Continuities and Discontinuities

 

“It doesn’t matter what we believe in, as long as we believe.”

-          From the diary of Joseph Goebbels

The Age of Nihilism: Christendom from the Great War to the Culture Wars, by John Strickland

In this chapter, Strickland moves from the Communism of the Soviet Union to the National Socialism of Germany (next will come a look into the Liberalism of the West).  Just as in the chapter on Communism, there is much here that will sound, unfortunately, as if it is being written about today’s western democracies.  This chapter adds another dimension: a striking mirror to Israel’s actions regarding Palestinians in Gaza.

National Socialism was the most bestial vision of the West ever concocted.  More even than Communism, it promised to replace decrepit humanism and moralistic Christianity with a totally new moral order unrestrained by reason or mercy.

I struggle with this statement.  Was National Socialism somehow worse in this regard than Communism?  It is the story we are supposed to believe: Hitler, not Stalin, has become the stand-in for Satan.  But regarding this “totally new moral order unrestrained by reason or mercy,” one could argue that National Socialism at least held some mercy toward Germans. 

This mercy toward Germans can be seen in the three nihilistic convictions that lay at the heart of National Socialism:

“…the existence of a master race, the inferiority of other races, and the need for a war of racial annihilation.”

By the way, is this not inarguably the view of Israel when it comes to their position and against the position of Palestinians? 

In any case, for whom did Communism, under Stalin, hold any mercy?  He purged those even in his inner circles, let alone Russian, Ukrainian, or Georgian commoners.  In the battle of “most bestial,” Stalin killed far more civilians before the first shot was fired in Europe in World War Two than did Hitler.

As to the first conviction, the existence of a master race, Strickland sees this as necessary within Hitler’s framework as a defense of “Christendom in general and Germany in particular.”  This is a second statement which is baffling to me. 

There is nothing in Hitler’s actions that were a defense of Christendom.  Worship was of Hitler; allegiance was sworn to Hitler.  Strickland offers many examples that counter his own assertion:

·         Mixing Wagnerian nationalism with Nietzschean worship of the will…

·         …the West was built by a master race called the Aryans.

·         …preserved Aryan supremacy through morally unflinching expansion and conquest.

·         …racist nationalism…

·         …the racial transformation of the world…

·         …evolutionary ideas about an Aryan master race…

·         …individual human beings have no innate value.

·         “A stronger generation will drive out the weaklings,” Hitler claimed.

There is no defense of Christendom here, not in any sense to understand the word.  And this points to one of the problems I have had with Strickland’s entire narrative arc (as valuable as I have found his work in many ways).  His narrative depends on hinging the problems of the West to the schism of 1054.

Claiming Tradition

While the potent Christian presence in Asia is remarkable enough in its own right, these churches also had a claim to a direct tradition from the apostolic age at least as strong as those boasted by Rome and Constantinople.

The Lost History of Christianity: The Thousand-Year Golden Age of the Church in the Middle East, Africa, and Asia--and How It Died, by Philip Jenkins

…Eusebius claims that missionaries speaking Aramaic or Hebrew had already reached [India] before the second century and had left an original manuscript of the Gospel of Matthew.

I start with this opening, as it speaks directly to one of my…let’s call it…pet peeves.  The more I have gone into Church history, the more I have concluded that anyone claiming to be following the (as in “the only”) apostolic tradition, and to be following it consistently for 2000 years, is talking nonsense.

Every tradition, a thousand miles west, east, and south of Jerusalem, lays claim to an apostle and lays claim to following the teaching of the apostle.  Yet, there are differences – meaningful enough that the Church divided – as early as 431 at Ephesus, at 451 at Chalcedon, and, as almost an afterthought, 1054 in Constantinople. 

So, stop with this nonsense. 

And now that is off my chest…at least for today.

Some statements apply across the various theological traditions, from the Orthodox to the Nestorians and Jacobites, and the Copts.

Strongly liturgical churches that displayed foretastes of heaven; hierarchical in organization; appeals to all the senses – sound, sight, smell, taste, touch.  And genuine antiquity:

…the Syriac Anaphora of the Apostles Addai and Mari is the oldest Christian liturgy still in use.

OK, who…and what? Per Wikipedia, Addai was a disciple of Thomas, and Mari was a disciple of Addai. From the Catholic Encyclopedia:

This is an Oriental liturgy, sometimes assigned to the Syrian group because it is written in the Syriac tongue; sometimes to the Persian group because it was used in Mesopotamia and Persia. It is known as the normal liturgy of the Nestorians, but probably it had been in use before the rise of the Nestorian heresy.

It is still used today, and not just by “heretics”:

At the present time this liturgy is used chiefly by the Nestorians, who reside for the most part in Kurdistan. It is also used by the Chaldean Uniats of the same region, but their liturgy has, of course, been purged of all traces of Nestorian tenets. Finally, it is in use among the Chaldean Uniats of Malabar, but it was very much altered by the Synod of Diamper held in 1599.

