Robert D. Woodberry: "The Missionary Roots of Liberal Democracy"

Robert D. Woodberry
Google Images

In yesterday's blog entry, I noted Robert D. Woodberry's article, "The Missionary Roots of Liberal Democracy," American Political Science Review Vol. 106, No. 2 May 2012). He seems to have proven his thesis, that stable modern democracies are significantly dependent upon the presence of independent Protestants who missionized various places around the world. I won't deal with his statistical data since I have no competence in that area; I will instead quote extensively from his paper in passages where he offers substantive reasons for why Protestant missions led to democracy. Here's his summary of the argument, which describes the role of nonstate, conversionary Protestants (CPs):

I discuss the following arguments in more detail in the history section, but in brief, CPs such as Protestant missionaries wanted people to be able to read the Bible in their own language and wanted to facilitate lay religious involvement. Thus, as CPs tried to spread their faith, they catalyzed mass education, mass printing, and civil society -- hampering elite attempts to monopolize these resources. Protestants themselves did not always provide the most educational, printing, and civil society resources, but Protestant initiatives spurred others to invest heavily in these areas and to pressure governments to create schools that restricted Protestant content. These resource transfers to non-elites helped alter the class structure, fostered the rise of political parties and nonviolent political movements, and facilitated broader political participation.

In addition, Nonconformists (i.e., non-state-supported Protestant denominations) historically suffered from discrimination and persecution by governments and state churches. Thus they fought for religious liberty and against state interference in civil society. In addition, both Evangelicals in state churches and Nonconformists wanted a "converted clergy." Thus in the eighteenth through early twentieth centuries, CPs generally sided with Enlightenment elites against state churches and their conservative allies. When they lacked this religious support, Enlightenment elites had a small power base and typically set up either autocratic or unstable and illiberal democratic regimes.

Finally, nonstate missionaries moderated colonial abuses, particularly when abuses undermined conversions and in British colonies (where CPs had greater influence). To reach their religious goals, nonstate missionaries punished abusive colonial officials and counterbalanced white settlers, which fostered the rule of law, encouraged less violent repression of anticolonial political organization, and facilitated peaceful decolonization. Of course, Protestant economic and political elites were as selfish as anyone else. Protestant slaveowners fought slave literacy, and Protestant settlers exploited indigenous people; however, when missionaries were financially independent of the state, of slaveowners, and of white settlers, missionaries undermined these elite co-religionists in ways that fostered democracy. (246a)

Woodberry's thesis is not entirely straightforward. The particular circumstances, as much as religious beliefs, shaped nonstate, conversionary Protestantism's activities. But the CPs did play a significant role:

Those who doubt the religious roots of democracy typically overemphasize its Athenian, Enlightenment, and Deist roots. However, religious factors are also important. Modern democracy differs greatly from Athenian democracy, and Enlightenment theorists incorporated many legal and institutional innovations from earlier religious movements. In fact, arguments for political pluralism, electoral reform, and limitations of state power were originally framed in religious terms.

For example, Calvinists tried to reconstruct states along "godly" lines and limit sinful human institutions. Perhaps as a result, most Enlightenment democratic theorists came from Calvinist families or had a Calvinist education, even if they were either not theologically orthodox or personally religious (e.g., John Locke, Rousseau, Hugo Grotius, Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, Patrick Henry, James Madison, and Alexander Hamilton), and they secularized ideas previously articulated by Calvinist theologians and jurists. For example, Hobbes' and Locke's social contracts are secular versions of Puritan and Nonconformist covenants, and Locke's ideas about the equality of all people are explicitly religious.

Although stated in secular form, the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights derive most directly from earlier colonial covenants, compacts, and bills of rights that were generally justified explicitly in biblical and theological terms; many were written before Hobbes and Locke expounded their ideas. Only 7 of the 27 rights enumerated in the U.S. Bill of Rights can be traced to major English common law documents. Even between 1760 and 1805, political writings quoted the Bible more often than either Enlightenment or classical thinkers (34% versus 22% and 9%, respectively).

Furthermore, the strength of Calvinism and Non-conformism better predicts where democracy emerged than does the strength of Greek and Enlightenment influence. (248a)

I wonder if these numbers cover the substantive story that needs to be fleshed out. Perhaps the Bible was cited more because it held more authority for most people, not because it contained democratic ideas. In other words, secular and Enlightenment views may have 'borrowed' the cloak of religious authority to make their position more persuasive. This assumes, of course, that the Bible is vague enough -- on the political system it supports -- for democratic ideas to be read into the text. Nevertheless, the impact of CPs was real:

One mechanism through which CPs dispersed power was massively expanding access to printed material and news. Scholars often claim that printing and capitalism birthed the public sphere and that the public sphere in turn enabled democracy. CPs greatly accelerated the development of mass printing, newspapers, and the public sphere for several reasons. First, CPs changed people's ideas about who books were for. According to CPs, everyone needed access to "God's word" -- not just elites. Therefore, everyone needed to read, including women and the poor. Moreover, books had to be inexpensive and in language that was accessible to ordinary people, not in foreign languages or classical versions of local languages. Second, CPs expected lay people to make their own religious choices. They believed people are saved not through sacraments or group membership but by "true faith in God"; thus, each individual had to decide which faith to follow. CPs used printed material to try to convert people, which forced other groups to use such materials to compete for ordinary people’s allegiance. This competition helped give rise to mass printing. (249a)

The principle of free individual choice clearly played a huge role, sometimes by example:

CPs advocated mass literacy so that everyone could read the Bible and interpret it competently. Their attempt to convert people through education threatened other elites and spurred these elites to also invest in mass education. (251a)

These are all plausible explanations, but Christianity in general -- if we include Catholics and Orthodox -- would not seem, in itself, to be obviously conducive to the development of stable democracies. In fact, state-supported Protestantism seems to have been as nonconducive to the development of stable democracies as were Catholicism and Orthodoxy. Two things, I think, remain to be done: 1) detailing the ideological links between stable democracies and the religious beliefs of independent Protestants to show how these religious views supported the secular ones, and 2) explaining in detail how the democratic character of these religious beliefs arose within the context of a Western Christendom that had never been especially democratic. These are important for a bigger question that interests me, namely, whether or not Christianity, in general, was in some way more conducive to the emergence of modernity.

In other words, is there something about Christianity -- in contradistinction to, say, Islam or Buddhism or Hinduism -- that makes its democratic reinterpretation more easily accomplished?

Caravaggio's 12-Bead Rosary?

Madonna of the Rosary

1607

Caravaggio

In reading a passage of art criticism yesterday, I encountered Caravaggio's Madonna of the Rosary and noticed something. There are twelve figures set in a rough circle whose center is a hollow space fixed in the middle of the painting. The notion occurred to me that the painting itself was a rosary for Caravaggio, each of the twelve figures representing a bead. I Googled "12-bead rosary" and learned that such a rosary does exist, but it does not appear to be common. Caravaggio, however, might have had his reasons for using twelve, the number being a significant one in Christian symbolism -- twelve tribes, twelve disciples. Not to forget the obvious twelve months, or the twelve numerals of the clock. There are also twelve fruits of the Holy Spirit, according to Catholic teaching, though I don't know the origin of this tradition.

Unfortunately, I know too little to carry this notion any further, so I'm open to the suggestions of readers on this mystery . . .

