“In the name of God”

I’ve very often heard people mention the many tragic incidents done by people in Christian history, even with the blessings of priests and popes, and then God seem to be the one to blame. Both the inquisition, witch burning, crusades, wars between Catholics and Protestants, happened with people believed to be doing Gods will, therefore “in the name of God”. In my own country, Christened around 1000-1200 AD, is still said to have been spread by blood. Those with knowledge of history however, know that the Christening of Norway happened as a result of a politics between two men who both wanted to rule. Also there’s none that realize the irony they’re missing when blaming Christianity for violence, after what was done by our forefather in the Viking Age.

Jacques de Molay, the 23rd and last Grand Master of the Knights Templar, sentenced to death by being burned alive stake in 1314, after accusations , extracted under torture, of things from devil worship, sodomy, spitting at the cross etc.

And there’s none that think about the simple words of Jesus of Nazareth, about loving, praying for and forgiving your enemy, turning the other cheek etc. and ask themselves if these really were the basic principles of what has been done by people, by purpose or ignorance, things that are against the teachings of Jesus. Although I can’t remember anyone using the words “It was done in the name of Jesus”.

Most of the time in the West though, it seem clearly to be about the God in Christianity people talk about when using the phrase. Wrongs that have been done in the name of God or in the name of Christianity, not as in having been done some horrible blasphemy, but as if it something related to Christianity.

Example of an American Christian hate group, that behave disgusting in public, with most elders being lawyers, using their right for freedom of speech for offensive public to the uttermost of the law, and believe that what they are doing are in “The Name of God”.

But did Jesus talk about war, swords and conflict as part of his teachings? Yes, he did.

It seem to be an agreement among Christian that spreading peace, not war is a good thing. But Jesus said that he didn’t come to spread peace, but the sword. (as has happened) This is however elaborated, and explained that because of this teaching would split families and friends would turn against each other. (also true, by experience)

In another example he talks to a soldier, not to condemn war, but rather to explain what to do best if you happen to be a soldier. As anyone knew, also Jesus understood that people had always be at war. A centurion was also told to have ha more faith then anyone in Judea.

And he said that there would come times where people thought they did God a service by killing Christians. As has happened.

So did an Apostle later in the bible. He explained that “For I know this, that after my departing shall grievous wolves enter in among you, not sparing the flock. (As happened)

Jesus warned about other people that would come, pretending to be Jesus and false prophets, as has happened. Thousands have died because of this.

Much of the problem arrived with the Catholic Church and reading of the Old Testament. In the old testament there’s a lot of different forms of punishments for people breaking the law. However the bible teaches that all sins are forgivable, that faith in Christ, not ” The Law of Moses, as Jesus said”, is the basic of Christian salvation.

Also by reading it in Latin at church to the illiterate flock, didn’t help much either.

Execution of Mariana de Carabajal (converted Jew), Mexico City, 1601.

The Spanish Inquisition itself caused the death of around 150.000 people. The last pope, Benedict XVI, were the director of the “Sacred Congregation of the Holy Office”, the renaming of the inquisition in 1908. Punishment such as burning and drowning were thought of as “not shedding blood”, and not done by the priests that carried out the sentence, certainly convinced that they were doing God’s will by some perverted logic.

Then, and for sure not as the first with similar opinions, that the pope was in fact the Antichrist (the bible says he will sit on the throne of God and call Himself God). Martin Luther came along and told what was really written in the bible, helped by the movable type invented by Gutenberg that spread his texts faster then the Church could burn them. By the help of a Saxon prince that didn’t take part in the required unanimous vote and helped him escape after the trial, to a remote castle where he venomously continued his sarcastic and condemning remarks against the Catholic Church, such as “the pope should stand up like the stinking sinner he is” or “The pope should restrain himself and take his fingers out of the pie”, a unstoppable, earthly, witty and intelligent provocateur.

Here’s an Luther insulter, if you want a taste of his attacks.

But with forces history society beyond his control, and probably seeds of freedom that only needed water to sprout this would really “bring the sword” in the 100-years war, and by the “victory” of the reform in Western Europe in the end. Here too I’m sure both sides were praying to the same God to save them from their fellow Christians that wanted to kill instead of dying.

