Elon Musk, in a recent conversation with Jordan Peterson, suggested that he was ‘probably a cultural Christian.’ Without being particularly religious, he claimed he was a ‘big believer in the principles of Christianity’, among which he named forgiveness. He also said that the Christian pronatalist presumption would probably ‘lead to a better society.’ Richard Dawkins, who is famous for being notoriously anti-religious, recently suggested that he does not wish for an end to Christian traditions in England because ‘I love hymns and Christmas carols and I sort of feel at home in the Christian ethos.’

In this article, I want to explain why I am a ‘cultural non-Christian.’ This does not necessarily mean that I am a non-Christian. It just means that, culturally, I am a non-Christian. Furthermore, though I can understand why somebody would see their embeddedness in a historic Christian culture as a fact, I understand much less why this cultural experience should be transformed into a political movement or an ideology.

The term ‘cultural Christian’ is shorthand for an attitude that rejects the supernatural claims of Christianity but still admits to being culturally determined by a historical context shaped by Christianity. Many people have embraced what Christian critics call ‘Christianity lite’, that is, Christian culture without miracles and divinity. Some people value moral ideas like humility or the sanctity of the individual, which they believe makes them ‘somewhat’ Christian in a cultural way. This leads to paradoxical labels. Slavoj Žižek has called his most recent book Christian Atheism, and French President Emmanuel Macron identifies himself as an ‘agnostic Catholic.’ Jordan Peterson adhered to a similar line when he said on television ‘I act as if God exists’ (emphasis added).

First, I wonder how deeply these people have actually examined their cultural contexts. In my own cultural environment, I find little that can really be identified as Christian. Instead, I notice that it is replete with almost anti-Christian elements. I might find a few secularized cultural components that were formerly Christian, but there is nothing powerful enough there to lead me to conclude that I am a cultural Christian. As a European or as a Westerner, I am culturally determined by secularism, the Enlightenment, the freedom to speak up against religion, and the overcoming of religion.

Cultural Christians tend to list qualities like respect for the individual, loyalty, or self-control as core Christian values that they still believe in. However, beyond the fact that such values can be found in practically any religion, these cultural principles have reached most of us in already highly secularized forms. Human rights and equality are secular ideas. Why should one insist on their Christian origins (a highly debatable proposition, anyway)? Many such principles could just as well be traced back to the ancient Greeks, and I could thus declare myself a cultural Greek. A kneejerk reaction might suggest that it is simply a difference in temporal distance that makes such an idea less feasible, but is the legacy of Greek philosophy really that much more distant than the Biblical origins of Christianity?

In my opinion, many non-practicing Christians are not as culturally influenced by Christianity as they think. They might imagine they are, and they may even want it to be true; but often, it is a highly secularized form of ‘Christian culture’ that they have experienced. The libidinal and subliminal reasons why these people attribute secular phenomena to Christianity might be interesting for their own sake, but they are irrelevant here.

We appreciate European culture, but to what extent is this culture actually Christian? Churches and their distinctive architecture can be used to illustrate a broader point here. When the Notre Dame of Paris burned in 2019, plenty of non-religious people were sincerely struck by this cultural loss and expressed a desire to have this monument quickly repaired. But this outpouring of emotion cannot simply be attributed to some kind of latent religiosity. It is more likely that the structure as a historical monument and a great example of Gothic architecture were what mattered to many, rather than its religious significance.

I appreciate much of the architecture that has been built by Christians, but I do not appreciate it as ‘Christian architecture.’ I appreciate it in the same secular way in which one might appreciate any architecture. The same goes for ideas and concepts that might once have been the preserve of Christian theologians but are no longer used in a Christian sense. Perhaps one of the most obvious examples is Christmas, which many celebrate without celebrating it as a Christian event. One could even go to Mass and enjoy it as a spectacle without it meaning that one is Christian in any way.

Theoretically, one could build a new Gothic cathedral and make it non-denominational, that is, build one that can be used by Buddhists, Hindus, Muslims, and Christians alike. Many who think of themselves as ‘cultural Christians’ might not be dissatisfied with such a monument in their city and might even view it as an example of foreign ideas being well integrated into their own culture. They are cultural Europeans rather than cultural Christians. In a similar vein, Dawkins mentioned that he enjoys listening to Christian hymns, and I believe that it is rather the music than the religious lyrics that he appreciates. He too is arguably a cultural European more so than a cultural Christian. How many people who enjoy Bach can actually relate to the lyrics of the St. Matthew Passion?

What we are really influenced by as Europeans and what really gives us an identity as Westerners is not religion but the liberty to act against obscurantism and religion. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, in a recent speech, suggested that Europeans should look to Christianity in order to reinstall meaning and purpose in a European society that has lost its moral compass. He does not seem to be aware that he suggests something that is deeply alien to a European culture that was born out of a revolution against religious authoritarianism. Unknowingly, by insisting on archaic Christian roots, Orbán, Peterson, and Musk push the West towards a worldview with which Christianity bears strong similarities: Islam.

Islamic societies continue to be much more strongly influenced by religion, and the idea of a ‘cultural Muslim’ is unnecessary because Islam is the only cultural reference point available: religion and culture almost entirely overlap, or are at least perceived to. Simultaneously and paradoxically, when the religious reference point is so strong that non-religious cultural aspects quasi-disappear, the idea of a ‘cultural Muslim’ becomes nonsensical and practically synonymous with the notion of a ‘cultural non-Muslim.’ A cultural Muslim is de facto a non-Muslim.

This is also the case for Christians, but for them, this paradox is less obvious. Westerners tend to have many more non-religious reference points, with the result that the concept of ‘cultural Christianity’ assumes a stronger connection to the religion than would exist if one identified more strongly with other cultural referents. Because one could choose another identity, the choice of Christianity holds more weight. Typically, when a Muslim says that they are only ‘culturally’ Muslim, the assumption is that they are in fact no longer Muslim. When a Christian says that they are ‘culturally’ Christian, the emphasis is that they are still somehow Christian. In Western societies, culture and religion can be more naturally perceived as two distinct things, and Musk et al plead not for a distinction but for a further confusion of cultural and religious aspects. It remains a strange choice. For example, Musk could simply talk about family policy boosting birth rates; why does he need Christianity to make his point?

I concede that the idea of being a ‘cultural Christian’, with which I personally cannot empathise, might be genuinely felt by some. However, there is no reason to turn this vague feeling into a movement or an ideology. This is precisely what Musk et al are doing. And when Dawkins values cultural Christianity as a ‘bulwark against Islam’ he is clearly missing the point. The only bulwark against Islam would be secularism.

I feel that you want to ask me now if I am a Christian or a non-Christian without the prefix ‘cultural.’ But this is not the topic of the article. Here I merely wanted to explain why, in cultural terms, I cannot be a Christian.

Related reading

Do we need God to defend civilisation? by Adam Wakeling

The Enlightenment and the making of modernity, by Piers Benn

The case of Richard Dawkins: cultural affiliation with a religious community does not contradict atheism, by Kunwar Khuldune Shahid

New Atheism, New Theism, and a defence of cultural Christianity, by Jack Stacey

Against the ‘New Theism’, by Daniel James Sharp

Can the ‘New Theists’ save the West? by Matt Johnson

A reading list against the ‘New Theism’ (and an offer to debate), by Daniel James Sharp

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Much of the philosophical and religious thought that may very loosely be categorised as ‘Eastern’ endeavours to show people how to ‘liberate themselves’ both from the ego and from step-by-logical-step thinking. This is a deliberate abdication of precisely our most valuable attributes. Of course, it does not do this because it is stupid—it isn’t. It chooses this path because those attributes are admittedly imperfect. Unfortunately, this is like giving up entirely on going to the doctor because medicine, too, is imperfect.

But this is not a solely philosophical matter. It is also illuminating to look at it from a political perspective. Oriental philosophy by and large enjoins accepting things as they are, going along with the flow—as exemplified by the key Taoist concept of wu-wei, ‘not striving’ (among other translations), since any striving is regarded as counter-productive and surely destined to fail. It hardly seems coincidental that this is a philosophy arising among, and especially suited to, people who politically and socially lacked much agency for change and, hopefully, improvement.

To state it more bluntly: in this regard, it is a philosophy tailored for vassals who are to be kept in their place, and for political systems that see evolutionary change as inherently bad. A dynasty may be toppled and followed by another dynasty, but the idea itself of being ruled forever by dynasties (kingly or even of a modern, more corporate type) is not to be questioned. Give me stasis, or I’ll give you death.

The above qualifications ‘very loosely’ and ‘by and large’ reflect the obvious fact that Oriental religio-philosophical thinking is not monolithic but varied. Yet, even granting this diversity, it would be inattentive not to notice overall patterns. At the same time, parts of this thinking are not exclusive to the East, either. For one example, just turn to the US’s late grand old man of geopolitics, Henry Kissinger, the heart of whose political philosophy, as he made clear in his book World Order, was that something is good if it keeps a lid on things. (He regretted the French Revolution, for example, not on any grounds related to whether people were better or worse off because of it—that was largely immaterial to him—but because it swept away a self-correcting European order that had held since 1648.)