Returning to Jenkins, he notes that all of these eastern churches saw monasticism as the highest form of Christian life, just as did the churches to the west of them. 

…the ascetic fathers went forth into the wilderness…to battle against principalities and powers and with the evil spirits which are under heaven.

We could use a few of these right now. 

Dominion

I found Doug Wilson via the treatment of him by Paul VanderKlay.  The PVK treatment is here; Wilson’s video being treated is here.  I will comment mostly on Wilson’s points, but a few of PVK’s as well.  Wilson’s entire video is fourteen minutes, so if you want to skip my comments, it is a short watch.

Who is Doug Wilson?

Douglas James Wilson (born 1953) is a conservative Reformed and evangelical theologian, pastor at Christ Church in Moscow, Idaho, faculty member at New Saint Andrews College, and author and speaker.

What does he say about himself?

Theology that Bites Back

I want to advance a Chestertonian Calvinism on education, sex and culture, theology, politics, book reviews, postmodernism, expository studies, along with other random tidbits that come into my head. In theology I am an evangelical, postmill, Calvinist, Reformed, and Presbyterian, pretty much in that order.

Not someone the mainstream would embrace.  Also, not someone that many Christians would embrace.

To the video.  Wilson begins: “One of the things I learned from the late Gary North was the three-fold division regarding the different kinds of religion.”  These are: Power religion, Escape religion, and Dominion religion.  Reading how Wilson describes himself, one can also see this as pretty-much applicable to Gary North.

Before diving into the Evangelical applications of these, he applies these three subsets to the prevailing “religion” of our broader society.  It is power, and he labels these “power monkeys.”

The dominant religion of our day is power religion: they are after control, nothing but control, and no remainder.  They want to control everything.

This aligns perfectly with Jonathan Pageau’s view of leaving nothing on the fringe, of a totalizing system of control.  It is the desire of Tim Cook, as presented in his speech at the ADL.  It is contrary to what is written in Scripture regarding the fringe.

Leviticus 19: 9 “When you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not reap your field right up to its edge, neither shall you gather the gleanings after your harvest. 10 And you shall not strip your vineyard bare, neither shall you gather the fallen grapes of your vineyard. You shall leave them for the poor and for the sojourner: I am the Lord your God.

Leave some room on the edge; there should always be a space for the outsider.

Returning to Wilson:

No lovers of liberty here.  No sons of liberty will be welcome in the suffocating world they are creating.

Again, sounding like Pageau.  Modern society wants total inclusion, an all-encompassing system.  And if you don’t completely agree and approve, you will be the one who is excluded.

Returning to Wilson, today’s society has abandoned the belief in a pre-destining God.  Now, I will set aside the “pre-destining” part (as the point remains without debating doctrine); we can agree that they have abandoned a belief in God, the God as understood from the Bible.

When a sovereign God goes, these are the kind of johnnies who immediately see a job opening.  They want to replace the sovereignty of God with the sovereignty of man, and by “man” they mean some men, and by “some men” they mean them.

This is the current climate.  And this current climate calls for “a different sort of climate change.”  (Wilson really has a way with words.)  “But not all Evangelicals think so.”  He then describes these three kinds of Evangelicals, again along the lines presented by North.

Eastern Symphony Becomes Subservience

Peter the Great (r. 1682 – 1725) was the emperor of Russia and came to the French capital to negotiate an alliance against the Ottoman Turks, the conquerors of Constantinople.

The Age of Utopia: Christendom from the Renaissance to the Russian Revolution, by John Strickland

The first Orthodox ruler to visit the West since Byzantine Emperor John VIII attended the Council of Florence…under quite similar circumstances.

Where the Byzantine Emperor John failed to bring the West to the East, Peter would succeed.  Of course, the West had been moving East for some time before this, with the Union of Brest in 1596 having brought Eastern Churches under the pope – Uniate, or Byzantine-Catholic Churches.

Their services continued according to the Byzantine rite, their priests remained married, and the original form of the Nicene Creed was confessed without the controversial filioque.

Sounds a bit quirky, I know.  But it gets even quirkier.  Patriarch Cyril I (d. 1638) of Constantinople didn’t like this Uniate arrangement, spending years advocating against it.  As patriarch, he found Jesuits to be quite active in the Ottoman capital.  Nothing really quirky so far…until he decided to make the enemy of his enemy his friend:

He established contacts with the Protestants in England and Geneva, even sending his most gifted clergy to study Calvinist institutes there.

What came of this?  While the authenticity of the work is challenged, it appears that in 1629 he issued a “notorious Confession” that strongly endorsed Calvinist principles, including the doctrine of faith alone and predestination.  In 1672, an Orthodox Synod of Jerusalem unequivocally condemned this work.

Yet, the turmoil continued in the Slavic regions.  Many of the nobles would follow their bishops, converting to Roman Catholicism in either the Latin or Uniate form.  Further, Jesuits were building schools; with this, the Orthodox couldn’t compete.

