mecca and established a mini-state in Medina, an expansionist and warlike faith. Muslim scholars hold that the peaceful statements of the (earlier) Mecca period are abrogated by the warlike statements after the hegira. Fortunately it is still true to say that most Muslims don’t take all this literally, but the numbers who do seem to be growing.
You guys would do well to read the whole of Jenkins’ new book [i]Jesus Wars[/i], from which this amounts to an excerpt. Not easy reading, but very instructive about the way the post-Chalcedonian conflicts tore the Church and the Empire to shreds and paved the way for Islam. I’m not convinced he gets the whole story “right,” but some very important things to be learned there, and his historical judgments are certainly nuanced. Jenkins is hardly a drooling secularist–they hired him on at Baylor, for mercies’ sake!
I would agree that post-Chalcedonian conflicts had something to do with Muslim conquests. Further, the Christians whom Mohamed knew and from whom he got some of his ideas may have been heretics driven out of the Byzantine state. Where else would he get the idea that Jesus was not actually crucified?
I’m always interested in reading a new Philip Jenkins’ book, and this provocative excerpt whets my appetite to check out [b]Jesus Wars[/b]. The period from 450 to 650 AD was indeed a crucial one, and has been sorely neglected by historians.
I would agree that given the right circumstances, Christianity can and has condoned, authorized, and even encouraged violence. But that doesn’t really create moral equivalence, since Islam has spawned FAR MORE violence over the centuries. The difference between the life and teachings of Jesus Christ and that of Mohammed is stark and glaring. But I don’t think Jenkins would deny that.
Look at medieval Spain. The Muslim Moors were actually much more tolerant than the zealous Catholics who eventually expelled both them and the Jews from the Iberian peninsula. Maimonides and Abraham ibn Ezra much preferred to live under Muslim rulers than under Christian ones. But over all, there is no question that Islam has bred, and continues to breed, religious violence and terrorism on a scale that vast;u exceeds Christianity at its worst.
But surely Jenkins’ broad, general thesis is right: almost any religion can become violent. For religion is about ultimate values, and by definition, ULTIMATE values aren’t subject to compromise. So naturally any and all religions (with few exceptions, e.g., Quaker and Mennonite forms of Christianity, etc) can foment the violent extremism that Jenkins laments here. After all, Hinduism supposedly inculcates great reverence for life in all its forms, so that with the belief in reincarnation, people are supposed to avoid killing most animals, and most especially cows, that are held to be particularly sacred. But Hindus who would recoil from killing even a weak, sick cow regularly slaughter Muslims or Christians, their fellow human beings. IOW, I think Jenkins has a valid point.
David Handy+
Oops, sorry for the typo and careless proofreading. I meant the historical record surely shows that the violent tendencies of Islam [b]vastly[/b] exceed Christianity at its worst.
David Handy+
Anyone can look back 500, 1000, 1500 years to find numerous instances of barbaric behavior done in the name of many sects, tribes and religions, Christianity included of course. To me though, while almost all others have progressed in civility over the centuries and now seek to find other means to resolve differences, Islam remains the only major faith still practicing wholesale violence with little or no condemnation from it’s world leaders. Uncivilized is not an accurate word for it, but in so many aspects, it is literally stuck in the dark ages and apparently would rather bring the rest of the world back to it.
It is in Islam’s DNA for violence. Witness the Arabic phrases
“Dar el Islam” and “Dar el Harb”. These refer to those regions
where Islam holds sway ( = “Dar el Islam” ) and those where
Islam does not yet hold sway ( = “Dar el Harb”, literally
“The House of War” ).
Upnorfjoel’s comment (#10) and others posted here suggest that we may be neglecting the evolutionary dimension. If, as is commonly reported, Islam is still mired in a medieval past, wouldn’t that be entirely consistent with the fact that it’s historically over 500 years “behind” Christianity? This would mean that today it has only reached the early 1400s, on the cusp, an optimist might hope, of its Renaissance.
Would we really have expected 15th century Christianity to be “tolerant” and pluralistic? Even the Reformers didn’t embrace such ideas without reservations.
The problem, of course, is that Islam’s access to technology is far in advance of its cultural theology, perhaps making its further development a moot point.
I recently finished reading Jenkins book “the Jesus Wars†and I would urge people to take a look at it before drawing conclusions. The book takes on some of the questions that I have wondered for years and places them in an historical and cultural perspective that I believe should aid further discussion. Among other points, Frank Fuller in his post above alludes to the ecclesiological exhaustion which created a spiritual vacuum that the desert warriors of Mecca were able to exploit and displace the shattered Byzantinian legacy.
The essential issue that is at the forefront of the book is Christological and the answer to “…who do say I am†is the constant theme that we cannot avoid answering. What Jenkins shows is that our understanding of Jesus developed during a time of great political upheaval but makes the case I think that it developed in spite of the acrimonious councils and mob activities not because of them, as the popular press would imply.
What is also interesting is the parallel ways certain bishops of that time who presided over the church dealt with those who dared to hold on to what they believed to be the orthodox view. It seems that property seizures and depositions has always been the iron fist of Episcopal pastorality.
What is sad to contemplate is the destruction wrought by anger over issues that for many today would be misinterpretations.
Jeremy Bonner, it seems that Islam has already had its Renaissance. Ottoman Istanbul, for instance, was a relatively tolerant place, compared to Europe of the time. And my Egyptian Muslims friends bemoan the loss of what was a vibrant and more relaxed country (again, relative to today). What we are seeing with the Wahhabis and Salafis is a return to the primary sources of the faith.
If Jenkins’s point is that any religion “can be used to justify savagery and extremism,†I can partly agree. I think the better way of putting it would be that any religion “can be abused or misused to justify . . .†Jenkins confuses the matter by speaking of the DNA of religions. If I compare the theological “DNA†of Christianity with that of Islam – most importantly in the examples of their respective founders – I don’t agree that Christianity can be used to justify savagery but that it can be misused to do so.
