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Vince's "Why Believe?" Website |
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7. The Christian Church |
This page has been created for two types of people: Christians who are struggling with their faith, and honest inquirers of any persuasion who are seeking spiritual truth. The articles below were selected for their outstanding quality. I have found them especially helpful in resolving difficulties for my own Christian belief. I hope you find them as useful as I did.
The Da Vinci Code FAQ by Rev. Dr. Mark D. Roberts.The Da Vinci Code by Professor Ben Witherington III.
Ben Witherington III is professor of Biblical studies at Asbury Theological Seminary in Kentucky. His book The Gospel Code: Novel Ideas About Jesus, Mary Magdalene, and Da Vinci (2004) was published by Intervarsity Press. In this review, Witherington focuses on seven fundamental errors that have to do with Jesus, Mary and the canon of Scripture.The Da Vinci Code, The Catholic Church and Opus Dei.
A response to The Da Vinci Code from the Prelature of Opus Dei in the United States. Debunks some popular myths surrounding the Catholic organisation Opus Dei, which are rehashed in Dan Brown's book.What are the major errors in The Da Vinci Code? by Lee Strobel, Amy Wellborn and Dr. Paul Meier (video).
The Secrets of Rennes-le-Chateau by Massimo Polidoro, wiring in The Skeptical Inquirer, November 2004.
This article completely debunks the myth, popularised in The Holy Blood and The Holy Grail, that Jesus Christ did not die on the cross but survived the ordeal, married Mary Magdalene, had a child, Sarah, and the bloodline secretly survived and continued for 400 years, up to the Merovingian dynasty of the Franks of dark-age Europe. According to this myth, Jesus died an old man in France, where he fled with his family to escape prosecution from Peter and the Apostoles, and was buried near a little town on the Pyrenees, Rennes-le-Chateau.
Is Christianity the Problem? An online debate between Dinesh D'Souza and Christopher Hitchens.Not a Threat: The Contributions of Christianity to Western Society by Rick Wade.
Rick Wade graduated cum laude in 1990 from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School with an M.A. in Christian Thought (theology/philosophy of religion) where his studies culminated in a thesis on the apologetics of Carl F. H. Henry. In this article, he provides a handy summary of the main contributions made by Christianity to Western society.
Christianity and Violence by Professor Miroslav Volf, Yale University Divinity School.
Professor Volf counters the claim that religion fosters violence and that the "resurgence of religiously legitimized violence" is a direct consequence of a "contemporary resurgence of religion." Limiting himself to a case-study of Christianity, he argues that the cure to social violence "is not less religion, but, in a carefully qualified sense, more religion." As he puts it: "'Thin' but zealous practice of the Christian faith is likely to foster violence; 'thick' and committed practice will help generate and sustain a culture of peace." Professor Volf identifies and criticizes a number of influential arguments found in the work of several authors, including Mark Juergensmeyer, Maurice Bloch, Regina Schwartz and Jacques Derrida, which he believes erroneously link Christianity and violence.The Peace and Truce of God Article in Wikipedia.
Shows how the Church acted to limit war and bloodshed in medieval Europe, by outlawing fighting on certain days and building up the number of days on which fighting was officially forbidden.The Thirty Years' War. Article in Wikipedia.
This was perhaps the bloodiest religious war in the history of Christendom. Up to 20% of the population of Germany perished. Thankfully, there have been no major religious wars in Europe since it ended in 1648.
Paganism, Christianity and Infanticide by Christopher Price.
Pagans, Christianity and Charity by Christopher Price.
Live Healthier, Longer, & Better - The Untold Benefits of Becoming a Christian in the Ancient World by Rodney Stark.
Describes how the Christian teaching of the spiritual equality of men and women, coupled with its prohibition of abortion and infanticide, improved the lot of women in the Roman Empire, and how Christians saved millions of Romans' lives by caring for the sick during plagues.My Hunt for Hypatia, Lady Philosopher of Alexandria. Article by Faith Justice.
The pagan philosopher Hypatia (355-415 AD), who died at the hands of a Christian mob, is often portrayed by feminists as a free spirit who was was murdered because she was a woman as much as because she was a pagan. The true story of Hypatia, which the author managed to uncover after twenty years of research, is much more interesting.
The Primary Sources for the Life and Work of Hypatia of Alexandria. Article by Michael Deakin, Mathematics Department, Monash University, Australia.
The Life of Hypatia by Socrates Scholasticus, from his Ecclesiastical History.
Socrates Scholasticus was a fifth-century church historian (and a quite different person from his more famous namesake, the Athenian philosopher). His Ecclesiastical History is to be found in PG, Volume 67. Columns 767-770 refer directly to Hypatia, but the two preceding chapters are relevant because they give the background to the events chronicled there.St. Augustine and Conjugal Sexuality. Article by Monsignor Cormac Bourke.
Refutes the common accusation that St. Augustine, the most influential Christian thinker in the history of the West, taught that sex was dirty and could only be justified for the purpose of procreating a child.Do Women Have Souls? The Story of Three Myths. Article by Michael Nolan, University College, Dublin.
Explodes the myth that a Church council at Macon in 585 A.D. decreed that women did not have souls.Love and Marriage in the Middle Ages. Article by Fr. Fabian Parmisano, O.P.
Debunks the widely held myth that medieval theologians had a low opinion of sex and taught that it was only meant to be for procreation.Chloroform in Childbirth. Article by The ChurchinHistory Information Centre.
Demolishes the canard that the Church condemned the use of chloroform to assist women giving birth. In fact, during the middle of the 19th century, those pioneering help for British mothers in childbirth, were dedicated Christian doctors.
The Catholic Church and the Institution of SlaveryThe Truth about the Catholic Church and Slavery by Rodney Stark.
