Hardly know where to begin unpacking this... From Douthat's use of the word 'liberal' in the most outrageously general, and toxic terms, implying they're all the same, and that they comprise a sort of conspiratorial anti-Christian super-power - a notion which smacks of anti-Semitic tropes in a big way, to where he says:" It’s true conservative Christians in the United States can fall into a narrative of martyrdom that doesn’t fit their actual position, true that the presidency of Donald Trump attests to their continued power..." "On the other hand the marginalization of traditional faith in much of Western Europe is obvious..." "...and the trend in the United States is in a similar direction — and residual political influence is very different from the sort of enduring cultural-economic power that a term like “privilege” invokes." Residual political influence? Not real privilege? Uh, most of the the Supreme court is male, white, and Catholic. Also a huge swath of our entire govt. The pres. and his minions never stop referring to their bibles as they seek to curb civil rights of those they dislike or disagree with. They use a disingenuous narrative of Christian suffering, much like this one, to excuse themselves. American Christians have very little in common with global minority Christian groups who struggle. Such a position is insensitive and nearly laughable - or would be if it were not so fundamentally dishonest.
28
Remember the the lost boys of Sudan? Their villages were burned and parents murdered because they were Christians. Yet this wasn’t talked about.
11
Very good Ross. Many on the left need to go to school on the following quote from your column.
“It’s true that conservative Christians in the United States can fall into a narrative of martyrdom that doesn’t fit their actual position, true that the presidency of Donald Trump attests to their continued power (and their vulnerability to its corruptions!). On the other hand the marginalization of traditional faith in much of Western Europe is obvious and palpable, and the trend in the United States is in a similar direction — and residual political influence is very different from the sort of enduring cultural-economic power that a term like “privilege” invokes.
But if the equation of traditional Christianity with privilege has some relevance to the actual Euro-American situation, when applied globally it’s a gross category error.”
7
When the federal government closes for national holidays and for at least one of your holidays (e.g., Christmas) but a holiday of, literally, any other religious faith, you’re not amongst the persecuted.
15
I have just returned from another trip to Africa to visit and support churches there. Getting out of my bubble helped me see what I already knew to be true. By a wide margin, most Christians in the world are poor, are people of color, live very difficult lives and are often in danger because of their faith. Political movements in the West are of no notice to them.
Yes, Christianity as a cultural phenomenon in the West tells a different story over the past 500 years. But the West isn't the world and 500 years isn't 2000 (and many positive movements in the West came from the church - probably a minority position in the Western church, even so, it is still the church).
We are the exception, they are, and have been, the rule.
18
From what I have seen, Christianity has been a major force in the rise of homophobia, xenophobia and misogyny in our country over the past several decades. Persecuted? No. Persecutors? Yes.
27
Samuel Huntingdon, of course, was absolutely correct. The clash of civilisations is bloody and most often involves Islam, as he points out in his book.
Christianity is correctly seen as part of Western Civilisation, as are Coca-Cola and 5-star hotel chains, and those were the targets of the Islamists in Sri Lanka.
2
Christians aren't persecuted in the US, but I feel they are trying their best to persecute the rest of us by forcing their beliefs into the public square. I wish they would follow the example set by the Amish.
28
Any "minister" who denies the atoning sacrifice and resurrection is not Christian. THey may be a minister, but not of Christianity. St. Paul said it clearly, if there is no resurrection, there is no hope--we are pitiful then. The gospel--the good news--is that our sins are forgiven due to someone else taking wrath/death in our place and rising from the dead to show his sacrifice was acceptable and he won victory over death. So, any minister that says there is no resurrection might as well just drop the collar and go off and be an atheist. Seriously. They are not followers of the Nazarene.
6
This is the first time I heard about attempts to add a "secular and cosmopolitan" character to a revamped Notre Dame. In all likelihood, lone voices calling for such a change are being deliberately amplified by Christian extremists to sound a false alarm. I posit that most non-Christians who admire the Notre Dame would be very disappointed if it lost its Christian identity.
Douthat's fundamental question focuses on whether Christians are "privileged or persecuted." The truth lies between both extremes, with hyperbole trying to nudge it to the "persecuted" column.
5
Christians are geniuses.
Christianity is THE ONLY RELIGION where a man can commit almost any crime (as long as he is a white man), no matter how horrific it is, the man can then say he repents and that God has forgiven him (Jesus has carried away his sin), and the forgiven man may even receive a standing ovation from his fellow Christians for his "courage."
30
I think Douthat doth protest too much, or else has certain knowledge that Notre Dame will be built as something more secular. As a Jew who thinks Paris is exquisite, I'm hoping it will be reconstructed as it was, except with a frame made of inflammable materials and with a behind-the-scenes structure designed to prevent a repeat of this tragedy. I would be shocked to find that the average person, regardless of how he/she feels about religion does not share my concerns.
8
One would guess that access to Sri Lanka for these bombers was significantly easier than say Europe or America so these unfortunate Sri Lankans became the victims. I don't think that this had anything to do with Western liberal views of Christianity.
Sorry that as a catholic you are feeling the "poor mes" Ross but someone else died on the cross already.
9
Christians love the idea of victimhood so much that even when they constitute the ruling majority they still see themselves as victims of the system they have more control over than anyone else.
22
I have read articles about Trump being "Ordained by God." That has me really worried because if I am truly devoted and gain admission to heaven maybe Trump will be there ahead of me and has pushed God aside, therefore receiving the adulation of the millions of true believers for eternity.
Eternity is a long time to be on one's knees with forehead to the ground and worshipping a cretin.
9
Despite the complicated relationship between Christianity and Western imperialism, somehow the true message of Christ - love of God and neighbor, humility, forgiveness, and compassion for the poor still live on in Christians around the world. "In the world you will have persecutions," Jesus taught. For those who follow the model of the one who "emptied himself of all but love," they are the inevitable consequence of faith.
4
Today, in Saudi Arabi, many were executed. Amnesty International says executions targeted restive Shia Muslim minority.
All over the mideast, Sunni oppresses Shia. Shia majority in other places (Iran) suppresses Sunni)
Kurds, Jews, Christians are persecuted.
Sad.
Perhaps one day, minorities, gays, atheists, Christians, Jews, and women's rights will be upheld everywhere. Why are we so tolerant of the intolerant?
8
There are three terms needed. You only list two (privileged and persecuted). You left out "wrong"--as in the case of the strong Evangelical support given to Donald Trump.
5
Christians are persecuted all over the middle east.
Coptic Christians in Egypt, other Christians all over including in the West Bank. It's awful.
Sometimes, I feel that we being asked to be tolerant to the intolerant. Ignore the extremists in Islam and the degradation of women in many countries in the Arab world. Tolerance for the intolerant, is going too far, in my humble opinion.
Christians, Jews, Kurds, gays, women, atheists.... may their rights be upheld in all places in the future
6
In his attempt to assert that murdered Sri Lankan and Coptic Christians are casualties of western liberalism coming to terms with its Christian heritage, Douthat has made a mess of his argument. Didn't Jesus teach that the inside of the cup must be cleansed first? Isn't that what liberalism coming to terms with its roots entails? Douthat wants to pluck the mote out of the liberal eye, but his overreach makes him seem something of a blind guide himself. Isn't the real danger to humanity the sectarian arrogance that elevates tribal good above the universal? That is the first consideration. Secondarily, we may wonder whether some measure of that same condemnation attaches itself to the liberal inclined to make atheism an article of faith in western thinking?
2
Serene Jones asks questions and applies thought. Mr. Douthat relies on dogma and blind obedience.
9
Ummm. The Founders, because many of them came (or escaped) from societies that persecuted "Christian" beliefs that were different from theirs, worked hard to separate religion from governance. You, Ross, have conflated that with "LIBRULISM" - atheism in disguise - which is trying to destroy all religion. There certainly are those around.
As a recovering Catholic, I'm pretty sympathetic to dumping all religions, considering how much damage "True Believers" with the "ONE TRUE WORD"(TM) have done. But as Francis has said, "Who am I to judge?" Believe what you want, but don't impose your beliefs on me or anybody else. If that's LIBRULISM, make the most of it.
5
I've skimmed the Comments for this article, and have found very few written by any Christian from the Middle East or Asia. My family are Assyrian Christians. My grandparents fled what is now Iran during the Armenian Genocide (in which hundreds of thousands of Assyrians and Pontic Greeks were also murdered because of their faith, Christianity). What I find literally astounding is the hypocrisy of American Christians, especially Evangelicals or the "Religious Right". They pour tens of millions of dollars into Israel annually, all of it earmarked for Israeli Jews, and none for Israeli Arabs, many of whom are Christian. the Religious Right trumpeted their Christianity through Dubya and his disastrous war in Iraq, and in so doing, walked away from more than a million Chaldean and Assyrian Christians in that country, most of whom have had to flee now that Iraq is clearly an Islamic state. Have any of these Evangelicals reached out to help any Iraqi Christian? No. Evangelicals, and their presidents (Dubya and Trump) are content to let them die. They have turned their backs on communities which are among the oldest Christian groups in the world. My ancestors were practicing Christianity several hundred years before it reached Europe. So I find Mr. Douthat's thesis faulting the Left disingenuous, at best. The fact is, the Right, with their Evangelical Christian base, has done far more harm to Christians outside the West than the Left has ever done.
20
It's waaaay past time to stop treating conversations about religion as "intellectual. It's sports, fantasy, unicorns, belief, and all other nonsense. Let's get real and stop the idiocy.
10
@twill Shutting down the discussion with prejudice won't win the argument. It will lose it.
2
The author states, "But an ancient, famous Catholic cathedral is instinctively understood as somehow the common property of an officially post-Catholic order, especially when the opportunity suddenly arises to renovate it."
However, Notre Dame is not currently owned by the Catholic Church, and has not been for more than 100 years. Notre Dame has been property of the French State since the loi du 9 décembre 1905 concernant la séparation des Églises et de l'État was passed in 1905.
13
Since the beginning of the Enlightenment, Christianity has been on a journey towards enlightenment.
The journey has been enforced by the ascendency of science; growth in the number of people who choose not to be religious; the appeal of humanism and the recognition that perfectly fine moral codes are available outside the structures of archaic religious textbooks.
The prime remaining sin of Christianity is its failure to respect the human rights of LGBTQI people and to this end verses such as:
“If a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination; they shall surely be put to death; their blood is upon them. (Bible, Leviticus 20:13)”
should be declared hate speech and edited out of the Bible.
Such hate speech creates a definition of “otherness” and then the overarching ideology validates the persecution of “other” human beings.
Even this atheist, humanist, science-oriented critic of religion finds much to admire in the best teachings of Jesus, and for all its historical problems, there is hope that Christians will be courageous enough to evolve their religion to be more relevant and acceptable in modern society.
In contrast another religion is happy that homosexuals in Brunei be stoned to death.
Liberal academics and journalists given to criticising “white western Judeo-Christian scientifically-enlightened liberal democratic civilization” are traitors who fail to acknowledge the true depths of the depravity that exists elsewhere.
3
I have no doubt that if Mr. Douthat were part of the Sanhedren, in Jesus' day, he would claim of Jesus, [he's]" another distilled example of the combination of repudiation and co-optation...." of our faith.
2
"....and when our children ascend in joy and safety to our altars..."
Perhaps Ross Douthat might rent "Spotlight" and also check to see who's standing at that altar before he encourages any children to ascend to it.
5
Are Christians privileged or persecuted? I would say persecuted if you are a Catholic with bishops and priests who abuse not only small children but also nuns.
4
I think that Douthat wisely points out the silliness of the "privilege" arguments, and the problems facing changes in Christian beliefs and ritual. Religion is crucial to maintaining moral standards, as long as it is not abused by an evil minority to undermine them.
I believe that he realizes that we are all in the Islamists' crosshairs.
One slight correction: Israeli Arab Christians [and Moslems]have extraordinary life opportunities and full freedoms, and most realize it. There is a minority of Christians who have imbibed the Moslem jihadist propaganda.
1
Whatever is he talking about ?
Murderous thugs kill hundreds of Catholics in Sri Lanka and this is because liberal thought and political correctness have destroyed our humanity and years of religious tradition ? And some lady at the Union Theological Seminary dares to question whatever it is that Mr. Douthat believes ? Oh the horror !
We don’t need to enumerate all the terrible things done in the name of religion but against all that is that tiny grain of a commandment to love our neighbor as ourselves and that is more powerful than any hand wringing columns by such as he. And yes, Mr. Douthat, that includes loving us liberals !
10
This rather opaque column seems to issue from someone who is caught up in his own religious beliefs and struggling to make sense of how they morally fit into international culture.
It's actually very simple. A liberal view of religion starts with the belief that everyone everywhere has the right to their own religious beliefs — people will think what they think, and this cannot be stopped despite social and political pressure.
Any action that oppresses or assaults any religious belief, Christian, Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu, Shinto, whatever, is morally wrong. End of discussion.
The growing Christian Sharia movement in the US please take note. You can't legislate belief. Attempting to do so is futile, and always backfires.
14
It's really simpler. In every place in the world where the dominant religion believes that it is the "true" religion and all others are false there will be some persecution of the minority religions. The problem, as Gibbon pointed out, is the belief that there is a true religion is guaranteed to cause conflict. Polytheists and pagans often don't have this problem because they can see "new" gods as aspects of the things they already worship. Obviously, e. g. Hindu (majority)/Muslim, this isn't universal.
The author combines a needless level of abstraction with sesquipedalian language to create a conceptual smokescreen.
3
One suspects that the more fundamental root of the endless sufferings and issues outlined and discussed by Mr. Douthat lies in the exploitation of the human spiritual archetype, specifically by men, to form and deploy organized religions in order to secure power, wealth and prestige thus leading seemingly inevitably to the historically documented conflicts among the men leading these religions to conflicts to achieve dominance through violence and war.
5
@Rob
As Napoleon said, religion is the only thing that keeps the poor from killing the rich.
4
In this country, the answer is obvious. If you are not Christian, you are deemed less than those who are. This is at the very heart of Christianity and most other religions - their practitioners know "the way" while others are "lost" and need to be saved.
7
It continues to amaze me that thoughtful, smart people spend so much time wringing their hands over religion. We should be way beyond that in the process of evolution, but seem to be stuck in the dark ages as to whether religion or faith should be a topic of discussion in the political/governance realm. What happened to the separation of church and state. Let's get real.
3
A very astute column. The great fire at Notre Dame brought forth the great contradiction between liberalism and Christianity. The French are almost atheists and the liberal outpouring of grief and outrage is not surprising. The French Government did not take over the Notre Dame being Christian but for taking care of something priceless which happens to be symbolic of Christianity.
There has been clash of civilizations ever since missionaries decided to convert indigenous populations into Christianity while helping them. That is especially true when there is existent strong cultures like Islam or Hinduism. And since these missionaries came from the West so did the idea of Christian West.
2
I'm interested in Mr. Douthat's use of the term "Christian heritage."
I'm an atheist whose values are strongly influenced by the Christian gospel funneled through a Catholic education. It taught me that of all the virtues the greatest was Charity. Yet the operators of the Inquisition and its Protestant equivalents were products of the same Christian tradition. Martin Luther's anti-Semitic writings were used to justify the Holocaust.
Muslims, Buddhists and others seem to have the same experience, clumping into groups that draw utterly different conclusions from the same traditions and source materials. What is our "Christian heritage?" What is their "Muslim heritage?" Is there such a thing? Or is it all simply raw material that we make of what we will?
We read our sacred texts through the lens of culture, politics, economic interests and our own personalities. What we bring to the books is as important as what's in them. Our Christian heritage is infinitely malleable as is the "Islamic heritage." Politics defines religion as surely as religion defines politics.
If I tell you that a man claims to be a Christian, or even a Catholic or a Baptist, have I really told you anything about him? I think not. The same with a Muslim, Jew, Hindu, or atheist. We employ these labels to very bad effect.
4
I am both liberal and Christian, who believes in the Apostle's Creed 100%, is a faithful churchgoer, and am a retired history professor. And because of that last fact, I can say without hesitation that Christianity is not persecuted in the Americas (North, Central, and South), much of Africa, and most of Europe.
In the US, we have never had a non-Christian President; it's very hard for a non-Christian to attain any political office in this country, and when they do - they get an extreme amount of attention, often negative. The only religious days that are Federal holidays are Christian. Now yes, black churches get fire-bombed and white supremacists go in and shoot up black churches, but that's because they're black, not because they're Christian. Often the white supremacists doing such acts call themselves Christians.
For the average white Christian in America, the only "persecution" is that fewer people are showing up in the pews, and that the hard-line fundamentalists can't make everyone else in America believe / behave their way with regard to LGBT, women's reproductive rights, or whatever else is the issue of the week. Yet.
Meanwhile yes, in some places in the world - especially the Middle East, Central Asia, Russia, and China, Christians are persecuted. (Interestingly, the most persecution of Christians is in places that our current administration tries to curry favor with.) But not here.
12
It is a travesty of gigantic proportions that people are murdered, Christians, Muslims, Jews, etc. Period.
When religious fanatics think that their religious beliefs are the only way to believe, then they are obviously so insecure that the only way to ensure that theirs is the true Religions is to kill others not of their faith.
This problem is thousands of years old. It comes from ignorance and the claims that only one Religion is to be followed or the non-believer shall perish. We saw it in the Inquisitions, the Christian Martyrs that followed Jesus, etc. What Religions have not attacked other religions?
There is enough room in this world for many beliefs. However so long as the Leaders of the various Religions let go unpunished corruption in their own Religions, this will not change.
5
I thank you deeply for this article, Mr. Douthat. The tensions around Christianity are many and blurred in the U.S. As a former progressive Atheist and now an orthodox Christian active in various reform and advocacy movements, it's often disturbing to me to hear ordained leaders dismiss publicly the sacred text of our religion on very narrow, personal grounds. We all struggle with portions of the Christian Bible; it is still our sacred text, and I can't imagine a more destructive form of sabotage than to seek leadership in a group, then degrade its historical, formative document.
At the same time, there are privileges for Christians in the U.S. (especially Christians from White churches). We enjoy more education, more access to leadership groups, more public exposure and more trust than other religious groups, including Atheists (with the exception of the Academy).
The charges you bring against those who wish to deny the spiritual component of the heritage they claim and restrict is a bit broad. There is a huge difference between the religiously illiterate and the religiously literate. For example, NY Times' reporting on arrests of Christian pastors is years ahead of other papers'. The issue is that the general public is becoming decreasinly literate of religion in general, and Christianity was historically the leading form of religious knowledge.
5
One gets the sense reading this Douthat column that he sees traditional 'old time religion' Christianity & and its values - separate from everything else modern. Connected, but apart. Agnostic, technological, scientific and increasingly disconnected from the past and this faith.
I couldn't disagree more Mr. Douthat. "My Father's House has many rooms (john)." We are all God's, Earth's, Allah's and Mankind's fellow travelers friend. Those who look for unity and wholeness see the connections that looking for small differences does not. Thanks.
6
This opinion column is a good example of why I laugh every time I hear anyone say that conservative commentators have ideas or intellectual legitimacy. To explain it, all I need to do is replace certain terms and phrases in Mr. Douthat's column with their partisan counterparts. Replace "Western liberalism" with Western corporate "conservativism." Replace "Western liberal individualism" with "Western conservative individualism." And follow through, replacing every mention of liberals and liberalism with conservatives and conservatism. You get the idea. And see if Mr. Douthat's column doesn't make as much sense with the replacements as it does with his original wording. Actually, you'll see it makes more sense, really, because concepts such as individualism and laissez faire capitalism are embraced by conservatives, not by liberals, and originated from evangelical Calvinism, not from traditional Catholicism.
When I first started reading Mr. Douthat's column, I thought he was referring to Western liberalism in its original, 18th Century Enlightenment meaning. I was very disappointed, but not terribly surprised, when I learned that he was blaming me for this weekend's Muslim extremist bombings. I wonder if he'd also like us to think of the white nationalist who murdered those people in the mosque in New Zealand as a liberal as well. I wouldn't be surprised.
9
Global pressure on every side causes this angry chaos. Humans are evolved to live in small groups with a lot of wild land and space that eliminates feuding and for thousands of years there was space. But the world is getting smaller now and more crowded on every front and this is happening too fast for the naturally slow evolution of human thought to cope. The problem is, growth of human population is exponential and will only become faster until something exterior prevents that growth. Clmate change is one of those factors. The great pressures on all sides cause real suffering,chaos, wars. And wars cause the destruction and desicration of old gods and many world religions are stressed.
I was born in the 1930s and for most of my young years the world was not at all concerned with climate change and the desertification of the planet. Life was slower and more relaxed, although all this was gradually starting to happen unnoticed by most people. Now it is a major threat, along with climate events that wipe out farmland and kill animals and destroy cities. No wonder people are stressed. But
we have to learn to live with uncertainty and stress without turning into terrorists. It is better to band together to work for some positive result than to band together to destroy and hate. World religions all stress this, but humans distort the message to serve their own ends. Now this message is more important than it ever has been. We had better listen to it.
1
Ross, Absolutely: Christians in predominantly non-Christian countries suffer a great deal of violence and repression. Too bad you bury your point because you simply cannot help trying to cleverly bang on liberals. A few observations:
(1) Not only liberals avoid clash of civilizations talk. The US armed forces do as well. Whether or not Huntington is correct, the best chance we have to reduce the violence resulting from a clash is to emphasize that violence is not inevitable. I think you would agree that is a reasonable, even Christian, view.
(2) I know many, many political conservatives who strongly identify as Christian and yet do not baptize their children or ever attend church. I suspect they were mourning Notre Dame as much as the liberals you call out.
(3) You are aware, I am sure, that politically conservative evangelicals generally could care less about the great issues central to the early Christian churches. The Trinity, the humanity / divinity of Christ, the presence of Christ in the Eucharist, the Filoque, and even the Nicene Creed are silly anachronisms to most evangelicals. I do not recall you bemoaning your political fellow travelers as co-opting the church for their own purposes. Fifteen minutes ago evangelicals hated Catholicism.
I could go on, but space does not allow. I recommend taking some time to think about what led you to write such a poor column today when you main point is an important one to make.
5
To answer your implied question: no, Ross, you are not a martyr. Neither is any other Christian in America. You don't get to cover yourself in their blood.
And shame on you for trying to get political mileage out of this atrocity!
7
@Bill
You make his point. He's not claiming to be a martyr. Russ and I and many Catholics, including the Pope feel a visceral connection with the martyred Catholics of Sri Lanka. For me, and I suspect for Russ, that intimacy is greater than that with my fellow Americans. Maybe you don't like it. That's fine. But you have misconstrued what he wrote.
2
Mr. Douthat, you read into it too much: the problem is ethnic and religious nationalism. Minorities are being persecuted everywhere right now. It's sickening. Framing it in the global terms you do neglects the very local ways these racisms emerge and persist.
2
Terrific. "My myths are better than your myths, so let's all admire the religious significance of a Catholic Cathedral!"
2
So, Christians do not enjoy privilege (anymore)? I have great sympathy for Christians who are presecuted abroad. But I also have sympathy for the muslims and Sikhs persecuted in India. ANd everyone but Muslims persecuted in Pakistan. And everyone but Buddhists in Sri Lanka. Our asylum policies recognise only the Christian refugees. Why do you suppose that is?
Yes, the educated (my word for elite) generally shun conservative religion. But when was the last time you saw a girl on an american TV show choose an abortion? Never in my memory. You can’t listen to the news or watch TV for more than about 20 minutes without hearing the word “prayer”. The culture still genuflects toward religion as it does toward no other group.
I was raised a Catholic and was even an altar boy for a short period. As soon as I was old enough (around 14) to evaluate evidence and understand a littel about the world, I realised I was an atheist. I think it takes a lot of strength of mind to do this in the face of relentless religious talk in every form of media. It took me decades to be willing to say it out loud. We are just sick of the constant talk about your imaginary omnipotent friend.
9
Mr. Douthat's favorite punching bag - liberals - gets three hits by the 2nd paragraph: Western liberals (in the tag line under the headline), Western liberal individualism, and the Western world's political and cultural elites, of which last Mr. Douthat is definitely not a member even though he has a platform at the New York Times.
Notice that he doesn't go after extremism in all its iterations, the real culprit in Sri Lanka and back home in right wing terrorists, with and without hoods over their heads.
He'd have to include people he's pretty close to if he did that, you know, folks that want to impose their radical ideas of Christian Sharia Law on the rest of us. Ugh. But you know, liberals!
8
Christians living in western democracies are definitely privileged, while living with a strong complex of perpetual victimhood and sense of entitlement typical for dominant culture / race / demographic ("what do you mean I need to share my power and influence ?" what do you mean I can no longer claim special treatment and above the law status? that's discrimination!").
Christians in other areas of the world are in a separate and different category, and can be genuinely considered victims of persecutions. This persecution, however, is usually not limited to the 'religious' component and needs to be understood in much broader sense of culture and 'differentness,' so it cannot be claimed solely on religious grounds (that would be a false premise).
Here is your answer, Mr. Douthat.
3
I am a Canadian of Sri-Lankan origin, and a Catholic. This is one of the best articles about the West's indifference, if not outright neglect, of non-Western Christians and the lack of defense of their right to practice their faith in peace and harmony.
11
I found Mr. Kristof's interview more peculiar than fascinating. I am about as liberal a Catholic as they come, but I found her version of liberal Prtestantism strange. She seemed to knock down, one by one,almost every tenet of Christianity, even to the point of seemingly denying the existence of God outside of humanity. Rather, Dr. Jones appears to subscribe to the belief that God is creation of humanity rather then the other way around. If so, what's the point? One can justify ethical and moral behavior without the cloak of Christianity. Why the pretense, especially if you cut enough holes in the garment so that it is unrecognizable?
6
I really appreciate this column. As a Jew, I can see the same sort of "frenmity" (thank you, Ross!) creeping into the attitude of liberals towards many elements of Judaism and Jewish values (Michelle Goldberg, anyone)? But Douthat nails it when he starkly points out the disparate treatment by the press of the Sri Lanka and New Zealand attacks.
To wit, when white supremacists killed 50 in New Zealand, the Washington Post opinion section was rightfully replete with columns on the hideousness of those mosque attacks.
In Sri Lanka we have ~300 dead in an historically evil attack on Christians while they celebrated Easter, and of the six columns in the WaPo opinion section yesterday, five were on Trump and one was on Game of Thrones.
4
Too bad history carries soooo much baggage with it. All the old arguments seemingly preserved in glass to be dragged out and re-litigated over and over.
The older we get as a civilization, the more old wounds and grudges exist in the background. Everywhere you look there are wars and starvation and chaos and misery. I think that Trump with his everlasting grudges and insults has given free rein to grudges and old wounds worldwide. Everybody is now sensitized and angry and ready to fight over whatever issue is most prominent. I truly hope we are not in the early prelude to a third world war. If we are, it will be the last time for everyone. End of statemet.
Lets try to elect a sane and capable president next time, someone who can bring people together and inspire them to work together for the good of the whole country, and who at the very least will not try to destabilize the globe with angry and arbitrary, gut level level politics,
We have gotten too used to chaos, but
it should not have to dominate our lives..
2
Mr. Douthat's need to blame liberals in America for the bombing of Churches in Sri Lanka is an obscenity. It is bearing false witness against one's neighbor.
But it is not much different (a little less strident) than the false witness that Fox News and other right-wing propaganda organs have been spreading for years, violating the most fundamental Christian and humanitarian principles.
Ross, a mea culpa is in order.
4
I am an atheist and a liberal. I support freedom of religion. With that being said, I witness the bullying of Christian students daily on the college campus I work on by far-left students. I won't call them liberals because these bullies are not liberals, they are the far-left that have been hiding their regressive and hateful mindsets under the guise of 'progressiveism'
6
One man's 'repudiation and cooptation' is another man's progress. But for that progress, Catholics would still be persecuting Jews, killing Muslims, and selling indulgences. And it continues to be the case that the church must change or die.
No where is that more apparent than in the child sexual abuse scandals, where priestly authority was used as a cudgel to silence victims.
Christians are persecuted around the world, but there's a reason for that. More than any other religion, Christianity is proselytizing. They seek to convert the rest of the world to their beliefs. One consequence is that converts are religious minorities in a lot of countries.
But, particularly with respect to the Catholic church, being a religious minority doesn't stop them from seeking to impose their standards on the native societies. That conflict, it seems to me, is something Christians have agreed to accept when they accept their mission.
I'm not saying that either the proselytizing mission or the reactions to it are good things, but that's the way the world operates.
While I do not argue that in some regions of the world Christianity is a persecuted minority, it is hard to argue that the European Catholic tradition is somehow endangered by the secularization of Notre Dame. The attempt to equate Notre Dame to Mecca and the Golden Dome is hardly a fair equivalent. I would kindly ask the author to show me where in the Bible Jesus voyaged to the site of Notre Dame. It is not a site of religious historic importance for anything other than being a famous church constructed some 900 or more years after the time of Christ. There is a reason that Notre Dame is owned by the state and not the Church. It was the Church's pervasiveness and tight association with the aristocracy that saw the removal of the Church's influence in post-Revolution France. The Church is one of the great villains in post-Revolution literature. Even through Napoleon and the World Wars the separation of the state and Church has been a constant in France. To suggest that this is some new-fangled liberal attempt at erasing Christian iconography from Western Civilization is a bit of a stretch.
6
"Western civilization" and "Jedeo-Christian" were radicalized by the hard right, not the left. They turned those "banal" terms into code for white supremacy. "Western Civ" used to be standard fare in any college curriculum. But your side turned it into a curse word - by USING it as a curse word!
2
The historian, Philip Jenkins, explains that Christianity is 'moving south', that is shifting to the non-white world. 'Northern' Christianity has lost its teeth and the future fight will be between the Christian 'south' and Islam.
Blah blah blah. It’s actually worse than you think, Ross. This practitioner of contemporary liberalism does not believe Christianity is an irrelevant cultural possession. I believe it is a decidedly relevant, un-Christlike veneer over the worst kind of conservative absolutism. The difference between where the evangelical right and IS want to take us all is not all that great. If you want to blame the attacks on conservative religious ideology, have at it. But this does not lay at the feet of liberalism.
2
I got "religionphobia".
4
I count myself as spiritual but certainly not religious. IMHO it is religions which have been at the root of the problems of the world for eons. The "my God is better than your God" syndrome where persecution of the non-believer and many atrocities are done in the name of that God as happened in Sri Lanka.
Mr Douthat, I take umbrage with your opinion that liberals somehow were framing the tragedy of Notre Dame's near-destruction in their own terms. I had no thoughts about medieval torture as I watched in horror as flames were comsuming an architecturally beautiful, historical icon as did so many of my liberal friends. I was privileged to have visited Notre Dame, and was moved spiritually by its beauty.
I have no objection to anyone practicing his or her faith. What I do object to is allowing others' personal religious beliefs to intrude on my rights as a citizen. Whether Christians are privileged or persecuted depends on an individual's point of view and that individual's personal religious convictions. It also depends on the country you are living in, i.e. a theocracy. The founding fathers of this country very specifically wanted people to have freedom of and freedom from practicing religious dogma. How wise they were.
I do mourn the loss of the children and adults in Sri Lanka. It is a human tragedy.
1
What a silly question, although it's to be expected from Douthat. Christians are persecuted in some places, and privileged in others.
I find it interesting Ross fails to mention the most hated religious group in the US: none. Americans hate atheists more than they hate Muslims, and Americans really hate Muslims.
5
We know what happened to John Allen Chau. Let's stop trying to convert brown and black folks to Christians. Leave them alone.
1
What about the millions of American Indians forced to convert to Christianity. Should their sacrifice be remembered. What a blowhard. Christians are a pampered an increasingly a minority i the United Stated. Out tax system has also made them a increasingly rich pampered increasingly minority population in these United States. If people sat on front of their churches an called Christians flesh and blood eaters they would be horrified but when they screech baby killer people shrug. They also tell us the lying disgrace for a human Trump was anointed by god. All Religion is a danger to free Democratic societies.
the problem with all this is that douthat ignores, or maybe doesn't even notice, that western civilization is based on the rise of a secular society. it's that secular, non-faith based culture that spread around the world in the nineteenth century, not christianity. a lot of non-western cultures do not make the distinction, and to revert to that now seems to me to misunderstand the real strength of western thinking.
4
One of the things that makes reading conservatives like Douthat so frustrating is their disingenuous use of the term "traditional". They use this word to smuggle into their arguments the anti-historical premise that until very recently, basically everyone was in agreement with each other, and this situation of universal agreement had existed for a very long time - hence its attainment of the status of a "tradition".
Setting aside the straight-up dishonesty by virtue of which this imaginary "traditional" long-held-and-recently-lost consensus always happens to match their current conservative views, this is simply not true. Everything important has always been contested, including within Christianity.
You don't have to look into the past for more than a moment to see that the phrase "traditional Christianity in Europe and the United States" simply fails to refer.