Until Peter Mogila (d. 1646).  He hoped to save the Orthodox Church by embracing the Western model of Scholasticism (a “tragic flaw,” according to Strickland), building an Orthodox Kievan Academy for this purpose.

Until this time, Orthodoxy had relied mostly on the church fathers and not on grammar or logic to express itself.  Mogila changed this.

Strickland describes this as a distortion of the understanding of the faith.  Further compounding the situation in the East, Russians were becoming isolated from international Orthodoxy due to the collapse of Byzantium.  What would result was an effort to build a strong nationalism, with a strong absolutist monarch to defend against the Mongols.

Now, what follows sounds an awful like the caricature of Putin being painted in the West – some points closer to truth than others, perhaps, but a caricature nonetheless.  And the story regards Peter the Great.

Raised in the German quarter of Moscow, he would develop a fascination with the West.  Everything around him seemed backwards compared to what he heard of other lands.  He would form a strong antireligious temperament, directing his passions to absolutist statecraft.

We Should Forget History

In response to a question based on an article he wrote – noting that nations are built on stories (as they are) – Yuval Noah Harari replies (in part):

As a historian I feel sometimes ashamed or responsible, I don’t know what, about what the knowledge of history is doing to people.  …As a historian, I feel ashamed, that this is what my profession, in some way, is doing.

I think people should be liberated from the past…

In other words, we should forget about history.  The full exchange begins here.  This excerpt is from a discussion with Harari “hosted by TED global curator Bruno Giussani” on the topic of the war in Ukraine.

Now, what on earth am I doing, listening to this?  Well, where can I better find the source of the manufactured reality that we are supposed to believe, the one which people are supposed to spout at cocktail parties – the type of parties to which none of us are invited (let’s call it “cock-‘splainin’”)?  TED plus a speaker at the World Economic Forum.  Tell me, does it get any better (worse) than this – to really understand what the wanna-be in-crowd is supposed to believe?

Harari has demonstrated this “we-should-forget-history” idea by example.  In all of his cock-‘splainin’ about the war in Ukraine, he forget any history of NATO moving East, of NATO making the commitment of incorporating Georgia and Ukraine into the alliance, of Putin’s statement’s regarding this, of the western-fomented color-revolutions, of the cookie monsters visiting the mostly peaceful massacres, of Ukraine bombing its own citizens in the eastern part of the country, of the amassing of Ukrainian troops on the borders of the Donbas, of the president of Ukraine stating clearly he would develop nuclear weapons…oh, I could go on, but you get it.

Frankly, if a historian isn’t going to discuss history, why is he consulted as an expert?

Further, in his cock-‘splainin’, he spent not a word discussing any of the statements made by Putin or Lavrov.  It was all Putin-is-a-madman kind of stuff.  What is a historian who wants to forget history to do with his time?  I know. How about becoming an armchair psychiatrist?  He proceeds to explain that Putin is just…I don’t know, mad…crazy….

There was a lot of focus on Germany – Germany has to step up, lead Europe (now that Brexit and all that).  Of course, the crux of the matter is Germany – everything necessary has been done and must be done to keep Germany and Russia as antagonists.  To understand why, read Halford Mackinder – and keep in mind he gave this lecture in 1904, and, in my opinion, it explains every major war fought since that time.  It isn’t about oil, it isn’t about Zionism, it isn’t about communism, it isn’t about fascism, it isn’t about spreading liberal democracy.  Mackinder explains what it is.

And then, an amazing exchange.  Was the war the result of a failure of diplomacy?  Could a different approach have avoided the war?  To the first part, the answer is yes – clearly war is a failure of diplomacy (which is correct in this case, and I think all cases). 

To the second question Harari replies:

Is it a failure in the sense that a different diplomatic approach, some kind of other proposition would have stopped the war?  I don’t know, but it doesn’t seem like it.

This, of course, must be the answer if you just absolutely know that Putin is mad, crazy, insane.  Keep in mind – this is what people believe, or what they are told they should believe.  It is cock-‘splainin’.

Looking at events of the last few weeks [this video was published on March 2], it doesn’t seem that Putin was really interested in a diplomatic solution.  It seems that he was really interested in the war.

Of course, since the historian tells us to forget history, we need not look back more than a few weeks.  We need not consider the many proposals and statements made by Putin, Lavrov, and others (how about John Mearsheimer and Stephen Cohen, for example?).  We need to forget the Minsk Agreements, to which Ukraine was a party.

The Battle for the Soul of Man

 

From the Vatican: Pope Francis meets with US President Joseph Biden

A Holy See Press Office communiqué said that during the cordial talks, they dwelt on their common commitment to the protection and care of the planet, the health situation and the fight against the Covid-19 pandemic, as well as the issue of refugees, and how to provide assistance for migrants.

They also discussed human rights, including the right to freedom and conscience.  I am guessing that there was a special carve-out on these rights regarding forced jabs.  No freedom or conscience here, not according to these two.