My New View on Toledo

Toledo, Spain
Carlos Luján
The New York Times

I've never paid Toledo sufficient attention, I suddenly realize, now that I've just read Geoffrey Gray's description of the city in his recent travel article, "In Toledo, Layers of Spanish History" (New York Times, December 21, 2012), for the city's layered histories, apparently, have all survived, rendering it a mysterious aspect:

The city itself sat on the hill like a medieval Oz, the river wrapped around it like a moat. There were two layers of castle walls, festooned with gargoyles, eagles and crests. On top of the bluff was the Alcázar, which looked out over the city's patchwork of Manchegan red clay tile roofs and the spires and belltowers of churches. The bells started to peal, eventually crescendoing to an explosion of noise that sounded like the finale of a fireworks show. It was still very early in the morning

Sounds like my kind of morning! But based on Gray's title, his description, and the above photo by Carlos Luján, I ask myself, how did this city get to be this way?

Some cities have old quarters. But the whole of Toledo is a historic district, indeed a Unesco World Heritage site, remaining largely intact throughout the many violent takeovers of Spain . . . . Because Toledo was considered the holiest city in Spain in the Catholic faith, its invaders were careful not to destroy hallowed ground. So it survived the Moors, Visigoths, the Spanish Civil War.

Enemies spared the city because it was so sacred for Catholics? I'm doubtful about this reasoning. Holier sites have seen utter destruction. Genghis Khan and his descendants had no qualms about razing entire civilizations, and the Mongols would have obliterated Mecca, had not a great Khan died, bringing about a military withdrawal from the Middle East. The Romans destroyed the city Carthage and later the sacred Temple in Jerusalem. Muslim armies destroyed other cities, so why not Toledo?

I don't know, but I suspect that it's not due to the city's Catholic sanctity . . .

Taking Exception to American Exceptionalism?

Walter McDougall
Familiar Photo

FPRI Notes

My old, paleoconservative history professor from UC Berkeley has posted an informative e-note on the origin of the familiar but puzzling concept "American Exceptionalism":

What does it mean to say the United States is exceptional? If it just means unique, then the claim is unexceptional because no two countries are exactly alike. If it just means that Americans have believed their country is special, then (as a British skeptic writes) there is "nothing exceptional about this exceptionalism. All great nations cherish national myths." If it means that the U.S.A. was exceptionally virtuous given its precocious dedication to civil and religious liberty, equality, justice, prosperity, social mobility, and peace and harmony with all nations, then ipso facto the U.S.A. is exceptionally vicious for falling so short of those ideals. If the term means rather that Americans are somehow exempted from the laws of entropy governing other nations -- that (as Bismarck reportedly quipped) "God has a special providence for fools, drunks, and the United States of America" -- then such exceptionalism can only be proven sub specie aeternitatis. Indeed, the very illusion that a nation is under divine dispensation may perversely inspire the pride that goeth before a fall ("thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God") or the many bad ends to which reckless adolescents are prone. Finally, if American Exceptionalism means that its power, values, and "indispensable" status render the United States exempt from the rules of behavior it makes and enforces on other nations, then enemies, neutrals, and allies alike are sure to push back.

One might get the impression that McDougall is skeptical of "American Exceptionalism." If so, one would be right!

For these reasons "exceptionalism" is more trouble and probably even more danger than it's worth: it either means nothing at all or altogether too much. But the principal reason to banish the term from historical discourse is that the icky, polysyllabic, Latinate moniker did not even exist until the mid-20th century! No Puritan colonist, no founding Patriot, no Civil War statesman, no 19th century poet, pastor, or propagandist employed the word. To be sure, most of them believed the United States to be an historic undertaking, even a "new order for the ages." But far from believing their nation to be an exception to the rules of nature governing other men and nations, they both hoped their example would transform the whole world and feared that a lack of republican virtue would doom their experiment. In neither case would Americans stand apart from the rest of the human race.

So . . . who coined this troubling, troublesome, risky expression? Not quite this guy:

Not until 1835 did a foreigner, Alexis de Tocqueville, catalogue the features of New World democracy and conclude: "The position of the Americans is therefore quite exceptional, and it may be believed that no democratic people will ever be placed in a similar one." Note, however, that he applied the term to Americans' position rather than to the people themselves, and argued that American institutions and values were the very opposite of universal. In any event, his adjectival usage had no echo and inspired no noun -- no "ism" -- among Americans themselves. Exceptionalism as some sort of birthright is an anachronism!

One might argue that this exceptional position places Americans themselves in an exceptional role -- and thus of course the opposite of universal -- but never mind. Yet if not Tocqueville, who then applied it to the American people? Not this guy either:

Flash forward to 1906 when another foreigner, German sociologist Werner Sombart, asked why the United States seemed unique among industrial, urban societies in that its working classes showed no interest in the ideology or politics of Socialism. He identified many reasons why American workers seemed content with capitalism, but nowhere did Sombart employ any word that could be fairly translated as exceptionalism. He referred instead to the "idiosyncrasies of the spiritual culture" (Eigenart der geistigen Kultur) or "American popular soul" (die Eigenarten der amerikanische Volksseele). But what was the source of this spirit? Must one hypothesize that it just dropped from the heavens "on the chosen people" (auf das ausserwählte Volk)? Not at all, he insisted, because the same entrepreneurial spirit could be found in London or Berlin. It was just purer and far more pervasive in the United States thanks to such factors as the Protestant ethic, democratic consensus, two-party system, high standard of living, social mobility, and safety-valve of an open frontier. For Sombart Americans occupied an extreme on the sociological spectrum, but were not exceptional, not "off the charts."

Idiosyncratic, extreme . . . but not exceptional. Where, then, did the expression come from?

The real origins of the notion of an exceptional United States lurk in the recondite disputations of the two greatest transnational movements in the early twentieth century: the Catholic Church and the Communist International. Both had reason to fear that Americans might be immune to their presumptively universal appeals.

Good Lord! Or not:

Ever since 1784, when Bishop John Carroll set up the first Catholic diocese in the United States, the Vatican displayed confusion about how to grow a doctrinal, hierarchical church in a mostly Protestant land that enjoyed religious freedom and material plenty. A century later European prelates grew alarmed by reports from American bishops about the erosion of doctrine and obedience among Catholic immigrants and their children. (European rabbis were equally alarmed about Jewish immigrants.) In 1899 Pope Leo XIII issued an encyclical, Testem Benevolentiae Nostrae, that condemned a heresy called Americanism, a name to which "there is no reason to take exception." The encyclical attributed this Americanism to the nation's revolutionary origins, individualism, Anglo-Saxon culture, liberalism, egalitarianism, and separation of Church and State, all of which tempted American Catholics to stray from the straight and narrow path.

That's it? Seems rather too little to attribute the concept of "American Exceptionalism" to Catholicism. This Communist debate, however, seems much more likely as the source:

Finally, in the 1920s, the American Communist Party leader Jay Lovestone rendered a diagnosis of American society that echoed those of Sombart and the Vatican. His purpose was to explain why his comrades' agitation and propaganda had achieved so little by way of organizing the factory workers of Pittsburgh or Detroit. The reason was, argued Lovestone, that capitalism in the United States was exceptionally productive and stable, which made it hard to "raise their consciousness," which meant the proletarian revolution would take much longer than elsewhere to develop. The report engendered discreet discussion, mostly in Russian journals, until Soviet dictator Josef Stalin anathematized the theory as a form of deviationism. Then Wall Street crashed and the American Communist Party coined the term, in . . . April 1930, in the form of an obituary. "The storm of the economic crisis in the United States," it proclaimed, "blew down the house of cards of American exceptionalism."

Hmmm . . . so there it is, a Communist coinage of the expression "American Exceptionalism." How ironic. I gather that in McDougall's view, "American Exceptionalism" was stillborn as a concept. But if so, how did this miscarriage of suchness come to be adopted by the mainstream?

Read the entire article to find out.

Herman Van Rompuy: Not Such a Wimp, After All?

