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.
I also have a great article about the inquisition that pretty much deflates the liberal propaganda taught against Isabella and Spain during that time. If you want to read it, I will be happy to send it.
The slaughter of native Americans is not christians killing one another, and I am unsure why you bring that up. To outline that we really are the murderers instead of the sufferers?
And why are you trying to imply that we suffered and died by our own hands anyway? Do you have something against our suffering? Doest it bother you that we are persecuted? Why? What does it take away from Jewish suffering? Nothing. Have a little sympathy for us. I do for your people.
Primarily. However, many Jewish communities were wiped out on the way to the Holy Land.
I also have a great article about the inquisition that pretty much deflates the liberal propaganda taught against Isabella and Spain during that time. If you want to read it, I will be happy to send it.
I'm not sure what liberal propaganda you're talking about.
The slaughter of native Americans is not christians killing one another, and I am unsure why you bring that up. To outline that we really are the murderers instead of the sufferers?
Basically to point out that the history of Christianity is a bloody one. I had recently been having a discussion with someone who insisted that both sides of the Israeli-"Palestinian" conflict should hear the message of Jesus and it got under my skin.
And why are you trying to imply that we suffered and died by our own hands anyway? Do you have something against our suffering?
Well, I would rather not see anyone suffer.
Doest it bother you that we are persecuted? Why?
Yes, it does. Because I'm Jewish with Jewish values and don't want to see anyone persecuted.
What does it take away from Jewish suffering? Nothing.
Agreed on this.
Have a little sympathy for us. I do for your people.
I do. However, I do recognize that part of the problem is a philosophy which enables Christians to murder other peoples or themselves seemingly in the name of their faith. For example (and I'll never understand this one), in Ireland you have two groups of Christians murdering each other with regularity. Explain the Christian attitudes behind that one.
So the 7+ million Christians murdered in the Ukraine had it coming to them. Ok, I get it.
There are only two condemned instances in the history of the crusades where the Christian crusaders acted unjustly--The sack of Jerusalem and the Sack of Constantinople, both of which were unjustified and immoral. Those wars themselves remained just. I will not offer an excuse for the men who sacked Jerusalem and for the innocent Jews who died when it happened, but I will say that the crusaders freed the Holy Land from the moslems at that point. Their anger was pent up after the moslems poisened the wells around Jerusalem, forcing the men to lick blades of grass to get water. Immoral things happen sometimes in war--and again, I am not making a justification. That is the only time when innocent Jews were harmed by the crusaders.
I'm not sure what liberal propaganda you're talking about.
The Spanish Inquisition, by Anne W. Carroll.
Basically to point out that the history of Christianity is a bloody one. I had recently been having a discussion with someone who insisted that both sides of the Israeli-"Palestinian" conflict should hear the message of Jesus and it got under my skin.
Yes, it is bloody, but most of it was unprovoked. The Christian nations in Europe never once were the aggressors. Not once. It is certainly appropriate that we defend ourselves and our nations just as the Jews and Israel do. The person who you had that conversation with is a nitwit and not indicitive of true believers in Christ. Every religion has their share of less than inteligent people.
I do. However, I do recognize that part of the problem is a philosophy which enables Christians to murder other peoples or themselves seemingly in the name of their faith. For example (and I'll never understand this one), in Ireland you have two groups of Christians murdering each other with regularity. Explain the Christian attitudes behind that one.
Easy. Anyone can claim to be anything--that doesn't make it so. Those who use violence in Ireland know about God as much as those in other places who use violence.
Regardless, Communism has devestated the Christian community. Just look at what Pol Pot did. We did nothing to incur his wrath. Nothing at all except stand up for what we believe.
Islam which is at war with Christianity all over the world --the Sudan where Omar Bashir has slaughtered over a million black Christians, and northern Iraq, where fanatic moslems have been murdering Asyrian Christians. Then there is East Timor, where roving bands of moslems ripped the heads off Christians and paraded them around on the ends of sharps sticks, and we can't leave out the Balkans, Israel, and of course the United States.
We neither provoked nor deserved any of it.
What a title!
Instead of the Emperor's request for the Pope funding of professional mercenaries for the effort the Pope created a version of Christian jihad that did not and does not exist in Christianity. In fact in the Orthodox Church killing even in battle is still a sin. The Crusades failed everyone Catholic, Orthodox and even Muslims since it allowed the Islamic world to embrace the warlike Turks who upon taking power decimated Islamic centers of learning through their barbarity.
The respected Saladin, a Kurd (from a Kurdistan that was once both Zoroastrian and Christian before Islam) was the last none Turk to rule the Middle East until the 20th century.
Under the Turks the richest most educated areas of the planet, the Middle East, Balkans and the Eastern Mediterranean became a backwards world still not recovered.
Burhams in the Phillipines
bombing of the church in Pakistan
I know there other examples. Maybe we could BumpList them or do a "Christian Martyrs Chronolgy.
Ben,
The Catholic Church is composed of humans like you and me who are subject to error. In the examples you have given, yes, mistakes were made, apologies have been given (to those who wished to listen)and we can hope for a better world -- remembering that we are mere human beings trying to do God's will here on earth and not always succeeding.
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