The notion that Jesus had atoned for all sins on the cross and that only by his grace could we gain salvation by faith in Him, is basic Christianity, clearly written, but at odds with the Catholic Church. Luther also wrote the bible in German, so people could understand the simple facts, and now nothing the church did was needed to save the souls of people. They could find the faith they needed by reading what the clergy said

This shaped the western civilization in a radical way, different from the older civilization of Orthodox Christianity in East-Europe and Russia, that would soon lag behind the new, progressive individualism and critical thinking of Protestant West-Europe and USA.
So I strongly disagree in both the wars and crimes of the last two millennia, as being “in the name of God”, and that Christianity have instead the laws and values our civilization is based on, that we cherish and protect, fought over by the blood of martyrs and young men forced to leave their home and go to war.

“The Clash of Civilizations”

 

In 1992 Samuel P. Huntington held a lecture at the American Enterprise Institute, where he explained the theory and the concept of “Clash of Civilization”. Later he elaborated the theory in his book “The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order”, that after the Cold War and with the disillusionment of ideologies that had characterized the 1900s so strongly, promising utopia, but with catastrophic consequences in the first and second world war. Because of the disillusionment, new conflicts would rather be between different civilizations with different religious and cultural values between the different civilizations of the planet, for example:

-The West, Capitalistic, Democratic, Protestant Europe and USA, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.
-Orthodox, Socialist East-Europe and Russia.
-The Islamic, Nationalistic, Middle-East, North Africa.

Among others.

He pointed in particular to Islam as a source of renewed conflict contrasted with the West’s universality, a clear message was said that now ought everyone else follow the western culture too, after the US was left as the world’s superpower after the cold war. Particularly involved in the Middle East to impose this universality, mainly because of the hydrocarbon interests and since the Islamic civilization is specially hostile against the west and it stubbornly resist any change to the western civilization, when most of the world had already accepted the universality of the West, with both Democracy to let the people decide how the country were to be run (to a certain degree) and Civil Rights and Human Rights, that guaranteed that any leader of a Democratic country couldn’t became a tyrant, but had severe limits in how to lead the people. The old colonial term of “civilized”, seem now to be “democracy”. This new form of civilizing and the colonization of the Middle east, go even with Orwellian doublespeak like spreading “Freedom” and “Libery”, to make everything better for the less developed people, such as giving them good leaders that follow this universalism, weapons to defeat the  barbarians, the democratic” enemies and then economic rewards.

Historically in Europe the Muslim forces from Al-Andalus (Islamic Spain) who originally came so far to invade Europe got defeated by Charles Martel at the Battle of Tours, France, and in the battle for Vienna, Austria where Ottomans also lost in the battle betweent The Holy Roman Empire, being strained and lacking reinforcements, which eventually received assistance from the Polish king Jan III Sobieski, which drove back the invasion. After this The Ottoman Empire lost more and more of it’s former power over the next century, losing battle after battle. Spain was conquered in the Reconquista (“reconquest”) If not for these historic battles, there might not been a West to challenge the new Civilization that emerged from the Arab Peninsula after the birth of the prophet Muhammad.

Statistically speaking, Huntington pointed out that a vast majority of the conflict areas in the world were between Muslims and others.

After September 11th 2001, it seemed that his calculations struck true, where a massive attack on American symbols for military power and economy left around 3,000 dead, and this led to the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan, “The War on Terror” where the attempt to defeat Al-Qaeda, left with a total and sudden withdrawal one silent night by the last troops. This left a vacuum which was quickly filled by the increasingly brutal terrorist organizations, like today’s ISIS, trying to reawaken the old Caliphate, which after WW1, with the total victory over the Ottoman Empire and the partitioning of the Levant and Mesopotamia, was the end of what for around a thousand years had expanded from Saudi Arabia and defeated the Byzantine empire, being an enormous empire stretching from India to Spain.

At the bottom of all this is the historical figures of Jesus and Muhammad and how these two humans formed two an totally different cultures and values between The West and Muslim countries on the other side, with over a billion people on either side who have radically different Judeo-Christian values. In particular, the US has distinguished itself as the main enemy of the Muslim world, with its massive population of Christian fundamentalists unlike Europe, alongside Israel and Western-Europe. After two millennia of Christendom, Europe is heavily influenced, both in law and customs by the Christian teachings and values, even if it now also have strong Atheism in most countries, spread with the new scientific discoveries that have been made to cast shadows of the once unquestionable bible, but still is and will for the foreseeable future have the heritage of Christianity as values and a culture worth to go to war and kill and die for.