For the second Sunday in succession an episode the History of Christianity stimulated further thought in a way which I suspect its creators did not envisage.
Kwame Kwei Armah concentrated our attention on the one aspect of Christianity which most educated Christians in the “White West” are familiar, the un Godly slaughter and enslavement by the Spanish, the British and others, of million upon millions of human beings with different cultures and religious traditions in Mexico and South America and in Africa.
In Mexico, Central and South America those from the Iberian Peninsular travelled with the Bible in one hand and the sword in the other destroying anyone and everything who refused to submit to their authority and beliefs. In Africa between ten and fifty million people were captured herded on to ships in conditions which are condemned to-day for animals intended for slaughter elsewhere. Those who survived their journey to the plantations of the Southern States and to the West Indies were made to work all day and every day, sexually abused and deprived of their African identities and beliefs. This much is well established fact because as with Nazi Germany those who carried out the atrocities documented them. This was also true under the Soviets although attempts were made to destroy the evidence as regimes commenced to collapse.
The purpose of the Kwame Kwei Armah presentation was to show that despite this history the number of Christian Africans has increased from 10 million to 360 million and rising. during the past 100 years and a major growth is taking place in Mexico and South America. and that it is priests and preachers from these countries who are now leading a Christian Crusade among the White Folk of the West to bring them back to the original faith of the original Jewish sects.
However the basis on which this expansion is taking place is not primarily because of agreement on a fundamental Christian message but because the practice of the faith had been adapted to take account of pre Christian idolatries and rituals. Admittedly he did explain this was the approach taken by those who managed the early post Jewish Catholic Church when they decided to expand and convert the non Jew. It is worth reminding of the other significant steps in the historical chain.
For several thousand years the Bible in the form of the Old Testament was developed by those of the Jewish faith until some aspects of the life and death of Jesus of Nazareth was turned by Jews who had known him into a new Jewish sect. The difference was to be Saint Paul who successfully proposed that the religion should be exported to non Jews and concentrated his mission to this development and this led to two world affecting developments.
The first is that most well known in Europe and North America, namely the conversion of a Roman Emperor who saw the personal, political and economic advantages of developing one religion throughout the Empire and took steps to have one text of beliefs and behaviour constructed and propagated. It was his successors who hit on the idea of enforcing the faith by making it a condition of citizenship and the holding and advancement of office. It was also within this period of between 100 and 500 AD that the idea also developed of adapting the practice of the faith to the existing rituals of those being converted, especially where the rituals had involved honouring and recognising the forces of nature such as Easter with the resurrection and rebirth of fresh life at Springtime and the thanks giving for the harvest in the Autumn. Traditional feasts days and celebrations were also harnessed under the Catholic religion such as marriages, births and deaths, and with one day set aside to mark the birth of Jesus and one variable weekend for his crucifixion and death and resurrection.
The third phase occurred 1000 years later through the rebellion of the Catholic Luther in Germany and the murdering lecher Catholic King of England. In Britain for a period of time the church remained Catholic with Henry at its head instead of the Pope, until he decided to take hold of the lands of the Monasteries and Nobles, using the excuse of their continued adherence to Rome, often manufacturing the excuse to take the land and accumulated wealth of objects made of gold and silver and the great Libraries of books. This resulted in the persecution Catholics and prevention of Catholics hold offices of state to this day with the Head of State prevented from being a practicing Catholic. Together with the development of a high profile state religion for England and Scotland.
As was shown in the programme last week the change brought about by the Reformation led to a hundred new sects, some flourished into major churches around the world other became geographical or issue related, forming separate communities sometime prohibiting all contact with those who did not share the same set of beliefs and practices.
The second less known development under St Paul was the taking of the original Jewish based Christianity to Ethiopia where for two thousand years is developed retaining many of its Jewish components but retaining the commitment to the gospels of the New Testament. Mentioned but not expanded was the revelation that their earliest written Bible contains an additional text to those subsequent agreed for inclusion by Rome.
It is to the Ethiopian Church that modern Christianity in Africa and Mexico is more aligned than Reformation Churches, although Kwame failed to separate Catholic and post Reformation Protestant influence upon the people’s outside the White West nations.