Douthat's substitution of a contemporary resentment in place of historical fact is just as apparent in his monolithic use of the term "Protestant". Pro tip: almost no "Protestants" have ever heard of Serene Jones or the Union Theological Seminary. Put another way, megachurch evangelicals & the Amish really have nothing to do with each other, except in a certain kind of Catholic fever-dream. To set up Jones as a representative of "liberal Christianity" is a transparently cheap trick & if people like Douthat want to know why they feel left out of "elite" culture, they should look to moves like that for the answer.
3
I think persecution of Christian minority in the Third World is just that, the persecution of a minority. If we care to notice, the bullies are usually the majority -- Muslims in the Middle East, Buddhists in Myanmar, Christians in the West, and, Jews in Israel. Americans don't talk about Chritophobia because the bullies here tend to be the Christians, the conservative evangelical Christians in particular, who are willing to sell out our democracy to protect their dominance.
But even then, how do predominantly Islamic, Hindu or Buddhist countries come to have Christians, but through colonization and missionaries who aggressively and bullishly "spread" God's words and condemned the native cultures as evil?
Douthat often decried the modernization, hence, liberalization of Christianity as betraying its true values. But what are true Christian values? Is there anything more truthful to God's teachings than universal love and tolerance, which conservative Christians steadfastly reject, for anybody perceived as "others"?
In fact the problem with extremism of Islam is its refusal to modernize. Its literal, dogmatic interpretation of Quran leads to continued subjugation of women and "jihad" against "infidels." And that of Bible leads to subjugation of nonwhites and LGBT.
The bombings in SL were not persecution of Christians per se but revenge for a perceived persecution of Muslims in NZ. After all, hotels were also bombed, by a terrorist group with no moral standing no less.
3
I'm a college librarian and am all too familiar with writers taking a conclusion that's precious to their mindset and searching for arguments to prop it up. It's not a great way to write papers for your freshman classes.
Ross gets paid and paid well for it, and his efforts are lazier than what I've seen here at a community college. There's a huge push to secularize Notre Dame? Please show your sources.
7
I found it impossible to get through this because Mr. Douthat sprinkles the word "liberal" so, well, liberally, that I lost track of what it was supposed to mean.
Near as I can figure, it means "I think this is wrong, therefor it is liberal," and thus creates a grab bag of all that is wrong and bad and evil in the world and says it is "liberal."
Which of course means that he speaks the pure "conservative" thought, which is never wrong and always good.
And thus I could not read this.
2
I don't think this is so much a problem with American liberals. The victimisation of of Christians in other countries is largely ignored by the press, and Christians are now going through a period of persecution which makes early Roman persecution seem tame by comparison. Christians can be as concerned as you like about persecution in non-Western countries (as I am), but if the press doesn't take this persecution as seriously as it took (for example) the outrages against Muslims in New Zealand, you can scarcely blame Christians or liberals for this failure. (Read Pascal Bruckner's "An Imaginary Racism," Polity Press.)
Where is the outrage when churches are burned, and Christians are kidnapped (practically every day) in Western as well as other countries? Sure, some of it is used as grist to the right-wing extremist mill, but don't equate it with extremism. Should Islam not be criticised and held to account at all? I see very little evidence of it in the New York Times or the Washington Post or in the Canadian papers I also read. This is a daily occurrence. Often not reported because it would be interpreted as Islamophobia (a largely imaginary phenomenon, especially when people guard against anything that could possibly be construed as Islamophobia)? Christianity is subject of multiple criticisms, but criticism of Islam is unacceptable. Why? Until this is worked out, Christian persecution elsewhere will go largely unremarked. That's not fair.
5
“Sri Lanka church bombings stoke far-right anger in the West” ran the headline of a worried Washington Post “analysis,” as though the most worrying consequence of dead Christians in South Asia were angry conservatives in America.
I rarely agree with anything Ross says, but I am fed up. I am fed up with having to change the language so that no one is offended. I'm fed up with being able to defend my group (Christians) because my white privilege is showing. I'm annoyed that the left can't see the middle and invite them in unless they convert. It's not all about America, but we do control the media and this WP headline says it all.
3
"On the other hand the marginalization of traditional faith in much of Western Europe is obvious and palpable, and the trend in the United States is in a similar direction ..."
Good. Traditional faith is superstitious nonsense and should be marginalized. It has no place in serious discussions. It should exist only at the margins. It needs to be understood as allegory. Otherwise one must develop a perverse ability to ignore the many points on which the multiple biblical testaments are just plain wrong. There is no parsimony in such delusions. Out. Out.
3
Douthat says - "Christians around the world are persecuted on an extraordinary scale — by mobs and pogroms in India"
A cursory search yielded:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_violence_in_India#Statistics
Sample from the wikipedia article: "Over 2013, 107 people were killed during religious riots (or 0.008 total fatalities per 100,000 people), of which 66 were Muslims, 41 were Hindus."
So none were Christian. Is Douthat making things up?
1
This column is just offensive. Ross: stop looking for every tenuous chance to bash liberals.
American Christians of any stripe are not guilty of these deaths--terrorists did this. Islamist terrorists who want to destroy the world order, along with anybody who disagrees in any way with their nihilistic version of religion.
American Christianity covers a wide and divergent range of beliefs. And it always has. I for one am glad to see some liberal Christians in the USA trying to reclaim the church from the nasty culture warriors who want to weaponize religion to promote policies that are cruel. (Looking at you, GOPers.)
This does not address the problems of Christians living overseas as persecuted minorities. It's actual possible to have US problems that are not global.
This sort of US-centrism makes us think it's all about us in some way (as Ross clearly does) and it's sort of narcissistic.
5
Much of this mess comes from people indulging in sad, tribal-like generalizations about "others", which is the basis of hatred for groups and people - whether racist, sexist, sexual-preference-ist, etc. There is a lazy tendency of homo sapiens to see a trait in a human, especially an "other", and generalize that trait to others in that perceived group. Having the disciplined thinking to never do that, which is essentially what MLK Jr. called for in the I Have A Dream speech, is essential for us to get beyond race, religion and other divisive groupings so people can truly be judged just by the content of their character. People need to understand that if somebody is creating an "other" mentality in them, they need a fight or flight response, with zero acceptance of that type of thinking. Nobody wants this type of thinking applied to themselves, so flushing it out of our thinking is living The Golden Rule. Time to respect and love individuals and end our conflictive tribal groupings about people. We have far too much work to do together to preserve the planet's habitability.
1
Treating Muslims with respect in our largely Christian society as opposed to declaring some kind of war and resistance is not a form of abdication, but a powerful example against persecuting Christians abroad.
2
Anyone who has any doubt that Christians are persecuted need look no further than these pages. I've read so many comments ridiculing the most sacred tenets of Christianity ("Jesus the flesh-eating zombie," etc.), but no one, and I mean not literally one person, has ever said anything remotely profane or blasphemous about Islam. (Nor should they.) Suddenly all the swagger and snark about religion goes away. It's almost as if someone--or something––put the fear of God in them.
8
Uh oh, Ross is discussing persecution of Christians and a clash of religions. Soon there will be a social media push to get him fired.
Anytime people start arguing, and then insisting on the primacy of one fantasy over all others bad things happen. Make the world a safer place. Keep your fantasies to yourself.
1
As usual, I finish reading a Douthat piece thinking, "So glad I am not a theist!"
2
Privileged.
2
A list of privileges that christian people enjoy in America:
https://projecthumanities.asu.edu/content/christian-privilege-checklist
As far as persecution in other countries- yes, christians in this country, while enjoying extensive privilege, are always complaining about being persecuted, while they blatantly and without remorse persecute LGBTQ people and women, and sexually abuse children. And christians wonder why progressives are skeptical of them???
2
I applaud Mr.Douhat's moral courage and intellectual clarity. Christians living outside the West are going through difficult times - especially those dwelling in Muslim-majority societies. More should be done for them. For some reason, some minorities are "cool" but not others. Yes, Islamophobia is real and should never be condoned. But who suffers more: a Muslim in New York or a Copt in Cairo? We cannot - and should not - in the name of defending the former turn a blind eye to the ongoing ordeal of the latter.
10
Religious minorities are under threat in many countries, whether they are Christians (of one sort or another), Muslims (of one sort or another), Buddhists, Hindus or whatever. We should stand up for all of them. The idea that we have a disproportionate obligation to take heed of Christian persecution links back to the "Christianity = The West" mindset that Douthat criticizes.
As for Notre Dame, of course it's more than a Catholic symbol. It's also a symbol of French history (which once was Catholic and is now multicultural), the French soul and the transcendent power of art.
5
A major flaw here, and a very telling one at that, is that Mr. Douthat fails to recognize that not only Christians were killed in Sri Lanka. Of course, several churches and shrines were targeted. But so were hotels, and non-Christians died also. When Pence and Douthat turn a tragic event into a talking point about the persecution of Christians, they reveal that the deaths of other people matter not at all to them.
4
It isn't "The West" that is treating Notre Dame as a symbol divorced of Catholicism, but the French people who have collectively rejected the merger of religion and nationalism. If you have a gripe about that, take it up with them.
But the overall tone of the article is alarming. Just exactly what does Douthat expect the West to do, declare war on those who persecute Christians beyond their own borders? Is that not a bulldozer tearing down the vaunted wall of separation between church and state?
There isn't a SINGLE religion on the planet whose people are not persecuted in one form or another. Maybe instead of starting wars that perpetuate the hate, what we need are more institutions that bring people of diverse religions together like the Parliament of Religions.
The Parliament has met frequently, but gets no coverage because people, including Douthat are more concerned about the supremacy of their own religion than in the peaceful coexistence of all.
2
This column reminds me of the annual Christmas time ritual on Fox News where they complain how un-American it is to say “happy holidays” instead of “merry Christmas,” and belly ache about how secular the season has become—even as the streets are bedazzled in red and green and Christmas carols rain down on you from the lampposts without mercy or solace (that it has been commercialized is not their concern). To this reader, Mr. Douthat’s wariness seems similarly disproportionate, as if anything short of Christian hegemony equates to persecution.
4
Ross,
Your analysis, particularly in casting the issue as "liberal elites" who simultaneously embrace and reject Christianity misses the mark entirely.
While you're right that the "elites" will profess to be themselves Christian, the line secular people draw which you do not is between faith as a personal matter and faith as a societal and culture (to say nothing of political) institution.
The "liberal overclass" has zero interest in policing your personal faith, and often has personal faith of their own. The controversies you mention are always men like you invoking their faith to police the behavior of others. The "elite overclass" will not embrace your use of Catholicism as a cudgel to enforce your sense of what god demands on women's bodies, or on who can marry whom, or to discriminate.
And the way you can tell you're not the "victims" of any of those controversies is that the controversies are never about whether you get to practice your faith in the privacy of your home. They're about whether you get to practice your faith upon others.
And that secularism is far more part of "Western Civilization" than asinine invocations of "Judeo-Christian values".
Nowhere have you been "marginalized" in Europe or the U.S, except in that you are no longer always granted the authority to inflict your morality on other people. But the end of the Christian Mutaween is not the same thing as being marginalized.
9
In America and Europe and Latin America, the answer is: Most definitely privileged.
Thought because that privilege is so normalized and so insidious, most even nominally Christian people tend not to recognize just how and how often they and Christianity is favored.
1
How does Ross believe something happened in Sri Lanka? Correct believe because there is zero evidence?
This reminds me how, on the thread I frequent on a different forum, the first thing people (let's be honest: "progressive" liberals) thought, after "maybe it wasn't muslims, maybe it was Tamils" is "I hope this doesn't result in islamophobia." There is a perennial need to signal to other liberals just how accepting and open they are to Islam, and anything or everything is on the board to be sacrificed in pursuit of that higher, most noble and progressive call.
6
Christians can't be grouped under a singular umbrella. Christians controlling the GOP can. They are privileged with a persecution complex.
4
@Mike. How are they privileged?
Hate-filled zealots are to blame. The perpetrators are to blame, whether they attack Christians, Muslims, Jews, or any other group they hate.
I’m sure one could always concoct a convoluted case against an “other” of one’s choice.
Simply examine the vast expanse of the past and present of religion, philosophy, politics, race, ethnicity, and culture back to antiquity and beyond. And voila, there it is!
Let’s focus on where the guilt lies, not on some constructed set of circumstances; otherwise we lose sight of what’s happening right in front of us.
2
Most North and South American and European Jains, Sikhs, Baha'i, Jews, Druze, Buddhists, Hindus, Muslims, Zoroastrians, NeoPagans, Wiccans, Animists, Taoists, etc. are rolling their eyes after reading the title to your article, Ross.
6
Historical animosity toward Western Christianity is not fueling these attacks. They are rooted in recent events, conceived and executed specifically as retaliation for the New Zealand attacks. So put your post colonial theories of geopolitics and fever dreams about the Crusades aside. Those of you who are saying that the US and the West in general have it coming to them because, well, they started it, should be ashamed of your ignorance. Most of the people who were killed in Sri Lanka were Sri Lankans, not Westerners, so how does it make sense that this is payback for historical wrongs perpetrated by white Christians against nonwhite non-Christians?
3
Several years ago I gave up on Christianity. I simply couldn't stomach the profound level of hypocrisy that has invaded the mindset of the majority claiming this label. In this country, Christians are definitely privileged and the unprecedented influence within our government is frightening. Led by multi-millionaire white guys claiming to do "God's work", they have become the strong arm of the Republican party. And they are eerily beginning to resemble something akin to the Taliban as they aggressively pressure their dogma through legislation onto all us. I'm pretty sure this isn't God helping us.
3
Ross
I went to Bosnia with IFOR...Implementation Force of the U.S. Army to make the christians stop murdering the Muslims in Bosnia. The christians were shooting ducks in a barrel.
I was proud to help stop the christian genocide.
And then Bushyboy and his Dad announced the Crusade of the U.S. Army into the middle east to rid it of the Taliban and Saddam Hussein.
Then we roll back the newsreel and see the German "christians" being marched through the concentration camps by Eisenhower and Patton to show them where the "funny" smell was coming from. Of course they were clueless although their husbands and son were herding the Jews into the cattle cars and into the showers.
And we have the christian role in slavery and the present evangelicals lauding the president.
Humility and memory in christianity has the lifespan of a soap bubble.
And we won't get into the wars between the protestants and catholics. Whew.
Vietnam Vet
3
Mr. Douthat is a conservative Christian who displays great consistency in beliefs and message. I applaud that. I would much rather read Mr. Douthat than the condescending atheists who frequently grace the comment section of the NY Times. They offer nothing to nourish my spirit. On the other hand, the liberalization of Christianity was inevitable, is on-going and is based on the teachings of Jesus. Love God and love your neighbor seems a better belief system than the myriad of rules Mr. Douthat longs to follow.
@leakyboat
Atheists do not exist to 'nourish your spirit' or provide you with anything else you feel entitled to. May the Christians serve your demanding ego.
2
The aspect of Christianity that puts its adherents at grave risk in the areas where Christians are a minority is the obligation to proselytize non-Christians, an obligation grounded in the belief that there is only one door to attaining the grace of God.
3
I would assert that Serene Jones' position is as a Jesusonian, and not as a Pauline Christian. She is first a follower of the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth, and not of the miracle lore surrounding his ministry. There's nothing new here, social Christians have taken positions such as hers for over a century. Stories of slain masters, of physical resurrection, of virgin births, were common in the ancient world. That early Christians adopted these for their own crucified master should be seen in this light. Most contemporary New Testament scholars see it this way. Jones is right that Christianity is in a process of radical change, not unlike the Reformation. From priest sex abuse scandals, to right wing Christian political fomentation, the old order is getting transformed. I think she, and other social Christians like the Sojourners, are showing us an alternative to radical right wing Christian militancy on the one hand, and atheistic materialism on the other. Maybe a turn towards the pure teachings of Yeshua ben Joseph, and away from the story about him is what's needed now, an embracing of the idea of the brotherhood and sisterhood of all of us, a religion of love.
2
Judeo-Christian? Islam also directly inherited the Roman traditions and intellectual influences, and directly borders the Christian countries. Islam had direct influence on the development of both Christian and Jewish thought, whether from the Moors or the Ottomans, I think "Judeo-Christian-Islamic" is more appropriate. Ross, you need to read more history rather then just accepting a ticket and checking out.
2
"by mobs and pogroms in India, jihadists and United States-allied governments in the Muslim world, secular totalitarians in China and North Korea"
What??? Is this Ross Douthat being trying to be politically correct by slandering India? I defy him to give one example, just one example of a pogrom in the over 1,000 years that Christians have lived in India. The reality is that there is no hostility between Hindus and Christians, and the most powerful politician in the country is the head of the Congress Party, the Italian born Roman Catholic Sonia Gandhi.
3
The main problem that I have with this article is its subtle antisemitism/anti-Zionism in Douthat's statement "American-conservative support for Israel creates blind spots about the struggles of Arab Christians.", because it is false and misleading. Israel and American Jews, particularly,as well as Christian evangelists frequently cry out against Arab Countries' and Arab Muslims' mistreatment of their fellow Arab Christians, even while many in the media ignore such cries. In Israel, itself, Christians (including Arab Christians) are equally protected as are Muslims and Jews.
1
Ross, one thing you should understand is that Americans tend to have a “biology is ideology” attitude. Many Americans on both the left and the right tend to think of Christianity as, inherently, a religion of White Identity. I suppose the idea is that Jesus (who one would presume was a Semitic, Middle Eastern man) must have been a white guy who spoke English (or perhaps an earlier Germanic language that existed 2,000 years ago) and had white privilege. So when Americans hear that Christians in Sri Lanka have been massacred, the idea is that they must all have been privileged white people. Unfortunately, it’s through this distorted, racialized lens that Americans tend to view ideology — whether religious or secular.
Judging by looking at the Eye-for-an-eye scoreboard, the number of Muslims killed directly by Christians and Jews compared to the number of Christians and Jews killed by Muslims suggests that a lot more Christians and Jews will need to be killed by Muslims before the score is even. Peace by attrition is the second best way. My wager is that the game won't end until the last player is standing.
2
Persecuted or privileged? It depends on where you live. And my guess is that is true no matter what your religion is. Some parts of the world try to respect and remain neutral towards all religions, and some can only tolerate one kind of religious observance.
One of the tragedies of these horrific massacres in Sri Lanka is that they were coordinated as a response to the mosque massacre in Christchurch. But the NZ attack was done by one sick person, and NZ has completely rejected that man and all of his hatred. They have taken all kinds of steps to prevent that from happening again. They and the rest of the world have utterly condemned that mosque attack.
What we have now may look like a
deathly conflict between Christianity and Islam, but it is not.
It’s a conflict between psychopaths.
The psychopaths who are in ISIS and their imitators, and the psychopaths like the Lone Wolf in Christchurch, or other white nationalist terrorists.
They are labelling these massacres and trying to create a war from a certain narrative, but they are really just psychopaths.
1
I was listening to Maajid Nawaz discuss the comparison in Western reaction to the terrorist attacks on Muslim's in N Z and Christians in Sri Lanka. In the case of NZ he praised the leaders who robustly denounced the terrorist attack on Muslims while the case of SL, he found the tepid comments of leaders, especially Obama and Hillary where they avoided the words Christian and terrorists to be disappointing. He basically thought is was down to an unhealthy, post colonial guilt trip which does nothing to defend religious freedom and essentially gives tacit approval to terrorists by saying Christians deserved it. No one deserves it, be in Christians in Sri Lanka orEgypt, Saudi or Muslims in India, China or Burma. Actions such as these terrorist massacres require equal condemnation and robust action. To quote Maajid " "I've just named three global leaders from a Liberal (Obama and Clinton) and a Conservative (Mrs May) perspective after two respective terrorist attacks.
"One in New Zealand against my fellow Muslims and one in Sri Lanka against Christians who are at worship.
"As you can see from the tone, when it came to the New Zealand one, almost all of them mention that it was an attack against the Muslim community and it was a terrorist attack.
"Yet when it came to Sri Lanka, why say Easter worshipers?
"Why not come out straight away and say this is an attack against Christians?"
It is shocking that Western leaders cannot be honest with themselves or the public
4
There is one constant in modern conservative punditry: Constant whining. They have all been given permission by the so called president to whine about everything and anything. All the time.
As far as Douthat goes, if he didn't know all those big words he couldn't get a job writing parking tickets.
To my way of seeing these matters liberal Christians seem to want to emulate the teachings and actions of Jesus as it regards the treatment of our fellow human beings; social programs to help poor, hungry, out of work, injured, and sick people survive and maybe even prosper.
The right wing version of Christianity seems to stop at the pointing out the motes in everyone else's eyes. Judging people on who they love, the color of their skin, their economic and social ranks.
My old beloved uncle, a Catholic priest for 60 years thinks it time for his Church to get back to worshiping in catacombs; in people's homes; in their hearts.
The Christians I see harassing women at abortion clinics and waving their confederate flags around wouldn't recognize Jesus if they hung him on a cross.
2
Ross, Notre Dame, that homely, dark, solid Norman icon,
with a soul that is Catholic to Catholics, now, as usual for
many, is bigger than its founding theology, much bigger.
An atheist, that is, a person like me who is not theological,
gets a religious feeling from the cathedral, especially now
it is a hull of itself to be re-filled. Religion, Campbell's
"ground of being," the sense of sharing fate and history,
is bigger than any theology. Theology is what excludes us from one another, would change others to one way of thinking, goes by faith and excludes intellectualism. Sees
Jesus in mythological yearning, not as the radical social
changer that he was, a human being with yearning, a bit
crazy, as Kazantzakis wrote, but compelling for all that.
Notre Dame, in stress, brings us all together; it is not a
conventional situation. It is religious.
I applaud Mr. Douthat's willingness to dive into a discussion concerning the dichotomy of Christianity that has existed for centuries (if not for at least a millennium): Is Christianity the Faith of royal aristocracy and wealthy conquerors or the Faith of devoted martyrs and committed "saints." However, the answer is far simpler than his answer laced with politics and polemics. Christians are of course both "privileged and persecuted." And they are so, because the the sins of how Christianity was established, extended, and maintained makes them targets from those of other Faiths who were, and still are, treated as "Others" by Christians.
At some point, God willing, the Faiths of Abraham will realize that they worship the same God, and that the differences are incense and candles, holiday traditions, language and schedule of prayer etc. and true tolerance and appreciation of other Faiths will take hold. Until then a plague of bloodletting affects us all.
105
I love this comment and wish it to be the headlines of all the news papers for one solid week to make people realize that their respective faiths are really taking them into hell here on this earth and hereafter !
12
@alden mauck
Beautifully-put post.
As an ‘Other’ in United States culture, I was perfectly happy to leave well alone, to ‘live and let live’ — until some Christians appointed themselves moral arbiters and started pushing me into less than second-class status through culture wars and regressive legislation. What is so insulting is the victimhood they claim, using imagined harms as a rationale to inflict real harms on out-groups of which they disapprove.
Ross, your story is told through a very narrow view of history. Who is truly the Aggressor here? And why do you avoid acknowledging problems in Abramhamic theologies that contribute to disparities and violence?
I can understand the anger of other peoples subjected to this arrogant colonialism. I understand why they feel they need to rescue their cultures.
Alden, the reason why I like your post so much is that it leads us to a fundamental truth: we have to make room for everybody on this planet. We need to find a way to coexist through Consent and not Control.
30
@alden mauck
I wonder if this same analysis would apply to the politics of today. Religions seemed to have evolved into tribalism many years ago and now so have our political parties. I suspect this is just part of human nature; something that is built into us at birth.
6
Christians can be murderers the same as any other religion. Who do you think was gassing the jews in WWII? And yes, there are those who do want to murder.
1
All religions are both privileged in some locales and persecuted in others. Minorities get persecuted. It has always been that way, and, alas, always will be. Blame "original sin," if you wish. Whatever you call it, it's what Twain called "the damned human race" wherever you look, and no matter who's in the majority and who's not. Never forget Salman Rushdie's totally accurate remark in Midnight's Children that "Muslims are the Jews of Asia," meaning that in India, Muslims are a minority every bit as hated and in danger of being killed for their religion by the vast majority of Hindus as Jews in Poland were by Catholics before the Holocaust. The Palestinians don't feel very well treated by the majority Jews in their region either, do they? What a shock!
When a religion teaches that their adherents are going to heaven but everyone else is going to hell, there is going to be some push back. The Europeans claim we have killed a million innocent Muslims in our recent immoral wars. How sad, in this time of enlightenment.
I am 80 years old. I have gone through many different ideas on religion. Here is what I currently believe.
A psychologist once told me that a neurosis is a behavior pattern that once was useful, but over time has lost its usefulness or even become harmful. The classic example is sucking. When one is an infant, sucking is crucial. Later, not so much. If one begins to smoke in order to suck, it becomes harmful.
I think religion is a neurosis on two levels. When one is young, it is beneficial to have someone, parents, to advise on how to live even if you do not understand their reasoning. The neurotic behavior consists in wanting to have such an entity to tell you what to do even when you should be thinking and making your own decisions.
On a species level, when the human race was young, it was beneficial to believe in entities that provided some order into everyday events. Would the crops get enough rain? Would the neighbors invade? As the race progressed, we can figure out many of the things on our own, based on science, but many people hate to think or even to learn. So they rely on the same kind of myths their ancestors relied upon.
When I was younger, I was willing to give fundamentalist some slack, just as one gives sick people slack, but more recently I have seen people fly airplanes into buildings, deny my daughters needed medical care, teach lies in place of science and, in general, force others, to follow their medieval beliefs. I am no longer so tolerant
8
First, I join you in condemning religious violence. But, I question many of your arguments.
Clearly Western Civilization and Christianity cannot be pulled apart when reviewing history. But, the growing connections of a global community had best put Christianity in perspective for its own sake. Acknowledge that "Jesus" has been used to justify more death and carnage than any other "person" in history. This represents the exact opposite of his teachings, but the cynical manipulation of his "brand" by many church leaders. You must celebrate Trump as he perhaps best personifies a modern Borgia Pope. No doubt his morally crippled supreme court will damn our society with division in hopes of distracting us from the abuses of your Catholic Church. It won't. In fact, in using the courts, the Senate, the Electoral College and the Papacy (excuse me - in mean the White House) you champion a tyranny of the minority that will trigger radical change - hopefully, peaceful.
It is really time that you set out in search of the spirit of Jesus - a spirit with universal appeal - rather than focus upon corrupt institutions which attempt to exploit his name.
Mr. Douthat,
Please stop with the liberal vs conservatism view of religion, especially Christianity.
Christ was a radical thinker who upended the conservative views of both the religious and civic leaders of the time. They killed him for it. The current crop of conservatives have taken Christianity, made it no different than the what money changers and Pharisees in the Temple where up to. Conservatives insist that the state be a christian run organization to persecute the people for not thinking the right thoughts.
Make your religion live again through the ideals of Christ,
Do not follow the popes, the cardinals, the bishops and those who condone crimes within the church , getting powerful and rich while telling us what to believe.
Maybe then the slow steady encroachment of more enlightened thought wouldn't seem like such a threat.
2
I get it that there are people who want to impose their religious beliefs on non-believers.
Ross can’t seem to articulate why his version is not part of the problem.
3
The lack of self-awareness in this piece is astounding. I’m a gay man, meaning that in a majority of states I can be legally denied housing and work for my sexual orientation. Until recently most states made it permanently illegal for me to marry, and now there are efforts to grant exemptions from public accommodation laws based on “sincerely held religious beliefs.” Who has spearheaded those efforts? Christians. And those same Christians are the ones who scream “Persecution!” and “Hatred!” when I and others object to their efforts to impose their beliefs on the rest of us. Meanwhile, they’re also working hard to export their anti-LGBT hate abroad.
Maybe liberals and the media would be more sensitive to real persecution of Christians abroad if Christians here learned to stop persecuting others.
6
Ross went to a fancy school and found that his sometimes medieval theological views and desire to strip women and gay people of basic rights made him unpopular. Now, he wants to lump that experience in with the slaughter of several hundred Sri Lankan Christians to construct a story of Western liberal indifference to Christian suffering.
This is nonsense.
Some Western liberals consider themselves Christians and argue for their version of Christianity. Ross feels "erased" by this. He has similar snowflakey feelings about non-religious people contemplating a secularized Notre Dame even though there is no actual reason to think that this will come to pass. By some convoluted logic the Western liberal indifference to Ross's self-pity supposedly make it easier for Islamists to persecute Christian minorities.
Why doe this guy have this platform?
8
@Christopher "Why [does] this guy have this platform?"
It may be better than us not knowing about the existence of people who think like this.
There was nothing liberal about the missionaries or the colonialism that brought Chistianity to Asia. I'm surprised to see that word even used in this context.
1
Christian missionaries have historically spread the faith by bait and switch. They offered some benefit like medical care but were really interested in forcing the "good news" on their patients. They bribe kids with candies or promise of toys, but only if they listen to their hype. In the past, they just tortured people until they converted. Georgetown sold their Catholic slaves to a Louisiana plantation, but were concerned only with their continued attendance at Sunday mass. Historically, Christians have not been very concerned what happens after the baptism.
In this country, some Christians feel they are being attacked because everybody doesn't want to say their prayers at a town meeting or football locker room. Admittedly, it has gone too far when people are afraid to say Merry Christmas. People don't think about their position until it is attacked. Those who live far away, don't enter their thoughts at all.
1
Douthat does get himself in an intellectual tangle. Let's strip things down to basics, shall we? The Islamists bombed the churches because they were Christian. Just as the medieval Christians conducted the Crusades against Muslims. Western liberal ambivalence about Christianity is at heart ambivalence about religion itself, which seems to be the handmaiden of so much atrocity today and throughout history. Only with the irrational beliefs of religion can you convince someone that it's ok for the priest to touch you there, or that you will be in heaven immediately after detonating your vest, or that you should be obsessed about the bedroom habits of others. Humans don't need religion to be cruel to each other, but religion helps convince its adherents that God condones or even advocates cruelty, and any doubts on their part are a failure to perceive Divine Will. It is the sign of Christianity's continued dominance of Western culture that so few people are willing to admit this publicly.
4
What is bizarre is how Americans equate Christianity with "Bible-thumping evangelists", as is evident in many comments.
Projecting their experience onto other countries.
In Canada, the majority religion is Catholic, and liberal denominations are the majority of Protestants, as is the case in most of Europe. Evangelicals are a small minority without much influence.
So I for one don't equate Christians with evangelicals, and statistics prove me right.
According to the Pew Research Center, 1/3 of the world's population is Christian, and half of those are Catholics, 37% Protestants, and 12% Orthodox.
Of Protestants, fewer than 40% are evangelicals. So about 12% of all Christians are evangelicals.
So, equating Protestant evangelicals with Christianity is just plain wrong.
Please stop projecting your assumptions onto the rest of the world!
12:35 pm
1
I lived and worked in the Middle East for more than twenty years, and travelled around it quite a bit. My largest sympathies are with the Coptic Christians in Egypt, North Sudan, and Syria.
Islamic fundamentalists are working hard to drive them out.
Those who reside here with us live in constant fear for their relatives at home.
I believe the situation of violence against Christians in India is more complex and that rivalries of many types are cast as religious, when in fact they are multi-fraceted.
We, here, should all be grateful for the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, and for Theodore Roosevelt, who had the wisdom to dig the Panama Canal, all three of which when combined, ensure that we have a moat around us that keeps the rest of them away from us.
Our immigration policy needs careful thought and attendent maintenance. The one kind of immigrant that we do not want, is someone who wants to make our nation more like the place they just came from.
Most of the rest of the world, is not a place some who is raised with American values will wish to live.
2
Hmm, Ross, let's just talk about privilege and persecution among U.S. Christians.
Seems to me the truth of the matter is that if you are a black or brown Christian, Asian too, you are not persecuted for your religion but you are most definitely persecuted and discriminated against for the color of your skin. I mean Blacks were killed in THEIR Church in South Carolina a few years ago and little girls in a church in Mississippi that galvanized the civil rights movement.
And the persecution and discrimination is mostly meted out by white Christians from the South, Great Plains, and Midwest, where church-going is higher than the rest of the country. I think it is fair to call this Trump country.
So I guess this constitutes Christian upon Christian persecution, but based on race! Religion can be pretty cruel sometimes, whether in Sri Lanka or the United States.
1
Douthat is overthinking the issue. Christianity was the religion of colonialism, empire, and subjugation. The West is reaping what it sowed for 500 years.
1
If the French gov't owns Notre Dame, then why shouldn't it be opened to a multi-cultural, even multi-spiritual project that actually represents the people of France as a whole? Also, we must not lose sight of where the animosity and guilt comes from: Christianity has never come to terms with, must less admitted to the depth and breadth of it's crimes against humanity: wars and persecution of other religions, the long history and ongoing persecution and marginalization of women, gays, transgender folk, and the sexual abuse of children. And, of course, the enslavement of native peoples throughout the world.
Remind me: did Ross have a column full of such protective fervor when innocent Muslims were killed by a Christian extremist in NZ? Did he ask whether they were privileged or persecuted? Did he touchingly narrate their vulnerability?
3
Here's the privilege: Most conservatives commenting on the bombings in Sri Lanka ignore the fact that non-Christian places were bombed, including the Shangri-La Hotel.
