7. Anne has concluded that she will never
truly belong to the “quarrelsome, hostile,
disputatious, and deservedly infamous
group” known as Christians unless she
becomes “anti-gay … anti-feminist …
anti–artificial birth control … anti-
Democrat … anti–secular humanism …
anti-science … anti-life.”
8. Tell that much of the story, and you have the
sort of thing the news media love to report—
another celebrity break-up, if you will. But this
time, the celebrity is divorcing God.
But that’s not the whole story. Really, it’s not
the story at all. Anne explains that, “My faith in
Christ is central to my life.” She is still “an
optimistic believer in a universe created and
sustained by a loving God.” “But,” she says,
“following Christ does not mean following His
followers. Christ is infinitely more important
than Christianity and always will be, no matter
what Christianity is, has been or might
9. And so, she concludes, “In the name of
Christ… I quit Christianity and being
Christian.”
16. Back in 1972, Dean Kelley rocked the
religious world with Why Conservative
Churches are Growing (HarperCollins)...
He spoke the then-shocking truth that
“Mainline” Protestantism, which had
historically been the main form of
Christianity in the United States, was fast
becoming “old line” as it declined in
numbers.
17. It was losing ground to a “new line” of
conservative churches characterized by
seriousness and strictness. These
churches were serious about the
meaning they offered and strict in
regards to wholehearted conformity to
their norms of belief and behavior.
This ... made them socially strong, and
this social strength made them grow – as
their adherents enthusiastically recruited
others.
19. In contrast, old-line churches were
increasingly ecumenical -- respectful of
and open to dialogue with other faith
communities and the meaning they
offered. They were about making
friends, not converts. Old-line churches
valued individual freedom over group
conformity when it came to issues of
purpose, belief, and behavior.
20. To old-liners, ecumenism, respect,
dialogue, individualism, nonconformity,
and freedom were precious qualities, but in
terms of creating growth or even
sustainability for the future, Kelley claimed
they were counterproductive at least, and
potentially even suicidal. That’s why he
used unflattering terms like lukewarmness
and leniency to describe them in contrast to
the strictness and seriousness of their
counterparts.
22. According to Kelley, strict, serious, and
growing groups ...
are not ‘reasonable,’ they are not ‘tolerant,’
they are not ecumenical, they are not
‘relevant.’ They often refuse to recognize
the validity of other Christian churches’
teachings, ordinations, sacraments. They
observe unusual rituals … they [persist] in
irrational behavior … They try to impose
uniformity of belief and practice among
members by censorship, heresy trials, and
the like. (26).
23. The Paradox:
There is about any serious meaning venture
a certain irreducible fierceness, asperity,
insistence, exclusiveness, rigor – a
fanaticism that brushes everything else
aside. Yet that very single-mindedness
renders it objectionable to those who value
balance, brotherhood, respect for individual
diversity, mutual forbearance and self-
restraint, civic peace, pluralism ... (164)
25. “But why must there be any conflict? Are
not freedom, justice, respect for others
essential parts of the Christian faith?
Ideally they should be, if rightly
understood. One can conceive of a high-
demand religious movement devoted to
justice, freedom, beauty, respect for others,
and so on, which could effectively explain
life to [humankind] without fanaticism,
absolutism, intolerance, or judgmental
moralism. That is what – ideally –
Christianity ought to be.”
26. “Yet where is such a phenomenon
to be found?”
-- Dean Kelley, 1972
30. We know how to have
a STRONG-
HOSTILE
CHRISTIAN
IDENTITY.
31. STRONG-
HOSTILE
We have the only way.
You are going to hell.
We are God’s chosen.
You worship false gods.
resistance if futile.
you will be assimilated - or
eliminated.
32. We know how to have
a weak-
benign
CHRISTIAN
IDENTITY.
33. weak-benign
it doesn’t matter what you believe.
all religions are the same.
all roads lead to god.
only sincerity matters.
doctrines divide.
keep religion private.
Mind/Matter: I don’t, it doesn’t.
37. Actuality:
It is not our religious
differences that keep us apart,
but rather a haunting
religious similarity ... that we
build strong identities
through hostility.
38. Give people a common enemy, and you
will give them a common identity. Deprive
them of an enemy and you will deprive
them of the crutch by which they know who
they are.