No mention of the hottest topic among American Catholics: abortion and communion.  At least not by the Vatican:

ROME, Oct 29 (Reuters) - U.S. President Joe Biden said on Friday that Pope Francis had told him he should keep receiving Communion, amid fierce debate in the U.S. Church over Biden's position on abortion.

As noted, the Vatican doesn’t mention this.  But, to be clear, the Vatican did not mention otherwise – in other words, no mention by the Vatican that Biden’s position on abortion is a problem.  But the Reuters piece has a picture of a joyously smiling pope and a smiling-as-best-as-he-can senile president right at the top of the article.

Asked if the topic of abortion came up during a long meeting with pope in the Vatican earlier on Friday, Biden said no.

Well, we apparently only know this from a man who remembers little, and effectively communicates even less.  But, from what I have found, we have no statement from the Vatican.  But we have this, from CNBC:

Both the White House and Vatican statements made no direct reference to the abortion issue.

So, I will take that as the final report on the matter.  As an aside:

The Vatican said the private meeting lasted one hour and 15 minutes and then about another 15 minutes were spent for picture taking and the exchange of gifts in the presence of other members of the delegation, such as Biden’s wife, Jill.

This compared to 30 minutes for Trump and 50 minutes for Obama.  So, the man least able to logically string two words together (and whatever you believe about Trump, the winner in the incoherence race is Biden) had the longest audience.  How much mumbling can one do in 75 minutes?

Then we have this: Moldovan hierarch excommunicates those who voted for Istanbul Convention

All parliamentarians who voted in favor of the Istanbul Convention earlier this month have been excommunicated in one Moldovan Diocese.

What was the issue?

The Moldovan Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate issued a statement before the vote, calling for the government to reject the Convention, noting that while it has praiseworthy elements, it also unfortunately departs from the Biblical conception of mankind, with its problematic gender ideology.

The praiseworthy elements have to do with violence against women.  What does the actual text say about gender ideology?

Parties shall take, where appropriate, the necessary steps to include teaching material on issues such as…non-stereotyped gender roles…

… “gender” shall mean the socially constructed roles, behaviours, activities and attributes that a given society considers appropriate for women and men

Away with stereotypes means all “roles, behaviours, activities and attributes” are candidates to be considered “appropriate.”  This was the problem for the Patriarchate. 

So, the Patriarchate issued a statement, but what about actions?  Returning to the article:

The Lion and the Lamb

This post is prompted by Paul VanderKlay’s short video response to the conversation between Rod Dreher and Jonathan Pageau.

-------------------------------------------------

Revelation 5: 4 And I wept much, because no man was found worthy to open and to read the book, neither to look thereon.

5 And one of the elders saith unto me, Weep not: behold, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, hath prevailed to open the book, and to loose the seven seals thereof.

6 And I beheld, and, lo, in the midst of the throne and of the four beasts, and in the midst of the elders, stood a Lamb as it had been slain, having seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven Spirits of God sent forth into all the earth.

We know Jesus is the slain lamb.  What of this Lion of the tribe of Judah?

Genesis 49: 8 Judah, thou art he whom thy brethren shall praise: thy hand shall be in the neck of thine enemies; thy father's children shall bow down before thee.

9 Judah is a lion's whelp: from the prey, my son, thou art gone up: he stooped down, he couched as a lion, and as an old lion; who shall rouse him up?

10 The sceptre shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet, until Shiloh come; and unto him shall the gathering of the people be.

Both Matthew and Luke trace Jesus’s genealogy through Judah.  In one being, we have both the lion and the lamb.  How can this be?  GK Chesterton describes one of the many paradoxes of Christianity in his book Orthodoxy, where Christianity is blamed both for not fighting (the lamb) and for fighting (the lion):

It was the fault of poor old Christianity (somehow or other) both that Edward the Confessor did not fight and that Richard Coeur de Leon did.

He then makes reference to the lion and the lamb:

It is constantly assured, especially in our Tolstoyan tendencies, that when the lion lies down with the lamb the lion becomes lamb-like.

To be clear, while we commonly picture the lion and the lamb lying together, I don’t believe the Biblical sources put it exactly this way. 

Isaiah 11: 6 The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them.

So, the lion and the lamb are at least in the same scene.  Continuing with Chesterton, and this image of the lion becoming lamb-like:

But that is brutal annexation and imperialism on the part of the lamb. That is simply the lamb absorbing the lion instead of the lion eating the lamb.

Is this the point – for the lamb to now consume the lion?  Chesterton thinks not:

The real problem is—Can the lion lie down with the lamb and still retain his royal ferocity? THAT is the problem the Church attempted; THAT is the miracle she achieved.

Jesus achieved that miracle.

We are coming to a time where Christianity is being moved to the fringe of the society.  The center is being filled by something else.  Christianity has been at the center in the West, losing ground with the Enlightenment, and finally giving way in the First World War.  It has been living on fumes since then. 