But again, the general pattern is that the preference for immutability is more of an Eastern than a Western thing; the West tends to see stasis as stagnation. The major exception to this dichotomy is in religion—specifically, religion defined not in association with a general system of philosophical thought, but with an organised, hierarchical structure. Religion in this form is always a tool for social control and a belligerent guardian of the status quo in West and East alike. (For social control, much of the East hasn’t even needed it where a non-religion, Confucianism, has been there to perform that role.)

The West stands for a never-ending struggle for change for the better, despite stumbles and setbacks. A lot of bad things can be said about the West (although such rather widespread impressions as that imperialism or slavery are uniquely Western traits are grotesquely misinformed). But the notion that it is better to seek progress than to preserve existing conditions at all costs is one that should genuinely be cherished. This idea has allowed the West to achieve progress in many areas—and to keep working on its own, and others’, problems.

It is logical that populations which see no chance of ever escaping a preordained hard lot or severely subservient position will seek evasion in mystical doctrines that take them away from themselves and their reality. Conversely, their adherence to such thinking helps keep the systems that preordained their miserable position in business. It’s a loop.

The West is also the birthplace of the self as associated with an individual who is more than a cog in the whole. That clearly doesn’t mean that otherwise people don’t know who they are; it means that they don’t define themselves only in relation to a community which they form part of and must, above all other considerations, serve. Of course, a balance needs to be struck between the individual and the group, between the ego and the collective. (It should be clear that ‘ego’ is herein used simply in the sense of self-awareness, not in the Freudian sense or that of an excessive self-regard.) But the moral and practical imperative to be solidary with others need not and should not mean giving up the self. According the ego its proper place is one of the triumphs of Western thought. Having a self-aware ego is our most basic treasure.

Wild, to-hell-with-the-others individualism is bad—and so is the opposite extreme position, that hell is me. (And that thus, I need to abandon or ‘transcend’ my ego. By the way, what a contrast, quite coincidental of course because the context is different, from Sartre’s ‘Hell is other people.’) Every person born comes with an ego. The alternative to coming to life, with the attendant ego, would be to remain in nothingness forever; the birth and the ego are a win in a cosmic lottery that offers staggeringly low chances. To throw the ego away is therefore an appalling waste.

Why does Eastern philosophy want to jettison it? Because it says the self—what Hinduism calls atman, although equivalences in these matters are seldom complete—stands in the way of realising the true nature of reality. Two points about this. First, it takes it for granted that the ego could not, by being made aware of the danger, in some way hold itself in check and see things straight after all.  

Second and more seriously still, what is that true nature of reality which the ego allegedly clouds? In that worldview, it is that we, along with everything else, are just part of, or emanations from, a mystical supreme entity or unchanging ultimate essence, whose existence it posits (Brahman, in Hinduism; Buddhism doesn’t give it a name but believes in it). There are many nuances to all this but in any case, making a prior assumption of what is the ultimate reality isn’t at all what we understand by searching for reality. So, sacrificing the ego to facilitate this ‘search’ is pointless.

Another reason that Eastern philosophy, Buddhism in particular, asserts that the self is an impossibility is that it is in eternal flux: our ego of a moment ago is gone with the moment itself. (This goes for everything else; nothing then really exists except in the actual now.) This is in a way comparable to Zeno’s paradoxes of motion and to the solipsist’s failure to prove the existence of anything outside his or her own mind.

As I have intimated in an earlier article on persistent philosophical errors, in these matters the shortcomings belong to philosophy, not reality. In actuality, even as the philosophers with such proclivities tie themselves into knots, Achilles does catch up with the tortoise¹. Things outside solipsists’ heads do exist and would do so whether solipsists themselves existed or not. And our self does manage to hold on to itself despite being presented with the notion that it was a different thing a moment ago. (Let’s face it, worse things have happened to our sense of self. We thought our organism was singular, and it turns out that we are symbionts with bugs, countless bugs, inside us. Yet here our ego still is. The question of whether the minute creatures have their own little egos remains open. But if they do, they should prize them.)

Next comes the decisive matter of rational, careful, step-by-step thought. The Oriental religio-philosophical persuasion—again, loosely defined—actively works to undercut or at least bypass it. Instead, it puts its faith in a direct apprehension of reality.    

Rational thought is one of our greatest properties as individuals and as a species. For someone in the Western tradition, it feels silly merely to state something so obvious. The fact that increasing numbers of animals are finally winning the acknowledgement that to varying extents they too can think rationally, and not just instinctively, and that they have degrees of self-awareness that could be likened to an ego, does not in any way diminish the paramount importance of these gifts for us.

It is the West (why not say it more precisely? Greece) that is the birthplace of the espousal of linear, rational thought for pursuing any line of enquiry and even for its own sake—and not mainly to create, justify, and extend religious or quasi-religious systems.

Why does the Eastern tradition distrust rational thinking? Because it feels that the latter’s way of categorising and labelling things destroys their wholeness. It may have a point—as long as this wholeness is understood only as a possible complex and fragile inner connectedness, and not as some mystical attribute. But it goes too far, not least with its underlying assumption that only the wholeness is worth considering, not the inner workings.

Oriental thinking, with Buddhism to the fore in this, also holds that the reality of the world is simply too elusive, too full of complexities for rational thought to stand a chance with it. From this elusiveness and complexity—and this is the crucial point—it reaches the conviction that it’s useless to try; Buddhism calls the attempt to do so trishna, ‘grasping’.

Actually, that something is difficult does not mean that it is necessarily impossible or that it isn’t even worth attempting. Attempts to show the inherent uselessness of ‘grasping’ via analogies, like that of a fist trying to get hold of itself or a net trying to catch water, beg the question of whether those analogies are the appropriate ones. Rational, ordered thought does lead to greater understanding in many cases—and even in cases in which ultimate success is not reached, much may anyway be learned during the attempt. Meanwhile, the difficulty of the attempts is made greater by the defeatist attitude inherent in ideas of trishna and the like.

As usual, what is needed is to find a balance (even if that itself may be difficult). Eastern thinking could be less of a quitter when it discovers that the world makes no effort to be readily understandable. And the Western line of approach could be more welcoming of lateral thinking and a hunch here and there. Reason is indeed limited in several ways (it needs to be tempered with compassion, we aren’t all that good at it anyway, it should sometimes stay out of the bedroom, and so on). And yet our ability to be rational, or at least as rational as we can manage, remains our best resource. Pace Oriental philosophy, no, it isn’t doomed from the start.

A word (all right, a paragraph) about any claims that Oriental thinking is a source of superior ‘spirituality’ or ‘wisdom’. The very idea that people were or are spiritually better off when under the thumb of superstition or religious establishments or essentially escapist philosophies is nonsense. However one may feel about that, the proof is in the results: the claims in question ring hollow in populations provenly just as subject to brutal spasms of violence as those in the West.

One should abandon neither one’s self, nor rational thought, nor the rational world—instead, if able and willing to do anything about them, one should work on improving them.

Related reading

Two cut-the-nonsense thinkers who overcame the philosopher’s curse(s), by Nicholas E. Meyer

Religion and the decline of freethought in South Asia, by Kunwar Khuldune Shahid

The rise and fall of god(s) in Indian politics: Modi’s setback, Indic philosophy, and the freethought paradox, by Kunwar Khuldune Shahid

1. Corrected 14 September 2024. It originally read ‘hare’ rather than ‘tortoise’. ︎

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After three years, every print issue of the Freethinker published between 1881 and 2014 is now available to read, free of charge, in our digital archive. So it seems justified to do a little navel-gazing: our image of the week is the very first page of the very first issue of the Freethinker from 1 May 1881. You can read a stirring introduction to the archive from Bob Forder here and the archive itself can be found here. Enjoy!

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For the past three years, GW Foote & Co. Ltd have been working on a project to digitise the complete run of print versions of the Freethinker from 1881 to 2014. This project has now been completed and everyone can access this extraordinary back catalogue free of charge here.

In the first instalment of this series, I explained my own interest in freethought literature and my continuing career as a part-time bookseller for over 40 years. I have had the privilege of handling thousands of freethought books, pamphlets, journals, and other ephemera. However, the occasions when I have come across past issues of the Freethinker have been remarkably few. I have handled early bound volumes just twice and even later examples are rare, with dealers often demanding prices best described as speculative. I have asked myself why this is and guess that the attitude to newspapers is generally that you read them and then throw them away.

What is more, the printed Freethinker was always published in a relatively large format—the first copies were foolscap size (approximately 34 x 20 cm). This lasted for many years and made them difficult to store. The copies I have come across have almost always been bound volumes sold at the end of the calendar year. There were two types of these, one leather bound and one bound in sturdy green cloth. The former did not age well, with the leather cracking and the boards detaching, but the latter stood the test of time. I am delighted to say that one of the two sets I have handled still adorns my bookshelves and continues to provide me with hours of instruction, distraction, and entertainment.

