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Constantinian, Colonial Adventism
Colonialism is not simply a form of physical or political domination. As Edward Said and Frantz Fanon point out, its tentacles also extend to culture and the subjectivity of the colonized (1).
The true power of colonialism is not military bureaucracy, but the insidious ideology that sustains it. For example, early European colonists in the Americas often made use of the rhetoric of Christianization and civilization to justify the use of excessive force. European colonialism also produced the fictitious celebratory narrative like the “discovery of America,” which supplanted the history of the indigenous peoples who inhabited Anáhuac and Tawantinsuyu long before they were discovered and subsequently exploited, and renamed (2).
Christian theologians played a significant role in the colonial ventures of the sixteenth century by providing the theological foundation of colonial ideology. According to semiotician Walter Mignolo, it was then that Spanish Christians initiated a project of planetary racialization that ranked human beings on a hierarchical scale with European Christians on the top, using biblical narratives (this kind of theological racialization precedes racism by the color of skin) (3). Not surprisingly, this coincided with the expulsion of the Jews and Moors from the Iberian Peninsula, while their properties were stolen and reappropriated for other imperial purposes by the Spanish Crown.
The raw materials and natural resources Europeans gained from colonial domination were soon developed into products to be sold for profit as imperial centers moved from Spain and Portugal to England and France in the mid-seventeenth century. At the same time, the rise of slavery and indentured labor also turned human labor into a commodity. Colonized subjects were then stripped of their humanity in order to become footnotes in the history of European economic expansion, soon to be known as capitalist modernization.
The hypermasculine militarism of colonial conquests and the capitalist exploitation of labor were especially harsh on women, especially non-European women. While women in Europe were relegated to the position of second-class citizens, non-European women were reduced to objects of male fantasy. The colonial-capitalist machine left nothing untainted, including the life-sustaining yet fragile nature.
Seemingly, colonialism has ended for most people today. However, though it has certainly evolved, the ideological and cultural machine that sustained it remained. Mignolo calls this colonial ideological machine of racism, sexism, and the commoditization of human life and nature the colonial matrix of power (4).
This matrix of power serves many purposes today. We see it in the prison industrial complex in the United States; we see it in the battle over resources in the name of “war on terror”; we see it in the anti-Islamic and anti-immigrant sentiment of American Christian nationalists; we see it in the neoliberalization of the global market that reproduces the same kind of colonial power structure via the IMF and the World Bank. Colonialism continues.
For Jewish theologian Marc H. Ellis, Christianity’s historic involvement with colonialism is not a surprising development. For him, Christianity has become a religion of empire and violence ever since it became the official religion of the Roman Empire in the fourth century. Like Mennonite theologian John Howard Yoder, Ellis calls this mix of church and state, “Constantinian Christianity.” He writes:
From this point on, empire is integral to Christianity. Rather than aberrational, expansion becomes a main theme of Christian life. At the heart of evangelical life is empire and conquest. These themes are already present in texts that become the New Testament, as normative Christianity is defined within the Constantinian empire and the empires that follow… (5).
After Constantine the Great made Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire with the help of many powerful Christian leaders and theologians, he used it to persecute other religions as well as Christians who did not comply with his policy. In a remarkably short period of time, Christianity evolved from a religion of the marginalized to a religion of the powerful. Constantine and his Christian allies’ lust for power perverted the gospel of liberation and turned it into an ideological instrument that sustained the escalating militarism of the Roman Empire.
Surely, Ellis’ incisive critique of Christianity’s historic affinity with empire should give any thoughtful Christian pause given the recent rise of Christian racism and Christians’ uncritical alliance with neoliberal policies against the poor and working people around the world. Constantinian Christianity is more than just the marriage of church and empire. It is also a way of practicing faith that subjugates and marginalizes other human beings. In what ways is the Adventist church reproducing the colonial matrix of power? Is the Adventist church Constantinian or a community for the poor and marginalized? If we do not fight for gender equality, racial desegregation, economic justice, and an end to heterosexism, we may indeed be the former.
Many of my fellow Adventists tell me “as long as we confess our faith in Christ, all will be well when he returns.” Our church’s preoccupation with doctrine and not social justice is a direct reflection of the Constantinian use of political and even military force to create an orthodoxy. Unfortunately, for prophetic theologians like James Cone, Christian churches that are overly concerned with apocalypse and life after death often end up serving the unjust system. He writes:
On the one hand, black theology believes that the emphasis on heaven in black churches was due primarily to white slave masters whose intention was to transfers slaves’ loyalties from earthly reality to heavenly reality. In that way, masters could do what they willed about this world, knowing that their slaves were content with a better life in the next world. The considerable degree to which black slaves affirmed the worldview of masters was due to their inability to change life on earth (6).
A faith that focuses on personal salvation and a future heaven actually denies the soon coming of Christ. It is a Constantinian Advent-ism. A faith that devalues this life for the next ignores the Hebrew prophets who spoke truth to power. It denies the Jesus who liberated the marginalized. This goes beyond individual charity to the poor, which does nothing to change their conditions. Those who merely wait for the return of Christ are denying their own responsibility. They wash their hands, as Pontius Pilate did, ignoring their connection to the matrix of power.
If we, Adventists, are really serious about the gospel, then we must resist the colonial, Constantinian matrix of power and listen to the liberating command of God: “Let my people go, so that they may worship me.”
—Yi Shen Ma is a second year M.A. student in Claremont Lincoln University. Prior to his service in the United States Navy as a religious program specialist, he worked as a young adult pastor. Today, he co-directs a monthly worship for socially engaged Adventists.
- See Edward Said, Orientalism, (New York, NY: Vintage Books, 1979) and Franz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth, Trans. Richard Philox (New York, NY: Grove Press, 2004).
- Walter Mignolo, Local Histories/Global Designs, (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2000), 129-130.
- Walter Mignolo, The Idea of Latin America, (Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 2005), 15-28.
- Ibid., 10.
- Marc H. Ellis, Unholy Alliance, (Minneopolis, MN: Fortress Press, 1997), 96.
- James H. Cone, A Black Theology of Liberation Fortieth Anniversary Edition, (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2010), 149.
Image: Philip Jackson, Constantine the Great (By This Sign Conquer), 1998.
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Thank you, Yi Shen, for this sharp, timely commentary and critique. Well said!
Eye-opening perspective!
A note: I have long noticed that individual SDAs are not terribly compassionate when it comes to human frailties that result in family and other social and personal breakdowns. The attitude says, "Sorry, but what else do you expect when you're living like this..." (health issues and personal problems). Juxtapose this to the apparent concern over correct observances of all kinds there has been a dichotomy at the very least.
