A misunderstanding. This "revival" was sponsored massively by Putin for political objectives.

funny how the secularist have adopted the death culture so prevelant in the Soviet Union in past times. Take away the Life Giver and you are left with porn, paedophille, suicide, drugs, violence and the destruction of family life. The Soviets seemed to have learn't a lot quicker than our social engineers.

I think free people look to Russia these days, despite what our media says about Putin - anyone who's been to Russia says you can do anything - have a smoke in a restaurant or a vodka before the drive home. But most of all, not have to look over your shoulder if your religious, no culture of intimidating religious people over there.

As far as I am concerned it is very sad. Both Marxism and Christianity retreat from reason. Marxism is a reformulation of Christianity in secular clothing. Primitive Communism according to Marxist theory is tribal communal sharing in an economy of scarcity. Then we have original sin in the form of the advent of private property and capitalism. The class struggle is analogous to the worldly conflict of the good people with the devil. Then comes the millennium with an end to the class struggle and human happiness in advanced communism in an economy of plenty embedded in a classless society.

Both Marxism and Christianity are utopian fantasies with suppression of dissenters by the gulags or the Inquisition. Russia has a history of darkness followed by darkness. Kindness, reason, questioning of authority and recognition of the humanity of those who disagree with you are far better than either utopian fantasy.

Babette

I understand you have conservative family values, but why on earth do you call them “Christian”? There is precious little in the New Testament, especially the Gospels, supporting the idea that the traditional family unit is the core of Christian life. Quite the reverse.

Jesus and Paul spend a great deal of their time trying to subvert traditional family values.

Paul never married or had children, and he advised other followers not to marry either, if they had the self-discipline (1 Cor. 7:7-9, 9:5).

Jesus, so far as we know, had no wife or children. Jesus denied that his biological family exercised any claim or authority over him, saying that his true family consisted of those who follow him (Luke 2:43-49, 8:20-21). We are not to call any man “father” (Matthew 23:9). Jesus praised his disciples for abandoning their families to follow him, suggesting they will be rewarded (Mark 10:29-30), and told one follower to leave his recently deceased father unburied – a suggestion even more shocking in Jesus’ culture than it is today (Matthew 8:21).

Jesus predicted that his message would split families, not unite them, and said that anyone who loves a son or daughter more than Jesus is not worthy of Him (Matthew 10:34-37).

This is part of a consistent and systematic message in the New Testament.

The patriarchal family was the bedrock of society in 1st century Palestine. The family was the source of an individual’s status, honour, economic support, and security; their health, police, unemployment and aged care service; and their main point of allegiance and loyalty.

The early Christians proclaimed that our primary allegiance is to God, and this put them in direct conflict with cultural values that held the institution of the family was paramount. So-called “Christian family values” elevate conformity to social norms above the demands of Jesus’ teaching in a way that directly contradicts the Gospel message.

All insitutiional religions are armed to the teeth.

This is particularly the case with any and every state religion, especially in the case of Christian-ism, Juda-ism and Islam-ism.

What has love got to do with centrally controlled mega-sized state churches as is the case in Russia or the "Catholic" church in Western countries. So too with right-wing so called "conservative" Protestant churches of the kind that Babette associates with.

The primary purpose of such institutional state churches is crowd control. They are primarly power-and-control-seeking business corporations the interests of which are protecting and expanding their corporate interests, and competing against every other organized religious group for market share in the market place of whats-in-it-for-me consumerist religion.

Furthermore the "Catholic" church in particular has been waging a centuries long war against the various Eastern "Orthodox" churches. This was manifesting in a dramatic blood-soaked suring WWII when the Croation "Catholic" fascists systematically slaughtered hundreds of thousands of "Orthodox" Serbs. The Vatican also fuelled the inter-religious violence during the Kosovo crisis by the policies and persons that it supported. Policies which were promoted to DELIBERATELY extend and consolidate the power and interests of "Catholics" over and against those of the "Orthodox" church. The machinations are described in the book by David Yallop The Power & the Glory (gory):The Dark Heart of John Paul II's Vatican.

Being pedantic as usual this site could be titled applied Christian "love" 101.

http://spiritlessons.com/passionofchristpictures.htm

These comments describe what right-wing so called conservative Christian religions, especially the "Catholc" church is really all about.