If you agree that the Freethinker has been the dominant voice of British secularism and freethought for 143 years, and that secularism and freethought are central to a free and democratic society, then the Freethinker is precious, and it is troubling that up to now the archive has been so difficult to access. For most, it has meant an arduous physical visit to a copyright library. This is why the conclusion of the GW Foote & Co. digitisation project is cause for cheers and celebration.

As a tentative pointer to what readers might enjoy about the archive, I offer the following comments on the Freethinker’s history and an indication of what I have discovered over the years in my own printed collection.

In a previous article, I wrote of George Willam Foote’s (1850-1915) early life, his founding of the Freethinker in 1881, and his year-long imprisonment for blasphemy. An additional matter that deserves recognition is that Foote’s actions involved a large element of self-sacrifice. He was a cultivated, bookish man, a librarian with refined literary tastes who wrote beautifully. For him, the abrasive, satirical, and outrageous style of the new journal was initially alien. However, he was so incensed by the treatment of the President of the National Secular Society (NSS), Charles Bradlaugh, and the deprivation of Bradlaugh’s right to sit as an MP for Northampton, that he determined to take the fight to the ‘bigots’.

He was also influenced by the established tone of freethought publications, epitomised by George Jacob Holyoake’s (1817-1906) writings which were thoughtful, worthy, totally lacking in humour, and, for many, rather boring. Foote reasoned that humour was a devastating weapon when employed against pompous authority figures in the established church and against religion in general. He reasoned that nobody takes seriously an individual or idea that has been laughed at and he also noted the satirical power of cartoons, which he was to employ with great effect and which led to his conviction for blasphemy. Some things never change; cartoons have not lost their power to provoke in the modern world.

Foote’s years as editor were not only characterised by his pungent attacks on the religious and religion. After his accession to the NSS Presidency in 1890, the Freethinker emerged as the NSS’s ‘in-house’ journal, acting as a type of noticeboard providing details of lectures, meetings, and publications. I particularly enjoy Joseph Mazzini Wheeler’s tightly written historical and biographical articles. Here was a man who grasped the significance of the intellectual and historical traditions of freethought. It is a great pity that his poor health and early death scuppered his plans to write a history of those traditions.

By the beginning of the First World War, Foote was ailing. Although he nominally remained editor, he had relocated to Westcliff-on-Sea for the sea air and occasionally commuted into London. Much of the actual editorial work and writing was being carried on by his sub-editor and loyal deputy, Chapman Cohen (1868-1954). Cohen formally took over the editor’s position and became President of the NSS when Foote died in 1915. He was known to a generation as CC, remaining editor until 1951. The Freethinker had had just two editors in its first 70 years. 

Like Foote, Cohen came to dominate the journal and make it his own, but there were differences in approach, substance, and style.  By the time of Cohen’s accession, the days when freethought was associated with radical political campaigns and working-class activism were long past. CC had little or no contact with politicians and always resisted political interventions in his many public meetings. His writings were characterised by a relatively sober critique of the illogicality, contradictions, and self-serving nature of religion and the religious. His arguments were rooted in philosophy, natural and social science, and literature. Foote’s biting satire was no more, and the cartoons long forgotten.

To my mind, Cohen’s greatest attribute was his ability to make the logical case for freethought in terms accessible to general readers. He never talked down, he just wrote logically and clearly in elegant, plain English that all could understand. Forty years ago, when I started book dealing, there were a few older customers who knew him. More than once I heard him described as ‘my greatest teacher’. To this, I would add that there was not a freethinking argument advanced by Bertrand Russell that CC had not made before. This is not to belittle Russell; rather, it is to recognise Cohen. For those who want to understand the case for atheism and the dangers of religion, just go to the Cohen years in the archive.

Before moving on, I must recognise CC’s sheer hard work. Each week through the 1920s and 30s he edited 12 or 16 foolscap pages, some of which he wrote. He corresponded with readers, provided the NSS with leadership, and spent his weekends speaking publicly. In the summer, that meant ‘outdoors’, in parks and public spaces. From September to April, he was ‘indoors’, travelling the country giving lectures (sometimes three in a single weekend). For example, during the 1919-1920 indoor season he spoke at no less than 34 venues on more than 50 occasions. This was a pattern and level of activity that he maintained throughout the interwar years.

One contributor whose writings will be enjoyed by those with an interest in freethought and radical history is Herbert Cutner (1881-1969), although he did not restrict himself to historical subjects. He began his contributions in 1920 and by 1959 had had his 1,000^th article published.

Since Cohen’s resignation the turnover of editors has been more rapid, at times too rapid, although an important exception was Barry Duke’s 24-year tenure beginning in 1998. One editor who had a particular impact on me was Bill McIlroy (1928-2013), who served three separate terms totalling more than 14 years. As well as commissioning some important historical essays, and networking with individuals such as politicians Tony Benn and Michael Foot and academics Edward Royle and David Berman, Bill had a talent for punchy, witty headlines. Here are some examples to whet the appetite. ‘Pious Indoctrinators Tighten Grip on Classroom Captives’ (July 1988); ‘Embryology Bill: “Pro-Life” Dirty Tricks Campaign Aborted’ (May 1990); ‘Patten Links Crime Rate with Decline in Fear of Fire and Brimstone’ (May 1992).

Another relatively recent contributor who should be mentioned is Jim Herrick (1943-2023), a stalwart of the freethought and secularist movement in general, editor of the Freethinker from 1977 to 1981, and contributor on a diverse range of subjects over many years. I have particularly enjoyed Jim’s theatre reviews and historical articles. An invaluable contribution is his centenary history of the journal, Vision and Realism: A Hundred Years of the Freethinker, published in 1982.

So, the Freethinker lives on as a contemporary digital magazine rooted in its historical archive. Not everything published in its pages over the past 143 years has been impressive, although much of it is. But for me, it is a kind of intellectual treasure trove hidden away for too long and unavailable to even its most fervent supporters. There is nothing quite like it, with its alternative and critical take on religious belief, contemporary events, and social developments. It is also a testament to those who have gone before and who have on occasion sacrificed their own interests rather than surrender their intellectual freedom. The digital archive will be invaluable in keeping this intellectual tradition, once termed ‘the best of causes’, alive for a long time to come.

Editor: The Freethinker digital archive is a great achievement, the work of many hands. Though it, like the Freethinker today, is free to read, many resources were put into it and donations from readers are much appreciated. Anyone who donates over £500 will not only have our immense gratitude but will be publicly recognised, with their name proudly displayed in the archive itself (if they so desire). For technical reasons, please get in touch with us if you wish to donate £500 or more rather than using our usual donation form. Meanwhile, enjoy the archive.

The post Books from Bob’s Library #4: The ‘Freethinker’—over a century of issues now available as a digital archive appeared first on The Freethinker.

When Forster officially announced Seven Shoulders and its premise on Twitter/X, he was skewered on all sides. White people disguising themselves as black is passé and will provoke offence and indignation whatever the reason may be. Many black people, in particular, responded negatively because they felt that they were the best qualified to discuss the reality of being black. They also felt that they didn’t need a white Canadian man to don a synthetic afro wig, wear coloured contact lenses, and put on brown-coloured Maybelline foundation (specifically, mocha shade—because ‘I figured it was best not to get too ambitious’) to find out whether racism still exists in America. 

Forster follows in the footsteps of other ‘journalistic blackface’ practitioners, on whose example he rests very heavily: he cites Ray Sprigle, John Howard Griffin, author of 1967’s Black Like Me (which he particularly admires), and Grace Halsell, author of 1969’s Soul Sister. All of them went incognito as ‘black’ to try to enlighten a largely ignorant and indifferent white America on the reality of the pervasive racism faced by black Americans, whether under the oppressive Jim Crow apartheid regime of the South in the 20^th century or the unofficial but ubiquitous racism that black communities endured across Northern cities during the same period.

Even though journalistic blackface has already been done three times, Forster ‘felt [he] had no choice’ but to anoint himself as the heir to this tradition. Moreover, he proclaims that he is sui generis because he is ‘the first person to earnestly cross the color barrier in over half a century’—and he is especially unique because he is the first person to do so in a post-Rodney King, post-Barack Obama, and post-George Floyd America. This claim isn’t strictly true, as there have been reality TV shows from this century setting up social experiments where whites have been disguised as blacks and vice versa to see what life is like ‘on the other side’ of the racial divide. 

Nevertheless, Forster doesn’t advertise Seven Shoulders as a moralistic screed. Instead, it’s a book that ‘prioritises methodical language and comprehensive analysis over emotional fervour and moral condemnation’ and he is the right person for this task because he is ‘inclined to describe rather than admonish.’

