Posted on 06/03/2002 6:55:44 PM PDT by LarryLied
A new book which claims that Christians are the victims of worldwide persecution has stirred controversy in Italy amid accusations that it minimises the Holocaust and demonises Islam.
The author, Antonio Socci, claims the untold story of the 20th century is the murder of 45 million Christians, mostly at the hands of communist and Islamic regimes, and that massacres continue to this day.
The New Persecuted, Inquiries into Anti-Christian Intolerance in the New Century of Martyrs, has angered some scholars by depicting Christians as beleaguered victims of rampaging Muslims.
Some reviewers have hailed the publication as a wake-up call to Christians in the west who have not realised, even in the wake of September 11, that they are under attack by a hostile rival religion.
Others said Mr Socci was part of a rightwing revisionist effort to distort history and promote a hawkish response to perceived threats.
Drawing heavily from the World Christian Encyclopedia, published last year by the Oxford University Press, Mr Socci traces the persecution of Christians through the centuries, from the crucifixion of Jesus to the lions at Circus Maximus, the assassination of Thomas Becket and the execution of Thomas More, the Boxer rebellion in China, Mexico's revolution and the Turkish massacres in Armenia. He calculates that in the past 2,000 years some 70 million Christians have been killed, two-thirds in the past 100 years alone, a bloodbath blamed mostly on the Soviet Union as well as communist China and Nazi Germany.
Mr Socci supports Israel and does not dispute the number of Jews killed in the Holocaust but by framing the genocide in such a context he had minimised its significance, said Alberto Melloni, an author and religious historian.
"The statistics he cites are largely meaningless but the effect is to make the Shoah [Holocaust] just one detail in a century of massacres. It is part of an effort by some in the Catholic church to stop the Shoah being the most important event in the 20th century."
Mr Socci, 43, a columnist with conservative Italian newspapers, claims that an average of 160,000 Christians have been killed every year since 1990, the vast majority in the third world. Critics said the figure included Christians killed in conflicts which had little to do with religion.
Chronicling attacks, pogroms and wars in East Timor, Indonesia, Sudan, Egypt, Pakistan, India, and even Rwanda and Latin America, Mr Socci identifies Islamic extremism as the main danger.
He complains that secular western governments, intellectuals and media organisations have played down the bloodbath because the persecution of Jews and Muslims, whether in the former Soviet Union or former Yugoslavia, was considered more newsworthy. "This global persecution of Christianity is still in progress but in most cases is ignored by the mass media and Christians in the west."
Tommaso Debenedetti, a cultural commentator, said the book was part of an attempt by Italy's right to deflect accusations of intolerance against immigrants and other minorities by casting itself as the victim of non-Christian and liberal forces. "The right is reversing the argument."
Breaking ranks with positive reviews which called the book "extraordinary", the Turin daily La Stampa said it was a provocation with questionable statistics and a flawed definition of martyr which included those killed for political reasons.
Is there a real difference that we are aware of? In both cases, it is the individual who decides.
As I mentioned to several other posters, Muslims will decry violence committed by other Muslims - if that violence is perceived as "unpopular" in today's PC culture. That doesn't wash as far as I'm concerned. So if we are true to that standard, then claiming the Christians who committed violence weren't acting "in the spirit of Christianity" doesn't make it either.
Sorry if you disagree.
You're quite right. And, should the modern left triumph in this country again - in full power - we will see persecution of Christians here just as in any totalitarian country in the past or present.
Just one more reason to understand clearly that Today's LEFTISTS - who ADMIRE STALIN - led by Hitlery Clinton herself - ARE ALLIED WITH THE ISLAMIC EXTREMISTS.
Both groups, in the end, want Christians (and Jews) DEAD!
Why? Because Christians and Jews are a testimony to the God they have rejected and whom they want to "destroy" out of the earth.
People who deny the anti-God agenda of the modern left are totally blind.
We have a right to defend ourselves against moslems just as much as the Jews do. You act like we were the enemy in the crusades. I find your attitude toward us disheartening.
