From Time:
The Freedom Party, taking part in only its second national election since being founded by Wilders in 2005, secured 16% of the vote, jumping from 9 to 24 seats. Wilders, the bogeyman of Dutch politics, called it a “glorious day”, and demanded to be included in any ruling coalition. “They cannot ignore us. We want to be taken seriously,” he said. “One-and-a-half million Dutch voted for us and for more security, less crime and less Islam.”
The governing Christian Democrats “suffered a crushing defeating on Wednesday, sliding from 41 seats to 21.”
UPDATE: I originally described Wilders as just a “leading critic of Islam,” but, in response to a point made by a commeter, I changed the title to note that he is also an advocate of restrictions on the practice of Islam in the Netherlands.
B.D. says:
Dutch politics are so strange. The Netherlands is probably the only place on earth where a guy like Pim Fortuyn can be viewed as having had a consistent worldview.
That said, I know almost nothing about Geert Wilders or the Freedom Party. I’m guessing you posted this because of the interesting tensions involving secularism, religious tolerance, progressive politics, and free expression that go along with Muslim immigration in the Netherlands.
June 10, 2010, 1:47 pmSoldier of Fortune says:
Excellent.
June 10, 2010, 1:51 pmTed says:
I don’t know anything about Dutch politics, but any crushing defeat to a Christian governing party seems to be good news. That’s not to be confused with a crushing defeat of a Christian-governing party, which would be bad news.
June 10, 2010, 1:58 pmSteve says:
I suppose on some level I am impressed by the candor and lack of political code. But on balance, this makes me even happier that I live in a country which respects free exercise of religion and does not feature successful politicians running on platforms like “less Islam.”
No matter what ethnic or religious group you may belong to, there has been a time and place where the dominant majority wanted badly to see “less of you.” I’m proud to say that’s not the spirit of America – and we haven’t exactly been overrun by Islamofascist hordes as a consequence, either, I would just note.
June 10, 2010, 2:17 pmFatwa says:
The Netherlands has an islamic problem almost as serious as the French islamic problem. The Dutch want their country back and are saying “No to Sharia Law.”
When the muslims start blowing up gas stations, schools, government buildings, trains, buses, etc. etc. in America, we too will be looking for a Geert Wilders.
Personally, I think it’s way too late for Europe. Once Turkey is admitted into the EU, that is the beginning of the end. Turkey will be the Trojen Horse Islam needs to take over Europe.
June 10, 2010, 2:20 pmHarryEagar says:
Maybe murdering Dutch politicians wasn’t such a good electoral strategy after all.
June 10, 2010, 2:23 pmruuffles says:
** checks wikipedia ** Yup, McVeigh’s still white.
June 10, 2010, 2:23 pmMartinned says:
It turns out Secretary Gates disagrees. (And is wrong.)
June 10, 2010, 2:29 pmMartinned says:
Both varieties lost. Balkenende’s CDA are Christian-Democrats, like Angela Merkel in German. Essentially they are simply Conservatives. Their more fundamentalist cousins of the Christian Union also lost a seat, from 6 to 5, IIRC. Those are the guys that had to explain why it wasn’t a violation of the Sabbath to Twitter on a Sunday. The Christians who are more fundamentalist still (in the words of A Fistful of Euros blog: a “christian party striving for theocracy”), the guys who don’t allow women to become members of their party, much less run for office, those guys got 2 seats, as they have in every election for the last 100 years.
So no, the fact that the Christians lost isn’t very interesting. Balkenende’s CDA does not in any way rely on religion as a reason why people should vote for them. People who consider religion when voting tend to go further right than that.
June 10, 2010, 2:37 pmMartinned says:
Another factor of interest: Despite having started out in the centre-right VVD party, who won yesterday’s election, Wilders’ own policies are decidedly leftist, when it comes to socio-economic issues. (Although today he already gave in on the first of them, since he is no longer ruling out a concession on the retirement age, which he insists should be kept at 65, while the VVD and the CDA, two parties who will probably (also) end up in government, want to raise it to 67.)
June 10, 2010, 2:43 pmColin says:
Ted: Euro parties w/ Christian in their name tends to be less religiously overt that you might expect. As Martinned said, they’re marked by somewhat mild conservatism; they’re not really the Robertson and Fallowell types.
June 10, 2010, 2:49 pmSteve says:
Martinned, a lot of Americans aren’t familiar with the concept of Christian Democratic parties, even though they are all over Europe and Latin America. Because the concept of a party named after a religion would be fairly unthinkable here, some people assume that they must be a bunch of hardcore theocrats, which is hardly the case. For example, the most recent candidate of the Social Christian Unity Party in Costa Rica was (I kid you not) a Jew named Luis Fishman.
June 10, 2010, 2:49 pmwhit says:
the christian democrats are most notable imo for their opposition to legalized drugs. they are against even legal marijuana.
June 10, 2010, 2:54 pmmaagou says:
Exactly, this is the most puzzling aspect of the Wilders victory, and the reason why it’s so hard to explain to friends in the US. He is “right-wing” when it comes to immigration, but that’s about where his right-wing tendencies end. He is a socialist in every other sense, and his constituents favor the welfare state just as much as the followers of any other party in NL. They just don’t favor benefits for “them,” the scary strangers from Muslim countries. I hate to use the word “national-socialism,” but I struggle to find a better description.
June 10, 2010, 3:03 pmSteve says:
The Dutch want their country back and are saying “No to Sharia Law.”
Judging from these results, approximately 84% of Dutch voters are uninterested in retaking their country.
June 10, 2010, 3:05 pmRicardo says:
Slightly off-topic: I’ve never understood how the idea of Turkish membership in the EU could be anything other than fantasy. The U.S. and some European countries push it for strategic and arguably politically correct reasons. Turkey pushes it for reasons of national pride and to send a couple million more working-class migrants to work in Germany and other countries.
On the other hand, a country with such dubious democratic credentials is not a very good fit for the EU — having to choose between being ruled by an Islamist party and letting the generals in the army throw around their weight is not a good place to be. European countries do not necessarily want the millions of migrants who would move once visa restrictions were removed.
Then on the Turkish side of the equation, Turks are a lot like Americans from what I understand. They really, really do not like foreigners telling them what to do. But part of being in the EU is letting other countries have some say in a broad range of domestic policies. Turks are not going to like this one bit once they realize that’s part of the deal. The British are complete Euro-philes by comparison.
Again, based on my understanding in talking to some Turks is that the kind of stuff that would be relegated to the Pat Buchanan fringe in the U.S. is given wide circulation within Turkey. It is a common anxiety within Turkey that Western countries (especially the U.S., U.K. and Greece) are conniving in ways to reduce Turkish sovereignty and prestige and turn it into a puppet state of some kind. Again, I think once Turks understand the actual compromises they will have to make to join the EU, they will abruptly say “No Sale.”
Unless Turkey undergoes truly massive and unprecedented changes in its culture, society and politics over the next 15 years, I don’t see EU membership happening.
June 10, 2010, 3:11 pmOwen H. says:
The only times the religious rights of my faith have been threatened in this country, it was Christians doing the threatening.
June 10, 2010, 3:12 pmwhit says:
considering that the vast majority of this country IS christian, that’s not surprising. and especially considering that christians make up the overwhelming majority of those in political power.
says little about christianity or american christians.
June 10, 2010, 3:17 pmmaagou says:
I appreciate the sentiment of Americans when it comes to political parties that are so overtly hostile to minorities, but this isn’t simply a symptom of Islamophobia. In my mind, it derives from a broader, inherently human “fear of other”. In Europe “the others” generally happen to be muslims. The United States certainly has had its fair share of “fear of others” in its history, albeit not specifically directed towards muslims. This fear is obviously wrong and harmful, but it’s not a product somehow of the European political establishments, but rather a product of human psychology.
And although I understand that Americans tend to feel that the European tolerance towards overtly discriminatory political parties is puzzling and wrong, I also feel that public acceptance of xenophobia is not entirely foreign to the US. Many Americans certainly harbor the same fears and hatred as my own countrymen. The US has fought a long and only partially successful struggle in trying to overcome this prejudice.
Having said that, in many ways Americans are lightyears ahead of Europeans in having safeguards against the (renewed) outbreak of such popular antipathy towards minorities. But that is only *because* the US has had experience with it. Europeans need to figure out how to deal with such popular xenophobia. Any American help in this regard is greatly appreciated :-)
June 10, 2010, 3:24 pmSteve says:
And although I understand that Americans tend to feel that the European tolerance towards overtly discriminatory political parties is puzzling and wrong, I also feel that public acceptance of xenophobia is not entirely foreign to the US.
All of this is very human, I agree. People sometimes need reminding that America is a nation of immigrants that was founded as a pluralistic society. I like to think that by safeguarding these rights in our written Constitution, we’ve done what we can to keep these important values at the forefront.
June 10, 2010, 3:29 pmwhit says:
i think part of the problem in europe is their lack of free speech. recall that wilders is being prosecuted for “racist speech”.
in the US, we have complete freedom to CRITICIZE, publically and openly.
in the EU, etc. people don’t. look at the bardot trial in france, the race relations act in the UK, etc. etc. etc.
a free marketplace of ideas offers a way to truly understand and exchange ideas, and it doesn’t create a reality where citizens (rightly) view these groups as protected from even any criticism. granted, we have stuff like the incredible cowardice of comedy central, but we don’t have people criminally prosecuted for saying stuff about other people’s religion or race.
free speech is a safety valve these countries don’t have.
June 10, 2010, 3:34 pmTK75 says:
“When the muslims start blowing up gas stations, schools, government buildings, trains, buses, etc. etc. in America, we too will be looking for a Geert Wilders.
** checks wikipedia ** Yup, McVeigh’s still white.”
Why do liberals always insist on making this stupid argument? Timothy McVeigh was not acting in the name of Christianity waging a religious crusade/jihad, nor was he part of a larger mass movement. He was a solo nutjob (or at most part of a tiny fringe group) who just happened to be Christian.
It is the height of academic dishonesty to compare McVeigh to the current “war” we are involved in with radical Islamists.
Not all Muslims are terrorists or radicals, but our enemy sure as hell IS radical Islam and its adherents. Anyone like our current President and his buddies who suggests otherwise is either lying or ignorant.
June 10, 2010, 3:43 pmRicardo says:
It’s worth keeping things in perspective. The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life commissioned in 2008 surveyed representative samples from a broad variety of religions. Muslims make up about 0.6% of the U.S. population — less than Jews, Buddhists, Jehovah’s Witnesses and Mormons each.
One interesting question asked was whether or not one’s own house of worship should “keep out of political matters.” 49% of Muslims said yes which was about the same as the responses for Catholics and mainline Protestants. The numbers were closer to 30% for black churches and evangelical white churches.
So Muslims in the U.S. are conservative but they are not fundamentalist or political.
June 10, 2010, 4:00 pmElliot says:
Can whites be Muslim?
June 10, 2010, 4:05 pmmaagou says:
@Steve: Agreed. However, having a Constitution is one thing. Only rarely can a legal document actually define societal thinking. The US has frequently had to look itself in the mirror before it was able to read its Constitution the way it is read nowadays.
@whit: I’m not sure I agree. I don’t think we value free speech in the same way the US does, but that doesn’t mean we don’t have free speech. We are allowed to say “the seven words” on our television, for example. Europeans think America is nuts for being so restrictive of speech.
But your criticism extends to political speech, which you say is more restrictive than in the US. This cannot be denied, but the fact that we have political parties like Mr. Wilders’ PVV proves that there is a great deal of leeway for people to express criticism towards certain religions or ideologies.
June 10, 2010, 4:10 pmBZ says:
Possibly, but relying on a Pew poll may be misleading. There are Muslims in the U.S. who, by most definitions, could be considered “conservative,” “liberal,” “fundamentalist,” and “political.” You are reading the fact that 49% of Muslim respondents said that their mosque should remain out of political matters a bit more broadly than others might.
