Every day radical Muslims make headlines in creating violence of one form or the other in one or the other part of the globe. They draw condemnation of the international community and the media and rightly so. But, this also creates two illusions, one that Islam may be associated with violence and that Christianity may be a benign religion, a religion of peace and of turning the other cheek. Various authors have tried to rescue the name of Islam from this false accusation; here my focus is to portray some genuine snapshots from the Christian history of the past and more recent times. I would not have drawn my pen to expose this illusion if it was only a matter of a false image without any practical or gory consequences. But, the plans of a notorious pastor from Florida to burn the Holy Quran on September 11, 2010, remind us that those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it, in slightly different forms and shades. The religious European wars of yesterday can find their expression in Islamphobia today! The warnings of Heinrich Heine’s are echoing and reverberating in my ears ‘Where books are burned, they will ultimately burn people also.’ There are countless precedents of this in not only Christian history but also in Muslim history.
It is with these concerns and dangers to the global village that I tabulate the Christian violence from Crusades, to inquisitions in Spain and elsewhere, to the Greek wars of the nineteenth century, to the laws against Unitarians, to the burning at stake of the Anabaptists, to the recent violence by the Serbians, to the conversion of the Barbarians on the point of sword by the Holy Emperors, to the history of the Dark ages, the cross of Christianity drips with blood, or shall we say pours blood. In fact it could be argued that the counter-intuitive dogma of Trinity and Original Sin can only be and were established by coercion of one form or the other, and often at the point of sword!
This article is a collection of various snapshots that prepares us against the extremist right wing agenda that can take a violent turn at any moment. The Golden words of George Santayana will be repeated enough in this article, ‘Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it,’ until these words can offer some semblance of competition to the repeated attempts of national television medium to portray Islam as violent and Christianity as possible benign panacea!
In the Western world, at least in the national television media, we seem to be moving at times from the highest ideal of individual responsibility and freedom of religion to ideas like guilt by association and tribal guilt when it comes to Islam and the Muslims. The hate mongers like Geert Wilders and Robert Spencer seem to be creating negative stereotypes of the Muslims and Islam. If we distinguish the good from the bad and moderate from the extremist and judge the Muslims by the same criteria, as we will judge a Christian or a Jew, then we will have a peaceful global village!
Part two of the following debate, starts with the presentation of the non-Trinitarian Christian, who still believes Jesus to be God, but makes an excellent presentation against Trinity based on the life history of Michael Servetus:
Categories: Islamophobia
The ‘Western People’ of course cannot deny the fact that Christianity is soaked in blood (and continues to be so actually). The result of this realization however seems to be that a large part of the Western Society turns away from religion altogether (instead of coming to peaceful Islam). If we want them to turn to peaceful Islam we have a lot of teaching to do. (and that is what we are trying in this blog…)
Charlemagne or Charles the Great and total lack of religious freedom
It is important not to forget the evolution of religious freedom in the world. As those who cannot remember the past are apt to repeat it. Charles the Great expanded the Frankish kingdom into an empire that incorporated much of Western and Central Europe. During his reign, he conquered Italy and was crowned Imperator Augustus by Pope Leo III on 25 December 800. The French and German monarchies descending from the empire ruled by Charlemagne as Holy Roman Emperor cover most of Europe. In his acceptance speech of the Charlemagne Prize, Pope John Paul II referred to him as the Pater Europae (“father of Europe”), see Wikipedia for reference.
According to Encyclopedia Britannica:
“Charlemagne.” Encyclopædia Britannica. 2009. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. 16 Aug. 2009 .