The problem wasn't that the leadership was silent. It was that almost nobody listened. Rodney Stark, a sociologist of religion who has spent decades studying the growth of cults, has uncovered a wealth of archival material detailing the Popes' opposition to slavery from the 15th century down to the present. The new material also shows how the Popes tried to put a stop to slavery in the New World, and how the kings of Spain and Portugal ruthlessly suppressed the publication of papal bulls prohibiting slavery. Stark also shows how the Catholic Church ended slavery in Europe during the Middle Ages.Slavery and Christianity. Article in The Catholic Encyclopedia, 1912. Describes the Catholic Church's role in ending slavery in Europe. Also discusses both its good and wicked deeds with respect to slavery in Africa and the New World.
Bartolome de las Casas: A Brief Outline of His Life and Labor by David Orique, O.P.
A short account of a person who has become a symbol of justice and human rights in Latin America and elsewhere.The Popes and Slavery - Setting the Record Straight. Review of a book by Fr. Joel Panzer, which shows how the Popes have condemned the slave trade for centuries - including slavery in the New World and in Africa. Shamefully, American bishops in the 19th century ignored Pope Gregory XVI's prohibition of slavery and decided that it did not apply to the United States.
Let My People Go: The Catholic Church and Slavery. Another review of Fr. Panzer's book, which sets out to refute the charge that the Catholic Church changed its official teaching on slavery when it condemned the practice. Shows that the Catholic Church's teaching over the centuries regarding slavery has been consistent.
Sicut Dudum. Proclamation by Pope Eugenius IV (1435) denouncing the enslavement of the inhabitants of the Canary Islands, and demanding their restoration to liberty.
Sublimus Dei. Proclamation by Pope Paul III (1537), denouncing the enslavement of Indians in the New World.
The key sentence reads: "We define and declare by these Our letters ... that, notwithstanding whatever may have been or may be said to the contrary, the said Indians and all other people who may later be discovered by Christians, are by no means to be deprived of their liberty or the possession of their property, even though they be outside the faith of Jesus Christ; and that they may and should, freely and legitimately, enjoy their liberty and the possession of their property; nor should they be in any way enslaved; should the contrary happen, it shall be null and have no effect."In Supremo Apostolatus. Proclamation by Pope Gregory XVI in 1839, denouncing the slave trade and calling for its total abolition.
Catholicae Ecclesiae. Proclamation by Pope Leo XIII in 1890, denouncing slavery in Africa and calling for the elimination of slavery.
Evangelical Christianity and the Abolition of Slavery
Abolitionism. Article in Wikipedia which describes how Quakers, Baptists, Methodists, and certain prominent Anglicans brought about the abolition of slavery in the British Empire - an accomplishment which eventually led to the worldwide abolition of slavery, as Britain pressured other countries to follow suit.
The Scourge of Slavery. Article which discusses the historical background of slavery and the Christian movement which led to the abolition of slavery.
Christianity: A Cause of Modern Science? by Eric Snow.
How Christianity, and in particular Puritanism, made Modern Science possible.The Myth of the Flat Earth by Professor Jeffrey Burton Russell.
An eminent historian demonstrates that no educated person in the history of Western Civilization from the third century B.C. onward believed that the earth was flat, with the exception of a handful of isolated individuals. The vast majority of Christian theologians, poets, artists, and scientists assumed that the earth was spherical, throughout the history of the early, medieval, and modern church. The story of Columbus, a simple mariner, appearing before a dark crowd of benighted inquisitors and hooded theologians at a council of Salamanca, and trying to convince them that the earth was not flat like a plate but round like an orange, is a MYTH.The Popes And Science. Article by Fr. James T. Walsh.
Refutes the oft-heard charge that the Catholic Church outlawed dissection in the Middle Ages. Shows that the Church (especially the Popes) encouraged science, medicine and the building of hospitals.Myths about Life in the Middle Ages by Dr. Marian Horvat.
Do you believe that people in the Middle Ages washed only once a year, and lived in houses with dirt floors? Then you need to read this article.Galileo Galilei. Article in The Catholic Encyclopedia of 1909.
The Galileo Affair by George Sim Johnston.
George Sim Johnston is a writer living in New York City. He is a contributing editor for Crisis magazine and the National Catholic Register. His articles and essays have appeared in Harpers, The American Spectator, Commentary, The Wall Street Journal, Harvard Business Review, Crisis, and Catholic World Report.Trial of Galileo. A collection of scholarly articles from www.apollos.ws.
Calvinism and the Success of Liberal Democracy, Part 1 by John Snyder.Calvinism and the Success of Liberal Democracy, Part 2 by John Snyder.
Background ReadingWhich Has Killed More People? Christianity or Gun Control? by Matthew White.
Essential reading for those who wish to get a balanced perspective on the harm wrought by religion. Matthew White's Web site on atrocities is extraordinarily thorough, comprehensive and fair-minded. I make use of White's five-point scale below.Selected Death Tolls for Wars, Massacres and Atrocities Before the 20th Century by Matthew White.
(Possibly) The Twenty (or so) Worst Things People Have Done to Each Other by Matthew White.
Procedure in Assessing Blame and Responsibility
In what follows, I shall rank Christian atrocities roughly by the number of victims, starting with the smallest ones - the Inquisition and the European witch-trials - and working my way up to the largest - slavery and Imperialism. I shall also attempt to assign a level of responsibility to the Christian Church for these crimes, using Matthew White's five point scale:
1. Were the perpetrators Christian?
2. Were the perpetrators from a traditionally Christian society?
3. Was the Christianity mainstream?
4. Was the conflict mostly religious?
5. Was the conflict partly religious?I would like to add four more questions to this list:
6. Were all (or most) Christians united in supporting the conflict?
7. Did they ever actively attempt to excommunicate any Christians who opposed the conflict?
8. Were there any credal statements that lent legitimacy to the conflict?
9. Were there any Scriptural statements whose traditionally accepted interpretation would have legitimised the conflict?If any conflict satisfied these four conditions, especially conditions 8 and 9, then that would be particularly damaging to the credibility of Christianity.