- James Alison
39. Can Christians today re-build our
identity without hostility to the
other?
Can we build an identity that is
both strong and benevolent
toward the other?
40. strong-
benevolent
Because I Follow Jesus, I love you.
I move toward “the other.”
I break down walls of hostility.
i stand with you in solidarity.
you are made in God’s image.
i am your servant.
I practice human-kindness.
41. In the “old apologetics,”
exclusivism and superiority were
attractive features.
42. In the “old apologetics,”
exclusivism and superiority were
attractive features.
In the “new apologetics,”
religious supremacy is a
disqualifying factor.
43. Can there be
... uniqueness without
supremacy?
... benevolence without
weakness?
... strength without hostility?
44. It depends on the stories we
tell ...
and the way we tell them.
63. - From Jurgen Moltmann, Experiences in Theology
What hope motivated the Spanish and Portuguese conquerors? ...
Columbus evidently sought for both God’s Garden of Eden and
Eldorado, the city of gold. Apart from personal enrichment, the gold
was designed to help the reconquest of Jerusalem by the Christian
empire. He appealed to a prophecy of Joachim of Fiore [d. 1202]:
“From Spain will come the one who will bring the Ark back to
Zion” ...
64. According to their vision of world
history, which was borrowed
from Daniel 2 and 7, the rise and
fall of the four great empires of
Babylon, Persia, Greece and
Rome will be followed by the
redeeming empire of the divine
Son of man ... But whereas
according to Daniel this empire of
the Son of man is the great divine
alternative to the ‘bestial’ empires
of the world, the conquistadores
interpreted it as ‘the fifth empire’
which was to consummate
previous attempts at world-wide
rule.
65. The fifth earthly empire was to be the
universal Christian monarchy in which there
is only ‘one flock and one shepherd’ ... Its
capital had to be Jerusalem, according to
ancient prophecy, for there Christ’s ‘second
coming’ was to take place.... [T]he universal
Christian monarchy is the true legal heir of
the ancient empires and the fulfilment of
humanity’s dream of the unifying kingdom of
the world ‘which shall have no end.’ The
Iberian quintomonarchians - the court
theologians of the Spanish kings - set the
empire of Charles V in this historical
framework, which was both universal and
messianic.
66. The discovery and conquest of the new
continent was one of the final acts in this
eschatological drama of salvation, and this
apocalyptic interpretation for its part justified
the violence which the Christian rulers were
bound to use in taking possession of the whole
earth and converting the peoples. The rulers
also justified the violence through the ‘stone’,
which according to Daniel 2:34 f. shatters the
kingdoms of this world, a symbol of the eternal
kingdom of God which will ‘break them in
pieces’ (2:24).
- From Jurgen Moltmann, Experiences in Theology
(Augsburg, 2000), p. 222-223
67. 1495
2nd Voyage Return Cargo: 1600 male
and female Taino slaves for Spain
“It is possible, with the name of the
Holy Trinity, to sell all the slaves which it
is possible to sell … Here there are so
many of these slaves … although they are
living things they are as good as gold.”
68. The Spaniards who remained in Hispaniola were
encouraged to take Taino slaves “in the amount
desired.” Columbus himself gave a teenage girl to one
of his crew, Miguel Cuneo, for his personal “use.”
Cuneo wrote that she “resisted with all her strength”
when he attempted to have sex with her, so he
“thrashed her mercilessly and raped her.” Being given
a Taino woman to rape was, in fact, a popular
“company perk” for Columbus’s men. Columbus
himself wrote to a friend, “There are plenty of dealers
who go about looking for girls; those from nine to ten
[years old] are now in demand.”
69. - An eyewitness in the early 1500’s
As a result of the sufferings and hard labor they
endured, the Indians choose and have chosen suicide.
Occasionally a hundred have committed mass suicide.
The women, exhausted by labor, have shunned
conception and childbirth…. Many, when pregnant, have
taken something to abort and have aborted. Others after
delivery have killed their children with their own hands,
so as not to leave them in such oppressive slavery.
