(For more on this subject see my earlier posted clusters of entries Religion And Culture; And When She Was...Good, She Was Horrid; etc. in the Religion section. My general opinion on this subject is best capsulated in my phrase To each culture, its own religion. Mind you, I am not against missionary activity where it fills a vacuum, but only where it intrudes into an already established and politically and culturally protected field, creating a political conflict and causing an undesirable aggravation of ethnic and cultural sensibilities.)
Explaining my closing thesis of the previous entry that international justice may indeed belong to the realm of wishful thinking, unattainable by and large in practical terms, except for minimal successes, delineated in broad generalities, here is my first argument regarding the extreme difficulties of finding common ground in the highly contentious field of religion. (Let us not use the unfortunate term interfaith, wholly discredited by the bitter realities of the twenty-first century, pitting, suspiciously and apparently deliberately, Judaism and Western /predominantly American Evangelical/ Christianity against the nations of Islam.)
There is another powerful incentive for religious incompatibility, which is politico-geographical. People all over the world, of different religions, yet forced to be neighbors to each other, become entangled in deadly geographical disputes, whether between India and Pakistan in Kashmir, or between Azerbaijan and Armenia in Nagorno-Karabakh, or not too long ago in the republics of former Yugoslavia, etc., and there seems to be no reasonably civilized solution to all these conflicts, some of them still burning, others, ever ready to flare up again…
These are all easily recognizable problems, and they do not require some special prompting, to be reminded of. However, there is yet another, far less recognized, but no less destructive culprit in the ongoing religious strife in modern world, to which I want to draw attention in this entry.
If I were asked, mostly theoretically, what would be my advice for promoting religious tolerance around the world today, so as to fulfill the conditions for international religio-ethical coexistence, I would respond with no hesitation: Do away with all religious missionary activity, particularly by American Evangelical zealots, who are doing far more harm to international relations than they are willing to admit, or even realize.
…I envisage being immediately reprimanded, by an angry chorus of “good Christians,” that going against missionarism I am also going against the Bible! Here is what Apostle Paul says about missionaries, as they will chastise me: “They are the messengers of the churches and the glory of Christ.” (II Corinthians 8:23.)
But we are talking about three distinctly different types of missionarism here and they must not be confused. The first type, early Christian missionarism arose from within the Jewish culture, as a much needed solution to the existing problem of cultural decay and confusion, brought about by the successful Roman conquest of Judaea and the destruction of the Temple, the centerpiece and soul of Torah Judaism. The old religion could no longer be sustained, and it effectively collapsed at the end of the first century AD. One substitute was the so-called Rabbinical Judaism, preserving the self-segregation of the Jews, to the exclusion of Gentiles. The other substitute put an end to Jewish self-segregation, inviting all Gentiles (the Romans in particular) to join and embrace the new Jewish religion: Christianity.
Now, we already know (from Gaston Boissier’s previously quoted treatise La Religion Romaine d’Auguste aux Antonins, among other such studies) that the Romans were not very serious about their religion. Hence, it was easy, and politically very convenient, for them to switch to Christianity, which they adopted in the 4th century AD as the official state religion, for a variety of good reasons. There was no invasion of anybody’s religious privacy here, on the part of those early Christian missionaries. It is therefore understandable and appropriate to view such missionarism as a natural and even welcome phenomenon.
Missionary Buddhism is basically in the same category, which is still the first type of missionarism, as being discussed. Originating in India, as one among many “Hindu religions” it had every right to be propagated in India (where it was rejected), or in China, with its multitude of the so-called “Chinese religions,” (where it took root), or elsewhere, in nations lacking a cohesive cultural-religious tradition, anyway.
Curiously, the excessive proliferation of Protestant religions, like it was happening, for instance, in America in the early Colonial years under the protective umbrella of the concept of religious freedom (but not for the Quakers however!), falls into the same category. Once again, within the body of the same mother religion, and along virtually identical cultural lines, offshoots of Protestantism were allowed to spring, and their self-promotion was normal and logically unobjectionable. This is obviously not the type of missionary activity that I would ever object to.
Incidentally, the quick original spread of the Protestant Reformation in Europe in the sixteenth century, was not a culturally offensive development, either. On the contrary, it was a cultural self-affirmation of Europe’s younger nations, a mostly political event intended to cut off the no longer welcome bonds, tying them to the Roman Catholic Pope-centered monolith, which was infringing upon or outright denying them their national independence.