Number of victims: from 2,000 to 10,000 (Spanish Inquisition). The medieval and Roman Inquisitions probably killed fewer people.
Rating on Matthew White's five point scale: 5. Also gets at least half a point for my question 6.The articles below establish that the Inquisition was not a single, monolithic entity, controlled by the Vatican; that the number of people it killed was probably no more than 10,000 or 20,000; that people brought before the Inquisition were rarely tortured; that it was considerably more lenient than secular tribunals of its day; and that most of what people believe about the Inqusition is a tissue of fabrications. That said, it is a moral scandal that the Inquisition killed anyone at all. Putting someone to death because of their religious beliefs is simply unconscionable.
Inquisition. Article in The Catholic Encyclopedia of 1910.
Spanish Inquisition. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Inquisition. The Spanish Inquisition and Christianity.
Lots of myths out there about this one; get the facts from our sources, real historians.Vatican 'dispels Inquisition myths.' A report from BBC News.
The Myth of the Spanish Inquisition by Ellen Rice.
An Inquiry on the Inquisition by James Patrick Holding.
Hang on to your hats. What we have here is a Protestant defending the Inquisition!The Protestant Inquisition by Dave Armstrong.
This article cites historical sources to demonstrate that Luther, Calvin and most of the early Protestant leaders opposed freedom of religion and freedom of speech, and supported the execution of those whom they considered heretics. Religious dissidents were also tortured in a particularly barbaric fashion.
Number of victims: approx. 50,000.
Rating on Matthew White's five point scale: 5. Also gets at least half a point for my question 6.
The first two articles make several interesting historical points clear which bear repeating here:
(i) belief in witchcraft, far from being part and parcel of the Christian tradition, emerged relatively late in the history of Christendom - indeed in earlier times the notion that witches existed was even regarded as a heresy;
(ii) until well into the Middle Ages, Satan's sway and influence over earthly affairs was popularly held to have been drastically curtailed after Christ's saving death on the Cross, with the result that ordinary people simply didn't worry about attacks from the Devil;
(iii) the European hysteria regarding witchcraft was almost entirely confined to a period of two centuries (1450-1650) in the 2000-year history of Christianity;
(iv) in some countries, persecution of witches was especially savage, while in others (including Orthodox Russia and Catholic Spain, at a time when the Inquisition had a strong influence) it was virtually non-existent;
(v) certain Catholic and Calvinist clerics were at the forefront of efforts to stamp out popular hysteria surrounding witches in the early 17th century; and
(vi) while it is shameful that any witches were killed by Christians at all, the total number of victims (men as well as women) was probably in the neighborhood of 50,000 and certainly less than 100,000 - which is nowhere near the figure of nine million which is often repeated in anti-Catholic literature.European witchcraft. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Case Study: The European Witch-Hunts, c. 1450-1750 and Witch-Hunts Today by Gendercide Watch.
Friedrich von Spee. Article in The Catholic Encyclopedia, 1912.
The story of a courageous Jesuit priest who attacked the Catholic Church's system for trying witches, and suggested reforms which, if implemented, would have resulted in the abolition of witch trials.The Witch-Persecutions. Edited by George Burr (1896).
This is a survey of primary sources for the history of the witch persecutions. Written late in the 19th Century, this collection epitomizes pre-Murray scholarship on this subject. It doesn't attempt any analysis of the roots of the phenomena other than clerical abuse and mass insanity. Most importantly, these texts give insight into the cascading paranoia which characterizes witch hunts of any historical period.For the sake of balance and accuracy in historical reporting, I have included two documents - one Catholic, one Protestant - which were largely responsible for the witchcraft hysteria of that time.
Malleus Maleficarum (1486) by the Dominican monks James Sprenger and Henry Kramer.
The title is translated as "The Hammer of Witches". The Malleus was used for up to 300 years in some countries as a judicial case-book for the detection and persecution of witches, specifying rules of evidence and the canonical procedures by which suspected witches were tortured and put to death. Thousands of people (primarily women) were judically murdered as a result of the procedures described in this book, for no reason than a strange birthmark, living alone, mental illness, cultivation of medicinal herbs, or simply because they were falsely accused (often for financial gain by the accuser). The Malleus serves as a horrible warning about what happens when intolerence takes over a society.Demonology by King James I (1597). Also: News from Scotland (1591), which describes witch persecution there.
The first text presented here, written by James I of England, is a wide-ranging discussion of witchcraft, necromancy, possession, demons, were-wolves, fairies and ghosts, in the form of a Socratic dialogue. The second text is a sensational historical account of Scottish witch persecution.
Number of victims: approx. 1,500,000 (Matthew White's guesstimate). (The Albigensian Crusade cost another million lives.)