I have never been to Sri Lanka, but I've often stayed in Shangri-La hotels. They're not Christian.
Such a load of hoooey that it is not possible to read thoroughly. Is Douthat somehow arguing that perhaps liberal rejection of religion is somehow at fault with these murders.
Gibbon hypothesized that perhaps there have been 1500 martyrs to catholicism. The martyrs that the church acknowledges with masses and name days.
Gibbon also hypothesizes the hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions that have been killed in the name of catholicism and religion.
Religion needs to be rejected. It is a virus that sickens the soul of humanity. No better example can be made than what happened in Sri Lanka.
1
The nature of the human animal is towards killing, lying, and sexually predatory behavior. Using anger, greed, hate, inequality, rape, religion, selfishness, or anything else as an excuse to assault, kill, maim, murder, individuals or masses of humanity, shows those type of people to be primitive in nature. Sadly, in this day, and age, where the world is overpopulated, and few males have good male role models in their lives, they will, out of boredom, and anger, for their lack of purpose, easily commit bad, or horrific behavior. It often starts out with petty theft, fights, etc. and escalates as they get a pass by the criminal justice system, or the societies they live in, especially deceived ideas about the purpose of religion, to killing, or mass murder. There is a mistaken belief that religion of any kind can answer the questions of daily life that most people around the world are dealing with.
Article obscures truth author is reluctant to confront
: Christianity and Western civ. r on the decline, and each day we retrench further. Simply go to any Christian church on any given Sunday and see the empty pews. Falling attendance is the key, and who cares about the rest? Compare turnout on ajuma,day of prayer in any mosque in NYC and number of "fervents" is more than triple those attending services at St. John The Divine, half of whom r tourists. Near Penn Station decades ago there was a little Christian Church, no doubt Protestant , but when I looked it was boarded up, destined for demolition. Yet at 1 time it was an active vibrant part of the community, mainly white working class folks who respected the Bible, believed marriage was between a man and a woman,regarded infanticide, now a part of the Dem. Party platform, as a sin. But the church and its church goers r long gone, just like the structure itself that was a part of old New York. "Figurez vous:" head of the Union Theological Seminary dissing the religion she is allegedly the spokesperson for. "C'est la fin des haricots" for us who believe in traditional Christian values and believe Western civilization has a future in today's world. It does not!.In interview in 1960 with JC Perez in Algiers,the "medecin de Bab el Oued" informed me that a species that does not procreate will eventually disappear."N'avait il pas raison?"Is not that where we r today, we who want our Christianity kept simple?
Douthat raises valid points about what happens to Christians in the non western world, but the problem is not as he says, liberals and progressives ignoring that fact, it is the reality that everyone ignores the fact that Christians are persecuted. The GOP and conservatives go on and on about the persecution of Christians, but what they are talking about is that the hard right/evangelical Christians are being denied the right to force their faith on others, to have their beliefs as law, etc...meanwhile, those same conservatives turn the other way with Saudi Arabia, where it is illegal to show religious images or jewelry (US Soldiers fighting desert storm had to hide crosses and stars of david, and dogtags used had their faith removed), and converting to Christianity can be punished by death, same across a lot of our 'friends' in the Middle East, and if those countries persecute Christians, well, that's business...Progressives and Liberals sadly see such persecution as 'nationalism' or 'the fault of the Christians', there is truth to that, or are too busy to give the plight of Christians elsewhere nominal sympathy.The other reason, though, is that Christian churches in the non western world tend to be more like evangelical churches in their beliefs and desire to force their beliefs on others, they are often as illiberal as the Muslims that oppress them are.
Ross struggles here w/ Jesus commandment to separate civics from religion. He’s also trying to coalesce Christians as 1 constituency to be owned by the right. Nevermind Jesus was leftist.
It took til 1789 for any state to follow Christ’s advice regarding civics & religion. The west finally did & that’s why it’s elites r secular.
The importance of this is in Christianity Jesus doesn’t take away our God given free will to 1) to pursuit the truth as best we can & 2) to reject God if we want.
The essence of Christianity was summed up by an EastOrthodox bishop: God gives us just enough freedom to reject him; the 1st thing we do is that; but God provides a remedy, a way back to him, Jesus, w/out us giving up our freedom of thought. The Gospels teachings are along those lines: no coercion of truth/belief etc but how to go about seeking it. It’s more enlightened than most conceive it: freedom, truth, understanding etc.
Stiglitz in the Times suggest the West’s assent is based upon relationship w/ truth. The late ex-Muslim Nabeel Qureshi suggested: In the West truth creates authority; in the east authority creates truth.
Islam insists that it’s the ascendant ism. For its 1st 100 years it appeared so. Since 1450 its falling behind. Westernism becomes modernism when it went global as it has spread to East Asia leading to renaissance there. What we are seeing is a reaction to Islam falling behind & unable to catch up because of its uncomfortable relationship with truth & freedom.
2
Those were Roman Catholic churches only because evangelicals haven't corrupted the native Christian population yet like they have in South America. This had nothing to do with your precious Roman church and everything to do with revenge for the killing of Muslims in NZ.
And, as for liberals being somehow responsible.... well, my brain just can't wrap around how you came up with that one.
1
Minority groups, of any religion, are always a target of persecution by the majority. The more egalitarian the country, the less persecution of the minority.
However, when a majority claims persecution- it is usually after their attempts to codify their biases/prejudices into laws against the minority groups- but meet resistance from the minority groups and from legitimate governmental organizations.
Western civilization had its own native religions well before Christianity arrived -- all the "pagan" religions of Europe, as well as the religions of the Native Americans. That's true western civilization.
@Chris, have you read Caesar's commentaries on Gaul? The Helvetii are pillaging Beaujolais. The Germans have crossed the Rhine and are invading France. And here comes Caesar to conquer them all and take home loads of slaves and gold.
That was pagan Europe. But I wouldn't call it Western civilization. Rome was civilized, but the rest of pagan Europe didn't achieve anything of note. They were illiterate, primitive, warlike people. It was the Church that brought literacy to Northern Europe. That was when civilization began to take root.
Let us not confuse the fact that Christianity, outside of the so-called Judeo-Christian Western World, IS under attack; and that the Conservative Right wing in the US CLAIMS that Christianity is under attack is a misrepresentation of the truth. In this country the extreme Right claims that any attempt at ecumenism is an attack on Christianity. No, you cannot put a Cross on the White House or Congress or the equivalence in state and local governmental buildings or properties. That would be contrary to the Constitution. I suppose if one placed a symbol for each and every religion represented in the US it would be Okay. Yet we have a national Christmas tree, why not a national Menorah or Kwanzaa lighting? Include any/all religions at the appropriate times. Happy Holidays is inclusive, but feel free to say Merry Christmas or Happy Easter if you wish, I won’t look at it as an attack on my beliefs (or possible lack thereof)
1
I was raised in the Episcopal church. I won't bother to challenge in detail Douthat's ridiculous premise that progressive Christians have somehow caused (or ignored) the plight of Christians in the developing world. Rather, I would simply suggest that Douthat does a huge disservice to Serene Jones in ignoring her role in preserving Christian morality in a world where the supernatural underpinnings of Christian faith are increasingly untenable thanks to the advance of science and historical knowledge.
I am one who has long since rejected such ideas as the virgin birth, the resurrection and the holy trinity as preposterous representations recorded in biblical text long after the death of Jesus in an era of history by rumor and superstition. Sorry Ross.
But I have tried to live by the basic tenets of Christianity as my moral guide. While I have been far from perfect in this endeavor, I submit that many of today's prominent conservative "Christians" have failed even more than I have. I think Douthat fails to recognize that Serena Jones provides an intellectual framework for adhering to the best of the Christian moral code in a Western world increasingly informed by science and skeptical of the supernatural. This is a service he should applaud rather than disparage.
2
Mr. Douthat: As a secularist I fully accept that Christianity is part of Western Civilizatio and, more than that, one of its foundational elements. What I want to point out, however, is that the wounds Christianity suffers in this secular world are largely self-inflicted. Evangelical Christians have endorsed a mean spirited and immoral man for President and continue to support him. They have traded in their heritage of righteousness for the porridge of a few Supreme Court appointments and tax cuts for the rich. The Catholic Chuch confronts the sexual abuse of children by its clergy with platitudes about foregiveness and with apologies rather than by taking on its theological and organizational implications. Secularists like myself were saddened by the fire at Notre Dame because the church was a monument to the inherent spirituality of all people and particularly to those who are Christians. As a secularist, I don't mind when Christians (or others) pray for me. Why should I? They are passing good thoughts my way and we all could use more of those. So look to the mote in the Christian eye rather than sometimes the only grudging good will of secularists as the problem.
3
I've skimmed the Comments for this article, and haven't yet found one written by any Christian from the Middle East or Asia.
My family are Assyrian Christians. My grandparents fled what is now Iran during the Armenian Genocide (in which hundreds of thousands of Assyrians and Pontic Greeks were also murdered because of their faith, Christianity).
What I find literally astounding is the hypocrisy of American Christians, especially Evangelicals or the "Religious Right". They pour tens of millions of dollars into Israel annually, all of it earmarked for Israeli Jews, and none for Israeli Arabs, many of whom are Christian.
the Religious Right trumpeted their Christianity through Dubya and his disastrous war in Iraq, and in so doing, walked away from more than a million Chaldean and Assyrian Christians in that country, most of whom have had to flee now that Iraq is clearly an Islamic state. Have any of these Evangelicals reached out to help any Iraqi Christian? No. Evangelicals, and their presidents (Dubya and Trump) are content to let them die. They have turned their backs on communities which are among the oldest Christian groups in the world. My ancestors were practicing Christianity several hundred years before it reached Europe.
So I find Mr. Douthat's thesis faulting the Left disingenuous, at best. The fact is, the Right, with their Evangelical Christian base, has done far more harm to Christians outside the West than the Left has ever done.
9
The only people who persecute religions (any of them) are the fundamental religious people. They have no tolerance for anyone not abiding by their "rules".
Truly secular people don't make an issue of other people's beliefs unless that individual tries to push their beliefs on you.
This article is trying to create an issue that many people do not even care about.
2
Waffle, waffle.
There is no answer to the question because it depends on the specific circumstances. It is both.
And this secular liberal has no problem whatsoever in arguing that Christianity and Islam, both descendants of the Yahweh cult adopted by some little tribe in the Middle East, are indeed headed in the direction of a clash of cultures as they continue their battle to assert and impose their truths. Easter itself, with its easter eggs and rabbits is a classic example. A pagan feast superimposed by Christianity to facilitate conversion.
It is a privilege to be able to assert all these myths, to allow them to continue to permeate our culture, to define (despite the Constitution) whether a person should or should not be President. It is the rest of us who are persecuted.
7
@Roger C: According to the Koran, all three religions that trace their foundations back to Abraham of Ur, and his rejection of human sacrifice, are of the same "Book".
3
There is a middle ground from denying the Resurrection and outraged Fundamentalism. I suspect there are many Christians, like myself, who believe in the Apostle's Creed, and a Risen Christ, but who also refuse to denigrate other faiths, including Islam, because we take the Gospel commands to love our neighbor as ourselves quite literally.
1
Being outwardly religious sets people apart from others, whether they intend to be or not; it always has been and always will be religiosity’s inherent moral failing. The consequences of this are unacceptable in a modern society.
@Sara Greenleaf
Yes all of the societies that have banned religion are so much better at accepting other's peoples' beliefs and points of view.
So don't you dare be 'set apart'!
Every religion has an organizing principle. Every government does as well.
One of the organizing principles of our government, enshrined in our founding documents including the Constitution, is separation of Church and State.
It isn't a wink. It's there, bold face, at the very top. It's there because even 250 years ago the forefathers of our then-overwhelmingly Christian nation recognized that even their own religious faith had the seeds of tyranny, usually in their conversion and proselytizing missions.
The US, and the West in general, have governments and laws that are pillared on Judeo-Christian ethics, but are generally somewhere between avoidant to outright hostile to state religions - they are intended to be pluralistic societies.
Hypocrisy is the root of the general rejection of churches as institutions, especially but not exclusively the Catholic church. The US, and the West accept JC morality as their guiding principles. Yet large numbers increasingly reject the religions themselves, especially their politics-as-conversion strategies. Others yearn for a theocratic US, with Christian prayer integrated into schools as the first step.
Western government shouldn't be Defenders Of The Faith. The US should not be the Christian version of Israel. See the Constitution, if there is any doubt on this point. The morals are already there, let the churches convert on their own. Leave the gun, take the cannoli.
5
A chair is a chair, even if nuanced liberals call it a table. Serene Jones is a heretic, not a Christian. CS Lewis said it plainly—based upon his claims, Jesus was either a liar, a lunatic, or the Lord and it is nonsense to treat Him simply as a nice teacher. If you take away the resurrection, Christianity is effectively reduced to saying “just be nice.” If so, what use does it have for churches or seminaries or, from an orthodox Christian perspective, a wolf in sheep’s clothing such as Serene Jones? The left is engaged in a cultural death wish. As the writer said, the left has no problem with Muslims or Buddhists having their cultural distinctive. But when it comes to, yes, western civilization or the Judaeo Christian world view that has brought liberty and prosperity to the world in a way not matched in history, they want instead a diluted soup of multiculturalism.
6
I grew up as a Southern Baptist and my father was a minister. I had only been exposed to what appears to be your world view until I started reading not only about the much bigger world but particularly about the Christian Church‘s history. The Church is not solely the black and white thing you seem to espouse. For starters, the notion of literalness of the Bible (keep in mind that the King James Version and its derivatives were “translated” to support the control of the masses by a ruling class) is a relatively new phenomenon in the evangelical sects. If you truly want to know and understand Christ try to consider that there are some gray areas. Love is complex not legalistic.
2
@Rance Shields. I agree that there are grey areas and mysteries. But the nature of Jesus is not one of them. I came to my faith by considering the natural world and by studying and teaching literature and law. I concluded, as many have, that Christianity—with all of its mysteries, explained history and the nature of mankind better and more comprehensively than other philosophies.
The same liberal hostility to tradition exists in the Jewish community, and in the same way it makes it difficult for post-Jewish Jews to sympathize with Israel because, in their eyes, Israel is "white" and the Palestinians are "people of color." In the Left's orthodoxy, only people of color can be victims, and only victims have virtue. This leads to a lot of self-hatred and hostility to traditional Judaism and Israel among American Jews.
6
Imagine there's no countries
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion, too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace
2
When Christians stop supporting despicable, immoral candidates like Donald Trump & gleefully discriminating against gays & others, let me know. Until then, I don't care.
8
It's quite obvious by now they weren't attacked for being Christian.
They were attacked because radical Islamists hate Easter.
Why else would every major Democrat come out and announce they were saddened by these attacks on Easter Worshippers.
Granted, I've never known anyone older than a 8 year old to worship Easter, but that usually involves Easter egg hunts and finding chocolate bunnies in a basket lined with fake grass.
Perhaps they were bitterly angry that they didn't get a chocolate bunny and they were going to punish those who do? Or perhaps they just don't like holidays where they are expected to go to work while other people line up 20 deep at a Easter brunch.
These people are fine with Christians..or so it would see from the Democrat Party..they just don't like Easter.
Pretty pathetic day when no major Democrats come out and denounce radical Islamists.
Where is Rep Ilhan Omar when you need her wisdom and carefully chosen words to weigh in on such a weighty topic?
6
What’s the big mystery? “They aren’t the right kind of Christian” is the question and the answer. Catholics get told to their face right here in the good ole’ USA that they are a non-Christian cult.
If bible pounders are so worried about dwindling power, why not invite Christians everywhere to immigrate and naturalize? Cause to American biblical literalists, “they ain’t the right kinda Christian.”
That’s why they don’t care. And they never will.
3
I think it's a bit of a stretch to implicate American liberals in a set of bombings in Sri Lanka.
4
I give Ross his due- he has clearly articulated subtle and nuanced division and distinctions relating to Christianity, its past, perceptions and adherants. A very good column that has to be read without preconceived baggage.
I actually think he is right on many of the points. Unfortunately, there is a double standard among Liberals (me included). Globally, When it comes to majority religions -Christianity in the West, Judaism in Israel, Hinduism in India- liberals infuse power dynamics and instinctively see them as oppressors. Minorities are always victims. Major religionists need to reform and reinterpret their practices.
The fault lies with the right on demonizing all Muslims - as you do - and screeching about made-for-media "persecution" here in America - like baking a cake for people you don't like.
It would also help your cause if you and other conservative's would discontinue using words and phrases that racists co-opt to fuel their cause, with little or no objection from you.
Thank you for recognizing the complexity of this situation and, providing rare insight, helping us see past the superficial treatments that often follow stories about religion.
Christianity is becoming an authentically global and culturally diverse force. Many believers live under constant threat. We in the West are still protected and privileged. And strangely, in places where being Christian is most costly, the church (often underground) is still growing.
It would be good for the Western press to pay more attention to these trends because I think they are reshaping the world more than any thing else today.
4
"And so the main victims of Western liberalism’s peculiar relationship to its Christian heritage aren’t put-upon traditionalists in the West; they’re Christians like the murdered first communicants in Sri Lanka, or the jailed pastors in China, or the Coptic martyrs of North Africa, or any of the millions of non-Western Christians who live under constant threat of persecution."
They are also the Christian/Catholic brothers and sisters fleeing horrific political and cultural persecution in Latin America -- the brothers and sisters that Catholic and Evangelical conservatives have handed over to the Roaring Lion in the White House.
It would be amusing to read Douthat’s rants against the evils of liberalism and all things non-(his flavor of) Catholic if it weren’t for the fact that a frighteningly large percentage of his readers are as historically illiterate as he is. Muslims, who have been slaughtered by the thousands for more than a millenium by “good” Christians, do have valid reasons to hate them. Ignorant white-washing of the history of Christianity, and his Catholic Church in particular, show Douthat to be exactly what he accuses liberals of - willfully historically clueless and immoral in spinning a personally satisfying alternate reality. While he laments the deaths of innocents, if they are Catholic, he ignores centuries of mass murder and oppression of innocents at the hands of his Church. Where is his condemnation of his Church’s hierarchy for being focused primarily on sex, money, power and palaces for most of its existence? Where his outcry against its centuries-long history of slaughter of non-believers and conversions forced at sword or gunpoint? Where his outrage over centuries of Christians persecuting and murdering non-Christians, and each other, behavior which continues today all over the world? Where his call to hold Bush accountable for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of innocent Muslims in their bungled invasion of Iraq? Where his rage at the deaths of hundreds at a mosque in Syria during a carpet-bombing raid under Trump in the hope of killing a few ISIS fighters?
6
What Ross Douthat conveniently ignores is the the "Christian religion" has enslaved and murdered non-"christians" for a thousand years. They have done the same to "christians" who don't belong to the "right" christian sect. They started with the lie that that Jesus was not a Jew and progressed to murdering or forced conversion of every non "christian" they could get their hands on. In American, black slavery, attacking a woman's right to control her body, and the murder of doctors who performed abortions have all been supported by the Christian Church. But people like Douthat claim that Christianity is a loving religion that is a victim of hateful religions which he defines and all those that are not "Christians."
4
We live in the Age of Resentment. Who in America isn’t resentful for the disrespect, insensitivity and general lack of understanding from the other side? Democrats? Republicans? Catholics? Jews? Muslims? Atheists? Feminists? Liberals? Conservatives? Non-conforming Genders? Minorities? Majorities? If the sentiment of resentment was stripped from this editorial would there be anything said at all?
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Many Christians in the United States do not believe that Catholics are even Christians. What to do about that?
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I hope the Times will publish Serene Jones' response to this column.
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@Jason Galbraith It will likely make more sense than Douthat does.
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What's bizarre is that right-wing Evangelicals (not all Evangelicals) pose as a discriminated-against minority. Those Christians who are the real victims of discrimination and worse are precisely the Middle-Eastern and Asian Christians about whom we hear very little except when occasions like the Sri Lankan tragedy occur. Given the violence against Christians elsewhere, the whining of Graham and Falwell do not become them.
2
Christians can be both privileged and persecuted.
Christians are deeply privileged in the Western world. Despite nearly 150 years of separation of Church and State, most holidays (in Germany and France) are Christian.
There are even laws to protect such holidays. Try to play the "life of Brian" on Good Friday in Germany: you need a court ruling. No rules are protecting Yom Kippur or Eid al-Fitr.
In Germany, the Church also has its own Labour Law, which governs nearly all their activities, even their commercial ones.
In France, Christians can get their Church (built before 1906) for nearly free and restoration paid by the State. And Muslims need to finance their mosques.
And it happens after the Catholic hierarchy admitted that they destroyed evidence relating to paedophilia. Any other organization would have been broken down, teared apart, got their fiscal status revoked and their hierarchy jailed.
So, please don't say that Christians are not privileged.
Now, that does not mean that Christians are not persecuted in other parts of the world.
4
Yes, there are places where Christians are actually being persecuted. This is why it makes me so angry when American Christians try to claim that they are victims of persecution, I.e., that ridiculous “war on Christmas”, or if somebody tells them they can’t pray over the loudspeaker before a football game, or put a cheesy nativity scene on the courthouse lawn they act like they’re being pushed directly into the lion’s den.
There are few things as compelling as a Christian who is following the teachings of Christ. There are few things as off-putting as a Christian who is trying to impose his/her beliefs on everybody else.
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@Ann Hi Ann, there are different types of persecution. Some are life-threatening. Some are not. Just wanted to point that out
The thing that Ross is missing in this discussion is the age-old tradition of Christian as actual martyr, rather than whiner-martyr. He's missing the Christ part!
In the US and to some extent Europe, 'traditionalist' Christians have become whiner-martyrs, upset that they feel they must say "Happy Holidays" or not start sports games with Christian prayer. And in many countries Christians are persecuted or disadvantaged by law (you should include Israel in your list, Ross), and in some, like Sri Lanka this Easter, they truly die for their faith. But this whole article focuses on whether Christians are winning or losing a cultural war -- when Jesus's message was that we are to serve, love, and triumph *through our defeat*. Any Christian who is seeking worldly power for the sake of "winning" a cultural war has lost the Christ part of Christianity. It is through service and love that you truly win. Where is that discussion? Matthew 16:26.
2
To answer Ross's question: "Are Christians Privileged or Persecuted?" It depends. If they live in a country where they are the minority, and there's a rise in religious intolerance in that country, then they are persecuted.
By the way, the same goes for practitioners of every other religion. Jews, Muslims, Hindus, and Buddhists are also targeted if they are a minority in an intolerant nation.
The sad corollary to the above is that Jews, Muslims, Hindus and Buddhists are also perpetrators of violence when they are the majority.
Whether one is persecuted or privileged depends on whether one is in the minority or the majority.
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Please add Christians to the list of perpetrators of violence, along with other religions, when they are the majority.
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@Mary Sampson
You're right. I slipped up.
1
Sounds like pretzel logic to me. It wasn’t liberal Christians distributing Bibles when we fought in Iraq; it was Franklin Graham. Missionary triumphalism is not making us any friends among the other major triumphalists, the Muslims. And it’s not the liberal elite who insist that we are a Christian nation; it’s the religious right. For them, it’s Christ and capitalism—communion and coke.
And liberal Christians gaslighting conservative Christians’ faith? How so? Gaslightng is subterfuge in order to inspire fear. Conservative Christians don’t need any help in that department. They decry the war on Christianity while building megachurches in every town in the nation.
Some people just have a different, less literal, more inclusive view of Christianity. And some other people don’t like it, it would seem.
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It may be easy as a Westerner to see the way the culture and Christianity have separated over the centuries, but I doubt that this is as clear to those who see their culture and their religion inexplicably intertwined. The murders in Sri Lanka are a bit unexpected because this is a nation that had a civil war that was as much about religions and cultures fitting uneasily with others as anything else, but it is still consistent with the idea found in Islamic, Hindu, and Buddhist nations that Christianity is the religion of Western culture, no matter what has actually happened in Western Europe or is happening in the United States.
I appreciate you highlighting the complexity of this issue!
1
Generally members of the majority religion are the persecutors. In the U.S., that would be Christians. In Sri Lanka, Christians would be the persecuted. When there were more Christians here we once had the luxury of persecuting other brands of Christianity, but that has fallen by the wayside as the Christian fraction has gone down. Ideally, we would leave others to their own beliefs, but the Christian doctrine of proselytizing inevitably leads to conflict.
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In this really quite vicious column, Douthat first admits that the Sri Lanka terrorists bombed not only three Catholic churches but “three hotels catering to Western tourists, because often in the jihadist imagination Western Christianity and Western liberal individualism are the conjoined enemies of their longed-for religious utopia.”
He admits that liberals eating brunch were among those targeted for murder. But then he switches gears, explicitly blaming “Western liberalism’s peculiar relationship to its Christian heritage” not only for “the murdered first communicants in Sri Lanka” but for “the jailed pastors in China . . . the Coptic martyrs of North Africa, or any of the millions of non-Western Christians who live under constant threat of persecution.”
Who knew that refusing to believe in the Virgin Birth could lead to such violence?
I strongly encourage using the link provided to read the interview with Serene Jones, president of Union Theological Seminary. Here's an excerpt: “I find the virgin birth a bizarre claim. It has nothing to do with Jesus’ message. The virgin birth only becomes important if you have a theology in which sexuality is considered sinful. It also promotes this notion that the pure, untouched female body is the best body, and that idea has led to centuries of oppressing women.”
Who's more reasonable and fair in presenting their views, Douthat or Jones? Whose positions are more defensible? Whose are more offensive?
It’s not even close.
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@Carson Drew
I am an agnostic myself, but find it strange that of all the miracles attributed to an all-powerful God, this is the one that provokes the most ire. Men in particular seem to take it personally. Because they see it as a dismissal of the male role in procreation, the basis of patriarchy?
Miraculous births are common in non-Abrahamic religions, too.
One can also see it as affirming the possibility of women's physical and moral independence from men, even in producing children, surely a modern, liberal, feminist notion. One can even see it as the necessary precondition leading to why feminism originated in the West, from this notion of unmarried women as having equal moral worth as mothers, a radical notion in most other religions.
And becoming a nun was once one of the only ways a woman could be independent of men and family. Strong women founded their own orders, fought bishops and popes, ran large institutions, went abroad to run hospitals and schools, etc.
Islam, Hinduism, Shintoism, etc., even Buddhism never allowed women such important roles. Orthodox Judaism gives women important roles in the home as mothers, but not as single women.
And surely you can't seriously claim that most non-Christian cultures and civilisations have treated women better?
One can appreciate the positive role of Christianity in history without being religious.
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@AG: I was taught in Catholic school that Mother Mary was a virgin because the Mother of God couldn't possibly have been sullied by sex. In fact, even the birth of the Blessed Virgin was the result of an Immaculate Conception. Mary's mother (Jesus' grandmother) didn't have intercourse, either.
None of that feminist stuff you mentioned was even hinted at. Seems to be a bit of a stretch.
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@Carson Drew The "immaculate conception" of the Mother of God is a very modern Roman Catholic innovation that's no more than 150 years old. It is not a doctrinal belief of the true Apostolic Christian faith.
I have family and friends who promulgate the "persecuted Christians" idea. It's interesting how they can ignore how so many other religious groups are busy persecuting other religious groups. The fact of the matter is humans are busy doing what humans have done since the beginning: fighting among themselves for power, resources or territory. I've not run the numbers but suspect in terms of pure relative percentages, Christians are murdered at a lower rate than other religions. Make of that possibility what you will...
Meanwhile, many other humans are moving away from religion because as currently practiced it is not meeting their spiritual needs and not because Rachel Maddow told them to do so. As a proud Progressive I take offense to the idea that I'm somehow involved in the deterioration of civilization due to my beliefs, but this is a consistent Douthat theme which has long since been dismissed.
I left Catholicism a long time ago but still retain a bit of the indoctrination, thereby being unable to understand how one can accept Christ and Trump at the same time without the most extreme moral and intellectual contortions. This alone is enough to strengthen my belief that jettisoning Christianity was one of the best decisions I've ever made, never mind abandoning ideas of talking snakes, burning bushes, ritual cannibalism and other such idiocy.
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Here here...
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It just so happens that at the moment conservative Christianity has control of the levers of American government and we see exactly how much tolerance they have for the beliefs of others when they have the power.
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None of the major religions are monolithic: Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism all have scores of divisions and variations in faith and practice.
There are segments in every religion whom have done wrong to segments in other religions. Read the book of Ester.
Unfortunately, some of every religion tend to view the other religions as monolithic. Unfortunately, some of every religion look at the wrongs that have been done to them by other religions.
Religious belief can be both a blessing and a curse.
5
Sri Lanka is a useful reminder that Christians aren't white, anymore than Muslims are brown. A belief is not a race.
While there are some ethnically based religions, e.g. Judaism, the Druzes, Alawism, Yazidism, Chinese folk religion, Shinto, Hinduism, for example, the great religions, Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, are universal.
Paradoxically maybe, ethnic religions don't try to convert anyone because they adherents consider it theirs, i.e. it is only meant for that particular ethnic group, and does not apply to outsiders, while universal religions are meant to be for everyone, and because they are meant to offer salvation, eternal life, paradise, etc. to believers, altruism requires that the latter try to convert others.
But today, Christianity is booming in the global South while it is languishing in "white" countries.
I am an agnostic btw, I just care about facts.
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Perhaps the dual nature of the question is caused by Christianity's failure to come to terms with its own murderous past. The name of Christ has been used to murder hundreds of millions, ranging from native Americans, to Jews, to Africans, to Muslims, the list is almost endless. Christianity brought a radical proposal to the world, that one must love his or her enemies. Contrast that to the Greek belief that harming one's enemies is at the same moral level as helping friends. Perhaps a full admission of Christianity's failures would put an end to today's dichotomy.
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Jones' seminary is located on Reinhold Niebuhr Place. Niebuhr would certainly have had some "spicy" things to say about Jones' take on the Resurrection.
As a Jew, I would like to introduce Mr. Douthat to the concept of "the other". It's something we've known about since 70 A.D.
When you live as a minority among a larger population, you are subject to their whims. They can treat you well,or poorly. It is their choice. They are in control. They can make you wear a signifier to show that you are an outsider. They can tax you at higher rates, and steal your children for long military service, or make laws or form guilds to keep you out of certain professions.
And they can blame you for things well beyond your control, and kill you for it. Even if it's only a subfaction of the majority that wants to act, no one will be there to help you. You are expendable, not really wanted in the first place. And if you are forced to leave or killed, they can take what is yours.
And you have to remember, it's not because of the differences, or how you are different, it's just that you are different.
So Ross can blame his perceived enemies, but it's really about life as a minority, something he does not understand.
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My maternal ancestors were Quakers in 17th Century Salem (Massachusetts). They were persecuted and driven away for defending the women accused of being witches. I am most certainly a genuine American ( my paternal ancestors arrived a bit later...1719.) and believe I have a right to my own thoughts and beliefs.I believe today’s so called Born Again Christians are indeed “deplorable.”. Religion brings hatred and wars every place it gets a foothold and always has done so. Our modern “Christians” certainly are exactly what my ancestors fled long ago. Ross D. and those like him should just accept the fact that organized religions bring hate, not love, to this world. Maybe they can find some place else to live.
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There is no such thing as a Christian who does not believe in the basic tenets of the Faith. If one claims to be a Christian and does not even believe in the resurrection,then as Paul tells us in ( 1 Corinthians 15 ) " Now if there is no resurrection.....Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die."
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My heart breaks for the suffering of the victims and families in Sri Lanka.
As the comments roll in that religion is the cause of most violence in the world, I just want to point out that it is secular fascist ideologies the led to the holocaust and the horrors of WW2, resulting in the deaths of almost 100 million souls.
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@Ahmad B You can add Stalin's secular purges to those millions. It's true that religion isn't the proximate cause of every conflict, but I'd argue that religious differences and distinctions exacerbate them.
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@Ahmad B
And atheistic, Marxist, Communist ideologies that led to millions of deaths in the Soviet Union, China, Cambodia, etc.
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The historical practice of your religion has resulted in untold abuses in the name of righteousness. So you will have to excuse me if I am not moved by your moment of self-indulgent paranoia.
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great article Mr.Douthat!
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In the United States, the conservative impulse is to deprecate the Establishment clause and elevate the free exercise clause of our constitution. The logic seems sound: the establishment clause says the states have no right to coerce religious preferences. But the exercise clause certainly allows coercion of a different and no less insidious and harmful sort. The Supreme Court has now ruled that a business owner may deny service, deny equal opportunity and impose their (the owners) moral and religious views on employees. What happens when the religion is not Judeo Christian? What happens when Sharia Law is invoked as a business owners employment contract? Or what happens when an atheist does the same? It will happen. Just a matter of when.