Unlike Ray Sprigle, who ‘ate, slept, traveled, lived Black’ (‘I lodged in Negro households. I ate in Negro restaurants. I slept in Negro hotels and lodging houses. I crept through the back and side doors of railroad stations’), Forster doesn’t embed himself within predominantly black communities. He doesn’t attempt to live a social life as a black man. No, the way Forster seeks to ‘taxonomize’ American racism (which, he says, can be divided into various categories, including two oft-conflated ones: ‘macro-level racial disparities’ and ‘institutional injustice’) is to pose as a hitchhiker on the sides, or shoulders, of seven different roads across the US, ‘first as a White man, and then again as a Black man on the following day.’

He claims this hitchhiking experiment is an accurate way to ‘taxonomize’ contemporary racism in America because it ‘exposes real sentiments that might otherwise be concealed… It reveals how [Americans] act when nobody is telling them how to act.’ It reveals another category of racism: the ‘interpersonal’ type.

The problem with this is that this isn’t the America of the Beatniks, where hitchhiking culture was a lot more prominent than it is today. And it is rather shallow to make sweeping judgements on a topic as broad and intricate as race in America on the sole basis of a limited hitchhiking experiment—which is why the pompous statements peppered throughout the book are so jarring. For instance:

[N]obody has an experiential barometer with respect to race… nobody except for me… [You] may say that I haven’t lived enough Black life for my barometer to be useful. Say what you will. My barometer is better than anyone else’s. 

Or: 

I am a visionary writer who wants to demystify race in a way that is creative, compelling, and beautiful.

For all the vim and haughty rhetoric Forster deploys, Seven Shoulders is as underwhelming as it is superficial. This is disappointing in its own way, as I was slightly intrigued by the premise. Instead, I encountered a book that was confused and incoherently written. Publishing a chapter that actually contains the line ‘I don’t know what I’m supposed to say in this chapter’ doesn’t exactly instil confidence in you as a writer, ‘visionary’ or otherwise.

Though the journalistic blackface was unnecessary, not to mention silly, there might perhaps have been an interesting, if provocative, book investigating the textures and dynamics of race in America in the 21^st century from a considered first-person view. Ray Sprigle and John Howard Griffin in their ethnographical studies at least spoke to black Americans and collected testimonies of their experiences of racism. The closest Forster comes to anything like this is a pedestrian interview with two unnamed black politicians (whom he interviewed as a white man) who were clearly unaware of what project their remarks were lent to. 

Most of the commentary surrounding Seven Shoulders has focused on Forster’s use of blackface and thus the gravamen has been missed. He claims that in America today, instances of institutional racism are ‘extremely [he repeats this word over several pages in case you didn’t get it the first time—yes, really]…difficult to identify, and outward demonstrations of interpersonal racism are also a vanishing phenomenon.’ 

This thesis very much rhymes with that of Dinesh D’Souza’s 1995 book The End of Racism and other arguments from American conservatives. In other words, Forster isn’t as original and avant-garde as his bumptious pronouncements would have us believe. Forster concedes that what he calls ‘shoulder racism’, based on what we might call unconscious bias, might occur in certain circumstances—but says that it is not a pressing social problem.

He also notes that he was perceived differently by the homeless when he was white compared to when he was black: he was constantly asked for money by homeless people (of whatever colour) as a white man, yet he wasn’t pestered by anyone for money as a black man, which I find believable. But that is the extent of the depth he arrives at when contemplating how whites and blacks may be perceived differently within society. 

Whatever your opinion on whether Ray Sprigle, John Howard Griffin, and Grace Halsell were ever justified in engaging in journalistic blackface, one cannot deny that, in service of the cause of racial equality, they made sincere efforts to understand the reality of the racism that plagued their time. In contrast, Forster’s efforts in Seven Shoulders are an unserious and not even entertaining attempt at gonzo journalism. It feels like it was written in an unhinged frenzy, without any serious understanding of the complicated subject it broaches, and it makes bold claims and states tendentious conclusions based on a flimsy ‘experiment’ that a bad YouTuber could conduct.

As a black man—technically mixed race—I’m not even offended. I have thick skin and a broad back, so it takes a lot to make me cry. Besides, to be offended or hurt by Sam Forster’s gimmick I would have had to have taken it seriously. I do agree with Forster that most of the books currently written about race, whether by blacks or whites, are ‘tremendously boring.’ Alas, his is the latest addition to that pile. 

Related reading

Race: the most difficult subject of all? Interview with Inaya Folarin Iman by Emma Park

Two types of ‘assimilation’: the US and China, by Grayson Slover

The Enlightenment and the making of modernity, by Piers Benn

Linnaeus, Buffon, and the battle for biology, by Charles Foster

‘The best way to combat bad speech is with good speech’ – interview with Maryam Namazie, by Emma Park

Young, radical and morally confused, by Gerfried Ambrosch

Can sentientism save the world? Interview with Jamie Woodhouse, by Emma Park

David Tennant, Kemi Badenoch, and the ugly sin of identity politics: a view from the right, by Frank Haviland

The post Gimmick journalism and race in America: review of ‘Seven Shoulders’ by Sam Forster appeared first on The Freethinker.

James Gillray’s (1765-1815) hand-coloured etching was originally published by Hannah Humphrey (1745-1818) in 1798. It would have been displayed in the window of Humphrey’s shop at 27 St James’s Street, London—and it would undoubtedly have attracted crowds.

Gillray is generally regarded as the ‘father of the political cartoon’ and this etching is a fine example. He first satirised the King, George III. However, during and after the French Revolution, he took a conservative stand against it and its supporters, the most important of whom was Thomas Paine. This is well-illustrated here. Charles Fox, Whig politician, supporter of the principles of the American and French revolutions, and champion of religious toleration and liberty, is portrayed as the Devil trying unsuccessfully to tempt John Bull. Fox’s ‘Tree of Liberty’ is barren and leafless and its fruit is rotten. The title of two of Thomas Paine’s works, The Age of Reason and Rights of Man, adorn the tree along with the red cap of liberty. ‘Atheism’, ‘deism’,‘blasphemy’, and ‘democracy’ are just some of the dangerous and rotten ideas produced by the tree.

Behind Fox and his tree, by contrast, is a sturdy green English oak, rooted in the ’Commons’, ‘Lords’, and ‘King’ with an upright trunk of ‘justice’, branches of ‘law’ and ‘religion’, and fruits which include ‘freedom’ and ‘happiness’. Then as now, progress is derided as corrupt and defiling, while the status quo is seen to ensure stability and ‘true’ freedom.

Related reading

Books From Bob’s Library #1: Introduction and Thomas Paine’s ‘The Age of Reason’, by Bob Forder

Books from Bob’s Library #2: Thomas Paine’s ‘Rights of Man’, by Bob Forder

The rhythm of Tom Paine’s bones, by Eoin Carter

Image of the week: ‘Wha wants me’, a caricature of Thomas Paine by Isaac Cruikshank (1792), by Daniel James Sharp

Christopher Hitchens and the long afterlife of Thomas Paine, by Daniel James Sharp

Introducing ‘Paine: A Fantastical Visual Biography’, by Polyp, by Paul Fitzgerald

The post Image of the week: ‘The Tree of Liberty – with the Devil tempting John Bull’ by James Gillray (1798) appeared first on The Freethinker.

Myth? Legend? Folklore? History? Fiction? This is The Story of Russia, as the title of Orlando Figes’s 2022 book puts it.

Every nation, every country, and, indeed, every empire has a founding myth: some event or figure that is meant to embody the values and origins of the state and unify the people with an overarching narrative of where they came from and where they are going. Figes shows, however, that Russia is a peculiar exception to this norm. For many reasons, when it comes to Russia’s history and origins, there is no true consensus or understanding. Rather, Russia’s history and origins are so deeply intertwined with myths, narratives, legends, politics, folklore, and religion that you must first be willing to dive deeply into all these intricate components and then sift through them to discover even a morsel of truth.

As Figes demonstrates in his work, despotism is one constant truth of Russia over 800 years, from the authoritarianism of Kievan Rus’ (the progenitor of modern Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus) to Putinism. The systems and titles may have changed several times, but the brutal and violent methods of securing and maintaining centralised power in Russia have remained largely unaltered—because, circularly, the belief that Russia can only be ruled by brutality and violence has remained largely unaltered as well.

Russian industrialisation did not even begin until the late 19^th century, partially because of Russia’s reliance on serf labour. Because serfs had no social or economic mobility, and even their physical mobility was restricted to the confines of their village, there was no space for innovators, investors, and entrepreneurs who could revolutionise the system. The natural emergence of capitalism, inextricably connected to industrialisation (like an axle to a wheel), was impossible for a long time in Russia. In Russia, unlike the rest of Europe, the state, in the form of the Tsar, was the sole financier of industrialisation.