Monotheistic creationist-religion is an exclusively exoteric institutional power-and-control-seeking entity, the intent of which is controlling and managing the entire human world, and even the entire natural world too.
The "sacred" power that such religion claims it brings, or would extend into the human world is, it says, the "Creator-God" of the universe. Whereas, in fact, the power that such religion actually execises, or would everywhere exercise, is that of the (by them) humanly governed political, social, economic, cultural exoteric INSTITUTIONALIZATION of the totality of humankind. All in the name of "freedom" of course.

The institutionalizing power that such monotheistic religion exercises, or would everywhere exercise, if allowed to function at will and unimpeded, is of an inherently intolerant nature - because it is self-possessed by a reductionist, and tribalistic, and exclusively exoteric mentality, that cannot accept any non-"orthodox" ,extra-tribal or extra-institutional, non-monotheistic, or otherwise, free and Spiritually liberating esoteric exceptions to its self-appointed "Rule".

Jesus of course was not ever in any sense a Christian. He was always essentially A Jew who appeared and taught on the margins of the tradition of Judaism as it was in his time and place. While he was alive he taught and demonstrated a radical, universal, non-sectarian, non-Christian Spirit-Breathing Spiritual Way of Life.
He was, as we all know completely unacceptable to the ecclesiastical establishment (with its power and priveleges) of his time and place.

Just as Jesus would be completely unacceptable to all of the dreadfully sane self-righteous Christians who attended the World Family Congress. And at the Vatican or any of the seats of power of every state religion whether Protestant, "Catholic" or "Orthodox".

In contrast to all of the posturing and bombast of the above pharisees and their worldly power games Jesus was a rather humble, simply human, being. He had no social or political power and demonstrated freely given non-judgmental compassion to the socially and politicaly powerless. He demonstrated no concern for the search and exercise of worldly power.Indeed he was scathingly critical of those who, in his time and place exercised such powers.

He taught and demonstrated a Spiritual Way of Divine Communion as a constant life-experience of heart,and mind, and body. About authentic human freedom without any tradition-bound or political requirements.

Jesus never-ever talked about making an institution that would become an "official" power-and-control-seeking religion. Nor was he talking about a "God" that should become the "official" "Deity" of the entire human world.

Jesus of Galilee felt a profound disposition of compassion for all people in their ordinary, natural, human condition - not just as subordinates of the Roman State. Or as members of the then "official" (Jewish) religious institution that was essentially a political entity too.
Jesus stepped out of the spheres of both the power of the State and the power of "official religion" - and, basically, he taught everyone else to do the same.

Which is of course precisely what he would do in the now-time of 2013, if as if out of nowhere he happened to reappear.

Dear Daffy Duck,

Buddhism which does not postulate a God also is responsible for oppression. The atrocities of the Sri Lankan government toward the Hindu Tamils were supported by the Buddhist clergy. The Japanese officer corps in WW2 were almost all Zen Buddhists. They were a notably violent group of men who were responsible for the rape of Nanking and the other atrocities committed by their forces in WW2. Hindus in Gujarat have slaughtered Muslims. The Marxist entities with their gulags and other forms of oppression have other done in millions. It is not just the monotheistic religions or even religion itself that is oppressive. It is the idea of a group believing that they have an essential truth denied to other humans which gives them the right to force that on the other humans that is the problem. It is broader than monotheism although the monotheists have been terribly oppressive.

in all of recorded history, very few societies have made a u-turn - unless as in Germany and Japan and Italy after WWII they were forced to.

Those countries are few but they stand out: South Africa, Myanmar, Kazakstan, Russia today, and probably China tomorrow; in ancient times, only Niniveh repented in sackcloth and ashes, and God relented.

Our 'modern' west with its selfish blathering on about 'choice' promoting 'free' love (what an oxymoron!!)and same sex marriage and abortion and euthanasia are committing collective ethical suicide, and it'll be the old 'evil empires' of Russia and China that will ironically be the light upon the hill with their notions of what a civilization should really be about.

Go figure!

Babette,
Thanks for a very interesting article that agrees with my own personal experience, having been brought up in a Communist system (where we learned more or less all those things listed in some of the posts here about Christians, especially the Catholic Church) and now following, thanks to the internet, the developments of the Christian scene in East and East-Central European countries. For instance, Catholics (and I presume also the Orthodox) there are complaining about the shortage of older (i.e. more experienced) priests, not so of younger recruits who often come from atheist families. Indeed, Communism served as a good fertilizer boosting the regrowth of Christianity, Catholic or Orthodox (and Islam).

