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njlauren -> RE: "Religion will become as unacceptable as racism" (3/16/2014 10:42:10 AM)
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ORIGINAL: Zonie63
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ORIGINAL: njlauren
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ORIGINAL: Zonie63
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ORIGINAL: njlauren
It is funny, people of Faith, especially Christians, go on and on about how the Church and faith shaped western civilization, was so influential on the shaping of our civilization, how "God fearing Christian men" founded the US, yet suddenly when it comes to the darkness that was the holocaust, it was like "don't blame Christianity, don't blame the church", and that is an utter bullshit copout.
I would not credit Christianity with shaping Western Civilization, nor would I blame Christianity for its failures and atrocities - at least not entirely. I'm definitely a critic of religion and Christianity, but I also try to guard against unfairly singling them out or scapegoating Christians as a group. As I suggested in an earlier post, politicians will use religion or whatever philosophical ideal they can latch onto to gain power, wealth, etc. The Holocaust was more the result of malignant nationalism, which has some significant ideological conflicts with religion.
Western civilization was shaped by many things, starting with the Ancient Greeks, the Romans, but Christianity became the predominant force in western europe and its various facets were closely tied in with how things evolved,up until the reformation there was no such thing as a split between nation and state, the political and the religious were tied. Likewise, in terms of education, until the 18th century all the universities and schools were tied to religion, when Newton was at Cambridge he became ordained Clergy, there was no separation. When the church decided someone was blasphemous, they turned the person over to the civic authorities to be punished (I love when Catholics tell me "the church didn't punish people, civic authorities did".........like, who do you think accused them?). Christianity in its many forms did, the political reformations of the enlightenment, of people like Locke and Rousseau, in large part came about when the protestant split happened, and the idea that a person had the direct connection to God, rather than needing church and clergy, also led to the idea of a ruler's power coming to him through the people, who in turn had been blessed by God; whereas the dominant thought before the reformation, preached by the church, was that Rulers got their power through God directly and ruled by divine intervention (divine right of Kings), so the changes in Christianity affected western civilization. The ideas of charity that run through western civilization (and don't exist, for example, as strongly in cultures like Japan and China, whose dominant religions do not preach as strongly protecting the weak and poor) came from Christian belief. Christianity was tied up heavily in education, with the universities and such, private universities only started coming about in the 19th century, secular univerisities, so religion influenced so many things, and in Europe it was Christianity.
I wouldn't deny any of the above, although I noticed that you specified "western Europe" where Christianity was influential. I'm curious as to why you would not include central or eastern Europe in your analysis.
Europeans did not automatically convert to Christianity; it was a long process which took centuries before all of Europe was Christianized. Christianity itself had to compromise and make deals in order to please the masses enough so that they would convert, which is part of the reason we celebrate Christmas and Easter, which carry elements from old Pagan beliefs. It's also why Christians are allowed to eat pork, even though their religious scriptures clearly say it's forbidden.
So, it might be more a chicken-egg question, whether Christianity influenced Europe or whether it was the other way around. When we have pictures of Christianity's Savior who looks like a white guy from northern Europe, it makes one wonder where the "influence" actually comes from.
Ironically, when you really look at it, Christianity is really nothing more than a sect of Judaism, not a completely separate religion.
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As far as the holocaust, calling it nationalism is true, but also very, very not the whole picture. The holocaust came about because the Jews were blamed for the loss in WWI, that the Germans were a superior nation of superior people and the only way they lost, they were betrayed; but what that leaves out is why the Jews were singled out, why it became about them primarily. The nationalism is a no brainer, William Manchester in his "Arms of Krupp" points out that after Germany unified after smashing the French in 1870, the Germans, after centuries of being the whipping boy of europe, the weak sister, suddenly rallied around the Prussians and adopted this idea of being 'superior', an illusion that came crashing to the ground in 1918. The allies stupidly did not occupy Germany (one of the biggest mistakes in history), so the military, trying to cover their asses, told people "we were never occupied, we never lost, we were betrayed")..and guess who was responsible? Right, the Jews, and want to know what was commonly said."Well, how could we ever trust the Jews, after all it was the Jews who betrayed our Savior".....the fact that they were looking for a scapegoat is nationalism, the fact they turned to the Jews as the scapegoat was long held anti semitism, and much of that came from the support the churches gave to anti semitism.