During the first half of the 18^th century, the skill of history writing was still emerging in Russia. A German scholar named Gerhard Friedrich Müller outraged the Russian academics at the newly established St Petersburg Academy of Sciences by daring to conclude, based on his research of the Primary Chronicle, that Russia’s origins could be traced back to the Vikings. To say that Scandinavians created Russia was not something to be lightly asserted at a time when Russia had just emerged from victory in one of its many wars with Sweden!

Müller was accused by Mikhail Lomonosov, his rival in the academy, of degrading the Slavs by presenting them as savages who couldn’t organise their state without outside help. The Russians, according to Lomonosov, were not Vikings, but Baltic Slavs, descendants of the Iranian Roxolani people, whose history dates back into the mists of antiquity.

Another fascinating aspect of Russian history that Figes delves into is the notion of Moscow as the ‘Third Rome’, the bearer of the Orthodox Christian flame after the fall of the ‘Second Rome’, Byzantium. This succession—or natural inheritance, as it is viewed by many Russians—means that Russia has a God-given mission in the world, a view that derives in part from the medieval theology it inherited from the Byzantines. The idea that the West is in a state of degeneration and collapse and that Russia is a superior civilisation thanks to its unbending devotion to Orthodoxy is an idea that has recurred again and again in Russian history. Holy Russia, in short, is the true source of humanity’s salvation. This view of Russia as saviour fundamentally influenced both the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union. The sacralisation of power was deeply linked to this because it portrayed the Tsar (or the Party) as the direct manifestation of God’s will on Earth (or the embodiment of the dialectic of history).

This messianic streak is still apparent. Putin’s ongoing war with Ukraine can be understood through this framework: divine right places Putin above human laws, human rights, and earthly realities, and Ukraine, due to its exposure to the degenerate societies of the West, is in need of cleansing by holy war.

Figes skilfully examines the reasons behind Russia’s failure to establish a democratic government over the centuries (contrast with Ukraine) by compellingly illustrating how democratic reforms were consistently hindered by pivotal historical events. These events include the impact of the French Revolution during Catherine the Great’s reign, Napoleon’s invasion of Russia during Alexander I’s rule, the assassination of Alexander II in 1881 (which halted his transformative reforms), the suppression of democratic ideals by the Bolsheviks after the 1917 revolution, and the perpetuation of autocratic tendencies following the fall of the Soviet Union. While Western thinkers have debated, discussed, and theorised about the abstract notions of the state and the people, the role of religion, and the role and structure of the state for hundreds of years, there has been no similar wide-ranging, long-term enquiry in Russia.

Yet another fascinating and critical topic explored in The Story of Russia is Russia’s eastward expansion. As Figes notes, between 1500 and 1917, the territories controlled by the Russian state grew, on average, by a staggering 1,300 square kilometres per day. This expansion, of course, was not merely of land; it also included expansion of control over the indigenous populations the Russians encountered. Russian expansion was, in essence, Russian colonialism. However, unlike in many Western countries, Russia has not reflected on or reckoned with its colonial past. Russian expansion is viewed as a kind of ‘self-discovery’—or, as Figes describes it, as the story of a country colonising itself.

It is certainly not shocking that no such reckoning has occurred or even begun in Russia given that the official narrative on all matters Russian has been crafted by authoritarian regimes, from the Tsars and the Soviets to Putin. But where, then, is the international community? Where are the protests against the bloody past, so common in the West? Where is the holding to account for the cultural genocide, forced assimilation, brutal treatment, and forced imprisonment of indigenous peoples in and along the eastern portion of Eurasia?

Perhaps the only apt comparison is that of the plight of the Uyghur Muslims, a Turkic-speaking ethnic group who live in the northwestern region of Xinjiang, China. Over one million Uyghur Muslims have been imprisoned by the Chinese government since 2017, and those not imprisoned are subjected to intense surveillance, religious restrictions, forced labour, and forced sterilisation. The outcry, protests, and condemnation from the international community on this issue have also been lacking, albeit not totally absent. Similarly, but to a worse extent, the silence on the ongoing plight of the indigenous peoples of Russia is stunning.

Figes’s assessment of the Putin regime’s endorsement of the doctrine called the ‘Russian World’ is particularly valuable. According to this doctrine, Russia is a civilisation characterised by its spiritual values, in contrast to what is perceived as the liberalism and materialism of the West. The ‘Russian World’ includes not merely Russia, but also Ukraine and Belarus, a view supported by Patriarch Kirill, head of the Russian Orthodox Church, who believes that all Orthodox believers, whether in Russia, Ukraine, or Belarus, have a common origin and deep connection stemming from the coming of Christianity to Kievan Rus’ in 988. Kirill’s shocking inability to denounce Russia’s war on—not to mention his declaration of holy war against—Ukraine is a direct consequence of this view of history.

Among the many important themes discussed by Figes, one stands out to me as a necessary reminder of the malign uses to which prejudiced historical narratives can be put. That is, in true Orwellian fashion, control over how the past is understood grants control over the present and the future. The current unnecessary and unprovoked war with Ukraine is the result of Russia being detached from its history and at the mercy of an ever-changing narrative that benefits the ruling class and buttresses that class’s hold on power. This war is not just a crime against Ukraine, but also one against the best of Russia, whose literature and art have enriched Europe for centuries, and the people of Russia, whose desire for liberty has, tragically, never been fully realised. This war, in all its aspects, will only continue until and unless Russia is free to understand its own history—and learn from it.

Related reading

A view from Kyiv: Ordinary life during Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, interview by Emma Park

Can the ‘New Theists’ save the West? by Matt Johnson

Against the ‘New Theism’, by Daniel James Sharp

What has Christianity to do with Western values? by Nick Cohen

Two types of ‘assimilation’: the US and China, by Grayson Slover

The post Russian history, Russian myths: review of ‘The Story of Russia’ by Orlando Figes appeared first on The Freethinker.

Readers may recall that during the Vietnam War, US soldiers were wont to justify their presence in that country by claiming they were there to ‘kill a Commie for Christ’. 

Before attempting to unpack this phrase, let me suggest that it encapsulates the very essence of the relationship between religion and war. I also suggest that it offers at least a sliver of hope that the historically deeply intertwined relationship between the two might one day be severed.

In October 2011, Dylan Ratigan wrote an article for the HuffPost entitled ‘How Did Our Oil Get Under Their Sand?’ Written some eight years after the US invasion of Iraq in March 2003, Ratigan argued that ‘the only real consistency in policy-making is Washington’s commitment to war and oil, and increasingly often, war for oil.’ Suppose this is an accurate description of at least one of the US government’s major motivations for the Iraq War. In that case, it’s a far cry from the initial rationale for that war presented to the American people.

During an interview on CNN on September 8, 2002, then-National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice infamously warned that Saddam Hussein could be close to producing a nuclear weapon. When asked just how close Saddam was to ‘developing a nuclear capacity’, Rice replied: ‘The problem here is that there will always be some uncertainty about how quickly he can acquire nuclear weapons. But we don’t want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud.’

In contrast to Rice’s assertion, Scott Ritter, a former UN weapons inspector in Iraq, reported the same day that there was no ‘smoking gun’ inasmuch as the Bush administration had failed to substantiate its case that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. Ritter’s conclusion was later substantiated prior to the war by onsite inspections conducted by both the United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission and the International Atomic Energy Agency.  

Needless to say, the testimony of Scott Ritter and other reputable organisations did nothing to dissuade the Bush administration from invading Iraq on March 19, 2003. The result would be the violent deaths of between 268,000 and 295,000 people between March 2003 and October 2018. It also did nothing to dissuade many Christian clergy in the US from voicing their full support for the invasion. For example, Charles Stanley, pastor of the First Baptist Church of Atlanta and a former Southern Baptist Convention president, stated in a sermon broadcast internationally on TV: ‘Throughout Scripture, there is evidence that God favors war for divine reasons and sometimes uses it to accomplish His will. He has also given governments and their citizens very specific responsibilities in regards to this matter.’ 

Further, Leith Anderson, president of the National Association of Evangelicals, noted that ‘Most evangelicals in America subscribe to the theological position called ‘Just War Theory,’ that it is morally justified to go to war under certain conditions.’ Similarly, Prison Fellowship founder Charles Colson, a Baptist, argued in 2002 that the classical definition of Christian just war theory should be ‘stretched’ to accommodate a new age in which terrorism and warfare are intertwined. Colson alleged that ‘out of love of neighbor, then, Christians can and should support a preemptive strike’ on Iraq to prevent Iraqi-based or -funded attacks on the United States or its allies. Colson was one of the signatories to the Land letter, a letter sent by several evangelical Christian leaders to Bush giving their ‘just war’-based support to the invasion of Iraq.

As the above quotations indicate, one of the most frequent justifications for Christian support of war, shared by Catholics and Protestants alike, is the belief in ‘just wars’. Christian just war theory, first developed by Saint Augustine of Hippo (354-430) and later by Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274), was designed to provide a reliable guide for determining if a specific war was in accord with the teachings of Jesus Christ. Laying aside what Jesus actually said about the use of violence for the moment, just war doctrine clearly empowered the Pope, as Vicar of Christ on earth, to determine which war, if any, the faithful should fight (and die) in.