Rhian,
I checked the article, there is no mention of “Christian family values” only of “Christian values” and of “natural family values”, that are shared not only by Christians and other traditional religions, but also by Communists, and until recently also by most other atheists. Where Christians and Communists differed was not in the traditional understanding of family.

david f,
I think we both know where we two agree and where we do not. So just let me remark that comparing the gulags and the Inquisition is not unlike comparing an American believer in a 6000 years old Earth with a medieval Christian or Jew, who, I suppose, believed the same thing.

On the other hand, I agree that Marx probably used the Christian idea of a “divine kingdom on earth” as a blueprint for his Communist utopia. Lenin even explicitly stated that his Communist party was organizationally modelled on that of the Catholic Church.

Dear George,

We are fragmented beings. We contain many inconsistent ideas. Possibly part of our survival is due to our ability to contain these contradictions and somehow go on. I think that the part of the mind of a twenty-first century American who believes in a 6,000 year old earth is not too different from the part of the mindset of a medieval Jew or Christian that believes the same thing. The modern American has information that challenges the idea of a 6,000 year old earth but has chosen to ignore it. However, even in earlier times there were Christian and Jewish thinkers who questioned a literal interpretation of the Bible. St. Augustine, Spinoza, Astruc, Thomas Hobbes and Maimonides are examples. Part of our mindset is probably not too different from that of our remote hunter-gatherer ancestors.

I have no direct experience of either of the gulags or the Inquisition. My ‘knowledge’ is through literature and memoirs. Dostoyevsky’s Grand Inquisitor in the ‘Brothers Karamazov’ and Koestler‘s account of being questioned by OGPU agents in “Darkness at Noon” makes me equate OGPU agents and inquisitors. Arthur Miller’s “The Crucible” makes a parallel between the witch hunts in colonial Massachusetts and the McCarthyite inquisition in post-WW2 United States. I think the parallels are reasonable.

One figure heroic to me stands out. Sebastian Castellio (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sebastian_Castellio) protested the execution of Servetus in Calvin’s Geneva at a time when both Catholics and Protestant burned dissenters at the stake and most of their approved Servetus' execution. Even though Castellio disagreed with Servetus he maintained Servetus had a right to have his views. Castellio wrote: “To kill a man is not to protect a doctrine, but it is to kill a man.”

Chinese philosophy recognizes seven emotions – joy, anger, grief, fear, love, hate, desire. I think it reasonable to assume hunter-gatherers, medieval Jews and Christians along with ourselves have those seven

Dear david f,

There is nothing in your post I would disagree with. I admit that probably not all medieval Christians and Jews believed in a 6000 year old earth; the same, of course, about contemporary American Christians.

We already had here a discussion on Castello and Servetus as described in Stefan Zweig’s book in http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=9292#153722 and the sequel.

Russia was once a great Christian nation. Then they forgot God and corruption set in. That paved the way for the revolution of 1917 which saw the nation taken captive by totalitarian thugs for some 70yrs. (Sort of sounds like where the West is headed!) Today Russia is working it way back to greatness. It will be difficult as the nation is now close to majority Muslim with many Salafis and jihadis in its midst.

Putin recognises that Russia was great when Russia was Christian -- he looks to the days of Peter the Great. People criticise him for being photographed shirtless on horseback, in black-belt judo gear, mountain hiking, swimming in wild rivers etc etc -- but he is actually very determined to present an alternative role model to the despairing alcoholic left in the wake of godless, hopeless Communism. He goes to church, promotes Christian values, doesn't drink any alcohol and doesn't sleep around. Western leaders villify him - even Western Church leaders - but we would all like our politicians to be a bit more like him in so many ways! WHile there is creeping repression - much of it IS linked to the the threat of Islamic terrorism and Western belligerence.

Overall, the situation in Russia is very encouraging --- it is the West's perpetual Russia-hatred that bothers me. I mean the US talks and acts as if the Cold War never ended!

THe West has been fearful of Russian expansion for hundreds of years - and have usually allied with Muslims (Turks and then Arabs) to hem Russia in - even to prevent them from defending Eastern Christians. The victims of this struggle = the Eastern Christians who suffer under Islam. From the Crimea (1853) to Syria (today) the story has been the same!