Rating on Matthew White's five point scale: 5. Also gets a point for my question 6.Some of the articles below challenge the prevailing orthodoxy that the Crusades were aggressive wars fought by Catholic zealots against moderate, peace-loving Muslims. The picture they paint is a very different one, of a Christendom that (not unreasonably) considered itself to be besieged by hostile Muslim kingdoms which on several occasions nearly over-ran Europe. By and large, the Crusaders were neither religious fanatics nor opportunistic looters; nevertheless, in retrospect, it must be acknowledged that the Crusades were an ill-conceived idea, and that the medieval Church was wrong to attack the Holy Land, even if it was justified in defending itself against aggressive attacks by the armies and/or navies of Muslim empires (as at Lepanto). What made the Crusades morally odious, as Professor Ergun Caner (who wrote his Ph.D. on the crusades) has pointed out in an interview here, is that they were not merely "just wars" (of the kind supported by St. Augustine) but also "holy wars". In this respect, they represented a major (and very unfortunate) theological innovation. Pope Urban II, in proclaiming the First Crusade, promised complete forgiveness of sins without the normal process of penance: "All who die by the way... or in battle against the pagans, shall have immediate remission of sins. This I grant them through the power of God with which I am vested" (Fulcher of Chartres, in A Source Book for Medieval History, pp. 516-17). If this was not enough, he seemed to pledge heaven itself to those who merely attempted the task: "Undertake this journey for the remission of your sins, with the assurance of the imperishable glory of the kingdom of heaven" (Robert the Monk, Historia Hierosolymitana, in Dana C. Munro, Urban and the Crusaders, in Translations and Reprints from the Original Sources of European History (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1895), 1:67). The decrees from the Council of Clermont confirmed these promises: "Whoever, out of pure devotion and not for the purpose of gaining honor or money, shall go to Jerusalem to liberate the church of God, let that journey be counted in lieu of all penance" (Canon 2, quoted in The Catholic Encyclopedia, article Indulgences by W. H. Kent; italics mine). Another major difference between a just war and a holy war, as Professor Caner points out in the interview cited above, is that in a holy war you are fighting to kill the infidel instead of convert the infidel. As he puts it: "In a 'just war', every warrior wants peace. In a 'holy war', every warrior wants victory." Finally, the practical effect of certain Popes declaring the Crusades "holy wars" is that they were fought with a remarkable lack of restraint: in the First Crusade, when the crusaders reached Jerusalem, they massacred almost everyone in the city, including women and children of different faiths - Muslim, Jewish and Eastern Christian.
Kingdom of Heaven: The Truth Behind the Crusades by Christian Broadcasting Network.
The Real History of the Crusades by Thomas Madden.
Hollywood vs. History: Kingdom of Heaven and the Real Crusades by Daniel Hoffman.
Islam and Us by George Cardinal Pell.
Provides a useful historical background to the strife between Muslims and Christians in Europe.Remembering Lepanto by Michael Novak.
Number of victims: close to 10 million (including the Holocaust and earlier anti-Semitic pogroms such as Chielmicki). (Jewish Crusade victims were counted in section 7.3.3. above.)
Rating on Matthew White's five point scale: 3 for the Holocaust, 4 for medieval pogroms. Also gets a point for my question 6.Anti-Semitism has been responsible for the deaths of millions of Jews during the past 2,000 years, as well as the degradation of many millions more. There can be absolutely no doubt that Christians were at the forefront of those oppressing the Jews at various stages in their long history. The question that an historian must answer is whether anti-Semitism is intrinsic to Christianity. In recent times, certain best-selling authors have attempted to argue that it is; however, the historical record does not bear out this claim. For the first three centuries, Christians and Jews frequently inter-mingled, attending each other's religious services and even being buried together. There were virulently anti-Semitic strands of thought in the Christian Church (St. John Chrysostom being a notable case in point); however, other theologians (especially St. Augustine) and Church leaders (especially the Popes) insisted on protecting the Jews, regarding them as having a vital role in God's plan for the Church. The claim that the Holocaust can be blamed on Christian theology does not bear scrutiny; as we shall see, it owes much more to Enlightenment thinking of the 18th and 19th centuries, which viewed certain races of humanity as being more advanced than others. It is, however, a great shame that it took an event of the magnitude of the Holocaust to prompt the Catholic Church to unequivocally condemn anti-Semitism and to purge its Good Friday liturgy of wounding references to "the perfidious Jews."
Examples of Anti-Semitism by Christians
Christianity and Anti-semitism. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Medieval Anti-Semitism. From the Internet Medieval Sourcebook.
Documents anti-Semitic pronouncements by Christian rulers and Church councils, from 300 AD to 1543 AD.Saint John Chrysostom (c.347-407): Eight Homilies Against the Jews. From the Internet Medieval Sourcebook.
The homilies by St. John Chrysostom appear to contain some pretty appalling anti-Jewish sentiments, especially when one considers that he is considered a "doctor of the Church", and among the greatest of the Greek Fathers. He was bishop of Antioch at the time of these sermons, although he became archbishop of Constantinople in 398. I would also suggest reading editor Paul Halsall's Notes on readers' reactions to the posting of the Chrysostom text on the Jews.The Jewish Question in the Russian Orthodox Church by Gregory Benevitch.
This article, written by a Jew who is himself a member of the Russian Orthodox Church, has a very different take on the apparently anti-Semitic sentiments of St. John Chrysostom and other Church Fathers. Benevitch argues that since these people have been canonised as saints, the Church cannot disavow what they said:I believe that Orthodoxy will never reject its own heritage. Nobody will dare to say that St John Chrysostom or St Maximus the Confessor were wrong. Nobody will dare to say that for centuries Orthodox Christian teachers were wrong, but we who are sinful and have not even a glimpse of their sanctity are right. This theological solution to the Jewish problem is impossible in Orthodoxy... To my mind, if somebody was proclaimed by the Church as a saint, it is not correct (and even blasphemous) to say that he was an anti-Semite. Otherwise, people may think that it is possible (and allowed) to be Orthodox and to be anti-Semite, that one can be even a saint being anti-Semite.However, Benevitch also maintains that there is an important difference between somebody saying something against the Jews, accusing them of being in a state of spiritual apathy, and somebody saying the same thing out of hatred towards the Jews and blaming them for not being Christians. The former is permissible; the latter is not, argues Benevitch. This distinction, he suggests, may explain many of the anti-Semitic remarks of the Church Fathers.
Perhaps the most contentious section of Benevitch's monograph is his discussion of the oft-repeated charge that the Jews were God-killers (deicides), since they crucified Jesus. Instead of minimising Jewish involvement in the crucifixion, as the Western Church has attempted to do, Benevitch accepts the "deicide" label, but adds the following clarification: "it is one thing to say with our Holy Fathers: Jews killed Christ, it is another thing to say that they are guilty." In the New Testament, we find Christ praying to his Father to forgive His killers. How, asks Benevitch, can we possibly talk about the guilt of the killers of Christ, if He himself has forgiven them?