From my perspective, the nature of the relationship between the state and church has changed with time and history, and for the better. The less time dealing with a deist religion in the public domain the better. As has been decried by Mr Douthat , by Mr David Brooks and others in these pages, the loss of that public religion (among others) has been a cause for concern and for the general fragmentation of social life. That may be true ( I think it not) but the response should not be to have more religious expression in the public sphere. That leads to religions using the states to coerce behavior (eg reproductive rights, gender and sexual orientation etc). At that point what is the benefit? We are in the dark ages again.
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There are two conflicting strains in Liberalism coming into conflict here. One is that Liberalism, which came into being in Christian countries, fought for centuries to reduce the secular power of the church, the use of state power to back the church and the use of church power to back the state. This continues today in the rejection of pro-life agendas not simply for the sake of women's autonomy, but as a rejection of any encroachment of the Christian church on our secular state.
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The second strain of Liberalism is the multi-cultural ideal that all creeds, cultures and faiths should be treated equally and with respect. So a good Liberal is anxious to defend a Muslim believer's right to practice his faith, particularly as Muslims are a minority in the Western world. This leads to Liberals defending Muslims even as those same Muslims call for far harsher restrictions on freedom and autonomy for women than the Christians who the same Liberal attacks for their illiberalism. To be intellectually coherent and honest, a good Liberal has to make some choices. I don't think you can celebrate Islam in our community as a good multi-culturalist then turn around the next day and protest religious beliefs that restrict a woman's freedom to dress and speak as she wishes, or restrict reproductive autonomy. That is simply hypocrisy.
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I suppose the division of Christians into liberal and conservative camps makes sense to Ross He chose to align himself with a decidedly conservative religion. That said, it is this polarization of believers in Christ in political terms that will eventually end all communion among Christians of different backgrounds. All believers in Christ are welcomed. No they don’t have to have a specific political allegiance to be there or not be there. They don’t have to believe in this or that theological point. They accept Christ as their prophet and teacher. Period. If you want a political religion fine but you will see the pews emptying as you preach this nonsense
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I am not a practicing Christian, And I do not identify as Christian. But even a secular reading of basic Christian ideas in context reveals how radically progressive of a religion it was/is.
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Ross a terrorist is a terrorist regardless of their religious beliefs. It seems our terrorist problem is more of a religious fundamentalism problem whether it be ISIL or anti-abortion extremists here in the US.
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"We are a Christian nation." How many times have we heard this? The truth is that "we" are not. It's only the Evangelicals that proclaim so.
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@Ellie
Depends what you mean by that. If you mean a nation that adheres uniformly to evangelical Christianity, then you are right.
But Canada and the US are culturally Christian because we share a Christian, European cultural heritage centuries old, still reflected in our language, art, moral dilemmas and debates, holidays, etc.
Stories from the Bible still form the backdrop of our culture, for example, in the same way that stories from the Koran form the backdrop of Muslim majority cultures, from the Vedas and the Upanishads that of India, Buddhism in Southeast and East Asia, etc.
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@AG: So the Jews don't count, huh? They have holidays, too. Their cultural heritage, millennia old, is reflected in our arts, moral debates and language. Oy vey! Chutzpah! Christianity wouldn't exist if it weren't for the Jews.
America is a secular nation. Everyone is welcome and respected. Ever heard of the separation of church and state?
3
Would you back up the historical tape a bit, please, Mr. Douthat? Western Christianity is despised around the world because of its role in colonialism (of which the state of Israel is the most recent example), the slave trade, resource exploration, repression (of religions, women, sexual expression, etc.), and the racism of white supremacy and the "white man's burden." The attack in Sri Lanka is a grievous crime against humanity, just like the attack in New Zealand. I understand your difficulty seeing Muslims as both terrorists and victims of terrorism, including Christian terrorism (even when the target mistakenly is Sikhs), but that's the reality. Your attempt to blame Western liberalism is a tacit effort to whitewash Western colonialism.
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All religions are man made, and they are like corporations competing for people and they do this by promoting their individual products. God, or whoever, had no involvement it was ambitious humans that developed these companies. Yes, they compete and now have become tribes who continue to do violence to each other. Remember the crusades? Remember the 30 year protestant-catholic wars? Religions, of all types , are tribes fighting to be superior. Its not new. The majority of all of these groups are peaceful but every group has fanatics. Robinson? Falwell?
3
Christianity is not monolithic. Collectively, American Christians are exceptionally privileged. They are over-represented in the government, and they exercise outsize political power. Across the globe, Christians are still relatively privileged.
There are Christians who are persecuted. They are not reading this column. For the Christians reading this column: you are privileged. Stop equivocating about that and stop imagining that a gay atheist's existence is an existential threat to yours. End the cycle of endless grievances. You are not a martyr simply because someone else in a country of 320 million people does not share YOUR religious beliefs.
The persecuted Christians of the third-world are exactly what might have been called "refugees." I think we remember who balked at sheltering them. Or did you mean something else by "Western liberals"? Because by global standards, all Westerners are liberal. Could it be that you clumsily employed a global standard using loaded language that was likely to be misunderstood? You cannot have failed to know what liberal means in this country, in this time. And since you conflate liberalism with irreligiosity, I think that's how you meant it.
The Western Christians will embrace victimhood through shared identity with the victims in Sri Lanka. Will they take steps and make sacrifices to help the true victims? I doubt it. Western Christianity is likely to exploit the tragedy to build sympathy and expand its influence. So much for Jesus.
2
Judeo-Christian is a banal attempt to be more ecumenical? I know your writing often suggests that anything but your brand of Roman Catholicism is the only possible approach to life, but I wish you 'd widen your historical knowledge. "Judeo-Christian entered the discourse in the 1950s as a response to the HOLOCAUST. It's a corrective that acknowledges the centrality of the Hebrew Bible to the Christian faith,
4
You believe what you want, I'll leave you alone. Leave me to believe what I want, or not. Why is this so difficult for humanity?
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Because far too often “god” instructs its believers to work diligently to make sure that everyone believes as the believer does. After all, if I fervently believe that my version of “god” is a superior life course, it only makes sense that I would want to “share” it with you, right?
And if you disrespect me by rejecting my obviously superior belief system, well, THIS for you then!
Using the recent tragedy in Sri Lanka as proof of Christian persecution is a bit low Mr. Douthat. Most Sri Lankans are Buddists. Muslims are no greater a presence than Christians and it was totally a surprise this kind attack, not a sign of persecution.
1
Oh Ross, you twist and torture history and logic to somehow blame the Sri Lankan massacres on liberal western Christians.
But if you really wanted to know why western Christian response to the persecution of brown Christians in Asia and north Africa has been so weak, you need only look at the skins of those Christians. Just like the Crusaders decimated the Christians of Constantinople because they did not look like themselves, it appears to be difficult for white European Christians today to rally much support for their brown coreligionists who are suffering from persecution in Asia and Africa.
It is really as simple as that.
"If you aren’t a liberal Christian in the mode of Serene Jones, if you believe in a literal resurrection and a fully-Catholic Notre-Dame de Paris, this combination of attitudes encourages a certain paranoia, a sense that the liberal overclass is constantly gaslighting your religion."
Well, I AM a liberal Christian, but NOT in the Serene Jones mode. I DO believe in the literal Resurrection and I don't have that 'certain paranoia' as my faith has nothing to do with what an elite, many if not most of whom I see as overly rationalist, may or may not believe themselves. That being the case, my faith (and that of others whose faith runs this way) may be immune to an elite's gaslighting, not so?
You make some good points here, Ross, not least about the persecution of non-Western Christians and that we should indeed have our minds on the Christians of Sri Lanka, Egypt (and Bethlehem and Nazareth, for that matter) in this season and always. But there are plenty of us liberal Christians out here without too much Rationalism mixed in and caring not a fig for how the so-called elite mixes their faith with what I frankly call Rationalist Foolosophy. I hope you find that heartening.
1
Are we really debating that question?
Let me just say, as a Jew, I’m living in one of the very few cities, outside of Israel, where a Jew can live “outwardly” as a Jew.
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Count me among those who find religion largely a failure of human constructs. For centuries we have killed in the name of one or another and I wonder if religion was cleansed from our conscience what would we fight over then. Ah yes, resources!
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Ilhan Omar has suggested some people did something. Now we know Islamic terrorists targeted Christians worshipping in Sri Lanka. Unfortunately this religious persecution extends to Palestinian Christians at the hands of their Muslim neighbors. We have politicians and a press complicit in the denial of Christian persecution around the world. It's getting pretty popular with the liberal left. It's cool to dismiss people of faith as dumb or naive, as long as they are white and Christian.
4
The Catholic Church brought the world the Crusades, the Inquisition, worldwide forced conversion (Sri Lanka was not a natively Christian country, for a directly relevant example), turned a blind eye to the Holocaust and covers up systematic pedophilia and holds enormous influence both financially and politically in the West...and he asks if they are privileged versus persecuted? Really?
Perhaps if the West's Christian Heritage were not written with blood-stained hands, the question might be more honestly asked.
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Christianity begot secularism. The division of Church and State was designed to protect religion, and it does. Ross is right to call out liberals who accommodate Islamist apologists like Linda Sarsour. The woman thinks sharia is a legitimate source of law. But, in a perfect example of horseshoe theory in action, Ross is wrong in the same exact way Sarsour is wrong. His ideal government—a watered-down Christian theocracy—has more in common with Qatar than the US. Nothing could be further from the Western tradition.
1
@Mssr. Pleure
The division between church and state was designed by the Founders to protect the U.S. government from the religious (at the time the fundamentalist Christians and Vatican Inc. which had waged non-stop bloody war across Europe since the fall of Rome).
It was also to give legislatively protected space to non-believers and believers from each other.
2
I had a Ukrainian Jewish friend who once said, Christianity is a typical left-wing Jewish movement -- they are always trying to universalize what God made specific. To his mind, then, the effervescence of Christianity into liberal abstractions would be just par for the course.
1
The commenters seem to be missing the point. Globally (not so much here), there's a clear trend of Christians being attacked and killed by Muslims. We can admit this and deal with it without hating Muslims or being Christian chauvinists.
5
Blame belongs to the “murderous radicals who set off bombs and killed hundreds on Easter Sunday in Sri Lanka.” Think I get what you’re saying. But blaming the thinking espoused by the terrorist group that has claimed responsibility might make more sense than blaming Western liberalism.
3
Thank you, Ross Douthat for a clear and thoughtful explanation of why Christians in the west feel persecuted despite the protections they are afforded in liberal democracies. I hope you will write more about "the combination of repudiation and co-optation" that Christians like yourself perceive. Do you think such feelings are inevitable when Christians encounter influential skeptics? Is it possible to carry on a more respectful discussion, that Christians will find less threatening, when beliefs in (or about God) are at stake?
1
Didn't even have to read this to know it wouldn't mention the burning of black American churches in Dixie.
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@Scott
1. Dixie no longer exists;
2. Not every black church that burns is due to either arson or racism any more than every white church that burns is due to either arson or racism;
3. Not every church that burns, whether due to arson, lightening storm, faulty electrics, or careless congregants, is in the south.
4. A few years back, USA Today ran an inflammatory piece of non-journalism about the horrible epidemic of racist church fires. Chagrined by facts that soon burbled forth, the newspaper had to admit that of the 60+ it had listed, only 4 actually had any racist ties.
Ross, you need to seek out the Holy Spirt of Jesus Christ before you make such preposterous claims. Jesus Christ will take care of His own without your secular wisdom.
1
I couldn't finish this. It felt like tortured language searching hard for a point.
This may be too simplistic for Douthat, but why can't conservative Christians accept the faith of others without condemnation? Why is he threatened by the Union seminary leader's interpretations? Why must liberals always be lambasted as an enemy who sullies those like him who--as they constantly tell us--possess ultimate truth?
Conservatives won't respect others. They can only judge, seek to control and IMPOSE their religious beliefs on everyone.
If Douthat wants to embrace medieval Catholicism, he is free to do so. I may disagree, but I don't understand why people of all faiths and no faith cannot agree to condemn violence and terrorism, and let faith inform the individual conscience rather than government policy?
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Liberal democracy operates on democratic organization and scientific principles.
Democratic organization protects freedom of religion and free speech. So it respects and protects Christianity. But Christian institutions are inherently undemocratic and unscientific.
To suggest liberal democracy is somehow failing in recognizing the targets of jihadism, which is the rhetorical joke of this intentionally irritating piece is utterly preposterous and Ross knows it.
Similarly, Notre Dame is not merely famous because of the religious order that organized the construction of an exquisite church. It is also famous because the church sits atop the Roman origins of the city, was inside the first of many defensive walls, and represents the origins of the Gallic empire that eventually become the French Empire, a home to humanism and science and democracy. Notre Dame is a secular, religious, and nationalist symbol. It is one site which points to three often incompatible narratives. We don’t need to conflate them.
3
I must be dense, I can't for the life of me figure out what Ross is saying.
Every liberal I know is equally upset about people being killed regardless of their religion. We talk about Islamophobia in the US and Europe because that is an emerging trend that threatens people's lives in the countries we live in. If you don't think Christian White Nationalism is a a terrorist threat, ask the FBI. If I lived in one of those countries where another religion was in the majority and Christians were persecuted, then that is what I would be upset about.
Every religion has both wonders and terrors committed in its name. It is conservatives who deny that, not liberals.
21
As a liberal who grew up in church, my task and that of many of my like-minded friends, is less to "tame" Christianity than to point it at its core principals, which are not those of the leaders of the white evangelical church. It continually amazes me that those who shout loudest about being persecuted for their Christianity are not practicing it. Christ did not teach greed, envy and hatred. He was not a capitalist or a nationalist. How weird to have "Christians" who would probably reject someone Christ's color from coming to America.
7
Douthat ignores the elephant in the room:
How certain Christians weaponized Christianity as a way to further their very conservative political views.
And then to see them at best tacitly and at worst most enthusiastically approve the most unchristian of presidents invited the criticism about just how Christian those folks are.
So in the West, Christians like those allow others to smear Christianity.
Douthat doesn’t recognize that reality.
14
Religion has been used as a weapon of division since - forever. European Christians invaded other parts of the world under the pretext of civilizing the heathens for centuries. Muslims likewise enforced their faith on the non-believers. Jews were the subversive "other" within Christian communities. Now Israeli Jews view Palestinian Muslims the same way. The Chinese view Uigher Muslims as subversive. Some Europeans bemoan the Islamization of "their" continent. Everybody reaps what was sown by those who preceded them. Why would you expect anything else?
6
Religious minorities suffer at the hands of whatever majority religion holds power in their locale. Conversely, the majority enjoys privilege and power.
Christians are on the short end of the stick in some states while wielding disproportionate power in the US. Muslims are not doing well in China nor are they being welcomed here either. Jews are experiencing a resurgence of anti-Semitism in Europe from the white nationalist/neo-Nazi crowd.
Ross forgets that this was a payback for the killings at the mosque in Christchurch, a name that is not without a bit of irony. So goes the wonderful things religion bestows on the land.
4
Religion has become tiring. Can't we live without it, do we need it, still?, should we not relegate it to the dustbin of history?
10
@Nicholas Responses like this is why Ross felt the need to write this op-ed.
For some it is difficult to believe in the christianity of professed christians these days. But then, what's new? It wasn't so long ago they were torturing and killing non-believers.
4
I remember when George W Bush, immediately after 9/11, used the word ‘crusade’ to describe the effort we would undertake to bring the perpetrators to justice. The political correctness police immediately pounced.
Perhaps a modern day Crusade is exactly what is needed.
1
We did a crusade in both Afghanistan & Iraq. Where did it get us or the peoples of those countries? Death & corruption!
2
@William Yes because we all know Christ espoused killing your enemies, destroying nations, poisoning communities with hatred, stoning gays, and making streets run red with blood.
1
Douthat’s column about Christianity appears to be more interested in condemning liberals than the fate of Christians of Asia and Africa.
Is Christianity uniform in the West? The Reformation and Counter-Reformation witnessed wars and slaughters. Did’t the Pilgrims come to America to escape persecution at the hands of fellow Christians? Wasn’t Roger Williams forced out of the Massachusetts Colony due to his religious beliefs?
And what of the KKK? Their hatred of Blacks is familiar theme in our nation’s history—especially the burning crosses. With less lethality, this nativist hostility was also extended to Spanish-Americans as well as Roman Catholics.
Do you remember one of the calumnies targeted towards JFK—his religious faith?
“Concern” about our Eastern brethren was more real politick rather than religion. The Crusades veneer of saving Jerusalem
resulted in Outremer and the destruction of the Orthodox Byzantine state. The dismemberment of the Ottoman Empire found France seeking to protect Catholics and the Russians the Orthodox. The fate of the Armenians is a subject that our presidents refuse to address for fear of offending Turkey.
The arrogance of we in the West to send missionaries into the world to convert the “heathen” may be our greatest fault. The civilizations of China and India existed long before the birth of Christianity. And the role Christianity in the imperial rule of Africa is not a stellar one.
To blame liberals is to absolve the West’s history.
5
How strange that the West claims its intellectual and cultural heritage from the enlightened Greeks, but it's religion from the blighted middle Eastern deserts. To add to there irony, Greek culture and reason arrived in Europe thanks to the Muslims! Of course most Americans don't know this because they are taught a different propaganda in public schools.
4
Bogus claims about liberals. Is it not the so-called Christian right that is so closely aligned with the hard-line Saudi regime?
8
My forebears fled religious wars and persecution in your Western "Civilization" to live in peace and prosperity among the indigenous people of "America." Their country was ours and we lost it to your "civilization's" great big plans. Now apparently we are stuck with you since there is nowhere left to go. But we still don't like you.
1
Ross is at his weakest when he describes the views of those he most disagrees with. When you fail to give credence to the beliefs of those you disagree with it skews your view and your argument.
By some views religion itself is the source of much violence in the world, both now and throughout history. If the defining view is, if your view of god is differnt than mine - you need to die. not much room for neighborly picnics.
2
in the US? privileged, absolutely. get "under god" out of the Pledge of Allegiance and "in god we trust" off the money, then we'll talk
3
This is victim-blaming at its worst.
3
I recently learned my great-grandparents were both Jews. They left their country, changed their religion, and started anew. Their Jewishness was a secret. A deep, dark secret.
That my friends, is a persecuted class….. I don't normally adhere to whataboutitsms, so this is not a tit for tat…..think of it as a data point. Meaning, persecution comes in many flavors.
Sadly.
5
There are thousands of homeless, hungry and persecuted people stuck at the Mexican border. Some of them have seen their own children brutally ripped away from them. They are virtually all Catholic. Somehow this doesn't seem to rate a mention.
6
Modern liberalism either wants to discard Christianity altogether, or at the very least dilute it to the point where it no longer stands for anything.
That is why liberal elite want to use Christianity to support abortion, redefine marriage, and higher taxes, while still denying Churches access to public funds:
https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/16pdf/15-577_khlp.pdf
The bottom line is that the liberal elite continue to "judge other groups by their worst examples - while judging [themselves] by [their] best intentions," which is why they slander Christianity in a way that they don't for any other religioin.
3
We are overthinking things.
Of course Notre-Dame was built as a Catholic cathedral; but it has also seized more secular, Western imaginations because of its strange beauty, both squat and soaring.
It is both a work of art and a testament to faith. It should be rebuilt, perhaps this time with light aluminum or whatever fireproof material can hold up a precise replica of the spire.
And rebuilding this monument to human faith and imagination and, yes, to French ideals is very separate from Yellow Vest demands for higher pay. The French have free healthcare, schooling, and retirement. What they do with those great gifts is up to them. If every billionaire in the world were to share his wealth, the entire world, in short order, would be very poor again.
I'm no fan of organized religion, but to each his own -- if his religion does not seek to meddle in civil rights, including medical decisions arrived at by women and their doctors.
1
Douthat is conflating two descriptions of "persecution" here. The first, attacks on Christians such as Sri Lanka's, are indeed instances of persecution, though he forgets to factor in that, in many such attacks, Christianity repesents the West, and attacks on their institutioms are attacks on the West and its history of colonial overreach, often justified by Christinaity. (On top of which, Sri Lanka is majority Buddhist, making an Islamist organization's attack there also an attack on Buddhism.)
But the second claim to persecution is the one that we find objectionable: The idea that, for example, saying "Happy Holidays" instead of "Merry Christmas" somehow amounts to persecution. This claim to persecution is really a complaint that those of us who are not Christian somehow fail to recognize our "second-class" status here, much as Muslims complain when Christians and Jews living in Muslim countries fail to accept their status as "dhimmi." The same complaint is made when we insist on basing our laws on secular reason rather than on Biblical faith. The Puritans had a similar problem with Holland, which not only tolerated their presence, but the presence of everyone else, so they left in a huff and came to Boston, where they could hang Quakers and witches without inrerference.
Pluralism, which is what the country demands, is not persecution. It protects everyone, Christians included, from persecution.
4
As a liberal Catholic, born and raised, I'm seeing a lot of projection in Douthat's words. Jesus was a liberal Jew. There is nothing "conservative" about the Gospels. Douthat likes to pretend that people like me don't exist, that "liberalism" is some secular, invading force as opposed to fundamental to the entire enterprise as evidenced by the teachings of Jesus. As for this:
"If you aren’t a liberal Christian in the mode of Serene Jones, if you believe in a literal resurrection and a fully-Catholic Notre-Dame de Paris, this combination of attitudes encourages a certain paranoia, a sense that the liberal overclass is constantly gaslighting your religion."
Speak for yourself, Mr. Douthat. And consider spending more time in contemplation, less time on Twitter. No part of the Catholic tradition would encourage someone to nurture this sense of grievance that the cool kids don't agree with you. That's not where eternal reward comes from!
Many people on the left (which composes a "liberal overclass" only in Douthat's imagination) openly disparage Christianity, specifically Catholic beliefs. I don't respond to this by explaining why I believe in transubstantiation. I respond by living my faith -- caring for the vulnerable, focusing on people more than material things, building a sense of connection and community. And most importantly (this is the part that makes it impossible to vote for Republicans), refusing to engage the world from a place of spite and fear.
3
@Birdy Speaking as an Orthodox Christian, it galls me when proponents of any secular political ideology, be it left, right, up, or down, attempt to co-opt the Gospels to suit their purposes. The Gospels are not "conservative" nor are they "liberal" in the modern sense of those terms. They speak of the Kingdom of God and its coming on earth in the Person of Jesus Christ. When "conservatives" misuse them to justify slavery, persecution, etc., it's just as bad as when "liberals" misuse them to justify wholesale rejection of Christ's teachings.
The Apostles were themselves confused regarding Christ's message and mission. They, like most Jews of their time living under Roman occupation, thought the Messiah was going to lead a political movement, a revolt, to overthrow Roman rule and restore sovereignty to Israel. Well, they were wrong and it took them some time to figure it out. Christ came "not to bring peace but a sword" for Satan and his hold on humanity. He could not have cared less about a temporal Israeli kingdom. He was not political. He's still not.
1
Mr. Douthat, can you point to one "traditional Christian" thinker such as yourself who stands against the excesses of modern fundamentalism in that faith? For example, when we have Christian extremists in legislatures putting forth bills that would prosecute women who seek abortions for attempted murder, or thsoe who actually obtain them for premeditated murder, where are voices such as yours with regards to these issues? Do you agree with their efforts, or do you consider them extreme and deserving of resistance?
Likewise as we see continued efforts in African nations to criminalize homosexuality to the point of jailing or executing those accused of homosexual behavior, where are voices such as yours speaking out against this behavior? We are told that this would *never* happen here, but when it happens elsewhere and traditional Christians remain silent or dismiss it as the actions of a fringe minority, you do nothing to create allies in your arguments about Christian persecution here.
Of course, my point assumes you view the execution of women who obtain abortions or homosexual individuals as running counter to the teachings of the Christian faith. If I am wrong in that, please let us know.
3
Having fully turned away from both the form and content of evangelical Christianity, I share Mr. Douthat's impatience with progressives like Serene Jones, who keep reformulating Christianity even though they no longer really believe in a supernatural, interventionist God. I wonder why they can't just thank Christianity for its positive contributions to civilization and to their own lives, and get on with figuring out how to openly pursue truth, love and meaning on the other side of faith.
Mr. Douthat should not kid himself however: In many parts of the United States, evangelical Christians still wield cultural-economic power in ways that harm our democracy and keep many post-believers cowering in the closet. Right as he is about 'Christophobia' in other places, it is conservative Christians' resurgent political power that is the big problem here.
I mourn for those Sri Lankan Christians, even as I mourned for the Muslims in New Zealand who died before them. We must better guard the lives and freedoms of sincere believers in supernatural gods, both here and around the world, even as we guard against those who threaten the wall between church and state.
3
I am a liberal Catholic, and I agree completely with Douthat’s analysis. However, he leaves out an important reason why liberals (secular or not) struggle with to view Christianity: the faith has been hijacked by one side of the equation - conservatives. American Catholic bishops have joined in the conservative culture wars, for example, raising the profile of sexuality issues far above concern for the poor, the immigrants, and the dignity of work in a changing economy. Liberals share blame here: we’ve let the other side grab the headlines. But now some people, like Mayor Pete Buttigieg, are stepping forward and talking about their strong, but progressively-oriented, faith. If more of us do that, liberals in general will come to see that Christianity and Catholicism are not inherently part of “the other.”
4
A second reformation is seemingly brewing, and needs to occur. Sadly, the greater church, clinging to the orthodox and Evangelical roots are deservedly dwindling, and the churches without denominational fealty are replacing them. Yes, the new churches are wrapped in rock and roll “praise music”, and pastored by leaders whose credentials don’t necessarily include a sound theological education, but do include jeans, t-shirts, and a full sleeve of tattoos. I am a fourth generation Presbyterian, socially, theologically, and politically liberal. I am in my seventies, and sadly see my beloved denomination, among other mainline denominations, become irrelevant by not addressing the social issues faced in this time. It is no longer 1955...
1
I think a person can be Christian, in the sense of following the teachings of Jesus Christ, without having to believe in the supernatural. I know conservative Christians, and also atheistic members of liberal Christian congregations who live highly moral lives, which are grounded and nurtured by their faith communities. Isn't that what matters?
However, there is a group of people whose views are consistently met with derision and condescending pity. People whose views are considered by many to be defective and in need of fixing: People who don't believe in God. Anyone who "comes out" as an atheist or nontheist will not be embraced by their fellow Americans, even if the atheist is not hostile toward other people's religious beliefs. Can you imagine an avowed atheist running for president? The horror of it!
3
You took a very long time to say what you finally said in the end.
We Christians in the Western world ARE often privileged.
But for many Christians in the non-Western world, persecution IS a way of life, and martyrdom is NOT a remote possibility.
So we western Christians should be praying constantly for our persecuted brothers and sisters.
And one more thing. We should recognize that the persecution that they endure is much more intense and qualitatively different from the "persecutions" that we endure. I can't tell you how many times a conversation about persecution of Christians in the Middle East / China / etc. has morphed into a howling diatribe against the "persecution" of being forced to serve a LGBTQ customer, issue marriage licenses to a gay couple, etc. The horrors of persecution that exists around the world are trivialized. Ugh. Makes me sick.
After all, being murdered celebrating Jesus' resurrection and having someone look at you a little funny when you talk about Jesus at the gym are two different things.
4
I am a Catholic Christian and am not persecuted. My fellow Christians would also agree they they are not persecuted in America. Some of our individual rights may have been threatened lately but they are nothing compared to what others suffer around the world. We can also stand up for our rights within the court system which people have done and continue to do.
I had Protestant friends who worked in Saudi Arabia as teachers and they had to worship in secret in private homes. The Saudi government will not allow Christian Churches to exist let alone Christians to visit. Would I say these people were persecuted? I would say they were deprived of their religious freedom and expression. Needless to say my friends were glad to leave Saudi Arabia and move to a more welcoming country where they were allowed to pray openly.
Very few worshippers in America worry about being attacked and killed in churches, mosques or synagogues. We have not experienced extremest terrorist groups who are trying to stifle our religious freedom such as in Sri Lanka and other parts of the world. We are very lucky in that sense. We have had to fight for individual freedoms in a more liberal society. But we are still lucky to have our religious practices protected by the first amendment. We still have the right to worship as we please or not worship at all. Many citizens around the world would love to be able to say this. Unfortunately, we often take these freedoms for granted.
4
"Are Christians Privileged or Persecuted?" is a ridiculously broad question. They are persecuted in some places and not in others. And in places where they are privileged, only certain denominations are privileged and they hold other denominations in contempt. For example, I've heard that a particular minister has an inside track with VP Pence and is trying to persuade the VP to pack the civil service with evangelicals in violation of the Constitutional rule of "no religious test".
1
I am bewildered by the reverence of Douthat and others to "Western Civilization." Are we talking with reverence about the "Civilization" that produced such wonders as the divine right of kings, the merger of state and church, the Crusades, and branding astronomical discovery "heresy?" Or more recently colonialism, Nazism, Communism, and American slavery? That Western Civilization? Christianity, particularly Roman Catholicism, has been involved in all the best and worst of "Western Civilization." Until Douthat comes to some grappling with those facts (such pesky things) none of his analysis makes any sense. He's like the cafeteria-Catholics he despises. He wants to pick and choose from history to define the glories of Western Civilization and Catholicism's association with it and then accuse others of insufficient respect for its glories. Yes, some Christians are persecuted. Some Muslims, Hindus, and atheists are persecuted too. Stop trying to claim one is worse than the others.
3
@Horace
The problem with your view is anachronism, looking at 2000 years of western Civilisation as a single unidimensional entity rather than an evolving process.
Looking at it as an historically evolving entity, we can see its various components interacting over time in complex ways to eventually result in our present society, with its constitutional, democratic governments, its economic and technological development, its welfare state, its emphasis on individual human rights, etc. Very different from the situation 2000, 1000, or even 500 years ago, yet the unique result of that historical process and the interplay of ideas between various forms of Christianity, Greek philosophy, Roman institutions, etc.
No other society did or could have produced the same results, because they lacked the elements that did. They had their own artistic glories of course, but socially, the great empires and civilisations of the Americas, Africa, and Asia were no more egalitarian, inclusive, enlightened, etc. than western ones, and were just as bloody, and left to their own devices, would not have produced our modern, developed, individual rights-obsessed society, because they never had the basic, essential premise of the moral equal worth of all human beings, a Christian concept.
Mind you, that same premise also produced Communism, an equally bloody western export.
But the societies doing well economically today are those that adopted elements of western civilisation.
1
Talk about "muddled"—this essay is a mess.
1. Liberalism (like Christianity) is an intellectual tradition of great historic influence, longevity, and contemporary vigor. As a result, it has no single, universal “party line” on how it fits with Christianity (of for that matter any other faith tradition). To expect Liberalism to be flat and monolithic, rather than as diverse and multifaceted as, say, Christianity, is ridiculous.
2. To elevate the cranky anti-clerical snapping of Internet replies to a controversial political conservative, or the publicity fueled musings of some marginal figures about deconsecrating the Cathedral as representing “liberal reaction” is just dishonest.
3. People who fantasize about an ecumenical Notre Dame do wish for an ecumenical Mecca or Golden Temple because people who are anti-religion are usually anti all of them.
4. Rev. Jones is a Christian. Her views on theology and philosophy would therefore represent an intellectual “impulse” within Christianity not some alien attempt to “co-opt” it. Such reforming impulses greatly predate the birth of the Liberalism in the Enlightenment.
5. Privilege is situational; one can clearly be privileged in one setting and persecuted in another. Christianity can enjoy privilege in the U.S. (and it does) and be persecuted in Iran, just as Islam can enjoy privilege in Saudi Arabia, but be persecuted in India. None of this as much to do with Liberalism.
10
“Reverend” Jones is most certainly NOT a Christian.
1
@Cormac Not to pile on, but to amplify @Erik's comment on Serene Jones, one simply cannot call oneself Christian while rejecting such basic elements of Christian doctrine as the Resurrection and the Virgin Birth. These elements of the faith go directly to Who Jesus Christ is and what the Incarnation and Resurrection mean for humanity. So is Ms. Jones a Christian, strictly speaking? I have to agree with @Erik. She's not.
And what does Mr. Douthat suggest is the alternative to Western secularism holding Christianity at "arms-length," "either as a tamed and therefore useful chaplaincy or as an embarrassing, in-need-of-correction uncle"? Hugging it close as it own? It's religious zealotry, of all kinds, easily suborned to national and ethnic hatreds, to sexual oppression, to the corrupt purposes of political parties and extremist ideologies, that threatens world stability today. If anything, secularism should be faulted for not sufficiently tooting it's own horn. Mr. Douthat says nothing of the Christchurch mosque shootings, yet the vile perpetrators of the Sri Lanka bombings claim it as their tit-for-tat justification. Yes, that's irrational, but religion is an irrational powder keg. There is no other sane, reasonable way to hold such a force except at arms-length, unless it be to repudiate it entirely. And if we are not prepared to do that, let's at least agree on the need to keep in-need-of-correction uncle at arms-length from the kids.
1
I'm glad the author is sympathetic to the innocents and their families harmed in Sri Lanka, but the rest of the article was mostly a jumble of words trying to cast a pall on western liberalism using Christianity as a portal. A better use of the author's time would've been to put in words why life would be better for humanity if there were more converts to his particular conservative Christian vision and why that would reduce religious-based persecution.