While Christianity was at the center, there was at least the objective of love, which left room at the margins.  Everything of love and respect to all in society can be found in Christianity and only in Christianity.  Sure, never perfect, never progressing fast enough, but undeniably so.

Something other than Christian love is moving to the center.  It is hate; there is no doubt about this.

I am troubled by this direction, as many are; the monologue by VanderKlay troubled me more.  For example, VanderKlay offers:

Don’t despair about being moved to the margin.  Christ didn’t belong there either, yet Christ always wins.

I know Christ always wins.  Christ knew this also.  Yet it didn’t prevent Him from despair:

Renovatio

[Otto III] had seen the villages of his own people burned and corpse-strewn, and he had torched the villages of the Wends… The Wends, unlike the Saxons themselves, had refused to accept the Prince of Peace at the point of the conqueror’s sword.

-          Millennium, Tom Holland

Otto III (hereafter, Otto for ease) was only three years old when his father died, casting him on the throne.  He was immediately a victim of a plot, an attempt to be overthrown by Henry.  The plot was eventually thwarted by Henry’s own bumbling, and he retired a resentful man to Bavaria.

Otto would struggle with the obvious contradiction offered in the opening paragraph – conversion by the sword was not fitting for the Prince of Peace.  Vigils, prayers, and rivers of tears – this is what Otto could offer...along with the sword. 

After his coronation in Rome, Otto would become acquainted with Adalbert, a monk that would admonish Otto: regard yourself not as a great Caesar, but as a mere mortal.  Adalbert understood something of this: having been run out of town in Bohemia by the local duke whose slave trade Adalbert attempted to halt, he would set his bishop’s title aside and become merely one brother among many.

To Otto, Adalbert offered a possible way out of this contradiction – a way through the darkness.  Adalbert, merely through prayer, could stop the frogs in Rome from croaking.  Indeed, it could be possible to bring the pagans to the City of God without the point of the sword.

In the summer of 996, the banks of the Elbe River were once again ablaze.  Adalbert was on the scene:

The following spring, by the side of an icy lake, a bare day’s journey beyond the borders of Poland and the protection of Boleslav, its Christian duke, Adalbert was hacked to death.  His killers were Prussians, a heathen and turbulent people, much given to tattooing themselves and downing pints of blood, who had scorned the missionary’s preaching as the sinister work of a ‘German god’.

The millennium was approaching, and Otto’s sense of dread was increasing.  Securing the Roman Empire and Christendom in time for this apocalyptic event weighed heavily.  Yes, the Wends had finally been tamed by 997, but time was running out.  And now Rome itself was under a tyrant.  Otto headed south.

In 998, the Holy Lance would be planted before the walls of Rome.  Siege engines were set against the city.  One of the instigators, Crescentius, would disguise himself, slip out of the city, and plead mercy from Otto.  Otto would send him back to face his doom.  Shortly after Easter, the city would be breached, and Crescentius decapitated.  His headless corpse was hung upside down for all to see.

This was a better fate than that reserved for Philagathos, the anti-pope and Otto’s tutor in his youth.  Yes, his life was spared, but his eyes were removed…then his nose…then his lips…then his tongue.  He was brought in this condition to Otto; Otto was appalled to silence, but not to clemency.  Philagathos was handed to the man he intended to replace, Pope Gregory, who had him fitted with a cap of animal skins, placed facing backward on a donkey, and paraded through Rome.  Finally, he was stripped of his priesthood and led away to a monastery to spend his days until his death.

Yes, Rome was restored – but at what cost?  Those from whom Otto most craved approval were horrified by his methods.  Nilus would confront the emperor and Pope Gregory, despite being ninety years old and weak from his Lenten fast: “For if you do not forgive him whom God has delivered into your hands, neither will the heavenly Father forgive you your own sins.”

This was Otto’s dilemma.  He was charged with preserving Christendom from Antichrist, yet all his brutalities served to put his fitness as God’s anointed into question.  Shortly thereafter, Pope Gregory fell suddenly sick and died.  How could it be seen by Otto as anything other than a result of Nilus’s curse?

Otto would head south toward Nilus. Along the way he performed many acts of public penance.  By the time he reached Nilus, it was evident that his contrition had been accepted as heartfelt:

Otto, slipping down from his saddle, knelt in tears before the hermit; and then removed his crown.

Nilus would return the crown to Otto, giving him his blessing.  With the one-thousandth anniversary of the Incarnation approaching, Otto would return to Rome to crown the new pope, Gerbert of Aurillac.  He would now be Sylvester II, a sure sign: just as the first Sylvester served Charlemagne, the new Sylvester would serve Otto.  Together, they would shepherd the flock.

Birthing Pains

The Birth of the West: Rome, Germany, France, and the Creation of Europe in the Tenth Century, by Paul Collins

Tenth century Europe rode in on the collapse of Charlemagne’s empire and rode out as foundational to what would be remembered by many as the high point of the Middle Ages.  Per Paul Collins, it was this century that gave birth to what we know (or once knew) as Europe.  Western civilization – the combination of the Frankish-Germanic people of northwestern Europe and Rome (or, perhaps, an idealized version of Roman civilization) – was formed during this period.