The point he made regarding the contemporary churches in Africa was their emphasis on the fundamental aspects of New testament teachings which was about the power of individual and collective faith, creating miracles especially healing of the sick. This has led to religious gatherings where there is more emphasis on the power of the spirit, often leading to an orgy of emotion, the speaking incomprehensible tongues and miraculous faith healings. This is where the present day church of Rome attempts to hold the middle ground between the literal fundamentalism of the Pentecostal and revivalist churches with their denial that Christianity was always a religion which adapted to the political, economic and social culture of the time, and the ultra modernists of some reformation churches, notably the Church of England, that wants to reflect the latest fashions in political, social and cultural thinking.
For me there are three strands of New Testament Catholic fundamentalism which I have carried through from childhood to this day. The first is protection and preservation of life from procreation until the decay and physical death of the body. This means that as a individual I share with all those who see the function of sex as procreative and that no action should be taken to end life once it is created. However I also share with subsequent Catholic thinkers the understanding that those in government have the fundamental duty to protect all its citizens from violence to the person and as well as protection of the lands and property of the community.
All other government functions are secondary and should be based on the overwhelming agreement of the citizens who have empowered the government. Ideally those who carry out the role of protecting and preserving life should be volunteers but in emergency situations a government must ensure it can carry out its primary function through conscription. Those employed in this service should not just be immune from the their actions under service by their government but if they are forced or required to surrender to their enemies. This immunity should be given by all the churches and moral structures functioning within the area of responsibility of the government. I also agree with the catholic and other thinkers who have extended this principle to situation where although one state may not be under direct attack, they are part of some inter state agreement or federation which provides for the collective intervention of situations when an individual state or the people’s within that state can provide for their life preservation and protection directly.
The second strand is an extension of the first which take us into question of human rights and freedoms and collective action within the state. The teachings concentrated on recognising the rights of everyone, especially those usually considered outcasts, criminals, prostitutes those maimed or sick from birth or subsequent experience and those who are poor. The teachings ranged from the Good Samaritan to the warning that those who accumulate wealth and power will find it more difficult to enter the Kingdom of heaven than those who do not. From this comes my support for voluntary socialism which protects and furthers the interests of each individual and my opposition to the collective tyranny of communist and other totalitarian type regimes, including those where religion takes precedent.
The third strand is that any agreed set of beliefs and standards of behaviour are not matters for practice now and again or on day set aside each week but must cover all aspects of life all the time. This is where I parted company with Catholicism in my youth, in some ways on a similar basis to Luther. He objected to the corruption in the church especially the selling of indulgences as well as the way the confessional system had come to operate resulting in people doing what they liked and then claiming forgiveness and absolution through the confessional as well as buying indulgences, a practice which had come to the fore when the Pope absolved the mercenaries from whatever they had done or would do if they enlisted in the Crusades against those of the Muslim faith and to all other non Christians encountered. In my instance I could not square how Christians could lead the lives they appeared to do so with their beliefs, especially the possession and potential use of weapons of mass destruction and that the confessional and the absolution system of offering repentance and saying Three Hail Mary‘s appeared in commensurate with the harm individuals were doing to others.
Towards the end of the programme, Protestant Clergy representing the Anglican church through the world assembled in England were saying how they felt it was their duty to protect the church from reforming liberalism and to bring back the fundamentals of faith to white western Europe.
For me there are two issues of contemporary Christianity which I hope will be covered. The first is the balance between having a faith which covers all aspects of life which individuals put into practice for themselves, but insist others, their children for example, their marriage partners and everyone us following their beliefs of those set down by their local church and priest spiritual guide, and also insisting that the laws of the country and judicial system should reflect these beliefs. over ridding all other belief and ways of living systems. Persecuting those who hold views to the contrary, excluding them from public office, putting them in prison or to the sword after torturing. Along the freedom to believe must be the freedom from and the mutual respect for their beliefs of others.
The second issue is the role of those who are trained and appointment to acts as the spiritual guides and spiritual leaders, and who promote the standards to which other believers are expected to follow. On one hand they are humans with the same strengths and weaknesses of others, yet they are being placed in position of authority and power over others and therefore it should be expected that their lives should exemplary. It is difficult to see how this can be achieved unless they are kept apart from everyday experience and interwoven with this are issues of celibacy and parenthood and the abuse of position, issues which also extend to those who takes positions in government at national and local level, or who hold positions in other aspects of public life, the judicial system, education and the media.