Just war theory, at its most basic, declares that a war must be fought for a just cause, i.e., it must correct a grave, public evil. Further, only duly constituted public authorities may wage war exclusively for the reasons set forth as a just cause. Arms may not be used in a futile cause or in cases where disproportionate measures are required to achieve success. Finally, force may be used only after all peaceful alternatives have been seriously tried and exhausted and the force used must be proportional to the injury suffered. That is to say, the harm caused by the war must not be greater than the harm to be eradicated.

If one believes that the use of force is sometimes unavoidable, it is difficult to fault just war theory, at least at the theoretical level. But what of historical practice? In the long history of the Roman Catholic Church, has the Church, i.e., the Pope, ever formally declared that even one of the numerous wars occurring since the adoption of just war doctrine is ‘unjust’? The surprising answer is ‘no’. No Pope has ever issued a formal declaration using their full papal authority to categorically label a specific war as unjust. Not even in the Second World War did Pope Pius XII see fit to formally declare that Nazi Germany, with its sizable Catholic population, was fighting an unjust war. That said, it is true that numerous Popes have used their moral and spiritual authority to speak out strongly against certain wars. For example, Pope John Paul II was strongly opposed to the Iraq War. Nevertheless, he, too, failed to issue a formal declaration explicitly stating that that war was unjust.

What of the opposite case, i.e., have any Popes declared that certain wars have been ‘just’? Here the answer is an unambiguous ‘yes’. Successive Popes declared the multiple Crusades of the late 11^th to 13^th centuries to be just wars. At the Council of Clermont in 1095, Pope Urban II framed the very First Crusade as a penitential act, a holy pilgrimage, and a just war to reclaim the Holy Land and protect Eastern Christians from Muslim rule. Urban further promised spiritual rewards, including indulgences (remissions of sins), to those who took up the sword and the cross.

Following in Urban’s footsteps, various Popes issued bulls (formal papal decrees) supporting and legitimising the Crusades. For example, Pope Eugenius III issued the bull Quantum praedecessores in 1145, calling for the Second Crusade, and Pope Innocent III issued Post miserabile in 1198, urging the launch of the Fourth Crusade. These papal bulls not only called for the Crusades but also outlined the spiritual benefits, protections, and financial support to be had by those who participated in them. They promoted the Crusades by emphasising themes of Christian duty, divine favour, and spiritual rewards, further reinforcing the just war narrative.

Today, thanks to a reconsideration of the historical relationship between Christians and Muslims set in motion by the Second Vatican Council (1962-65), the Church has undergone a major change in its outlook. In 1976, Paul Johnson, an English Catholic historian, described the Crusades as follows:

The Crusades were not missionary ventures but wars of conquest and primitive experiments in colonization; and the only specific Christian institutions they produced, the three knightly orders, were military… A Crusade was in essence nothing more than a mob of armed and fanatical Christians. Once its numbers rose to over 10,000 it could no longer be controlled, only guided. It might be used to attack Moslems, or unleashed against Jews, or heretics… The fall of Jerusalem [in 1099] was followed by a prolonged and hideous massacre of Moslems and Jews, men, women and children… In general, the effect of the Crusades was to undermine the intellectual content of Islam, to destroy the chances of peaceful adjustment to Christianity, and to make the Moslems far less tolerant: crusading fossilized Islam into a fanatic posture.

In short, over the centuries just war doctrine has been, at least in practice, little more than a moral fig leaf to disguise an age-old pattern, i.e., what we (the Church and its adherents) do is by definition ‘just’ (no matter how horrendous) and what others do is not. Just how far just war doctrine varies from, if not violates, Jesus’ teachings is clear when we turn to the New Testament. Jesus not only advocated non-violence but directed his followers to love one’s enemies. Key passages include the Sermon on the Mount where Jesus says ‘Blessed are the peacemakers’ and urges his followers to turn the other cheek if they are attacked. These teachings were foundational for early Christians, with substantial evidence suggesting that early Christian communities leaned heavily towards pacifism. Early Church fathers like Tertullian (c. 155 – c. 220), for example, argued that Christians should not participate in military service, stating that ‘Christ, in disarming Peter, disarmed every soldier.’

Nevertheless, by the time of Constantine I in the 4th century, Christianity was becoming enmeshed with the militaristic Roman state. As a result, the Church’s stance on violence and military service began to change. It was this change that prompted figures like Augustine to a shift in thinking, accommodating the realities of Christians to the political power of the state. Note, too, that this shift not only led to Christianity’s acceptance by the Roman state, but it greatly enhanced the influence, prestige, and wealth of the prelates themselves.

As for Christianity and war specifically, one of the most momentous changes occurred when, in the aftermath of Constantine’s victory at the Battle of Milvian Bridge in October 312 (which he came to attribute to the support of the Christian God), he agreed to exempt Christian clergy (but not laity) from service in the Roman army, among other benefits. Constantine did this in exchange for the clergy’s commitment to pray for the victory of his soldiers. This marked the beginning of the military chaplaincy we have today and explains the origins of why in the UK and US, for example, chaplains remain unarmed even as they meet the ‘spiritual needs’ of soldiers on the battlefield.

The importance of the role of military chaplains is explained in the following article that appeared in the Associated Press in 2004 during the Iraq War:

As American troops cope with life—and death—on a faraway battlefield, military chaplains cope with them, offering prayers, comfort and spiritual advice to keep the American military machine running… Chaplains help grease the wheels of any soldier’s troubled conscience by arguing that killing combatants is justified.

Capt. Warren Haggray, a 48-year-old Baptist Army chaplain said: “I teach them from the scripture, and in the scripture I can see many times where men were told…to go out and defeat the enemy. This is real stuff. You’re out there and you gotta eliminate that guy, because if you don’t, he’s gonna eliminate you.” [Emphasis mine]

Note, too, that it is not just military chaplains who ‘grease the wheels’ of those who are engaged, directly or indirectly, in the killing business. That is to say, those who order soldiers into battle also benefit from Christianity’s alliance with the state. For example, at the time of the Spanish-American War in 1898, following Spain’s defeat and America’s takeover of the former Spanish colony of the Philippines, President McKinley invited a group of Methodist church leaders to the White House in 1899. He told them:

I walked the floor of the White House night after night until midnight; and I am not ashamed to tell you, gentlemen, that I went down on my knees and prayed to Almighty God for light and guidance more than one night. And one night late it came to me this way—I don’t know how it was, but it came … that there was nothing left for the US to do but to take them all, and to educate the Filipinos, and uplift them and civilize and Christianize them, and by God’s grace do the very best we could by them, as our fellow men for whom Christ also died. And then I went to bed, and went to sleep, and slept soundly, and the next morning I sent for the chief engineer of the War Department (our map-maker), and I told him to put the Philippines on the map of the United States.

The Spanish, albeit Roman Catholics, had used the same ‘Christianizing’ mission to justify their own colonisation of that country from 1565. Nevertheless, none of the US Protestant clergy present opposed the colonialist decision of a president who had ‘went down on [his] knees’ to ask for divine guidance. In the Philippine-American War that followed between 1899 and 1902, the total number of Filipino casualties is estimated to have been between 220,000 and 250,000—all in the name of being uplifted, civilized, and ‘Christianized’ (i.e., ‘Protestantized’) by the US. The unity of Christianity and the state that began under Constantine has for many centuries provided both spiritual and material blessings for Christian soldiers, their political rulers, and their clergy throughout the world, and not only in the US.

At this point, I would not be surprised if some readers may be thinking, ‘Why is the author of this article so relentless in his criticism of Christianity? Wasn’t he once a Christian missionary in Japan? Is it perhaps because, now that he’s a Buddhist priest, he thinks Buddhism is so different from Christianity, i.e., a true religion of peace?’

While the author did once labour under that misapprehension, it is no longer the case, for like all world religions, Buddhism, despite its undeserved reputation as a religion of peace, is not substantially different when viewed in its actual historical practice. One of the first times I realised this was when I read a quotation from D.T. Suzuki, famous for his introduction of the (Rinzai) Zen sect of Buddhism to the West.

At the time of Imperial Japan’s attempt to colonise Korea, leading to the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-5, Suzuki wrote an English-language article entitled ‘A Buddhist View of War’. He concluded the article with the following appeal to Japan’s soldiers:

When our ideals clash, let there be no flinching, no backsliding, no undecidedness, but for ever and ever pressing onwards. In this kind of war there is nothing personal, egotistic, or individual. It is the holiest spiritual war… Let us then shuffle off this mortal coil whenever it becomes necessary, and not raise a grunting voice against the fates… Resting in this conviction, Buddhists carry the banner of Dharma over the dead and dying until they gain final victory.

