Stephen raised some interesting questions, so I thought I’d start a thread on the book/movie and the ideas associated with it.
I saw the movie which was very powerful but I have not read the book.
The book is equally powerful. I’ll keep an eye out for the movie; I’d love to see it.
I understand the Christian impulse to evangelize but the western missionary movement was so tied up with economic and political colonialism that it makes me suspicious of it.
Yes, that’s a hard one.
I would ask Rodrigues and Garupe what they think they have that is not already present in Japanese thought? And what exactly are the Japanese converts actually “converting” to? Can you really enter into another system of thought if you are not native to it? Without having absorbed from birth all the hidden cultural assumptions that support it?
It must eventually be an amalgamation of beliefs.
I was reading about missionary activities in New Guinea yesterday. While missionaries only arrived in the 19th century, and there were very few converts even into the early decades of the 20th century, the place is now 96% Christian. It should be said, however, that the vast majority are bringing indigenous beliefs and practices into the equation.
I watched it last night, for the first time.
I found it visually impressive, but the storytelling I found wanting.
It was long (2.5 hrs), and the effect felt tedious.
The depictions of martyrdom at once showed too much and too little. Many of the tortures are depicted, and yet they are not shown with enough detail to make the degree of suffering obvious. It’s not left to the imagination, and yet the degree of suffering is not clear from the image we are given. (e.g., why does the water from the hot-springs hurt? Later, having some water splash over your face occasionally doesn’t look very painful.)
The characters (especially Fr. Rodriguez) were underdeveloped, even though we had access to his inner monologue. For example, it is relatively early on that he counsels others to tread on the image when tested. So, for whatever reason (not explained) he thinks it is okay to feign apostasy to save yourself and others, yet the climax of the movie is only whether he will follow his own council.
I understand the Christian impulse to evangelize but the western missionary movement was so tied up with economic and political colonialism that it makes me suspicious of it.
I think it is a both-and. I think many missionaries were sincerely trying to save souls–hence their willingness to embrace martyrdom. But cultural and economic issues were inevitably bound up in the project. They may, for example, have been financed by people who were less interested in saving souls than in socioeconomic influence. And the line wasn’t always clear: If your culture is Christian and (on your view) built on Christianity, in contrast with the native heathen culture built on heathen principles, then spreading Christianity will naturally involve spreading some of your culture too. I mean, of course western Christian missionaries spread Latin, for example, as that was the language that Christian literature was in.
I would ask Rodriguez and Garupe what they think they have that is not already present in Japanese thought?
As 17th century Jesuits, they would have been taught that belief in specific revealed proposition (e.g., the Trinity, the Incarnation) was strictly necessary for salvation. And although they would presumably have accepted extra-sacramental justification, they would have viewed it as uncertain and difficult: the sure and easy way to salvation was through the sacraments validly administered by the Church’s ministers. When we see them administering baptism, and granting sacramental absolution, and saying the mass, they really thought they were bringing salvation to people whose salvation was otherwise in dire jeopardy. There also were distinctive moral precepts, like monogamy, though interestingly, in the case of those, invincible ignorance would have mitigated any sin.
Consider the Buddhist concept of the Bodhisattva, “one whose being is enlightenment”. The Bodhisattva is one who has attained enlightenment, freed themselves from the endless round of suffering and rebirth engendered by desire and fear, but who, out of compassion, refuse their own passage into Nirvana until all sentient beings are freed from suffering. Surely as profound a concept as the compassion and forgiveness of Christ.
But contrast John 14:6 with the counsel of Krishna in the Bhagavad Gita that he will accept any offering given in sincerity and devotion, even one done in the name of another deity. Which of those is the most spiritually mature approach?
All religions are so time bound and culture bound that the idea that someone from an alien culture can ever hope to enter into another, I.e. “conversion”, is simply deluded. It’s hard enough to go from one denomination of a single religion to another. All religions are an amalgam of profundity and confusion. In each one you can encounter ideas ranging in a continuum from the most benign to the most malignant.
For me of course the question is, once indoctrinated, can we ever truly leave it behind?
To a certain extent, I will always still love many of the beliefs I have abandoned. They made me who I am.
I would say it was not the beliefs that made me what I am but my struggle to free myself from them that made me what I am. I certainly do not claim to have been abused in the same sense but I have a good friend who was sexually abused as a child. She is not the person she was before the abuse or even the one she might have been without experiencing it. She is the person she became when healing herself from the effects of the abuse. Healing from any trauma consists not of putting it behind you but of learning to live with it. in her case she literally had to rebuild her self from the ground up.
I would say I experienced a certain amount of psychological abuse. The fact it was nested within a tight-knit loving community made it worse not better. Harder to deal with because it was alloyed with what would otherwise be considered positive experience. Almost impossible to abandon one without abandoning the other. Consequently I have always found it very difficult to truly enter into close relationships either singly or in groups. I spent a long time looking for a replacement for what I lost until I finally realized that once lost it was impossible to replace.
But I got off easy. I escaped. Many, too many, have not. Whatever wounds I incurred have not been debilitating. I possess no lasting resentment or anger. I think I was successful mostly because I didn’t simply run away. I dived in and came out the other side. Hence my continuing interest in these subjects. My friend has helped me a lot. Her healing process made her very wise.
I think I’m somewhere between the two of you, but probably closer to Robert on the whole.
There are aspects of Catholicism that were very positive influences on me. The art, for example. And major parts of the ethical and intellectual tradition.
There are aspects of Catholicism that I resent; I feel that the movement as a whole lied to me (though the individuals who spoke the lies had themselves been dupped and passed it on in good faith); I feel like I wasted the best years of my life and spent a lot of time perpetuating those lies.
On the whole though, if I try to imagine what I would be like had I not spent decades as a Catholic, I just can’t recognize that person as myself.
I suppose it’s much like how I feel about my country. There are things I like about it and things I very much don’t like about it, but at the end of the day, it has formed me, in a million subtle ways, into the person I am: when I travel abroad, I will forever feel like a foreigner; and when I return to the States, it will always feel like home. I can’t help but feel what I think they once called “patriotism”. It isn’t some blind jingoism, but if I hated my country, I would hate myself.
I look at it now, and I’m not sure it’s worth the effort to teach my kids Latin (realize that five years ago, it would have been unthinkable for me not to teach it to them). But even if, in the plainest reckoning, it was all a waste of time, who would I be if I hadn’t spent those countless hours poring over medieval philosophical texts?
Apparently Classics majors do well on the LSAT.
Contrary to the popular image graduates with liberal arts degrees are highly valued in the private work force. Why? Because they can almost be guaranteed to be able to communicate well and think clearly, still highly valued skills apparently. On the other hand our business schools pump out well motivated morons by the truckload.
BDEhrman
FreedomBen
evgendob
Robert
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