Sirje
Good luck selling this theory to Adventists.
You might consider that those Moors had invaded Spain and instituted dhimmitude. Christians were on the low end of the totem pole. They fought for 700 years against Islamic Imperialism to free their nation. This left deep scars and a sense of fear of fifth columns, so they expelled them. Today we see how difficult it is to deal with Muslim minorities, who incidentally view women as chattel. And Christians in Muslim nations can tell you what fun it is, even in modern times, to live as oppressed minorities. Egypt was once a Christian land until colonized. Islamic Imperialists invaded and destroyed the native culture. Just a week or so ago they drove tanks over Copts, so it continues after over a thousand years.
Intermarriage led to the mixed culture in South America. That didn't happen in Anglican Protestant cultures. Slavery ended in Spanish cultures long before it did in Protestant American culture. Slavery still exists in Islamic nations. In fact black slaves are still held and their word for black and slave is the same. Heterosexism? Wow, no PC cause is left unmentioned. Of course we know how Islam deals with homosexuals.
As an antidote to Yoder I suggest Paul Stephenson's excellent biography of Constantine. He refutes him quite handily. I suggest Mr. Ma do a bit more research using objective resources.
Am i the only one who see a strong correlation of the God of the OT and, the God of colonial Christianity and SADism; are we blind??
BTW...enjoyed the article and ..thank you.
Father Jim, according to "Ornament of the World," by Rosa Menocal, the period when Islam ruled in Spain was the time of greatest religio-cultural tolerance among Muslims, Christians and Jews.
Sadly, I have to agree that our church is much more concerned about doctrinal purity than helping one another. From my childhood growing up in Takoma Park, I remember imbibing the attitude that, once we've told people about the Sabbath, Second Coming, State of the Dead, etc., we've done our duty, our conscience is clear, and it's now up to them to accept or reject - not a very loving, concerned attitude.
Timely article, Mr Ma.
We are often reminded of our 'dominating' past, and the attitudes of our representatives in sensitive places. Too often we reflect a colonial attitude, even when we reject its excesses.
As a world church we struggle to embrace a variety of cultural norms, and social mores. Surely now is a good time to separate our principles from our practice - identify core values, and support humanity in fragile, often unsafe, conditions. That is the gospel!
Thanks for the thought provoking article Yi Shen. Another person you might find of interest is Jacques Ellul. His book "The Subversion of Christianity" includes a nuanced critique of Constantinianism that makes clear both why it is a heresy to be resisted and also why its results are morally ambiguous, producing many good things as well as bad. He is sympathetic with the early Christians who were very suddenly thrust from positions of marginalization and persecution into roles of power and responsibility for society as a whole. Not surprisingly, what they did with that power was very much a reflection of their time and place--namely, the time and place of empire. Ellul also, incidentally, devotes a chapter to critiquing Islam, which he sees as further corrupting Christian theopolitics in troubling ways (Ellul wrote the introduction to one of Bat'Yeor's books on the topic of "dhimmitude"). It is never clear to me why some imagine being opposed to one kind of oppression or theopolitics (such as Islamism) requires making peace with another (Constantinianism). Lesser evils are still evils (if lesser they be).
Also, I appreciated your referencing Yoder, who makes clear that he uses the term "Constantinian" to describe a movement in the church that is not simply about the person Constantine and in fact begins some time before Constantine arrives on the scene. In this light, maybe a term like "the Christendom project" would be more accurate. Peter Leithart has a book out called "Defending Constantine" by IVP press that I read on a friend's recommendation. I did not find his critique of Yoder very convincing for reasons I won't go into here, although at points he is quite incisive. What I kept wanting to ask Leithart is why no Constantinian project in history has ever seemed to work in the long run. Leithart stands in the Reformed tradition and we know what Calvin's Constantinian project meant for "heretics" in Geneva. I concluded in the end that it was his unstated post-millennial eschatology that was driving his entire project. If you believe that the world must be progressively perfected and totally "Christianized" before the eschaton, than I think you have to be committed something like Constantinianism, i.e., the take-over by believers of institutions of coercive power and violence.
NOTE OF CLARIFICATION ON ONE SENTENCE ABOVE: I concluded in the end that it was his [i.e., Leithart's] unstated post-millennial eschatology that was driving his entire project [in writing "Defending Constantine"].
Thanks for the thoughtful article - very timely for our world today.
One of my favorite quotes related to this subject:
"Everyone has become a captive of a fateful illusion that believes itself able to drive out evil by force. In this world where we everywhere marshal force against force, we must learn that force at best may succeed in containing a few manifestations of evil, but it can never conquer or eliminate evil. On the contrary, the force with which we fight evil has mainly the consequence that we ourselves become the victims of evil. As we resort to force against others, evil attacks us from behind and makes us evil ourselves."
Helmut Gollwitzer
Carroll, that is false. Why would they have fought for 7 centuries if life was so good? Unfortunately scholars hesitate to publish things that don't fit current fads. In fact Christians and Jews were treated brutally. They were not much better off then slaves in their own land. Their churches were turned into mosques. Christians were martyred for their faith. This whole Al-Andalus thing is disinformation and false. Take a look at Muslim "tolerance" of Christian minorities now. Religious tolerance and equality do not exist in the Muslim world.
Aage Rendalen:
Are you there? You might call me "resentful" if I pointed out the bias, the selective evidence, the bad logic, the misinformation, that pervades this article, so I'll leave that job to you. Much of Spectrum, lately, has sounded like Noam Chomsky without his talent, or, better still, the leftist "other side" of the Rush Limbaugh coin.
By the way, is it true you have to be a Catholic, like Fr.Jim, to see through this stuff? Has Spectrum finally driven all the educated Adventists away?
Brad, one of my favorite quotes, by Solzhenitsyn, is similar:
If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?
Jack
After Constantine the Great made Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire with the help of many powerful Christian leaders and theologians, he used it to persecute other religions as well as Christians who did not comply with his policy.
My history is a little weak, but I thought Constantine brought religious liberty (note the buzz word!) into the picture with his Edict of Milan, which allowed Christians, Jewss, and Pagans to practice, and gave Christians their confiscated property back. Although he favored Christianity, it was Theodosius I who made Christianity the "official" religion of the state around 380. I would guess most of us owe being Christian today to Constantine's adoption of Chrisitanity. He turned it from a fringe group to mainstream.
Jack
Another grad student discovers Marxism and liberation theology. That is so 1980s. Yaawwwnnnn.