70. Of the estimated 300,000 Taino alive when Columbus
“discovered” them in 1492, about 12,000 remained in
1516, fewer than 200 in 1546, and zero in 1555. What our
history calls “the discovery of America,” Taino history
might call “the arrival of the Christian genociders,” if, that
is, any Taino survived to tell an alternate history. None did.
71. “Here those Christians
perpetrated their first ravages
and oppression against the native
peoples. This was the first land
in the New World to be destroyed
and depopulated by the
Christians.”
--another eyewitness, Bartolome De
Las Casas about Christian invasion of
Hispaniola
72. In North America, it was
the story of the conquest
of the Canaanites ...
God’s people entering the
Promised Land ... the
elect displacing the
damned.
74. From Eusebius:
[Constantine] said that about noon, when the day was
already beginning to decline, he saw with his own eyes the
trophy of a cross of light in the heavens, above the sun, and
bearing the inscription, CONQUER BY THIS. At this sight
he himself was struck with amazement, and his whole army
also, which followed him on this expedition, and witnessed
the miracle… [That night] in his sleep the Christ of God
appeared to him with the same sign which he had seen in
the heavens, and commanded him to make a likeness of
that sign which he had seen in the heavens, and to use it as
a safeguard in all engagements with his enemies.
75.
76. 76
“In hoc signo vinces”
IN THIS SIGN CONQUER?
CONVERT BY THE SWORD?
DOMINATE?
COLONIZE?
ASSIMILATE?
INVADE AND OCCUPY?
KILL?
TERRORIZE?
77. From Eusebius:.
At dawn of day he arose, and communicated the marvel to
his friends: and then, calling together the workers in gold
and precious stones, he sat in the midst of them, and
described to them the figure of the sign he had seen,
bidding them represent it in gold and precious stones. And
this representation I myself have had an opportunity of
seeing.
79. “Now it was made in the following manner. A
long spear, overlaid with gold, formed the
figure of the cross by means of a transverse
bar laid over it. On the top of the whole was
fixed a wreath of gold and precious stones;
and within this, the symbol of the Saviour's
name…”
81. This spear-cross was further adorned with an embroidered banner that featured the
emperor and his family. The finished product, Eusebius said, “presented an indescribable
degree of beauty to the beholder.” He added, “The emperor constantly made use of this
sign of salvation as a safeguard against every adverse and hostile power, and commanded
that others similar to it should be carried at the head of all his armies.”
Eusebius, it should be noted, would be considered more of a propagandist than a historian
in the modern sense. For more on Constantine’s life and work, see James Carroll,
Constantine’s Sword: The Church and the Jews—A History (New York: Mariner Books,
2001).
82. The violent cross of Caesar
The nonviolent cross of Christ
The violent cross of Constantine
Which Cross?
83. 1 Cor 1
For the message about the cross is
foolishness to those who are perishing, but
to us who are being saved it is the power of
God... we proclaim Christ crucified, a
stumbling-block to Jews and foolishness to
Gentiles, but to those who are the called,
both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of
God and the wisdom of God. For God’s
foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and
God’s weakness is stronger than human
strength.
84. ... But God chose what is foolish in the
world to shame the wise; God chose
what is weak in the world to shame
the strong; God chose what is low and
despised in the world, things that are
not, to reduce to nothing things that
are, so that no one might boast in the
presence of God. (1 Cor.1)
87. Serve like this ...
Love like this ...
Reconcile like this ...
Transcend violence like this ...
88.
89. Islamophobia Today:
We should invade their countries, kill their leaders, and convert them to
Christianity. We weren’t punctilious about locating and punishing only
Hitler and his top officers. We carpet-bombed German cities; we killed
civilians. That’s war. And this is war.
- Ann Counter, National Review
Islam is something we can’t afford any more in the Netherlands. I want
the fascist Quran banned. We need to stop the Islamisation of the
Netherlands. That means no more mosques, no more Islamic schools,
no more imams.
- Geert Wilders, Dutch politicians
90. These people [Arabs and Muslims] need to be forcibly
converted to Christianity ... It’s the only thing that can probably
turn them into human beings.
- Michael Savage, syndicated radio host
Islam has attacked us ... The God of Islam is not the same
God.... Islam is a very evil religion. All the values that we as a
nation hold dear, they don’t share those same values at all,
these countries that have the majority of Muslims.