I am about a third of the way through the book.  This is a bit different than many of the books I have read on the topic.  It has little focus on the law, and much focus on the violence, intrigue, invasions, and forced conversions.  Then again, being only a third of the way through, I have not yet come to the “new Europe” part.

Certainly Collins notes that power was diffused; the idea of an absolute monarch didn’t enter Europe until the sixteenth century:

Instead, power in medieval society was noncentralized, consensual, and consultative, even if the consent was limited to the more powerful.

From my earlier reading, while the more powerful had more liberty in their consent, the less powerful were not left naked. 

We are introduced to the raids and invasions of Vikings, Magyars, Saracens – all made the easier due to almost continuous fighting among and between brothers regarding inheritance and kingship. 

While governance was decentralized, there was one thing binding all of the people:

Latin, or Western, Christianity, was the heart and soul of this new culture.  Catholicism totally permeated this society, and there was no distinction whatsoever between church and state in our sense.  They were simply two sides of the same coin.

While Catholicism permeated the society, this did not mean that conflict was unknown between king and Pope.  The Pope used the kings, the kings used the Pope – partners when necessary, conniving when sensing weakness.  In the earlier period, the kings were generally ascendant; in the latter period, the papacy came to challenge this dominance.

It was the Saxons – brought to Christendom in the most violent manner by Charlemagne – that, perhaps, saved Christendom.  Further, Poland and Hungary were eventually converted; even the Vikings came to Christianity.

A few themes from the introduction…

The fallacy of medieval: the Church was intolerant, stoning heretics and burning witches, etc.  Not so.  We read of Archbishop Agobard of Lyon, in the early ninth century, who came across a scene of villagers about to stone two “sky sailors.”

The villagers faced a bad crop, and potentially starvation; it was believed that such conditions were brought on by evil men who served the devil.  These “sky sailors” were, instead, just unfortunate travelers, who happened by at just the wrong time.  It was Agobard – the Catholic Archbishop – that saved these two unfortunates from the anger of the villagers.

The land: everything was tied to the land – it wasn’t just the serfs.  Massive dense forests: the nobles hunting for sport, the peasants hunting for survival.  Peasants holding traditional rights to hunt (although the right to hunt “big game” was reserved to the nobles), gather firewood and other products.  Cleared forest – some of known origin, others from pre-history.  The idea of anyone having full and absolute property rights was unknown. 

Monasteries: cleared land, provided rooms for travelers, maintained and developed tradition and scholarship. 

And now, a story: the Cadaver Synod. 

The Cadaver Synod is the name commonly given to the posthumous ecclesiastical trial of Pope Formosus, held in the Basilica of St. John Lateran in Rome during January 897. The trial was conducted by Pope Stephen VI (sometimes called Stephen VII), who was the successor to Formosus' successor, Pope Boniface VI. Stephen accused Formosus of perjury and of having acceded to the papacy illegally. At the end of the trial, Formosus was pronounced guilty and his papacy retroactively declared null.

A picture is worth a few thousand words:

A Touch of Velvet?

Recent events in Armenia afford me the opportunity to integrate a couple of topics of interest: geopolitics and the value of common culture.

The 2018 Armenian revolution were a series of anti-government protests in Armenia from April to May 2018 staged by various political and civil groups led by member of parliament Nikol Pashinyan (head of the Civil Contract party). Protests and marches took place initially in response to Serzh Sargsyan's third consecutive term as the most powerful figure in the government of the Armenia and later against the Republican Party-controlled government in general. Pashinyan declared it a Velvet Revolution.

Not to be confused with an earlier Velvet Revolution, that of the former Czechoslovakia and the end of one party communist rule in 1989.

The Armenian constitution was amended in 2015.  Whereas the position of president was previously the most powerful political position, under the new constitution this power would be concentrated in the prime minister.  Convenient for Sargsyan, who was to be term-limited out of the office of president after ten years in power.  He vowed that he would not take the position of prime minister, but did anyway.  Hence, the protests.

Geopolitics

The entire situation can be compared and contrasted with events in Ukraine.

Euromaidan was a wave of demonstrations and civil unrest in Ukraine, which began on the night of 21 November 2013 with public protests in Maidan Nezalezhnosti ("Independence Square") in Kiev. The protests were sparked by the Ukrainian government's decision to suspend the signing of an association agreement with the European Union, instead choosing closer ties to Russia and the Eurasian Economic Union.

What are the similarities?  Both Armenia and Ukraine are former Soviet Republics; both lie along the periphery of Mackinder’s world island; both lie in regions valuable for the west to disrupt if troubling Russia is of benefit. 

What are the differences?  Well, the demonstrations in Ukraine have led to war, unrest, a dividing of the country.  The demonstrations in Armenia have led (so far) only to a peaceful transition in the government. 