LOL
For a different, and not necessarily sanitized, view of Constantine:
http://www.christianbook.com/constantine-unconquered-roman-emperor-chris...
Yi Shen, a question: if you had a Christian group that attempted to violently seize power in the name of liberating the oppressed, would you also classify this as "Constantinian"? If not, would they become Constantinian the moment they were in power? Or do you think some select groups can hold on to a monopoly on violence without being corrupted by it? The story you've traced here is how Christians went from being an oppressed minority to being a minority in power and became "Constantinians" as a result. But some of the people you cite in your article want to defend "the violence of the oppressed." What are your thoughts on this? Constantinianism in many ways = the violence of the oppressed once in control. Does this point toward the need for a radical Christian critique not only of the empire but also of thinkers like Fanon who elevate revolutionary violence to a kind of mystical status as the key to self-actualization?
Welcome to resistance, Yi Shen! It's fun to read of your discoveries and the way you have so nicely aimed this critique at your own Adventism. I find it a refreshing sign of humility and creates an imaingation for all of us about the future.
Bill Cork, why so dismissive? Just because you read these things in the 80s doesn't make this author's articulation of them any less important. In fact, in light of recent deepening of our own police state here in America and the denial of basic freedoms to so many citizens these words seem more urgent than ever. So much is at stake (I refer to the current Defense Authorization bill and indefinite detention, the horribly euphemistic "Safe Communities" program that racially targets lower income immigrants, and the mass incarceration of people of color, to name just a few glaring signs of blatant imperialism and oligarchic aims).
What can Christians do to resist Constantinism? First, the will to power is a human tendency available to both the left and the right. Don't assume that those people "over there"--the Other of my discursive world--are the only ones likely to be tempted. Both the extreme Right and Left meet behind the doors marked Truth and plot to use their social position to suppress whoever and whatever resists their achieved power.
Secondly, Christians can support the many movements to grant concessions and reparations to indigenous peoples who have been marginalized by majorities--religious, economic, racial, etc. It is always too little, too late, but even these tokens of justice speak volumes about the dignity of all humans. The largest and most recent representative indigenous event held in at the 2009 Parliament of the World's Religions in Melbourne gave new hope to more than 50 different indigenous groups in attendance. For more information, try these links...
http://www.un.org/esa/socdev/unpfii/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Declaration_on_the_Rights_of_Indigenous_Peo...
http://www.c-r.org/index.php
http://www.parliamentofreligions.org/news/index.php/tag/indigenous-peoples/
http://worldfocus.org/blog/2010/02/22/japans-indigenous-ainu-people-stru...
Thirdly, ask these speakers to come to your university, church or event:
http://www.parliamentofreligions.org/index.cfm?n=7&sn=42
Graeme
Constantine made Christianity the state religion of the Roman Empire, thus corrupting the church and the government. It would seem, then, that Constantinian Christianity is a political faith, a faith that is concerned first and foremost with the health of the body politic. So the opposite of Constantinian Christianity is apolitical Christianity that is concerned primarily with spiritual and religious matters, not matters of policy and politics.
Yet, Yi Shen Ma argues for just the opposite conclusion. He argues that apolitical Christianity, of the Seventh-day Adventist variety among others, is Constantinian, whereas social gospel/social justice/liberation theology Christianity, i.e., Christianity primarily concerned with politics and only secondarily with religion/spirituality, is not Constantinian.
That's a bizarre, illogical argument, but very typical of left wing "thought."
David, I'm not sure what you mean by "apolitical". When some early Adventists refused to salute the flag or carry weapons in the U.S. military or referred to America as the "beast" of Revelation or developed a denominational pay scale designed to promote economic equality among church workers, was this "apolitical"? Would you say Jesus had nothing to say about injustice, oppression, and violence? Would you say that living out the radical ethics of the Sermon on the Mount has no political consequences and is "apolitical"? Is the only way to be "political" to seize control of the tools of violence by means of violence? Or are there not political consequences to refusing to participate in the violence of the state or the empire? If Christ was simply an "apolitical" teacher of personal piety, isn't it strange that he was executed on charges of sedition by Roman authorities? What would being "apolitical" have meant in apartheid South Africa or during the Civil Rights movement in America? Or was Martin Luther King Jr.'s understanding of the Gospel simply "bizarre, illogical, but typical of left wing 'thought'"? How exactly does one go about being "spiritual" in the face of human oppression and injustice? Might the fact that the Greek word for righteousness, dikaiosune, also means justice not give us a clue? Is the idea we can only be either Constantinian or "apolitical" perhaps a false alternative?
David: I never once identified Constantinianism with political Christianity as such, that is a connection you made on your own. There is no reason participating in politics must mean taking control of the state. It is because of your faulty reading of my argument that made it seem incoherent. Constantinianism is a kind of politics, just as those who resist Constantinianism are doing so politically. My article argues that those who spiritualize Christianity to the point that they are unable to fight for the poor inevitably support Constantinianism in their silence, which makes them political. Or worse, they tell the suffering and oppressed that nothing can or should be done. This is political ideology at its purest, because they implicitly justify the current state of affairs. I agree with Cone, as I said in the article, that you can't be neutral on a moving train. Like it or not, our spirituality and religious believes have political consequences, just ask Bartolome De Las Casas.
Adventism and EGW saw the injustice and danger that came out of the connection of church and state and decided to become apolitical, which isn't really any better.
Once you get involved in the fight for justice you are always in danger to win and to become corrupted by the gained power. And this fight will always attract people who fight for power instead of justice. May be it is even to be seen in our adventist structures. As soon as a high position is connected to a large amount of power, it will corrupt and attract people who care more about power than about the kingdom of God.
True Christianity will always survive, but when the christians start to fight more for the survival of their denomination, their special doctrine than for justice...
True Yi Shen Ma, I haven't considered that side. But not getting involved in politics is also a political behaviour, which will also help the politicians with the most power...
Jim: Does evil done in the name of another religion exonerate evil done in the name of Christianity? I am critical of the colonial matrix of power no matter who is the wielder. Furthermore, your characterization of Islam as a homogenous violent religion and Orientalist account of political affairs in the Middle-East is simplistic at best. You are essentially juxtaposing historical events with current events without any in-depth analysis of the widely different historical contexts that gave rise to them. This is extremely problematic in many regards. Many readers here do not have a clear understanding of Islamic history and international relations, so your characterization of Islam only promotes the kind of anti-Islamic sentiment prevalent in the United States, which cost many lives domestic and abroad. This is something we do not currently need. Many Muslims fight for justice around the world just as many Christians continue to resist imperialism. Let us refrain from making simplistic statements about millions of people, from different countries, practicing one of the world’s largest religions (as we would expect from others). I say again, I am as critical of Muslim imperialists as I am a Christian imperialist. It just so happens that I am a Christian, so I am in a position to be self-critical before pointing my finger at others.