Benevitch also cites surveys showing that in contemporary Russia, anti-Semitism is more prevalent among atheists than among the Orthodox. However, the most interesting fact of all that emerges from his discussion is that Jews in Russia today are converting to the Russian Orthodox Church in record numbers.
The First Crusade Slaughters the Jews of the Rhineland.
These events took place in 1096 in Germany. An extract:According to some eyewitness reports, some noblemen tried to protect Jews, but the incensed mobs ignored them. More than 1,000 Jews were slaughtered at Worms. In Mainz, more than 1,300 Jews lost their lives. Before the Crusaders ever left Europe, more than 10,000 Jews lay murdered. Not coincidentally, one of the casualties of the Rhineland slaughters was all of the records of loans made by the land barons and the Church to the Jewish money-lenders.Slaughters of Some Rhineland Jews by Albert of Aix.
Eyewitness account. The author, a Catholic sympathetic to Jews, describes how although the Jews of Mainz took refuge with the Catholic bishop of the city, he was unable to protect them from a mob of Crusaders, who broke into his house and proceeded to slaughter the Jews in the most brutal fashion. Only for readers with strong stomachs.The Popes and the Jews. From Encyclopedia Judaica, 1906 edition (the only online Jewish encyclopedia).
Pope Innocent III: Constitution for the Jews. From the Internet Medieval Sourcebook.
Here, Innocent III provides legal protection for the Jews, and even excommunicates anyone who disobeys his decree. Many medieval Popes issued similar proclamations.On the Jews and their Lies by Martin Luther (1543) From the Internet Medieval Sourcebook.
Perhaps the vilest example of medieval anti-Semitism. Editor Paul Halsall comments:However, Halsall also adds:Luther expected Jews to convert to his purified Christianity. When they did not, he turned violently against them.It is impossible for modern people to read the horrible passages below and not to think of the burning of synagogues in November 1938 on Krystalnacht.
While there is little doubt that Christian anti-Semitism laid the social and cultural basis for modern anti-Semitism, modern anti-Semitism does differ in being based on pseudo-scientific notions of race. The Nazis imprisoned and killed Jews who had converted to Christianity: Luther would have welcomed them.The Chmielnicki Massacres.
These events took place in the Ukraine between 1648 and 1651. The account attached is derived from eyewitness reports.
Was Christian theology somehow responsible for the Holocaust?
Constantine's Sword by Robert P. Lockwood, writing on behalf of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights.
Comprehensively rebuts the acusations made by three self-styled Catholics - John Cornwell in Hitler's Pope, Garry Wills in his recent book Papal Sin and recently ex-priest James Carroll in his bestseller Constantine's Sword - that there is a direct link between Catholic theology and the Nazi Holocaust, and that all the actions of Pope Pius XII during the years of Nazi power were calculated responses meant to defend papal authority, even if that meant sacrificing Jewish lives in the process. Carroll's thesis is that the anti-Semitism, which resulted in the Holocaust, is central to Catholic theology and derived from the earliest Christian expressions of belief, namely the Gospel accounts themselves. Lockwood shows that Carroll's scholarship is extremely sloppy, his use of sources highly selective, and his conclusions tendentious. Lockwood contends that "[t]he roots of Hitler's anti-Semitic racist frenzy, and that of European society as a whole, are found not in Catholic belief but in the cultural rejection of Catholic belief in the Enlightenment and pseudo-scientism of the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries. Rather than a continuum from a beginning in the New Testament, rabid racial anti-Semitism was born in the stew of competing 19th century liberal ideologies of nationalism, racialism and eugenics, ideologies fought almost solely by the Church and that still have impact in the 21st century." Lockwood's article is well worth reading, because it systematically reviews the history of anti-Semitism in Christendom, from Roman times down to the 20th century.Was Hitler a Christian?
A Web page by ChristianCadre.org. Has links to articles which refute the utterly absurd charge made by certain sceptics who say that Hitler was a Christian. The following quote from Hitler's Table Talk should settle the matter:"National Socialism and religion cannot exist together....
"The heaviest blow that ever struck humanity was the coming of Christianity. Bolshevism is Christianity's illegitimate child. Both are inventions of the Jew. The deliberate lie in the matter of religion was introduced into the world by Christianity...." (pp. 6 & 7).
The Catholic Church and Nazism
Three Sermons in Defiance of the Nazis by Bishop von Galen of Munster, Germany.
Pope Pius XII and the Holocaust by Shira Schoenberg, Jewish Virtual Library. Schoenberg makes a plausible case that although Pope Pius XII helped some Jews, there was much more that he could have done, and much sooner. To access defenses of Pius XII as well as other articles about him, click on the link to Pope Pius XII in the first line of Schoenberg's article.
Pope Pius XII and the Holocaust. A collection of book reviews, articles and research papers that vindicate Pius from the charge of anti-Semitism and establish that he was responsible for saving hundreds of thousands of Jewish lives during World War II.
A Righteous Gentile: Pius XII and the Jews by Rabbi David Dalin, Ph.D. (originally published in The Weekly Standard, June 12, 2006).
Rabbi David G. Dalin, a widely-published scholar of American Judaism and the history of Christian-Jewish Relations, is the author or co-author of five books. His conclusion:Today, more than fifty years after the Holocaust, it needs to be more widely recognized and appreciated that Pius XII was indeed a very "righteous gentile," a true friend of the Jewish people, who saved more Jewish lives than any other person, including Raoul Wallenberg and Oskar Schindler."Pius the Good; The brief for a much-maligned pope by William Doino, Jr. (originally published in The Weekly Standard, June 12, 2006).