3
Reflecting on the last paragraph of this article; should we be pushing religious dogma on our children whose minds are impressionable? Perhaps it’s better to let the make their own decisions about religion once they are adults.
2
@Ian Clague That's an interesting proposition. Perhaps parents should remember that next time they're tempted to take seriously a 4-year-old boy who says they're a girl or vice versa.
1
This is a very interesting opinion piece. I would just like to remind Mr. Douthat that most of us Christians in the Western world (I live in Canada), and our children taking communion are not guilty of the liberalism and even conservative extremists ideologies he seems to partially blame for this horrible attack. Just like the majority of those Muslims killed in New Zealand, the Christians killed this past Sunday were just faithful believers who wanted to profess their faith and go on with their lives. I am sorry Mr. Douthat, but I am not going to take the blame for a horrible act committed by evil people. I will think of the Sir Lanka Christians who were killed, to pray for their families and for the persecuted Christians there, but I will not feel bad for believing as I do, nor blame my beliefs for the evil acts and choices of certain individuals.
2
Douthat ignores history. Christianity went to war with Islam over the Holy Land in 1095. Christians overran North, South and Central America annihilating native populations in order to steal their land and assets and force their Christian beliefs on the "heathens". Then they extended their reign of terror to Africa, Asia, Australia and every island on the planet. This colonial Christian mind set decreed that all efforts to overthrow and replace any non-Christian government, religion or culture was ordained by God.
Christianity became a business centuries ago, a monopoly purporting to hold each person's ticket to eternal peace or damnation.
Millions have died at the hands of Christians in what was "Holy War". And, yes, other religions have pushed back. The victims in SriLanka are victims, but Christianity needs to face and accept its part in the terror that infects the entire world as a result of the Colonial era.
2
@Maureen Steffek
That is a very myopic, unidimensional view of the complexities of the colonial era and world history.
Yes, there were horrors, and some horrible people were Christians, just as there were horrors committed by non-Christians the world over (Genghis Khan, Aztec child sacrifice, the Nanking massacre, etc.), but there were also very kind, generous, altruistic ones, inspird by their faith to go to the colonies to help strangers, i.e. to open hospitals, orphanages, schools, offer health education, build sanitary facilities, etc., just as secular charities do today. Those secular charities are walking in the footsteps of those early Christians.
It wasn't Muslims, Shintoists, Aztecs, Hindus, etc. who did that.
And it was because of that western education that most non-western countries are doing well now.
The real problem isn't people worshipping as they choose the world over. It is goverments and those that truly rule them that use religion for political reasons. They can distract there citizens from there real goals and fire them up for support at the same time, keeping power in there own hands and not the people's. If that means starting wars and destroying people's lives they don't care. Our country uses our military, the world bank, the WTO, the United Nations to control the lives of people around the world., so radical people kill Innocents to retaliate against there oppression and our government continues to kill or facilitate the killing and oppression around the world. Greed is the root of all eveil.
2
It's interesting to me that all around the world people will kill others or die for something so provably illogical as a religion. All my life since I was a young boy religions and their claims made no sense to me at all. We often hear about religious persecution in the United States by the religions who have the most power, wealth, and standing in society while churches and hospitals dot the landscapes of cities and counties across the nation. In other countries around the world all I see is another variation on what we have here in the USA...and that's the religion having the most power and control claiming they are the most trod upon and persecuted. It all still reeks of fairy tales to me. Very dangerous fairy tales sometimes.
4
Our columnist wishes to be inoculated from the legitimacy of criticism of fundamentalst Christianity; more specifically doctrinaire Catholicism. Rendering the argument in terms of true believers against elitists is not only unhelpful, but completely beside the point. Menacing worshipers with violence anywhere is an inhuman act. Period.
3
What a tortured excuse for a fire. Here, thanks to the Douthat, is the disease of worship in all its horror and garrulous glory.
Poor Christians, poor me.
Wouldn't be easier to see the world in much simpler terms: you know, people who have money and power, and people who don't?
Horrible materialism, I know. Just like the real world.
9
Privileged in the United States, less so or persecuted in other countries. American evangelicals may not know this but even Israel displays some antipathy to Christians. A survey by the Jerusalem Center for Jewish-Christian Relations (JCJCR) and the Jerusalem Institute for Israel Studies (JIIS) found that the more devout Israeli Jews the more negative their attitude toward Christians. Two findings:
-- 23% are greatly or significantly bothered when meeting in the street a Christian wearing a cross, including 8% of secular respondents and 60% of Orthodox Jews. This was an issue during the papal visit: Shmuel Rabinowitz, rabbi of the Western Wall, had asked that the pope remove or at least cover his cross when visiting the site. He didn't.
-- And here's one that says a lot: 46% do not agree that Jerusalem is a central city for the Christian world, including 31% of secular and 67% of Orthodox Jews.
https://latimesblogs.latimes.com/babylonbeyond/2009/05/israel-survey-of-jewish-israelis-atittitudes-towards-christians.html
2
@Christy
Well, to be fair, it might be that Jews in Israel (and elsewhere) are reacting to a couple of thousand years of persecution by Christians, from the Inquisition to the killings in England (ever visit York?) to the pogroms by the Poles and Russians.
Let's not even mention French antisemitism going back centuries or our American version, where country clubs, banks, and neighborhoods had invisible (and sometimes visible) signs saying: no Jews allowed.
1
The deed to my parent’s home in Kansas City, Kansas, which was written in the late 1940’s excluded Jews and “Negroes” from owning the property....
How to tell real Christians from phony Christians:
Matthew five verse 11 “Blessed are ye
when you are persecuted for my name sake. Rejoice and be glad”
Any Christian complaining about being persecuted isn’t a real Christian. Last I checked complaining isn’t the same as rejoicing and being glad.
1
@Anthony Williams I'm not sure if your comment is genuine or snide. But you are quite correct. It is a blessed thing to suffer for Christ's sake. The Roman Empire attempted to destroy the church in many ways, not least among them attrition by attempting to compel believers to apostasize. Today, we venerate the relics of those holy Martyrs who stood fast. Those men, women, and children are true heroes of the faith.
For me this is the most interesting thing in the article:
“Islamophobia” looms large; talk of “Christophobia” is almost nonexistent.
The ridiculous word "Islamophobia" was invented to suppress freedom of speech.
Science education will eventually kill the god fantasy. Good riddance when that happens.
1
I'm a sort of lapsed Catholic, I suppose.. and I've truly tried to believe in the literal virgin birth and the literal resurrection and I just... can't. They don't make sense (theologian Daphne Hampsen is good on this point) particularly when compared with the clarity, power, and challenge of the actual teachings of Jesus, or when compared with understanding the virgin/resurrection miracles as metaphors. Otherwise it feels like trying to believe in Santa Claus. To borrow from Kramer, "frankly it sounds made up." So to me, Reverend Jones's words were a real breath of fresh air. But... I'm not switching sects:)
The problem in the US isn’t that mean ol’ liberals pick on Christians. The problem is that Christians ignore Christ’s teachings: we don’t take care of the poor, because the poor may be black or brown, and we hate those people. We don’t love our neighbor; he may be gay.
Christians have always used the Bible to justify abusing whatever group we have it in for. (Slaveholders said black people were the descendants of the sons of Ham, whom God cursed. Now they quote Leviticus to justify persecuting gay people while ignoring the same book’s verses about being kind to foreigners.)
No wonder that when those groups band together against the GOP, Evangelicals take a beating. Quit using the Bible as an excuse for lousy behavior and Christianity won’t be resented.
2
A thread running though many comments seems to be that America as a “Christian” nation is on a crusade against “Muslim Nations”. I would humbly suggest that nothing could be farther from the truth, with a couple of exceptions, Jimmy Carter and George Bush the later, none of our Presidents or Christian Hierarchy seem particularly religious, certainly not Trump, who views going to Church little more than a photo op, Im sure he would rather be hanging around one of his clubs cutting deals with anyone who will put a buck in his pocket. The same can’t be said for those surrounding him and other administrations from Kissinger to Kushner who have been on the real crusade to insure not only the survival but the dominance of Israel since the nascent nation of a few million was plonked down in the mist of fifty million Arabs that hated them. To add to this mix is the very recent, thoroughly hypocritical move of dragging Evangelical Christians into the Middle East mess to seek further validation for our “Wars on Terror” and hoping to insure the continued support of gullible American taxpayers, this latest pseudo Judeo- Christian alliance to fight the Muslim hordes reeks with hypocrisy, to anyone that has spent time in a Synagogue or a Baptist Church this new love fest is mind boggling. I would suggest the reality is simpler, the Christian Crusaders in our Government are there for defense industries and oil and AIPAC is using its influence to insure Israel survives and prospers.
1
I’m not sure this column has meaning, except that Mr. Douthat really dislikes liberals and really dislikes the murders in Sri Lanka, so somehow the two must be related.
Mr. Douthat’s musings about belief and non-belief, about liberals and conservatives, always seem to boil down to this: the world was better off when people like Mr. Douthat could order people around.
4
Extremists of any kind are dangerous. If you want to practice whatever faith, good for you. If you want to impose your faith on me or kill me for my beliefs you've crossed the line. What we see today are people whose cultures and values clash with those of the modern world's. For this reason, we in the West, who are now, mostly secular, are aghast at acts of terrorism perpetrated in the name of any god. Let's be careful to not conflate these tragic events with religious wars of the past (like the Crusades) even if there are some similarites. Demonizing religion because it's behind these acts is an exercise in futility. Historically, wars were fought over one god: money. Religion is a convenient excuse.
The west, where it seems half the world wants to migrate, is hesitant to embrace its own culture because it will offend these same migrants? Really quite bizarre - but I doubt the embrace of western culture does offend migrants - who it offends is the elite, which have this idea that anyone that comes from abroad is a wonderful human but anyone born in this country that is white is a racist buffoon (oddly enough, even those the elites are also white). It is a variation on the idea that the good fishing is always in the other side of the lake .... The problem of course is that if the elites do wipe out the pillars of support of our society, like religion, what do they have to replace it with? Nothing - there will be no God to believe in, no history to be proud of, and the state to keep anyone from being more successful than anyone else- What a terrible place they are building .....
2
@SAL
One is reminded at this point of Article XI of the Treaty of Tripoli, constructed by the same Founders who put together our Constitution: "The Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion."
"Pillars"? :)
1
The bombing was a revenge for Christ Church.
The mass murder of Christ Church is a white supremacist.
It is our civic duty to prosecute anybody who spews hateful rhetoric that incites violence.
We have been negligent, and not only that we have a president who supports these radicals.
The man is a danger to our national safety and security.
1
Mr Douthat lumps the "Golden Temple" along with Mecca and asks if they will be asked to serve the multicultural cause. He also looks at the South Asian Christianity from the lens of an American Conservative.
The Golden Tample, and the South Asian Christians are already at the ideal that the western liberals are seeking. This ideal does not assume you are an inferior "nonbeliever" because you follow a different faith, or even a different denomination. Equal access to the Golden Temple is assured irrespective of whether you are a practicing Sikh, or a Muslim who never plans to become a Sikh.
I - not a Sikh - can and have participated in a service at a Sikh Temple and nobody attempted to "rescue my soul" with patronizing language. Even South Asian Christianity (the 1000 year old variety, not the more recent twice-born missionaries) are similar. Again, I have attended mass in a South Asian church and no attempt at showing me or other "nonbelievers" down.
A few years ago, I eagerly accepted a conservative friend's invitation to attend their church on a Sunday service. Needless to say, I was seriously put off by the language and assumptions of showing all non-christians (and indeed all non-their-denomination) to be rescued.
I am not a Christian and never plan to be. Do you consider me inferior to you in any way?
Once you confront this question, I'm hoping you will see merit in the Western Liberal project, and not look to take potshots at it for petty political ends.
3
The persecution of minority Christian communities in some parts of the world is hardly unique. Minority Muslim populations are persecuted in Myanmar and India. And while persecution of minority Jewish communities has been just beyond the Pale for the past 75 years, it’s coming back as surely as the return of spring. Religious authoritarianism is a dominant feature of most places outside of North America, and with it comes fascism and its indispensable companion of the persecution of minority communities. The fault lies not with a “liberal muddle” but with the very concept of organized religions. That the resurrection is a fictional distraction and the virgin birth a “bizarre” fairy tale is widely familiar to anyone who, shockingly, considers the import of Christianity to be connected to what Jesus said (to the extent we can discern that), rather than with some clever party tricks he and the Christian God supposedly pulled. Religious establishments deploy these talismans as tribal tattoos to separate and distract people from the underlying and deeply personal spiritual journey these seminal figures (Jesus, Mohammed, Buddha) should inspire. Instead we’re pushed to tribalism and, in extremis, mass hypnosis and mob hysteria. That’s where you should be looking for an explanation and a way out of this nightmare.
2
“Liberalism, elite-liberalism, western liberal individualism, liberal imagination, liberal discourse, contemporary liberalism, liberal modernity, liberal overclass, liberal impulses, modern left-wing liberal purposes, liberal muddle.”
Douthat’s theme and variations is a dogwhistle for conservatives of every stripe and it’s a quite a menu for a short piece about a massacre and a fire.
The Cathedral of Notre Dame was the most beautiful building in the City of Light. Parisians, Europeans, and people of good faith the world over wept to see it burn. Some thought “O, no, not THIS on top of everything else...”
Douthat concludes by marking the massacre in Sri Lanka for a special purpose:
“It is First Communion season in America as well as in South Asia, and when our children ascend in joy and safety to the altars of our churches, the photographs of Sri Lankan first communicants laid out as martyrs should be ever in our thoughts.”
Douthat asks that photographs of martyrs be seared in the memory of co-religionists. Not the lost lives of innocent people nor their devastated families but “photographs of martyrs.”
Do I need to explain to readers on any “side” why I find this idea and the words used to express it so unsettling?
10
I suspect it isn’t a liberal desire to “claim and tame and redefine” so much as the nature of Christianity itself to be malleable. Having no actual basis in history, Jesus Christ and his message can be shaped to fit the interior life of the institution or individual that claims him. Even from the start, Biblical Archaeology has found, there was not a Jesus story but Christ stories: in some he is born the normal way, in others a magical way; in some crucifixion is never mentioned, in others it is central, or he is only seemingly crucified, or he’s crucified by demons up in the sky. In some he’s a righteous Jew adopted by God, in some he’s God all along, in some he came to free people from God, who only thinks he’s God, but is mistaken.
Small wonder that today Jesus tells some people to give all they have to the poor while others hear him in the “prosperity gospel,” praying for big money. To some he loves peace and mercy, while others, on the alt-right, have resurrected the Deus Vult slogan of the twelfth century, when Jesus was all for mass killing. The man who went into a synagogue in Pittsburgh and shot eleven people was a Christian; he was partly inspired by the fourth gospel. So is Shane Claiborne, founder of Philadelphia’s Simple Way, a “New Monasticism” movement that advocates total non-violence and helping the poor. These are all Christians. Bill O’Reilly and Paul Ryan go to churches. So did Oscar Romero. They hear what is inside, and their Jesus reflects it.
2
@Alex K All of these various permutations, these multiple "Christs" that you describe, can be placed under a single umbrella term: heresy. If you, or anyone, wishes to know Christ as He Is, you must look to the Apostolic Faith as preserved in the Orthodox Church. All these others are merely attempts by this one and that one to remake God in their own image(s). The same can be said for modern Protestant/Evangelical sects.
Orthodox literally means "right worship."
Douthat once again offers important insights into a world -- Christianity -- that the NY Times finds hard to understand and harder to report accurately upon.
In regard to one of those quoted in his piece: Serene Jones is educating ministers who go out to be pastors at ever-diminishing but highly-politicized churches that speak only to the sensitivities of the Progressives. I've been to services at one of those churches and they preach only the gospel of social justice which -- surprise -- coincides with the latest platforms of the Democrat party and could easily be mistaken for a political rally.
Wow, after all that perambulation where did Douthat end up, aside from a worthy empathy and sorrow for the bombing victims? He seems to yearn for presumptive Western Christian sanctimony, brandishing the cultural conceit of proselytizing as colonial imperative (of course accompanied by Coca-Colization), with no blowback ever even imagined. And for an anachronistic domestic society-supported theocracy. Born in the wrong century, Douthat - perhaps two or three back would be more amenable to someone with the convert's zeal.
1
You’re confused because you’re not actually listening. There is a high oral law than religion of justice, compassion, fairness, and empathy for those afflicted by injustice. That’s the core of liberal thinking.
To the extent religion shares those values, then religion coexists well with liberalism.
The problem is religion is always inclined to supremacism. In fact religion is hugely privileged in America. No one disqualifies Christians from holding office or anything else because of their religion. Religious people get all manner of special rights.
The problem in Sri Lanka isn’t liberalism, it’s religious extremism.
1
Oh! So Western Individualism's suddenly a LIBERAL problem, Ross? That American Christians ARE privileged is as big a Ryan/Pence FOUNTAINHEAD for Ayn Rand's "Cathedral of Inspiration" whence even Dominique Francon can be a "player to be named later" in front-loaded trades to scab for "Our Lady of Perpetual Motion" divinity. Hence there's more to theologian Serene Jones's more universal Christian thermodynamics if an eternal God can't possibly ford the river of time if infinitely existing BOTH before AND after His Son died for us on The Cross.
That the beginning had indeed been The Word, creation's bent is in the creativity of furthering the very words whence the collective conscious is singularly destined to constitute the very God in whose image we'd wanna retroactively come in the first place. Hence posterity's SAVE to what's otherwise a blown save before the cross. Omega-spurred, our resurrection's worm-holed -- indeed causing -- Alpha's big bang.
And the Bible needn't be discounted. It's a great inspiration. Minus Trumped-up individualism's Howard Roark raping Dominique in the stone quarry.
3
Unable to read either the Bible or the Constitution without his special Liberal/Conservative lenses, Ross again misinterprets everything making another waste of space/time article to divide people rather than illuminate a truth. This country was founded on the belief in a separation of church and state with a freedom for individuals to worship as they wish (as long as it doesn't limit the freedom of others). No matter how much of our government may be based on a Christian ideology, we were founded without a state religion.
In as much as there is persecution of Christians throughout the globe, can we as a religiously independent country come to the aid and protection of these people? Is our lack of discussion because we are liberally ashamed of our Christian beliefs or many other very plausible answers to this question. Ross can point to evidence where a fear of conservative backlash is more a main stream media concern but that is because there is a right wing media actively pursuing and exploiting moments like this to their ends. Like Ross they find Christianity the downtrodden, though being largest religion on Earth, and they must be its defender and champion.
It has always bothered me that the Creator would need us to defend Him from those who He created as if He weren't capable in and of Himself. As defenders and evangelizers of His might and glory, they have reduced Him to a feckless ruler requiring Ross to stand up for Him to ensure His will be done.
1
I read this article with increasing regard for Ross’es insight, but then I faltered at the last paragraph. First Communion, the rite of passage to the one facet of Christianity that revolts those in other faiths. This rite reminds them of cannibalism that includes the theme of a victim’s Spirit entering the partakers body for the betterment of he or she. That Christians do not believe this is cannibalism is not relevant. The words cited while consuming the bread and the wine says it all to other Faiths, especially to Muslims who also revere Jesus Christ. The partaker in the rite of Communion is to believe that they are actually eating the body of Christ and drinking his blood, at least this is so in the original Roman Catholic Churches that I knew in my youth.
Forget all these thoughts of West against East. Christianity was in the East before the West. It is the tenets of Christianity that cause the hate in places where it is the minority religiion.
1
Ross is a religious and as such he acts on belief, not facts or reason. His premise is magical, mysterious, and from God. It cannot be questioned and is the only true good knowable to humans.
The problem with Ross is that his religious opposite is the same as Ross. Their particular God won't have another God. Sadly, they agree that there is no other way to God.
1
Ross writes: "'[I]t would never cross anyone’s mind to suggest that Mecca or the Golden Temple should lose their distinctively Islamic and Sikh characters to accommodate people of different faiths.' But an ancient, famous Catholic cathedral is instinctively understood as somehow the common property of an officially post-Catholic order, especially when the opportunity suddenly arises to renovate it."
Um, time for Ross to visit the Hagia Sophia in Istanbul, which started as a Byzantine church and then became a mosque for 500 years. In 1935 it was converted into a secular museum by the government of Turkey, an Islamic country. So, no, it's not only Catholic historic buildings that become "common property."
The fallacy of Ross' argument is that: (1) there are lots of Catholic churches in Europe, (2) Europeans have low rates of church attendance, (3) the churches are big secular draws for income-producing tourists, and (4) these churches typically require public money to be maintained. That m means that these churches long ago became "post-Catholic" to feed the zillion-dollar tourist industry. It's not a liberal conspiracy but pure economics.
By contrast, Mecca's holy sites and the Golden Temple are still vital centers of intense religious worship, as are, say, St. Peter's and Lourdes. Those Catholic sites will not be converted to secular purposes anytime soon because they are still vibrant religious sites that pay for and justify their use as religious sites.
5
I have been through several Christian "religious" phases in my life.
Luckily, I have emerged from each of them unscathed.
Religion in this country - and many others - is rife with self-interest on the parts of the promulgators of the sects. It also tends to suggest indulgence in non-apologetic forgiveness. "I'm better now and not responsible for my previous actions, because I've been SAVED!"
Non-judgmental study and understanding of other religions - or lack of them - is a necessary part of overall character development, and does not include denigration of other faiths, or ranking of other faiths from "best" to "worst". It is those behaviors that so-called Christian impose on other faiths that put other Christians at risk of being singled out as a minority in other lands.
3
Counting Mr. Douthat, there are ten people named in this essay and from this Douthat deduces how "liberals," "conservatives," and the Western world thinks. This is not all that different than Trump's "a lotta people are saying..."
3
If American Christians (and religionists of all faiths, sects, and creeds) kept their faith out of civic and political dialogue and simply enacted the tenets and principles of their beliefs without attempting to legislate or otherwise impose them on anyone else, we could move beyond this. It'd be healthier, more productive, and more creative than what's happening now. And it would probably making building a more just society, a more perfect union, and a more equitable place for the pursuit of life, liberty, and happiness significantly more likely.
6
The clash of civilizations that Ross talks about has been fueled by religious fanaticism on both sides of the divide. And the terrorist actions that result will never end. It's the mixture of politics and religion that creates the conditions that fuels this conflict.
And when Ross says that "liberal discourse in the West implicitly accepts part of the terrorists’ premise" he reveals his own role in the crusade he supports. So it's "elite liberalism" that attempts to "tame" and "correct" Christianity to exist in a "useful" form? Nonsense. Christianity has evolved with the times to become more relevant to modern day man. It reflects the people it serves. But Douthat sees every attempt at change in the Church's rituals as an attack on the faith. That position reveals his own hardened conservative fanaticism. Shame on Douthat to suggest that some people's reaction to the Notre Dame tragedy is part of his clash of cultures war.
When Douthat laments that some Protestant ministers' support for the reformation of Christianity is done for modern liberal and left-wing purposes he is fighting a battle that is long over. The church splintered eons ago into Protestant sects as primarily a reaction to corruption and not for left wing purposes. It may be that Christians are persecuted around the world because Christianity has been determined to convert that same world. If the many popes had not interfered in political affairs things might be different.
4
Ross Douthat ignores the obvious: the people who committed terrorists acts were believers in a grand rigid fundamentalist approach to their religion. Suggesting that western liberals are somehow to blame ignores the fact that the separation of church and state was meant to depoliticize religion and allow people to worship in peace. Nobody's religion should be attacked. Government and people who seek power should not use their version of the faith to persecute others. The Founding Fathers seemed to have understood this better than today's conservatives who seem eager to use government to promote their beliefs. Since when did the liberal practice (not just belief) in tolerance become aggressive towards religion? The United States hasn't entirely escaped religious conflict, but by allowing people to worship without government interference (and in turn without government favoring one religion over the other), we have escaped these types of conflicts. Today conservatives are hung up over baking a cake for a gay couple. That is not persecution in my book. It's something that can be pursued in a court of law with arguments for or against, but nobody's killing believers over it. Douthat has trouble identifying the actual terrorists in favor of smearing the rest of us.
4
Someone threw everything and the kitchen sink into this opinion. What a jumbled mess. If I had to describe a key takeaway I would say: Conservative Catholics never got over the reformation.
I'll admit this sentiment is partially true even from my own perspective. For all of Catholicism's sins, Christianity was irreparably scattered across a world of differing cultural and social opinions once the Church fractured. Conservative Catholics apparently still have their feathers ruffled as a result. I have my own criticisms for Serene Jones. However, you'll find it hard not to offend the logic behind conservative Catholic thinking. From their point of view, all Protestantism is heresy on some level.
If you'll allow me to draw a different counter argument though, I would suggest Christianity is conflated with Western culture because most Christian in roads into non-Western societies are in fact colonial.
Mormons for instance, hardly a bastion of liberal or even conventional Christianity, still regularly send missionaries all across the world. When you talk to the church's returned members though, I'm consistently shocked by their astonishing ignorance of the culture where they just spent two years living, ostensibly talking to locals about Christian beliefs.
For the most part, missionaries are not interested in learning about non-Western cultures. They are interested in spreading a Christian interpretation of Western beliefs. That's colonialism whether conservative or liberal.
8
Being the son, grandson, nephew, great-nephew, and several other cousinal permutations of Presbyterian clergy, and having landed myself in the Episcopal church out of a more traditional liturgical sensibility, I take from my mainline Protestant upbringing the value of humility, and a true and genuine concern for the least and most lost among us.
The smug, self-righteous condescension of so many progressives toward even the more liberal manifestations of Christianity (as so often evidenced in the comments section of this very newspaper) bemuses me, seeing as the general and communal values of which progressives speak (apart from their moral hubris) came to them through the Christianity of their parents, grandparents, and other of their often European, definitely western forebears.
Perhaps they might read the Sermon on the Mount as a brief primer on what it is to be a good Christian, or a follower of the man who truly cared for the oppressed and the weak: "Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth." (Matthew 5:5). That sermon and many of the Jesus' parables can serve as an ethical guide to those of us wishing to do right by our fellow man.
For those who see Christianity as a manifestation of "white privilege," please remember that the fastest growing churches are in the third world. And bear in mind that the vast majority of the faithful who were so tragically massacred
this Easter Sunday were people of color from another culture.
"Christophobia" indeed!
284
Many of the “progressive” commentators I have listened to often site the New Testament as being aligned with progressive values. Even the atheists and agnostics point out that Jesus taught humility, care for others including the sick, hungry, poor and imprisoned, though they recognize Him as just a teacher. Of course they do so to further their political goal, whether that is treating immigrants with open arms rather than bullets and tear gas, providing economical relief to the poor via living wage initiatives, protecting the poor from hunger by saving food stamp programs from further cuts, fighting for prison reform and sentencing reform so those who are imprisoned for non violent crime don’t serve a violent crime sentence, ending the death penalty, or slowing military spending and ratcheting down threatening rhetoric and promoting peace to our enemies.
Or you can look at the conservatives who promote greed and intolerance, who want to shut out immigrants completely, who want to take away social safety net programs that help the poor so the wealthy pay less taxes, who want longer prison sentences and privatization of prisons, who want their brand of Christianity to dominate our society and our government which was constructed to avoid establishing a state religion.
127
@SXM I agree, true Christianity is progressive, not nativist, conservative, or nationalist. Jesus would never have embraced what we see from fundamentalists and people like Franklin Graham. He could never have supported the Herod the Great policies of this president.
68
@D I Shaw You seem to have forgotten Eastern Orthodox Christianity.
13
While we espouse and embrace freedom of religion and worship, sadly there are those who act to cause death and destruction against any religious beliefs that doesn't conform to their own ideologies, regardless of how radical and evil. Christianity began In the 1st century AD after Jesus died, no question that early Christians were persecuted until it eventually spread throughout the Roman empire and became the religion of state as it is today. Now it seems Christians are being persecuted once again.
6
@November-Rose-59
Could it be that their supposed persecution correlates with the increased persecution they themselves act upon?
"If You Don't Start Something, It Won't Be Nothing."
Has now morphed into "Don’t start nothing, won’t be nothing." One calls for doing works. The other calls for retribution. Guess what most associate with the Western religion.?!
2
@November-Rose-59. We have no state religion. Neither in the United States, nor in Lower Delaware.
3
@November-Rose-59
But here in the US, as the majority of the self-centered, self-righteous of the "We're being persecuted!" clan scramble to be the first to proclaim?
Hardly. }:)
Mr. Douthat, you seem to be ignoring history - I think - though I'm no historian. But when I think of the history of Christianity and Catholicism I think of the Crusades and their slaughter, the Inquisition, missionaries and their destruction, I think of the number of people killed by right wing Christians here and how they dwarf the number killed by other religious radicals by about 3 to 1, I think of colonialism, which was largely Christian, and its depredation of the colonized, I think of the slaughter Christian overlords perpetrated in India, and finally of the Christian slave owners. I'm sorry but how does that make y'all victims now? Where is the context, the nuance, the big picture of Christians in the world and in history? No other religion has spread such violence and persecution - I don't think but correct me if this is wrong.
3
Stalin and Mao proved that religion is not at the root of human depravity. The line of good and evil runs through every human heart.
The sins of the crusades, inquisition, and colonialism do not change the teachings of Jesus, no more than fellow scientists attacks of Einstein changed the laws of physics.
Simply calling yourself a Christian does not make all your actions Christ-like nor necessarily make you a true follower of Christ. I have yet to find the passage in the Bible condoning torture as a proper method for effecting religious conversion.
Love the Truth with all thy heart. Love thy true self in all its imperfection. And love others as you love thyself extending grace and mercy. Still as good a roadmap for living your life as it was 2,000 years ago.
1
For the last 300 years thinking people in the West have been trying to wean themselves away from the myths of various religions. Just as Nietzsche foretold, it has been a very painful process, and it will continue to be a very painful process.
I do think, however, that sometime in the not too distant future the vast majority of humanity will look back on Christianity, Judaism and Islam just as we now look back on the gods of the Greeks, Romans and Vikings - as religions which are nothing more than very interesting and also often very enlightening cultural artifacts.
3
Christianity in former western colonial empire did not spread on basis of good work.
The spread of an 'alinen' faith was done on back of a supportive foreign administration, with might of state violence. The church continues to sit atop the wealth looted from natives, lands confiscated by administration. The success of Christian schools and universities has to be viewed in backdrop of destruction of alternative education systems.
Though localized, most 'locals' do harbour their own misgivings about an institution that has not done anything to account for past....
I think you missed the central animating forces behind the hostility in western Europe and the USA. They are different.
In Europe your church (R.C.) stood proudly against the Enlightenment, the democratic movements for freedom of the press, free elections and an end to absolute monarchy. Ironically, your church also opposed freedom of and for religion ("Heresy has no rights!"). Sow the wind, reap the whirlwind. Add in the centuries spanning persecution of the Jewish population long before 1933 and the rise of Nazism.
Two World Wars in which millions of civilians in "Christian" (Catholic, Anglican, Protestant, E. Orthodox) countries are brutally killed by a combination of believers and non-believers. Christianity (and to a degree Judaism) shaken to its core. Add in the cultural and sexual revolution of the 60's.
In our country, late 19th/early 20th C. immigration changed a mainline Protestant ascendancy to a free for all. Mindsets changed as people became middle class and college educated. Persons who had every reason, and good ones, to despise Christianity (Jews, LGBT, feminists etc.) gained a voice and in some areas an influential one (the media and the academy). The evangelical wing of Protestantism pushed the mainline aside and fought the culture wars. These are the factors in the arms-length attitude toward Christianity here.
187
@Unworthy Servant
Exactly right. Catholic support of the most brutally reactionary forces in Europe from 1800 well into the 20th century permanently alienated the working classes there. In America the Church by contrast supported immigrant workers against the Protestant plutocracy, but the resulting allegiances are starting to wane as cardinals golf with the bosses.
9
@Unworthy Servant
You select the worse aspects of Christianity and your ignore all of its virtues. I suggest you go to places where there is no Christianity and see how people live. I suspect you will find female genital cutting, honor killings, suicide bombing, and human trafficking to be far worse than your claims.
10
@Unworthy Servant- agreed. If people want to be Christian, that's just fine, as long as they don't impose their beliefs on others. Religion is personal and should not be part of government, education, or public life.
13
Yes, Christians in Sri Lanka are persecuted. Here in the United States, it's the Christians who are doing the persecuting.
Is there another major religious political operation seeking to deny the rights of non-believers operating in the United States that you can name, Mr. Douthat?
10
“[A]n ancient, famous Catholic cathedral is instinctively understood as somehow the common property of an officially post-Catholic order . . .”
Instinctively? Understood somehow to be common property? The laïcité law of 1905 preserved the principle that the cathedral is state property, not private property.
1
It's both! Duh! And it's neither!