Simply stated, Suzuki was exhorting Japanese soldiers to simply die without complaint in ‘the holiest spiritual war’ since their deaths would ensure that the Dharma (i.e., Buddhism) reigned supreme. Placed within historical context, Suzuki’s admonition is unsurprising inasmuch as Suzuki’s own Zen master, Shaku Sōen, a Buddhist military chaplain in the same conflict, said essentially the same thing. In explaining the motivation for his service, Sōen wrote:

I wished to have my faith tested by going through the greatest horrors of life, but I also wished to inspire, if I could, our valiant soldiers with the ennobling thoughts of the Buddha, so as to enable them to die on the battlefield with the confidence that the task in which they are engaged is great and noble.

In the preceding quotation, if one were to replace ‘the ennobling thoughts of Buddha’ with ‘the ennobling thoughts of Christ’, I suggest you would have, at least doctrinally speaking, a nearly identical stance.

Further, when Leo Tolstoi, the famous Russian author and pacifist, sent a letter to Sōen asking him to sign a joint statement denouncing the war between their two peoples, Sōen responded:  

Even though the Buddha forbade the taking of life, he also taught that until all sentient beings are united together through the exercise of infinite compassion, there will never be peace. Therefore, as a means of bringing into harmony those things that are incompatible, killing and war are necessary.

In the following years, as Imperial Japan continued its colonisation of additional Asian countries, Buddhist support for this effort, on the part of all of Japan’s many Buddhist sects, became ever more strident. It reached the point that even the fundamental Buddhist precept proscribing the taking of life proved no impediment to those espousing support for Japan’s war effort. For example, in 1943, at the height of the Second World War, Sōtō Zen master Yasutani Haku’un wrote:

One should, fighting hard, kill everyone in the enemy army. The reason for this is that in order to carry [Buddhist] compassion and filial obedience through to perfection it is necessary to assist good and punish evil… Failing to kill an evil man who ought to be killed, or destroying an enemy army that ought to be destroyed, would be to betray compassion and filial obedience, to break the precept forbidding the taking of life.

Not content with advocating the killing of the enemy army, Yasutani, like the Nazis, found yet another group to demonise—the Jews. Yasutani wrote:

We must be aware of the existence of the demonic teachings of the Jews… They are caught up in the delusion that they alone have been chosen by God and are [therefore] an exceptionally superior people… The result of all this is a treacherous design to usurp [control of] and dominate the entire world, thus provoking the great upheavals of today. It must be said that this is an extreme example of the evil resulting from superstitious belief and deep-rooted delusion.

Perhaps the most amazing thing about D.T. Suzuki, Yasutani Haku’un, and the many other wartime Japanese Zen Buddhist leaders is that even today large numbers of Western Zen Buddhists continue to revere them as the very embodiment of ‘enlightenment’. And lest there are readers who think that statements like the above are limited to either wartime Japanese Zen masters or Japanese Buddhist leaders in general, we need only look at the more recent statement of Thai monk Kitti Wuttho who, in 1976 in the aftermath of a massacre of leftist protesters, claimed: ‘Killing communists is not killing persons because whoever destroys the nation, the religion, or the monarchy, such bestial types are not complete persons. Thus we must intend not to kill people but to kill the Devil (Mara); this is the duty of all Thai.’ Based on this statement, one can assume Venerable Wuttho would have had no objection to the statement ‘Kill a Commie for Buddha’.

Were space available, I could give examples of similar statements made by the leaders of all the world’s major faiths. With regard to Islam, for example, on 23 April 2004, the well-known Iraqi Shiite Muslim cleric Muqtada al-Sadr encouraged his followers to rise up against the US occupation of Iraq. He said:

Tell America, tell all the world, tell the Governing Council, that I have God by my side and they have the devil by theirs, and to my followers, I say, do not think we are not powerful. We can fight and defeat anyone!

A few months later, he crowed:

The only reward for those who make war on Allah and on Muhammad, his messenger, and plunge into corruption, will be to be killed or crucified or have their hands and feet severed on alternate sides, or be expelled from the land.

Judaism, too, is no exception to religion-endorsed warfare, as revealed in the current mass murder of Palestinians being carried out by the Jewish state of Israel. While contemporary statements by Israeli leaders calling the Palestinians ‘human animals’ and the like are well known, it is important to recall that a denial of the shared humanity of Palestinian Arabs and Israeli Jews has long been the staple of some Israeli Jewish rabbis.

In a 2001 sermon, the now deceased Ovadia Yosef, then the Sephardi Chief Rabbi of Israel and a founder of the ultra-orthodox Shas religious political party, exclaimed: ‘May the Holy Name visit retribution on the Arab heads, and cause their seed to be lost, and annihilate them… It is forbidden to have pity on them. We must give them missiles with relish, annihilate them. Evil ones, damnable ones.’ Twenty-three years later, Rabbi Yosef’s words are being enacted by the Israeli military in Gaza.

Finally, readers will recall that I found a sliver of hope in the phrase ‘Kill a Commie for Christ’. By this, I meant that history suggests that when we see the ‘other’ as an extension of, or a reflection of, our self, we cannot easily kill them. Instead, we must first believe (or be led to believe) that the ‘other’, in this case, the ‘Commie’, is the very incarnation of evil while at the same time believing (or being led to believe) that we are the ‘good guys’ (and increasingly ‘good gals’) killing for a ‘righteous cause’, e.g., on behalf of Jesus, the ‘Prince of Peace’.   

But what happens when soldiers discover that the enemy is actually an extension of themselves? That they are fellow human beings with the same wants, desires, fears, and, indeed, weaknesses? In this connection, I recall my own personal experience as a civilian college instructor in the US Navy’s Program for Afloat College Education. In 1980 I was assigned to teach on board the USS Kirk, a destroyer escort homeported in Yokosuka, Japan. In addition to the Japanese language, I taught a course on modern Chinese history as the ship patrolled the Taiwan Strait on a ‘peace-keeping mission’.

At the beginning of the course, my sailor-students expressed interest in learning more about their putative enemy, the ‘ChiComs’ (derogatory GI slang for Chinese Communists). Knowing of their prejudice, I chose Edgar Snow’s famous work Red Star Over China as the course text due to its sympathetic portrayal of the Communist guerrilla movement led by Mao Tse-tung (aka Mao Zedong). Sailors were shocked to learn, for example, that in the late 1930s, Mao’s opponent, Chiang Kai-shek, leader of the Nationalist Chinese and a professed Christian, expressed his admiration for fascism and believed that it held potential for China’s future development. ‘So we’re here in the Taiwan Strait risking our lives to defend fascism?’ they asked incredulously.

Toward the end of the class one of the sailors, having long abandoned the term ‘ChiCom’, said:

‘You know, Professor, if I’d been in the position of impoverished, landless Chinese peasants, faced with the choice of supporting either Chiang and his landlord backers or Mao, I would have become a Communist guerrilla, too!’ Other students in the class nodded in agreement. Needless to say, the purpose of the class was not to create ‘Communist guerrillas’ but, rather, to understand what led impoverished Chinese youth to become revolutionaries.

For this reason, I was heartened to see that with the knowledge they had acquired the sailors came to recognize the humanity, and understand the motives, of those who heretofore had been presented to them as evil incarnate. However, following the voyage, I was fired from my teaching position at the direction of the headquarters of the Seventh Fleet in Japan. The headquarters wrote my employer, Chapman College, explaining that ‘Brian Victoria is considered a threat to military order and discipline and must never be allowed to teach on board a Seventh Fleet ship again.’ So it goes…

Readers of Part One will recall that I identified the ongoing ‘tribal mentality’ of Homo sapiens as the root cause of our willingness to kill the ‘other’ in ever more massive numbers and with ever more lethal means. While all of today’s major religions claim to espouse universal truth and promote peace, when push comes to shove, religious leaders, almost without exception, resort to a tribal mentality that endorses if not promotes the murderous actions of their tribe’s (aka nation’s) soldiers. In doing so, they provide both their political leaders and the soldiers under their direction with the belief that they are acting righteously, ethically, with worthy goals that justify the means, no matter how cruel and heartless they may be.

Religious leaders also typically assure soldiers’ next of kin that in the event their loved ones fall in battle, they will be rewarded with some form of an afterlife, e.g., eternal life in the heaven of Christianity or rebirth in Buddha Amitābha’s ‘Pure Land’ in the case of Buddhism. At the same time, religious leaders enjoy the respect and approbation of their tribe/nation, for even should ‘their side’ lose the war, religious leaders are there to offer moral support and comfort, eulogising the patriotic ‘selflessness’ of the fallen and assuring their loved ones that the fallen have gone to a ‘better place’ and are ‘at peace’. In short, whether the war is won or lost, religious leaders, who need not risk their own lives on the battlefield, typically end up as the ‘winners’.

Given this, is there any hope?