The majority here will not agree with this, but Ellen White said that we are not to duplicate the work of the Salvation Army. The apostles did not try to overturn the current social order of their day--which included slavery. Working for "social justice" (a rather loaded term, I believe) may be an individual work, but it is not to be the primary focus of the SDA Church as a corporate entity. We've been given our marching orders: preach the 3 angels' messages.
Interesting how so many among us like to jump on all the current evangelical bandwagons.
Why then the only thing Paul was given on his mission was not to forget to care for the poor?
Why then in the end there will be 2 groups. One which has cared for the poor and the other who just thought to have cared for the poor.?
When one combines triumphalism with xenophobia and chauvinism blood will be shed. Nothing is more chilling that man's inhumanity to man. Particularly when done in the name of God. As a G.I. in the South Pacific and Korea--I saw the results of Japanese imperialism only to be replaced by American "Gookism" In Korea, jeep drivers made a sport of driving up behind a Korean woman carrying a heavy jab of "night soil" on her head and then blowing the horn. The poor woman would jump aside spilling "night soil" all over her head and shoulders.
Some were more tragic as the Korean Christain Minissionary riding his bike between congregations.
hit by a jeep whose driver was too impatient for the man to clear the way--ran him down.
His left leg was broken in four places and the right leg in three. The Korean was of unusual height and weight over six feet tall weighing about 240 pounds. I was the chief surgical tec. my job was to hold the leg steady until the cast set. Try holding a leg broken in four places steady for over 30 minutes and then the other for another 30 minutes. The man was sedated but fully aware--He was a very intelligent educated man with a true Christian outlook---the jeep driver hadn't finished highschool.
Could be why Jesus Waits---the Investigative Judgment can't keep up with man's cruelty. . Tom Z
David Read: "Constantinian Christianity is a political faith, a faith that is concerned first and foremost with the health of the body politic. So the opposite of Constantinian Christianity is apolitical Christianity that is concerned primarily with spiritual and religious matters, not matters of policy and politics."
Asserting the above would be corect only if colonialism (Constantinian Christianity?) were limited to overt political subjection of oppressed minorities by a foreign power. But as this article suggests in the introduction:
"Colonialism is not simply a form of physical or political domination. As Edward Said and Frantz Fanon point out, its tentacles also extend to culture and the subjectivity [sic] of the colonized."
The spread of Roman Catholic Christianity is often cited as a classic example of colonialism by the use of superior force resulting in economic and political domination as well as ecclesiastical (spiritual?) and sociocultural subjection of an indigenous population. Father Jim may disagree. To David Read, Bill Cork, and others, my question is: Has the American brand of Christianity done any better and is less guilty of a similar offense while promoting a spiritual mission, not respecting local cultures - "From home base to frontline" - and by its bureaucratic [read: General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists] expansion abroad?
Yi, I am contending that your entire thesis is simply incorrect not just that all groups have their faults. Just today there is a report that in the Saudi school system their textbooks continue to portray Christians and Jews as evil and worthy of death. They also advocate execution of homosexuals. When confronted with this and their promise to change they walked away. In other words they lied and continue to do so. Coptic Christians have suffered persecution for over 1000 years and it continues today. If you want to deal with colonial imperial matrices then start with Islam. Name one Muslim majority country that is a true democracy, has equality for all religions, and does not discriminate against Christians and Jews. For all of our faults we are better then them. Muslims are not fighting us for "justice" but because we are kaffir. They are very clear about that.
That said your approach is false and I think Bill has it right, it is so '80s. Evil did not begin with Constantine or Spain or America. However, the Marxist analysis of human nature and history is evil.
Joselito, I do disagree. The Catholic faith did not spread simply by colonialism. Of course in North America the Protestants eliminated much of the local population.
This is a very interesting artice, exploring the backdrop of much of historic Christianity and the influence of culture.
Akeel Bilgrami, professor in philosophy at Columbia University, and a pupil of Said, draws attention to the tradition of thought that goes back to Enlightenment thinkers and seventeenth century Europe (in Warner et.al., "Varieties of Secularism" ), like Newton and Boyle. His claim is that the Reformation, with its strong focus on the individual, laid the foundation for the scientific revoulution , capitalism, and colonialism. According to scientific reason, matter was to be seen as "brute and stupid", to be conquered. Nature was de-sacralized, and God was conceived as the distant "clock-winder". Nature was stripped with value and could therefore make no normative demands on man, faced with a disenchanted world. A detached view of the world, and if man was ever to engage with the world, it would take "the form of mastery and control of something alien, with a view of satisfying the only source of value allowed by this outlook - our own utilities and gain". In opposition to this view was the freethinkers who claimed that the world was not impersonal, but "suffused with value". But Newton and Boyle, backed by the Anglican establishment and growing capitalism won out over the freethinkers.
Furthermore, this "scientific rationality" is crucial in order to understand the colonizing mentality that developed, and later justified imperialism and supression of "less developed" cultures and people, all in the name of scientific progress. In line with this thinking the notion of the "white man's burden" developed, as the basis for much of Christian mission around the world, hand in hand with mercantile interests. Colonized lands and its inhabitants were seen as "brute nature, to be conquered and controlled".
Charles Taylor in "A Secular Age", thus claims that secular humanism and the triumph of scientific rationality, was an unintended consequence of the Reformation.
Ole
Jim: How is my thesis incorrect? You have not provided any argument, but merely pointed out that Muslims are somehow intrinsically more “evil.” If that is the extent of your argument (labeling and simplistic rhetoric) then I am afraid it is impossible to engage with you constructively. Who are the “they” you are referring to? Are they my family (who are Muslims) who believe in democracy? Are they my Egyptian friends who are fighting for democracy and tolerance? Are they the Tunisians who are fighting for democracy? Are they the pro-democracy Syrians shot to death by the military? So I guess the fact that the U.S. funded and supported military dictators in the region makes no difference at all, or how we funded the Mujahideens in Afghanistan during the Cold War, or the fact that we sabotaged Iran’s democracy and instilled a dictator? I guess the wars against civilians since 2004 did not add to their justified hatred for “Christian” America. Who are these “better” Christians you are talking about? Are they the missionaries documented in Bartolome De Las Casas’ journals? Are they the ones who supported the Holocaust and Slavery? Are they George Bush and his entourage? (Christians still execute and oppress LGBT brothers and sisters in a few countries) By the way, in case you don’t know, many white Christians did not simply give up their phony “right” to own slaves. African Americans fought for their own rights along with white allies. Many white Christians did not all of a sudden realize they were wrong, they were made to realize by the countless slave rebellions. The same would have to happen in predominantly Muslim nations (be it to end slavery or to create a good democracy state), if we can only stop interfering with their political affairs and occupy their lands and pay for fundamentalist organizations. Your caricature of millions of people is both simplistic and problematic.