Douthat sees the obvious: obscure suicidal Jihadis attacked Catholic churches and tourist hotels in a predominantly-Buddhist nation ... and turns it into a screed about liberals in America. This isn't just missing the forest for the trees, it's arguing that pool halls are the problem in River City.
We don't clearly understand the terrorists who did this, but we do know that they come from a small minority in Sri Lanka. The Tamils in Sri Lanka (the big minority) are mostly Hindu and Christian. The Islamic population of Sri Lanka is mostly Tamil, but a minority of that, and these terrorists are a small ultra-Jihadi faction of a hardline faction of the Islamic minority:
WikiP:
"NTJ is believed to have separated from the Sri Lanka Thowheed Jamath (SLTJ), also a hardline Islamist organization, in or around 2016. The NTJ's leadership had been condemned by several Sri Lankan Muslim organizations in 2016 for advocating extreme fundamentalist indoctrination of children, and for clashes with Buddhist monks. One of the leaders, Abdul Razik, was arrested for inciting racism."
Basically what you have here is about on par with the guys who bombed the Murtaugh building in Oklahoma; though these people may have had help from ISIS.
Wide arguments about what more mainstream people of any faith (or none) believe in a context of terror by very marginalized wackos is ridiculous.
2
“Islamophobia” looms large; talk of “Christophobia” is almost nonexistent." Really? Every year Murdoch Corporation starts ginning up Christophobia in November by stoking the fiction that atheistic elites are bent on eliminating Christmas.
The slaughter of innocents because of their religion should not be yet another occasion by the author to condemn secular humanism, which is the very guardrail preventing civilization from descending into the murderous pit of sectarian hatred to begin with.
7
Ross is always defending some imaginary benevolent Christian religion from some imaginary liberal insult based on the Upper West Side cocktail-party world that he inhabits.
But the reality of Christianity in the US is nothing like the Upper West Side. To a large extent it's this quasi-fascist movement that calls itself Christian but in fact is the complete opposite of Christianity, a cult that worships money, craves political power, and derives its energy from hating women, gays and liberals.
These "Christians" won't even open their megachurch doors to the homeless during hurricanes, but they will give millions to buy Congress -- not for a religious awakening, but so that they can take away the right to abortion and birth control (and God knows what else after those are gone), and gay people's right to, well, exist.
And it is worth noting that this virulent "Christianity" happens to have a hold on a political party that is more dominant than any political party has been in in the last century and a half. These American "Christians" don't need defending -- in fact the rest of us need to be defended from them. These "Christians" are the greatest threat to our freedom in my lifetime.
The great cathedrals of Europe, largely empty on Sundays, ought to be a cautionary tale for American Christians. When you try to install Christianity as a state religion, when you try to impose religion through the use of power, Christianity loses its vitality and dies away.
13
@Tom
So too, in the U.S. our 3rd branch of government, the Judicial, has been under attack since the 1960s, steadily since the 1980s subsumed into Vatican Inc. to where half of America that is female faces losing their constitutional right to reproductive health care - which ought not have had to be constitutionally protected in the first place in a "we the people" democracy predicated on tolerance of religion but freedom from religion.
1
"Privileged or persecuted"? What a horrible mentality. No wonder we have a PC crisis on campuses and socialists in Congress now.
1
This is a mishmash. Isis or whoever did these bombings were going to be restrained. It is Trump not liberal Christians in decline that has at least some responsibility. Isis may be a hard nut to crack but folk who are consciously into harm and hurt are the problem no mater who they happen to be.
1
Every narrative has its nut jobs who are held in the highest respect by their respective groups because they are willing to harm themselves and others if that is what it takes to prove their faith and demonstrate they are worthy of the respect of their pears. The “narrative” is a combination of religion, politics and culture that may or may not transcend the interests of feminists, race and wealth. The endless ism-mutations of Western Christianity, Western liberalism, Catholic Church, religious-totalitarian version of Islam, Islamist, Islamic alternative, “Western Civilization”, “Judeo-Christian, Euro-American, etc. are more than “different brand names for the same old crusade”. They are fundamental to our ways of life and our identity.
In a psychological sense, out narratives are the sum of our individual contingencies of reinforcement that suggest some actions over others. Positive and negative reinforcements operate largely (but not entirely) at a sub-conscious or automatic level.
The value of our narratives can be objectively measured in terms of good and evil. Progress occurs by keeping the good and avoiding every kind of evil. Unfortunately, humanity clings easily to evil. Modesty, decency, charity, and family values are not universal. The nut jobs can see the sins of the other group and are more than willing to blow it up. It amounts to righteous abortion or “self-abnegation” on a public scale.
1
A really great column.
3
"Christians around the world are persecuted on an extraordinary scale — by mobs and pogroms in India..."
Ross, in India , nothing is as simple as initially reported. We are talking real tribal conflict here (not like the US Congress)—the history between the Panos (Pana) and the Khonds (Khands) reads like the Hatfields and McCoys . The riots you refer to happened at a time when Sonia Gandhi—a Catholic whose principal advisers were Christians and Muslims.
No one, least of all the media which, in search of audience, screamed contradictory stories, shed any light on what actually happened. But one thing is clear: both Pano and Khond were victims along with the truth.
Rashomon played on a Lord of the Flies level. Anyone wanting to get at the 'truth' can wade through wikipedia—layered with biases that come with all open edit information.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_violence_in_Odisha#Murder_of_Swami_Lakshmanananda
Thus, it is important to avoid the kind of blanket statement you made. It could incite violence in the US by extreme Christian elements, on Sikh and Hindu Temples.
Ross, Dont't Do That
2
I have lived in India all my life and it was news to me that there are mobs and pogroms attacking christians in my country! When India was under colonial rule, white missionaries went around the country "saving the souls of the brown savages". After independence, this proselytising continued mostly in the poor tribal communities. In India, idols have been worshipped for millennia. When christian missionaries went around calling idol worshippers heathens and saying the one true God existed only in the Christian church, it created resentment and tensions. Notwithstanding this, Christianity continues to flourish in India and co-exists with Hinduism, Islam, Buddhism, Jainism and Zoroastrianism. Western funded christian missions used to primarily run schools, colleges and hospitals. The goodwill created by that offset the resentment due to the proselytising.
(In the last few decades, the Saudi funded Islamic madrassas and mosques in India have only done proselytising and created a divide between muslims and everyone else).
To cut a long story short, Ross's claim that christians are a community under threat in India is rubbish. The thousands of American tourists who visit India every year can surely attest that there are no mobs and pograms attacking christians. Some evangelicals may exaggerate the dangers that they are face in order to get donations-thats just advertising.
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Your patriotism is admirable but you cannot completely deny the existence of some mob activity (BJP sponsored ) where gangs have lynched the minorities under the doctrine of their religious duty to the sacred cows .Such news are in Indian press published under apparent Hindu pride by RSS who donot hide their reverence to cows over minorities.
The secular India you may know, is fast changing under BJP where leaders are presently making it their election manifesto to make it a purely Hindu state.
1
@Arvind
1) Christianity in India is much older than colonialism
2) The percentage of Christians in India has remained unchanged, at ~2%, for decades
3) Christians, along with other minorities, are in grave danger in India. Ghar Wapsi (re-conversion into Hinduism, sometimes by force), attacks on churches and prayer groups (Delhi and UP), call by prominent party leaders to eliminate those religions that did not originate in the sub-continent are just examples from past few years.
The interesting contrast you note that a rebuilt Notre Dame id described in almost ecumenical terms, while no-one makes the same suggestion of Mecca or the Golden Temple, as a couple of causes: first, Mecca and the Golden Temple continue to be ardently used, to capacity, by believers, while church attendance in France is at historically low levels.:Second, Notre Dame has been open to tourists for some time, and it is no doubt the case that worshippers are a very small minority of the total numbers who visit the church, a marked contrast to Mecca which is strongly off limits to outsiders. Sadly for the believers in Paris, the fact is Notre Dame has become more of a museum piece and a place of pride in French history.
To you other point about the Western sensitivity to refering to Western Civilization, let alone Christianity, surely we have to acknowledge the role of the Crusades. To this day, ISIS and others still refer to the Western involvement in the region as a modern Crusade. Fair or unfair, and historically accurate or not, the Crusades have become virtually a synonym for intolerance and empire.
1
It feels to me like we are living through some culture-wide reprise of Anthony Trollope’s The Warden.
The contemporary “guardians” of Western institutions do not believe in 2500 years of Western philosophy and faith. They are in it either for the patronage or to abscond with the endowments. They try to “surf” the mob.
We are sheep without shepherds.
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@Frank: These "guardians" are binging in advance of an apocalypse they believe to be inevitable.
1
@Frank
The same "western philosophy" which includes your faith also includes the philosophies which reject its importance, its correctness, and the very notion of including it in our institutions.
Rejecting your faith with my philosophy is no less "Western" than whatever it is you think you're the bulwark of defending.
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@Frank I guess instead of being guardians of Western institutions, liberals could just abandon such institutions and let them fall into ruin.
1
I really tried to get into the head of what Douthat was railing on about. Perhaps confused I feel angry at what I think are his conclusions. There is no Liberal/Conservative issue here. Our founding fathers, lo those many years ago,realized that religion was important to people and lead to division and made us a secular nation politically, brilliant. Those who try to make religion the the things that are Caesar's are divisive. Wars start because of expansion/economics, cultural differences, or ideology, the largest of which is religion. I get angry about arguments that those who don't practice their religion (or the ethical standards thereof) are somehow less worthy, or who say "my religion is better, more worthy, more correct than yours". Liberal is not dirty word.
8
@William Trainor: In the rather brief golden age of Deism called "The Enlightenment", it was widely believed that, however it might have originated, the universe at present operates automatically.
As with his column post-cathedral fire, I can't help but feel that Mr. Douthat swings and misses here. For a column nominally in response to a great tragedy, a terrorist attack killing hundred, it is strange to see him once again argue that the real villain behind it all is western liberalism and its detachedness from Catholic tradition.
The fact is Christianity can be both privileged AND persecuted, as the lived experience of being Christian varies wildly across the world. Yes, Christians in western countries, with their pesky liberal traditions like freedom of religion, largely do not suffer serious persecution for their beliefs. Yes, Christians elsewhere are often victims of sad attacks like these and others. Western liberals would do well to remember this and update their perceptions of Christianity's global reach.
But I find that Mr. Douthat's at times warranted critiques once again are blunted by their own inherent hypocrisy. By using the plight of persecuted Christians around the world as yet another blunt weapon with which to bludgeon 'liberals', he refocuses the conversation once again to the relatively narrow experience of western Christianity.
When tragedies such as this are look at just another 'take' on liberalism v. tradition, and by such a prominent voice as Mr. Douthat's, one can't help but be disillusioned with the whole thing.
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An interesting column, but wouldn’t it be more accurate to say that minorities of all kinds are under threat all over the world? And isn’t the worst instance of religious persecution (by far) right now that being carried out against Uighurs in China? Up to one sixth of the adult population are now in re-education camps/prisons, whose sole purpose is to destroy the religious faith of the inmates. Persecution of any belief should cause us outrage. I just wonder why the Uighur case, on such a scale that it meets the definition of a crime against humanity, is ignored by Mr. Douthat.
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I was becoming concerned about serious imbalance until I hit "Unfortunately the various conservative alternatives to this liberal muddle are not always more helpful ..." It was still out of balance, but better. Both are a problem. Western Christianity is in serious need of renewal; doing some re-thinking and at the same time embracing healthy traditions. An opportunity is presenting itself. I fear it won't happen.
I am not religious, but I read the interview with Serene Jones and found I was interested in her views. To read now that Douthat felt she repudiated his Christian faith is surprising. I thought our whole First-Amendment-Freedom-of-Religion thing meant that Americans could practice religion any way they like. But, here's Douthat writing that he doesn't think Jones believes correctly because she doesn't believe as he does. No wonder so many Americans have drifted from religion.
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When will Mr. Douthat or any other prominent commentator also stand up for nonbelievers all over the world? Now, that's a really persecuted minority, threatened not only by machete-wielding terrorists, but very often by government authorities and discriminatory laws that in some countries even include death sentences. LGBT persons, though not a religious minority, are similarly persecuted by religious fanatics all over the world, but at least their plight has gotten some coverage.
The absolute silence of the media on persecution of nonbelievers seems to me to follow the syndrome of "First they came after nonbelievers, but since I was not a nonbeliver…" How did that work out?
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When was the last terrorist attack aimed specifically at non-believers? I can’t remember one.
1
"...to ensure the continued use of its origin story and imagery (and its institutions, and their brands, and their endowments) for modern liberal and left-wing purposes. " Given the incredibly pervasive co-opting of Christianity to the Republican brand-- low taxes for the rich, the wall, deregulation, high-carbon emissions, consumerism, materialism, militarism, the rejection of universal health care, and so on-- this statement has to rank as one of Mr. Douthat's most auspicious, ever. Just what does this "enduring" faith stand for exactly?
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@Bill Van Dyk: "Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's" impresses me as a remarkably prescient understanding of the role of a public sector in a mixed economy.
@Steve Bolger
Which is why the U.S. is long overdue to review the Establishment Clause in order to repeal the tax exempt status of every religious organization, especially the $multimillion mega-evangelicals and $multibillion global corporate Christian/Catholic that've scammed a free ride on the back of taxpayers since. At the very least, they ought pay local property taxes to their own cities and communities. To not do so transparently reveals that free money is the core reason so many religious organizations are, in fact, businesses and corporations. The property tax exemption is fairly recent, a 1970 court decision, which could with a swipe of a pen be reviewed and fixed...were it not for the Christians and Catholics stacking the court with their team.
When I read the interview Rev.Serene Jones by Nicholas Kristof yesterday, and browsed the 100’s of comments on it, I was wanting to write my two-penny worth on top of them, but couldn’t make out how exactly I would respond.
Ross Douthat has come out with a brilliant piece today and it is the most nuanced position in the current global scenario. And I realize this is the importance of New York Times and accomplished journalists such as Nicholas Kristof and Ross Douthat. My two pennies won’t cut it!
Ross just introduced the term Christophobia. I have always wanted to question the sensational news reports from India, other Asian and African countries about “persecution“ of Christians. So now I agree with Ross that it is real.
The term that we in the West are familiar with is Islamophobia, which is in the context of supporting the freedoms of Muslims to worship, preventing comments directed against their practises, believes or dress code, even when some of them are barbaric practices. In the aftermath of the mosque shootings in New Zealand, their prime minister went out of the way to prevent the spread of hate against Muslims. Such protections are absent in much of the world where Christophobia is taking place.
Every faith and race in any part of the world must have protections against hate crimes. Civil debates about theology and religion can always take place without the persecutions. That would be my two-penny worth today.
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@Alex Abraham: I think Aldous Huxley's "Brave New World" foresaw the developing schism between technological and pastoralist lifestyles.
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@Steve Bolger
Yes, however, Huxley in BNW is addressing population controls via totalitarianism - certainly a growing concern in 1932, along with fascism all over Europe.
The foundation of the never-ending European variant governance chaos begins in the 4th century, when Constantine made Christianity the Roman state religion, in a heretofore tolerant non-theist empire. That chaos and violence only increases with the rise of Christianity/Catholicism till the end of WWII. Even during Roman times, it is the early Christian Catholics who maraud, kill and rape in the name of opportunistically forcing their nascent "faith" on what is wholly a non-religious empire. The Christians are the ones who invent horrific cruelties to all those of other faiths, including pagans.
One aspect of Brave New World is that there still exist the rural outlier religious, who've not changed over that 600-year period in the book and are considered a chaotic, violent, ignorant mess - literally, the embodiment of the character John "Savage".
1
Nice one, Ross. Let's blame American liberals for the genuine victimization of Christians in non-Christian lands.
"It’s another distilled example of the combination of repudiation and co-optation, the desire to abandon and the desire to claim and tame and redefine, that so often defines the liberal relationship to Christian faith."
No, it is not co-optation, it is a nonliteral belief in the Bible and the message of Christ.
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@Sarah D.: Ross projects that Jesus was a conservative. I project that he was a liberal.
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Actually, Ross’s argument is much more nuanced than you assert. He doesn’t blame American liberals for the victimization of Christians in non-Christian lands. Instead, he posits that American liberals are so invested in the idea (and perceived threat) of Christianity’s pre-eminent position in American and Western European life that they fail to recognize, condemn, and defend against the very real peril of extinction of Christians elsewhere in a very unfriendly world. That doesn’t make American liberals responsible for the Christophobia flourishing in the Middle East and parts of Asia, but it does expose an enormous blind spot to which liberal ambivalence toward Christianity contributes.
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@Katie It's not more nuanced, it's just more ready to disclaim its own bigotry and pretend to have common cause with liberals.
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There is more than little reason for people to fear Christianity, especially people whose lands have been invaded by "saviors" who invoke the names of God and Christ as justification for plundering other nations' treasures. Even so, how many American Christians of the 1950s would recognize and approve of today's Trump-worshiping evangelicals?
If you live in the Middle East especially, you have every reason to fear today's Christian America, which invaded Iraq and slaughtered hundreds of thousands of non-combatant citizens on a pretext thinner than an ancient parchment. Trump has cloaked his call for a toxic nationalism that excludes other religions in the holy robes of a religious fanaticism he stokes at every opportunity. While there is no justification for slaughtering innocent people of any religion, Christianity's history of war and plunder is too easy to ignore and too often repeated.
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Only an American would have written an article like this. Us Europeans (I was raised in a Catholic country), know the Catholic Church too well.
4
"Judeo-Christian" is a phrase primarily used by Christians when they want to pretend that they consider Jews equals.
It's not a phrase used by Jews because we understand that there's a vast, VAST gulf between Jewish and Christian beliefs.
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@DSW: Jews are still waiting for Godot.
1
Mr. Ross, as a lifelong observant Catholic of the social justice persuasion, your use of the term "liberalism" in the pejorative is misinformed and misleading. It seems to suit your "conservative" purpose, but it is not consistent with our faith. I suggest that you subscribe to America Magazine, a Jesuit publication, to better understand your adopted faith and its relationship to wordly affairs.
6
Huntington's West, the "white" countries of a century ago, is the primary reference of liberals when under serious duress.
At times like 9/11 or the Russian intervention in Ukraine, fingers are pointed at the malefactors, and one reads: "The Civilized World is outraged..."
The unnecessary word "Civilized" is reflexive and unthinking, and, to the rest of us, it means "The White World is outraged..."
Naturally, this particularism cuts off Western Christians from the rest of their coreligionists.
The largest group of non-European, "alien", Christians are the Orthodox of Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, some of the Balkans, some of the Caucasus, and some of Central Asia.
It is strange that we Russians, in particular, are defined as outlanders. Our intelligentsia, in Russia and in the Diaspora, was and is a first rate participant in European culture. Think of Russian dance, classical music, opera, the novel, theatre.
Or, if you want to know how Catholicism looked before Vatican II, come to an Orthodox service at our putative alien, non-European church. A mediaeval language, censers and heavy incense floating, gilt everywhere, candles, frequent crossing of oneself, confessions in the corner, chanting, angelic singing.
The West knows so little of our world. Who was St. Francis Xavier? Prester John? Who are the Nestorians? The Malabars? Are Armenians Muslims? Or Georgians? Who killed 10,000 Japanese Catholics in 1945?
One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church---may it come.
2
White European Christians are privileged and powerful enough every where to control the socioeconomic political educational destiny and legacy of every black and brown African/ American /Asian and Buddhist/Christian/Hindu/Muslim who still dwell and exist in the remnants of their colonial conquered empires.
1
Privileged or persecuted is the wrong question and hardly specific to the Christian wing of the 4 Abrahamics. Of course Christians, as well as all the religious - everywhere on the planet, are both.
Just as it has been for 2000 a non-stop cycle of ignorance, piety and violence, which the religious invented. Throughout history, this has been as much to quell their fear of human mortality as reason to wage war, rape and murder their neighbor - all the better if the neighbor is not a genuflector to their respective ancient cult. So, the taproot question is: Ignorant or tiresome? Of course, there too, Christians, as well as all the religious - everywhere on the planet, are both. Imagine a world of humans living in reality and sanity, without all that bunk. Especially a world without all that violence and competitive internecine hatred for sibling cults.
3
1. "Western liberalism" is very much the product of Western Christianity and one of the greatest advertisements for Christianity as a force for good in this world..
2. There is not and never will be a human majority religion, language or ideology. We going to have big problems as long as some people are unable to accept this, whether Islamic extremists or some Christians, Chinese, "white" people or whoever.
1
One luxury we enjoy in the United States is that of religious freedom. It would be more helpful to Christians around the world if somehow we could all encourage more separation between church and state, not rooting for the Christians in some kind of global culture war that produces actual casualties, not metaphorical ones. The religious tolerance in the United States is far from perfect, but it feels much more accepting than anywhere else I can think of.
I wonder if it is possible to recreate the special circumstance we enjoy. There is so much blood and horror in the history of how we came to be, that it seems impossible to replicate it ethically.
My faith is Christian, yet I don't wish to see "Team Christianity" triumph over all other religions and cultures. As part of my faith, I want to see Peace prosper, and I want every human to see that we are all the same, regardless of our beliefs.
I have been in church and heard people using martyrs as tools to create a feeling of persecution among American Christians and use that feeling to win political fights. Let us please not use victims for ulterior motives. Let us respect them and mourn them. And let us think of those people of other religions who have are killed in the exact same way, deserving the same respect, and feeling just as much heartache. We are all the same, and we should treat each other that way.
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@DP
Americans do not enjoy religious freedom, at least not as Jefferson and Madison intended (both of whom were essentially agnostic), which included freedom from religion.
Name the last atheist or agnostic U.S. president or governor, mayor of your town, or presidential candidate. Name one atheist or agnostic Suprme Court Justice. How many agnostic or atheist members of Congress do we enjoy. How many Democrat candidates currently running for president are agnostic or atheist?
The closest we've gotten is perhaps Obama, who in his political life claimed to be Christian but was not raised that - nor any religion - while definitely exposed as a global child to every faith. That was enough to form him as both tolerant of all religions and aware the ramifications of locking horns with or crossing the dominant religion wherever one lives. ;-)
Heck, even Donald Trump isn't agnostic or atheist. He was raised Presbyterian and will sometimes still attend those church services.
Religion is just one of the monikers being worn by competing groups on this planet seeking diminishing resources. The fundamental problem is overpopulation and the disparate distribution of diminishing resources. As sea levels rise and climate change makes it more difficult to produce life sustaining crops, more conflicts will arise and become even more violent. Christianity like the other major religions such as Islam and Buddhism are not monolithic and have a multitude of internal factions, many of which that are at odds with each other. Those conflicts like those of the external groups are but symptoms; people disagreeing over mythology and ignoring the more fundamental problems on the planet. If we cannot develop more comprehensive and sustainable lifestyles and control our population, religion will be the least of our problems. Keep in mind many nations amongst us now have the capability to annihilate all life on this planet.
4
Christian religious fundamentalists have passed numerous Religious Freedom Restoration Acts (either federal or state RFRAs).
These RFRA laws are the very embodiment of privilege.
RFRA statutes give the sincerely devout the right to violate a generally applicable, religiously neutral law that the non-religious would have to obey in certain situations, solely based on different thoughts inside their heads.
This is facially unconstitutional, the very definition of invidious and divisive government discrimination that the neutrality principle supposedly embedded in our Constitution's First Amendment is designed to keep at bay.
Worse, every time a RFRA statute is used to award some devout person with a particular sincere belief an exemption from obeying a generally applicable, religiously neutral law or regulation that another religious person with a different set of ideas inside their head still has to obey, the situation is unconstitutional as applied.
So let there be no argument. Currently in the US, the religious right have gamed our system of laws to privilege themselves.
In their entitlement, the fundamentalists will overreach and begin harming others (e.g., violating anti-discrimination laws).
If we're lucky all RFRAs will be ruled unconstitutional, bringing the US's rule of law back to the separation of Church and State and to government neutrality, the foundational principles of the Enlightenment.
Meantime, RFRAs are theocracy-lite that privilege the religious.
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@Doug McKenna: All of this "religious freedom" legislation is unconstitutional laws made to enforce respect for faith-based beliefs on nonbelievers.
4
@Steve Bolger
Fully concur. And of course "nonbelievers" is defined as "Anyone who believes anything other than I do." E.g., Westport Baptist Church is a stellar (though hardly the only) example.
Mr. Douthat is not usually so confused. The dead and wounded in Sri Lanka are not the "victims of Western liberalism's peculiar relationship to its Christian heritage." The bombers are responsible.
As to his larger point, the trend that Serene Jones identified -- a revolution in Christian faith true to our times, less defined by myths of magic acts -- is not inconsistent with protecting religious minorities around the world, including Christians in non-Christian lands.
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Religion, all of it, is the expression of mind control, and always been so. And thus is evil. Meanwhile, it is possible to have a set of moral beliefs or behaviors and to try to live by them without being religious in any sense.
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@Kevin
Yes, he was extremely particular to carefully tiptoe onto only the flagstones he wanted to, without risking the pesky ones that could make his constructed argument lose its balance.
The tactic of blaming "liberalism" & "liberals" for victimizing people was a straw-man & a rather poorly one at that.
25
But if you ask the people in Sri Lanka or China, or anywhere that Christians are persecuted, they will tell you that Christianity is a living faith and that miracles are their experience. They experience Christianity as in the book of Acts. Miracles are not an option: Love, Forgiveness, reconciliation, deliverance, and physical and emotional healing are the core of Gospel of Jesus. Jesus promised that anyone following Him will be persecuted. The persecution of these Christians is evidence that their faith is alive and God is with them and they will prevail.
3
I think we are making this a bit more complicated than it is. In many countries that have small Christian populations left over from colonialism, Christians are sometimes equated with the power and hegemony of European civilization. This subjects them to persecution. In the US right wing Christians have gained a great deal of power in the Republican party in general and especially in the Trump administration. They are using their power to force their religious dogma into laws and regulations on issues like abortion, gay rights and even foreign policy. This is has also become a form of persecution. The real lesson is that when religious leaders have excessive influence in government they use that power to persecute others. This is true in many countries like India, Saudi Arabia, Myanmar and now sadly in the U.S. as well.
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@JS The Christian communities of Iraq and Syria date back to the earliest period of the Christian church. They predate European colonialism and even the crusades by centuries. Nonetheless, they have been slaughtered and driven from their homes. Take another look at history.
80
These Christian communities may be old but think about the History of the Middle East- the crusades, the military clash of Christian and Muslim armies. The Ottoman’s almost conquered the city of Vienna , Austria in the late 16th century( not exactly sure of the date). A lot of killing associated with religion throughout history. It is a shame that religion is being used to further the power of politicians. Minority groups are always demonized, scapegoated and persecuted throughout history by political leaders of the majority religion no matter what the religion is.
36
@JS Put another way, it is a demonstrated trait of human tribes to be meek and accommodating when in the minority, and tough as nails on opposition when in a solid majority. Religions can display this trait conspicuously and if one looks around the world today, examples are easy to find.
34
I don't about the church that Ross attends, but in my church, the worldwide persecution of Christians is front and center. As an evangelical church that focuses on spreading the gospel, and not politics, my church frequently sends people and money to support Christians under stress and in real danger of losing their lives around the world. This Easter we remembered Jesus' words that a follower is to "take up his cross." That literally means follow him and perhaps to die. I'm not saying that dying for the faith is something we all should do, but we should recognize that there are enemies to Christ -- governments, other religious beliefs, materialism, etc. The problem as i see it is the complacency of Christians to think that they deserve the comfort that they have and the risk-less life that they lead. They don't if they are followers of Christ. We are in all things undeserving, but have been granted by grace the gift of life.
2
Well said, Ross.
Geopolitical fantasy and internal contradiction are categorical moral imperatives of contemporary globalist liberalism. Sometimes, the resultant dissolution is something only prophets dare announce, while at other times the warnings are writ on church walls in the blood of innocents.
If the fire at Notre-Dame had been an act of terrorism, billionaires would have kept their checkbooks in their pockets.
1
Anti-Religious, Mao and Stalin by example, killed more people in a generation than religious killed in the previous 1,000 years.
5
@Mkm
Oh good to know. Religious based genocides have a lower body counts than non-religious based ones.
2
@Mkm
Mao and Stalin created a secular, essentially religious cult of personality in order to consolidate their power. They were worshipped by faithful communists.
1
Let's be honest. In another context, Evangelicals in the US would be telling us that the doctrines of the Coptics and Catholics don't equate with Christianity.
But since the persecution narrative is ready at hand for those who follow the dominant brand of Christianity in the US, suddenly the misguided souls who worship the Virgin Mary in error and pray to the Saints in error and believe contrary things about Christ and worship him in error are all back in the fold.
Talk about political expediency...
5
Are Christians privileged or persecuted? Yes, they are. Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, etc. are similarly privileged in some cultural contexts, persecuted in others, and frequently both at the same time. The false dichotomy obvious in the question makes it too easy for groups to see themselves as they want and talk past each other with an unlistening “yes, but....” To have privilege is to subordinate others, and too often persecution in some other context is the excuse for doing that. Whether we’re talking about religion, race, or gender, the way to end discrimination and achieve equality is to destroy privilege.
4
@Caleb: All faith-based beliefs deserve the same treatment. They may be held voluntarily by individuals, but they cannot be forced on anyone against their will.
2
This is not an East-West conflict as you say. To wit, Islam is a Western Abrahamic religion, Douthat. The black box that Muslims circle each year is where the Judeo-Christian profit Abraham lived. Christ is mentioned more than 100 time in the Koran and he is a profit in that book. This conflict you discuss is pure West.
2
@Gregory Scott Nass. It is the same sectarian violence on both sides. We are all persecuted by "religious" people from both Abrahamic sects (all three actually).
Am I missing something, or has Douthat tried to find a way to blame Western liberalism for the deaths of Christians in Sri Lanka? I thought it was the terrorists who done it...silly me.
Rather than having the US embrace a phony past as a "Christian nation" (where are Jews in this story? Or virtual atheists like some of our founding fathers?) perhaps a better response to the tragedy in Sri Lanka would be the liberal one: to reaffirm that killing people simply on the grounds of race, creed, religion etc. is not acceptable.
5
Ross seems to be confused about what liberalism means -- it comes from the Latin for "freedom" -- the idea that religions are entitled to their own gods, but not to their own governments.
3
“If I become president we will all be saying ‘Merry Christmas’ again.”. —Trump, nov. 10, 2015
The authoritarian imperative of “will”, and the universality of “all”, in this statement —as a campaign promise and applause line by a candidate for president of the United States in 2015, and a successful one ultimately —
speaks volumes about white evangelical christianity and religious persecution in contemporary America.
4
“One of the basic facts of contemporary religious history is that Christians around the world are persecuted on an extraordinary scale — by mobs and pogroms in India,”
Care to offer any evidence?
Most "Christians" are neither privileged or persecuted. They're simply Fake Christians posing as real Christians. Which, now that I think about it, is indeed an unearned privilege.
3
Sigh.
In today's Times, I completely agree with the columns of both Paul Krugman AND Ross Douthat.
Where is the political party that represents me and millions of others like me?
1
The pulpit should be reserved for messages about the soul and service to the poor and have no connection with politics. Islam, Christianity, and Judaism are cut from the same clothe, the must find coalesce and serve their God’s message and resolve to leave the realm of political struggles.
3
We can't control or even influence the actions of fanatics in other nations. Unfortunately, we can't even control or influence the beliefs and actions of those in America. Christians here are privileged. Muslims are demeaned and threatened. Half of America, perhaps more, does not believe a Muslim should be in Congress, let alone be sworn in with a hand on the Koran. Try to build a mosque in a residential area (one filled with Christian churches), even in liberal states, and see the public reaction. View social media and read the vile attacks on Muslims. I fear that more harm than good takes place in the name of God.
5
All religions are subject to interpretations outside official doctrine. Just because large groups label themselves believers, does not change the fact that religion is a shared form of cultural fiction. Stories that are formally taught and orally passed down through generations with an individuals or a generations own stamp, and thus is an interpretation of a moment in time. The two weave a complex fabric that make it impossible to interpret where one begins and other ends. Ultimately, cathedrals occupy a public space, and how believers and non believers choose to identify with them will always be subject to many individual factors. I’m a Jew, who lived in Italy for 16 years, I’ve always been fascinated with beauty of cathedrals. I’m also not ignorant of the Catholic Churches history. Nonetheless we all have an right to interpret beauty in our own terms. Images play a powerful part of our psyche, mountains, sunsets, and yes, urban scenes of which cathedrals are part of the landscape. Ross, you believe I don’t. Notre Dame burning is a shared loss, despite those differences. Don’t resist the difference, but embrace it. Mourning the loss beauty is not a liberal or conservative act, but a human response to this tragedy.
4
Oh, for the good old days of 6000 years ago when there were no organized religions, only tribal ceremonies!
Ross, a very thorough and astute analysis of the current confusing state of organized and unorganized religions and the pull of religious feelings even for those who no longer believe but maintain a cultural nostalgia for the churches or mosques or temples of their former beliefs.