As for whitewashing, you didn't read the article. It did mention the Jews, but you seem more concerned in your condemnation of us than seeing the truth. Out of 100,000 people put on trial it is a documented fact that 2,000 were put to death and it was for treason, not for being religious reasons. I thought the article was very balanced. Mrs. Carroll is an honest Catholic.
I'm through debating you because I am not going to continue to defend myself against ludicrous uniformed accusations.
I've noticed that very little is ever said of the persecution of Catholics in England during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I and Oliver Cromwell, when it was a capital offense to be a priest, and torture was common.
This doesn't make sense. If the sin is "already forgiven," there can be no punishment to remove! That's the very definition of forgiveness. The idea of What you have done here is put a "spin" on it in order to defend this evil and corrupt practice. And you say nothing about the exchange of MONEY(!) for these indulgences. In Luther's day, they were sold for money!! Peter said, "and your money perish with you" to the man who would purchase his way to heaven.
Furthermore, if "good deeds" could gain forgiveness, then there would be no need for Jesus Christ to die on that cross. It was the ONLY WAY! If there was another way, do you think God would have sent His Son? His death was the ONLY WAY that God could wipe away sin. It is blasphemous to suggest even remotely that there is any other way.
She should have gotten the title "bloody" instead of Mary Queen of Scots.
Well, most of us don't want to HAVE to give it all up, but if one is a true BELIEVER, it's probable that they would. The martyrs of Rome had no problem dying for their faith. It was simply what was done. Christians (and Jews) have died willingly for their faith all down through the ages.
The problem with this kind of martyrdom is that it sometimes sets up a cognitive dissonance in the persecutors and observers. To them, who don't believe (regardless of their nominal "Christianity," in such cases) the DEATH OF LIFE is the ultimate end.
For a believing Christian or Jew, death is just a door one passes through to the REAL life. Now: If there is NOTHING on the other side of death, none of these martyrs knew anything different once they were dead. BUT if there IS eternal life on the other side...
Yes, that's true. Also, the Civil Liberties Union, that flagship of the Left, has done more to eliminate "God" from our schools, our workplaces, and our communities than any other institution.
Yet, where is it at UNC-Chapel Hill - where a reading of passages from the Quoran are required this summer for all incoming freshmen and other new students???
I'm sorry you feel that way. But, you are correct. As far as the Jews were concerned, the Crusades were not beneficial.
As for whitewashing, you didn't read the article.
Yes, I did.
It did mention the Jews, but you seem more concerned in your condemnation of us than seeing the truth. Out of 100,000 people put on trial it is a documented fact that 2,000 were put to death and it was for treason, not for being religious reasons. I thought the article was very balanced. Mrs. Carroll is an honest Catholic.
Sorry you feel that we cannot disagree and that I must accept Mrs. Carroll's version of events.
I'm through debating you because I am not going to continue to defend myself against ludicrous uniformed accusations.
You are not defending yourself but these beliefs. Denegrating my position does not help yours.
Have a nice day.
Actually, I think I have a very good idea of what a true Christian is. But, you're correct in saying that subject is not the topic of this thread. Accordingly, I will withdraw.
I sometimes wonder if people don't take pride in the fact that something terrible happened to them.
If the statistics of one are meaningless, then what of the statistics of the other? Hmm?
The number of deaths centuries ago may not be especially relevant today, but as the deaths become more recent, they become more significant. They should not be downplayed anymore than the numbers of Jews killed should be downplayed.
IMO, WWII was probably the most significant event in the past century, not the Holocaust, though that was a terrible thing as well.
Tuor
And I hope no one ever forgets this. The Devil really does exist, and he hates us, even those who don't believe in God; he hates us all.
Also, think on this: it is better to die while holding to your faith than to live and have your soul slowly crushed under the unending grind and soulessness that our culture *can* produce, and is producing more frequently these days.
Better physically dead than spiritually lost, IMO.
Tuor
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