I represented a mosque during litigation between members called the Ikwani Muslimeen, associated with the Muslim Brotherhood, the Ilhani party of Egypt, and Hamas, and the much more liberal group which had pushed them out after a series of unpleasant events, including vociferous attempts to use the mosque for political advocacy of “Middle East” matters. The Ikwani were generally either Egyptian immigrants or their descendants, and the “reformers” were a much more diverse variety of nationalities and backgrounds, including African-Americans. (Ironically, all of the lawyers representing both sides were of Jewish heritage, something not at all ignored during the loud debates in the mosque.) Thus, you could consider this battle both political and fundamentalist vs more inclusive and liberal.
June 10, 2010, 4:54 pmwm13 says:
Talk about selling your birthright for a mess of pottage! That is so European, to give up one’s right to political expression in return for the right to say “f—” on TV.
June 10, 2010, 5:06 pmAriel says:
According to US law, the very vast majority of Muslims are Caucasian. US law defines Caucasian (by exclusion) to include North Africans, Middle Easterners, and Iranians – at least.
June 10, 2010, 5:09 pmgeokstr says:
Unless you happen to be producing a huge hit on Comedy Central that parodies Islam along with every other religion, but then they will only censor out the Muslim stuff. But if you want to introduce a new cartoon series mocking Jesus Christ, they’re just all down with that.
June 10, 2010, 5:16 pmgeokstr says:
Bu..bu..but, we’re being called “racists” if we even think of profiling the members of the one religion that is responsible for something like 99.9% of all terrorism, suicide bombings, and honor killings. How can that be? Can whites be “racist” against other whites?
June 10, 2010, 5:23 pmmaagou says:
Touché. Nevertheless, my time in the US has not necessarily convinced me that (virtually) unrestricted political speech elevates or broadens the public debate all that much. Maybe I watch too much CNN. :-)
Seriously though, having to answer in court for an expression of political opinion is a violation of basic human rights and should be struck down as undue exercise of governmental power. European courts are often too lax in protecting this right.
June 10, 2010, 5:24 pmCan't find a good name says:
While Arabs and Iranians are classified as “Caucasian” for U.S. census purposes, they don’t make up the “very vast majority” of Muslims. The four countries with the most Muslims are Indonesia, Pakistan, India, and Bangladesh. Then add to that the Muslims in sub-Saharan Africa and China, and it looks like a majority of Muslims are non-Caucasian.
But even if one is only looking for “European” Caucasian Muslims, most of the population of Albania and Kosovo and a large part of the population of Bosnia consists of people who are European Caucasians and at least nominally Muslim.
June 10, 2010, 5:31 pmBarb says:
http://thebarbwire.blogspot.com/2010/02/speech-by-geert-wilders-netherlands.html
I copied a 2008 speech by Geert Wilders at my blog on the above link.
I think it’s possible for Europe to come under the control of Islam–I have no idea how long it will take –but if they become the majority as they will, being the ones making the most babies in Europe, we will see Europe become as the Middle East –incapable of getting along within their faith or without. It’s a dark religion. Very hard to see its appeal.
June 10, 2010, 5:35 pmBarb says:
too true. And why do people censor out the Muslim stuff?–political correctness or simple fear?
June 10, 2010, 5:38 pmkarrde says:
FWIW, several countries in Europe have some variety of Christian Democrat party, and not as a fringe-minority party. Wikipedia claims that these parties are an outgrowth of religious/social movements in the 19th Century in Europe.
June 10, 2010, 5:40 pmkarrde says:
Silly me.
Wikipedia link here.
June 10, 2010, 5:41 pmSteve says:
Bu..bu..but, we’re being called “racists” if we even think of profiling the members of the one religion that is responsible for something like 99.9% of all terrorism, suicide bombings, and honor killings. How can that be? Can whites be “racist” against other whites?
Starting a debate over whether it should be called “racism” or something like “bigotry” is rather beside the point, but I imagine you know that. I suspect your dispute is more with the notion that profiling is anything other than an eminently logical thing to do, but I don’t see how arguing over whether it is “racist” to be anti-Muslim advances your argument any.
To me, the more salient point is that 99.9% of Muslims are not terrorists, and so it seems like bad policy to harass all those innocent people just to improve our odds of catching the bad 0.1%. Law enforcement officials in this country know that the goodwill of the Muslim community is indispensable in terms of identifying and punishing the violent radicals among them.
June 10, 2010, 5:44 pmmaagou says:
From what I can tell during my time spent in the US and NL both the Democratic and the Republican parties are more Christian than the Christian-Democrats that were defeated in yesterday’s election. They definitely put more emphasis on their faith as an inspiration and motivation for their politics. But that’s just my personal observation.
June 10, 2010, 5:45 pmBarb says:
BZ writes of the diversity within Islam above. It’s important to know that, but will they join together against Israel and the rest of the world when any one of their groups is threatened? When Mohammad is caricatured? Do the fundamentalists called “extremists” by my Muslim friends have an appeal to all the groups –a unity after all? E.G. we attended a Mosque event for a boy –like a bar mitzva (sp) for Jews –and were approached by some ladies about how we could go into Iraq. My friends there were Sunni as was Sadam. Do they all think they SHOULD want sharia law? even if they don’t? I guess Sharia is Shiite law only, isn’t it? I have not seen anything about Islam to admire –not one thing. Even in the people I know –it’s scary to be at their parties with the men sitting on one side and the women on the other — and the sinister looks I think I get as a white Christian. I got a feeling we might not be allowed in the living areas of the house –only the basement and the outdoors.
June 10, 2010, 5:47 pmhardindr says:
Language Choice
June 10, 2010, 5:59 pmJim says:
“Having said that, in many ways Americans are lightyears ahead of Europeans in having safeguards against the (renewed) outbreak of such popular antipathy towards minorities. But that is only *because* the US has had experience with it.”
Really? Americans have more experience with popular antipathy towards minorities than Europeans do? If rounding up every Jew and Gypsy you can find and doing them to death, with rock solid backing from the public even in occupied territories is not “popular antipathy” enough to motivate you to put some legal and cultural safeguards in place, then it’s probably never going to happen.
June 10, 2010, 6:04 pmAnderson says:
Hardin is linking to Henry at Crooked Timber:
Hamas, leading critics of Judaism.
June 10, 2010, 6:08 pmMartinned says:
OTOH, in the real world birth rates tend to decline for 2nd and 3rd generation immigrants, to the point where they have no more babies than the rest of the country. The same goes for religiosity. But, then again, never let the truth get in the way of a good story…
June 10, 2010, 6:09 pmMartinned says:
You should read the speech that Barb linked to. There’s a reason why this guy scares the heck out of all right-thinking members of society.
June 10, 2010, 6:12 pmAnderson says:
It’s a dark religion. Very hard to see its appeal.
… So one imagines the burghers of Cordoba remarking, as they sip their wine and discuss the Christian barbarians.
June 10, 2010, 6:16 pmmaagou says:
To claim that Europe has not learned from the Holocaust and WWII is a *gross* misunderstanding of post-war European history. If your criticism is that even after those experiences Europeans are still susceptible to the unfortunate, but immanently human flaw of xenophobia, then I would ask you to direct the same anger towards post-slavery America.
June 10, 2010, 6:19 pmBarb says:
Today’s barbarians aren’t Christians, Anderson. Christianity is about morality with equality for women (not so Islam.) Christianity has a Savior; Islam had a very carnal, violent, military prophet who changed the story of Christ’s atonement. Christianity has a Heaven for all who repent and believe in Christ; Islam has paradise with virgin partners for men–nothing for women. You have to do certain WORKS to be “saved” in Islam–and terrorist acts are a guaranteed ticket. Being Christian is first of all a matter of faith –and the result is Christian fruit in one’s life. Christianity does have some dark history –made by people who didn’t know their Bible. You can find justification for the horrific acts in Islam today in the Koran, etc. –but you cannot find justification for Ku Klux Klan or Naziism or terrorism of any sort in the New Testament.
Or so my Sunday School teacher says –he’s a Christian from Turkey and later Iraq. He was asked why he’s not Muslim and he said with his Mid-east accent, “There is nothing good about Islam–nothing!”
June 10, 2010, 6:29 pmAnderson says:
Barb, your lack of familiarity with both Christianity and Islam qualifies you for Fox News commentator, and perhaps even governor of Alaska.
June 10, 2010, 6:40 pmAriel says:
Can’t find a good name:
You’re right. I started the sentence thinking South Asians were included, looked it up, realized they weren’t, and forgot to change the beginning of the sentence. I still think its goofy that Caucasian includes people from the Middle East.
June 10, 2010, 6:45 pmTed says:
*sigh* Palin really did a number on Alaskans’ reputations, eh?…er, yes?
June 10, 2010, 6:55 pmLN says:
Maybe the key distinction isn’t between Christians and Muslims, Barb, but between people who get excited at the thought of a clash of civilizations and people who believe that religious differences are reconcilable.
On the other hand, I’m sure every Muslim you’ve met doesn’t believe in morality, doesn’t believe in equality for women, believes that heaven is a virgin paradise, and believes that the best way to get into heaven is suicide-murder. Wait, something tells me you haven’t met very many Muslims…
Anybody who wants to mock religious beliefs — no matter what religion — has plenty of material to work with. Deuteronomy 22:21 recommends that a woman who engages in premarital sex should be stoned to death by the men of her city. Meanwhile Jesus said “Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword.”
June 10, 2010, 7:04 pmOwen H. says:
Or perhaps to sow hate? “See what those nasty Muslims made us do!”
June 10, 2010, 7:07 pmOwen H. says:
I’m tired of hearing ranting and raving about Sharia law being forced on me, dhimmitude, etc. So far, the only threats my religion has faced in this country have come from Christians.
June 10, 2010, 7:12 pmTed says:
Amen.
June 10, 2010, 7:18 pmTed says:
But surely threats to your life, liberty and pursuit of property, has been threatened by persons other than Christians?
June 10, 2010, 7:21 pmAlanDownunder says:
Wilders is merely a mainstream Republican transplanted to a European context where, unlike the US, there is no significant push for Christian theocracy. 16% of Dutch voters are voting like 48% of US voters.
June 10, 2010, 8:06 pmMartinned says:
I’m not sure if that is entirely true, but it is certainly where the money is coming from.
June 10, 2010, 8:16 pmHarryEagar says:
They say that, many of them, but it would be difficult, from reading the newspaper the last several weeks, to think they know what they are talking about.
What’s your country? Not Holland, I’m guessing.
June 10, 2010, 8:44 pmSteve says:
They say that, many of them, but it would be difficult, from reading the newspaper the last several weeks, to think they know what they are talking about.
Perhaps it’s fortunate that law enforcement professionals do their job based upon training and experience rather than “what you read in the newspaper the last several weeks.”
June 10, 2010, 9:31 pmChris Travers says:
Even if you are right, they’d just be returning the favor….
June 10, 2010, 9:52 pm1040 says:
well, isn’t that why we elected obama? because we are told everyday that he hates white people. heck, i hear he is a f–king raghead.
June 10, 2010, 10:14 pm1040 says:
#WIN!
June 10, 2010, 10:15 pmSidney Shegetz says:
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3552461,00.html
“‘Modesty patrol’ suspected of spilling acid on teenage girl”
Those crazy muslims.
June 10, 2010, 10:16 pm1040 says:
heh
ahem ahem.
June 10, 2010, 10:19 pmChris Travers says:
I think a major part of the problem is elevating opinion to the level of salvation. I am a Norse Neopagan but I would sooner convert to Judaism than Christianity simply because I reserve the right to make up my own mind on anything so am far more at home with practice-centered rather than belief-centered religions.
Secondly there is a heck of a lot of dark history surrounding the conversion of Europe to Christianity and the attempts by the Church to defend Europe against heresies. It’s unfair to attribute these to an ignorance of Christianity.
June 10, 2010, 10:38 pmDoc Merlin says:
I am hoping this was a joke.
June 10, 2010, 10:45 pmOf course whites can be muslim. Islam doesn’t care about race just culture, and actions.
Doc Merlin says:
Is there a difference?
June 10, 2010, 10:49 pmJeff S. says:
Theo Van Gogh was unavailable for comment.