Herman Van Rompuy

Artful EU Leader

On the left, or on the right?

(Matthew Busch, AP: New York Times)

When Herman Van Rompuy was selected President of the European Council last November, his ascendency was met with neither cheers nor jeers, but puzzlement. "Who's Herman Van Rompuy?" people were asking. I was one of the baffled. Didn't the EU want somebody well known, some political heavyweight like Tony Blair? "Apparently not," was the inference, as previously puzzled pundits pondered the choice and determined that Van Rompuy had been chosen because he was a nonentity.

Well, maybe he's not such a nonentity, after all.

According to Steven Erlanger, in "Two Competing Visions of a European Economy" (New York Times, July 1, 2010), while the EU officials have been slow "to work out their new institutional arrangements . . . [since] ratification of the Lisbon Treaty last December," Van Rompuy has proven more effective:

Under that treaty, the new European president of the council of national leaders, Herman Van Rompuy, an economist and former Belgian prime minister, has moved more quickly than others to establish a powerful staff. Given the urgency of the economic crisis and the need for decisions by national leaders, he has managed to "presidentialize" decision-making, undercutting the influence of the European Commission, national finance ministers and the Eurogroup led by Jean-Claude Juncker, which sets economic policy for countries using the euro currency.

While not able to impose his will on Mr. Sarkozy or Mrs. Merkel, who dislike each other, Mr. Van Rompuy has worked hard to be a discreet and calming intermediary, senior European officials say. Europe's institutional confusions have made the French-German relationship even more important, rather than less, these officials say.

Mr. Van Rompuy's negotiating skill has also overshadowed José Manuel Barroso, the president of the European Commission, the permanent bureaucracy, which has had little to offer in a crisis founded in the debts and budget deficits of governments in the 16-nation euro zone. Even worse, France and Germany have sent relatively weak commissioners to serve in Brussels, and Germany in particular has been adamant in refusing to cede any new economic powers to the commission. Mrs. Merkel also insisted that Mr. Van Rompuy, not Mr. Barroso, be put in charge of a task force to recommend euro-zone reforms.

Hmmm . . . sounds like he's making his presidency more than merely a ceremonial position. This could mean that he's simply good at bureaucratic infighting and tactical maneuvering, though he actually sounds more diplomatic than that, but the real question is whether or not he has any strategic vision for the EU as a whole and a breadth and depth of insight to assume genuine, effective leadership.

I see from Wikipedia's entry on him that he has relatively tough views on EU membership, enunciated with respect to Turkey's potential for membership:

"An enlargement [of the EU] with Turkey is not in any way comparable with previous enlargement waves. Turkey is not Europe and will never be Europe . . . . [I]t's a matter of fact that the universal values which are in force in Europe, and which are also the fundamental values of Christianity, will lose vigour with the entry of a large Islamic country such as Turkey."

A citation is given for this, but the link goes to an article by Manu Tassier in De Standaard (November 19, 2009) that one would have to pay for to read, and it isn't in English anyway, so I can't vouch for the English quote based on this alone, though the article title, "Pers boos om 'anti-Turkse benoeming'," translates as "Press anger at 'anti-Turkish appointment'" -- referring to the press in Turkey, it seems, which was apparently angered by Van Rampuy's selection as European Council President -- so he begins to sound to me like somebody more than a nonentity.

Moreover, I have found the English version of the quote cited by Wikipedia by looking elsewhere on the internet. According to Tom Heneghan, "Does Europe's new prez really think it's a Christian club?" Reuters (November 20, 2009), Van Rompuy did indeed speak as quoted by Wikipedia:

"Turkey is not a part of Europe and will never be part of Europe. An expansion of the EU to include Turkey cannot be considered as just another expansion as in the past . . . The universal values which are in force in Europe, and which are fundamental values of Christianity, will lose vigour with the entry of a large Islamic country such as Turkey."

Mr. Heneghan goes on to note more about Van Rompuy's religious views:

Van Rompuy, a Christian Democrat, is a believing Catholic who has no problem saying so in public. He attended a Jesuit high school in Brussels and the Catholic University Leuven. Back in 1985, he wrote a book entitled Het christendom. Een moderne gedachte (Christendom, a modern idea), which is now out of print.

Van Rompuy’s personal blog (mostly in Dutch and French, some English) has a whole section on religion and several commentaries, articles and speeches posted on the blog deal with religous and philosophical issues such as the Dalai Lama and Pope Benedict’s encyclical Caritas in Veritate or a discussion about love with the agnostic French thinker Luc Ferry.

I can't read Dutch well enough to look further into this issue on Van Rompuy's blog, but from the evidence uncovered, he would seem to be a far more complex, interesting man than the pundits first thought.

Only time, however, will tell whether he has true leadership to offer the EU.

John Milton's Sonnet Calling for God's Vengeance

Peter Waldo

Statue at the Luther Memorial

Worms, Germany

(Image from Wikipedia)

Peter Waldo (c. 1140 – c. 1218) was a 12th- to 13th-century Catholic who founded a spiritual movement that came to be called the Waldensians (French: Vaudois) and that was declared heretical for rejecting clerical authority. The movement became a sect and survived in Piedmont under protection of the Duke of Savoy and his descendants, though often persecuted. The sect gravitated toward Calvinism during the Protestant Reformation, and in 1655, the then Duke of Savoy demanded their return to Catholicism. Upon their refusal, he attacked them with a combined Catholic army of Irish, French, and Italians.

Times being what they were (much like today, actually, with our own religious fanaticisms), John Milton wrote a prayer to God imploring vengeance, but perhaps also seeking more mundane sources of revenge since he wrote the prayer as a sonnet for publication:

Sonnet 18

On the late Massacher in Piemont

Avenge O Lord thy slaughter'd Saints, whose bones
Lie scatter'd on the Alpine mountains cold,
Ev'n them who kept thy truth so pure of old
When all our Fathers worship't Stocks and Stones,
Forget not: in thy book record their groanes
Who were thy Sheep and in their antient Fold
Slayn by the bloody Piemontese that roll'd
Mother with Infant down the Rocks. Their moans
The Vales redoubl'd to the Hills, and they
To Heav'n. Their martyr'd blood and ashes sow
O're all th' Italian fields where still doth sway
The triple Tyrant: that from these may grow
A hunder'd-fold, who having learnt thy way
Early may fly the Babylonian wo.

[Thomas H. Luxon, ed., The Milton Reading Room, April 17, 2008]

You can click on the underlined words to read Thomas Luxon's notes. I call attention to "Mother with Infant," for Luxon cites John Carey, and I have an edition of the work cited, John Milton: Complete Shorter Poems (London: Longman, 1971), which on page 410 tells us:

Cromwell's agent, Sir Samuel Morland, in his account of the massacre (History of the Evangelical Churches of the Valleys of Piedmont (1658) 333-384) records that the wife of Giovanni, son of Pol Parise, was hurled down a precipice with her baby in her arms -- the baby survived (363); that Jacopo Pecols's wife and son were thrown down the rocks at Taglioretto (368); and that a woman and her baby were hurled down a precipice in the mountains of Villaro (374).

At least three mother-and-child atrocities are thus recorded. Milton, however, uses the singular. I suppose that the plural would be less effective -- a single death being a tragedy, multiple deaths being a statistic -- but I also wonder if the expression "Mother with Infant" might be a subtle, ironic thrust at the Catholic soldiers who revered the Madonna and Child but killed the "Mother with Infant."

The longer expression "Mother with Infant down the Rocks" reminds me of Leonardo da Vinci's Virgin of the Rocks, but there's surely no association to that in Milton's mind.

