EVERY educated person in the world knows the history of Western Christendom’s relations with Jewish and Islamic societies. But it seems necessary to remind ourselves, especially at a time when Western powers are on Israel’s side, that it was European Christianity that gave birth to Antisemitism and Islamophobia. Antisemitism and Islamophobia are both the inventions of Europe and the Western establishment and are still running strong among white nationalists and fundamentalist Christians in the 21st century.
1. Antisemitism — history at a glance: European Christendom could not forgive the Jewish people as a whole for being “Christ killers.” Early Christians could not live alongside the “anti- Christ” people and enemies of European Christian civilization they considered the Jews to be. There even was a time when European Christians came up with a conspiracy theory about the Jews, “blood libel,” to generate hatred and violence against them. The entirely fabricated lie accused Jews of using the blood of Christian children for their worship ceremonies. We know how that anti-Semitic history reached its logical heights in the pogroms of 19-century Europe and peaked with the Holocaust in Nazi Germany. Yet antisemitism continues in varying degrees to this day in the West, even alongside the Western governments’ support for the state of Israel at the expense of Palestinians.
2. Islamophobia: Not very long after Islam came to be in the 7th century, European Christianity could not tolerate the rise of another religion and fought four rounds of Holy Crusades against Muslims for the Holy Land from the end of the 11th to the start of 13th centuries. Thereafter, European colonialism took over the campaign against the Islamic world in a changed form, followed by the creation of the state of Israel in 1948, in part to ease Europe’s guilty conscience for the Holocaust. It inaugurated the seven-decade old Israeli-Palestinian conflict as a result. Palestinian public intellectual, the Lt. Professor Edward Said, has offered a detailed accounting of the West’s long history of Islamophobia in his world-famous book titled Orientalism (1978). The history of Islamophobia continues.
Hatred and dehumanization of other groups of people: What about racism against blacks and indigenous peoples of the world during the age of European colonialism? And the role of Euro- American Christianity and civilizing mission in the genocide of native peoples in settler colonies, of slavery and dehumanization of Africans? Americans even fought a war among themselves on account of disagreement on slavery, among other issues. But the less said about these ugly truths the better, right? Right. If — a big IF — antisemitism, Islamophobia, white nationalism, bigoted fundamentalist Christianity were things of the past. But truth is these are not just alive but getting a fresh infusion of life. New forms of self-righteous hatred of groups of people even within the white society are being added to the long ancient list. They are imposing on fellow Americans, who happen to be different from them, what the latter can and cannot do with their bodies even in the privacy of their bedrooms. They invoke any difference among human beings as the basis for discrimination, hatred, violence against people who are different – in the name of God. It was evil to be Jewish, it was ungodly to be Islamic, being black was qualification for lifelong slavery, native peoples deserved to be massacred en-masse — because they were heathens, women are lesser human beings because God made them so, and now LGBTQ+ people have no right to fall in love and raise families – because the Bible says so…. What’s next?
If this is Christianity, who in their right minds would want to be a Christian? What happened to the values and life Jesus taught and lived and exemplified?
Hope? There’s a clear silver lining in the trail of gloom and doom of the imperialist, anti-Semite, Islamophobic, colonialist, bigoted Euro-American Christianity. The majority of Christians and non-Christians alike in the West oppose them with conviction and resolve, many of whom are sincere followers of Jesus’s Christianity. The future of Christianity and the world at large much depends on how effectively this majority is able to counter the self-righteous clamor of fundamentalist Christian minority.
Question for Naga Christianity:
Which of the largely two versions of Western Christianity are Naga Churches following?
- The Christianity taught and modelled by Jesus? Or
- The imperializing, colonizing, genocidal, enslaving, hate-mongering Christianity some of whose members used to attend Sunday morning church services and thereafter gather to witness and participate in the lynching of black men? We are talking end of the 19th and early 20th centuries, not ancient history. And today some of the self-professed fundamentalist “Bible-believing” MAGA politicians in the States are banning books that teach school children about race and gender relations in America, and are preaching their brand of Christianity in other parts of the world, including countries like Uganda and India.
The US has made incredible progress in race and gender relations and the rule of law since the 1960s on. But these just and moral laws and democratic institutions are under clear and imminent danger today from one brand of Christianity: White nationalism and fundamentalist Christianity.
Paul Pimomo. Views are personal. The author may be reached at paulpimomo@gmail.com
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