June 10, 2010, 10:56 pmG.R. Mead says:
So, it is the Christians killing filmmakers and tacking religious threats to their dead chests with long knives, and running black politicians out of the country with death threats.
O enlighten me more, sirrah.
June 10, 2010, 11:33 pmG.R. Mead says:
If even half of it is true, it is scary — and not because of him…
June 10, 2010, 11:41 pmG.R. Mead says:
Christianity is not a matter of opinion but of truth — either He rose or He didn’t. You either find the evidence persuasive or you don’t — opinion is not the issue — credibility is. The effect of finding truth is more astounding than any opinion.
June 10, 2010, 11:47 pmChrisTS says:
But, surely, these could not be Christians?!
Oh, right, they are not true/genuine/godly/etc. Christians.
June 10, 2010, 11:52 pmChrisTS says:
Chris Travers:
Not to mention the unfortunate heathens in the Americas, Africa, and those funky ‘eastern’ places.
June 10, 2010, 11:55 pmRicardo says:
I saw Wilders interviewed on BBC a while ago. One statement he made that struck me was something to the effect of “Dutch society is based on three pillars. These pillars are Christianity, Judaism and humanism.”
I don’t think a conservative Republican would be caught dead saying America derives its principles from “humanism.” Even Judaism is a stretch: religious conservatives like to talk about “Judeo-Christian values” but then slip up soon enough and call the U.S. a “Christian nation.”
Maybe Wilders was toning it down for the foreign audience, on the other hand.
June 11, 2010, 12:52 amBarb says:
The importance of belief-centered religion is, for one thing, that no one can force conversion. You can’t truly FORCE belief. You can force practices but not beliefs. Christianity teaches that the practice of the Christian faith is very important “Faith without works is dead.” Yet, we are “saved by faith, not by works, lest any one should boast.” The Bible does say that the believers will be judged according to their works –but their sins will be remembered against them no more if they are remorseful for sin. There is no license in Christianity for continually sinning, being hateful and unforgiving and cruel and immoral, just because faith is our way to Heaven.
Yes, I acknowledged the dark history –but it really did stem from ignorance of the Bible –or the definite twisting of the Bible by evil men for evil ends. We have no license from Jesus to kill people for their heresy, paganism, sins, etc. When the New Testament says that evil-doers deserve death and that unbelievers will receive death –we already know that to be our lot in life. We all die. And both the Jewish and Christian scriptures say it’s because we are sinners who failed to live up to the standards of a Holy Creator. “The wages of sin is death ….but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.” “God sent not His son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved.”
Only Christianity has a plausible promise of eternal life in a better place –because Jesus promised it to His Jewish and other followers. And He proved His power to promise when He healed and raised people from the dead –and arose Himself. Of course, many who did not see it for themselves chose to not believe. Go to http://www.Biblegateway.com and read any of the Gospels and the Book of Acts. St. Paul’s conversion is miraculous itself –and the preaching of Peter and John in Jerusalem after they healed a lame man in Christ’s name. The greatest, most important story ever told is that about Jesus Christ. I just don’t think Christianity would have gotten off the ground as a religion about eternal life through the risen Jesus –if Jesus had not risen. There might have been a religion centered on His teachings, but it wouldn’t have been about a reprieve from death –except that Jesus beat the grave. “Death where is thy sting? Grave, where is thy victory?”
June 11, 2010, 2:01 amBarb says:
This conservative would –in that I say humanism derives from Judeo-Christianity. It’s just a similar philosophy that pretty much denies the existance of a Creator-God –and denies the historicity of the Bible. It is a man-centered philosophy, but it gets a lot of its values/views of right and wrong and civil rights , from Judeo-Christian religion.
June 11, 2010, 2:06 amBarb says:
I think there is. PC thinking says it’s not nice to criticize any lifestyle or religion (except Christianity) and the PC reason for that is Christianity’s stands on abortion and homosexuality. Because of those two issues, it is PC to criticize Christianity, to mock Jesus in entertainment media –but it is politically incorrect –and ALSO scary, to mock Mohammad.
June 11, 2010, 2:16 amBarb says:
“Woe to the mocker” heh
The equality for women was slow in coming –it “evolved” from protestant, Biblical Christianity, in the U.S. first. The implications of the value of women are in the scripture –like where Paul says Christians should submit mutually to one another as unto the Lord. He says wives should submit to their husband’s “headship” –but then says the husband should love his wife as Christ loved the church–which was enough to die for Her. It says church leaders should only have one wife. It says Eve was created after and FOR man, from man (like cloning with a tweak for sexual differentiation) –(there was a divine surgery in Genesis account)–to be his suitable helpmeet, companion, and to become one with Him. This is a fairly egalitarian arrangement –except for the curse of the Fall. And Christ came to alleviate the curse in all ways. Some very conservative evangelical (some would say fundamentalist) denominations have always ordained women –and do not make an issue of women’s role –except to say the man is the head of his home. I think MOST women like a leading man.
June 11, 2010, 2:25 amBarb says:
Huh? So-called “nasty Muslims” just make us defend ourselves and others against terrorism. We fear to make fun of Mohammad because of Islamic terrorism. No one but devout Christians would fear to make fun of Christ these days. And yet, “the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.”
Gee, Thanks, Anderson. You mean my familiarity, i think, Heh heh.
One thing I am more familiar with than the average Joe is Christianity –the Biblical era and the 19th-21st centuries –and the protestant movement in America. Try me.
June 11, 2010, 2:42 amMartinned says:
You don’t think it is slightly hypocritical to take every ugly thing that is in every chapter or verse of the Quran as an indictment of all Muslims everywhere, in Wilders’ words: “there is no such a thing as moderate Islam”, while people who take the equivalent passages from the Bible literally are “twisting them” “for evil ends”? Wouldn’t it be easier to admit that both books are evidence of the profound barbarism of the Middle East of ages past and judge people by what they actually do or believe, instead of by what is in their holy book?
June 11, 2010, 2:57 amkumquat says:
So Barb, if I’m reading you correctly, all bad things historically done by Christians in the name of their faith were the result of misunderstandings or deliberate distortions of the Bible, whereas all bad things done by Muslims in the name of their faith were exactly what the Koran says to do?
June 11, 2010, 3:54 amRicardo says:
Islam got off the ground because enough people actually believed that the archangel Gabriel dictated the Koran word-for-word to Muhammad. Why aren’t you similarly impressed with the fervent following Muhammad managed to attract? Almost every era seems to give birth to extremely charismatic individuals who can build followings around themselves.
June 11, 2010, 5:17 amChris Travers says:
I suppose my view is that the story of Christ is essentially a Hellenistic mythical tradition. You can find truth in it, but that doesn’t mean that it has historical value. In fact I see absolutely no evidence of historical value in the Christ story any more than I do in Apulaeis’s “Metamorphosis” (aka Golden Ass, as Augustine called it).
June 11, 2010, 6:03 amChris Travers says:
You are misunderstanding “practice” vs “belief” in this context. Hinduism and Judaism are good examples of practice-oriented religions. What you believe just isn’t particularly relevant. You can be a religious Hindu and be a polytheist, a monotheist, a pantheist, or an atheist and what you believe has no real bearing on whether you are seen as a true member of the religious community. Off-hand I don’t see why hard polytheism is necessarily a problem for Judaism (i.e. there are many gods out there, but this is our one), and I don’t see atheism as being entirely out of the question (i.e. observing the Law and the traditions for social value but seeing the belief in God as outdated– this goes somewhat beyond any major interpretation of Judaism that I know of but not as far as one might think).
Indeed, the only “work-centric” religion I know of is Zoroastrianism. All others are either defined by following religious practices, observances, and ways of life, or by professing belief. (Christianity has the potential to be work-centric in the sense that the words for faith used in both the Old and New testament suggest performing works rather than mere belief, but other elements of Christianity suggest belief as the central part and these are hard to overcome.)
You’ve never actually read any of the theological discussions on these topics from the Middle Ages, have you?
One of my favorites was a dissenting opinion from the Inquisition regarding the death sentence of a man convicted of witchcraft on the basis that he admitted to having followed his wife out to one of these demonic sabbaths. Interesting reading….
June 11, 2010, 6:11 amChris Travers says:
I missed this bit.
Credo quod absurdum? You are a fan of Tertullian, I see….
June 11, 2010, 6:34 amChris Travers says:
There’s also a strong difference here. It’s not clear to what extent the folks at the time of the early Christian church differentiated between history, fiction, and mythology. For example there was a strong tradition of mystical teachings in novels (such as The Golden Ass which may also contain the origins of the blood libel). We see the same thing in early historiographies from Iceland and other places. This makes any pronouncement of historical truth from what could very well have been religious novels (the Gospels) rather problematic, and outside sources such as Josephus and Tacitus seem to be repeating what people believe rather than recording historical details.
The story of Muhammed is quite different. First it occurs seven hundred years later, and the historical elements of the founding of Islam are quite a bit better documented. While there are parts of the story which strike me as likely mythical (or at least allegorical), the overall outline is relatively mundane and historical. In general, the story of Muhammed is not incredibly different though from that of the Badb or Bahau’la (founders of the Baha’i faith) except that the stories are incompatible (if Muhammed was the final prophet, Bahau’la could not have been a prophet). Islam is also much designed in a much more rational structure, having fewer inherent conflicts from the more mythically centered Christianity.
(Interestingly despite this, Islam is even lower on my list of religions I’d convert to than Christianity.)
June 11, 2010, 6:45 amAnderson says:
FWIW, one curious feature of the gospels’ resurrection accounts is that no one claims to’ve actually seen Jesus rise from the dead or emerge from the tomb, which would’ve been very easy to make up, if one were making stuff up.
June 11, 2010, 8:51 amJ.T. Wenting says:
Some commentary from the Netherlands:
Wilders isn’t opposed to people practicing any religion, he’s opposed to people practicing Islam from trying to force the entire country (indeed, entire world) from adopting their religion and culture to replace their own, he’s opposed to people coming to this country and refusing to adapt to our society, live by our rules and laws.
Rules and laws that grant freedom to women, grant people freedom to choose their own religion and mode of dress, laws that prohibit “honour killings”, the murder of apostates, etc. etc.
He’s oft been misquoted as comparing the Quran to Mein Kampf and wanting to ban it, a statement he never actually made. His actual statement was that were the Quran to be treated like Mein Kampf, it would have to be banned, were all passages that call for violations of our law to be scrapped from it it would leave little.
Never state that in most of Europe. The devotion to Christ over and often instead of God is typically American and would in large parts of Europe be frowned upon (and in some parts be considered heretical).
Most Europeans live by Christian values even if they don’t realise it (even those who call themselves atheists), but that statement wouldn’t go down well here with a lot of people.
Especially the protestants in the Netherlands, where even statues and painting of Christ are banned because they indicate worshipping a man over God.
He wasn’t. He was recognising that the core values of our society stem from Christian and Judaic values.
He wasn’t stating we’re a Christian or Jewish society (AFAIK he’s not religious himself).
His statement was meant to illustrate why the ever increasing intrusion on society by Islam is fundamentally at odds with the very core of what that society is built on, nothing more.
Not really. He just understands there’s little that can be done in the short term to change things, especially in an economic downturn when reducing consumer buying power would be fatal.
As is, being against increasing the welfare state is as far right as you can get in Europe without being lynched (and without, if you tried to introduce your policies, being faced with mass riots and economic woes, see Greece for example).
Of course stating you favour reduction of welfare to people would cost you votes, so in elections people are unlikely to run on a program of doing that.
Yet reducing welfare to people without reducing the taxes that pay for that is the standard modus operandi of the political left here, they just don’t advertise the point.
For example unemployment benefits here were cut from 2 years to just 1 without reducing unemployment premiums.
The plan to increase the retirement age would not be compensated for in reduced premiums to be paid to the government agency responsible (in fact, it’s being considered precisely to increase income to that agency while reducing payouts).
So he (and others who want to keep the status quo at least openly) are in fact the European right wing.
The left wants to reduce benefits while increasing taxes, increasing government control by making people ever more dependent on handouts under ever more guises.
Leftist to US standards, not European ones.