The rest of Sunday evening was taken up with Lost and the latest two episodes of Lark Rise to Candleford. The earlier episode centred of the ending of the love affair between Laura and the clockmaker Fisher Bloom after the final part for the clock is delivered and held in the hope he will agree to stay. However it is Laura’s father who gets the young lad that he will quickly feel trapped because his calling involves travel and he is not ready to do something else to support a family. Meanwhile the relationship between postmistress Dorcas Lane and Hotel owner James Dowland begins to take off with the clock inauguration street party complete with visiting mayor and firework. The core issue this episode is pride as Robert Timmins buys his children and wife new boots with the money from his employment on the clock base, and celebrates with wine for his wife (looks like a glass) of champagne and lemonade for the children and then finds his tools stolen and without the means of livelihood. He cannot accept the idea of charity and finds that work as a casual farm labourer does not bring in sufficient to provide for the family. It is discovered that the tools have sold cheaply to various people in the town or passing through and this Robert find more humiliating and thoughtless and contemplates leaving to go Oxford for work whereupon Dorcas establishes a fund which enables the essential tools to be replaced although at first Robert finds this also unacceptable but the distress of his daughter whose heart is broken with the departure of her first love makes him realise what is important.
In the latest episode which I was able to watch after midnight the back story of James Dowland ends his relationship with Dorcas before it has got fully underway. We know that he was poor waif in Candleford and treated with kindness by the long suffering wife of Twister and then he does off to London and makes his fortune to return to Candleford buying the hotel and engaging in property development. There is anew arrival at the Hotel Celestia Brice Coulson who as a widow took James Dowland under her wing, groomed him as a business man, joining with her eventual in several hotel ownerships and sharing her bed. He comes to Candleford because of his background and had planned to moved on into further developments with the widow comes to advise him of their next venture, However he has genuinely fallen in love with Dorcas and announces that he wishes to bring the relationship with the widow to an end, , private and business, and takes over as sole owner of the Candleford Hotel to make his base for offering Dorcas a future with marriage. In order to ensure he does not lose Dorcas he lies about the nature of his past relationship and she finds out when the widow discloses information which James confirms and which could only be known through an intimate relationship. She tells Robert that she can never have a relationship with someone she cannot trust.
Robert’s father in law comes to stay with the family, a widower who has to give up work in reaching 70 and this creates tensions and problems within the marital home. Laura continues to be distressed following the departure of her suitor. There is further upset in the village when Emma’s, father, Old Edmund, moves in and resurrects the feud he had with Twister over their mutual interest in the woman with whom he lives and has not in fact married although they have several children. The episode ( as they all do) has a happy ending with Twister attaching his intention to marry with a notice on the church door arranged with the help of James Dowland. Dorcas comes to Lark Rise at the same time because Laura thinks she has been sacked over he behaviour in relation to the lost love. This provides opportunity for her to advise James Dowland that while she has not forgiven him she was hasty closing the door and he is instead on probation. Emma, Robert‘s husband finds from his birth certificate that that he is two years younger and therefore does not have to retire and leave his residence.
As already recorded in Wikipedia, birth certificates were not available until 1837 and before then there were only entries in the registers of churches so technically she could not have had a copy as included in the episode. There are other anomalies identified but not the fact that modern firework were used to celebrate the new clock rather than those available at the end of the nineteenth century.
There was an interesting article in the Daily Mail today criticising Wikipedia, for the system which enables mischievous and inaccurate information to be added and because it is being used by students as a short cut in academic studies and where some institutions are banning and saying students have to undertake the approve reading list. The motive behind article and the publication by the Mail is something unlikely to revealed
Monday has been a warmer day with a temperature of 8 degrees posted. I went out for the Mail DVD and then bought the complete seven years 144 episodes of The West Wing. I will commence to view after my 70th birthday. I then enjoyed a start of the week Bacon roll and Coffee at The Ship and Royal. Later I had the last of the toffee cheese cake as afters and then crackers with chutney for tea, For the evening meals cooked the round of Gammon, eating a quarter with tinned vegetables, followed by cherries and a hot cross bun and coffee.
I worked solidly on a project activity throughout at the afternoon and evening until 9pm for a programme on Lord Boothby, Tom Driberg, their Prime Ministers Lord Goodman and other on their corruption in covering up and helping the criminal activities of the Kray brothers in the 1960’s. More on this tomorrow.
England had an excellent batting day in the Test match in the West Indies with Paul Collingwood scoring his eighth Test century and the third since regaining his place after being dropped last Summer. With a total of over 550 posted this is not a match England can lose but getting the Indies out twice in three days on this wicket may prove a challenge.
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