Pope Benedict XVI and the Catholic Pedophile Scandal

Pope Benedict XVI

(Image from Wikipedia)

Ross Douthat has a recent, topical column on the current Pope and his troubled Church in the New York Times, "The Better Pope" -- meaning better than Pope John Paul II. Douthat acknowledges that Benedict is not untouched by the scandal over pedophile priests, but he has some kind words to say about Benedict as reformer, a role that I was unfamiliar with:

[T]here's another story to be told about John Paul II and his besieged successor. The last pope was a great man, but he was also a weak administrator, a poor delegator, and sometimes a dreadful judge of character.

The church's dilatory response to the sex abuse scandals was a testament to these weaknesses. So was John Paul's friendship with the Rev. Marcial Maciel Degollado, the founder of the Legionaries of Christ. The last pope loved him and defended him. But we know now that Father Maciel was a sexually voracious sociopath. And thanks to a recent exposé by The National Catholic Reporter's Jason Berry, we know the secret of Maciel's Vatican success: He was an extraordinary fund-raiser, and those funds often flowed to members of John Paul's inner circle.

Only one churchman comes out of Berry's story looking good: Joseph Ratzinger. Berry recounts how Ratzinger lectured to a group of Legionary priests, and was subsequently handed an envelope of money "for his charitable use" [opera carita, "an elegant way of giving a bribe"]. The cardinal "was tough as nails in a very cordial way," a witness said, and turned the money down.

This isn't an isolated case. In the 1990s, it was Ratzinger who pushed for a full investigation of Hans Hermann Groer, the Vienna cardinal accused of pedophilia, only to have his efforts blocked in the Vatican. It was Ratzinger who persuaded John Paul, in 2001, to centralize the church's haphazard system for handling sex abuse allegations in his office. It was Ratzinger who re-opened the long-dormant investigation into Maciel's conduct in 2004, just days after John Paul II had honored the Legionaries in a Vatican ceremony. It was Ratzinger, as Pope Benedict, who banished Maciel to a monastery and ordered a comprehensive inquiry into his order.

We might find these these things admirable -- these actions by Cardinal Ratzinger, later Pope Benedict XVI -- even if too little, too late, given the dimensions of the pedophile scandal, but these are things that we should also know and consider in arriving at a judgment on the current Pope.

Some might argue that the crucial questions about Pope Benedict XVI are like those posed about President Nixon during the Watergate scandal: "What did he know, and when did he know it?"

But I think that there's a third question to be asked: "When did he have the power to act upon what he knew?"

He certainly knew something about the case of Reverend Marcial Maciel Degollado, founder of the Legionaries of Christ, for "[i]n 1998, eight ex-Legionaries filed a canon law case to prosecute . . . [Delgollado] in then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger's tribunal." But little happened for six years. According to Jason Berry's report, "Ratzinger told a Mexican bishop that the Maciel case was a 'delicate' matter and questioned whether it would be 'prudent' to prosecute at that time."

That sounds horrible to us looking back at the extent of the pedophile scandal that is shaking the Catholic Church, but consider this:

Maciel had the staunch support of three pivotal figures: [Cardinal Angelo] Sodano[, Vatican secretary of state from 1990 to 2006]; Cardinal Eduardo Martínez Somalo, prefect of the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life; and Msgr. Stanislaw Dziwisz, the Polish secretary of John Paul. During those years, Sodano pressured Ratzinger not to prosecute Maciel, as NCR previously reported.

A generous reading of Ratzinger's inaction is that he was biding his time until he had gathered the power to act effectively. I suspect that we will learn more on this issue in the next several months.

A less generous reading of inaction on this pedophile issue might prompt one to pose a fourth question: "Why didn't somebody of importance see the problem clearly, recognize the need to act, and step outside the ecclesiastical bureaucracy to cry 'J'accuse'?"

Short answer: That calls for more courage than most of us have.

Long answer?

"Imitation of Christ"

Thomas à Kempis

(Image from Wikipedia)

In a recent Christianity Today article, "The Jesus We'll Never Know" (April 9, 2010), Scot McKnight tells of how he begins his class on that 'historical Jesus' figure known as Jesus of Nazareth:

On the opening day of my class on Jesus of Nazareth, I give a standardized psychological test divided into two parts. The results are nothing short of astounding.

The first part is about Jesus. It asks students to imagine Jesus' personality, with questions such as, "Does he prefer to go his own way rather than act by the rules?" and "Is he a worrier?" The second part asks the same questions of the students, but instead of "Is he a worrier?" it asks, "Are you a worrier?" The test is not about right or wrong answers, nor is it designed to help students understand Jesus. Instead, if given to enough people, the test will reveal that we all think Jesus is like us. Introverts think Jesus is introverted, for example, and, on the basis of the same questions, extroverts think Jesus is extroverted.

Spiritual formation experts would love to hear that students in my Jesus class are becoming like Jesus, but the test actually reveals the reverse: Students are fashioning Jesus to be more like themselves. If the test were given to a random sample of adults, the results would be measurably similar. To one degree or another, we all conform Jesus to our own image.

Since we are pushing this point, let's not forget historical Jesus scholars, whose academic goal is to study the records, set the evidence in historical context, render judgment about the value of the evidence, and compose a portrait of "what Jesus was really like." They, too, have ended up making Jesus in their own image.

I recall as an undergraduate at Baylor University that during a time of depression, I imagined Jesus as a depressed individual, though a happy friend insisted that Jesus was a very happy fellow. We both made Jesus in our own images, so I reckon McKnight is correct. His point is not entirely new, of course, as Albert Schweitzer noted this early in the twentieth century in his critique of the Jesus reconstructed by scholars in their search for the historical Jesus, for these scholars all reconstituted Jesus in their own image. The tendency undoubtedly goes back centuries, for instance to Thomas à Kempis in his famous, fifteenth-century De imitatione Christi, as we perhaps see here, in an English translation by Aloysius Croft and Harold Bolton, The Imitation of Christ (Bruce Publishing Company, 1940), Book 4, Chapter 8:

As I offered Myself willingly to God the Father for your sins with hands outstretched and body naked on the cross, so that nothing remained in Me that had not become a complete sacrifice to appease the divine wrath, so ought you to be willing to offer yourself to Me day by day in the Mass as a pure and holy oblation, together with all your faculties and affections, with as much inward devotion as you can.

What more do I ask than that you give yourself entirely to Me? I care not for anything else you may give Me, for I seek not your gift but you. Just as it would not be enough for you to have everything if you did not have Me, so whatever you give cannot please Me if you do not give yourself.

Offer yourself to Me, therefore, and give yourself entirely for God -- your offering will be accepted. Behold, I offered Myself wholly to the Father for you, I even gave My whole Body and Blood for food that I might be all yours, and you Mine forever.

But if you rely upon self, and do not offer your free will to Mine, your offering will be incomplete and the union between us imperfect. Hence, if you desire to attain grace and freedom of heart, let the free offering of yourself into the hands of God precede your every action. This is why so few are inwardly free and enlightened -- they know not how to renounce themselves entirely.

My word stands: "Everyone of you that doth not renounce all that he possesseth, cannot be My disciple." (Luke 14:33)

If, therefore, you wish to be My disciple, offer yourself to Me with all your heart. (paragraphs 231-232)

Here, we see a Christ who renounced all of his 'self' on the cross and asks his followers to do the same, which would likely appeal to Christians of many varieties of Christianity, but in some of the specifics might appeal only to Catholics, for in references to the "mass" and to Christ's body and blood as "food," we see a very Catholic Christ exhorting Catholic Christians to (distantly) imitate him by offering themselves as "oblations" during the same mass. Thomas à Kempis would thus appear to have constructed Christ as a Catholic.