Liberation theologies are so 80s? Perhaps you need to keep up with the most recent developments, especially those that are coming from Palestinian Christians. I am not sure what you are referring to when you say Marxist analysis of history is evil. But I am pretty sure your analysis of history is pristine and fair. (BTW I don't see any true democracy in the world, perhaps you can name one).
"Adventism and EGW saw the injustice and danger that came out of the connection of church and state and decided to become apolitical, which isn't really any better." Marianne Faust
I wish such a decision could be made also regarding "inside church politics."
I can't imagine how different and better Adventism could be it if it could be "apolitical."
(Though I am well aware that this is totally impossible. Utopia.)
"Ellen White said that we are not to duplicate the work of the Salvation Army." - Horatio
Why does Ellen White need to always be invoked for everything? I mean EVERYTHING!
Come on, she lived two centuries ago. She had no idea of the social needs of our days. It seems that she was not even that much sensitive to the social needs of her own days either.
And what about Christ? Did he or did He not command us to be socially sensitive and care for PEOPLE much more than for 3 or more angels???
We don't have to be stuck "just because EGW said so." Wake up people! Brains were made to be used in a productive way, not to be just stations of repetition of what "Ellen White said"....
"(BTW I don't see any true democracy in the world, perhaps you can name one)." Yi Shen Ma
You are so right! Much less in the US.
Actually, the US so-called "democracy" is an insult to any intelligent person. We have no DEMO-cracy here. We have ELECTORAL COLLEGE-cracy. Which is very different.
Whenever elections are not decided by popular vote (people's majority) there is NO DEMOcracy. There is, though, a lot of HYPOcrisy.
Also, what kind of system is this here, where one party (GOP) does whatever they can to BLOCK the vote of populations that usually vote for democrats? This is what you get when voting is not mandatory. Or when people didn't yet figure out how to count votes accurately. And this is the USA!!!???
I lived in Brasil (yes, this is the correct spelling) for 40 years. Voting is a civil DUTY, and mandatory. There are harsh consequences for those who would not vote (can't even have a government job). And they have modern electronic voting machines, so good that some Americans have been there to look at it and see if it could be implemented here. Every candidate even has a picture on the screen. Every citizen has an ID, which is the only accepted identification document besides the passport. And there is no "electoral colleges"..., just popular vote. It sounds close to a DEMOcracy to me.
(For those unfamiliar with it, DEMO comes from Greek, demos=people, and CRACY come from cracia=government. Thus, government by the people. No "electoral colleges" in Greek...)
I read very brilliant articulation, first from Ma, and then from all comments.
Anyway I look at it, Ma has done quite a lot: stepping out of our comfortable queue. What more must be stated is not in fact about the wrongness or otherwise of Christianity's course through history. Are we to say simply-- or blandly--that because Islamic nations practice injustice, therefore "we" being bearers of "divine instruments of normative [in]justice could not be asked to desist from our notorious dehumanizing politics?
We also know that Christianity is not living up the standards it has set for others, for the world; but also that there is not one monolith called Christianity is another sarcastic but embarrassing truth. Then what are fighting over/for? In whose defense do we stand: an objective reality called God or our own interpretations our existential angst?
What need be done is, I think, Christians re-evaluate the meaning of that "faith" in the now, and what we are doing with our faith professions and processes. Perhaps, the word "religion" --whether Islam or Christianity--is just the short-hand for oppression; its camouflage.
Finally much more than slavery, and colonization, there are in fact dangerous historical evidences that I believe the powerful religions which had been complicit in degading God's creatures now feverishly fight to erase! See Ivan Van Sertima's "The Came before Columbus."
Yi, Muslims have been attacking Christians long before the US existed. They invaded Christian land, enslaved Christian populations, destroyed churches or turned them into mosques, forced Arabic language and culture on the locals, and destroyed ancient civilizations. That is Imperialism and Colonialism. Jihad predates anything we have ever done. They hate us not because of our polices, but because we are not Muslim. Rhetoric aside this is a long running religious war and they started it.
Today the ONLY places in the world you find slavery is in Muslim lands. When they do get a chance to vote who do they vote for? The Islamicists! The same people who want to get rid of democracy and carry out jihad. They hang homosexuals, degrade women, have legal pedophilia, and deny equal rights to religious minorities.
We are better. That's why people all over the world come to the West. For all of our faults it is the Christian West that attracts immigrants. In particular in America we have a society, that despite its faults, is free and prosperous.
I have talked to Palestinian Christians. When we were alone, and me wearing my collar, they told me the suffering they endured at the hands of the...Muslims. They preferred Israeli rule! They are being driven out, their land seized, their daughters kidnapped, they stores closed, their churches vandalized, and their rights abolished. They said they could not say this publicly because it would cause more trouble. You want to fight Imperialism? Then fight militant Islam.
You basically claim that all problems in the world are systemic and caused by the ism's. Christianity avoids this and recognizes that original sin is the cause. It is sinful human nature not some faux structure that makes the world a nasty place. CS Lewis warns us of the Christianity AND syndrome. This is where Christianity AND say socialism become the vogue. Eventually the secular ideology pushes out the Christianity part. Christianity becomes a tool and is discarded when no longer useful. This is a subtle way the devil undermines the good things that are often intended. You see things only through a Marxist materialist lens.That is your greatest error.
I remember a group of liberal Protestant clergy who went to the old USSR. They were enchanted. One described how a church had been turned into an atheist museum and had "preserved" some icons. They were blind to their own rhetoric and they blamed America for everything. I asked them if they talked to Christians away from listening ears, had noticed that few churches were operating, those that were seemed to be Potemkin constructs, and if they had talked to Christians in the gulags. They responded "shut up, just shut up." Cognitive dissonance was painful for them and they rarely heard it. It was only after the USSR fell that some, just some, admitted that they had been fooled. That only happened because the persecuted Christians laid into them harshly and demanded an apology. Before you examine the speck in our eye you should take a look at the log in the eye of Islam and those same Marxists whose ideology you have adopted.
