Bharath.Subramanyam wrote:brihaspati wrote:
So it is the height of delusion to try and separate "politics" from "religion". The so-called "secularism" of the Western European trend is actually based on a reconstruction of an imagined "golden" period in the "classical pre-Christian" and "early Christianity" Europe. In fact a lot of it found justification, strength and logic from an imagined "reformist", "rebellious", social-uprising-inducing supposed revolutionary aspect of Christianity as mediated by the classical Roman and Greek republicanism....
The modern Leftist-West-European-Protestant-mix value based evaluatory criteria that passes for "secularism" is directly traceable to the early modern reinvention of a revolutionary modern version of Christianity. Look at the value systems, the "republicanism" of the Roman roots, the imagined peculiar elite-egalitarianism, the jealous formation and guarding of closed ideological peer groups - which maintain their paradigms, and ultimately through it all the timeless search for a monopoly over power.
Bji, not able to understand the following:
i. 'revolutionary aspect through Roman & Greek republicanism'
ii. 'elite-egalitarianism'
iii. 'closed ideological peer groups'
Can you please explain?
There is a lot of mist and dust that has accumulated about early Christianity. I am trying my best to point out the problems with the representations that have been handed down to us. But this goes too deep into the history and more importantly the "historiography" of Christianity. Will go far OT, so will try to keep it within ambit.
"revolutionary aspect" : the question is actually related to many underlying assumptions in many of the posts here, but people are not applying the same logical lens as are applied to other faiths/ideologies and historical claims.
How do we know about the "millions and millions" of Christians being persecuted? Apart from the lurid tales that developed much much later in records,
what is the contemporary record of trauma from the victims side? The question is really important, because the logic used to deny that there were any atrocities on the Jews by Romans, or of other "rebellious" communities within the empire - or any atrocities by invading and neo-convert Muslims on Hindus and Buddhists during the advent of Islam on the subcontinent - is the lack of "contemporary", "authentic" and "independently verifiable" records from the victim side. Roman "description" of persecution of Christians - in the absence of such confirmation from victim side - is trashable - no?
There are parallel studies which find the early Christian movement to be a political one, which either started off as a revolutionary movement or was taken up as such a revolutionary movement by disgruntled sections of the Roman society. Why it deos happen so will take up a lot of space - but should not be unfamiliar to Indians who are aware of how Marxian thought gained dominance in India or attracted both elite and non-elite of a certain almost clearly identifiable origin/background.
The problem is that most people are not aware of the historical nitty-gritty of the transitional Roman Republic of the 1st century. Here sections of Roman elite - were fighting for power over and above the collective elite control of the senate and they sometimes found the Plebeian assembly useful. The first important figure to do this in the 1st cenury BCE was Marius - [Julius Caesar's mothers-sisters-hubbie]. Julius learnt the technique from him and by taking lessons from his early spat with the ex-assiatant and then foe of Marius - the dictator Sulla. Julius was actually the epitome of using the non-elite, the Plebs, for passing laws and attaining personal power. He grew up in the "subura" with his dominant mom [and mostly absent father ] who even being a lady still ran a rental property biz in the "toughest" gangland. Julius therefore had his networks early on with the so-called sanitary effluents of ancient Roman city life, and found the Pleb assembly useful.
Please to follow up on Julius' selection/election in a religious role, and his political career of rabble rousing.
The fact is that elite had been using the Roman mob for their own political games for a long long time. So Chrisrianity would have flourished in between the factional space available there in the 1st century.
the Roman republicanism took up from where the Athenian league had left it lurching after getting thrashed up by Spartans and the Spatans being thrashed up by their enslaved Helots - and finally mashed up by the Macedonians. In the process I guess cynicism was the only short term way out, and the hunger for "something" different - a desire to dissolve in unquestioing "tide of faithful love" and a "loving God" would be spiritual balm. Logical, analytical philosophies would be falsely seen in the context of civilizational defeat and rejected. This Greek undercurrent strongly influenced the semi-barbarian Roman colony [barbarian from many aspect s of their collective life - like collecting wives say from rape and abduction] who adopted most of the Greek remnants of philosophies.
Out of this monumental confusion and delusion that mixed up Greek civilizational retreat and defeat, logical and spiritual not-necessarily theocratic philosophies, rise and fall of Greek experiment with democracy and republicanism, the exceptional individual as iconic symbol of civilization [Alexander/emperor/Christos-king] - the one God, one individual next to God onlee or indistinguishable from God, the one "overwhelming idea" that holds the world together - came Christianity.
We have many references to early Christians being "troublesome", and not that many contemporary records of trauma - of the quality that a Thaparite should accept if it was offered in support of Hindu or Buddhist "trauma" [But of course being Thaparites - logic depends on context - same logic does not apply even in community-delinked logical framework itself to all communities and faiths].
"elite egalitarianism" : they claim "egalitarianism" but in practice it alsways reduces to a certain "special" group of sublime brains who must be given rather absolute power of deciding what and how egalitarianism should be defined as. This has its roots in the Greek elite losing power, the Roman elite using the mob - but once power is obtained - use that to create a special "imperial" class, use organized and militant early Christians to become bishops - and once becoming that create a special theocratic class that lords it over others. Continue down the memory lanes to Luther and his early dabbling with "demos" - finding support in and encouraging the peasant uprisings of plains Germany, an dthen when sufficeint militant force together withe elite military strength obtained - denounce the "mob" and abandon them, all the way through Anglo-Saxon expansion in the new world or the French revolution and Napoleon, or even the Marxian elite grumpiness that still ultimately postulated a special "vanguard" of the proletariat - the vague and undefined modern mob - abstractly defined accordingt to the needs of the dictator and the party.
This particular brand forms closed ideological peer groups - who simply devote their life and energies and perfidy towards maintaining the overwhelming dominanc of their shared ideology. P-secs in India should be a good example, and pseudo-Marxians of Europe for example - some of whom felt it so important to whitewash and deny the role of slave-trade in Brit [and connected west European financial networks] prosperity, or the modern class of dhimmis in both the west as well as India - who leave no stones unturned to whitewash the role and danger from Islamism.