The Historical Record
George Santayana (1863-1952)
"I say quite deliberately that the Christian religion, as organized by its churches, has been and still is, the principal enemy of moral progress in this world." Many myths surround the so-called "early" Christians, the followers of the religion during the first three centuries of the religion. That these early generations were important to the nascent religion, no one will deny. For it was during these centuries that the books of what eventually became the New Testament were written, collected and canonized. It was also during this period that the Christian church was founded, grew and consolidated itself. Together with these developments, and perhaps because of them, myths arose about the special nature of these people. One of the myth is that the superior teaching of Christianity compared to paganism helped it spread rapidly and permeated all classes of society. The spreading of the religion was supposed to be supernaturally guided such that its rise became inevitable. Another popular myth is that, through no fault of their own, the early Christians were consistently and repeatedly persecuted and many were killed or executed. A careful examination of history however shows these myths to be what they are religious fairy tales.
Next let us look at some of the early "Church Fathers" so-called because their theologies ended up on side of the victors. We find that their behavior were no better than the average followers. For the early fathers had such hatred for life and sexuality so morbid that one of them actually castrated himself! We will look at five of the most famous of these Church Fathers: St. Ignatius (c35-c110), Tertullian (c160-c225), Origen (c185-254), St. Augustine (354-430) and St. Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274).
Back to the top.
Many lay Catholics probably assumed that the popes in history had been men of elevated piety and morals. Yet this is another belief which is demonstrably false. Many of the past popes had been, well, scoundrels. Back to the top.
Back to the top.
It is ironic that the most famous "meetings" between two of the great (as in having many believers-not "great" as in "very good") religions-Islam and Christianity- have been through a series of wars called the Crusades. An estimated nine million people died during these series of wars. Christian intolerance extended beyond fighting "infidels". It turned inward as well. The medieval Inquisition caused the death of more than one million people in the crusade against what was considered a "heretical" sect called the Albigensians in the South of France. Of course it did not stop there, fresh from this "success" the Inquisition hunted down witches all over Europe. The death toll for the witch-hunts which terrorized Europe for three centuries (from 1487 to circa 1782) has been estimated to be as high as two million. The Spaniards learned from these and came up with their own Spanish Inquisition. The death toll here exceeded thirty thousand. The victims ranged from girls as young as thirteen to women as old as ninety. Such was the extend of God's grace! The Protestants of course were equal to the Catholics in the prosecutorial glee and zest. For they too persecuted heretics, witches, Catholics and each other! Of course persecution was not the only outlet for the Christian. War was another popular outlet for the religious instinct. The sixteenth and seventeenth centuries saw a spate of wars between the Catholics and the Protestants. These Wars of Religion were fought in the Benelux countries, France, Germany and the British Isles. The final death toll easily exceeded fourteen million. Perhaps on of the most enduring "gifts" of Christianity to the world is anti-semitism. This hatred of the Jews, rooted in the New Testament, propagated by the early Church Fathers gave the church and the laity the excuse to slaughter Jews at the tiniest of instigations. Christianity holds a large part of the responsibility for the holocaust in which six million Jews were murdered in World War II.
Back to the top.
Perhaps the most clear cut example of Christian anti-rationalism is their historical, and in many cases continuing, suppression of science. Important examples of this include:
Of all sciences, the one that threaten Christianity most is the science of evolution. For regardless of what liberal theologians might say, finding out that the apes are our cousins no longer makes us much of a "divine image". Thus the moment Charles Darwin (1809-1882) published his book The Origin of Species in 1859, the Christian response was swift and immediate. This attitude of anti-evolution continues well into the twentieth century. The the last quarter of the twentieth century there arose a new manifestation of anti-scientific Christian irrationalism known with the oxymoronic name scientific creationism. It's "science" seems to involve little more than quoting their opponents out of context and invoking miracles when rational sounding arguments fail. More recently, scientific creationism have evolved a new species: intelligent design creationism (IDC). Realising the weakness of it predecessor, especially in the latter's inabaility to provide strong evidence for a young earth and for the reality of a world wide Noahchian flood, IDC have decided to minimize their approach to merely pointing out ostensibly designed aspects of biology and the cosmos. We have reviewed these arguments in the another section of this website. The current ban on stem cell research is just another manifestation of Christian irrationalism-depriving millions of it's potentially life saving discoveries.
Back to the top.