His socio-economic ideas are a mix of left and right, with the left mostly being the maintenance of the current status quo because it would cause major damage to consumer buying power and economic confidence to scrap those things.
They are conservatives in comparison to leftwing European parties. In the US they’d fit right in with the right wing of the Democratic party, the GoP would think them way too leftist.
It worked with Fortuyn. His party stood poised to win the elections before he was murdered, and fizzled completely immediately after.
They’re a party with views somewhere near the right wing of the US Democratic party that came forth out of a merger of several Christian parties decades ago.
June 11, 2010, 9:26 amChris Travers says:
That doesn’t mean anything. The point here is that I think that we are dealing with essentially a story cobbled together out of bits of Hellenistic tradition that became the focal point first for some Hellenized Jews and later other Hellenized Greeks, Romans, etc. All of the essential elements of the story were found in various mystery cults in the Hellenistic world (Isis, Dionysus, etc) or present in existing Jewish lore.
It isn’t that folks were making things up out of whole cloth so much as making a patchwork quilt out of other existing belief systems.
June 11, 2010, 10:28 amChris Travers says:
I dunno. It’s a point I make from time to time.
June 11, 2010, 10:35 amChris Travers says:
I always thought burning at the stake was more a Christian thing…. That and shooting abortion providers.
June 11, 2010, 10:36 amMichelle Dulak Thomson says:
J. T. Wenting,
Never state that in most of Europe. The devotion to Christ over and often instead of God is typically American and would in large parts of Europe be frowned upon (and in some parts be considered heretical).
[my emphasis]
Wow. I confess that it’s news to me that European Christians have ceased to believe in the Trinity.
June 11, 2010, 10:36 amKen Arromdee says:
I find this very disingenuous. Saying “All people in group X receive death” implies that members of that group specifically receive death in a way that doesn’t apply to other people, not that they die because all people do. If that passage just meant “unbelievers die like everyone else” and was not intended to imply something specific about unbelievers then there’s no reason to even mention unbelievers–it could have well said “all people with blue eyes receive death”.
If I marched down Main Street yelling out “all black people are going to die!” would you seriously interpret that as meaning “black people like everyone else are mortal”?
I’d like a quote for this. This is contrary to everything I know about Judaism.
June 11, 2010, 11:09 amJ.T. Wenting says:
Europeans haven’t, but it seems to use that Americans have by placing Christ over God himself.
June 11, 2010, 11:27 amGod is the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
Christ is just one aspect of Him, rather than replacing him which is what we see to be happening in US congregations (maybe due to inaccurate reporting, but if so US churches have a pr problem).
whit says:
no, it doesn’t.
it proves you can elect racists. iow, there is no “are you a racist’ test for political office.
but merely expressing ideas that can be construed as racist, or that denigrate a religion (in many cases) is prosecutable
regardless of what one thinks about the seven dirty words prohibition, the practical reality is they are all over cable tv, and nearly everybody has cable. so, in effect, it’s largely irrelevant. and god knows, one can express all sorts of IDEAS w/o the seven dirty words, but one cannot express any # of ideas in the EU w/o risking prosecution.
it is correct you don’t “value” free speech like we do. that’s the very point.
in the same way the US does not “value” the right to use marijuana, like holland does (and fwiw, i am against the drug war) and thus we have less rights.
a EU resident, and especially a resident of any # of countries in the EU such as france, the UK, etc. has far less rights vis a vis speech than we do.
and my belief is that when govt. proscribes ideas, and you can’t even utter them in public (in canada, you can’t even utter them in a private phone conversation), they start to take on a certain mystical aura etc. iow “govt. won’t even let me say this stuff, maybe there is some truth to it”.
it’s kind of like how a kid wants to do whatever his parents say is expressly prohibited.
June 11, 2010, 11:37 amwhit says:
here we go again with the moral equivalence
1) we are talking about the current world, not ancient history. yes, in the past christians burned people at the stake out of religious fervor. all sorts of extreme acts were done int he name of christianity, judaism, buddhism even (yes, it’s true), and paganism in the past. but in the CURRENT times, it’s islamic extremists that do this stuff. we are talking about the world AS IT IS, not ancient history
2) as for the abortion thing. first of all, when extremists kill abortion providers, they are nearly universally condemned for doing so BY CHRISTIANS. that is NOT true of the acts of islamic extremists, in that a substantial proportion of those in majority islamic countries, etc. SUPPORT these actions (whether it’s a fatwah against rushdie, etc.)
second of all the killing of abortion providers is “justified” by a belief that this act is murder. while that’s an extreme belief, it is an entirely different thing than killing somebody merely because they leave your religion (muslims have killed apostates and it is called for by extremists routinely), criticize your religion, draw pictures of a prophet, etc.
an abortion provider can walk down any street in the US with a sign saying “i provide abortions” and not get murdered. a person cannot walk down a street in nearly any majority muslim country with a sign saying “mohammed is a piece of garbage”, otoh. if you don’t believe me, try it. the reality is that christians do not routinely engage in violence when their most sacred aspects of their religion are mocked. south park does it ROUTINELY (and good for them).
so, lay off the ridiculous moral equivalence. because there is none. christianity, judaism, etc. have gone through a reformation. islam has NOT
June 11, 2010, 11:45 amBarb says:
It’s a sword of ideological division between those who believe in God and Christ and those who don’t –it’s not about physically battling –because He also says to “love your enemies” “pray for those who despitefully use you”. There is a cultural war and a war in the marketplace of ideas. The sword is a metaphor for this battle. the Bible likens the Word of God to a 2-edged sword.
However, there are also times of military war –real physical warfare –against those who would impose their tyranny of evil over others, denying right to life and freedom.
June 11, 2010, 12:29 pmBarb says:
Good comment, Whit. However I wouldn’t say Christianity has gone through a reformation as much as a return to or revival of its Biblical roots. The Catholic church with its bejeweled and rich all-male priesthood in cahoots with evil kings, with its unbiblical requirements of penance and indulgences, burning of witches, beheading of heretics, forced conversions (did they do that as Muslims did?) had departed from basic Christianity somewhere along the line.
June 11, 2010, 12:37 pmBarb says:
Are you talking about the hate speech laws that prohibit any biblical preaching or criticism of homosexuality in broadcasting? Would people be arrested for blogging against gay marriage?
June 11, 2010, 12:44 pmBarb says:
I thought a majority of Europeans had not only ceased to believe in God at all, but don’t go to church anymore. However, from tv evangelism in Europe, we know there is an active Bible-believing segment of Europeans –but I hear it is small.
Interestingly, my perception is that American Christians DO acknowledge God the Father –praying to HIM in Jesus’ name –as the Bible teaches. Educated Christians know to address God, the Father –in the name of His Son –and through the power of the Holy Spirit.
June 11, 2010, 12:54 pmYes, there is Jesus-worship in many songs and prayers –but you don’t see anywhere in scripture that God the Father is jealous of God, the Son –as the Bible says that after resurrection of the dead, “Every knee shall bow and every tongue shall confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.” It also says that Jesus is the Word made Flesh –through whom everything was created. “In the beginning was the Word, the the Word was WITH God and the Word WAS God.” The Word exalts Christ –Christ exalts the Father –the Father loves the Son –and is not jealous of our adoration of Christ. He is the God with skin on.
Big bill says:
sorry, friend. The Mexican birthrate in Mexico is near 2.1. The Mexican immigrant birthrate in America jumped to 3.8 after the mid-80s amnesty. And don’t think it is going to drop with their growing commitment to higher education and white values. Only 6 percent of fourth generation Mexican immigrants To the US get a college degree.
Nope. They are more likely to follow the path of Haredi Jews in Israel who squirt out kids at an 8-10 per woman rate, dodge the draft, and run various housing, welfare and education scams, not to mention beating women who sit at the front of the bus.
Welfare states attract breeders like crazy until they collapse. And if the only answer is “spend more money on them in hopes you can get them to assimilate” that just ain’t going to happen.
June 11, 2010, 12:58 pmMichelle Dulak Thomson says:
J. T. Wenting,
God is the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
Christ is just one aspect of Him, rather than replacing him which is what we see to be happening in US congregations (maybe due to inaccurate reporting, but if so US churches have a pr problem).
I confess that I’m not sure which US congregations you have in mind. The Catholic congregations I know are all pretty clear about the Trinity (and the US is, what, 25% Catholic?). I would imagine the same goes for the Lutherans.
About other denominations you obviously know more than I. Who knew that American religious practice was the stuff of European journalism? It’s certainly not the stuff of our journalism. If asked, I could probably take a stab at describing the Southern Baptist Convention or Pentacostalism or any other sect, but certainly not because I’d read about it in the local paper or seen it on TV.
June 11, 2010, 1:09 pmBarb says:
Jesus said we are all sinners –”all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.” “all we like sheep have gone astray.” “There is none righteous, no not one.”
Paul calls out a lot of sins that deserve death, to name the sins more than to order a penalty — not that we should kill these people–because we ARE all transgressors who die because of original sin and we have inherited that sin nature. (Maybe it’s in the genes because the first couple said yes to Satan?)
We don’t believe in us killing people who the Bible says deserve death –Romans 1:18-32 includes a whole list. Whether Paul meant that we should kill certain sinners in his list or not, I don’t know, but I don’t think so. Because in the next chapter he warns us against judging for things we are guilty of ourselves. We certainly don’t find explicit justification for such killings by us in Jesus’ teaching –or anywhere else in the NT.
As John 3:17 says, “But God sent not His son into the world to condemn the world –but that the world through him might be saved.”
June 11, 2010, 1:13 pmSo the Christians’ challenge is not to kill evil-doers, but to proclaim the Gospel so people can be saved from eternal damnation (to non-existance or a Hell (Bible scholars disagree about the nature of damnation and Hell because there is room for latitude in interpretation.) Jesus describes a Hell and Revelations speaks of a 2nd death after judgment day –for those who refused the gift of God which is eternal life through faith in Christ.)
Michelle Dulak Thomson says:
Barb,
Interestingly, my perception is that American Christians DO acknowledge God the Father –praying to HIM in Jesus’ name –as the Bible teaches. Educated Christians know to address God, the Father –in the name of His Son –and through the power of the Holy Spirit.
Indeed. It’s not like the Lord’s Prayer has gone out of style here.
He is the God with skin on.
OK, never heard that before, but that’s a keeper.
June 11, 2010, 1:16 pmSidney Shegetz says:
The Lord’s Resistance Army is Christian.
(Kampala)
The level of debate on this thread is absurdly low.
Robert Pape The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism
Peter Beinart-Liberal Zionist
Israelis who are in favor of a two state solution want Palestinian citizens of Israel to leave. That desire can only be defined as racist. This is racism Sheikh Jarrah, occupied East Jerusalem.
Europe slaughtered its Jewish population, but Angela Merkel can still talk about “Christian Europe” without being shamed into silence. Muslims in Europe are the return of the Jews, but the Shtetls are now in neighborhoods in the largest cities. In the US Muslims rank above the average on the economic scale, while Europe is a based on the social democracy of tribes. Israel is based on the model of a Christian Democracy built on stolen land. That’s more reactionary than European nativism, which is why Israel and Apartheid SA were so close.
Shimon Peres to SA MInister of Information Dr. E.M Rhoodie
Get used to miscegenation. Get used to the new Semites of Europe. Get used to the continuing fade of explicit faith and let’s all hope it leads to something better than the implicit faith of those who have faith in nothing but themselves. Israel was founded as a secular state, with an ideology no more or less fundamentally religious than Stalinism. Adults are more skeptical than faithful, but they’re civil.
For what it’s worth Hamas is less founded on terror than the IDF. Hamas defends. Your logic is that it does not have that right, but after 40 years of occupation and expansion I’m not going to quibble about tactics. I’ll say that even though Hamas can hold a truce while Israel does not
The biggest danger to Israel is Israel. The biggest dangers in the middle east are Israel and Saudi, the two US partners in the region.
June 11, 2010, 1:22 pmCJColucci says:
Only Christianity has a plausible promise of eternal life in a better place –because Jesus promised it to His Jewish and other followers.