In light of the ongoing, and widespread, strength of the tribal mentality of Homo sapiens, there is only one solution. First, we need to educate both ourselves and others regarding the true nature of conflicts (almost always fought in the self-interest of the rich and powerful on both sides).  Thereafter, we need to educate as many as possible to see the same humanity in others as they see in themselves, regardless of differences in skin colour, ethnic or national identity, religious affiliation (or lack thereof), gender, gender orientation, etc. Should we fail to do this, we would be well to recall the words Martin Luther King, Jr. spoke in his Christmas Sermon of Sunday, December 24, 1967:

[We] must either learn to live together as brothers [and sisters] or we are all going to perish together as fools.

Related reading

White Christian Nationalism is rising in America. Separation of church and state is the antidote. By Rachel Laser

Reproductive freedom is religious freedom, by Andrew Seidel and Rachel Laser

What has Christianity to do with Western values? by Nick Cohen

Secular conservatives? If only… by Jacques Berlinerblau

A reading list against the ‘New Theism’ (and an offer to debate), by Daniel James Sharp

Image of the week: Filippino Lippi’s ‘Triumph of St Thomas Aquinas over the Heretics’, by Daniel James Sharp

How the Roman Empire became Christian: Catherine Nixey’s ‘The Darkening Age’ and ‘Heresy’ reviewed, by Charles Freeman

The need for a new Enlightenment, by Christopher Hitchens

The roots of political Buddhism in Burma, by Hein Htet Kyaw

Britain’s liberal imam: Interview with Taj Hargey, by Emma Park

The radicalisation of young Muslims in the UK: an ongoing problem? by Khadija Khan

Bloodshed in Gaza: Islamists, leftist ideologues, and the prospects of a two-state solution, by Kunwar Khuldune Shahid

Religion and the Arab-Israeli conflict, by Kunwar Khuldune Shahid

Is the Israel-Palestine conflict fundamentally a nationalist, not a religious, war? by Ralph Leonard

Israel’s war on Gaza is a war on the Palestinian people, by Zwan Mahmod

The post Can Religion Save Humanity? Part Two: Killing Commies for Christ appeared first on The Freethinker.

The seventeenth century did not get off to a great start in Europe. Religious conflict still simmered, and in 1618, the continent became embroiled in the bloodiest and most destructive war it would suffer before the two World Wars. The Netherlands was fighting for its independence. In Britain, the dispute between King and Parliament led to wars costing hundreds of thousands of lives in the 1640s and 1650s. Scientific progress faced massive barriers. Galileo was condemned by the Roman Inquisition in 1633 for arguing that the Earth orbited the Sun and not the reverse, as Aristotle and generations of his followers had maintained. Across the continent, people remained poor, ignorant, oppressed, and victims of seemingly continuous violence.

Yet, by the end of the century, the religious wars were over, Europe had modern astronomy and physics, the Dutch had created the corporation and the stock exchange, England had established parliamentary government, and books calling for freedom of religion were openly being published and distributed. ‘In 1700 the mental outlook of educated men was completely modern; in 1600, except among a very few, it was largely medieval,’ wrote Bertrand Russell in his A History of Western Philosophy.

This shift in mindset, from the medieval to the modern, is the subject of Paul Strathern’s Dark Brilliance: The Age of Reason From Descartes to Peter the Great. Strathern covers the major figures and events of the era, painting a sweeping picture of the century and the monumental changes it brought to intellectual and cultural life in Europe. Dark Brilliance has remarkable breadth, touching on every field of knowledge from calculus to cooking. It includes the microscope and telescope, probability and statistics, gravity and motion, the Golden Age in the Netherlands and the Glorious Revolution in Britain. We meet—as we expect—figures such as Spinoza, Locke, Leibniz, and Newton. But Strathern pays far more attention to culture and the arts than most other writers on the Enlightenment. He also breaks down the contrast between reason and unreason running through the seventeenth century; this is the ‘Dark’ of the book’s title.

The Culture of Enlightenment

As he promises in the subtitle, Strathern begins Dark Brilliance with René Descartes, as he is developing his new philosophy in a bucolic winter scene in a Bavarian village. From Descartes, he makes an unexpected jump to the Italian painter Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio (1571-1610). Caravaggio would not normally feature in a book on the Age of Reason. He lived in Italy, which had been the unquestioned centre of Europe during the Renaissance but was falling into the shadows of the Netherlands and France in the seventeenth century. For all their wealth and splendour, Rome and Florence never became centres of the Enlightenment in the way that Paris, Amsterdam, Edinburgh, or London did. Not only that, Caravaggio died before the Age of Reason really began.

Still, Strathern argues that Caravaggio’s painting was a leap forward from the past, just like the works of the Enlightenment thinkers. His painting showed more depth, photorealism, and understanding of scientific topics such as anatomy and optics than the Italian Renaissance masters who preceded him. And they, in turn, painted far more lifelike scenes than medieval European artists. Like the Renaissance artists, Caravaggio drew on classical as well as Biblical inspiration, although he painted with more drama and energy. Strathern highlights, in particular, Caravaggio’s Judith Beheading Holofernes, where he painted a scene from the Bible, a conventional subject, but presented it in a way that was unconventionally violent, visceral, and shocking. Compare the painting with medieval European art, which was often without passion; even people suffering violent deaths can look only bored or vaguely annoyed.

This focus on culture is an original approach, but one which makes sense. Culture reflects society, and we can see the ideas of the Enlightenment reflected in the art of the Baroque artists. But it has limitations, and centres of culture and art were not always centres of learning, science, philosophy, or law. There was no Florentine Newton or Milanese Spinoza.

The splendour of the court of Louis XIV made France the cultural centre of Europe—even today fields like cooking and fashion are speckled with French words and phrases—but the French Enlightenment only really took off after the Sun King’s death. Strathern could have perhaps explored this further.  

Reason and Unreason

The other theme of Dark Brilliance is, as the title itself illustrates, the paradoxes of the Enlightenment. To Strathern, the seventeenth century was the Age of Reason and Unreason. As he points out in the introduction, the achievements of the Enlightenment ‘took place against a background of extreme political turbulence and irrational behaviour on a continental scale,’ from frenzied persecutions of supposed witches to the horrors of the transatlantic slave trade.

The developers of the telescope and the microscope were achieving steadily higher levels of magnification and bringing more and more of the hidden universe into view even as Catholics and Protestants killed each other by the tens of thousands. In the first chapter of Dark Brilliance, René Descartes invents his new philosophy while in the winter quarters of the Bavarian army during the Thirty Years War. The metastatic growth of the slave trade provides another example of how the irrational and inhumane could easily grow alongside the ideals of the Enlightenment. ‘…[I]n the Age of Reason, it was slavery that produced the capital which led to the progress of western European civilization, laying the foundations upon which its empires were built,’ Strathern writes. ‘At the same time, it also prompted a few rare spirits such as Montaigne to recognize the contagious barbarity of all who took part in it—to say nothing of the absurdity of its claims regarding racial superiority’. Man’s expanding knowledge did not seem to lessen his brutality—at least not yet.

The greatest paradox of the Enlightenment was, arguably, the French Revolution itself, which led to mass killing, the establishment of a dictatorship, and a new ‘rational’ religion in the name of Enlightenment values and freeing the people of France from the oppression of monarchy, aristocratic privilege, and a corrupt and reactionary Church. As he finishes his account at the start of the eighteenth century, Strathern doesn’t cover the French Revolution, although the theme of paradox runs through the book.

Conclusions

Why should we care about the Enlightenment? Because we live in a world shaped by it, and while we enjoy its benefits, we should also be aware (and beware) of its lessons. At the start of Dark Brilliance, Strathern asks if human progress will end up destroying the civilisation it helped to create. We face a range of threats, including climate change, enabled by the scientific progress and material wealth which has made our lives so much better. At the end of the book, he has not yet answered his own question, although he concludes that ‘paradoxically, the answer would appear to be progress itself’. Admittedly, it’s hard to see what other conclusion anyone could reach. There are calls today from the far left and far right of the political spectrum to dismantle the modern economy and modern society and revert to some pre-modern ideal. But this ideal is, in all cases, as mythical as it is real.

Strathern chooses to tell his overall story as a collection of colourful little biographies. This is an accessible approach and makes the book engaging for a general audience. Anyone who reads Dark Brilliance will reach the end with a much better understanding of not just the Enlightenment but life in seventeenth-century Europe in general. As someone who has read and written much about the subject, Strathern’s account of the development of Baroque painting was still entirely new to me.

I was left feeling that some of the threads remained loose, particularly on the impact of the Enlightenment and the paradox of reason coexisting with unreason. But as a panorama of seventeenth-century Europe, Dark Brilliance is both an impressive and very readable book.

Related reading

The Enlightenment and the making of modernity, by Piers Benn

Do we need God to defend civilisation? by Adam Wakeling

What has Christianity to do with Western values? by Nick Cohen

How three media revolutions transformed the history of atheism, by Nathan Alexander

The need for a new Enlightenment, by Christopher Hitchens

The post The Enlightenment paradox: review of ‘Dark Brilliance’ by Paul Strathern appeared first on The Freethinker.