Unlike Ukraine, it is not clear that the demonstrations in Armenia were instigated or accelerated by external actors; unlike with Ukraine, those who so forcefully speak against the expansion of the empire (e.g. The Saker, Stephen F. Cohen, Paul Craig Roberts) have not discussed the transition in Armenia at all (to my knowledge) – or at least not at all in comparable terms.

So, maybe the west was not involved, or maybe Armenia is not seen as posing the same risk of instability along Russia’s frontier.  I will leave to others to examine the first possibility; I will focus on the second.  I will do this by also comparing the situation in Armenia with that of Ukraine.

Common Culture

Ukraine is a country of multiple languages, religions and traditions; the borders have been very malleable even in recent history.  To highlight (and I will greatly simplify):

What is Ukraine today includes (as recently as one hundred years ago): Poland, Austro-Hungary, Russia.  This divide can most easily be seen in the conflict today: the western portion of Ukraine looks to the west; the eastern portion looks to Russia.

According to the latest census (2001), 77.8% of the total population is Ukrainian. Russians form 17.3%, mainly in eastern Ukraine. Belarussians, Moldovans, Crimean Tatars, Bulgarians, Hungarians, Romanians, Poles, and Jews each account for less than 1% of the population. About 700,000 Rusyns (Ruthenians) live within the country, but they are not an officially recognized ethnic group.

Of course, given the relatively recent border changes, I suspect even the 77.8% Ukrainian can be further segmented.

Ukrainian is the official language and is spoken by about 67% of the population. Russian is spoken by about 24% of the population. Other languages include Romanian, Polish, and Hungarian.

Religions: Ukrainian Orthodox - Kyiv Patriarchate 19%, Orthodox (no particular jurisdiction) 16%, Ukrainian Orthodox - Moscow Patriarchate 9%, Ukrainian Greek Catholic 6%, Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox 1.7%, Protestant, Jewish, none 38% (2004 est.)

My point?  To call someone Ukrainian does not do justice to the different religions, languages, and traditions to be found in the country. 

What of Armenia?

Language: Armenian 97.7%, Kurdish 1%, Russian 0.9%, and other 0.4% (2001 census).  Armenian is the only official language.

Religion: According to the Census of 2011 the religion in Armenia is the following: Christianity 2,862,366 (94.8%) of whom 2,797,187 Armenian Apostolic (92.5%)….

Ethnic groups: 98.1% Armenian.

The first historical reference to Armenians is 2500 years old, and people who considered themselves Armenian have lived in the region continuously since at least that time.  Armenia became the first country to adopt Christianity, in 301 A.D.

Conclusion

Whatever the geopolitical background of the demonstrations and change in government in Armenia, things seemed to have settled down quickly.  While there are still risks, the events transpired with no bloodshed, no police crackdowns, no snipers of unknown origins on the rooftops, and no visits by US senators or state department personnel announcing “we are with you” while handing out cookies. 

Most importantly, no civil war or war of secession.

Perhaps the reason for the difference in outcome vs. that of Ukraine has something to do with the common culture and long-lasting traditions of the Armenian people.  An interesting statement when one considers the issue of nationality and borders.  Armenia’s borders work to unite and defend; Ukraine’s borders work to divide and weaken. 

Maybe borders work best when they are formed by people with a common culture and tradition.

Perhaps it is time for decentralization in Ukraine.

The Betrayer of High Principles

Against Our Better Judgment: The Hidden History of How the U.S. Was Used to Create Israel, by Alison Weir

The United States has a moral prestige in the Near and Middle East unequaled by that of any other great power.  We would lose that prestige and would be likely for many years to be considered as a betrayer of the high principles which we ourselves have enunciated….

-        Loy Henderson, US State Department, 1945

Having recently completed a series on Hugh Wilford’s book, America's Great Game: The CIA’s Secret Arabists and the Shaping of the Modern Middle East, I have decided to go further into this backstory with this complimentary examination offered by Weir.

Weir’s book is not long – sixteen chapters at just over 90 pages.  There are, however, about 110 pages of endnotes and almost 25 pages of “Works Cited.”  It seems safe to say that what this book lacks in wordiness is more than made up for in foundation.

In this review and given the relatively short length of each chapter, I will briefly summarize each chapter; the section titles are my own – not chapter titles in the book, but reflective of the title / content.  I will likely cover the book in about three posts.

The Birth of the Special Relationship

The reality is that for decades U.S. foreign policy and defense experts opposed supporting the creation of Israel.

And then things changed.  The result has been never ending wars, funding, and a destruction of freedom for America and Americans.  It has given birth to bigotry toward an entire population, religion and culture – a population with which America had previously held prestige.

In the Beginning…

…was “political Zionism,”

…an international movement that began in the late 1800s with the goal of creating a Jewish state somewhere in the world.

The First Zionist Congress was held in 1897, in Basel, Switzerland and led by Theodor Herzl.  The Congress established the World Zionist Organization – initially with 117 groups worldwide, by the next year about 900.