Funny thing, I was recently looking for the texts that say that. I found a lot of stuff about an earthly kingdom, which would be instituted within the lifetimes of at least some of Jesus’s auditors, populated by the then-living faithful and the formerly-dead faithful bodily resurrected. Unless Mel Brooks and Carl Reiner are reporters and not comedians, and a few very old contemporaries are still around, this doesn’t appear to have happened as predicted.
June 11, 2010, 1:31 pmBarb says:
I would like to think that Christianity embraced and studied would give people a desire to be self-sufficient, hard-working, diligent, and responsible–starting as children in schools. Jesus said, “The poor you’ll always have with you” and also commanded the generosity of others toward them. But that has never meant socialism to me.
June 11, 2010, 1:38 pmJ.T. Wenting says:
Maybe we only see the crackpots here. But the idea one gets from movies, TV series (and reading blogs and websites like this one) is that Americans generally worship Jesus Christ to the exclusion of God.
June 11, 2010, 1:38 pmThey seem to believe only in “Jesus Christ our Lord the Saviour”, a statement that in large parts of Europe would be frowned upon as that title goes to God and God alone.
Here Christ is explicitly the son of God, an aspect of God, but certainly not a replacement for God.
You don’t pray to Christ, you pray to God.
Or so I was taught by a Catholic priest in school, a devout man who’d spent most of his life as a missionary in Indonesia.
Barb says:
After Jesus’ resurrection, He said the following to His Jewish followers –who passed the message to the world:
1″Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God[a]; trust also in me. 2In my Father’s house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. 3And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am. 4You know the way to the place where I am going.”
5Thomas said to him, “Lord, we don’t know where you are going, so how can we know the way?”
6Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. 7If you really knew me, you would know[b] my Father as well. From now on, you do know him and have seen him.”
He promised the gift of the holy Spirit also –who would be the divine presence with and within us who believe –so that we would have the comfort and guidance of Christ/God’s son –at all times. The Word is our guide as to what input (spiritually, mentally, emotionally) comes from God and that which does not.
June 11, 2010, 1:53 pmMichelle Dulak Thomson says:
J. T. Wenting,
Maybe we only see the crackpots here. But the idea one gets from movies, TV series (and reading blogs and websites like this one) is that Americans generally worship Jesus Christ to the exclusion of God.
The only possible response to this is don’t get your ideas from movies and TV series. You “only see the crackpots” because you’re seeing someone’s idea of America rather than the thing itself. It’s like taking your idea of an American accent entirely from BBC depictions of Americans. (Trust me: They try to make “American” characters sound American, but the result is like nothing on God’s green earth.)
As for “blogs and websites like this one,” I trust you don’t mean that literally. VC doesn’t generally stray into theology, and when it does, it’s mostly Jewish.
June 11, 2010, 3:24 pmwhit says:
yes. that’s of course a small subset of what is prohibited.
June 11, 2010, 4:35 pmwhit says:
the salem witch trials were not spearheaded by catholics.
June 11, 2010, 4:38 pmHarry Eagar says:
‘Americans generally worship Jesus Christ’
True for the holy rollers, but Catholics worship Mary. Mohammedans worship Mohammed.
They say they don’t, but they do.
June 11, 2010, 5:29 pmKen Arromdee says:
Jesus said that? Sure. That quote means that? No.
There’s no way that a statement that unbelievers receive death can possibly be a statement about all of us. It’s specifically about unbelievers. It can only mean that unbelievers receive death in some unique manner which merits mentioning them separately.
June 11, 2010, 5:36 pmMark Field says:
Catholics burned their share of witches, but not at Salem.
June 11, 2010, 7:25 pmChris Travers says:
The root point I was addressing was Barb’s convictions that atrocities committed in the name of Christianity were done so in ignorance. To this inquiry the ancient world is in fact very, very relevant.
Secondly, I’ve seen Christians in South-East Asia advocate things that just strike me as plain wrong but which I cannot find a Biblical argument against.
I am not sure that religion generally makes a difference in human nature. It may, for some people, provide a source of wisdom but that’s a bit of a different thing. People who are otherwise structured to be good to eachother will be good to eachother regardless of religion and those who are otherwise structured to be militant will be militant.
My beef with both Christianity and Islam is actually in one commonality which has lead to a great number of attrocities over the centuries, namely that their ways are perfect and everyone else needs to be converted. In this regard the fact that we don’t currently see a lot of attrocities done in the name of Christ offers scant comfort to future generations that we won’t.
June 11, 2010, 8:57 pmChris Travers says:
Interestingly, I think that the Christian Trinity was borrowed into late Viking-age paganism as the three brothers,”Odhinn” (also called the All-Father), Vili (“Will”), and Ve (“The Holy”). I think this was a borrowing because it’s a redundant structure somewhat detached from the more traditional structures cognate to the ancestor of the Christian Trinity (The Platonic Trinity). Going into this argument here would take several pages though. So here is a brief abstract.
Georges Dumezil has identified a persistent structure which occurs over and over, in poetics and iconography, throughout the Indo-European world. It’s found in the Vedas as (Mitra and/or Varuna) + (Intra and/or Vayu) + (The Ashvins). It’s found among the Greeks in various oath-formulas (Zeus, Apollo, and Demeter or Artemis); among the Romans as Jupiter, Mars, and Quirinus; Among the Gauls as Belinus, Taranis, and Tautatis; among the Norse as either Odhinn, Thorr, and Freyr (per Adam of Bremen and Skirnismal) and Odhinn, Hoenir, and Lodhurr (in Voluspa).
The structure was later reduced by Plato to Dyupiter (“Shining Father” in Greek, mentioned in Letters), The Son of Dyupiter/The Active Principle (Mentioned in Letters and Republic), and probably an unnamed third part (based on the reference to Republic in the structure of Godhead in Letters), into which Plato’s followers placed The World Soul (from Timaeus). This becomes the obvious prototype for the Trinity in Christianity a few centuries later. Dumezil’s made a strong argument that the tripartite structure of head-heart-belly (from which this structure is also closely tied) is derived from the older tripartite structures in the same way.
Odhinn/Vili/Ve is different from Odhinn/Hoenir/Lodhurr and Odhinn/Thorr/Freyr in a couple of important ways which are probably beyond the scope of folks interest here. Suffice it to say that I think these differences point to a later borrowing, and that the name in the third element “Ve” (Holiness) suggests that the source of the borrowing was the Christian Trinity but radically altered through the course of adapting it to the rest of the tradition.
Again doing this subject justice is probably a 10-15 page paper.
June 11, 2010, 9:17 pmBarb says:
Such as? There are all kinds of perversions of Christianity –out of Biblical ignorance –or from focusing on one verse out of context, without awareness of balancing scriptures. E.G. Jesus says if your eye offends you, pluck it out–rather than to burn in Hell. I would reason that he’s saying that lust is very serious –so stop doing it lest it lead you to other sin and to Hell. The balancing scriptures are about the Grace of God. Even in the Old Testament, the Lord says, “the contrite heart I will not despise.” “Draw near to me and I will draw near to you.”
Another ritual we see is people putting themselves through the sufferings of Christ in rituals because we are to be “crucified with Christ” and “share in His sufferings.” This simply means that we take risks to be missionaries, we suffer ridicule and scorn (and even persecution and death) to proclaim His Deity and Plan of salvation. For the average layman, we are taught to deny ourselves –become unselfish –in order to live by His precepts.
To Chris Travers: When historians see similarities between ancient belief systems and Judaism or Christianity, I don’t conclude that Judaism and Christianity are based on similar mythology. I think mythology may predict Truth. My faith is in a real flesh and blood Messiah who did miracles and rose from the dead –and emboldened his followers for world-wide evangelism by His resurrection. Had He not risen, resurrection would not be the promise of Christianity the way it is.
June 11, 2010, 9:50 pmBarb says:
Yes –but the holy rollers are worshipping God and His Son as ONE God –three persons in One. We are to worship Christ.
Catholics who don’t know better do seem to practice idolatry in their prayer before statues. If they are taught correctly, they know the statues are only representations –and they claim they don’t worship Mary today–but I agree with you, that they do worship Mary as the Mother of God. But she is only the earthly vessel for the God-man Christ. Not deity herself, which Mother of God implies.
June 11, 2010, 10:02 pmBarb says:
I think Christianity is a great civilizer –when the Bible is studied by the Christian. You can’t beat the Golden Rule, the Fruits of the Spirit, the love and forgiveness and self-denial teachings of Jesus. And Christ’s commands to be compassionate, unselfish, and generous –and humble –not thinking of ourselves as better than any other person –not preferring people of status and wealth –and not looking down on sinners for their sin –not being harsh in judgments but loving peope enough to teach them, forgive them, saying, “now, go and sin no more” –as Jesus said to the adultress.
and yet there is a time for “militance?” As Jesus called some a “generation of vipers” –and rebuked the money changers in the temple with a show of force.
June 11, 2010, 10:08 pmChris Travers says:
Such as “if you teach at a school, you should practice converting the Buddhist children because they are good practice for converting Muslim children.”
June 11, 2010, 10:12 pmBarb says:
Ken, it’s basic Christianity to believe that ALL of us are mortal and under the curse of death because of the sin of Adam and Even in the Garden of Eden –after that, they eventually aged and died –as God had warned them. “If you eat of this tree you will surely die.” So in the NT, St. Paul lists a lot of specific sins in his letter to the Romans and says that these behaviors are sins which deserve death.
There is no indication that Christians of the New Testament went about killing any sinners because of what Paul said. In fact, in the next chapter, Romans 2, he starts off reminding the Romans to not judge –for they do the very same things as the sinners. But he obviously doesn’t mean that they can’t call sin sin and warn sinners not to sin–because he just did that himself in chapter 1.
Yes, you are right to say that eternal death or damnation –whatever it is –after the Judgment Day–will occur only to the unbelievers –the unrepentant. At that point, they WILL believe, and that’s when “every knee shall bow and proclaim Jesus Christ as Lord”–but it will be too late. According to the Bible, if we reject Jesus as the Son, we will not inherit the eternal Kingdom of God. No works will be good enough to save us when we rejected the free gift of salvation through Christ. Yet everyone will be resurrected for the final judgment.
It’s ok with me if God changes His mind and extends grace beyond the Biblical promises –widens his mercy — to include the good-intentioned –but scripture is pretty clear to say that good deeds won’t save us without faith. “Without faith, it is impossible to please God.” Faith is a gift for which we can ask. “Ask and you will receive.” “If a man knows how to give good gifts to his children, how much more will the heavenly Father be willing to give the Holy Spirit to those who ask.”
June 11, 2010, 10:24 pmChris Travers says:
When looking at history, the impact is a bit different. Generally speaking the support of the Church lead to larger political units, more political stability and continuity (no more dividing a kingdom among the sons), etc. but also a reduced life expectancy (this is despite the reduction in violence) and decline in oral health and even a decline in social mobility. It’s also worth noting that the developments in metallurgy in Christian Europe were almost all brought in from converted peoples (Goths and Norse particularly). Moreover the design of ships and some other things actually suffered following the conversion.
You might see this as civilizing because it meant more viability for urban centers, but it came at a significant cost. In the 10th Century, the Vikings were living on average more than twice as long as Continental Europeans, despite the fact that there was a great deal more violence in their way of life. The Norse also had only a fifth the tooth decay of the French despite the longer life. The Norse ships were also superior to anything of their day, and in fact their fastest designs performed equivalently to experimental ship designs today (called Fast Sealift Monohull designs). They may not have been particularly pleasant to sail in, but they were seaworthy and extremely fast for their length. The speed (kts) to square root of waterline (ft) ratio of a Viking merchant ship or a multipurpose raiding/transport under sail was approx 1.3, while for a specialized warship it may have been around 1.5 (we know, for example, that the Vikings had rowboats with a ratio of 1.5-1.6). For comparison, the current generation of modern warships get about 1.4 (about the maximum you can get with a displacement hull), and clipper ships were at about 1.0 (similar to a supertanker today).
So I actually think that technological progress was slowed down quite a bit by the conversion, and I’m not sure whether the reduction in life expectancy was necessarily worth having a larger number of urban centers (these centers did exist in heathen Europe—Hedeby, Nidaros, and Birka being good examples).