Muslims did not pioneer oppression. The train was long in full steam when Islam joined Christianity in the feverish contest. And I do not suppose that Islam has or will out-do us in slave-making. What justification would not be found or made up, when it comes to "our" own insecurity, by the way?
George Tichy said, "Why does Ellen White need to always be invoked for everything? I mean EVERYTHING!
Come on, she lived two centuries ago. She had no idea of the social needs of our days."
Could it be because she was called by God as His messenger to the remnant church? Get used to it. Some of us here are Seventh-day Adventists.
Why do Paul and Jesus need to always be invoked for everything? . . . Come on, they lived 2 millenia ago. They had no idea of the social needs of our days.
That kind of thinking has led to all kinds of strange aberrations that pass for Biblical doctrine. Those who think that way have (whether they realize it or not) ignored the foreknowledge of God. It was the Holy Spirit who inspired Paul and Ellen White to write what they did. So the idea that Ellen White "had no idea of the social needs of our days" is a straw man. Maybe she didn't, but the Holy Spirit did.
When did the comments section turn into a KKK rally? Good grief Fr. Jim can you turn down the bigotry dial a smidge? I can barely hear myself reel in revoltion.
A KKK rally by a Catholic apologist, who compares Jews favorably to Palestinians... you might want to brush up on your KKK history a bit.
oh BUURRN!! Professor John Mark just schooled my face hardcore with a history lesson distinguishing Fr. Jim from the KKK in multiple significant respects! SNAP! The discerning Professor Mark is nonetheless cognizant, no doubt, of the congruity between the hate-language of the KKK and Fr. Jim manifest in their religio-political justifications and destinations, which, as the professor knows, was my whole stinkin' point. They (and, am I to assume John Mark as well?) are similar because they both hate on people groups they have identified as different and inferior, not because their ethnic affinities or political proclivities are identical in all respects. But do not let that squelch your contempt for me! You probably know all kinds of stuff about the KKK I've never even heard of.
What I've always wondered about people like the KKK and Fr. Jim is if their religious and political beliefs come before and therefore cause the hate, or if conversely hate motivates the religious and political beliefs? Hey John Mark maybe you know?
Anon, I am not the one posting about how Adventists are the w hore of babylon or the source of all oppression in history. If you want to see hate look in the mirror. Why do others always bring Catholicism up and then be surprised when I respond?
This site is crawling with about 122 variations of anonymous. I mean "anonymously", seriously? I don't mind pseudonyms, but can we all try to use a little creativity...
If Christ was simply an "apolitical" teacher of personal piety, isn't it strange that he was executed on charges of sedition by Roman authorities?
Ron, they were false charges. There wasn't a shred of truth in them. Jesus said "my kingdom is not of this world" (John 18:36), and "render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's" (Mark 12:17), and told people to carry the Roman soldiers' gear two miles, not just one (Mat. 5:41), and healed the Roman centurion's servant and said he had not seen the like of that man's faith in any Israelite. (Mat. 8:5-13)
And Pilate fully understood that the charges were nonsense, and that the Jewish mob was demanding that he commit a judicial murder. And yet he did it anyway. Why? Because he thought it was better to placate and mollify the mob---those supposed subjects of imperial Rome---than to vindicate his own, and Rome's, values. Now, that's interesting, isn't it? Had he been a "cultural imperialist," and imposed Roman justice on the Jewish lynch mob, he would have done the right thing and spared Jesus' life. In bowing to the demands of the non-Western, indigenous, subject, conquered, "colonized" people, he did the wrong thing and condemned Jesus to death.
Food for thought. Sometimes the imperialist power does the right thing in enforcing its values on the conquered people. Such as when Britain banned suttee in India, and used the Royal Navy to fight the slave trade. Or when the Spanish banned the horrific rituals of human sacrifice in Anahuac. It can happen that way.
The Great Controversy is indeed about the use of power.
What kind of person is God?
Can He be trusted?
I think what some see as our church's disengagement is not so much about being in the matrix of power, but more about the eccentric bent of our church--very cerebral, very involved etc.
On the other hand, many individual SDAs are very involved in helping the oppressed, widows and strangers etc. It is interesting to see how much this was important to God in Exodus/Leviticus.
"A New Beginning?
“The instructions issued to Miguel Lopez de Lagazpi in 1564 stipulated that his expedition was to bring back samples of spices, discover a return route to New Spain , and not settle in the Maluku (Moluccas) that the Crown had ceded to the Portuguese in 1529….
"At this time new conquests employed the requerimiento. This was a document that was read to newly encountered native peoples and called upon them to recognize the superior authority of the Crown and Church, and if they did not they could be subjugated by force of arms and their goods could be confiscated. … this proclamation had Islamic antecedents. At the launch of the jihad (or struggle), subjugated peoples would be called upon to recognize the superior authority of Islam through the payment of tribute, the refusal of which provided justification for war. Nevertheless, under Islam subjugated people were not required to convert to the new religion, as was the case when the same procedure was adopted during the Christian Reconquest of the Iberian Peninsula ."
-Linda A. Newson: Conquest and Pestilence in the Early Spanish Philippines (U of Hawaii Press, 2009) pp5, 6
http://www.amazon.com/Conquest-Pestilence-Early-Spanish-Philippines/dp/0...
'In preparation for the trip to the Indies proposed by Christopher Columbus, the Catholic kings of Spain "consulted the most eminent jurists and ecclesiastics . . . concerning the most convenient manner of taking possession" of new-found territories.1 The Portuguese had relied on a number of pontifical documents for their possessions in the Indies , but the Spaniards could only fall back on the provisions of Law 29, Title XXVIII, of Partida III , which gave legal right over any newly discovered land to whoever inhabited it first.2
[snip].
'Hence Spain appealed to the Roman pontiff for some more plausible legal title.5 This recourse was in keeping with the prevailing view among jurists and theologians of the time, believing that the pope was universal lord of the world, whose authority extended to the non-Christians and that he could therefore, in a given case, appropriate, transfer, and assign, quite legally, political dominion over their lands to Christian princes.6'
-J. GAYO O. P. ARAGÓN: The Controversy over Justification of Spanish Rule in the Philippines
in Studies in Philippine Church History (GERALD H. ANDERSON, ed.; Cornell U Press, 1969)
Many excellent thoughts & ideas have already been expressed on this thread. However none have yet mentioned one of the best examples of colonialism presently taking place INSIDE the SDA church - the CYC movement. And here in Australia, we have our own version, which has clearly been modelled on GYC - it's called Adventist Youth for Christ (AYC).
http://adventistyouthforchrist.org/
While there are no apparent organisational links between this and GYC, the rhetoric and methodology is identical. Just look at the "About" section on the website, particularly the leadership page, and compare this with the same page on the GYC website - the language is almost verbatim.