This view, that Christianity had somehow been responsible for social improvements is held not only by the laity but also by theologians and writers as well. For instance under the entry for Slave in The Illustrated Bible Dictionary (1894) by M.G. Easton the following passage is included:
The Christians churches had also taught that it had always been the protector of women. In the early twentieth century it was still possible for the Bishop of London to make such a statement: "the gospel has given women the position she holds today."[3] The problem with all these claims are that they are simply not true. The feeling of ex-Christians who came to realized the truth for the first time upon leaving the influence of their religion is akin to someone who had just been swindled. Given below is a bitter denunciation of these false teachings regarding the social good brought by Christianity by the ex-Carmelite nun, Phyllis Graham:
It is the aim of this section to present the reader with what Graham called the "historical truth and sheer weight of evidence that cannot be refuted." For it is true that history shows us that Christianity was not responsible for bringing about these social advances, in fact in some cases it actively suppressed any attempts at social reform. Let's first look at slavery. We see that the Bible had never criticized slavery as an institution. In fact in many cases it actually made laws to support it. Actually slavery was already beginning to be viewed as a flawed institution in pagan Rome, however when Christianity came into ascendancy, the leaders of the church, openly supported slavery in word and in deed. Black African slavery was fully supported by the Christian churches in the U.S. Religious arguments, with quotes from the Bible, were prominent in the defense of slavery. Next we look at the position of women. Save for a few Muslim countries today, women today enjoys opportunities unparalleled in their history. This major social progress has not been the result of Christianity. The Bible had never held women in high esteem. The Christian theologians, of course, faithfully continued this misogynist tradition. Thus while we find that the position of women were reasonably good in Pagan Rome, it took a turn for the worse when Christianity became the dominant force. A modern twist of this misogynist tradition has been the Catholic Church's continued opposition to abortion and birth control. In its battle against abortion, the Catholic Church has entered into an alliance with fundamentalist churches using an ostensibly righteous battle cry: the right to life. With this issue they have found an ardent supporter in the administration of George W. Bush, whose "culture of life" policies have directly led to the deaths of many third world women. It must be remembered that the argument that "abortion equals murder", removed of any theological obscurantism, is a fallacious one. Tied in to this misogynist tradition is a perverse view of sex. The Catholic Church's adherence to celibacy for the priesthood is one of the causes of the current scandal of clergy sexual abuse of children. Lastly we will look at missionary activities. There is a "romanticized" view of missionary work that needs to be corrected. Missionary activities have wrought much harm on native tribes all around the world. It's methods, far from just preaching the word of God to natives, involve deception, coercion and even kidnapping! It is a known fact that the missionaries have been responsible for many deaths of native peoples all around the world.
Back to the top.
Thus since the second half of the sixties the attendance in mainstream Protestant Churches had dropped dramatically while a corresponding increase can be seen in the evangelical/fundamentalist churches. [6] Lay Christians, grown tired of the liberal theologians' endless and meaningless sermons turned to the fundamentalist churches. While liberal churches begin to lose members, the fundamentalists ones began to gain adherents. The Assemblies of God registered a 300% increase in membership from 1960 to 1979 in the US alone. Many other fundamentalist churches at least doubled their membership within the same period.[7] The fundamentalists� main tenets are that certain biblical teachings represent the rock bottom fundamentals of the faith and cannot be questioned by those who still wants to remain within the faith. [8] Thus, they reject any scientific findings, a priori, that does not square away with these basic beliefs. We have seen in the previous chapters that the complete acceptance of Biblical "truths" has made the fundamentalists anti-science, anti-Semitic, anti-women and anti-social progress. However, they do offer a kind of concreteness and certitude which the liberals lack. And it is this set of simple [but simplistic] answers that attract many to fundamentalism. This evangelical fundamentalist revival is a worldwide phenomenon. Countries in the West have been the main epicenter of these phenomena-not surprising as these are the ones that are traditionally Christian. In the United States today there an estimated fifty million born again Christians, who are mostly fundamentalists. At the time of writing (2004), the US has fundamentalist Christians as its President and attorney general. In Latin America, a traditionally Catholic stronghold, an estimated seven percent of the population, or roughly, 35 million are fundamentalists Christians. Europe is also not spared from this looming darkness. In 1991 in England, about a quarter of a million took part in the fundamentalist �March for Jesus�. [9] Third world countries, the traditionally non-Christian ones, have also seen their fair share of evangelism and conversions. The author personally knows some Christian evangelists who try to proselytize in countries, such as Nepal, where the preaching of Christianity is officially banned. We will look at some of the harm fundamentalists do to themselves and to others. It is a warning that if vigilance is not kept, a new Dark Age would again arise. In many ways modern fundamentalism harks back to traditional Christianity, to quote from the Bible:
I agree, they are the Christians that are most true to their tradition. Indeed we find that:
Back to the top.
Back to the top. References
Back to the top. |