Again, I wouldn't deny that some of this is at work, although there were other influences operating in Germany at the time. For example, you mentioned above that Christianity preached charity and helping the weak and poor, although German philosophers such as Nietzsche were decidedly against the idea of helping the weak and poor. In past eras, the religious authorities tried to rule over multiple nations at once - as a guiding, overriding international influence, yet the rise of nationalistic ideals were running counter to that. Concurrently, liberalism, capitalism, and socialism also appealed to those who had grown weary of religious despotism.
There were also political divisions. It didn't matter whether they believed in the same religion or not, they still had the same political squabbles over land and wealth which would have existed under any religion or no religion. The religion may be used as a pretext or an excuse for violence, persecution, and murder, but it may not be the actual root cause of the problem. There had been violence and murder in Europe and elsewhere before anyone even heard of Christianity, so the explanation as to the cause must lie elsewhere.
I agree with your analysis of Germany's unification and rise of nationalism leading to WW1, although I'm a bit perplexed that you seem to minimize its influence by saying it's "very, very not the whole picture." I agree it's not the whole picture, but I think it's a larger part of it. The reason I can't blame the religion entirely is because there were many times and places where Jewish people were treated better, even though they were still living under Christian governments and in Christian-majority countries.
I don't see anything about Christianity that requires its adherents to be anti-Semitic, and in many European societies, many Jews had reached positions of respectability, education, science, industry, finance, art, music - including Germany, where they made enormous contributions. They thought they had assimilated and that they were accepted in that society, even though it was Christian and even though there was some measure of anti-Semitism. They believed that they were still German citizens with rights, but once Hitler rose to power, that all changed.
Hitler's own religious views were somewhat vague - not exactly "Christian," and they were likely heading in a direction which would have taken them to their pre-Christian pagan religions. He considered Christianity to be a "Jewish religion," and his anti-Semitism was so strong that, had he succeeded in his objectives, it would have logically meant the elimination of Christianity as well, due to its Jewish origins. I think there were some attempts to set up a "National Socialist Church" of some kind, although I don't think that really caught on too well.
Zone-
a Brilliantly worded response, and your analysis is not wrong, it is dead spot on. I mentioned western europe simply because especially for us here in the US, it was western europe, England, France and Spain to a certain extent, that influenced the formation of the US; Central Europe to me was part of the mix, if we define central Europe to be places like Hungary and the Czecks and so forth, as opposed to the Orthodox Christian churches of the eastern part of Europe. The Roman Catholic church had the predominant influence in much of Europe, and that is what I meant.
Anti semitism is not official dogma, it was never 'real' Catholic teaching, and while Matthew is pretty anti semitic, it would be hard to argue that the bible itself is. I think a better way to look at it is as the RC stated in their "We Remember" document (that notably was the first official church document on the holocaust, that happened under JPII,40 years after the war), where the Church leaders themselves were anti semitic and it was transmitted to its followers over the centuries, where the faith itself (the written teachings, the bible ) were not anti semitic, the leaders and clergy were. It does lead to a chicken and egg thing, was anti semitism there and became part of the church by default, or did the church create it? After all, anti Jewish attitudes existed before Christianity, I doubt the Babylonians, Assyrians or Egyptians thought much of the Jews, for example. However, there is an element that makes me thing that anti semitism was tied to Christianity going to its origins, and that is the fact that in the decades after Christ, the Jewish authorities persecuted the early followers, much more than the Romans did. In the decades between Christ's death and the expulsion of the Jews in 71AD or so, the early Christians were prosecuted by the authorities, so there was bad blood, and from what I have read the anti semitism I associate with the later church was in full bloom back then. Put it this way, when the first crusade "retook" Jerusalem, the crusaders killed Jews as rampantly as they killed Muslims. Likewise, when the crusaders went east in subsequent crusades, when they hit areas where Jews lived, the people there would be treated as enemies...so I think it though not official teaching, was part of the church going way, way back, as a kind of tribal grudge.
In terms of how the church evolved, of course you are correct. The idea of transubstantiation for example was from the 12th century, and took advantage of a flourishing cannabilism cult to draw in members. Christmas was made december 25th in part because it fell around the winter solstice, the whole ritual of purification and incense came from the older pagan traditions, all Saints day is a direct taking of an older pagan festival that today we know as Halloween (november1st was a 'thin day' in celtic pagan belief, that became all Saints day), and a number of saints (saint brigid comes to mind, aka Bergid, a pagan goddess) were based in the pagan..the church was not a static thing, despite what it claims, it did not spring out of the ground fully formed and what we see as the RC for example was a product of constant evolution, from deciding what Christ was (nicea, 325 AD), to what books are in the bible (late 4th century), to Christmas, to marriage being a formalized ritual (800 AD) to being required (12th century), it evolved over time. And yes, Europe influenced the religion, much as Greek thinking fundamentally altered what early Christianity had been (many thought as you do in early christianity, that it was a reformed Judaism, not a new faith), , and there is local flavor, Celtic Christianity is very different in some ways than the Christianity practiced in Italy (or had been)..but because the church was so dominant for almost 1000 years, and more importantly controlled education until even fairly recent times, its influence cannot be understated, it was the predominant force of cultural and societal structure of that period. And yes, economics worked against the church,as did rising nationalism and also a rebuff of feudalism that the church had supported, trying to put history into a couple of paragraphs is not going to cover much.