I offer nothing surprising or profound in this observation, obviously, neither anything original nor purely scholarly. I was simply struck by Scot McKnight's anecdote about students and by the thought that Thomas à Kempis must have done the same sort of thing.

I suppose that some scholar has looked into the point, but this is just a note to myself . . .

All is not darkness . . .

(Image from Wikipedia)

A review by Steven D. Greydanus of The Secret of Kells in Christianity Today gives very high marks to this animated film about a twelve-year-old orphan named Brendan who lives in the ninth century in an Irish monastery where he is being educated by his uncle, Abbot Cellach, as a manuscript illuminator who wishes to complete the stunningly beautiful Book of Kells, an illuminated manuscript of the four gospels -- and those high marks are awarded despite the film's perceived theological shortcomings, in Greydanus's view:

It must be admitted that The Secret of Kells somewhat short-changes Brendan's Christian world in relation to Ireland's lingering paganism. The Faerie world is matter-of-factly depicted as living, magical and powerful; Christianity is mundane and limited. In the Irish countryside Brendan encounters spirits both charming and terrifying (Aisling the fairy, the bloodthirsty dark god Crom Cruach) -- but he sees nothing to evoke the extravagant miracles of the saints that are equally a part of Irish lore. The film teases us with the alleged powers of the Book -- said to have the power to blind sinners who gaze upon it -- but when this is put to the ultimate test, it is the sinner, not the book, that has the upper hand.

Putting such Catholic scruples aside, Greydanus otherwise praises the film, noting that this "animated indie weds the design sensibilities of traditional Insular art with the stylized simplicity of such contemporary retro animation as 'Samurai Jack'," as can be readily seen for yourself by clicking on the "Trailer" at the film's website.

I suppose that I shouldn't say more since I haven't seen the film, but this looks like one for the whole family, so I'll be keeping an eye out for the DVD so that my wife and I can watch it at home with our two kids.

Perhaps it'll inspire En-Uk to produce more art . . .

Jane Austen as Crypto-Catholic Historian?

Cassandra Austen, Portrait of Henry IV

in

Jane Austen's The History of England (c. 1790)

(Image from Wikipedia)

Readers may recall my recent blog entry presenting the opinion of "Jane Austen on Historians," in which I cite some direct discourse by the young Miss Catherine Morland, heroine of Northanger Abbey, as evidence for Austen's own view:

"I read [history] . . . a little as a duty, but it tells me nothing that does not either vex or weary me. The quarrels of popes and kings, with wars or pestilences, in every page; the men all so good for nothing, and hardly any women at all -- it is very tiresome: and yet I often think it odd that it should be so dull, for a great deal of it must be invention. The speeches that are put into the heroes' mouths, their thoughts and designs -- the chief of all this must be invention, and invention is what delights me in other books." (Austen, Northanger Abbey, chapter 14)

Despite these views expressing what I would plausibly take to be Austen's own opinion as to the veracity of history, "which may be as much depended on . . . as anything that does not actually pass under one's own observation," Austen herself penned a History of England. Moreover, I am cautioned by others not to take Catherine's words as so strictly the views of Jane:

Devoney Looser cautions readers against equating Catherine's simple dismissal of history with Jane Austen's complex response. In his recent biography of Jane Austen, for instance, David Nokes too quickly concludes of Catherine's remarks about history, "These were Jane's thoughts, too." Looser demonstrates that, in contrast to Catherine Morland, Jane Austen found history of "paramount importance."

Or so writes Emily Auerbach in her review of Devony Looser's Novel Approaches to History British Women Writers and the Writing of History, 1670-1820 (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000), a review published in JASNA News (Volume 17, Number 2, Summer 2001, p. 26). Auerbach takes -- as does Looser -- Jane Austen's view of history to be closer to that of Catherine Morland's interlocutor, Eleanor Tilney:

How much richer the discussion of history in Northanger Abbey becomes if we consider Eleanor Tilney, not Catherine Morland, as a model reader of history. Like Catherine, Eleanor recognizes that history mixes fact with fiction, but she reads with discernment and enjoyment.

Auerbach then cites Eleanor's own words:

I am fond of history -- and am very well contented to take the false with the true. In the principal facts they have sources of intelligence in former histories and records, which may be as much depended on, I conclude, as any thing that does not actually pass under one's own observation . . . . If a speech be well drawn up, I read it with pleasure, by whomsoever it may be made -- and probably with much greater, if the production of Mr. Hume or Mr. Robertson, than if the genuine words of Caractacus, Agricola, or Alfred the Great.

Of course, I cited these myself in my earlier blog entry (and also, fleetingly, above) as more evidence that Jane Austen turned a jaundiced eye upon the writings of historians. But I take Auerbach's point. Austen's perspective on history is closer to Eleanor's than to Catherine's. Nevertheless, Austen distrusts the writings of historians -- and had already done so at 15, when she penned her historical spoof, as noted by Kathryn Sutherland:

[I]n her early spoof 'History of England from the reign of Henry the 4th to the death of Charles the 1st. By a partial, prejudiced, and ignorant Historian', written out according to her own dating in November 1791, when she was not quite 16, JA [Jane Austen] inverted the conventionally approved account of the past (as the gradual, Whiggish progress towards liberty and the defeat of Stuart absolutism) by setting up history as a pro-Stuart tragedy. Its climax and conclusion is the execution of Charles I in 1 649, and its heroine is his grandmother Mary, Queen of Scots, 'one of the first Characters in the World', also executed, in 1587. (See 'The History of England', in Catharine and Other Writings, ed. Doody and Murray, 136; and Christopher Kent, 'Learning History with, and from, Jane Austen', in Jane Austen 's Beginnings, 59-72. JA's contrasted presentation of Mary and Elizabeth I, the one vulnerable, beautiful, and innocent, the other unattractive and severe, resembles that in Sophia Lee's The Recess, or A Tale of Other Times (1783-5). JEAL [James Edward Austen-Leigh] is unnecessarily po-faced in accounting for his aunt's hilarious exercise in political uncorrectness. In MAJA [My Aunt Jane Austen: A Memoir], his sister Caroline presents the same detail with less qualification. (A Memoir of Jane Austen: And Other Family Recollections, by James Edward Austen-Leigh, edited by Kathryn Sutherland, Oxford University Press, 2002, pages 230-231)

In writing such an anti-Whiggish spoof, Austen is implicitly suggesting the biased and partial character of all historical writings. Of Henry the Sixth, she writes:

I cannot say much for this Monarch's sense. Nor would I if I could, for he was a Lancastrian. I suppose you know all about the Wars between him and the Duke of York who was of the right side; if you do not, you had better read some other History, for I shall not be very diffuse in this, meaning by it only to vent my spleen AGAINST, and shew my Hatred TO all those people whose parties or principles do not suit with mine, and not to give information. This King married Margaret of Anjou, a Woman whose distresses and misfortunes were so great as almost to make me who hate her, pity her. It was in this reign that Joan of Arc lived and made such a ROW among the English. They should not have burnt her -- but they did. There were several Battles between the Yorkists and Lancastrians, in which the former (as they ought) usually conquered. At length they were entirely overcome; The King was murdered -- The Queen was sent home -- and Edward the 4th ascended the Throne. (Jane Austen, "History of England from the reign of Henry the 4th to the death of Charles the 1st," in Love And Friendship And Other Early Works)

Austen is writing in the guise of a historian "partial to the roman catholic religion," and thereby as little to be trusted as those Whig historians partial to the Protestant Reformation. Yet, I can't help but wonder where Austen's true sympathies lie. Take her observation on Henry the 8th:

[N]othing can be said in his vindication, but that his abolishing Religious Houses and leaving them to the ruinous depredations of time has been of infinite use to the landscape of England in general, which probably was a principal motive for his doing it, since otherwise why should a Man who was of no Religion himself be at so much trouble to abolish one which had for ages been established in the Kingdom. (Austen, "History of England from the reign of Henry the 4th to the death of Charles the 1st")

Austen writes with fine irony here in suggesting that Henry the 8th had done England a favor in leaving it so many ruined abbeys to grace its landscape, a bequeathment so useful for Romantic poets and Gothic novelists -- even such as Austen herself in her Gothic parody, Northanger Abbey. Her irony is so penetrating that one could imagine that Austen actually had Catholic sympathies and regretted the destruction wrought by the Reformation. But someone more expert than I in Austen will have to inform us as to her actual religious views.