An extract:World War II began only months after Pacelli became pope in March 1939, and his first encyclical, Summi Pontificatus, is a searing condemnation of racism and totalitarianism. The new pope immediately made contacts with the anti-Nazi Resistance and actually approved a plot to assassinate Hitler. In his allocutions and famous Christmas addresses, Pius defended minorities and sharply condemned the persecution of people based upon their race. He ordered his nuncios to intervene for Jews and vigorously protest their deportation. Pius XII also authorized Vatican Radio to publicly condemn Nazi atrocities - which it did, often quite explicitly, citing Jews by name. Despite ongoing Nazi reprisals, Vatican Radio continued to broadcast defiant words like this, reported in The New York Times on June 27, 1943: "He who makes a distinction between Jews and other men is unfaithful to God and is in conflict with God's commands."Obituary: Robert Graham, S.J. On February 10, 1997, Father Robert Graham, S.J., an indefatigable defender of Pope Pius XII against posthumous charges of indifference toward the wartime fate of European Jews, died in a California Jesuit community. He was eighty-four. This article traces the story of his life.
Number of victims: 8 million.
Rating on Matthew White's five point scale: 4 (for questions 1 to 3, plus question 5). Also gets half a point for my question 6.Background Reading
Thirty Years' War. Article in Wikipedia.
Peace of Westphalia. Article in Wikipedia.
The Holy See was very displeased at the settlement, with Pope Innocent X in Zelo Domus Dei reportedly calling it "null, void, invalid, iniquitous, unjust, damnable, reprobate, inane, empty of meaning and effect for all time".
Number of victims: 10 to 20 million.
Rating on Matthew White's five point scale: 3. Also gets half a point for my question 6.There can be no doubt that well over 10,000,000 people of African descent were killed in the slave trade by European slavetraders who professed to be Christians, and that the Churches were tardy in putting a stop to this barbarous practice. Islamic slavery killed a similar (perhaps greater) number of people. However, a fair-minded historian has to ask the question: how was the practice of slavery ended? Sceptics will be disappointed to learn that the Enlightenment played no part in the abolition of slavery; the credit goes mainly to Protestants of various denominations, whose religiously motivated belief that slavery was an abomination in the eyes of God prompted them to tenaciously lobby the British Parliament to end the vile practice. It should be added that the Popes have a fairly creditable record of denouncing slavery, although their condemnations seem to have largely fallen on deaf ears.
Background Reading
Slavery. Article in Wikipedia.
African History - Slavery and the Slave Trade. Articles and Resources from About.com.
The Truth About Jesus by Charles Gilmer.
Debunks the myth that Christianity is a "white man's religion."
Christianity and the Abolition of Slavery
Abolitionism. Article in Wikipedia which describes how Quakers, Baptists, Methodists, and certain prominent Anglicans brought about the abolition of slavery in the British Empire - an accomplishment which eventually led to the worldwide abolition of slavery, as Britain pressured other countries to follow suit.
The Scourge of Slavery. Article which discusses the historical background of slavery and the Christian movement which led to the abolition of slavery.
The Catholic Church and the Institution of Slavery
The Truth about the Catholic Church and Slavery by Rodney Stark.
The problem wasn't that the leadership was silent. It was that almost nobody listened. Rodney Stark, a sociologist of religion who has spent decades studying the growth of cults, has uncovered a wealth of archival material detailing the Popes' opposition to slavery from the 15th century down to the present. The new material also shows how the Popes tried to put a stop to slavery in the New World, and how the kings of Spain and Portugal ruthlessly suppressed the publication of papal bulls prohibiting slavery. Stark also shows how the Catholic Church ended slavery in Europe during the Middle Ages.Slavery and Christianity. Article in The Catholic Encyclopedia, 1912. Describes the Catholic Church's role in ending slavery in Europe. Also discusses both its good and wicked deeds with respect to slavery in Africa and the New World.
A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies (Preface) by Father Bartolome de las Casas (1542).
A stomach-churning account of the atrocities perpetrated by the Spaniards on the Indians living in the New World. Las Casas estimates that 12,000,000 Indians were killed as a result.Bartolome de las Casas: A Brief Outline of His Life and Labor by David Orique, O.P.
A short account of a person who has become a symbol of justice and human rights in Latin America and elsewhere.The Popes and Slavery - Setting the Record Straight. Review of a book by Fr. Joel Panzer, which shows how the Popes have condemned the slave trade for centuries - including slavery in the New World and in Africa. Shamefully, American bishops in the 19th century ignored Pope Gregory XVI's prohibition of slavery and decided that it did not apply to the United States.
Let My People Go: The Catholic Church and Slavery. Another review of Fr. Panzer's book, which sets out to refute the charge that the Catholic Church changed its official teaching on slavery when it condemned the practice. Shows that the Catholic Church's teaching over the centuries regarding slavery has been consistent.
Sicut Dudum. Proclamation by Pope Eugenius IV (1435) denouncing the enslavement of the inhabitants of the Canary Islands, and demanding their restoration to liberty.
Sublimus Dei. Proclamation by Pope Paul III (1537), denouncing the enslavement of Indians in the New World.
The key sentence reads: "We define and declare by these Our letters ... that, notwithstanding whatever may have been or may be said to the contrary, the said Indians and all other people who may later be discovered by Christians, are by no means to be deprived of their liberty or the possession of their property, even though they be outside the faith of Jesus Christ; and that they may and should, freely and legitimately, enjoy their liberty and the possession of their property; nor should they be in any way enslaved; should the contrary happen, it shall be null and have no effect."In Supremo Apostolatus. Proclamation by Pope Gregory XVI in 1839, denouncing the slave trade and calling for its total abolition.
Catholicae Ecclesiae. Proclamation by Pope Leo XIII in 1890, denouncing slavery in Africa and calling for the elimination of slavery.
Number of victims: tens of millions.
