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

[SJZiobro at cs.com]

"Dan Lusthaus" <vasubandhu at earthlink.net> wrote:

>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.

Dan,

I don't think much of what I've read has to do with missionary propoganda pamphlets.  Francis Xavier landed in Japan in 1549 and, from that time on till the advent of Dominicans and Franciscans in the early 1590s, the only Catholic missionary activity was done by the Jesuits.  If what you write below is meant to imply that their real work for 40 years was to supply Japanese converts with guns, you are very much mistaken.  Hideyoshi issued the first decree banishing the propagation of the Christian faith in 1587.  Even then, for close to ten years, the Christian mission went on cautiously.  I believe your initial gun supplying incident was centered around the running aground near Tosa of the Spanish ship "San Filipe."  The captain of the ship was the one who, with typical Spanish pride and arrogance, mentioned that the missionaries preceeded the armies of Spain.  If you read the Jesuit relations, however, you'll note how they sought to avoid contact with the Patronado Real, and generally succeeded throughout Asia, precisely because they wanted nothing to do with the Spanish (or Portugese) Crown's desire for conquest.  Simply put, their alligence was firt to Rome, not Lisbon or Madrid.  The damage was done, however, and the Christian mission suffered.  Even so, it wasn't until 1614, when Hideyori (?), Hideyoshi's successor, issued his edict, that the mission(s) suffered amore definitive setback.  It is noteworthy, I think, that even with this state of affairs there remained many Christians at the Court of Hideyori, and several commanded his troops during the bombardment of Osaka in 1615 or thereabouts.

Your contention that Christian missionaries always (implied) preceded the Spanish or Portugese armies is simply not the case.  What you'll find is that missionaries (these would be Franciscans or Dominicans) accompanied the agents of the Crown.  So the advent of Spanish or Portugese conquest and missionizing activity were normally simultaneous.  However, and I've noted this above, this model does not hold for the Jesuit missions in India, China, and Japan; it was the advent of the Franciscans and the Dominicans that heralded the sort of strife and turmoil you in part note.  I notice below that you want to corroborate the principle of mission preceding military by citing the situation in China during the 19th century.  I think you are right enough with regard to that time, but in the time of which we are treating at the moment, your anachronism does not meet the point.  China carefully regulated the visits of Catholic missionaries within her borders.  The only ones who truly succeeded in establishing missions within the Middle Kingdom at this time were, again, the Jesuits, and they made relatively few converts.  Their presence clearly did not herald the advent of conquoring Spanish or Portugese armies.  In fact, give the historical record relative to the activities of the Jesuits throughout Asia in the 16th century, and given the limited success of the Spanish or the Portugese (mainly the Portugese since the Spanish, via the Treaty of Tordesillas, concentrated their efforts in the Americas, much of your thesis fails in light of thereof.  It is, however, a good read, as is much of what you write.

Stan

>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