But as for her views on history, we should consider another point raised by Auerbach:

In Austen's era terminology was even more fluid than in our own: "history" could mean either a factual or imaginary narrative; a "romance" might be a biographical account or a fantastical tale . . . . Austen's letters show her awareness that novels and histories were competing for sales and status. She ironically jokes to Cassandra that the "too light & bright & sparkling" Pride and Prejudice might be improved by mixing it with "a long Chapter" about "the history of Buonaparte." (Auerbach, JASNA News, Volume 17, Number 2, Summer 2001, p. 26).

Austen is once again being ironic, but she is serious in comparing history to fiction. I'm glad, however, that she didn't bring in Napoleon, for much as I like Pride and Prejudice, I wouldn't want to have seen it stretch like War and Peace to over 1400 pages! Elizabeth and Darcy are long enough in getting together already! I wouldn't be able to sublimate for 1200 extra pages while Darcy unlearns his pride and Elizabeth her prejudice . . . and vice versa.

And we would have even fewer Austen novels than we already have.

Crypto-Catholics among Albanians

Roman Catholic Church

Village of Kravoserija

Southern Part of Independent Kosovo

September 8, 2008

(Reuters/Hazir Reka/Files)

Following up on yesterday's post on the report by Fatos Bytyci, "Out of hiding, some Kosovars embrace Christianity" (Reuters, September 28, 2008), I found an article by Maurus Reinkowski, a professor at Albert-Ludwig University of Freiburg: "Hidden Believers, Hidden Apostates: The Phenomenon of Crypto-Jews and Crypto-Christians in the Middle-East" (Dennis Washburn et al., editors, Converting Cultures: Religion, Ideology of Transformations of Modernity, Leiden; Boston: Brill, 2007, pages 409-433, pdf article).

In this article, Reinkowski has a bit on crypto-Catholic Albanians:

[Page 420:]

Certain regions of Albania and Kosovo show from the 17th through the 20th century a prominent occurrence of crypto-Christian groups. Their existence can also be related to the historical conditions of that region. In order to shake off Ottoman rule Albanian leaders forged frequent alliances with European powers -- with Venice in the middle of the 17th century, (Footnote 37) and from the late 17th century onwards with Austria and Russia. Ottoman authorities responded in certain strategically sensitive regions by transferring populations and laying greater emphasis on conversion. Steadily increasing tax obligations, due to the financial malaise of the Ottoman state, may have added to the pressure to convert (Footnote 38). The greater part of conversions in that region seems to have taken place for anything but reasons of conviction. A crypto-Christian (or to be more precise: Crypto-Catholic) culture developed in parts of the Albanian lands. Crypto-Christians had double names, Christian names in their domestic, circles, Muslim names in public; they went both to church (mostly in their villages) and to the mosque (when visiting the cities); they had their children christened and confirmed, but also circumcised; they got married using both the Christian and the Muslim rites; they observed Christian fasts, but also went to the Mosque during the Muslim month of fasting (Ramadan); they asked for the last rites and anointment by a Catholic priest, but were buried in a Muslim graveyard. In some villages the Ottoman tax collector encountered only Muslims (since they had to pay less taxes than Christians), but a commission seeking to levy in the same village recruits for the Ottoman army would meet only Christians (since they did not have to serve in the Ottoman army). (Footnote 39) One's religion could also change accord-

[Page 421:]

ing to altitude. During their stay in the plains in the winter months the crypto-Christians were Muslims, but in the summer on the mountain meadows, out of reach of the state, they were Christians (Footnote 40). Christian and Islamic practices were accessible to both religious groups and easily imitated. Christening, which was seen as a magical protection against spirits, sorcerers, wolves and the like, was used not only by Christians, but also by Muslims (Footnote 41). Catholic priests in the northern Albanian mountains enjoyed great respect with Muslims (Footnote 42). Pilgrimage sites and holy graves were shared by Christians and Muslims (Footnote 43). Islamic dervish sites, in Albania primarily maintained by the Sufi order of the Bektashis, were important for the Islamization of the Balkans and Anatolia, since they integrated old Christian pilgrimage sites into the Muslim cosmos. Christians were not kept away from these places of pilgrimage; the Bektashi holy sites seem even have to been made deliberately compatible to Christian pilgrims (Footnote 44).

How is this relatively high concentration of crypto-Christians in the Albanian lands to be explained? It would seem that the people of Albania were somehow prepared by their previous historical experiences for crypto-religious strategies. With the frequent shifting of this region between Catholic powers and the Greek-Orthodox Byzantine empire the local Albanian notables and population may have, already in pre-Ottoman (and thus pre-Islamic) times, acquired the experience of changing their affiliation to opposing confessions according to the given situation.

Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, on her journey in 1717 through the Balkans to Istanbul, met Albanians and expressed a kind of benevolent surprise at their lack of decisiveness in questions of religion:

[Page 422:]

But of all the Religions I have seen, the Amounts [i.e. the Albanians] seem to me the most particular. (. . .) These people, living between Christians and Mahometans and not being skill'd in controversie, declare that they are utterly unable to judge which Religion is best; but to be certain of not entirely rejecting the Truth, they very prudently follow both, and go to the Mosque on Fridays and the Church on Sundays, saying for their excuse, that at the day of Judgement they are sure of protection from the True Prophet, which they are not able to determine in this World. (Footnote 45)

(37) Noel Malcolm, Kosovo. A Short History (London: Macmillan, 1998), p. 118.

(38) N. Malcolm, pp. 118, 126, 131, 165. The Greek-Orthodox clergy was repeatedly authorized by the Ottoman state to collect church taxes from the Catholic population
as well.

(39) This anecdote is so popular that it may be found in several works such as R. Dawkins, Crypto-Christians 1933, p. 271; and Bardhyl Graceni, "Le crytpochristianisme dans la region du Shpat au cours de la derniêre periode de la domination ottomane," Studia Albanica 26.2 (1989): pp. 92-102. The principle source for these reports seems to be Edith Durham, The Burden of the Balkans (London: Nelson, 1905).

40. A. Bryer, Crypto-Christians (1983), p. 22.

41. Speros Vryonis, "Religious Change and Continuity in the Balkans and Anatolia from the Fourteenth through the Sixteenth Century," in Islam and Cultural Change in the Middle Ages, ed. Speros Vryonis (Wiesbaden; Harrassowitz, 1975), pp. 127-140; N. Malcolm, Kosovo, pp. 129, 132; Isa Blumi, Rethinking the Late Ottoman Empire. A Comparative Social and Political History of Albania and lemen 1878-1918 (Istanbul: The Isis Press, 2003), p. 146.

42 P. Bartl, Ktyptochristentum (1967), P. 125.

43 Ger Duijzings, "Pilgrimage, Politics and Ethnicity: Joint Pilgrimages of Muslims and Christians and Conflicts over Ambiguous Sanctuaries in Former Yugoslavia and Albania," in Power and Prayer. Religious and Political Processes in Past and Present, eds. Mart Bax, Adrianus Koster (Amsterdam: VU University Press, 1993), pp. 80-91.