Another interesting thing about Russia: once known for its anti-Semitism, Russia is developing a pro-Israel causus within its parliament. An Israeli delegation recently met with influential Christian leaders to talk about garnering support for Israel and forming Russia-Israel alliance.
http://www.jpost.com/Jewish-World/Jewish-News/Pro-Israel-caucus-forming-in-Russian-parliament-314341

Dear Elizabeth Kendal,

Before 1917 when Russia was a Christian nation it was also oppressive to most of its people. For all except the nobility it was not a good place. Jews and other Russians fled czarist Russia in droves. Russia was powerful when it was Christian, but it was also not a good place for most people to live. Corruption and the Orthodox church went hand in hand. Alcoholism did not start under communism.

There were two revolutions in 1917 – one in which the czar was overthrown and the second in which the communists took power. If Russia had been a good place for most people to live neither revolution would have been a success.

Communism is godless and hopeless.

Russia under the czars was godly and hopeless.

The revolutions in Russia in 1917 were a product of despair.

Communism offered hope, but it was a false hope. The pie-in-the-sky-bye-and-bye of Christianity is also a false hope.

The west was not continuously hostile to Russia. The US was consistently friendly to czarist Russian. The Russian upper classes spoke French and the admiration was returned. The Napoleonic invasion and the Crimean War were exceptions in what were generally friendly relations.

A. C. Grayling wrote:

I would wish people to live without superstition, to govern their lives with reason, and to conduct their relationships on reflective principles about what we owe one another as fellow voyagers through the human predicament – with kindness and generosity wherever possible, and justice always. None of this requires religion or the empty name of ‘god.’ Indeed once this detritus of our ignorant past has been cleared away, we might see more clearly the nature of the good, and pursue it aright at last.

As far as Putin’s macho posturing goes we have had too many of these strutting peacocks. Gandhi, Abraham Lincoln and other leaders who wish to set humans free from slavery of different kinds and to question authority whatever its source are much better role models than Putin who has reporters who question his rule murdered.

Dear George,

I know I have mentioned Castellio before to you. However, other people read these posts. I feel he was a much greater man than the much better known Calvin and Luther so I mentioned him again.

Dear david f,

>>However, other people read these posts. <<
This is exactly the reason I called attention to our earlier discussion.

As to your reference to Russia before 1917 you are right that it was less democratic than its contemporaries in the West (no point comparing it with a modern Western country), in particular Jews were more discriminated against, if not worse, than in Western countries of those times. After all “pogrom” is a Russian word and was not invented by Hitler (as even some Germans think). On the other hand, I do not know about “Jews and other Russians” fleeing Russia “in droves” before 1917 more than after 1917. I do not have the statistics to compare only know of many Russian intellectuals who fled Russia AFTER 1917.

You are so right to distinguish between the menshevik and bolshevik revolutions, between Kerensky and Lenin. This distinction is often used by conservatives to warn against abrupt changes lest a “Kerensky (democratic) revolution” gets kidnapped by a “Lenin (worse-than-undemocratic) revolution”.

I think it is clear now that Communism offered a false hope and most Christians agree that “divine kingdom on this earth” was also a false hope. However, Christian hope as such is unfalsifiable since it is “not of this world” (meaningless, of course, to an atheist).

Not only “the west was not continuously hostile to Russia” but also vice versa, c.f. the Zapadniki as opposed to Slavophiles. There were traditionally not only French but also German cultural influences (there are many Russian words that are just German words written in azbuka). And today, when Angela Merkel and Putin meet, they probably do not need an interpreter since they both speak the other’s language, although I feel Merkel’s Russian is better than Putin’s German.

As to whether a post-Christian society does or does not need “religion or the empty name of ‘god” as Grayling put it, only time (measured in generations, not years) will tell. So far only the Communist experiment was brought to conclusion, and it does not seem to support Grayling.

Dear George,

People should be free to believe what they like or reject religious belief and to freely gather with others who have the same view. This should be no business of government. Under the czars the Orthodox church was an arm of the state and was an oppressor. Under the communists government actively campaigned against religion. Under neither government was there the separation of religion and state I support. Where religion owes nothing to the state it is free to point out excesses of government. Where there is separation government cannot use religion to advance its agenda. Marxism is a quasi-religious ideology which, like religion, demands belief in unprovable propositions. I see many similarities in czarist and communist Russia. Russia is still under an authoritarian figure who was a product of the Soviet secret police and crushes opposition.

