[Buddha-l] NYTimes.com: Let Us Pray for Wealth

[Dan Lusthaus]

Stan,

I have to agree 1000% with Lance's observations. As for

>
> I think your reading of the situation differs from mine.  At least in
Japan the Christian armies were defending themselves.  I know of no vicious
Christian military campaigns in China or Korea.
>

This sounds like you are getting your information from missionary propoganda
pamphlets rather than legitimate history sources.

This was a time of competing Shoguns in Japan, and the Christians (or, more
accutately, the Catholics) backed one side, supplying them with firearms,
etc., which had not existed in Japan up to that time. They were hoping -- as
their own writings of the time explain -- to have an "in" with the winning
side, and once that side gained control, to impose Christianity on Japan.

Unfortunately for them, their side lost. The victors were not amused by role
and arms the Catholics had introduced into what should have been an internal
struggle, not with their motives for doing so. So Catholics (NOT Christians
per se) were banned henceforth -- for strictly politico-military reasons,
not religious. This was sound policy, not persecution. So, while the
Portugese, etc. were forbidden to land or trade in Japan, the Dutch, who had
their own problems with the Catholics (Richard will soon be in Leiden, the
place were the Spanish were routed and turned back, saving Holland from
Catholic rule), were permitted to continue trading with Japan, and were
welcomed on many fronts (e.g., as conduits for science, such as Western
medical knowledge). The Japanese devised a simple litmus test for whether
one was Catholic or Protestant. One had to stomp on a picture of the Virgin
Mary. Catholics wouldn't do it -- the Dutch did it with relish.

Let's be clear -- wherever Christian missionaries arrived, the army was
never far behind. Late 19th century is also illustrative. The Western powers
(and Japan) had divided China amongst themselves after the defeat of the
Chinese during the Opium wars. The settled status quo included clear
demarcations of where missionaries would be allow to go and missionize, and
where would be offlimits. The missionaries continually ignored those
restrictions, arrogantly and forcefully imposing themselves on local
populations who had no recourse to have the missionaries and their
interferences (abolishing "idols" and "idolatry", interfering with all sorts
of local customs and daily activities). Since the Chinese govt., hands tied
by the foreigners running the place, was powerless to do anything except
express words of disapproval, wherever these missionaries went, riots
eventually resulted, which ended with the Western militaries coming in and
putting down the riots -- which led to the Boxer Rebellion, etc.

Or research what the missionaries did to Tasmania, or Hawaii, etc etc etc

Let's make this simple -- not simplistic. A religion that believes there is
only ONE god, one truth, one way of looking at things, one way to behave -- 
and that way is OUR way which is the Cosmic Divine way, does not want to be
reminded that any alternatives whatsoever might be possible -- much less
that such alternatives could be legitimate. Any semblance of an alternate
way must be from the devil -- since it violates the one and only true way -- 
and ergo must be stamped out. It is one's sacred duty and mission to do so.
No reminders or remainders of such an Other (where "other" = evil,
temptation, etc.) must be allowed to remain, since they violate and offend
the cosmic order and the will of the one god -- as well as remind everyone
that the one is not hegemonous and hence, maybe, not as "one" as everyone
needs to assume and accept and believe.

What this means is that Christianity and Islam not only extirpate (to use
the word that seems to have prevailed in this list's discussion -- much
cleaner than "massacre" or "violently suppress and kill off") other
religions (idolators and infidels); they also have put tremendous attention
and energy into killing off all within their own ranks who hold a different
view (heretics) [that is the story in present day Iraq, for instance, where
attempts to "extirpate" the remaining Yazdis are also underway] . Hence the
explosion of a profusion of different Christianities as a consequence of the
Reformation. Celebrating the ability to be different, think differently and
act differently. As we know, however, it was never that clean, and each
group persecuted the others (an inherited trait), so that all the European
groups who came to the New World to escape religious persecution,
immediately turned around to persecute the other sects that came over for
the same reason -- each settling in a different part of the colonies to stay
away from the persecutions of the others (Pilgrims wouldn't even let members
of some sects land in New England). Ergo working the separation of Church
and State into the First Amendment to the US Constitution forbidding the
establishment of a State religion and forbidding the State from restricting
the practice of any religion, no matter how odious it might appear to
rivals.

Dan Lusthaus