44. G. Duijzings, Joint Pilgrimages, pp. 85, 88.

45. The Complete Letters of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, Compiled by Robert Halsband, vol. 1: 1708-1720 (Oxford, 1965), p. 319.

Despite Reinkowski's statement that "Certain regions of Albania and Kosovo show from the 17th through the 20th century a prominent occurrence of crypto-Christian groups," he later notes some doubts about this:

[Page 429:]

Two historians of the Balkans, Georg Stadtmueller and Stavro Skendi, have even gone so far as to claim that one would have been able to find crypto-religious groups everywhere in the Balkans where conversion to Islam took place. (Footnote 73) In opposition to this sweeping judgement, Ger Duijzings puts forward the strong argument that crypto-religious groups cannot persist over long periods. Kosovo's crypto-Catholics in the 19th century completely lost their knowledge of Christian dogmas and any consciousness of having been originally Christians due to the lack of a church infrastructure. Emissaries of the Vatican missionary institution Congregatio de Propaganda Fide, which intensified its activities in the 19th century maintained that these groups had persisted as crypto-Christians continuously from the 17th century onwards. But indeed, only after these crypto-Catholics had been discovered by European emissaries, travelers and missionaries, did these people begin to perceive themselves in these terms. (Footnote 74)

73 Georg Stadtmueller, "Die Islamisiertmg bei den Albanern," Jahrbuecher fuer die Geschichte Osteuropas 3 (Munich, 1955), pp. 404 -429; S. Skendi, Crypto-Christianity (1967), pp. 227-246.

74 Ger Duijzings, Religion and the Politics of Identity in Kosovo (London: Hurst, 2000), pp. 87, 92, 103.

Such is the state of the scholarship on this issue -- or at least the state of this scholar's scholarship. Crypto-Catholics did continuously exist at least as late as the 17th century but may have lost their memory of having once been Catholic between the 17 and the 19th centuries, until reminded of this fact by a late-nineteenth-century re-Catholization effort that got interrupted by the twentieth century. On Reinkowski's evidence, crypto-Catholicism may be a discontinuous phenomenon but nevertheless a phenomenon.

Apparently, the 'crypto-Catholics' are remembering again, and yesterday's blog entry recorded a mild complaint in the form of this comment by a Muslim calling himself "Ipi" who posted from Canberra, in Australia:

Christian mercenaries come to Kosova full of cash, bearing gifts and are targeting the poor and vulnerable . . . pathetic and sad (May Allah have mercy on my brothers and sisters, for money has poisoned their spirit).

Ipi later deleted the comment, perhaps after re-reading the post and deciding that former Christians who pretended to take on the guise of Muslims to obtain relief from the high taxes levied on Dhimmis could hardly be blamed for shedding that guise because of cash or gifts . . . if that's even what is happening.

Anyway, Ipi offered no evidence for this accusation, but if it were true, might not this make these 'reverts' to Catholicism crypto-Muslims?

Revival of Catholicism in Kosovo?

Crucifix in Roman Catholic Church

Village of Kravoserija

Southern Part of Kosovo

September 8, 2008

(Reuters/Hazir Reka/Files)

We seem to be living in a time of large ideological transformations, including the shifting of religious beliefs. In much of Europe, one notices the spread of Islam, mostly due to an influx of Muslim immigrants but also to the tendency of these immigrant communities to have large families.

Conversions also occur, as some native Europeans also turn to Islam.

The picture, however, is more complex, for quiet conversions from Islam to Christianity are also occurring. An interesting development in Kosovo that illustrates an unusual case of a potentially large-scale movement from Islam to Catholicism among Albanian Kosovars has been reported by Fatos Bytyci in an article, "Out of hiding, some Kosovars embrace Christianity" (Reuters, September 28, 2008):

The majority of ethnic Albanians were forcibly converted to Islam, mostly through the imposition of high taxes on Catholics, when the Ottoman Empire ruled the Balkans.

For centuries, many remembered their Christian roots and lived as what they call "Catholics in hiding". Some, nearly a century after the Ottomans left the Balkans, now see the chance to reveal their true beliefs.

I recall reading over ten years ago about Islam in the Balkans, and a point made by the writer was that many Christians there living under Ottoman rule pretended to convert to avoid the high taxes. They used two names, a Muslim one for the Ottoman rulers and a Christian one among Christians.

Over time, I suspect that religious beliefs would tend to conform to the religious ideology of those holding power, with Balkan crypto-Christians gradually becoming Islamicized.

The case of Albanians might be even more complex, however, for I recall reading in yet another article that in Albanian families, one member would 'convert' to Islam to protect the family property, but the rest would remain Christian. The Bytyci article would appear to confirm this:

In staunchly Catholic families, often in villages with a strong social network, men converted publicly but continued to practice Christianity at home. Women and daughters often kept the faith, meaning it was transmitted to children.

I don't know the historical scholarship on these points, for I read these things in news reports -- albeit in such publications as The Guardian and The International Herald Tribune -- but this Bytyci article would tend to confirm what I've previously read, especially given statements by Kosovars themselves:

"We have been living a dual life. In our homes we were Catholics but in public we were good Muslims," said Ismet Sopi. "We don't call this converting. It is the continuity of the family's belief."

Consequently, one finds Catholic churches being constructed and Catholic believers emerging, as with the "hundreds of Kosovar Albanians gather[ing] on Sundays to attend religious services in a still unfinished red-brick church in the Kosovo town of Klina," which Bytyci claims is "part of a revival of Catholicism in the newly independent Balkan state."

But we might need to take Bytyci's report with a grain of salt:

Inhabitants of Kravoserija in the south of the country have had their own church since 2005, with the help of the Kosovo Catholic Church. Beke Bytyci is one of five villagers who has the keys to it, since chancellor Zefi only comes to celebrate mass every few weeks.

Opening the wooden door, he crossed himself: "I will be baptized next week," he said.

More than half the 120 village families attend the ceremonies, and the small church is always full.

"My dad made a mistake in not raising me as a Christian," said Ferat Bytyci, a 35-year-old merchant in the village and a relative of Beke. "Now things have changed and I don't make the same mistake."

I note that Fatos Bytyci shares the same surname as Beke and Ferat. Perhaps "Bytyci" is a common name, but also possible is that Fatos Bytyci is one of the Catholic reverts. That wouldn't mean that the report of conversions is exaggerated, but it would mean that anyone interested in the phenomenon should seek out more sources.

Perhaps some readers will happen to know of other articles on this issue.

Alexander Boguslawski: "Theotokos of Kazan" and "Blessed Silence"

Theotokos of Kazan

Alexander Boguslawski

(Image provided by Alexander Boguslawski)

My wife showed me how to transfer images stored on my computer to Photobucket, which I referred to yesterday, so I can now reveal the above icon by Alexander Boguslawski as well as seven more more icons of Christ the Blessed Silence.

Actually, Boguslawski calls his icon the "Mother of God of Kazan," but "Theotokos" means "God-Bearer" in Greek and is less literally 'translated' as "Mother of God" in English. The expressions are used in Orthodox and Catholic Christianity to refer to the Virgin Mary but aren't intended to imply that Mary herself was divine, simply to emphasize her role as Christ's mother. Perhaps Professor Boguslawski himself could say more on this if he happens to visit here and has time for commenting.