The second type of missionarism can be described as ‘the way of the conqueror.’ Such was the way of Islam spreading around the world, or of Roman Catholic Christianity brought to the Americas by the conquistadors or to Africa and elsewhere by the European colonizers. For better or for worse (we may disagree about this, but this is beside the point), this was a politically and militarily superior European Civilization imposing her will on inferior cultures, and religious conversions of the defeated peoples were not an end in itself, but only one part of a total cultural conquest, in which missionarism was playing a secondary role to the political and military onslaught by the colonial powers.
This type of missionarism was controversial all along, as the following Bantu saying proves: "At first we had the land and the white man had the Bible. Now we have the Bible and the white man has the land." Reported as a Bantu dictum, it is equally applicable to the whole totality of colonial experiences and its basic veracity is borne out by the subsequent surge and eventual success of anti-colonialist struggle (and by plain common sense, too!).
But despite its highly controversial nature, such forcible conversionism does have certain valid arguments in its favor. Besides, having outlived the era of colonialism in human history, we need not be concerned with a resurgence of this particular type of missionarism in our modern age.
Therefore, there is no sense for me to raise any new arguments against the first two types of missionary zeal, whereas it is the last third type, particularly popular today, and especially with American missionaries to the outside world, that I strongly object to. Proselytizing to established world cultures with histories of religious tradition is indeed a politically dangerous and destructive occupation. It is usually soaked in utter ignorance of the other culture, assuming one’s unquestionable superiority over the miserable “pagan,” whose “godless masters” have denied him the privilege of the “good news.” To these self-important and ignorant fools, I am determined to address this hopelessly ineffectual outburst of wishful thinking: “Stop it! Or else…”
Or else the world will maintain its morbid status-quo of conflict and international injustice, and keep sliding toward a real, not just demagogical, “clash of civilizations.”
…However, despite the very obvious political dangers and religious inadequacies of this modern-era wave of proselytism, all attempts or appeals to stop it from happening are indeed pure wishful thinking. For, these proselytizing missionaries have the staunch backing of their governments, who must be extremely happy to use them, both willingly and unwittingly, as their agents for the political purpose of neocolonial expansion in the energy-rich backward regions of the world, or simply for mischief making among those nations which are reluctant or plain unwilling to be “neocolonized” by more direct and explicit means.
Explaining my closing thesis of the previous entry that international justice may indeed belong to the realm of wishful thinking, unattainable by and large in practical terms, except for minimal successes, delineated in broad generalities, here is my first argument regarding the extreme difficulties of finding common ground in the highly contentious field of religion. (Let us not use the unfortunate term interfaith, wholly discredited by the bitter realities of the twenty-first century, pitting, suspiciously and apparently deliberately, Judaism and Western /predominantly American Evangelical/ Christianity against the nations of Islam.)
There is another powerful incentive for religious incompatibility, which is politico-geographical. People all over the world, of different religions, yet forced to be neighbors to each other, become entangled in deadly geographical disputes, whether between India and Pakistan in Kashmir, or between Azerbaijan and Armenia in Nagorno-Karabakh, or not too long ago in the republics of former Yugoslavia, etc., and there seems to be no reasonably civilized solution to all these conflicts, some of them still burning, others, ever ready to flare up again…
These are all easily recognizable problems, and they do not require some special prompting, to be reminded of. However, there is yet another, far less recognized, but no less destructive culprit in the ongoing religious strife in modern world, to which I want to draw attention in this entry.
If I were asked, mostly theoretically, what would be my advice for promoting religious tolerance around the world today, so as to fulfill the conditions for international religio-ethical coexistence, I would respond with no hesitation: Do away with all religious missionary activity, particularly by American Evangelical zealots, who are doing far more harm to international relations than they are willing to admit, or even realize.
…I envisage being immediately reprimanded, by an angry chorus of “good Christians,” that going against missionarism I am also going against the Bible! Here is what Apostle Paul says about missionaries, as they will chastise me: “They are the messengers of the churches and the glory of Christ.” (II Corinthians 8:23.)