- Franklin Graham, Christian evangelist
91. Sound familiar?
From Martin Luther, “On the Jews and Their Lies” (1543)
They [rulers] must act like a good physician who, when gangrene has set in
proceeds without mercy to cut, saw, and burn flesh, veins, bone, and
marrow. Such a procedure must also be followed in this instance. Burn down
their synagogues, forbid all that I enumerated earlier, force them to work, and
deal harshly with them, as Moses did...
If this does not help we must drive them out like mad dogs.
-Martin Luther (On the Jews and Their Lies)
92. Elie Wiesel:
“All the killers were Christian….The Nazi
system was the consequence of a movement
of ideas and followed a strict logic; it did not
arise in a void but had its roots deep in a
tradition that prophesied it, prepared for it,
and brought it to maturity. That tradition was
inseparable from the past of Christianized,
civilized Europe.”
Quoted in David Stannard, American Holocaust: The Conquest of the New World (New
York: Oxford, 1992), 153.
93. Indigenous scholar Jack Forbes
writes, “The ‘cosmology’ or
‘world-view’ of a people is closely
related, of course, to all of their
actions. The world-view influences
actions and, in turn, actions tell us
what the world-view really is!”
Jack Forbes, Columbus and Other Cannibals (New York: Seven Stories Press, 2008), 20. Originally
published by D-Q University Press in 1979.
94. From this vantage point, Christianity has nothing – absolutely
nothing – to teach Indigenous people about how to live in a
good way on this land. In fact, Christians have only
demonstrated that there is something profoundly wrong with
the cosmology and worldview behind more than five centuries
of carnage—carnage that has yet to even slow down.
Christians have so much negative history and dogma to
overcome within their own tradition, I do not believe the
religion is even salvageable. The world is deep in the throes
of an ecological crisis based in Western economies of hyper-
exploitation. The planet will not survive another 500 years of
Christian domination.
- Waziyatawin, PhD, 2012
95. From this vantage point, Christianity has nothing – absolutely
nothing – to teach Indigenous people about how to live in a
good way on this land. In fact, Christians have only
demonstrated that there is something profoundly wrong with
the cosmology and worldview behind more than five centuries
of carnage—carnage that has yet to even slow down.
Christians have so much negative history and dogma to
overcome within their own tradition, I do not believe the
religion is even salvageable. The world is deep in the throes
of an ecological crisis based in Western economies of hyper-
exploitation. The planet will not survive another 500 years of
Christian domination.
- Waziyatawin, PhD, 2012
96.
97.
98. Can there be
... uniqueness without
supremacy?
... benevolence without
weakness?
... strength without hostility?
99. It depends on the stories we
tell ...
and the way we tell them.
100. The [future] will depend in large
measure on the prevailing stories
that shape our understanding….
Perhaps the most difficult yet
essential aspect of this work is to
change our stories…
- David Korten, The Great Turning, p. 20, 237
101. [Jesus] dedicated his life to
changing the prevailing stories.
- David Korten, The Great Turning, p. 20, 237, 261
102. QuickTime™ and a
TIFF (Uncompressed) decompressor
are needed to see this picture.
Ivan Illich (Austrian
former priest,
philosopher, social
critic, 1926-2002)
103. Neither revolution nor reformation can
ultimately change a society, rather you
must tell a new powerful tale, one so
persuasive that it sweeps away the old
myths and becomes the preferred story
…
104. … one so inclusive that it gathers all the
bits of our past and our present into a
coherent whole, one that even shines some
light into the future so that we can take the
next step…. If you want to change a
society, then you have to tell an alternative
story.
- attributed to Ivan Illich (Austrian former priest,
philosopher, social critic, 1926-2002)
109. O God, whose love makes us
one family,
May your unspeakable
Name be revered.
110. Here on earth may your
commonwealth come … on
earth as in heaven may your
dreams come true.
111. Give us today our bread for
today.
Forgive us our wrongs as we
forgive.
112. Lead us away from the
perilous trial,
Liberate us from the evil.
113. For the kingdom is yours and
yours alone, the power is yours
and yours alone, the glory is
yours and yours alone, now
and forever. Amen. (Hallelujah
… Amen)
