The article seems to make a mistake in treating “Christianity” as a single, monolithic entity. The ones who bore the worst abuses of the Goan Inquisition were actually Indian Jews and Syrian...
The article seems to make a mistake in treating “Christianity” as a single, monolithic entity. The ones who bore the worst abuses of the Goan Inquisition were actually Indian Jews and Syrian Christians with the latter group being persecuted for being *the wrong kind of Christians.” So clearly this is not the case.
It’s a mistake to conflate historically Christian or Catholic communities with aggressively evangelistic American Charismatic missionary churches. This is something both Right Wing Hindus and nominally secular liberals in India do. There ought to be room to criticize noxious and intolerant expressions of religious zeal, regardless of which religion is propagating them, without having it reflect on all the other normal people who just want to live alongside their neighbors peacefully.
May if the authors arguments are kind of historically dubious though. The idea that there were no Brahmins in Kerela until after 800 AD is insane. Categories of who was and wasn’t a Brahmin wasn’t super clearly delineated before around 1,000 AD and it’s not like there was even a census to keep track before the British Raj. Early converts to any religion were predominately Brahmin just because they were the only ones spending a lot of time reading and discussing religious matters. The same pattern occurred in China and elsewhere. It’s the educated influencers who convert first and spread it around to others.
Where he’s right and most wrong is in the statement that we can no longer compartmentalize people into religious groups. The fact is we never could. The very idea that religious groups break cleanly into people adhering to specific doctrines is a modernist fiction. It’s actually doesn’t even make sense in a polytheistic context. You have to presuppose a Christian worldview to even think it religion that way.
I think I understand what you mean here in the abstract, but if you’re willing would you expand on this? Specifically I’m most interested in I’ve been thinking about instances where a future...
Where he’s right and most wrong is in the statement that we can no longer compartmentalize people into religious groups. The fact is we never could. The very idea that religious groups break cleanly into people adhering to specific doctrines is a modernist fiction. It’s actually doesn’t even make sense in a polytheistic context. You have to presuppose a Christian worldview to even think it religion that way.
I think I understand what you mean here in the abstract, but if you’re willing would you expand on this? Specifically I’m most interested in
It’s actually doesn’t even make sense in a polytheistic context. You have to presuppose a Christian worldview to even think it religion that way
I’ve been thinking about instances where a future worldview is required to make an argument about the past (Jesus was the first socialist for example) but am way out of my depth in this context
Maybe I'm missing something as an ex-Christian layperson, but this point seems to be the crux of the article: Isn't permeation conversion? They just approached it by trying to act as a deeper part...
Maybe I'm missing something as an ex-Christian layperson, but this point seems to be the crux of the article:
The St. Thomas Christians in Kerala, during the long period before the Western missionaries arrived, are not known to have undertaken any missionary activities. Their vocation was understood as permeation — living in harmony with their Hindu neighbours, by being the salt of the society.
Isn't permeation conversion? They just approached it by trying to act as a deeper part of the cultural background. Like boiling a frog.
Well, for context, the article was originally in response to this one, published last year but recently retweeted by the author in reference to some recent right-wing attacks against Christians....
Well, for context, the article was originally in response to this one, published last year but recently retweeted by the author in reference to some recent right-wing attacks against Christians. How one views the notion that early Christian intent was mere coexistence might well inform how much one would care about their modern-day claims of discrimination.
The article seems to make a mistake in treating “Christianity” as a single, monolithic entity. The ones who bore the worst abuses of the Goan Inquisition were actually Indian Jews and Syrian Christians with the latter group being persecuted for being *the wrong kind of Christians.” So clearly this is not the case.
It’s a mistake to conflate historically Christian or Catholic communities with aggressively evangelistic American Charismatic missionary churches. This is something both Right Wing Hindus and nominally secular liberals in India do. There ought to be room to criticize noxious and intolerant expressions of religious zeal, regardless of which religion is propagating them, without having it reflect on all the other normal people who just want to live alongside their neighbors peacefully.
May if the authors arguments are kind of historically dubious though. The idea that there were no Brahmins in Kerela until after 800 AD is insane. Categories of who was and wasn’t a Brahmin wasn’t super clearly delineated before around 1,000 AD and it’s not like there was even a census to keep track before the British Raj. Early converts to any religion were predominately Brahmin just because they were the only ones spending a lot of time reading and discussing religious matters. The same pattern occurred in China and elsewhere. It’s the educated influencers who convert first and spread it around to others.
Where he’s right and most wrong is in the statement that we can no longer compartmentalize people into religious groups. The fact is we never could. The very idea that religious groups break cleanly into people adhering to specific doctrines is a modernist fiction. It’s actually doesn’t even make sense in a polytheistic context. You have to presuppose a Christian worldview to even think it religion that way.
I think I understand what you mean here in the abstract, but if you’re willing would you expand on this? Specifically I’m most interested in
I’ve been thinking about instances where a future worldview is required to make an argument about the past (Jesus was the first socialist for example) but am way out of my depth in this context
Maybe I'm missing something as an ex-Christian layperson, but this point seems to be the crux of the article:
Isn't permeation conversion? They just approached it by trying to act as a deeper part of the cultural background. Like boiling a frog.
Well, for context, the article was originally in response to this one, published last year but recently retweeted by the author in reference to some recent right-wing attacks against Christians. How one views the notion that early Christian intent was mere coexistence might well inform how much one would care about their modern-day claims of discrimination.
TY for additional context. Looks like I have some reading to do.