Rating on Matthew White's five point scale: 3 for Africa and Asia, 4 for the Spanish conquest of the New World. (Matthew White (see article on Christianity), and argues that the conquest of the Americas rates 4 points out of 5 on his scale.) Also gets half a point for my question 6.In terms of numbers of lives shed, this would have to be the greatest atrocity committed by Christians, over the past few centuries. If we add the number of people slaughtered by the Spanish and Portuguese in Latin America, by the English, the French and the European settlers in North America, by various European nations in Africa, and by the British in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Burma, we would certainly arrive at a figure numbering in the tens of millions. Additionally, Mike Davis, author of Late Victorian Holocausts: El Nino Famines and the Making of the Third World (2001) argues that the business policies of the imperial European landlords, merchants and bureacrats in the face of El Nino drought intensified these famines and thereby caused tens of millions of deaths through human negligence. Matthew White (http://users.erols.com/mwhite28/wars19c.htm)calculates that about 46 million people in India, China and Brazil died as a result of these man-made famines.
My intention here is not to come up with a comprehensive body-count, but simply to reminders that these wars of Imperial conquest: (a) do not derive from any teaching of Jesus, and therefore cannot be called Christian as such; and (b) do not appear to satisfy the requirements of the Christian Church's Just War theory, and hence cannot be laid at the door of Church teaching, even if numerous clerics at the time approved of the Spanish conquest of Latin America. Churchmen may not be able to absolve themselves of guilt for their participation in these crimes; but the Church can.
Imperialism. A collection of primary source material from the Internet Modern History Sourcebook.
Of War. St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, Part II, Question 40.
Here, Aquinas lays down the conditions for a just war. Aqinas' "Just War" theory proved to be a major milestone in the history of Christian ethical thought. Here, Aquinas lists three conditions for a just war; extra conditions were addded later (see article below). I leave it to readers to decide whether the Spanish conquest of the New World and the British conquest of India and much of Africa satisfied the conditions for a just war. Evidently Pope Paul III felt strongly that the Native Americans had ben wronged (see below), although an earlier Pope, Alexander VI (the notorious Borgia Pope) had no qualms about dividing the New World between Spain and Portugal.Principles Of The Just War by Vincent Ferraro.
This is a list of the conditions for a "just war", in contemporary Christian moral theory. Comparison with Aquinas (above) reveals that the list of conditions has expanded over the last few centuries.Sublimus Dei. Proclamation by Pope Paul III (1537), denouncing not only the enslavement of Indians in the New World but also the seizure of their land.
Kungly Objections. Article by Fr. William G. Most, S.J.
What Are The Main Differences Between Orthodoxy and Roman Catholicism? by Fr. Michael Azkoul.
Fr. Azkoul is an Orthodox priest. He wrote this article in 1994, when he was at St. Catherine Mission, St. Louis, MO. The article provides a comprehensive overview of the doctrinal differences between the Catholic and Orthodox Churches, from an Orthodox perspective.
Source DocumentsSources of Catholic Dogma by Fr. Joseph Denzinger. From Catechetics Online.
Catholic First.com. Has a list of the Catholic dogmas that Catholics are required to believe.
(As of November 2009, this Website is currently undergoing maintenance but will be up again in a few weeks.)Where can one find a list of infallible Catholic dogmas? by Catholic apologist Dave Armstrong.
The Twenty-One Ecumenical Councils of the Catholic Church.
Church Fathers online.The Complete 37 Volume Collection of the Early Church Fathers.
Catena Aurea - The Golden Chain by St. Thomas Aquinas.
The Golden Chain is a commentary on of the Gospels by the Early Church Fathers compiled together. From Catechetics Online.
The Nature of Infallibility - What exactly does it mean, anyway?
Four Levels of the Church's Teaching Article by Fr. William G. Most, S.J.
Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma: Concept and Classification of Dogma by Dr. Ludwig Ott.
Scroll down to section 4 to read the relevant section. Dr. Ott was an acclaimed Catholic theologian and the author of the theological manual, Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma, which remains unsurpassed in its scope to this day.
The Epistemology of Infallibility - How can one rationally come to believe in an infallible Church?
The Hierarchy of Truths and the Truth Article by Fr. William G. Most, S.J.
Fr. Most rejects the view that the Church can jettison some truths which it has defined previously, and offers an epistemological account of the process whereby an honest seeker after truth might conclude that the Catholic Church has the authority to define truths of the Christian faith which must be believed:
... St. Peter ... told us in I Peter 3:15: "Always be ready to give an account of the faith that is in you."That is something no other church or sect, whether or not it be a religion of the book, can do. We can do it, but sadly, most Catholics do not know how to do it.
To explain it fully would take a semester's course. But let us spend about 10 minutes on a thumb-nail sketch of the process.
We begin with the Gospels. Of course, we do not yet think of them as sacred or inspired. They are, but that still needs to be proved. So for the present, we look on them simply as documents from ancient times. No one could doubt that.
We need to know only three things about the writers of the Gospels. We need not know their names, though we think we do. But only three things matter:
1)Whoever they were, they were highly intent on getting the truth about Jesus - for the obvious reason they knew their eternal fate depended on it.
2)They had ample chance to get the facts.... [C]onsider this: we think of teenagers who were present at the public preaching of Jesus. Give them another 50 years, and they will be age 65. Not so many lived to that age then as now, yet a good number did. At age 65 they would be at the year 80, the very time the leftists think Matthew and Luke wrote.
So we have seen two of the three things needed in the Evangelists, namely, a desire to get the truth about Jesus, for the sake of their eternal fate, and the many places they could find the truth. The third need is objectivity. There is a saying: There is no such a thing as an uninterpreted report. There is much truth in this, it is true in many cases. But it does not apply to everything. There are some things so simple in their structure that there is simply no room for subjectivity to enter in. For example, we think of the time a leper stood before Jesus asking to be healed. He said: I will it. Be healed. - Now the structure of this event, as we said, leaves no room for subjectivity or distortion.
These are then the chief points needed to show us that it is possible to get from the Gospels at least a few very simple truths about Jesus.
With this basis, we go to phase two, in which we look for and find just six very simple facts about Jesus.