Just this morning I was priviledged to visit Geelong church in Victoria, where a number of youth were promoting the AYC "Convention 2012". Part of this promotion included the video clip which you can also find on the site. The name "Adentist Generation for Christ" must have been repeated 6 or 7 times just during the verbal part of the promotion (ie., not including the AV presentation), and one of the presenters also said the main prayer for church and managed to slip "Adventist Youth for Christ" into the prayer as well. All up, it is one of the slickest promotions I've ever heard for a convention, and given these were just young people from the Geelong church, they must have been well schooled.
Later, some of the older folk in the church were commenting how wonderful it is that the youth are so involved in the church, taking leadership positions, etc. And on face value, the testimonies of changed lives, etc. did appear genuine and powerful. But I couldn't help noticing the absence in the video of any people at all who were over-weight, sad or in any way on the lower end of the "beauty" spectrum. Not that there's anything at all wrong with dressing up, tastefully applying makeup or speaking well - just it didn't strike me as representative of a normal church population.
Then there's the darker side, which wasn't actually visible at all today - those who are marginalised because they don't conform to expectations. Those who are GLBTI who God hasn't seen fit to "heal". Those who cannot accept that Ellen White was a prophet. Those who realise there's so much more to Christian living than observing the behavioural requirements laid out by the church. Those who know that no matter how much we love Christ and are filled with His Spirit, in this life we will never be perfect. Ultimately all these will be on the receiving end of the "shape up or ship out" routine, because afterall, we cannot have anybody in the church who will compromise the emergence of the "final perfect generation who will bring about the coming of Christ".
Fr. Jim:
I have talked to Palestinian Christians...They preferred Israeli rule!
Father, you are not the only one who has talked with Palestinian Christians. My friends and former neighbors were recent Arab Orthodox Christian immigrants from Bethlehem. While they did not mind Jewish people (they were Arab Israeli citizens) as such, they did have a big problem with the Israeli army, which harassed them wherever they went, in a country in which they held citizenship. So there are differences of opinion and perspective even within seemingly homogeneous groups, there as well as here.
I suggest Mr. Ma do a bit more research using objective resources.
Define objective sources. I am an historian by training, and when the term objective comes up it is generally a signal that the source is unreliable. Some of my best friends and colleagues, as well as heroes from history, are themselves priests (usually religious, but some seculars as well), but I am used to a bit more gentleness in dialogue with them. All of them, from the parochial vicars up to the archbishops, are fully aware of my Seventh-day Adventism, and none of them has any problem with my rooting through their archives or sharing a meal in the convento. As a result, I strive to behave in the same manner among those with whom I may disagree when I am in an environment where I dominate (in this case, a classroom at an SDA university).
Also, you may be unaware, but you should use all of Yi Shen's given name, or none of it. I call him Johnson, his English name when he was a very sharp and enjoyable student of mine.
Johnson: Nicely written article. A piece of advice though. It is not generally advisable to argue points with posters here, unless it is an exercise in rhetoric. Very few people are willing to change their mind or their perspective. I miss graduate school, where that is encouraged. Hope you can come by the department and chat sometime!
Pax,
David Kendall
------------------
David Kendall, PhD
Adjunct Professor of Music
La Sierra University
Lecturer in Music
University of California, Riverside
Robert Sonter,
I can't comment on the situation in Australia, but in America I think GYC is largely an outlet for youth who don't fit into the more liberal mainstream of the church. I don't think's there's much reason to be concerned about a huge revival of ultra-conservatism among my generation. For example, it's a very small percentage who have any problem with movies. They're not turning into spectrumite liberals in that they're not going to get fired up over the skeletons in the closet. Indeed many of them still accept Ellen White but they're use for her writings is more inspiration then as a rule-book. They'll go to the movies, play video games, listen to secular music, and still lead out in a church program on Sabbath - indeed the more liberal ones will do it all on Sabbath. Time will tell, but I don't see the GYC conservatism you describe as coming to dominate the youth of the church.
Joselito, so there has never been in the history of the world, before that time, a conqueror seeking justification for his conquest? The issue is human nature not the Pope or Constantine.
David, the IDF is tasked with defending against suicide bombers. It is hard to tell the bad from the good guys. Of course they are therefore tough on everyone. But it is their Muslim neighbors who steal their business, lands, and daughters.
David, I understand why you have interpreted those passages you cited above the way you do. I think, though, that the "apolitical" reading of the New Testament is a grave misreading. I posted an article a long time ago (in three parts) explaining why this approach doesn't do justice to the biblical as well as historical evidence. If it is of interest to you, you can read what I have written about the politics of Jesus here:
1. http://spectrummagazine.org/blog/2008/08/17/christ-fifth-way-recovering-...
2. http://spectrummagazine.org/blog/2008/08/17/christ-fifth-way-recovering-...
3. http://spectrummagazine.org/blog/2008/08/18/christ-fifth-way-recovering-...
Shabat shalom and happy Christmas.
"Time will tell, but I don't see the GYC conservatism you describe as coming to dominate the youth of the church." -- John Mark
I can only hope and pray you're right!
Fr. Jim: "The issue is human nature not the Pope or Constantine."
The ideology that sustains both papacy and Constantinian Christianity is the issue. Writes Yi Shen Ma (Johnson Ma?):
“In a remarkably short period of time, Christianity evolved from a religion of the marginalized to a religion of the powerful. Constantine and his Christian allies’ lust for power perverted the gospel of liberation and turned it into an ideological instrument that sustained the escalating militarism of the Roman Empire.
“[…] Constantinian Christianity is more than just the marriage of church and empire. It is also a way of practicing faith that subjugates and marginalizes other human beings. In what ways is the Adventist church reproducing the colonial matrix of power? Is the Adventist church Constantinian or a community for the poor and marginalized?”
Briefly, the issue is ideological and systemic. What was true of the papacy and Constantinian Christianity may also be true of Adventist policies and politics consequent to an apocalyptic ideology. It's not my wish to argue at length with Fr. Jim about what's common knowledge to history students in my country regarding the close ties between Roman Catholicism and colonialism, but for the last time with my sources:
"2. The archdiocese of Manila owned two haciendas, Buenavista and Dinalupihan, used for the support of a hospital and a seminary.