Several locations were considered for this Jewish state – apparently including Texas!  They settled on Palestine as the objective.  There was a small problem:

…Palestine was already inhabited by a population that was 93 – 96 percent non-Jewish.

The Palestinians would be pushed out – financially if possible, violently if necessary.

American Zionists played a prominent role in this endeavor:

By 1918 there were 200,000 Zionists in the U.S, and by 1948 this number had grown to almost a million.

Within the US government, memo after memo made clear that Zionism was contrary to US interests.

The Parushim

The Perushim were disciples of the Vilna Gaon, Rabbi Elijah ben Solomon Zalman, who left Lithuania at the beginning of the 19th century to settle in the Land of Israel, which was then part of Ottoman Syria under Ottoman rule. They were from the section of the community known as mitnagdim (opponents of the Chassidic movement) in Lithuania.

This chapter has nothing to do with this group; instead…

Reflex Movements

Reflex movements have been reported to occur in up to 75% of brain-dead patients…

The Russian Origins of the First World War, by Sean McMeekin

McMeekin offers his analysis of events in Russia during 1917 and how these effected Russia’s involvement in the war.  The connection of this to the title should become apparent shortly, if you haven’t already figured it out.

              

[It would be] absurd and criminal to renounce the biggest prize of the war…in the name of some humanitarian and cosmopolitan idea of international socialism.

-        Pavel Miliukov, Foreign Minister, Russian Provisional Government; March, 1917

Miliukov was an advocate of continuing the war after the February Revolution; needless to say, this did not garner him much support from the supporters of Lenin.  On 20 April, 1917, he sent a telegram to Britain and France, stating that Russia would continue to support its allies and wage the war to the end.

In the first week of May he resigned his post.  But I am getting ahead of myself….

1916

The war was not going terribly well for the western allies during this year – not much ground lost, but not much ground gained.  The same could not be said for Russia and her advances in Anatolia and the Middle East.  While Congress Poland and the oilfields of Ploesti were lost to them…

…the Russians, after an initial disaster at Lake Narotch in March, had won victory after victory in the East, from Brusilov’s numerous (albeit tactical) breakthroughs in Galicia to northeastern Turkey, where the Caucasian army was carrying all before it.

A year earlier, in 1915, Russia suffered from regular shell shortages.  No longer:

Russia produced four times as much shell as Austria-Hungary in 1916 and nearly as much as Germany, which was sending most of it is own output to the western front.

Foreign capital flowed into the country; the economy was “thriving,” according to McMeekin.

In the meantime, the war on Russia’s south was going well.  Advances were made in Persia and Mesopotamia.  Things were even better in Turkey; the northwestern portions of Turkey were secured during the Anatolian campaign of 1916.  The winter of 1916 – 1917 was harsh, but there was every reason to believe that with the spring, Russia could continue consolidating further gains at Turkey’s expense.

One of Russia’s long-time objectives, the one that would secure the warm-water access that was so coveted, was within sight.  When this was stated openly in the Duma by the new chairman of the Council of Ministers, the announcement was met by “the usual mob of hecklers” – led by Alexander Kerensky.

1917

February saw, with today’s knowledge of what was to come within days, a surreal event in Petrograd.  A conference of the Allies was held: France, Britain, and Italy, along with Russia.  Maurice Paléologue, the French ambassador to Russia offers extensive notes regarding the internal situation in Petrograd.  For those interested, I offer some passages here.

It was in this environment where Pavel Miliukov made the statement regarding Constantinople, cited above.

The picture was surreal in the war offices as well – war planning for 1917 continued unaltered, unaffected by events in Petrograd.  Planning was moving forward for more aggressive amphibious assaults along Turkey’s Black Sea coast, to even include the Straits. 

March 14 saw the issuing of “Order No. 1” by the new provisional government, abolishing most elements of officer control in the armed forces and mandating the election of “soldier soviets.”  The order was received by Baratov in Persia, as one example, as if it came from “outer space.”  He was not forced to withdraw until June 1918 – fourteen months after the order was issued.

On the European front, however, morale was breaking down – then again, on the European front there were no military advances that might offer a boost to morale.  McMeekin offers this picture as an image of the Russian morale on the European front during 1917; it depicts Russian soldiers fleeing the Germans on the Galician front, July 1917.

Conclusion

The Bolsheviks seized power on the night of 7-8 November, 1917.  They immediately petitioned for and were granted an armistice by the Central Powers, culminating with the Brest-Litovsk negotiations; they repudiated all obligations to their former Allies; Trotsky leaked the “secret treaties” – of which the most important, perhaps, was the Sykes-Picot Agreement – to the Manchester Guardian.

Russia was thrown into Civil War – primarily the Red Army against what is referred to as the White Army.  The most significant fighting occurred within the first three years and the war ended by 1923.  Perhaps 300,000 were killed in the fighting.

The Red Terror, the White Terror, summary executions, Cossacks killed and deported, the economy devastated.

You know the rest.