4
Ross makes some excellent points, but underplays the degree to which Christianity in the West has undermined itself. The Roman Catholic Church's stubborn refusal to acknowledge and root out a culture of pedophilia has emptied the pews and destroyed its moral authority. Right wing Evangelicalism has all but jettisoned the foundational tenants of the Christian faith -- do unto others, serve the poor, mercy, forgiveness, grace -- in pursuit of two goals: outlawing abortion and gaining the legal right to discriminate against gay people. Jesus, by the way, never mentions either of those things in the Gospels. Is it any wonder that so many in the West have come to view Christianity as a reactionary, hypocritical agent of oppression?
That said, Ross is on to something. Christianity provided the basis for western morality -- do the right thing, the meek shall inherit the earth, the Good Samaritan, fairness -- and with that democracy and pluralism. Its waning is a major reason while we see not just cheating, greed, brutality, lying, immorality and selfishness on an unprecedented scale, but public acceptance of such behavior. I refer not only to the president, but Harvey Weinstein, Bill Clinton and Game of Thrones. If we have a religion today, it is an Ayn Randian cult of selfishness and will to power. To restore our nation and the West, we need to address our moral crisis. A revived Christianity that emphasizes good works, do unto others and morality is key to that revival.
7
@Christopher Hoffman I suggest that you read a bit more about other religions before you suggest that it is only Christians who support doing the right thing, etc.
2
Christopher Hoffman,
Mainline Protestant denominations are not exactly bursting at the seams. They have also seen a steady decline in attendance. All religious faiths have lost members and there is no guarantee that the worshippers will ever return. Some may but most do not unfortunately.
1
@KMW A good point. I don't know enough about the recent history of mainline Protestantism to say why that is. But it has clearly contributed to the trends I cite above as well.
As a traditional American Indian, I was was 27 before it was legal to practice my traditional Cherokee Religion in America and that wasn't because of progressives, liberals or Islam although they aren't any better about this. Your Pope proclaimed the Doctrine of Discovery and burned our books destroying our languages and cultures with impunity for 400 years. What am I now to think about this column? It was a Baptist, Jimmy Carter who signed the bill that allowed me once more to pray in public. With the temperament of the current right wing, our people are feeling the pressure once more to hide. Living my life and doing my profession as a performing arts teacher has not been easy since that bill was signed in 1978. Bias dies hard but at least it was legal. I don't think you have experienced in any of your religions, the bias and persecution I have experienced from all of the religions of your journey.
19
A recent Pew Research survey shows that the decline in traditional church membership shows that Democrats and young people are the loss leaders. The analysis from an ND professor of Political Science is spot on.
Essentially- there is an allergic reaction to the combination of religion and conservative politics.
Far from being persecuted, conservatives relish their role in being the religiously superior.
If he is accomplishing nothing else, Mayor Pete is very successfully bringing the holier-than-thou crowd to account in the political discussion.
8
Ross offers no solution, but does offer a good diagnosis. The relationship between the state and the religious is always in tension. In times of relative ease, a tolerant coexistence is possible. When religion is reinterpreted into an us vs the rest of the world, especially when backed by the power of the state in the form of a theocracy, heaven help. Similarly, when, in totalitarian regimes, a loyalty to God would trump loyalty to the state, that cannot be tolerated either, for the state is "God." I suppose ideally we need to be rid of one or the other. But since such is quite unlikely, given our need for a mechanism of social order in the form of a state, and religion to address things the state cannot, as Rodney King once asked, "can't we all just get along?"
3
We also tend to make the mistakes of assuming (a) that Christianity only exists outside Europe because of western imperialism and, (b) that Islam and other religions are everywhere indigenous.
Many places where Christianity is severely restricted or where Christians are vulnerable, of course, were dominantly or significantly Christian before Arab invasions. Think of Egypt or Augustine's birthplace of Hippo, now in Algeria, a strictly Islamic country that rarely faces the liberal demands for multiculturalism that we apply to, say, the much more open world of Spain just across the Med.
And recall another Augustine, who was still struggling to confirm Christianity's precarious place in England around 600 AD, when Christian communities in Iraq--now persecuted--were already half a millennium old.
There's no shortage of examples of Christianity spreading with western imperialism. But history is more complicated than all-embracing narratives of western guilt make out.
178
@Alexander Menzies Christianity was also used as justification to invade and conquer the lands of others, enslave them and imposed as their "new" religion.
3
@John Warnock
That's pretty much what he said in his last paragraph.
6
@Alexander Menzies Thank you for the thoughtful, studied response. I write only to inquire as to where I may do more reading on the topic.
I appreciate Douthat's more nuanced discussion of the problems- the persecution- Christians face worldwide. He turns a blind eye to the weaponization of the Christian Right- Catholic and Protestant- by Trumpian white nationalism and GOP Tea Party corporatism in the U.S., and white nationalist movements across Europe. Liberal, and non-partisan Christians in the West can't help but recoil from this politicization of the Faith, and its projection into the world through globalist military and economic dominance.
The Catholic Church's moral failure through sexual exploitation of women and children, and their corrupt coverup is also an equally repugnant failure for the Faith.
"Unfortunately the various conservative alternatives to this liberal muddle are not always more helpful to persecuted Christians. George W. Bush’s conservative-Christian naïveté helped doom Iraqi Christians. American-conservative support for Israel creates blind spots about the struggles of Arab Christians. The conservative nationalism that succeeded Bush’s idealism often treats Christianity instrumentally and forges its own alliances with persecutors."
61
@Fran Cisco
Christianity was and is still political. Gospels were written as propaganda tools.
3
@Fran Cisco
The Catholic Church isn't morally responsible for the " sexual exploitation of women and children" any more than sports organisations and universities are morally responsible for the sexual abuse of young athletes. Morally corrupt individuals are.
Neither morally approved of this behavior, that is why it was hidden and difficult to expose. Behavior that is approved of and encouraged does not get hidden.
3
@Fran Cisco Boys — along with girls and women — were also sexually abused.
Ross, you rightly point out a hypocrisy in liberalism about its treatment of Christianity versus other religions, but I think you swing the wrong way on your analysis.
It isn't that Islam, Sikhism etc are treated with kid gloves, it's that none of them should be. We should be treating all religions equally!
I personally have no problem with saying that Mecca and the Golden Temple should lose their distinctively Islamic and Sikh characters. The issue is that liberals are perfectly comfortable criticizing largely-white Christians (who are the majority of the ones they see) but are extremely uncomfortable criticizing other religions because they view it either as culturally imperialist or racist. There is nothing racist about criticizing the doctrines of Islam or Buddhism more than there is something of anti-Russian bigotry by criticizing communism.
The intellectually honest position is to let people believe what they want and be supportive of that no matter what country the individuals in question live in, and to want them to be safe, but to criticize their religions equally.
You are confusing protecting individual Christians in countries where they are minorities with protecting CHRISTIANITY. The true liberal position to take on this IMO is that you want all individuals protected, but protecting or respecting their religious BELIEFS is orthogonal to that...
58
@Ben
"Freedom of religion" also means "freedom from religion," something the devout diminish at every turn.
8
@Ben You're sort of right. As a liberal, I believe all individuals should be protected, rather than just ones who agree with my opinions and stances. I believe that is one of the primary duties of government. However, I do not believe I, or the government, have a duty to ensure your stances and opinion, no matter how destructive or corrosive they are to society, are protected. That's your job as an individual.
2
@Ben
"I personally have no problem with saying that Mecca and the Golden Temple should lose their distinctively Islamic and Sikh characters.
Ben, why do you think its your place to determine what Mecca or the Golden Temple should be?
The 'rational' and 'analytical' crowd is not comfortable with really great, timeless art. They tear it down, literally and figuratively, wittingly or unwittingly. It's really true. Some people just don't like beautiful things that they can't personally relate to -- especially if they represent wealth and popularity they would like to have.
3
There are many relics of christianity that the Western world has gratefully cast aside.
The first was a binding religion to the state. If you were a religious dissident you were also an enemy of the state and exiled or killed.
Among many examples of this the 1492 Inquisition in Spain when Islam was driven out and the state was Catholic is one of the best known.
Secondly the submission of women to the Church and thus to the state and to their husbands has gradually gone away.
Christianity in areas that the West colonized was looked upon as not a religion but an extension of the colonizing state. And thus was and is a target of those trying to remove any traces of colonization.
For better or worse the West has become more rational and less inclined to believe on faith alone and the old fairy tales of virgin birth, rising from the dead etc are simply not plausible to an increasing segment of the population.
Indeed the elite in those colonized countries embraced the new religion to rise in the ranks of the colonial governments so christianity and they were privileged.
49
@Edward B. Blau
A footnote: In 1492 Spain, in addition banishment of Islam, Jews were given the “choice” of emigration, conversion or elimination.
Aside from this omission, right on!
9
@Edward B. Blau An odd omission not to mention the expulsion of Jews from Spain (and a couple of years later) Portugal in 1492. You are not correct about the date here-you state Islam was driven out in 1492-no the decrees relating to Islam in Spain were some years later. 1492 was the year of the Alhambra decree.There was no real choice for the Jews of Spain-they had four months and the edict was convert or leave .If you stayed you would be summarily executed.
5
Great read. Kinda misses the reality that Christianity is too vague in its unity between so many different sects that both modernists and conservatives tend to fail to unify the block, for better or worse. A southern baptist and a Jesuit Catholic are parts of very different Christian churches. Judaism and Islam are “others” to American society, enough that most folks don’t need to know the difference between say Sufi and Sunni, or that all these religions claim the same creator.
3
What transpired in Sri Lanka like what transpired in New Zealand is just awful, inspired by extremist ideology fueled by a "us vs them" narrative/ What is happening more and more is the hate-driven desire of the extreme elements of each religion to destroy the ones they feel threatened by. What is happening less and less is the moderate majorities of these religions to stand up and courageously diffuse the hateful narrative. Only if this were to occur will we be able to diminish recruitment of impressionable minds who are the vehicles of hatred for the extremists.
What you have written, while earnest, implicitly helps the "us vs them" narrative of the extremists. What would be better is to talk about how the vast majority of people in this world, regardless of religious beliefs, want peace and harmony with their neighbors.
6
Christians and all other religions here in the U.S. *are* wildly privileged. What other set of organizations gets tax-exempt status just because they claim people that their story is "the one true story"?
18
As usual, Ross's "Catholicism" reflects Ross's experience of Catholicism: narrow, specific to his recent conversion and completely without long range historical and/or broad based European cultural context. How is it that he misses the chasm between Jesus of Nazareth's recorded teachings and the operations of the many, politically differing and disparate groups claiming to be Christian?
5
"Western liberalism"? Doesn't that statement elicit a pause from Mr Douthat when the US has been steadily moving away from liberalism in the past few years. I have spent time in Sri Lanka and the average Christian there is no more persecuted there than the average Muslim in America. This attack was a show for international audience.
I don't think the US has a right to preach about liberal values, take this for example it is about to veto a UN resolution on rape as a weapon of war https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/apr/22/us-un-resolution-rape-weapon-of-war-veto
"Christians around the world are persecuted on an extraordinary scale — by mobs and pogroms in India"
One good way of preventing that would be not supporting governments like Modi's which view Christians and Muslims as second class citizens.
4
With rare exceptions, most Christian denominations are absolutists, i.e. "outside (my ) Church, there is no salvation." This is obviously true of other religions as well, since to them all of their revelations are divinely inspired. Tolerance and respect for other faiths is a hard won reality, one that Western liberal democracies sought to establish in law if not in fact. When you start with the idea that we are right and everyone else is wrong, then you wind up with the horrors of religious wars, persecutions, discrimination and bombings of churches and temples and synagogues. "Kill them all; God will know his own!" It is the notion of absolute truth that needs to be examined, as well as the idea of the loss of moral bearings in Western society and others. Although I disagree with the doctrinal ideas of the professor from Union Theological, her desire to make faith less absolute is laudable. Absolutism and fundamentalism are evils that religion, often joined with nationalism, has brought upon mankind to its own spiritual undoing.
7
Yes, the martyrs. Christians today as much as Christians in the early years have obsessed about martyrdom, beginning with the divine martyr, Jesus. Read and listened to today's leading evangelicals, and it's always about the martyrs. It supposedly explains the miracles and the resurrection: absent eye witnesses to the miracles and the resurrection, why would followers of Jesus die to prove their faith? Paul taught that followers of Jesus are justified by faith alone, and what better way to prove one's faith than martyrdom. Of course, martyrdom is the motivation for many Muslim terrorists. Indeed, does identifying the Christians who died in Sri Lanka as martyrs prove their faith? I don't think so, not any more than the Muslim terrorists who believe their act of terrorism proves their faith and makes them martyrs for it. Christians believe they are persecuted, Muslims believe they are persecuted, and martyrdom proves it to both. I am a faithful Christian, but I don't believe martyrdom proves it; rather, martyrdom encourages the persecution that it is supposed to deter.
2
@reaylward Are you suggesting that the children blown to bits during their first communions wanted to be martyrs to "prove their faith"? They got what they wanted? That's a new angle. Same with the folks in Christchurch or Pittsburgh?
Here I was thinking they were victims of savage religious hatred.
What a narrow understanding of Christianity. Does Douthat even read the gospels? Does Douthat even understand a little bit how beyond the doctrinal catechetical, humanly constructed propositions, who Jesus was? Jesus chose a motley band of disciples a good number were women. Did Jesus dress like a Roman Catholic priest? Jesus was a Jew. Jesus dressed like an ordinary fisherman. Jesus put himself so out there and so against the grain that he was arrested like a common criminal. His disciples didn’t get the resurrection. They took a lot of convincing. I am curious if Douthat knows what the afterlife and the eternal kingdom mean. Does Douthat understand the the gospels are multiple writers recollections of what happened when Jesus what the earth documented decades after Jesus’s death. We all know that 12 people seeing a car accident do not see the same incident or the same details. Luckily, Jesus has a wide open heart and accepts Douthat’s narrow understanding of His message and Douthat’s constant criticism of those who do not share his very narrow understanding of Christianity and the message of the gospel.
3
@Carol Ziegler His "narrow understanding" of Christianity is shared by, minimum, 2 billion people worldwide. That's pretty broad for narrow.
But most of those people are brown, poor and live in the southern hemisphere (like Sri Lankans). So no surprise I guess that such people can't grasp the more "enlightened" worldview of liberal Americans.
OK Ross, so you're upset as a Christian that even some Christians don't swallow the Virgin Birth and Resurrection like you do?
Remember that for many people over the centuries and a little over two centuries in this country, these pillars of Christianity were maintained while slavery, racism and the everyday economic injustice that people face were ignored by "Christians" who wouldn't dare question Mary's virginity or Jesus' rising from the dead. What alienates people from organized Christianity, including some who practice it as I do, is how it introduces us to ideas like fighting injustice, compassion and universal love while discarding these "impractical " ideas in favor of upholding a power structure that does not address these realities. Next time you defend the reality of Mary's virginity or Jesus' resurrection Ross, ask yourself ,WHY?
7
@GK
"Next time you defend the reality of Mary's virginity or Jesus' resurrection Ross, ask yourself ,WHY?"
Douthat, like most, is incapable of simply peeling away one layer to the heart of the answer: misogyny and man's fear of death. Females are much closer to the cycle of life, while males feel impotent and scared. Thus, the endless global religious version of fantasy football.
And thus, all 4 of the Abrahamics are predicated on males playing the tribal groupthink get of jail free card. Say you're sorry and all is forgiven. Except they do inflict harm, there are victims and there are consequences that a sky daddy cannot fix. But there's a wild card for that, too: The victim is judged to have deserved it by not being (fill in the blank), usually female.
At least Buddhism couples individual faith to reality and consequences: earthly time spent in self-reflection, introspection and evolution, atonement and taking responsibility for one's actions. Or not, thereby the hardheaded, stupid or venal suffer consequences in this and every life till basic lessons are learned. No clouds, harps, wings and get out of jail free. Just the incentive to get one's act together pronto, without causing harm to any living creatures.
2
@Maggie Thank you Maggie. That was brilliant, you took it to the next step.
I’m sure the ghosts of civilizations decimated and subjugated by “manifest destiny” and various and sundry crusades would argue they’re the ones who were persecuted. Perhaps Ross can tally the lives lost on each side and come up with an objective answer.
1
Everyday billions of people use the Christian calendar. Christian people are not persecuted but Christian superstitious beliefs, based on no evidence, are being rejected by more and more people like all other religions' nonsensical beliefs.
Loosing an artificially privileged status may feel like persecution to Christians but it is not.
6
@realist
“But it is not.”— Dothan’s chilling recitation of the literal persecution and murder of non-Western Christians, notwithstanding.
Likewise, the suffering in the Arab and Muslim world is great and too often downplayed in the West. The wall to wall coverage of the Notre Dame fire seemed excessive, especially when we hear so little of the utter destruction of mosques, historical cites, architecture treasures, some at the hands of terrorists, local sectarians, and surely some some at the hands of US supported fighters
Two wrongs never make a right, realist.
1
@realist Worldwide almost 5,000 people per year are killed for being Christian, another 3,000 are tortured or arrested. Every year. Those are by far the highest rates for any religion in the world. Most of the people killed are brown and live in serious poverty. Their murders get almost no ink from the western press.
Not sure what "artificially privileged status" these folks are losing. But your response to such horror is is heartless indeed.
2
@keith
He or she is referring to American Christians who think that baking a cake for a gay couple's wedding is persecution. There are American Christians who feel oppressed by someone wishing them. "Happy Holidays."
It is an artificial privilege to assume that the rest of the world must conform to your religion and when they don't you are being persecuted.
1
Progressivism is just Christianity 3.0. It's replaced dogma with ideology and approaches its political goals with same zeal as a religious crusader. Those that question progressivism's goals are called out as heretics.
And have you noticed that all the men have beards?
1
If Christians were not so unflinchingly and proudly hypocritical, they'd probably deserve to be privileged. But if they feel persecuted, its probably because they feel guilty for not being as good as their professed faith wants them to be. But that's the thing about faith: you just have to feel that you have it, and all the other things that being in a religion implies will fall into place for you. It doesn't make sense to me either. But what does make sense is this: ethics and morality should never be a part of religion's selling points. If believing in a supreme being works for you, great. But don't expect others to swallow what you believe, and don't go around feeling persecuted if no one does.
2
How sad. Arguing which self-righteous believers demonstrate the most egregious immorality is futile. Unthinking orthodoxy brings out the worst in humans. Blind adherence leaves logic in the dust. Let's stop pretending that our choice of deity has picked our side to the destruction of all others. This is the ultimate self delusion. When we think this way, we are the problem, not even the tiniest part of the solution.
3
The persecution of Christians, as if persecuting Christians never existed.
The Inquisition, the worldwide missionary undermining of native cultures, the Puritan institutionalized religious intolerance of the Plymouth Colony of North America, the genocide of native North Americans, the bondage of African slaves, have all disappeared in the mists of time. But the eternally noble, moral, gentle, and unselfish sainted Christian; haloed and angel-winged, the founder of all that is good and decent in the human race, endures forever.
Poor, poor Christians.
4
I am not a Catholic. In fact, I was raised a Seventh-day Adventist, and have drifted away from that faith.
But my religious heritage teaches me how a how a large segment of the US public thinks about religious persecution. Because it teaches that the larger society was intent on persecuting Seventh-day Adventists because they worshiped on Saturday instead of Sunday and called Saturday the "seventh day."
This feeling of persecution was wide-spread. But looking back, the virgin birth and the Adventist belief that the earth is only 6000 years old look equally in conflict with science as taught in universities.
Thus it is that those who retained my religious heritage could come to deny climate change. After all, it is based upon the same scientific reasoning that provides the geological time scale in which paleontologists order the development of life and the "theory of evolution" which people from my heritage believe is the work of worldly and therefore false scientists.
The New York Times seems to often hold the beliefs of fundamentalist Christians up to ridicule.
But this ridicule also makes me acutely aware of the inconsistencies in liberalism.
How is it that liberals cannot see that global warming, although virtually certain once one accepts scientific reasoning, is primarily due to population growth?
And if so, why is it not merely acceptance of reality to try to stop illegal immigration and adopt a one-child policy in the US to achieve zero population growth?
The denial of the predicament of Asian and African Christians has, I fear, little to do with liberal ambivalence about the value or the contributions of Christianity to secular Western society. I fear it is quite simply racism. The sort of belief that these aren't really "proper Christians".
Christianity is, in the eyes of many, a "white" religion. Ever since the Roman Emperor Theodosius I made it the official state religion, it has expanded more through imposition than in any other way. "Convert or die" was more or less the choice, except for those who understood which way the wind was blowing and decided to switch from their (pagan?) beliefs to Christendom as a way to advancement.
In the eyes of many liberals, too, religiousness is itself seen as an affliction of sorts. Yes, Muslims are serious about Islam, Siamese about Buddhism, and so forth, but this is perceived as a weakness. There is an incomprehension that expresses itself in the need to add "Islamic" to "fundamentalism", as if that explains it all.
ISIS was (is) vile and despicable, but because they were (are) Muslims no heed needs to be paid to the underlying inequalities that are the consequences of the imposed liberal world order; imposed in the wake of expansion and conquest by, at the time, explicitly Christian conquerors.
In liberal eyes they (we?) have "evolved" beyond religion, and the others haven't. It is their misfortune that our greatest accomplishments have been inspired by religion, too.
Ross,
Your incongruent question reveals a common bias.
"Are Christians persecuted or do they persecute?" would be a balanced question. Privilege and persecution are not two sides of the same coin.
In either case, the answer is probably, "all of the above."
The heads of the seven largest oil companies in America used to meet on Sundays. They called themselves the God Squad. 200 Christians were murdered in in Sri Lanka on Sunday. Privilege, meet persecution.
That you tried to tie this question into a conversation about Notre Dame with comments from the Alt-Right gateway drug named Ben Shapiro is alarming.
I was raised Catholic and live as an Atheist. Notre Dame has nothing to do with liberal or conservative or religious or atheist--persecution or victim. It is a national treasure and talked about in the same way as the Pyramids in Egypt and Central America or Stonehenge.
If the first self-driving tractor malfunctioned and motored through Stonehenge would we be questioning the religious motivations of a conservative parliament if PM May said that "we will have those stones standing erect by the Solstice, so help me God!"
Probably not.
Would we read a Ben Shapiro tweet concerning the matter? Dear God, why would we ever?
So maybe your question is misplaced here, as well.
4
The Christian churches wed themselves to various nation states long ago. Happy to use state means for its own ends, the Christian Church might now regret it did not remain celibate. Can you imagine a person closing his door to the poor or his border to the needy while proclaiming allegiance to Christian orthodoxy.
1
Christians are aggressively persecuted in many nations across the globe, particularly within majority Muslim nations without secular law. Being a Christian in places like Egypt, Afghanistan, Iran, India, Pakistan, Malaysia, Nigeria, Indonesia, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, Yemen, or Sri Lanka comes with varying sets of challenges and dangers which may be state sanctioned or not. Even in Nigeria where Christianity flourishes, death by bombing is a real possibility which Christians must face during worship.
Many people in these countries are not tolerant of Christians living in their midst. They are not afraid to show it. Some hold overwhelming political power, while some do not.
I am no longer religious, yet the oppression of any man's religion diminishes me. However, tolerance of intolerance leads to violence, fear, and misery. There's no scorecard of whose suffering is greater: Islam or Christianity or Buddhism or Sikhism etc. There are only the tolerant and the intolerant, and the intolerant should face destruction wherever they be found. You simply cannot reason with one who believes you and your kin are subhuman.
4
Growing up in America as a non-Christian (Jewish), the idea that Christians are persecuted in the USA and in other Christian -Majority nations is patently absurd!
True, in other nations where Christianity is not the majority religion they face what non-Christians have faced in the West since the Dark Ages.
While my heart breaks for the people murdered in Sri Lanka, it does as well for the murdered in Christchurch, New Zealand.
I'm frankly sick and tired of evangelicals claiming that as Christians they are "persecuted"...because they aren't allowed to force their religion down everyone else's throats, and that the rest of us don't want our taxes to pay for their activities. I've seen this since the early '60's when they wanted public funds to subsidize their parochial schools, when they already are tax exempt.
I believe in both the absolute freedom of religion and in the ABSOLUTE separation of government and religions.
12
Douthat writes, “But an ancient, famous Catholic cathedral is instinctively understood as somehow the common property of an officially post-Catholic order...”
Mr. Douthat, you are perhaps unaware of this, but the French Revolution and, even more importantly, the 1905 law on the separation of church and state explicitly establish a post-Catholic order and Notre Dame de Paris literally belongs to the government that heads this order. This is your free history lesson for today to help you understand a little bit why Notre Dame is not the same as the Kölner Dom or St. Peter’s.
8
"elite liberalism seeks to keep Christianity at arm’s length" Such a poor choice of words for an honest writer, but an excellent choice of words for a propagandist. This piece is essentially reviving the wars of the reformation and of the old testament vs the teachings of Christ.
There are also many Catholics who have moved beyond medieval views of Catholic Christianity, but are they willing to be described as elite liberals? I doubt it. They should be calling Douthat out for his flame throwing and demanding that he make apologies to Professor Jones.
Western history is replete with religious wars, religious terror, religious persecution, and religious attacks on science. The Catholic Church continues to flail and fail at rooting out its despicable history of child molestation and doesn't seem to want to honestly confront the existent of homosexuality in its priesthood. The evangelicals have hitched their horses to the most immoral and un-Christian president in modern history and a party built on racism. Many of us want none of it anymore, nor do we want to go to war to protect Christians abroad, and to the extent there is any "persecution" of Christians in this country it is because so many refuse to fully accept the revolutionary nature of Christ's teaching and want us all to live by their interpretation of tribal laws from two thousand years ago. No thanks. Go ahead and believe in the transubstantiation of bread and wine, I don't care. Have at it. But if you insist on going after people I care about -- the gays and immigrants (including those in my own extended family) -- and try to stop me and my loved ones from having access to contraception, and take away women's right to choose what's best for her and her family, then you are going to have a problem with me and others like me. The problem is actually with you, not with us.
11
Great article. Western progressives also strive to give a "both sides" analysis of terrorist attacks, where extremist Christians are just as guilty as extremist Muslims in carrying out attacks. But in fact Islamic jihad is a much, much greater problem, in terms of the number of attacks carried out and persons killed. Many extremist beliefs held by jihadists - that the penalty for apostasy is death, for example - are mainstream beliefs in Islam, which is not true of Christianity.
3
As to your question headline. It depends on if you are a Christian or an Atheist, a Buddhist, Muslim, Hindu or what have you.
My brother is a republican, conservative and very Christian. He thinks his religion is under attack from the "godless liberals".
I am a hard core Atheist and from my view it is we those "godless liberals" that are under constant attack from the far right that are always trying to rule us with religious legislation, which is very much against the separation of church and state.
As for Sir Lanka, it's none of my business if one band of lunatics wants to kill off another band of lunatics. Just keep us out of it.
3
As I recall, Christianity's insistence on its absolute truth brooks no alternatives ("error has no rights," I think Aquinas put it so lovingly). Though that language has tempered a bit over the past millennia, the belief has not. Folks like Ross and Franklin Graham and Mike Huckabee -- and their Muslim and Jewish counterparts -- just repackage it in nicer words of victimhood to justify their actions against the "heathen." Or rather, the real victims of this species-specific madness called religious belief.
3
When Christians are driven out of Middle Eastern countries I would say they are persecuted.
When Christians are bombed in Sri Lankan churches on Easter I would say they are persecuted.
4
Good Friday marked 15 years since I was baptized and I am still a bible believing Christian. In school, I can not count the amount of times that I have been discriminated against and bullied by teachers and friends for my faith. You do not need to be a Christian in the US to recognize widespread distain for Christians that would be shamed and condemned if it applied to other religions. Even the jokes from comedians or stereotypes loudly proclaimed in cafes or bars would be widely condemned if talking about a different people group’s belief system. I am a registered Democrat, a feminist, attending college, and Christian. I have experienced so much love and peace in my faith and rely on Jesus daily. It hurts to see people put it down, especially when those opinions are celebrated, and while I respect people’s right to say what they think, I also would like to ask those who think negatively of Christians to remember that we are people too.
12
Liberalism as opposed to what? To Mr. Douthat "liberalism" is a stand alone pejorative. More like a sickness than a political and social point of view. In this way one does not have to make comparisons to conservatism.
If the horror in Sri Lanka has its roots in "L", then what aspects of conservative thought and philosophy could have prevented it? Maybe all that conservatism thought consists of is a self sustaining critique of "L", and the mantra for all seasons, "Let them eat cake.".
12
Certain orthodox strains of Christianity are facing something akin to cultural genocide lately in Syria. However, I don't think it helps people to understand that crisis by talking vaguely about Christian persecution as some kind of platonic category rather than something that is happening in specific situations in specific places in the real world right now.
My issue with religious people is only when they impose their religion on others. The absolute worst by far is when they use violence, like the Sri Lanka attackers. But also bad is the double insult of imposing religion on people via politics: that is 1. incredibly rude and destructive and 2. the opposite of witnessing. Finally, it is sad when religious identity takes hold, so that you see tragedy falling on your group as more real, more personal - we all do that but we should strive not to do that.
This notion of "the west" is pretty crude. You'd think Greeks and Romans walked around with public school english accents, sipping tea in the north based on our pop notions of the west.
14
Thanks Ross for the very thoughtful and informative piece. Columns like this emphasize the enormous value that emerges from the New York Times' strategy of publishing diverse viewpoints on its editorial page.
In my opinion, Ross is spot-on and captures some of the nuance of persecution, and what that means in different contexts, that most writers simply don't appreciate.
12
No mention of Crusades, in Douthat's meta-analysis of Christianity's place in the world. How convenient.
For me, as an atheist American, I find the intellectual gymnastics rather frustrating. Douthat draws distinction between the vague Judeo-Christian tradition and the truly devout. I don't care about the distinction. I care about the religious hegemony in my country. The Christian prayers in Congress, the Christian monuments in my community, the God Bless America at sports events, the "Under God" in my schools (and they don't mean some other God, as it was imposed by a Catholic political crusade).
I care about Christians taking away reproductive choice from the women in my life. I care about Christians persistently seeking to make America a Christian nation by marginalizing others.
And Douthat wonders whether Christians are privileged or persecuted?
No other "religion" is doing any of that. That should be ever in our thoughts.
31
Actually, Barking, the examples that you cite — prayers in Congress, “God bless America” at ballgames - are examples of the culture co-opting Christianity. Distinctions are very important, in fact.
1
@Barking Doggerel
(a) Access to abortion is freest in western countries with a Christian background: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abortion_law
(b) Western countries with a Christian background tend to allow the greatest freedom of religion: http://religion-freedom-report.org.uk/
(c) The Crusades were preceded by what might be called the Crescades (Islamic invasions of the same territories when they were Christian) and were followed by Ottoman attempts to conquer central Europe right into the seventeenth century.
It goes against the grain to admit it, but the west does lots of things uniquely well by liberal standards, while the history of the world is not simply a history of western guilt.
2
@Barking Doggerel: The treatment by Congress of "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion" demonstrates abject contempt for the constitutional limitations to government.
I am a born-again Christian and I generally agree with Ross. I want to thank you all for your thoughtful comments. I especially relish hearing from those with a different viewpoint than me - especially when presented well. Thank you.
10
Douthat writes as if Serene Jones' take on Christianity is some kind of novel, politically correct Christianity. But more than sixty years ago Paul Tillich warned against confusing faith with belief in his excellent little book Dynamics of Faith. Here was a Christian thinker telling us Christians should NOT have faith in the Bible, that the whole book could just be made up stories and that wouldn't change the truth of Christianity at all, because that truth has to do not with any laundry list of facts (Mary was a virgin, Jesus rose from the dead, etc.) but rather with the ultimate concern toward which the story of Christ points.
For Tillich, and for many liberal Christians before and since, Douthat's doctrinal rigidity isn't an expression of faith but the lack of it. It is the idolatrous elevation of the concrete elements of religion, and of the authorities that propound them, over the ultimate concern that faith is really all about.
42
I don't feel much sympathy toward "persecution" of any religion that tries to privilege itself by trying to impose its values on non-adherents, either through prosyletizing or governmental control.
46
@Paul-A Religion? Don't political parties try to impose values and control on non-adherents? The pro-lifers, the strict Constitutionalists, the global warming deniers and of course their opposition in those areas? Even those Red Sox fans try to proselytizing me away from the Yankees.
1
@JDSept
not in the name of God.
Around the age of 13 I decided that religion was not for me, I also knew that being a moral person had nothing whatsoever to do with religion, it was an independent choice.I have always looked on all these religious wars as the ageless entanglements of cult -like obsessions with the boundaries, power and politics of religion.
All boundaries are being pushed now as over- population, climate change and degradation of the earth force and intensify these conflicts. It can only get worse, unfortunately. I have no conclusion and no certain answer that will help. We need to do our best, each in his own life, to nuture and value the earth, our only possible actual home. We need to try to work positively for change, even in the midst of chaos. Religion can help with that, if it chooses to.
