September 18, 2006
WHO HAS TO BREAK IT TO THE POPE?:
Pilgrims' Progress (Michael Rosen, 18 Sep 2006, Tech Central Station)
Mayflower: A Story of Courage, Community and War, Philbrick's masterful narrative of 17th century colonial life in Plymouth, depicts the trials and tribulations of the Pilgrims and their turbulent interactions with the Native American population of what is now New England. [...][A]mity with the Pokanokets slowly unraveled as a new generation began to take over. As the Pilgrims grew accustomed to the land, and as their material fortunes waxed, their need for assistance from the local Indians waned. As the burgeoning colonial population gradually acquired more and more land from the Pokanokets, Massasoit's son and successor, Philip, came to prominence in the 1670's and led a pan-Indian "resistance" movement against the Pilgrims.
The crazy quilt of sometimes allied, sometimes warring tribes included the Narragansetts, the Pequots, the Nipmucks, the Niantics, the Quabaugs, and the Sakonnets. But as the Indians closed ranks, so did the colonists. The conflict eventually enveloped all of New England and drew a thousand-man-strong militia from Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Plymouth into the fray, which became known as King Philip's War.
Benjamin Church, a Rhode Islander who grew up in close proximity to the Sakonnets, distinguished himself on the battlefield and came to assume authority in the militia. Philbrick depicts Church as something of an ideal gentleman-warrior who resisted the hate-drenched slaughter of innocents pressed by his comrades-in-arms.
In the author's telling, only when the colonists started to co-opt some of these tribes and neutralize others did they find "the secret to winning the war." Adopting the tactics of the natives -- hiding in swamps, fanning out in dispersed fashion, traveling by night -- the militia began to take control. Church's band of friendly Indians eventually located and captured Philip himself, thereby effectively ending the conflict.
Philbrick doesn't mince words in his description of the combatants. At times he goes overboard in a vaguely politically correct indictment of the colonists. In his words, by July 1675, "most English inhabitants had begun to view all Indians with racist contempt and fear." He writes of "the horrors of European-style genocide" inflicted on the Narragansetts, horrors that included widespread deportation into Carribean slavery.
But he also depicts the Indians' guerrilla tactics and their desire to "kill men, women and children." They kidnapped women and held them hostage. And while they never raped their female captives, the tribes acquired a reputation for "savage, barbarous cruelt[ies]" such as ritual torture.
There are indeed many illuminating parallels between King Philip's War and our current struggle against Islamism.
It doesn't get any funnier than listening to irate American Christians shrieking about how Islam is the opposite of our peaceful religion, as if we took over the Hemisphere by reasoning with the savages.
MORE (via Qiao Yang):
Apologize for what? (David Warren, 9/16/06, Ottawa Citizen)
Here is the point Pope Benedict was making, also in the words of that learned Byzantine emperor, speaking on the eve of one of the many sieges of Constantinople:"God is not pleased by blood, and not acting reasonably is contrary to God's nature. Faith is born of the soul, not the body. Whoever would lead someone to faith needs the ability to speak well and to reason properly, without violence and threats. ... To convince a reasonable soul, one does not need a strong arm, or weapons of any kind, or any other means of threatening a person with death."
It is a point the Greek-educated and Christian emperor takes as self-evident, but which is not self-evident to a theology that holds God entirely beyond human reason, and says He may command whatever He commands, including conversion by force should He so will. As the Pope said, it is a conflict that stabs us once again today: Does God act with "logos"? (This is the Greek word for "reason" as well as "word") How do we defend this very Catholic (and Orthodox) idea outside the Church, where our own theological assumptions are not shared?
I highly recommend Philbrick's book, and I didn't find much overt political correctness in it. I got the feeling he was trying to be balanced...warts and all (not just the good, not just the warts). His conclusion on King Philips War was that both sides, natives and Pilgrims, were responsible for actions that escalated to confrontation.
Posted by: ken at September 18, 2006 12:24 PMI agree with Ken on the useful balance of the Philbrick book.
It is important when reading history, especially "new looks" at history, to separate fact from interpretation. The Philbrick book adds to our knowledge of the period while it edges around King Phillip's war as being an earlier version of the Boxer Rebellion, or of Vietnam, wherein the bad, i.e., unreformed, Indians, lash out against the good.
King Phillip's War grew out of acts of terrorism against "Praying Indians" who were in harmony with the settlers. It was won with the assistance of numerous native Americans.
Posted by: Lou Gots at September 18, 2006 3:18 PMIs there no distinction to be made between Christian theology and the actions of Christians, even if said Christians are purportedly acting according to their understanding of said theology?
You're twisting what the Pope said in any case. I don't recall him saying anything about Christians necessarily being peaceful. His point was about the ramifications of two competing notions of God.
While the notion of God qua logos doesn't necessarily lead to individual X'ns being peaceful or whatever it is you're going on about, it's quite a different thing from the transcendent God of Islam as Benedict noted.
And he was right.
You're really going loopy on this one oj.
Posted by: Jim in Chicago at September 18, 2006 7:49 PMIt wasn't individual Christians who converted all of Europe, the Americas, much of Africa and Asia, nor individuals who are now Reforming Islam. It is what Christianity does.
Posted by: oj at September 18, 2006 8:16 PMFrom the Pope:
"The dialogue ranges widely over the structures of faith contained in the Bible and in the Qur'an, and deals especially with the image of God and of man, while necessarily returning repeatedly to the relationship of the three Laws: the Old Testament, the New Testament, and the Qur'an. In this lecture I would like to discuss only one point-- itself rather marginal to the dialogue itself-- which, in the context of the issue of faith and reason, I found interesting and which can serve as the starting-point for my reflections on this issue.
In the seventh conversation edited by Professor Khoury, the emperor touches on the theme of the jihad (holy war). The emperor must have known that surah 2, 256 reads: There is no compulsion in religion. It is one of the suras of the early period, when Mohammed was still powerless and under threat.
But naturally the emperor also knew the instructions, developed later and recorded in the Qur’an, concerning holy war. Without descending to details, such as the difference in treatment accorded to those who have the “Book” and the “infidels,” he turns to his interlocutor somewhat brusquely with the central question on the relationship between religion and violence in general, in these words:
Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached.
The emperor goes on to explain in detail the reasons why spreading the faith through violence is something unreasonable. Violence is incompatible with the nature of God and the nature of the soul.
God is not pleased by blood, and not acting reasonably is contrary to God's nature. Faith is born of the soul, not the body. Whoever would lead someone to faith needs the ability to speak well and to reason properly, without violence and threats... To convince a reasonable soul, one does not need a strong arm, or weapons of any kind, or any other means of threatening a person with death....
The decisive statement in this argument against violent conversion is this: not to act in accordance with reason is contrary to God's nature. The editor, Theodore Khoury, observes: "For the emperor, as a Byzantine shaped by Greek philosophy, this statement is self-evident. But for Muslim teaching, God is absolutely transcendent. His will is not bound up with any of our categories, even that of rationality.""
Posted by: oj at September 18, 2006 8:19 PM