June 11, 2010, 10:32 pmBarb says:
True –I was thinking of the burning of Joan of Arc and others whom they judged to be heretics, witches, etc. European atrocities.
Ineresting about the Salem witch trials: If ARthur Miller’s The Crucible is an accurate portrayal, that really wasn’t Christianity in action–it was the gullibility of men to believe wicked little girls dancing in the woods who claimed to be possessed because of the good Christian women in the village –whom the girls called witches. The ones influenced by witchcraft themselves were the accusing girls –whose leader was motivated by adultery and John Proctor’s sin with her. There was witchery afoot, that’s for sure.
June 11, 2010, 10:34 pmChris Travers says:
Two things:
1) You are misrepresenting the Greek word translated as “faith” in the New Testiment. The Greek sources suggest faith is a matter of action rather than state of mind.
2) I refuse to believe in a god which would value mindless belief over open inquiry, reserving the afterlife for the intellectually docile.
t that the justification for conversion by the sword though? After all, if you’re going to die anyway…..
June 11, 2010, 10:40 pmChris Travers says:
What historical evidence can you point to of the historical validity of the Christ story? There are no contemporary sources. Tacitus was writing much later and appeared to get sufficient details wrong (compared to other writings) that it seems most likely he was just repeating hearsay without actually checking records himself, and Josephus’s writings are even more problematic.
It seems to me that we can needlessly multiply entities here and assert that there must have been records and actual historical events exactly as the Bible says, or we can assume that story elements made their way in simply because they were the stories that everyone wanted to hear. We know that these were the case in apocryphal gospels (the Gospel of Mary has Christ born in a cave with obvious echoes of Mithraism).
Furthermore (and perhaps more crucially), the Gospels in their current forms are not particularly early. In fact they date from the mid-first to mid-second centuries, making them even later than Tacitus’s problematic passage. Moreover when we look at Greco-Egyptian writings, we see verbal formulas which later occur almost word-for-word in the Gospel according to John (which admittedly is one of the later Gospels in authorship).
June 11, 2010, 10:46 pmBarb says:
and you know this how??? You are saying conversion caused bad hygiene and diets for teeth? How many old European corpses were studied for this observation? Sounds highly speculative to me. There are some positive aspects to every culture –man wasn’t given a brain for nothing. But I call post-reformation Christianity the civilizer since western culture is the one that advanced to great discoveries and achievements and superior views of freedom and civil rights –following england in abolition –and none more advanced than 20th C. protestant America –where “the bishop’s boys” invented the airplane.
June 11, 2010, 10:53 pmBarb says:
Mid-first is certainly good enough for me. The New Testament is a great read. Have you read it? When you read it, I suggest asking the God in whom you don’t believe, to show you His truth –and see what happens.
It’s a marvelous story with several different authors –and Jesus didn’t write about Himself.
Even today, the prevailing secular culture and news sources can be totally oblivious to what’s going on in Christendom. So it was in Josephus’ time. But those New Testament writers wrote HISTORY. I believe it. It reads LIKE history, with a lot of attention to detail.
“verbal formulas?” That has to do with CONTENT or grammar?
June 11, 2010, 11:01 pmBarb says:
No justification in “thou shalt not murder.”
1. We Christians certainly believe that “faith without works is dead.” Or “God can’t steer a parked car.” So what did the Greek word for “faith” mean in this verse –”faith without works is dead.” Active faith without active faith is dead? Well, it’s true enough , no matter how you say it.
2. There is nothing to suggest that God disrespects the intellectually inquisitive –or values “mindless belief.” In fact we are to love God with ALL our mind, soul, and being. The Bible has great appeal for the mind –there is much wisdom in it. Much to ponder. Much to study and learn. And room for intellectual application to interpretation.
June 11, 2010, 11:09 pmBarb says:
Huh?
June 11, 2010, 11:16 pmBarb says:
Hi Michelle–bringing up the Lord’s Prayer –this was of course our pattern for prayer given by Jesus Himself –and in that prayer He did not demonstrate praying, “In Jesus’ name.” So I don’t get too rattled when people object to that phrase being included in public prayers –like those used to open government meetings. At the same time, I think people should be able to pray any way they please –and include “in Jesus’ name” if they want to — because He said what we ask in His name will be done for us –and our gov’t is to respect free exercise of religion–even in a public meeting by elected officials, IMO. If, however, I’m trying to keep the ACLU at bay, I don’t feel that it’s too compromising to leave off that closing, “In Jesus’ name,” since the Lord’s own demonstration prayer didn’t include it.
One other scriptural aspect of prayer for Christians is that Jesus is the mediator between God and man –no priest, just Christ. We do approach the Father THROUGH the Son –and the means is our faith and the Holy Spirit. So some people do direct their prayers to Christ. When I’m in a crisis, it’s “Jesus, help me!!!” He is the Savior.
June 11, 2010, 11:31 pmChris Travers says:
Well, it’s more complex. The word usually translated as “faith” is closer to the English word “troth.” A better translation would be that “Loyalty without works is dead.” This survives in modern English in the sense of “faithful marriage” which has nothing to do with opinion but with actions.
I’ve read it in English translation, and small parts of it in Koine Greek, but my Greek isn’t good enough yet to read more than a verse at a time, so it’s mostly useful when wanting to show that the wine the Christ produced from the water was, in fact, an alcoholic beverage.
It’s far more interesting in Greek. Trust me.
What you’ve said though is that religion is about belief, and that the key issue of Christianity is to believe in Christ. That places very strong limits around the scope of intellectual activity. This does not entirely supplant other interpretations, such as the idea of Christianity being a mythology which contains wisdom and truth, but somewhat equivalent systematically to other mythological traditions, but that seems to be entirely heretical from the viewpoint of Christian thought.
I will admit however that Martin Luther’s metaphor of scripture as being the manger in which one finds Christ seems to allow for this more mythological interpretation.
Verbal formulas are sets of words, usually only slightly modified if at all, which are used in identical (or near-identical) form in similar contexts or to refer to a near-identical concept.
For example the Greek Magical Papyrii contain an initiation ritual which appears to be the prototype for the Baptism of Christ. Not only is the overall form of the ritual extremely similar (both are symbolic sacrifice-by-drowning) including the idea that a spirit in the form of a bird would drop something at the feet of the one initiated, but the phrase, “I am the son of a living god” which is of course minimally modified in that passage in John. This suggests that the author of John was working partly from this source in the PGM corpus. This is not at all unique as there are multiple other phrases (specifically in John) drawn from PGM initiation rituals and magical charms.
The PGM tradition is, in fact, quite interesting in other respects because later PGM scrolls (the PGM tradition spans about five centuries from the 2nd century BC through the third century AD) use “Christos” and “Chrestos” interchangeably. This lends a great deal of weight to the idea that the original Tacitus passage may have referred to “Chrestos” instead of “Christos.” Hanz Dieter Betz translates “Chrestos” in the PGM tradition as “The Most Excellent” though in more common Greek it could have meant “The Good” or even “The Useful One.”
Also, the PGM and PDM materials seem to lend a great deal of weight to the idea that Arianism was sufficiently interesting and important (particularly the teaching that “Son of God” was an initiatory rather than inherent status) as to be incorporated by reference and watered down in John.
June 12, 2010, 12:08 amChris Travers says:
Something I heard at a church meeting in Indonesia. Care to put together a Biblical argument that this is wrong?
June 12, 2010, 12:14 amChris Travers says:
I was raised as a Quaker, btw. And part of the problem here is your insistence on belief. Maybe it’s just that I was raised in a Christian sect that operates on the assumption that belief should be a matter of experience rather than creed. And I’ve done too much textual studies of old documents anyway to accept the Bible as historical truth.
My own framework is that mythic time is orthogonal to historical time and in fact we can move back and forth in mythic type however we like. The whole point of communion, for example, is to move back in time (mythically) to the Last Supper. At Easter, the point is the resurrection. It’s all a matter of myths to live by. I have myths I live by– myths drawn mostly from the Eddas instead of the Bible.
June 12, 2010, 12:21 amChris Travers says:
Just a note: Most people in Pakistan and Bangladesh should be properly classified as Asians, but Pakistanis are mostly Caucasian.
June 12, 2010, 2:39 amNorthern Dave says:
It’s probably a denotation vs connotation issue, but for most folks Caucasian means European and not deep southern European either.
About the article: I suspect the experience of poorer Dutch with the effects of Islam in their neighbourhoods is vastly different than that of richer Dutch whose Islamic neighbours are highly educated and incomed doctors etc….
I have often wondered if many crime apologists etc in the US would change their tunes if they weren’t living in upscale, gated communities……..
June 12, 2010, 7:43 amNorthern Dave says:
Except that the Bible is Absolute Truth and not a Myth which the Eddas are (and I’m descended from the actual Odin so there :-) ).
June 12, 2010, 7:44 ammattski says:
Don’t you mean to say that it’s basic Christianity to say that we’re all mortal EXCEPT those who accept Christ? Isn’t that a more candid statement?
You said there’s no reason to think God disrespects the inquisitive. Except that according to you God punished ALL human beings because Adam & Eve ate from the tree of knowledge! Kind of confusing if you ask me.
Barb, the Golden Rule has been around much longer than Christianity. It’s vain and ignorant for you to claim it for Jesus.
June 12, 2010, 9:23 amMichelle Dulak Thomson says:
Northern Dave,
It’s probably a denotation vs connotation issue, but for most folks Caucasian means European and not deep southern European either.
And “most folks” haven’t a clue where the Caucasus is.
June 12, 2010, 10:23 amLN says:
Yeah, but aren’t the poor Dutch stupid and lazy? They are poor, after all. Sounds like just the kind of people to spend their time complaining about other people instead of pulling themselves up by their bootstraps.
June 12, 2010, 10:47 amChris Travers says:
Prove it (certainly the first one and optionally the second one) without appealing to authority.
June 12, 2010, 11:16 amChris Travers says:
How do you want to define it? Personally I find racial labels to be less useful than culturo-linguistic labels, but if we go that way, we’d have to see Estonia as far-removed from Latvia, and most of the rest of Europe grouped together with Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, Nepal, and the Kurds.
June 12, 2010, 11:21 amChris Travers says:
As an aside, why do I get the impression I’m the only one in this discussion whose ever attempted any serious textual studies of any sort…..
June 12, 2010, 11:23 amMichelle Dulak Thomson says:
Chris Travers,
As an aside, why do I get the impression I’m the only one in this discussion who’s ever attempted any serious textual studies of any sort…..
You’re not. But I don’t suppose musical texts are what you had in mind.
June 12, 2010, 12:26 pmBarb says:
God respects the inquisitive –not the disobedient. Are you still confused?
Jesus gets the credit for the Golden Rule in western culture –and for being the most effective in getting people to live it and to keep challenging and measuring themselves by it.
We are all mortals in our flesh. We all experience death. And the Bible teaches that original sin is the reason –and that our sin nature is ongoing because of original disobedience by mankind. All sin merits death.
the Good News of Jesus Christ is that He atoned for our sins on the cross and all who believe in Him do gain eternal life–but we shall ALL age and die first. We believe God intended us to be immortal on this planet in our human bodies –as we are –but sin brought the curse of death and many other hardships.
That’s the story–and disagreeing with it doesn’t disprove it.
June 12, 2010, 3:41 pmBarb says:
I do think creed is important, bedrock to faith –but experience makes a big difference. That’s why I suggested you ask God to reveal His truth to you as you do your “textual studies” of the New Testament. There is nothing like genuine spiritual experience!!! There is nothing like seeking God and finding Him. Like that fellow who wrote “walk across America” and wandered into a religious meeting and found himself profoundly moved and changed. Like John Wesley who had been a missionary to America but had a cold, dead faith –until he attended the Aldersgate meeting and found his heart “strangely warmed” and he had his epiphany that he truly was saved by God’s Grace regardless of his unworthiness. The blood of Christ was sufficient for atonement of all mankind who would repent and believe.