But we are talking about three distinctly different types of missionarism here and they must not be confused. The first type, early Christian missionarism arose from within the Jewish culture, as a much needed solution to the existing problem of cultural decay and confusion, brought about by the successful Roman conquest of Judaea and the destruction of the Temple, the centerpiece and soul of Torah Judaism. The old religion could no longer be sustained, and it effectively collapsed at the end of the first century AD. One substitute was the so-called Rabbinical Judaism, preserving the self-segregation of the Jews, to the exclusion of Gentiles. The other substitute put an end to Jewish self-segregation, inviting all Gentiles (the Romans in particular) to join and embrace the new Jewish religion: Christianity.
Now, we already know (from Gaston Boissier’s previously quoted treatise La Religion Romaine d’Auguste aux Antonins, among other such studies) that the Romans were not very serious about their religion. Hence, it was easy, and politically very convenient, for them to switch to Christianity, which they adopted in the 4th century AD as the official state religion, for a variety of good reasons. There was no invasion of anybody’s religious privacy here, on the part of those early Christian missionaries. It is therefore understandable and appropriate to view such missionarism as a natural and even welcome phenomenon.
Missionary Buddhism is basically in the same category, which is still the first type of missionarism, as being discussed. Originating in India, as one among many “Hindu religions” it had every right to be propagated in India (where it was rejected), or in China, with its multitude of the so-called “Chinese religions,” (where it took root), or elsewhere, in nations lacking a cohesive cultural-religious tradition, anyway.
Curiously, the excessive proliferation of Protestant religions, like it was happening, for instance, in America in the early Colonial years under the protective umbrella of the concept of religious freedom (but not for the Quakers however!), falls into the same category. Once again, within the body of the same mother religion, and along virtually identical cultural lines, offshoots of Protestantism were allowed to spring, and their self-promotion was normal and logically unobjectionable. This is obviously not the type of missionary activity that I would ever object to.
Incidentally, the quick original spread of the Protestant Reformation in Europe in the sixteenth century, was not a culturally offensive development, either. On the contrary, it was a cultural self-affirmation of Europe’s younger nations, a mostly political event intended to cut off the no longer welcome bonds, tying them to the Roman Catholic Pope-centered monolith, which was infringing upon or outright denying them their national independence.
The second type of missionarism can be described as ‘the way of the conqueror.’ Such was the way of Islam spreading around the world, or of Roman Catholic Christianity brought to the Americas by the conquistadors or to Africa and elsewhere by the European colonizers. For better or for worse (we may disagree about this, but this is beside the point), this was a politically and militarily superior European Civilization imposing her will on inferior cultures, and religious conversions of the defeated peoples were not an end in itself, but only one part of a total cultural conquest, in which missionarism was playing a secondary role to the political and military onslaught by the colonial powers.
This type of missionarism was controversial all along, as the following Bantu saying proves: "At first we had the land and the white man had the Bible. Now we have the Bible and the white man has the land." Reported as a Bantu dictum, it is equally applicable to the whole totality of colonial experiences and its basic veracity is borne out by the subsequent surge and eventual success of anti-colonialist struggle (and by plain common sense, too!).
But despite its highly controversial nature, such forcible conversionism does have certain valid arguments in its favor. Besides, having outlived the era of colonialism in human history, we need not be concerned with a resurgence of this particular type of missionarism in our modern age.
Therefore, there is no sense for me to raise any new arguments against the first two types of missionary zeal, whereas it is the last third type, particularly popular today, and especially with American missionaries to the outside world, that I strongly object to. Proselytizing to established world cultures with histories of religious tradition is indeed a politically dangerous and destructive occupation. It is usually soaked in utter ignorance of the other culture, assuming one’s unquestionable superiority over the miserable “pagan,” whose “godless masters” have denied him the privilege of the “good news.” To these self-important and ignorant fools, I am determined to address this hopelessly ineffectual outburst of wishful thinking: “Stop it! Or else…”
Or else the world will maintain its morbid status-quo of conflict and international injustice, and keep sliding toward a real, not just demagogical, “clash of civilizations.”
…However, despite the very obvious political dangers and religious inadequacies of this modern-era wave of proselytism, all attempts or appeals to stop it from happening are indeed pure wishful thinking. For, these proselytizing missionaries have the staunch backing of their governments, who must be extremely happy to use them, both willingly and unwittingly, as their agents for the political purpose of neocolonial expansion in the energy-rich backward regions of the world, or simply for mischief making among those nations which are reluctant or plain unwilling to be “neocolonized” by more direct and explicit means.
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