There exists, by the way, an original "Theotokos of Kazan," which I've provided below for ease of comparison:

Theotokos of Kazan

Russia, 16th Century

(Image from Wikipedia)

Boguslawski has subtly altered the direction in which the eyes of the Virgin and the Infant are focused. The Virgin in the original icon looks directly at us, and her head is slightly less inclined. Boguslawski's Virgin, her head more bowed and her face so serious, seems lost in contemplation, as if reflecting down upon the earthly pain to come, but her uplifted eyes suggest a reliance upon God. By having the head bowed and the eyes raised, she gives the impression of looking both down and up simultaneously. Interestingly, Boguslawski has made the Infant more youthful but also, like the Virgin, so very serious, whereas the original Infant seems to have the hint of a smile despite being depicted as aged beyond his infancy. In neither icon does the Infant look at us. In the original, he appears to gaze upward, but Boguslawski's has him gazing downward, perhaps reflecting upon his earthly mission ahead. But these are my subjective impressions, for I lack any expertise on these works of sacred art.

Below are the images of the seven icons showing Christ the Blessed Silence that Professor Boguslawski fowarded from the art expert and dealer Richard Temple to me, including the two icons with the seraphim depicted in a manner similar to the depiction of the seraph in the icon posted yesterday (and also prior to that). Since these seven were not identified, I cannot provide any further information as to their origins, but we can still appreciate their beauty:

Christ the Blessed Silence

(Image provided by Richard Temple)

Christ the Blessed Silence

(Image provided by Richard Temple)

Christ the Blessed Silence

(Image provided by Richard Temple)

Christ the Blessed Silence

(Image provided by Richard Temple)

Christ the Blessed Silence

(Image provided by Richard Temple)

Next come the two icons with the seraphim depicted: first with the blue ones and then with the red ones:

Christ the Blessed Silence

Depicted with Blue Seraphim

(Image provided by Richard Temple)

Christ the Blessed Silence

Depicted with Red Seraphim

(Image provided by Richard Temple)

And for our convenience, a detail of the traditional, red seraphim:

Detail of Christ the Blessed Silence

The Three Red Seraphim

(Image provided by Richard Temple)

So, here they are in all their glory. Icons, I might add, are believed by the devout to be windows into the sacred realm, so one is not simply staring at a religious object, one is gazing into paradise itself, even if the specific image depicts an earthly scene from the life of Christ or some saint. Thus, they really are depicted here in all their glory. Or possibly not . . . for I've only provided images of the originals. A sort of borrowed heaven.

And that's about all that I can show or say on this topic of the 'winged' Christ in Christian art.

UPDATE: Alexander Boguslawski has informed me: "As far as the Blessed Silence icons are concerned, only four of them came from Richard Temple's Gallery; the rest were collected over the Internet." However, since I don't know which are from where, I'll leave the identification as is (until I should happen to find the online sources).

"It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas..."

Cross Symbolism?

Or just annoyingly ambiguous...

(Image from Out Now)

In his excellent review of the Beowulf movie, my cypher-cyber-buddy Scott Nokes -- whom I've also met offline at a Medievalist conference here in Seoul -- wondered about the religious angle to the film:

The Christian/pagan thing never quite got worked out well. I was under the impression that the film was trying to be anti-Christian, but it never really came to thematic fruition.

Anti-Christian? I didn't get that impression, and I would be surprised if the director, Robert Zemeckis, were intending an anti-Christian film. I've read in an interview somewhere that he was raised as a Catholic by his Lithuanian father and Croatian mother. In itself, that wouldn't mean anything since one could rebel and become anti-Catholic. But in an interview with American Academy of Achievement, he's asked a question about his values:

AAA: There's a sense of quality and a value system that has infused your later work to a greater and greater degree. Where did that come from?

Robert Zemeckis: I think that was bred into me, growing up. It was really a very healthy, balanced system when I look back at it. I was sent to a Catholic school when I was in grade school, and I think in those days, the 50s, that was a bit more heavy. I carry a lot of emotional scars from that, but that's all changed now. The idea of having solid values, coupled with the reality of how the world and the system works, I think is ultimately pretty healthy, because you're not walking around completely naive.

Moreover, in addition to his movie Beowulf, Zemeckis also directed The Polar Express, which seemed to me to be a movie about faith, in which the spirit of Christmas can be experienced by those who truly believe. The official US website for The Polar Express movie says "This Holiday Season ... Believe." And there's that iconic image of the poor boy from the wrong side of town who, finally experiencing Christmas when he finds the gift that he first saw at the North Pole now waiting under his family's Christmas tree, runs out onto the porch and holds up his still-wrapped present whose bright-green ribbon forms a cross that stands out against the red-stripped wrapping, the dark night, and a world of snow.

I haven't located that image online, but in the image above, you can see the boy in the lower right looking down at his gift soon after he had first seen it in Santa's workshop. Note, as well, that the above image bears the words "If you truly believe" ... though any 'spiritual' mood is somewhat marred by the words that follow: "find all 5 stocking stuffers."

Anyway -- to get back to the Beowulf movie -- the old Germanic paganism didn't come off looking especially positive. The pagan Danes and Geats are drunken louts prone to ready sex and even readier violence. Beowulf himself, though a cut above his thanes, is not entirely reliable in word or deed despite being a hero.

The only fully admirable character in the entire story is Wealtheow, who falls for Beowulf and becomes his wife. In the latter part of the film, she has apparently converted to Christianity, for she wears a small but prominantly displayed golden cross about her neck and serves as Beowulf's conscience.

Not that this redeems the film, which remains flawed, but on the evidence, I can't say that the movie was intended as anti-Christian.

Yet More on Limits to the Divine Will

Islam

Bowing to Allah's Arbitrary Will?

(Image from Wikipedia)

By looking around more at the Chiesa website, I found a fuller version of Aref Ali Nayed's views. These occur in the same passage that I quoted from yesterday, but on a different Chiesa webpage, "Two Muslim Scholars Comment on the Papal Lecture in Regensburg" (Sandro Magister, Chiesa, October 4, 2006), where Nayed comments upon a passage from the Pope's Regensberg lecture:

Benedict XVI, being a scholar of medieval theology knows that he can not deny certain facts:

"In all honesty, one must observe that in the late Middle Ages we find trends in theology which would sunder this synthesis between the Greek spirit and the Christian spirit. In contrast with the so-called intellectualism of Augustine and Thomas, there arose with Duns Scotus a voluntarism which, in its later developments, led to the claim that we can only know God's voluntas ordinata. Beyond this is the realm of God's freedom, in virtue of which he could have done the opposite of everything he has actually done. This gives rise to positions which clearly approach those of Ibn Hazm and might even lead to the image of a capricious God, who is not even bound to truth and goodness. God's transcendence and otherness are so exalted that our reason, our sense of the true and good, are no longer an authentic mirror of God, whose deepest possibilities remain eternally unattainable and hidden behind his actual decisions."

This passage, while serving its author's ultimate goal of undermining the theologies mentioned in it, does at least show that Benedict XVI is somewhat aware that other possible theologies do exist, and that Muslim theologians were not alone in caring about the affirmation of God’s sovereignty against human pretensions to govern Him with human criteria.

Here, Nayed appears to be affirming that the voluntarist views of such Nominalists as Duns Scotus are precisely the same as the Muslim view of Allah, and if that is so, then Islam does hold that Allah can willfully flout that principle of noncontradiction. Nayed then dryly observes of the Pope that, "Unfortunately, he goes on to totally undermine such theologies as not being the true 'faith of the Church'." I can see that this is unfortunate for Nayed's claim that the Christian and Muslim views of the deity are identical, but it's certainly not 'unfortunate' for the Pope's argument.

Nayed's larger article is worth reading (despite its strongly ironic but misplaced jabs at Catholicism for its violent history and its deplorable Eurocentrism) but still doesn't seem to me to directly engage with the Pope's point about reason and the nature of God . . . or Allah.