June 12, 2010, 3:51 pmBarb says:
So, you really don’t believe that Jesus Christ lived and died in the 1st Century CE –even though we date our calendar as though He did?
Some people deny the Holocaust, too. Of course, it’s easier to deny something that happened so long ago–even though the stories sound pretty historically authentic, not intended to aggrandize the authors but just to keep a record and pass it down through the centuries.
Imagine that every century, someone was born on the first year and lived 100 years –there are only 20-plus such persons since Jesus walked the earth. I think it’s reasonable to believe the stories as passed down during these 20 lifetimes.
June 12, 2010, 3:58 pmBarb says:
No one suggests baptism started with Christ or was uniquely Jewish or Christian before it happened to Christ –with the descending dove. It’s all the more meaningful to the observers when the dove descends –when the ritual has context and history. All the myths have fallen away in public consciousness –but the true story when God intervened and introduced his son in whom He was well pleased with a dove –that story survives.
Ritual cleansings throughout history indicate man’s sense of uncleanness –or sinfulness. In some of the pagan practices around Israel maidens bathed in the blood of bulls –for fertility rites, i believe. There are only so many rituals that religious people can think up in their pursuit of God or the blessing of fertility; that cleansing rituals pre-date the real thing should be no surprise.
June 12, 2010, 4:14 pmBarb says:
What did you hear? did you say?
June 12, 2010, 4:19 pmBarb says:
I don’t think it does. Intellectual activity is VERY vigorous among believers.
June 12, 2010, 4:21 pmMichelle Dulak Thomson says:
Chris Travers,
I have to agree with Barb here:
[CT:] What you’ve said though is that religion is about belief, and that the key issue of Christianity is to believe in Christ. That places very strong limits around the scope of intellectual activity.
[Barb:] I don’t think it does. Intellectual activity is VERY vigorous among believers.
Barb will likely not concur with this suggestion, because the periodical in question is more Catholic than not, but anyone who thinks Christians as such aren’t thoughtful really needs to pick up a copy of First Things and see whether s/he’s up to the level of discourse in there.
June 12, 2010, 4:55 pmBarb says:
I have seen First Things, Michelle –and I do not disagree.
The phrase “first things” reminds me of the original definition of “fundamentalist Christian.” They were the ones opposing the “modernists” by saying there were certain indisputable “fundamental tenets” of Christianity. They came to be insulted as anti-intellectual, anti-education, etc., but they actually founded many fine colleges –for both women and men –co-ed schools. They were the founding churches of what we would now call the evangelicals.
June 12, 2010, 10:39 pmBarb says:
Are you a musician, Michelle? I am. My whole family sings –I do piano and trumpet and now keyboard reluctantly. My daughters are music teachers.
June 12, 2010, 10:43 pmChris Travers says:
I may have been misunderstood here. I am not saying Christians aren’t curious, but there are limits to that curiosity that I cannot accept for myself. For example, how many Christians are curious as to whether or not Christ might be solely a mythic construct? To ever entertain that possibility runs counter to any mainstream possibility in Christian thought, though I will admit that mythological studies relating to the connections between the Hellenistic world and the development of the New Testiment are taught in religious studies departments of reputable universities (Hanz Dieter Betz, for example, teaches at the University of Chicago).
But as a matter of faith (i.e. loyalty to God), Christians are required to believe in a monotheistic system, with the Bible as a history book rather than a mythology book (some Christians make an exception for the first few chapters of Genesis but in doing so I think miss the boat).* This is often hard to square with textual studies meaning that the most intellectually curious Christians often find themselves at odds with the orthodoxy (see Prof. Morton Smith’s book “Jesus the Magician” for a good example of solid textual studies at odds with orthodoxy). From everything I’ve seen, rigorous intellectual activity regarding historical or textual studies eventually forces a believer away from the Nicene Creed at least in any literal view of it. This doesn’t mean the person is no longer Christian, I suppose, but it does mean that the individual is no longer part of the mainstream Christian tradition. I think this is why Augustine railed against intellectual curiosity.
* Holding the Bible as a set of myths to live by, as Campbell or Eliade might put it, allows one to see Genesis 2-3 in a very different way, for example seeing it as a pattern for human experience of adolescence, and hence something that was necessary instead of to be lamented. It can also be seen in a different angle as something we go through over and over again in awakening to the fact that some of our actions are not as good as we might hope.
Also I am not saying there aren’t intellectual giants within the Christian community. Walter Ong, for example, comes to mind as an important counter-example. However one thing I remember him writing was that Biblical studies were going to have to be rethought due to developments in the 20th century regarding the impacts of orality vs literacy on modes of thought, and that this had not been done (at least by the late 1980′s when he was writing).
So what I’m saying is that rigorous textual studies do not support the Nicene interpretation of the Bible. There are those who have the courage to admit it. There are those who slowly deviate from it, holding onto it as a mere historical record. And there are those who subjugate the studies to the creed rather than vice versa.
June 13, 2010, 5:01 amChris Travers says:
I see no substantial reason to think he did. And if he did, I see no reason to think his life was anything like the portrayal in the Bible. For example, we have a fair bit of evidence that folks like Augustus (aka the King of Kings), Pilate, etc. lived contemporaneous to eachother. However, the calendar was set up by the Church (and adjusted at least once) so your calendar evidence seems to be that everyone believed this so therefore it must be true. By that logic, in the 9th century, monks shouldn’t have been questioning the fact that the earth was flat…..
I always credited Rabbi Hillel the Elder with that (“That which is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow. That is the whole Torah; the rest is the explanation; go and learn”).
The issue is a question of evidence. If we were standing today arguing about the holocaust and all we had were some very contradictory accounts from the early 21st century, sure, I’d deny it. Fortunately that’s not all we have. Consequently discussion about the holocaust will be based on the questions of which details are credible, which are not, and where we have holes in records. In essence with the Holocaust, the only matter of debate is what the evidence means.
The same is true to some extent in this case. We have Biblical stories. We have other stories that the Nicene Council decided were heretical and omitted (such as the Gospels of Mary, Thomas, and Joseph). We have some rather non-credible other references by Tacitus and Josephus.
But that’s not all we have. We have a surprisingly massive collection of general writings from the Hellenistic world. The fundamental question is how all of this fits together, or what the evidence means. So I think you have to include Roman-era novels in this analysis, as well as iconographic evidence of some of the NT elements being found in (for example) the cults of Dionysus and Orpheus. Obviously since not all of this is textually represented, we don’t always have the ability to show that NT authors were working from pagan sources, but in some cases (particularly with the PGM) we can.
Let’s compare this to the Icelandic Sagas.
This is the sort of thing that has to be done with any sort of source. When we read Icelandic Sagas, the stories seem historically credible, and indeed seem like family records. And for many years, historians were treating them as such. Then it was discovered through careful textual analysis that these were basically historical novels written in the Middle Ages incorporating some elements of oral tradition, so most of the sagas (exception being sagas intended to be historiographical by the authors, such as the ones in Heimskringla, the Landmarbok, and the Islandinga Saga) are not seen as historically credible today even though they are seen as useful to the study of history. Heimskringla also is not seen as perfectly credible because in some cases, Snorri Sterlusson (the author) seems to have been interested in doing some PR work in the book.
Many of the same problems occur wrt the NT books. You can’t just read them and say “well, they seem credible.” The question, as always is, “how do we put these books into proper context regarding other contemporary and older works?” Certainly the Gospel according to John (in it’s current form dating from the mid second century) falls apart in this analysis and the other gospels cannot be accepted uncritically at this point.
June 13, 2010, 5:46 amChris Travers says:
Just a note on Morton Smith’s thesis which I also do not accept. Smith argued that Christ spent his time in exile in Egypt, learning the magical traditions there, and that Arianism was closer to an historically sound interpretation of Christianity than Nicene Christianity was.
The problem here is actually a fairly subtle one, which is that Prof. Smith makes an assumption that the Gospels are historically credible, and therefore the only way the PGM material could get into the Gospels is if Christ was, in historical terms, bringing this material into the tradition. But I’m not sure that Smith’s work supports that interpretation. It seems more likely to me (and simpler) to posit that the authors of the Gospels in their current forms were working with close knowledge of pagan works, and that they were drawing expressions from pagan religious and magical writings and iconography of the era in which they worked. This wouldn’t be out of character: Paul’s epistles are chalked full of this sort of thing to the point where they are worth reading carefully for evidence as to non-Christian religious concepts for otherwise undocumented religious groups. But then if we start down that road, we can’t be sure anything is left from the New Testiment after we filter out borrowed pagan concepts and acknowledge that the rest could have been essentially historical fiction.
June 13, 2010, 5:54 amChris Travers says:
So Jews aren’t Caucasian?
June 13, 2010, 7:59 amHarry Eagar says:
Three points:
If our documentary evidence for the Declaration of Independence were as good as the documentary evidence for the gospels, we wouldn’t have any. The oldest texts are more than 235 years removed from the time they purport to chronicle.
There is no reason to suppose that an individual Jesus ever lived, or, even if he did, that he said or did much of what the Scriptures attribute to him. It could be just stories that people liked to remember and attached to a scandalous figure, the way all quips originating in the ’20s are attached to Dorothy Parker or Will Rogers.
It is possible to tease out reliable information from completely phony stories. John Morris did this with 5th and 6th c. saints’ legends (which had bishops walking on water and raising the dead) by recognizing that if you are going to tell a lie about contemporary events, all the ‘furniture’ of the story must be faithfully portrayed. If your phony Jesus is going to make a triumphal entrance to Jerusalem, it had better be on a donkey, not a Volkswagen.
June 13, 2010, 2:13 pmMichelle Dulak Thomson says:
Harry Eager,
Bravo. Thrice.
June 13, 2010, 2:38 pmMichelle Dulak Thomson says:
Chris Travers,
No, I really don’t seriously entertain the idea that no such person as Jesus ever lived. I think it impossible that a cult so strong and so single-minded could have built so rapidly around a founder who was a fiction.
But, oddly, the strongest argument I’ve seen for the historicity of Christ is a literary one. This is C. S. Lewis:
Apart from bits of the Platonic dialogues, there are no conversations that I know of in ancient literature like the Fourth Gospel. There is nothing, even in modern literature, until about a hundred years ago when the realistic novel came into existence. In the story of the woman taken in adultery, we are told Christ bent down and scribbled in the dust with His finger. Nothing comes of this. No one has ever based any doctrine on it. And the art of inventing little irrelevant details to make an imaginary scene more convincing is a purely modern art. Surely the only explanation of this passage is that the thing really happened? The author put it in simply because he had seen it.
June 13, 2010, 3:26 pmBarb says:
But what is the main civilizer of western culture? Christianity or Judaism? Jesus or the rabbis? I think it was Rabbi Jesus because nominal Christians came to the US first and the US has had the greatest influence on the world with our prosperity and tech advances. Granted, Judaism is the foundation of Christianity –with Jewish Church being the first Christian church founded by the one we Christians believe to be the Jewish Messiah, Jesus.
The Jews have also given us comedy and show business.
All due credit to Rabbi Hillel for getting the Golden Rule from God before Jesus came. Truth is truth from anyone in any age through any faith tradition.
June 13, 2010, 6:44 pmBarb says:
And what would the value be of such speculation when there is no way in scholarship to prove it right OR wrong? Why would I go in search of proof that Christ is a mythic construct –when I know my own spiritual experience tells me He lives –”you ask me how I know He lives….He lives within my heart.” “His spirit bears witness with our spirits.” I know what it was like BC in my own life. And the difference it made to encounter Him. Why should I waste my time listening to all the doubting Thomases who, unlike Thomas of the Bible, never did see the nailprints in his hands?
June 13, 2010, 6:55 pmBarb says:
I’m puzzled by this –since I think you are a believer from other things you’ve said.
C.S. Lewis did apologetics well. His Mere Christianity is the book to recommend for those who want to explore if Jesus might NOT be a mythical construct.
June 13, 2010, 6:59 pmBarb says:
Chris Travers — so much knowledge –based on speculation and yes, scholarship. But you still have to speculate that the Gospels are myth or like novels. You choose to disbelieve they are historical; I choose to believe they are.