Jenkins’s article makes sense from a purely historical point of view (i.e., religion X had a social/political hegemony in era Y so there were abuses), but not when theology is factored into the story (i.e., Christianity teaches that we must love our enemies, turn the other cheek, even face martyrdom and leave vengeance to God. So what happened to all of this when Christianity had a social/political hegemony and some of its leaders chose to ignore these basic tenets? And what can we learn from this? And how does this differ from any religion or ideology attaining a social/political hegemony and forgetting its tenets or putting them into practice, as the case may be?) I hope Jenkins’s book is indeed more nuanced than his article, because the article reads suspiciously like a book advertisement aimed at a public that’s in the mood for more Christian bashing.
#14 Katherine, the Ottoman Empire did not fall until WWI and the Muslim world has not yet had its Renaissance. The big achievement of the R. was sorting out the relationships between church and state. The Ottomans controlled most of the ME including Mecca. The process of building modern nations was frozen. The next few decades we will see ME countries becoming democratic states or, more likely, Islamic states. The current turmoil is just the beginning.
#15 Exactly!
No one ever goes to war claiming that God is on the side of their enemies.
From Constantine on, rulers have been going to war under the sign of the cross whenever it was too their advantage. So what? If we measure the virtue of a world view by what people do in its name then Atheism would be the worst on the basis of the millions who died in Russia and China.
Well said, #17. Jenkins seems to have made a good case for requiring everyone to adhere to *some* religion, so as to lessen the violent tendencies of atheism.
On reading the article, the question that leaps out at me is “so what?”. So christianity was violent 1500 years ago, and perhaps at that particular time Islam wasn’t. What possible practical value does that observation have for us today?
*shaking head* of course Islam wasn’t violent 500 years ago – it wasn’t anything. Apologies for a very poorly expressed post…!
MichaelA (#18),
Avoidance of hubris on our part, perhaps?
And why does everything have to have a “practical” value, anyway? Jenkins is a historian who has won plaudits from reasserters for his articulation of what the Global South is and believes. Interesting that when he chooses to focus on another aspect of Christian tradition that is less comforting we react defensively. A good historian tries to avoid being a propagandist (I speak from experience).
#20 I learned about the violence of the church while at a Jesuit high school. It’s old news. There is no need to look at old history for the abuses of the church. The current scandals are being poorly handled but when we talk about ‘the DNA’ the important question is whether the underlying beliefs cause the behaviors.
Suppose religion ‘A’ believes that heaven is full of virgins (An-Naba 78:31-14) and in religion ‘B’ that men and women are created equally in God’s image (Gen 1:27, Gal 3:28). One of these religions is debating a woman’s right to drive a car and the other is debating how much authority women can have in the religious hierarchy. If you guessed that religion ‘A’ is the one that is not sure about giving women the authority to drive a car, you would be correct. This is an example of the ‘DNA’ of a religion affecting outcomes.
If they are merely human behaviors then the question is why didn’t the church do more to reform itself? Jenkin’s point should be that any group of people will tend to twist their own stated values to promote their own agendas. In this regard the church today still has a lot of work to do.
When we look at the stated values of the founders of the two religions we see a different picture. Mohammad expanded the reach of Islam by conquest. There are chapters of the Koran dedicated to correcting Christian teachings. The Koran is ambiguous about the punishment for turning away from Islam but the hadiths clarify that apostates must be put to death. As Christians we are commanded to love our enemies. We can argue about what that means or how to do it practically but it is not optional.
The frustrating thing about being Christian is that Jesus’ command to us to be perfect makes us all hypocrites and we need to to more to be faithful to what God intends for us but the problem is not the DNA of the religion. The problem is our own sinfulness and our incomplete obedience.
John,
I don’t necessarily disagree with what you write, but would this mean that the relative quietism (until recently) of Indonesian Islam and the zealous conversion by the sword of Baltic pagans by the Teutonic Knights (or the suppression of the Cathars) are both aberrations from the theological DNA of their respective faith traditions?
I would also have thought that the fact that Islam emerges in the wake of Christianity (obviously, I’m not arguing for revelatory equivalency here) and not the other way round, was bound to have an effect on how Koranic teaching was framed.
Jeremy,
My formal training has been in engineering not theology or social sciences. I assume that there is one reality that is both ‘physical’ and ‘spiritual’ that does not care what you or I say about it. A world view is a very imprecise thing especially if it has a long history. An established world view may have one or more sets of assertions about the nature of reality. World religions tend to focus on the spiritual and relational aspects of reality.
But world views only exist as the assertions of a group of people and the reputation of the truth assertions (TAs) depends on the behavior of the people. Individuals who self identify as members of the group may agree or disagree with the official TAs to varying degrees. Just look at the surveys of what ‘Christians’ believe. I would say that by definition many people who think they are Christian are not because they disagree with very basic Christian TAs.
My simple answer to your question is “Yes, they are both aberrations” but I think each tradition must review their DNA=TAs over time. Groups divide over what they consider to be the essential TAs.
We need to learn from our mistakes but what matters is where we are going. Judaism and Christianity began with a clear separation between the religious authority structure and the state authority structure. Islam began by conquest. Muslims must now decide which features of Sharia Law are essential and which are not.
Jeremy Bonner,
If someone is unaware of violence that has occurred in the name of Christianity, then I can see value in Jenkins’ work. Otherwise, it simply seems a statement of the obvious, with no particular lesson to be drawn from it.
E.g. his comment: “Change the circumstances, and any religion, too, can become the basis of a sane and peaceful society.” is so general as to really say nothing useful.