Dear George,

I think we agree that the union of church and state promoted by Constantine and Theodosius was harmful to Christianity since it made Christianity an instrument of state power. In filling such a role the message of Jesus often disappeared as supporting the state took precedence. Would Christianity have survived if it had not become the official religion of the Roman Empire? We cannot know the answer to that, but we can assume that if it had survived it would be a very different religion from what it has become with its history of being an instrument of temporal power.

You wrote: There is a term “inculturation” to distinguish

(a) attempts to impose Christendom on other cultures, hence destroying them (as was done throughout most of missionary activities)
from
(b) attempts to present Christianity as an option “on top of” the other culture, perhaps amending but not destroying it, as a more “fair play” way of spreading the Christian faith.

We agree that most but not all missionary activities destroy indigenous cultures. However, I question that (b) is possible in most cases. Most people in the world have a religion even though a growing percentage of people no longer have a connection with any religion. (b) is not possible where power relationships are unequal. When the adoption of Christianity is a passport to a world of greater opportunity as was the case with Mahler, the Indian civil service under the British Raj or as a means to get an education in countries without a good public school system people do not adopt Christianity because of its compelling message. (b) was possible in the ancient classical world before it became the official religion of the Roman Empire. It is impossible to present Christianity as option “on top of” another culture where the culture is based on Islam or Judaism because the fundamentals of those cultures contradict Christianity.

I have no opinion on “scientific atheism” since I do not know what it is. I have a very negative opinion toward Marxism.

http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=12693 points you to my article on that subject.

Dear david f,

>>Would Christianity have survived if it had not become the official religion of the Roman Empire? <<

“I wish Constantine interpreted differently the In Hoc Signo Vinces of his dream”, as Tomas Halik, - a Czech priest, psychotherapist and psychology professor (who grew up as an atheist) - put it, and today many Catholics see it the same way.

My post was about pointing out the two different meanings of culture, not to disagree with you.

I agree that Christianity (or any other religion) cannot be put “on top” of a culture that is firmly connected to another religion - it can only destroy it, i.e. (a).

What I had in mind was the case of Matteo Ricci, a Jesuit missionary in 16th century China who was very successful in trying to convert the Chinese but ultimately failed because of pressure from Rome that insisted on e.g. the Latin liturgies, which are more connnected with the European Christendom culture than with Christianity as a religion with universality ambitions.

Another possible scenario for (b), albeit in a distant future, would be the contemporary European stage with

(i) secular humanists who pushed through in the EU constitution any reference not only to its Christian past but also to God as suc is omittedh. This is the dominant “religion", in the sense that they speak of "Western values", a somewhat fluid term. Wertengemenschaft (community of values) being the official German name of this quasi-religion that all newcommers must respect;
(ii) Christianity the dominant religion of the past;
(iii) Islam perhaps the dominant of the future (?).

Future generations will see where it shall lead but I am convinced that Christianity has no chances of survival unless they stop confusing Christianity in its aesthetic, rational and ethical dimensions with what belonged to the Christendom stage of its development: in particular wealth and other external leftovers from times bygone.

Of course, this, change of (the hierarchy’s) mind, as much as the Pope is pressing it, cannot happen overnight.

Hi Dvid,

If you want to find out whether or not missionaries tried to destroy traditional culture, you could check out the Jurnals of the rev. George Taplin, at Point Mcleay, on the lower Murray Lakes, 1859-1879, followed up by the Letter-Books of the Superintendents there up to 1900 - forty years of detailed material. It's there all on my web-site, about 2000 pages: www.firstsources.info , as well as other material from other mission societies.

Taplin came down hard on a couple of practices, such as the rubbing of juices from drying [i.e. rotting] bodies - the juice was regarded as sacred - including nursing mothers, following which their kids died of gastro. Taplin ordered the drying of such bodies to be done a couple of miles away from the mission, as he did with a couple of other customs - the freedom of young men undergoing initiation to have access to any women they liked; and the custom [ngangaiampi] of fathers sending the dried umbilical string of new-borns to men of neighbouring groups (I don't know why he opposed that custom, it sounds sensible to me) as a sort of guarantor of safe travel for each man through each others' countries.

Apart from that, I don't think Taplin opposed any other customs all that strongly, even very early marriage. [My wife's great-grandmother married by him when she was eleven]. He learnt the language as soon as he was appointed, tried to teach in it, but found quickly that many kids couldn't speak it, so he had to go back to English, which they all could speak.

Absolutely fascinating !

Cheers,

Joe

Dear George,

One reason Matteo Ricci was successful in converting the Chinese was in the different attitudes Chinese and Japanese have to religion in contrast to the attitudes of westerners. In the west religion is regarding as exclusive. You cannot belong to more than one religion at a time. Chinese and Japanese have a different attitude.

Most Japanese express their religious feelings by a synthesis of Shinto and Buddhism. The area of Australia where I live is a popular destination for honeymooning Japanese. The honeymoon package often includes a wedding ceremony in a Christian chapel. This is found romantic. They then go back to Japan and probably never have anything more to do with Christianity.

Apparently Catholic missionaries are less prone to impose non-religious elements of their culture than are Protestants. This may be due to the fact that priests are celibate, and Protestant male missionaries often come with families. The wives are horrified by the non-Christian (actually non-western) behavior of the indigenous peoples, put them in mother hubbards and impose other western practices on the indigenous peoples. These 'western' practices are Christian in the view of the missionaries.

http://englishclasses.com.ua/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/wsmaugham-sixty-five-short-stories_0905712692.pdf includes the story "Rain" which is a fictional treatment of a Protestant missionary in the South Pacific. Great story.

Dear Joe,

Not missionaries but government. My mother was a teacher at the St. Regis Indian reservation in the United States in the early 1920s. Indian children caught speaking their language on the school grounds were punished.

Robert Kenny's "The Lamb Enters the Dreaming" tells about the first Aborigine in Australia converted to Christianity.

The pre-Darwin scientific consensus was that Aborigines were not human but another species so killing them was not the same as killing humans. Missionaries taking their cue from the Bible thought that Aborigines were descended from Adam and Eve and were fully human. Missionaries were able to save some Aborigines from slaughter.

Dear david f,

You are right but I still think that Ricci would not have settled for Christianity becoming just one of the many religions - for instance he incorporated Confucianism into it - but even so was stopped from Rome, intrigues etc.

Thanks for the Somerset-Maugham stories: it might be true that women were more prone to being scandalized by strange customs, notably concerning “indecent” clothing, than men.