First, there was a man named Jesus....
Second, we see -- it is obvious all over the Gospels - that He claimed to be sent from God....
Thirdly, He did enough to prove He was that, by way of miracles. But miracles alone are not enough: there needs to be a tie between a miracle and the claim, such as there was when the paralytic was let down through the roof, and Jesus forgave the man's sins....
Fourth and fifth are things we would naturally expect, namely, in the crowds He had a smaller group, namely the Twelve. He spoke to them more, and told them to continue His teaching....
Sixth and finally, He promised God would protect their teaching, e.g., He said: "He who hears you hears me". He said the same thing several times in various words....
So now, after seeing these six simple facts, what have we before us? We see a group or church, commissioned to teach by a man God sent, and promised protection on their teaching. Then it is not only intellectually possible, but inescapable to believe what they tell us, even if later recipients of the commission might not be all they should be.
In addition, with our simple process, we have a bypass around the quibbles of the leftists, who put their finger down on so many spots in Scripture and ask how we can prove it really happened. We need only the 6 very simple things to establish the teaching commission of the Church. Then we have a means of getting the answers we need.
So we have proved there is a magisterium. And that Magisterium can tell us so many things. Among others, it can tell us that even though some truths are closer to the center of the hierarchy of truths than others, yet all those presented to us by a divinely protected Magisterium must be believed.
So yes, there is a hierarchy of truths -- but it can never lead us to go against the hierarchy of the Church.
The Evidence for the Church's Infallibility - How doe we know the Church is infallible anyway?
Biblical Evidence for Church and Papal Infallibility by Catholic apologist Dave Armstrong.
Conciliar Infallibility: Church Documents by Catholic apologist Dave Armstrong.
Newman on Papal Infallibility by Catholic apologist Dave Armstrong.
Cardinal Newman and Infallibility.
When Papal Infallibility was defined in the middle of the nineteenth century, Cardinal Newman was a popular opponent often cited by the liberals. In fact he was not opposed to Papal infallibility as this excerpt from his Apologia pro vita sua shows.Brian Tierney: Inveterate Enemy of Papal Infallibility by Catholic apologist Dave Armstrong.
Controverted Areas
Errors in Church Teaching? Article by Fr. William G. Most, S.J.
No Tradition Opposing Torture? Letter by Fr. Brian Harrison, O.S.
Scroll down to view the letter. Addresses the issue of the apparent inconsistency between Vatican II's condemnation of torture (which was also condemned by Pope John Paul II in Veritatis Splendor) and the legitimization of torture by a previous Church council, and by Pope Leo X, in condemning Luther's claim that "burning heretics is contrary to the will of the Spirit" (DS 1483). Fr. Harrison argues that the term "torture" needs to be defined more clearly. He concludes that the Church has not yet answered this question of whether torture (defined broadly as the infliction of severe or grave bodily pain, whether as a means of coercing the will or as a punishment) is ever permissible. In another article, Torture and Corporal Punishment as a Problem in Catholic Theology: Part I and Part II, he suggests that torture may be morally licit as a punishment (e.g. flogging of known criminals) but not as a means of coercing the will, and especially not for extracting a confession of guilt.
A Catholic PerspectiveThe Church Necessary for Salvation by Fr. Karl Adam, S.J.
An excerpt from his book, The Spirit of Catholicism.Other Sheep I Have. Article by Fr. William G. Most, S.J.
A Protestant Perspective
'No Other Name': A Middle Knowledge Perspective on the Exclusivity of Salvation Through Christ by Professor William Lane Craig.
Middle Knowledge and Christian Exclusivism by Professor William Lane Craig.
The Virginal Conception of JesusDid the New Testament writers copy the Virgin Birth from pagan stories? by Glen Miller.
God's Way of Acting by Bishop N. T. Wright.
Bishop Wright argues on historical grounds that the story of the virginal conception of Jesus is unlikely to have been invented. He concludes: "If that's what God deemed appropriate, who am I to object?"Virginal Conception is Biological Fact by Pope John Paul II (1996).
The Brethren of the Lord by Bishop J. B. Lightfoot.
Argues on scholarly grounds that the "brothers" of Jesus are probably children by a former marriage of Joseph, who would have been a widower when he married Mary. This is the solution favoured by the Orthodox Church; it also has the best support from tradition and accords well with the Scriptural evidence.The brothers and sisters of Jesus. An article by Fr. William G. Most, S.J.
Mary - a Protestant perspective
The Protestant Mary? Reflections on the TIME Cover Story. A series by Pastor Mark D. Roberts.
The Mary We Never Knew by Scot McKnight.
Scot McKnight is the Karl A. Olsson professor in religious studies at North Park University, Chicago. This article is adapted from The Real Mary: Why Evangelical Christians Can Embrace the Mother of Jesus (Paraclete, 2006).Mary Through the Centuries: Her Place in the History of Culture by Jaroslav Pelikan. Review by Fr. Edward T. Oakes.
Jaroslav Pelikan is Lutheranism's premier historian of dogma. In this fascinating book, he surveys the history of popular devotion to Mary.
Mary - an Orthodox perspective
What the Eastern Orthodox Church says about Mary, the Mother of God.
A Homily on the Dormition of Our Supremely Pure Lady Theotokos and Ever-Virgin Mary by St. Gregory Palamas.
The Veneration of the Mother of God According to the Mind of the Orthodox Catholic Church by Patriarch Sergius of Moscow, 1932.
To access the article, click on Index of Articles by Author and then select Sergius.
Mary - a Catholic perspective
Mary. A Catholic Web page with lots of articles.
The Immaculate Conception and Assumption. Article by Catholic Answers.
Mary: Full of Grace. The Testimony of some Early Christian Fathers. Article by Catholic Answers.
Mary as the New Eve (Part 1) by John Henry Newman.
Mary as the New Eve (Part 2) by John Henry Newman.