These are the urls of stuff I have written on the subject of developments leading to the separation of state and church:

http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=10790 - development of the separation in the early United States

http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=10725 - the right to heresy proceeding from Castellio's protest against the execution of Servetus

http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=15011 deals with moral relativism and cultural imperialism, a related subject

If I last long enough I could produce a book on the subject. I have not seen any book that pulls all this material on the history of the separation together. Topics that would be dealt with:

1. The union of church and state in the Roman Empire and its successor states
2. The Anabaptists challenge to the union
3. The right to heresy
4. Pax Islam - the enforcement of religious peace among Christian sects in the Ottoman Empire
5. Spinoza- the first secular man and his philosophy
6. The Enlightenment challenge to religious domination
7. The separation in European politics
8. The separation in US politics
9. The separation in non-Christian countries
10. The challenge of science to authoritarian religion
11. Development of secular education
12. Current status of the separation
13. Threats to the separation from non-religious and religious sources
14. Speculations on the future of the separation

Dear david f,

>>People should be free to believe what they like or reject religious belief and to freely gather with others who have the same view. This should be no business of government.<<

Of course, I agree and thanks for an interesting post including the linked reminders.

I think today practically everybody in the West is happy with separation of church/religion and state/government. (Of course, neither czarist nor Communist Russia did have one.) Only the meaning and practical implication of this separation is being disputed. For instance, you have separation in the US, not in Germany, but religion in the US is much more visible - more regular church-goers, politicians speaking about their personal beliefs, etc - than in Germany.

I see this separation is your hobby and I wish you “to last long enough” to produce a viable analysis of the complicated concept (not only as far as its history is concerned) without a very visible pro-religion or anti-religion bias.

As to Russia before and after 1917, there is nobody alive any more, who lived through both and could testify. Only a comparison of numbers leaving (or wanting to leave) Russia before and after 1917 would be indicative, but I am not sure they exist. Like comparing the number of people who tried to flee East Germany to live in West Germany with those fleeing the other way (similarly with North and South Korea, North and South Vietnam) could give us an idea about which country was more oppressive to its citizens even when we, outsiders, are unable to place ourselves in their respective positions.

Dear George,

Comparison of the number of those leaving czarist Russia with those leaving the Marxist states will tell us little because the Marxist states put more obstacles to leaving than did czarist Russia.

In the United States the separation has actually fostered religion. In the Scandinavian countries which have state churches and in the UK there is low church attendance. People in those countries rightfully feel that the state church is an arm of the state and they wish to have little to do with it. In Norway the state church is Lutheran. Lutherans who feel passionate about their religion set up independent congregations, and there is a flourishing Human Etisk (humanist) society. Many of the evangelical churches in the US have congregants who have a suspicion of both the government and the separation. They would tear down the separation but don't realise that they flourish because of it.

Dear david f,

>> the Marxist states put more obstacles to leaving than did czarist Russia.<<

Well, that is one indicator - important or not - of which regime was more oppressive, the czarist or the Communist. In absolute terms, or even in comparison to Western countries of their times, they were both.

Again, I agree with what you wrote in the last paragraph; it is the history or tradition of non-separation that you have in many European countries but not in the US.

I haven't read all the comments (22 at the time of writing, but i would have loved to be comment Number 1!!) I was there at the Congress as well, and was equally astounded by his presentation. so glad you have logged it here Babette. Thank you! the only thing I was rather quizzical about was the concept of trusting the Russians with our Internet security.. somehow I am not quite there yet.. it seems strange somehow..

Dear George,

Separation did not come all at once to the US. Massachusetts had a state church until 1838. History gets rewritten to serve ideological conceits. The Pilgrims came to Massachusetts not for religious freedom but to set up a theocracy. Conservatives in Massachusetts got rid of the state church when a liberal faction took over the church. That made a state church undesirable. In several states laws still exist which don't allow people of unapproved beliefs or religious positions to run for office.

When one looks closer there is a tradition of non-separation in the US and a tradition of separation in Europe. Those are two trends I would tell about in my book on the separation.