14
@joyce
Associating "over-population" with earth's climate-and-resource-assault does a dis-service to the latter (a true crisis that most conservatives can't truthfully reconcile!). Indeed, many readers somehow missed the much reporting about how the earth can support upto 150 billion humans -- with today's technology. Imagine tomorrow's means...
Also, reducing religion to reasons for "cult-like wars" is disingenuous considering that atheistic communism slaughtered more (150 million) people in just 69 years than did all wars, religious and non-religious, in the history of mankind, combined...
@Sal
Really, Sal?
The Earth can support 150 BILLION people?
And all will be fine if we just use the proper technology?
Well, then why stop there?
How about 300 BILLION and we'll just use the same technology and they'll all just be a little worse off than today?
Really?
And, as for that killer atheistic communism....
Remember that 'communism' is the right-wing counterpart to left-wing socialism.
Right-wing ideologies are hierarchies, ladders with rungs and everyone gets a rung and then will 'do as they are told'.
Socialism is where the resources of society are used to create equality. No ladderism.
Can 'atheists' be right-wing?
Of course they can! In fact, I suspect that half of the Republican Party is atheist and just using 'religion' as a scam.
......150 BILLION..... really....?
4
There is no doubt that orthodox Christianity — and here I include traditional Orthodox, Roman Catholicism, and traditional Protestantism — is equated in the minds of many “progressives” as reactionary and tied to white privilege. They seem to forget, as Mr. Douthat points out, the many victims of color, and the millions in the United States who are African American and Latino and are deeply religious. And many Christians of all colors and ethnic groups in the US fear the kind of government overreach, for example, that would force healthcare professionals to practice against their deeply held beliefs in areas such as termination of pregnancy. Persecuted? Not in the sense that Christians in other countries are, certainly. But our society is far from tolerant.
11
@Karen Sibert, MD I would question anyone going into healthcare if they believe a patient ought to have to suffer for the "doctor's" religious beliefs.
4
@Karen Sibert, MD Where abortions are carry out one does not have to work. when a patient goes to a place where abortions are done should they not expect to be able to receive one? Perhaps that doctor should not be forced but another doctor should always be available. If I go to a pharmacy with a script for birth control, do I not have a right to get it filled by somebody? Two men or women walk into a government office that does marriages in this country do they not have the right to receive the same services as a couple of differing genders? If a job calls for something, should one doing it be required to fulfill it if it is legal? Do we have to pay vegans to work at McDonald's, which can be against their strongly held beliefs? I know vegans as adamant as evangelicals.
2
Most religious persecution is actually ethnic persecution with the window dressing of divine support. If you look more closely at the conflicts, they are more about land and lineage than faith. It's just that religious differences often reflect different national and ethnic origins. The dispute is really about which tribe is "entitled" to a given supply of power, land and wealth.
55
@Naomi
Not comprehending Douthat's pointing out that Christian persecution (especially in Africa and the mid-east) is downplayed as ethnic or tribal warfare, Naomi also seems to not have had the "privilege" of reading other "less conservative" global reporting of this euphemistic characterization of the war-on-Christianity.
Ans cine I am writing from an atheistic -- but intellectually honest -- perspective, what does the above opinion render the writer?
The plight of individual Christians across the non-Western world as human beings suffering oppression is genuine, but must not be conflated with the increasing distaste for Christianity as an organized religion.
Western people are turning away from Christianity because of (the) enlightenment. They are turning away because they increasingly come to recognize that liberalism and science have contributed a lot more to the advance of Western civilization than Christianity.
Mr Douthat seems to assume Christianity is native to the West. It isn't.
Christianity is an imperialist Middle Eastern religion that spread to Europe using the Roman Empire as its host. It later spread to the Americas in a very similar way through European colonialism using powerful swords such as that of the Spanish Inquisition.
Everywhere it went - from Europe to the Americas - it all but wiped out indigenous cultures.
Christianity destroyed Germanic and Celtic paganism whose natural values are at least currently experiencing a modest revival as people are increasingly horrified by environmental destruction. What happened to the Native Americans in the name of Christianity is even more tragic.
Christianity is no blessing. It very nearly brought the West to its knees during the Dark Ages. It was the Enlightenment that saved the West.
For States and individuals to be wary of organized Christianity is - with history in mind - no more than sensible.
124
@Erik: Two remarks:
First: Enlightment could only have emerged in a christian society, founded as it is on individual freedom of choice, individual responsability and individual redemption objective. Which other religion could have been the foundation for enlightment?
Second, about how enlightment save the West: It is arguable that enlightment, understood as a child christianity devoided of god or moral, not only doomed the West, but the whole world by making possible the limitless plundering of natural resources and by seeing man as a purely economic agent.
5
@Manu
I'm grateful that enlightenment thinkers (religious and otherwise) weren't burnt at the stage.
But does that give Christianity the right to credit itself for all the proven benefits of reason and science and liberalism?
Nonsense.
9
@Erik
Christianity lost its early roots which was mostly about community until it became the Roman Empire or at least coopted the imperial power of Rome in the 3rd century. Christianity combined with State power is lethal as you have pointed out.
5
Freedom of religion is not a Christian or biblical idea. And secularism owes no debt to "Judeo-Christian values".
Where in the Bible do you read that everyone should have the right to worship whatever god they choose and in whatever way? Show me the chapter and verse. And then take that reference back to your congregations and exhort your co-religionists to give equal validity to religious beliefs that contrast with your own. Do this if you really want to claim freedom of religion as an innately Christian enterprise.
And secularists owe no debt to religion except that exposure to religion has given them some of the best reasons to extol the virtues of secularism.
55
@Andrew
A most astute post! Thank you, Andrew, for addressing this so well.
2
@Andrew
The gospels do not promote religious organization and hierarchy. I think if you read the gospels Jesus rails against religious hierarchy fairly often.
The core concept of Christianity is decent enough. God gives us freedom of thought/will. We have enough freedom to not choose him. The 1st thing we do is that. Then God provides a remedy to allow us to find a way back to him in Jesus but does so w/out destroying our freedom to not choose him.
The teachings in the Gospel are mostly about how to seek truth and how to recognize it.
The failings of Christianity are in its organization & in the process of that embracing ideology to reinforce the organization & the power some get from that, or alternatively the wealth religious entrepreneurs accumulate from the same. It’s hard not to see the Vatican as anything other than a later day Sanhedrin.
Christ said to separate civics from religion. He said to seek truth and then you’ll find freedom. Judge a tree by its fruit. Both religious orgs and government ignored much of his teachings, even in the name of them. To the extent we’ve been able to follow them we’ve done well.
2
I read many of Ross Douthat's thoughtful columns on Christianity with interest. But in contradiction to all this analysis, and certainly in contradiction to Serene Jones, I assert categorically (however the message is marginalized), that Jesus is Lord, that he rose from the dead, that God redeems us through Christ, that we come to him by faith. The Easter message is still overpoweringly true. The ups and downs of this year's intellectual whatever don't change that, and the passage of time eventually wipes away everything that is frivolous, untrue or biased. East or West, Christianity isn't done, it's just beginning. Neither flattery or insult will change the triumph of Christ in this world. That extends to visitors to the cathedral of Notre Dame, to believers in Sri Lanka, to dentists in Chile, to waitresses in Austin, to coal miners in Wales, to soldiers in Zambia, columnists in New York, and all people everywhere else. We win, because Christ wins. The Word of God is superior to its alternatives. Worshippers outlast bombers, and also outlast those who are condescending in their faint praise, or those who distort the message to win praise from the world.
13
this is the type of rhetoric responsible for much of the voilence across the world. head to baghdad, and u will find sumilar "us-versus-them" rhetoric from ISIS, and the very terrorists who committed this type of heinous crime.
the world will continue to face violence until this type of thinking is not ridden of.
3
@Tom Wolpert
God bless you, Tom, for your faith, which I envy. I grew up within the same creed that you "assert categorically" but I have fallen away from it for reasons that are both personal to me and, I will venture, common among many millions like me. I experience this change mostly as growth and gain, but also as a loss of certainty and security. I would like to be able still to believe as you do but I simply can't.
Which is not to say that I am unable to subscribe to any 'sacred' text whatever. The documented works of our Founders, often deist in their beliefs rather than Christian or other 'religious', gave us our Constitution, with its separation of church and state. Mr Douthat appears to be unsure about how he feels about that 'doctrinal' element -- "Render unto Caesar... -- but it is something I can believe in with a fervor similar to your own, and pray for its eventual realization.
3
(atheists, I don't believe in the God you don't believe in - which has nothing to do with God, of course, but please take a moment to ponder these fascinating discrepancies)
Peter Wehner has written, incorrectly, in these pages, that Divine Grace is unique to Christianity, and the modern notion of the individual is solely the result of centuries of Christianity.
Ross didn't quite come out and say it, but like many Christian apologists, he implies that there is something about the best of modernity - it's celebration of equality, freedom, individuality, etc - that is primarily the result of the "West" being a "Christian" civilization (this last sentence calls to mind Gandhi's response to a reporter's question: "Mr. Gandhi, what is your opinion of Western civilization?" Gandhi: "I think it would be a good idea."
Divine Grace is a concept appearing in Indian writings at least as far back as 800 BC
No less a scholar than Columbia University's chair of Tibetan Buddhist Studies, Robert Thurman, says that profound respect for individuality is inherent in many Indo-Tibetan writings, some of which pre-date Christianity.
the first democratic cities were in India, prior to the development of such polities in Greece.
Our Greco-Roman heritage, predating Christianity, also celebrated equality, individuality, etc,
As Rocky, among other commentators, noted, one could quite justifiably make the argument that freedom is the result of freedom from authoritarian religion.
30
I don’t understand the point of this editorial. Is Mr. Douthat blaming secularist liberals for these attacks? I think he wants to find a way to blame us for the Christian religion’s declining influence and takes these attacks as some kind of evidence for it. You are free to worship, to pray, to identify as Christian. I would not dream of denying any person that right. But neither am I going to take seriously any notion that my embrace of cultural pluralism is a threat to that faith. This is not a lament about some loss of freedom. This is a complaint about declining *power*. There is a difference and I’m sorry if Christians fail to grasp that.
236
@Joshua Krause
Yes, and shouldn't any influence the church has come from persuasion and not the kind of "religious freedom" laws that attempt to force their beliefs on the rest of us?
15
@Joshua Krausem
I didn’t understand it either. The column goes in circles with buts, on the other hand, yet, etc. When a religion is nominalized ... for example, “Christianity” ... and used one way or another to justify what one wants (called the “narrative” these days), it winds up diffuse and chaotic, often with violent and hateful expression. In all of this, of course, the Source of All in Mystery is out of the self-serving picture, replaced by the worshipper worshiping self, and at odds with others who honor gods in their own image. And many call this “freedom.” And many justify this as sacred duty for holy war.
4
When any sectarian faction seeks political dominion, I’m going to be on the side of crushing it. That is what the radical Islamist and radical Christian seek. They have no place at the table of political discourse in a pluralistic constitutional republic. Most Christians like most Muslims, are not that, and deserve all of the freedoms and responsibilities the United States constitution offers in its declaration of the freedom of (and from) religion.
American Christians who think they are persecuted are typically those who use their religious belief to persecute others and seek political dominion over their perceived enemies. Instead of heeding Christ’s call to love, they traffic in anti-Christian arguments all the while plotting to take our laws and judiciary by force. Make no mistake, it has nothing to do with religion and everything to do with power. Douthat seems to miss that part of the story.
66
@Jude Parker. It’s not necessarily about power. Whether you are a secularist or an Orthodox Jew, you have a perspective that you reasonably want to see reflected in public policy. Democracy allows you to pursue that end by majority rule or, as the left has aggressively pursued for 50 years, through the Courts, the least democratic branch of government. Many Christians and others think it is bad policy for society to allow the heart of an unborn child to be stopped. And so they do what they can to effectuate that policy.
2
@ehillesum
The policy abortion foes advocate is based on beliefs not shared by everybody. Policy should benefit the community, not just a portion of its louder members.
Weighing the benefits of abortion or never abortion is not a public issue, especially when a living person's health and well being is affected.
The current measles outbreak in NY is a result of religious views superseding health policy.
3
"American-conservative support for Israel creates blind spots about the struggles of Arab Christians."
I'm not exactly sure what Mr. Douthat means by that, unless he means that a food deal of the anti Arab-Christian animus in Israel is the result of Muslim actions. Thus, recently there has been an increase of anti-Christian incidents in the Nazareth area, inspired by the rise of Jihadist forces in the Middle East. Many Christians have complained of being targeted by Muslims, whom they believe are trying to either drive them out of cities that have traditionally had large Christian populations, or to "persuade" them to convert. In 1999, for example, radical Muslims in Nazareth rioted as they attempted to wrest land from a major Christian shrine to build a mosque. In one incident during 2014, a flag of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant was installed in front of a church in Nazareth.
There has also been increasing incitement and violence by the Muslims against Arab Christians who voice their support for the Israel Defense Forces.
7
I am in partial agreement with Ross. Religion has and is often the basis for conflict and can be the basis for discrimination as well. What most of the rest of the world does not have is our first amendment of our Constitution more or less guaranteeing all religions to co exist with each other and with a non religious proportion of the population. Both the religious and non religious often don't reflect on how good they have it in the United States compared to many other parts of the world. Alas, the religious right in the United States apparently think their fundamentalist view of Christianity should be codified throughout civil law rather than allow the flourishing diversity of thought and concurrent laws that work for the religious and non religious as well and anyone who has the temerity to suggest such a thing are persecuting them. One wonders whether anyone reads history. The overwhelming majority of the writers of the declaration and constitution were Episcopalian, Presbyterian and Congregationalists who saw the dangers of a co mingled church and state.
23
"There is... an inability to see Christianity as anything save a reactionary foe or a useful supplement to liberalism."
True, but the reason is that as our society becomes more politically polarized, its conception of religion grows more polarized as well. But the fact that religion follows the lead of politics, and not the other way around, tells me that the real God most Americans worship is their own cultural tribe. And as far as I can see, the only antidote to tribalism of any kind is ethical humanism.
19
Ross, for the record, no Christians are persecuted here in the 'west' - at least in comparison to adherents of other spiritual traditions and approaches (which, lest we forget, also experience criticism for adhering to a non-materialist approach). The presenting problem in the west is one of more conservative / fundamentalist Christians seeking to impose their ideology on others, including adherents to these "other spiritual traditions and approaches" as they were in an earlier era, and then becoming resentful when there is push back against their efforts.
In Asia and the Middle East, the problem is more complicated, but it can be reduced the same exact dynamic - the attempt of a largely ignorant, poorly educated majority seeking to impose their inherited ideology on others - and then blaming their own failures, or accidents of fate and chance, on the continuing presence of non-believers among them.
For an illustration of this sadly universal tendency in a Western context, consider the past moronic comments of a Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, or James Dobson, in the aftermath of 9/11 or some natural disaster (like a hurricane), when the blame for the event is placed on the continued presence of those among them who cannot share their beliefs.
While there is decidedly political strength in numbers, let me suggest that there is not one iota of ultimate truth in numbers - at least when it comes to the numbers of peoples who share one's current 'beliefs'.
73
@Matthew Carnicelli - Regardless of the beliefs of Roberson, Falwell, Dobson, et al, the fact is that the 9/11 attacks were carried out by Islamist extremists. Muslims account for the vast majority of terror attacks (https://www.forbes.com/sites/realspin/2017/08/21/which-ideology-has-inspired-the-most-murders-in-terrorist-attacks-on-u-s-soil/#17ae808b1e74) and attempting to deflect blame away from Muslims in any small manner is akin to supporting their attempt to terrorize other belief and cultural systems into bowing to an Islamic world view.
1
@Azathoth
Did you read the comments of Falwell and Robertson after 9/11?
I quote:
"What we saw on Tuesday, as terrible as it is, could be minuscule if, in fact, God continues to lift the curtain and allow the enemies of America to give us probably what we deserve."
Mr Robertson responded: "Jerry, that's my feeling. I think we've just seen the antechamber to terror. We haven't even begun to see what they can do to the major population."
A few moments later Mr Falwell said: "The abortionists have got to bear some burden for this because God will not be mocked. And when we destroy 40 million little innocent babies, we make God mad. I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People for the American Way, all of them who have tried to secularise America, I point the finger in their face and say, 'You helped this happen.' "
To which Mr Robertson said: "I totally concur, and the problem is we have adopted that agenda at the highest levels of our government."
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2001/sep/19/september11.usa9
If anyone was responsible for 9/11, it was Dubya...who insisted on spending a whole lot more time reading his Bible than reading his August 6, 2001 briefing on how Islamic radicals were planning to use airplanes in a terror attack.
http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/04/10/august6.memo/
4
@Azathoth
"Muslims account for the vast majority of terror attacks".
That's actually not true. What is true is that:
Terror attacks by Muslims get about 400% percent more media coverage than other terror attacks. So it appears like the numbers are way higher. Non-Muslims carried out more than 90% of all terrorist attacks in America
We don't count domestic terrorism often. Hate crimes against gays or health clinics for example. But they are terrorist.
What is glaringly true is that right-wing extremism is responsible for most terrorism. The right-wingers in all the ideologies are the predominant terrorists. And you can arguably also blame mental illness.
4
Notre-Dame has for hundreds of years been connected to events outside of the medieval Catholic tradition. As many have noted, it is a fundamental part of the overall history of France. An equivalent would be St. Paul's in London; one might think first there of the Great Fire, Christopher Wren, and Winston Churchill's funeral, before dwelling on the ancient religious heritage of the site.
One of the major pieces of Notre-Dame's heritage is Napoleon's coronation, with the Pope present. While ostensibly a Catholic, Christian, ceremony it was fundamentally secular (Napoleon staged it at Notre-Dame in part to mark a break from the heritage of the French kings, who were crowned in Rheims, not Paris).
18
As a non believer, I am struck by how clear it appears from the outside that religion is the conflation of tribal behavior, community, fear of the unknown and the need for the explicable. As a product of core human behaviors, the analogs in the secular world abound. Community and Tribe litter history with bodies and conflict. Science changes the goal posts on knowledge forcing religion to move its goal posts. Contemporary religious adherents blithely dismiss fundamentalist beliefs as naive and uneducated. Fear - well, it dictates so much of society. But these same certainties that I have, that those who are religious have are 100% certain to appear uniformed and charming or simply neanderthal in 100 years as the people then will look back with certainty on their updated set of beliefs. War, conflict, persecution will still be here and many, many questions will remain unanswered.
13
It is more complicated that a single headline. In the past in many countries they were privileged. In the middle age in Europe they ruled that part of the world.
In modern times they were still privileged in areas like Italy, Spanish speaking countries and areas of the US.
Now by and large they are declining in the western world due to abusive priests, expensive cost of education, people turning to deism type beliefs etc. etc.
In some areas like coptic catholics in Egypt they are persecuted.
I am sure other posters can add to this in other ways.
5
Onward, Christian soldiers,
marching as to war,
With the cross of Jesus
going on before!
Hmm, so we are a Christian country. Spreading the joys of the Gospel to all the heathen non-believers of the world (yup, including us benighted liberal Protestants who dont accept the Catholic party line).
Now, refresh my memory.
In how many Muslim-majority countries are we currently waging war?
Mr Douthat is surprised there may be some pushback?! Give me a break.
159
@David Leaving out that many of our founding fathers were essentially Heretics. A minor point for the saintly Ross.
5
@David Onward Christian soldiers indeed! The only thing missing from Douthat's diatribe against liberal thinking was an open call for the next Crusade! And what does this have to do with the killing in Sri Lanka by ISIS? Ross has been reading too many of Trump's tweets and has gone off the deep end.
13
Add to your question do Christians persecute because that too is an aspect. Ecumenicals condemnation of others including other sincere believers and ethical humanists needs to be addressed. Rome insists on persecuting women. Science and facts seem regularly under attack by Christian groups with no self reflection on promoting falsehoods. So while I am sorry about non-Western Christians persecution I have to ask if the fault placement is more complicated. And Trump's behavior incites far and wide with no boundaries.
18
Situations like the Sri Lanka bombings are very tragic, but I do not think Christians are more persecuted globally than other major religions. In the Middle East, the vast majority of terror and government repression victims are Muslims. In China, the government is not targeting Christianity specifically but any religious traditions that it thinks could harm social stability (government-approved Christian churches exist and practice freely, and its largest repression is against Muslim Uighurs, though Muslim Huis practice freely). There are no equivalents of the attacks on the Rohingya happening to Christians (the closest would be ISIS, which was attacked and destroyed by a global coalition in short order, while Myanmar still exists and one of its leaders still has her Nobel Peace Prize).
25
The sad likelihood is that more people have been killed throughout history in the name of God than for any other reason. Clearly, it continues to this day.
Realizing this does little to assuage the faithful's affirmation of belief, but it does heighten a sense of prosecution and even prompts in some a denial that a loving God would ever permit such atrocities. It challenges the faith of many while stoking the outrage of true believers toward those of other faiths who would prosecute such acts of hatred.
Singling out Christians as prosecuted, however, and pointing the finger at "liberalism" ignores a far more expansive history of organized religious prosecution, and is not the real point. It is that religious and even political extremists have always demanded strict obeisance to religious dictates-of-choice, generally for purposes of attaining or retaining power over others while disregarding what might be termed Godly behavior.
There is nothing remotely religious, of course, about horrific crimes such as that which occurred in Sri Lanka. Juxtaposed against the coalescing of generosity following the tragic fire that all but destroyed a sacred Christian edifice in Paris during the same week, we should resist the temptation to define such events as anything other than the acts of zealots who demand not a respect for true Godliness, but the subjugation of people for the sake of raw political power over others.
16
Various religions have been in conflict with each other for centuries. All religions are man made,the more conservative ones find it hard to accept a different point of view. Christians in the past do not have a very good record of accepting other cultures or religions. The treatment of Judaism, America’s manifest destiny, the treatment of indigenous people in South America. Even today the conservative Christian evangelists have difficulties with other religions. It is time in human development to move beyond the heavens and God and find a more humanist approach. A philosophy of life that respects all the different peoples and the earth we live on. A philosophy that what we do today will effect future generations.
25
Perhaps the Crusades, at least the PR version that pops into people’s heads these days, was a mistake. The vision of a 19th century Christian soldier marching off to war and bringing Jesus’ love at the point of a bayonet still resonates today. Christian conservatives and Islamic terrorists both use the image as a successful fundraising tool, but only the Christians seem to be surprised when it provokes violence.
Good Christians like Ross see themselves in the Sri Lankan victims hurt by Islamic bombs, but not in the Yemeni victims hurt by American missiles. I suspect, though I can’t be sure, that the suicide bombers in Sri Lanka saw it the other way.
Others see murder as murder, the most dishonorable act in any religious or secular law.
But none of it has anything to do with how people feel about the miracle of transubstantiation that takes place in churches around the world every day.
32
@M The Crusades happened in the 11th century, not the 19th. 19th century murder/subjugation was largely the result of the Enlightenment/Eurocentric ideas.
Fact: Christians around the world are murdered for their faith far more than any other group. Usually this genocidal behavior is the doing of another, competing faith If this attempted religious genocide was happening to any other religion, the American left would be aghast, raging in the streets. The silence is very telling.
@keith When M refers to "a 19th century Christian soldier," he's probably referring to the modern "PR vision" of the Crusades, which was very different from what happened in the Middle Ages.
@M
That “Christian soldier marching off to war” was marching in a blue uniform from northern USA to southern USA to preserve the union of the States of America (which all happened to be majority Christian at the time, but also multi-denominational). In the minds of at least some of the people singing the hymn, was the thought that they were marching to free people held enslaved by other people, which would help bring about the equality before God that Christ preached.
Quite a combination of paranoia and bruised pride here.
Killing a Christian is just as bad, and no worse, than killing a Muslim or anyone else. That bombs went off in churches in Sri Lanka proves that some people were targeting Christians. There; it's been said. So this isn't about a Western "war on Christmas".
Religious types do crazy things, like killing other religious types. It's a shame, but it is a sad corollary to belief in supernatural beings, afterlives, dictated moralities, etc., which themselves divide peoples into camps opposed to each other over made-up nonsense. This has been going on for millennia.
Of course Western civilization is trying to shed its ancient, superstitious, anti-scientific fables; they don't correspond to our current knowledge and have potential to do serious damage to human societies. Even religious people are trying hard to become less religious (a strange but understandable albeit rather hypocritical way to hold on to a pleasant community, nice art and music, and a comfortable set of play-dough platitudes). We are trying (at least subconsciously) to shed our primitive coping mechanisms as a prerequisite for comprehending and managing modern complexities. It's natural and good, even if we have to say to ourselves, with mantra-like fervor, "Oh, I'm spiritual but not religious." And this progress will continue, because, ultimately and fortunately, humans are strivers for knowledge, reasoning, and successful outcomes in the real world.
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@AM
". . . ultimately and fortunately, humans are strivers for knowledge, reasoning, and successful outcomes in the real world."
One would hope.
But, it all hinges on the definition of 'successful outcomes', doesn't it? I would have been thrilled if the outcome of the Mueller Report had led to Trump's immediate downfall. Forty-odd percent were thrilled when it didn't.
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@AM
I am not religious, but this is a perfect example of what I've always said about why we should fear militant atheists: because we should always fear any group that sets out to eradicate something about human life that's always existed—the dripping contempt expressed here for the "spiritual".
By the "we" in "we should fear," I mean anyone who doesn't worship in the cult of rational materialism where devotees don't know the difference between enlightened reason and dogmatic scientism (and don't know the difference between science and "scientism" as acceptance only of human modes of existence that can be explained by current science).
After the militant atheists come for religion, they're coming for the arts and humanities as useless frills that encourage woolgathering modes of thought that should be subservient to science because music can be reduced to the physics of sound and art to an analysis of structure and the materials it's made of. Anyone who can speak with such cold contempt of a longing expressed as spiritual will want you to give up poetry for algorithms—and that is how you are harnessed to a materialism that enthralls true scientific inquiry to capitalism. Note the business-speak and soft-sciences jargon of "successful outcomes". Note the preaching tone of "natural and good." Convert! Convert!
Beware anyone who tells you he lives in the real world and you don't.
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@AM oh gee, a politician jumped into the race and said he didn’t believe in any god... to think we might have a gay president before an atheist. I’m hoping for more progress.
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It is striking to hear concerns about the amoral reality of the White House without reflection on what would be the basis of the moral code. In the West it is predominantly from Christianity and Judaism. Materialism and Libertarian individualism by themselves have no moral anchors upon which a civilized society can be framed.
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@Horsepower
Civilized society is the moral anchor.
One doesn't need an abusive relationship to know that murder, grift and thievery is wrong. That is innate.
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@Horsepower. No, they have ethics.
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Thank you Ross, for articulating accurately my experience as a fairly orthodox Western Christian - this bizzare feeling of both privilege and persecution. Isn't it strange that liberal secularists, who were given the freedom to flourish as a result of the West's Judeo-Christian heritage, should, in the name of tolerance, become so intolerant of Christians and their beliefs, to the point of oppression? Yet, my Christian faith has also give me amazing peace and freedom and joy that is a remarkable privilege. I cannot help but feel that privilege wins out.
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@Karl "Liberal secularists...given the freedom to flourish as a result of the West's Judeo-Christian heritage?" I think your choice of the word "given" is illuminating. While that heritage included education in knowledge leading fitfully to eventual free thought, the freedom to flourish - as most freedoms - was hard won by oft-times difficult transcendance of and escape from the repressive authoritarianism that generally accompanied, and still lives on in, Judeo-Christian culture.
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@Karl
Actually, it was the Enlightenment that allowed liberal values to flourish.
FYI, please do not attach "Judeo" to 'Christian. ". They are completely different religions. There is overlap in scriptures, but those are interpreted too differently to equate the two. I do not like my religion being drafted into the service of a belief system I do not share.
That is not a criticism of Christianity itself; only of falsely conflating them to serve political ends.
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@Karl Ask a woman how free she is feeling currently in the U.S. given the far Right and is fellow travelers, the Ecumenical Christians.
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With all due respect, the world continues to become more secular and if Christianity survives it will have to evolve. The literal Magical stuff of ancient religion was meant for a different time and served a purpose for a different mindset. This is true not just for Christians but for all of the major belief systems. The fact that Christianity is equated with the Anglo-European traditions of the West and therefore a target of Mid-eastern and Asian extremists is an unfortunate by-product of those peoples similarly out dated, and outmoded belief systems. The ancient religions that in spite of all we know continue to be the unfortunate fall back faith of still large numbers of misguided and largely unfulfilled people have to modernize and evolve their doctrines or risk becoming nothing more than cults for disaffected hate groups. Blaming one another for the evils of the world and further polarizing the planet. Much of what the ancient founders of all these faith systems taught is of value, unfortunately the followers of these men, the organized Churches, Hierarchies, and clergy of these groups of believers are largely responsible for the schisms that these religions have caused in humanity. Unless they change significantly they will have little to offer as solutions to a species fraught with the perils of the 21st century.
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@tim True Christianity - as preserved in the One, Holy, Catholic (Universal) and Apostolic Orthodox Church, f which I am a Deacon - cannot possibly "evolve," at least not in the sense I take it that you mean, i.e., acceptance and sanction of the foibles of modernity. "Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever," wrote the Apostle Paul (Heb. 13:8). God does not and cannot change, and neither can His Truth.
"And I also say to you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build My church, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it." (Mat. 16:18). The Church has survived far worse persecutions than it is suffering today. It will survive this also.
Have you checked the numbers? Globally, religion is thriving and atheism looks set to die out with white people.
After reading this article, I sat and thought for a bit. Not a Christian, I wondered if my distance from his anxiety and call to action was just the result of my atheism...not having a dog in the fight.
Then I realized that, in Ross Douthat's mind, the world is separated into opinions, not countries, and for him the dominance of the Christian opinion, that ancient myth, is in danger.
I look at American invasions and mistreatment of non-Christian nations like Iran, and Iraq, and I see our jihadist-like behavior as causing much of the conflict that concerns him.
Can't have a "shock and awe" without a resulting "global Christian persecution". Can't erase the country of Palestine off the map without an Arab fearful response.
Time to leave the entire Middle East. America needs to come home and let the world solve its own problems.
Hugh
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@Hugh MassengillI
The mistreatment of non-Western Christians has been cited to justify Western military invasions, conquest, and plunder for hundreds of years, from the Crusades to the Boxer Rebellion. Thus it is not surprising that some non-Western extremists may see Christians as a fifth column for Western imperialism. I agree that the best thing we can do for persecuted Christians abroad is not to use them as a pretext for interfering in other countries, just like Muslim countries do not intervene in the treatment of Muslims in non-Muslim countries. It would be very bad for Muslims in the US if Iran were seen as championing their cause, and so it is very bad for non-Western Christians when militarily powerful Western countries champion their cause.
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@Hugh MassengillI
Great comment. Like you, I'm also an atheist so no dog in the "fight". It astounds that the bully US war machine believes it can go throughout the world with its regime change, its wars for oils, its attack of Iraq due to lies, its total disregard and support of what is being perpetrated by the Israeli Netanyahu government on Palestine, its continued involvement in the slaughter of Syrians, the people of Yemen and all the other nations we have attacked without provocation, the sanctions on Iran that are literally starving her people and that the persecuted will turn the other cheek and bow down to the great God America. All Christians are not America anymore than all Muslims are not Islamic terrorists. It's distressing that Christians are being targeted but it's equally distressing when Muslims are targeted or Jews are targeted. And it's the absolute height of arrogance that the US bully and other western government bullies believe they can continue to persecute and slaughter innocent Muslims and not expect any repercussions. And, as you state, it will not end until America comes homes and lets the world solve its own problems. It's time for the war machine to be brought to heel.
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@Hugh MassengillI
The top comment is virtually a plea for isolationism. Yes, we do bad things, but what is the alternative? If we stand down, others, notably China and Russia, will fill the void. They have more respect for religious and ethnic differences? I'd love to hear a Uyghur chime in here.
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Is the central threat to Christians globally that we in the west have secularized, as Douthat seems to postulate, or that it does not flourish globally in places which have *not* secularized?
Religions - and the individuals worshiping - are threatened when the prevailing culture is not secular, is instead fundamentalist, or exists in a region in which fundamentalism is ascendant. Religious people are threatened when they are a minority in a location in which minorities have no protection. Or in places in which lone extremists can wreak havoc, as in Christchurch, or Charleston.
Religious people are not threatened because of same sex marriage or the requirement that we not discriminate. They are threatened when others decide that they are a threat, or when people look at other people as symbols rather than souls valuable in God's eyes. People are threatened why evil uses religion as a justification for evil.
The greater value the political body puts on its people, the greater the protection of its religious citizens.
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@Cathy If you ask religious conservatives, they will tell you that secularism is every bit the threat as competing faiths, or even moreso. People who look, talk and dress like you but do not follow the tenets of the faith, or conspicuously contradict them, yet go about their days seemingly immune from divine accountability, this makes the religion seem arbitrary.
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In the US, unfortunately, Christians are definitely privileged.
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