ONE SIDE HAS ALWAYS REMAINED THE SAME IN THE LONG WAR:

Truth and Consequences: a review of There Is No Crime For Those Who Have Christ: Religious Violence in the Christian Roman Empire By Michael Gaddis (David Nirenberg, 12.02.06, New Republic)

The words "religion" and "violence" very often accompany each other these days, but in predominantly Christian Europe or the Americas they are rarely associated with the words "Christ" or "Christianity." On the contrary, a rough caricature of our common knowledge on the subject might look something like this: the God of the Hebrew Bible was a vengeful enforcer of law, and the God of the Koran sent prophets with swords, but the Christian God demands only love. "God is love," Pope Benedict XVI declared in his first encyclical. In this account, suasion and gentle reason, not coercion or authoritarian force, are now and have always been the appropriate paths to faith in this God, as the same pontiff reminded the world in his controversial speech at Regensburg a short while ago. That speech aroused Muslim protest because of the way it seemed to associate the history of Islam with unreason and the violent coercion of faith. But the pope's association of Christ and Christian history with love, reasoned persuasion, and uncoerced faith proved thoroughly uncontroversial. [...]

Michael Gaddis's fascinating book focuses on one of the most foundational of these moments: the conversion of the Emperor Constantine circa 315, and the subsequent integration of Christian churches into the power structures of empire and state. If this was a deviation, it was certainly a very long one: the partnership between Christianity and state power that was then established remained firm for nearly a millennium and a half. And because so many of the fathers of the church worked and wrote within this partnership, its consequences for religious and political thought have been enormous. For this reason, the topic of Christian violence and religious coercion in this early and formative period has attracted many fine students of the past, among them Erasmus, Gibbon, and in our day Peter Brown. It is high praise, therefore, to say that this book by Gaddis (who was Brown's student) helps us to understand the old problem in a new way.

"You are of the opinion that no one should be compelled to follow righteousness," wrote one Christian bishop to another in 408. "Originally my opinion was that no one should be coerced into the unity of Christ, that we must act only by words, fight only by arguments, and prevail by force of reason.... But this opinion of mine was overcome [by the example of] my own town, which ... was brought over to the Catholic unity by fear of the imperial edicts." Who stands, in this exchange, for reason, and who for the fear of law? The letter's obscure recipient, the advocate of tolerance in this exchange, was one Vincentius of Cartenna, a bishop in an influential North African Christian movement known as the Donatists, which was fast on its way to being suppressed by episcopal styluses and imperial swords as heretical. The author of the letter, now convinced of the utility of fear, was none other than Augustine of Hippo, whose writings have arguably had more influence on the Christian cultures of western Europe than any except scripture.

Luke 12:49-53

49 I am come to send fire on the earth; and what will I, if it be already kindled?

50 But I have a baptism to be baptized with; and how am I straitened till it be accomplished!

51 Suppose ye that I am come to give peace on earth? I tell you, Nay; but rather division:

52 For from henceforth there shall be five in one house divided, three against two, and two against three.

53 The father shall be divided against the son, and the son against the father; the mother against the daughter, and the daughter against the mother; the mother in law against her daughter in law, and the daughter in law against her mother in law.

It was particularly amusing that the Pope compared peace-loving Christianity to violent Islam at a moment when we have 130,000 troops in the heart of Islam, forcing Muslims to govern themselves according to our Judeo-Christian precepts.

Posted by Orrin Judd at December 4, 2006 12:39 PM