3. A number of smaller parishes had smaller landholdings.
4. The Colegio de San Jose, a foundation administered by the Dominicans in the late nineteenth century to support the faculties of pharmacy and medicine of the University of Santo Tomas (UST) owned two haciendas: San Pedro Tunasan (SPT) and Lian.
"In December 1903, after two months of difficult negotiations between the Roosevelt administration and the Vatican, these friar lands, amounting to some 410,000 acres (approximately 166,000 hectares) with some 60,000 tenants on them, were purchased by the colonial government for $7,239,000, supposed for resale to the tenants.11 The Philippine Commission subsequently surveyed the estates and instituted a program leading to ownership by the tenants in twenty-five years. But almost all the lands ended up as haciendas owned by Filipinos of the upper class. 12"
-Michael J Connolly, S. J.: Church lands and peasant unrest in the Philippines: Agrarian conflict in 20th-century Luzon (Ateneo de Manila University Press, 1992), pp 3, 4
"Time will tell, but I don't see the GYC conservatism you describe as coming to dominate the youth of the church." -- John Mark
It will also depend on how much true theological education the youth will be exposed to. It will depend on what books they read (as Ted Wilson about this one...). It will depend on how much non-manipulated information they will receive from the church. It will depend on whether they will be induced to "think with their own brains" or be mere repetitive machines of what others tell them to be the truth. Will see...
To Robert
Exactly 40 years ago, at the tender age of 17 or 18, I was an active participant in an Adventist movement in Melbourne focussed on Jesus. We were known as the "street preachers", as we spent weekend evenings singing and speaking from a trailer, with lights, amplifiers and Fender guitars. We were hundreds of young, with some support from parents and ministers. And there were the conservative detractors who kept saying..."why can't they be more...[fill in the blank"] or criticizing us for wearing jeans, having long hair "like the hippies" and playing modern music (ala Ralph Carmichael and Andre Crouch. We believed, we hugged, we prayed, we cried, we hoped, we fed the homeless and prayed with prostitutes, we rented a cafe Sunday nights and continued the conversations we started on the streets. Then we went on believing in the Gospel and the power of the Spirit and led productive lives. Those months, and the adults who gently supported and encouraged us, shaped my entire life.
I encourage you to get more involved with the spiritual youth movement in Victoria. Make contact with the young people who need your support and guidance. Then come back and tell us what is happening and how your life is being blessed.
Graeme
Joselito, if you read Paul Stephenson's biography of Constantine you will find a more nuanced and less biased view. Yi is basically adopting a Marxist materialist perspective. Colonialism was not invented by Constantine or Catholicism. It existed long before that and other religions have practiced it. And of course the Church owns property, but note in your quote they operated schools and hospitals. Gee how terrible.
To Graeme Sharrock,
Thank you for your story and your observations. I actually live in NSW and am only visiting Victoria for the Xmas break, so it will be hard to get too involved with this particular youth movement. And I really do hope I'm wrong in my fears about where that movements is being taken.
My comments were not intended as a criticism of the youth, more I'm concerned about the motives of some of those who are backing and directing this particular movement.
Fr. Jim, of course, it's alright... Oh, did you say, "Terrible"?... for the RCC, a corporation sole in the Philippines, and the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists to own property and appoint all male clergy ambassadors to operate their respective neo-colonial charities in my country. My profound gratitude to the Vatican and Silver Spring, MD. Thank you! Thank you so much!
To Robert
Yes, motives in a movement are always complicated. Human needs for attention, recognition, identity, connection.... inevitable!
I'm planning a visit to Melbourne soon, so I'll try to find a way to meet the Jesus people.
Graeme
Joselito, so if you were injured and they took you to a Catholic hospital you would refuse care? Right. The Catholic Church is the largest non-secular charitable organization in the world. I worked with Mother Teresa's MC's and they do work no one else will do. You're welcome.
"Working for "social justice" (a rather loaded term, I believe) may be an individual work, but it is not to be the primary focus of the SDA Church as a corporate entity. We've been given our marching orders: preach the 3 angels' messages."
Absolutely correct. And Read and Cork on right on target. Will it ever reach a point when we can really trust the libs to come up with tenable Christian positions?
Father Jim... two of my wife's aunts are nuns of the Congregation of the Religious of the Virgin Mary . Numerous RC charities, among the best hospitals and finest schools, were founded and have been ably administered by RC religious congregations/societies for women. By and large and in this regard, the RCC hierarchy has done better than the GC of SDAs in promoting social justice in my country.
Joselito, you're welcome.
Nooo, we strictly separate Church and State (Marianne Faust). Only when in Serbia with her Serbian Orthodox Church and an incerasing nationalism on the one side and her inclination to have Russia as a protector through the centuries on the other side - rioters repeatedlyattacked Serbian SDA property and Serbian SDA believers but the authorities did nothing to protect the SDA, our leading Bretheren in Beograd (according to AR) asked for help - not from the EU (Serbia is doing all to get EU membership ), but from the embassies of USA, (remember the Balcan war) Germany (remeber WW II ) and Austria, the enemy for quite the half of a millenium. And now ANN reports that GC members met with the Washington embassador of Hungary in matters of a law in Hungary requiring a new registration for smaller churches, this being seen as a threat to religious liberty. The ambassador was -we read - just as polite as diplomats use to be. But especially Hungarians are very sensitive about extern interventions in the case of national Hungarian affairs.
(The Turkish ambassador to Austria had to be withdrawn after his public demand to be the protector of Austrian citizens with Turkish origin !)
Longtime Spectrumites maybe remeber "Last Days in Saigon".
Such actions with overestiamting the potency of influencing foreign sovereign states is also Colonialism.. With a lot of negative sideeffects.
Another view on Colonialism.
Up to the Limes, the northern border of the Roman Empire, about along the Danube - Rhine -line, we still today can admire what on law, justice, economics, technology the Romans brought to the new northern provinces. In the fourth century the Empire collapsed, those provinces became a wilderness again.
The Western Christian Church - RC - began to bring civilisation into the wilderness back again : Cistercienses taught the peasants how to build stable houses, how to cultivate their fields and how to store the crop safely for wintertime. They brought law and order. Other orders had their schools, cultivated reading and writing again. A simple health care and even the preceeders of our hospitals were provided - - -
You have to be a very good Adventist for being able to explain the typologies of Verduner Altar - a sort of SS picture roll, only of gold plated copper and enamel, late Middle Age - or the giantt lent sheets veilig the altar room during Lent, illustrating the story of redemption.
And who took care for saving the Georgorian music for the development of Western classics?
- - - - Also a side - another side - of colonisation.
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