Gary Leupp: Playing with Fire
[Gary Leupp is a Professor of History, and Adjunct Professor of Comparative Religion at Tufts University, and author of numerous works on Japanese history. He can be reached at: gleupp@granite.tufts.edu.]
Christians have a long tradition of book burning, dating back to the first decades of what some call the “Jesus movement.” The Book of Acts in the New Testament records how Christian believers in Ephesus collected books with offensive content (involving “magic” and “spells”) “made a bonfire of them in public.” According to the scripture, “The value of these was calculated to be fifty thousand silver pieces.” This destruction of such literature revealed the power of God (Acts 19:18-19).
But the real wave of book burning started in the fourth century. Then, in the course of one person’s lifetime, Christianity was legalized (by the Edict of Milan in 312), its doctrine standardized by state order at the Council of Nicaea in 325, and under Theodosius I the faith was made virtually compulsory for Roman subjects ca. 390. (Jews were accorded a special exemption.) Believers in Jupiter and the other Greco-Roman gods had a brief reprieve under the rule of Emperor Julian (“the Apostate”) who reigned from 355 to 363. But then came the era of violent Christian intolerance. Temples to the pagan gods were shuttered, destroyed or converted to Christian churches. Manichaeism, the faith from Persia popular in some parts of the empire, was harshly suppressed, along with all pagan cults. Eventually Plato’s Academy in Athens was shut down–all in the name of the Christian God....
The widely publicized plans of the Dove World Outreach Center in Gainesville, Florida, to burn Qur’ans on Sept. 11 thus continues a long tradition of ignorance and intolerance. This intolerance is not normative in modern Christianity in the U.S.; ecumenism has long been the more mainstream tradition. But when you have someone of the stature of the Rev. Franklin Graham opining that Islam is “a very evil and wicked religion,” does he not encourage the book burners?
It needs to be said: since the seventh century, the Islamic world has been generally more tolerant towards books than the Christian world. There have been some egregious departures from tolerance; the destruction of the library in the Nalanda (Buddhist) monastery in northern India by a Muslim army from Central Asia in the 12th century, for example. (Reports of the sacking of the Library of Alexandria by an Arab army in 642 are generally now discounted.)...
The Abbasid caliph Harun al-Rashid (r. 764-809), a contemporary of Charlemagne (whom he sent an elephant as a present) presided over a diverse court that included Christians, Jews, Zoroastrians, and probably Buddhists and Brahmins. Born in Tehran, Persia, he enjoyed presiding over debates between thinkers of different religions. (Charlemagne tolerated the Jews in his empire and began the “Carolingian Renaissance.” But he was probably less religiously tolerant than al-Rashid who sought his friendship.)
The first Abbasid caliphs founded the “House of Wisdom” library in Baghdad, which also served as a center for the translation of ancient Greek texts into Syriac or Arabic throughout the eighth and ninth centuries. Christians and Jews under Muslim rule played important roles in preserving these books. Some had been burned and lost in Christendom but were only re-introduced due to the fact that Muslims conquered the Iberian peninsula and established centers of intercultural dialogue in places like Cordoba. (Yes, that’s Cordoba, as in the New York City Islamic center, Cordoba House, that bigoted fools demanded change its name so as not to “offend” “Americans”…)
Everyone who’s received a decent primary education should realize it was interaction between Christians and Muslims in Muslim Spain that allowed for the revival of much classical learning lost to Christendom during the Dark Ages. It’s from Cordoba that we acquired algebra (which by the way, is a word derived from Arabic)....
Read entire article at Dissident Voice
Christians have a long tradition of book burning, dating back to the first decades of what some call the “Jesus movement.” The Book of Acts in the New Testament records how Christian believers in Ephesus collected books with offensive content (involving “magic” and “spells”) “made a bonfire of them in public.” According to the scripture, “The value of these was calculated to be fifty thousand silver pieces.” This destruction of such literature revealed the power of God (Acts 19:18-19).
But the real wave of book burning started in the fourth century. Then, in the course of one person’s lifetime, Christianity was legalized (by the Edict of Milan in 312), its doctrine standardized by state order at the Council of Nicaea in 325, and under Theodosius I the faith was made virtually compulsory for Roman subjects ca. 390. (Jews were accorded a special exemption.) Believers in Jupiter and the other Greco-Roman gods had a brief reprieve under the rule of Emperor Julian (“the Apostate”) who reigned from 355 to 363. But then came the era of violent Christian intolerance. Temples to the pagan gods were shuttered, destroyed or converted to Christian churches. Manichaeism, the faith from Persia popular in some parts of the empire, was harshly suppressed, along with all pagan cults. Eventually Plato’s Academy in Athens was shut down–all in the name of the Christian God....
The widely publicized plans of the Dove World Outreach Center in Gainesville, Florida, to burn Qur’ans on Sept. 11 thus continues a long tradition of ignorance and intolerance. This intolerance is not normative in modern Christianity in the U.S.; ecumenism has long been the more mainstream tradition. But when you have someone of the stature of the Rev. Franklin Graham opining that Islam is “a very evil and wicked religion,” does he not encourage the book burners?
It needs to be said: since the seventh century, the Islamic world has been generally more tolerant towards books than the Christian world. There have been some egregious departures from tolerance; the destruction of the library in the Nalanda (Buddhist) monastery in northern India by a Muslim army from Central Asia in the 12th century, for example. (Reports of the sacking of the Library of Alexandria by an Arab army in 642 are generally now discounted.)...
The Abbasid caliph Harun al-Rashid (r. 764-809), a contemporary of Charlemagne (whom he sent an elephant as a present) presided over a diverse court that included Christians, Jews, Zoroastrians, and probably Buddhists and Brahmins. Born in Tehran, Persia, he enjoyed presiding over debates between thinkers of different religions. (Charlemagne tolerated the Jews in his empire and began the “Carolingian Renaissance.” But he was probably less religiously tolerant than al-Rashid who sought his friendship.)
The first Abbasid caliphs founded the “House of Wisdom” library in Baghdad, which also served as a center for the translation of ancient Greek texts into Syriac or Arabic throughout the eighth and ninth centuries. Christians and Jews under Muslim rule played important roles in preserving these books. Some had been burned and lost in Christendom but were only re-introduced due to the fact that Muslims conquered the Iberian peninsula and established centers of intercultural dialogue in places like Cordoba. (Yes, that’s Cordoba, as in the New York City Islamic center, Cordoba House, that bigoted fools demanded change its name so as not to “offend” “Americans”…)
Everyone who’s received a decent primary education should realize it was interaction between Christians and Muslims in Muslim Spain that allowed for the revival of much classical learning lost to Christendom during the Dark Ages. It’s from Cordoba that we acquired algebra (which by the way, is a word derived from Arabic)....