As far as Jews treatment, even in the most tolerant of places in Christian europe Jews were not treated as equals. The portrayal of Jews in the Merchant of Venice is indicative, Jews usually had to live in a ghetto, and they were forbidden often to go to areas outside the ghetto,and were denied their place as scholars and such. One of the reasons Jews were in banking and money lending and diamonds and such was because those were looked down upon as 'dirty' occupations, so it was fit Jews do them, for example. More importantly, Jews could count on whatever gains they achieved being temporary, that they knew that it was only a matter of time before pogrom or change in leadership or simply a wave of anti Jewish hysteria would come along and wipe that out. Was this totally the result of religion? No, but given the influence of the church, it is not hard to argue that without the churches amplifying anti semitic feelings through preaching and teaching and writing, the resulting anti semitism, though no less distasteful, would have been a lot more muted, too. Centuries upon centuries of demonizing a group of people does lasting damage, and for an event of the scale of the holocaust to happen, there had to be that densensitization, while the holocaust in of itself was the product of a lot of causes, the fact that it was levied against the Jews on the scale it as talks to centuries of hate (as did going after gays or Gypsies, both groups were hated and preached against form hundreds of centuries, too, if anything, gays and gypsies were even more hated than the Jews).
You have to be careful about how Jews were integrated into society, and how they had achieved success and such. What you write is true, but it also needs to be taken into context. It didn't mean anti semitism didn't exist or wasn't common or a common thread, it meant that in the Germany of the 19th and early 20th century there was enough of a pathway that Jews could succeed, but it doesn't mean they were fully accepted, either. For example Goldman Sachs was founded by German Jews (to this day, it is still a company with heavy Jewish presence, its head in recent memory has been Jewish), because they could not use the non Jewish investment banks to fund their businesses, same with firms like Warburg, in a sense the Jews created their own parallel business system because they had to, and achieved success. Yet, for example, Felix Mendelsohn's father converted to Christianity, because being a Jew he could only go so far, and as a Jew you would be denied the ability to go into the government or achieve levels of power beyond a certain point; and for ordinary Jews, life wasn't always so easy either. Felix Mendelsohn has a renowned place in music history, both as a composer but also as a conductor championing both Beethoven, making him into the legend he is today, and Bach, who had all but died out by that time, but had he been Jewish, he never would have been allowed to become the conductor of the Vienna orchestra where he championed that music.....and as a side note, almost became a footnote in music history, primarily because of Richard Wagner, who being chosen as the court music of the Nazis was no coincidence, Wagner was a virulent anti semite who did everything in his power to 'get rid of ' "Jew Music'. Jews had integrated to a certain extent but like in prior generations, that threat was there and virulent.
To say religious groups were totally responsible for anti semitism or the holocaust is too simple minded, like most generalizations are; but to say that without the role of what churches did against the jews, or did not do for them when the anti semitism started in Nazi germany, it would have had the same outcome is false. It is an unknown, but had, for example, churches stood up to Hitler and said harming the Jews was tantamount to harming anyone else, had they acted at a counter to Hitler's propoganda, it is not impossible to think that all the people who carried out the holocaust would have done so, so easily, it wasn't that they were following orders reluctantly, they were following orders, and keeping Hitler in power, either because they agreed with his statements, or they didn't agree with them, but didn't care enough to do something about it. As Martin Neimoller and Deidrich Boenhoffer pointed out, the silence of the churches said mountains about what they believed, and likewise, if churches hadn't been a force fanning the flames of anti semitism all those centuries, if the anti semitism of the leadership wasn't promoted as religious teaching or obviously became part of societal and legal culture, thanks to the church's power, it could be that Hitlers anti semitism, would fall on deaf ears, much as the GOP's anti gay screed appeals to less and less people and is causing them agida with younger voters. If Anti semitism was a minority position it would not have been effective in helping the rise of the Nazis to power.
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