Yes, we can see evidence of oral tradition in New Testament studies — there are even some minor discrepancies that might be attributable to oral transmission of the stories before they were written down. Regardless of when John was written, the other books are older, I gather? Some written down within the first century A.D. Who can really say for sure that Jesus didn’t die for sins and rise from the grave? Had He not risen, Christianity would not be about His resurrection. But it is. There is no body –except the living organism, the church, the Body of Christ.
June 13, 2010, 7:14 pmMichelle Dulak Thomson says:
Erm. Sorry, Barb. My sarcasm meter was giving out false positives today. I thought Harry’s point was other than it evidently was.
June 13, 2010, 7:29 pmMichelle Dulak Thomson says:
Chris Travers,
Somewhere in Chesterton there’s the tale of a scholar who was so maddened by the apparent reference to Jesus in Tacitus that he fell back on the explanation that Tacitus himself never existed, and his works were a Renaissance forgery.
I no more doubt the existence of a historical Jesus than of a historical Julius Caesar or a historical Hannibal or a historical Muhammad.
June 13, 2010, 7:46 pmHarryEagar says:
You’re all jousting about what you imagine is in ‘the original autographs,’ right? Isn’t that the out the evangelicals always claim?
Well, where are those original autographs? Awfully careless to have mislaid them, but, so far as I know, every religion that claims a supernatural revelation has lost it.
A cynic might speculate that every single one of ‘em was a forgery.
June 13, 2010, 8:46 pmMichelle Dulak Thomson says:
HarryEagar,
Whatever do you mean? There are religions that venerate actual physical documents. (IIRC some versions of Islam hold that the Qu’ran is an attribute of Allah, in the same sense as His mercy or His power; the original of the document is in Paradise.) But Christianity is not one of these. Yes, the text is held to be divinely inspired; but for that very reason no one particularly cares whose handwriting it’s in.
June 13, 2010, 9:28 pmChris Travers says:
That’s just silly. However, the Tacitus passage is rather problematic for it’s own reasons. Quite honestly, a Renaissance forger would have done a better job of making the case for Christ’s existence. Let’s look at the real problems with this passage though:
1) Tacitus gets Pilate’s title wrong, suggesting that he was not working from Roman records but rather simply stating what Christians of the time believed.
2) There’s evidence that Tacitus’s passage may have originally referred to “Chrestus” instead of “Christus” and later “corrected” by the church in surviving copies. This is sometimes seen as fatal to the case that it was about Christ but this isn’t necessarily so. After all the late PGM use Gr. Cristos and Chrestos interchangeably and Chrestus in Latin could merely be a borrowing of that, confused with Latin words of similar origin.
However, I think the first point is fatal to the case. It suggests that Tacitus’s passage was basically recorded hearsay and therefore indicative of what Christians believed at the time, rather than what actual historical records he was able to find.
I never said they were novels. I said they could be novels. The problem here is that Hellenistic religions did tend to teach through fictional novels (The Golden Ass is probably the best-known example), and there was not a rigorous division between fact and fiction in religious material of this era. To treat the Gospels as simple fact requires ignoring the general times in which they achieved their current forms, to the point where it’s essentially postulating the conclusion.
Credo quod absurdem? I don’t find Tertullian’s original argument very persuasive, nor do I find your version of it any moreso.
Tertullian argued that the absurdity of the New Testiment was in fact evidence of its historical, literal truth. He basically argued that ordinarily nobody in his right mind would believe such things or make them up, but because there is such a tradition that it happened including a lot of people in their right mind, that therefore it must be true.
But I don’t think that works. Anyone with half a mind can ask the question of the shape of the earth and come up with a number of tests which, if performed, would actually show that the earth is round. Aristotle made such an inquiry and came to that conclusion. Ptolomy made a very different inquiry and came to the same conclusion. Others made similar inquiries and reached similar conclusions. Whether one is looking at ships sailing over the horizon, the shadow of the earth on the moon, or the timing and place in the sky of celestial events, the world is quite clearly spherical as anyone with basic observational skills can determine. Consequently it’s insane to think that the world is flat. Yet in the 8th century, most people believed it was flat outside of a few monks in a few monasteries in France. Tertullian’s argument, applied there, would suggest that the world is flat rather than spherical.
June 14, 2010, 12:20 amChris Travers says:
Barb: As for asking God for the truth, I was raised as a Quaker and had many mystical experiences when a member of that tradition. However, one thing I’ve found is that mystical experiences are a poor substitute for careful study of an issue. Most Christians I have met address this by trying to compare the mystical experiences to material in the Bible so as to determine the validity of the experience. But that’s again a matter of postulating the conclusion if trying to use it in this way.
Finally my experience is that religions are like spiritual languages. It may be possible to communicate a spiritual truth in one way in Christianity and in a different way through the Norse mythological tradition. Certainly most of the Quaker experience can be understood equally in both traditions. In this way, asking such a question amounts to “Can Truth be expressed in such-and-such a religion?” That’s not different from asking “Can ideas be expressed in English?” To assume that you get a statement about the history of the world through such a question is to make a mistake of categories.
(As to the world being flat, this works REALLY well as a ritual framework, however. So as a functional component of a religious system, such as Heaven/Earth/Hell, the earth can be modelled as if flat even if it’s not.)
June 14, 2010, 12:35 amHarryEagar says:
‘the text is held to be divinely inspired’
True, by those who hold that opinion. There is no evidence, however, that the texts even originated at the period they claim to have done, much less that some non-human author was involved.
June 14, 2010, 12:48 amChris Travers says:
One final point on the resurrection:
I’ve EXPERIENCED in a ritual format death and resurrection. It’s an extremely powerful personal experience which transformed EVERY element of my life (within a year after that ritual, I moved, changed careers, renewed some long-term friendships and lost others, etc).
In may case, I was a “victim” of a pagan mock-human-sacrifice. Some friends of mine and I got together on the first of May and I was nominated to be killed in a world-renewing sacrifice. So in the ritual, actions metaphorically killing and cremating my body were made. In that experience I actually lost consciousness partway through. For the next two weeks my body was alive, but I can only describe myself as “dead.” I showed up to work, performed my job serving food at a cafeteria, etc. But there was no life or sense of presence. Slowly, I began to have flashes of full consciousness and eventually seemed to return to “normal” consciousness but I was changed—for the better.
By the end of the summer, I got a job at Microsoft as a temporary worker, moved to the Seattle Area. A year later, I had been hired as a direct employee of Microsoft, had moved again. Whatever of others, my world had been renewed. As it had been for the man we had sacrificed the year before. The woman we sacrificed the next year had a similar experience but one involving a near-death experience a few months later (internal bleeding, almost died, and was transformed by the experience).
So my point is this: the point of myths is to provide patterns we can bring into our lives. Even if the Gospels are reliable as sources of history, it wouldn’t really change my analysis, namely that what’s important is to lead a mythic life anyway.
If you think it degrades the Gospels to call them myth, you are missing my point.
June 14, 2010, 12:53 amChris Travers says:
We have a pretty good idea when the texts originated. For example, the Gospel according to John reached it’s current form mid-second century but probably existed in some versions before that point, while the Gospel of Mark appears to have been authored in the mid-first-century. Textual studies folks are pretty good at dating texts today and while there is some room for error, and while it’s possible that books could be more recent than the dating suggests, this is generally considered reliable.
The method of dating a text is fairly detail-intensive but is also fairly new. The basic approach is to read the manuscript slowly and look for the latest known orthographic form of any word or phrase in the manuscript. Manuscripts are dated by this latest element, and this suggests when the work reached it’s current form. Since languages are always shifting, it’s usually possible make this work even in short stone inscriptions.
As for non-human author, what exactly do you mean by that? (I was raised as a Quaker, and Quakers teach that God is immanent. I am now a Norse Neopagan and believe that the gods are immanent and expressly so in the myths.)
June 14, 2010, 1:05 amHarryEagar says:
I mean, somebody like you or me wrote those texts. That’s the simplest explanation, and, per Ockham, likely to be correct.
There is nothing in any of them (I am speaking of all religious texts, not just Christian) that could not have been written by ordinary people.
June 14, 2010, 11:53 pmChris Travers says:
True. The only issue is discussing divine inspiration and defining it.
For example, I think Goethe was divinely inspired when he wrote “Faust.”
June 15, 2010, 3:21 ammattski says:
Phooey… I had computer problems which took me out of this discussion past 3 days.
But Chris, what do you mean by “textual studies” and why would you make a comment like this? Certainly, I’m no expert on historical texts, but I’ve read authors who, afaik, are. (Thomas Huxley, Elaine Pagels, for example)
June 15, 2010, 7:37 amBarb says:
I understand there were preserved –for a time at least–first century manuscripts, were there not? And no one says the authors were not human –just that the writers were inspired by the Lord to get the stories down with accuracy and similarity in content. And those who were writing doctrine and not just history were clearly inspired by a wise muse –as in the epistles to the early church, e.g. Discrepancies in story facts are minor–and yet not weeded out by the copy editors through the centuries. THAT says something about the integrity of the scripture guardians. e.G. the seeming discrepancies about Judas’ death –which don’t really matter to the overall story and message of the N.T. The overall message of salvation for eternal life, definitions of sin, the need for repentance and the provision of atonement, Jesus as Messiah and Savior, son of God and man, –all real clear and consistent through out the early church writings. The Book of Acts could have been written today –but was not –in terms of its stories about persecution of the believers, their boldness in going back into Jerusalem and proclaiming Christ crucified, risen and promised to return.
St. Paul’s conversion in Acts 9 is amazing, considering who he was, a Jewish Roman citizen, an educated man –and his subsequent missionary journeys and writings are likewise amazing. He spoke truth to power on a number of occasions. None of these men seemed to be out to aggrandize themselves –only the one on the Cross.
to read the New Testament is to read a document very relevant to our century still. The understanding of human nature is right on.
June 16, 2010, 11:10 amBarb says:
If Jesus Christ is truly the Son of God with a message on how we might have eternal life, we should rejoice and strive to prove it. Instead, I get the sense that the Jesus critics don’t want the Gospel to be true. I wonder why. Could it be the accountability for repentance? the humbling? the boundaries imposed on behavior? the definitions of sin and righteousness?
June 16, 2010, 11:18 amBarb says:
I think you were deceived by the master manipulator whose deceits you now channel faithfully and well.
Jesus spoke of the angels of light who would deceive and turn men from the truth. Jesus raised real dead people to life. IMO, you have gone through an emotional ritual which is leading you down the primrose path to perdition. Satan gives counterfeit religious experience. You have played with the spirit world and unbelief in Christ is the result.
It is interesting to me, however, that you still have some common sense about the marriage and parenting issue. Too much common sense for a pagan.
June 16, 2010, 11:30 amBarb says:
Do we know that educated people thought the earth was flat? The “four corners of the earth” could have always been metaphorical for the “farthermost regions of the earth.” I’ve not looked it up, but understand that Bible scholars (like your monks) say there is evidence that the men of the Bible did not believe the earth to be flat but round.
Besides, just because people through the ages have believed things that were not true, does not make the testimonies of the alleged eye witnesses of the NT invalid.
It all comes down to a matter of faith. “Without faith, it is impossible to please God,” the ancients wrote. They recorded that Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life –no man comes to the Father but through me.” “whosoever believes in him will not perish but have eternal life. For God sent not His son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved.”
June 16, 2010, 11:42 amBarb says:
Do we know that educated people thought the earth was flat? The “four corners of the earth” could have always been metaphorical for the “farthermost regions of the earth.” I’ve not looked it up, but understand that Bible scholars (like your monks) say there is evidence that the men of the Bible did not believe the earth to be flat but round.
Besides, just because people through the ages have believed things that were not true, does not make the testimonies of the alleged eye witnesses of the NT invalid.
It all comes down to a matter of faith. “Without faith, it is impossible to please God,” the ancients wrote. They recorded that Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life –no man comes to the Father but through me.” “whosoever believes in him will not perish but have eternal life. For God sent not His son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved.”
I was confused at first reading myself.
June 16, 2010, 11:59 am