JC2
Last week I posted about the term "Judeo-Christian." I got a lengthy comment from "JGR." Let me reprint it and respond.
With all due respect, this post really comes across as uneducated. The term "Judeo-Christian" is used in rougly the same way that "Graeco-Roman" is used, to illustrate the historical continuity and similarities between two phenomena despite differences. One can easily imagine a Roman citizen criticizing the term "Graeco-Roman" by explaining numerous differences between their beliefs and customs, but that would appear trivial and provincial to a moderner who understood the context.It is generally said that most of our Western tradition is derived from two traditions - Our Judeo-Christian heritage and our pagan or secular inheritance from Greece and Rome. (See, for instance, Russell Kirk's The Roots of American Order, although one could substitute almost any book on the topic since this is not a controversial position.)In a recent article on the HBO series Rome, the writer Gerald J Russello illustrates how radical an impact Judeo-Christian values had on the West:"The Romans did develop a legal culture that is the basis of the Western legal system, including notions of natural law and rights, but that system was harsh: Testimony from slaves in court, for example, was not admitted absent torture. It had not yet been enlightened through the principles of equity that would make their appearance with the Catholic Church’s canon law and admonitions of charity. The brutality towards slaves evidenced in the show is echoed in its depiction of the family. Wives and children had almost as low a status as slaves, and again the show portrays harsh realities without exaggeration or superficiality. Husbands could, and did, beat their wives with impunity, their children were only extensions of the father’s will, and the wife was clearly not the equal partner. Marriage was a religious event, but not, as it would later become, a sacrament. Women without husbands would become destitute, be sold into slavery, or become prostitutes."http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=NmM0Y2FhNzFmODQxMTlkMjY4ODA3NDllOTU0NzlkOWU=The blogger writes that everybody is opposed to murder and theft, implying that our Judeo-Christian inheritance is largely irrelevant. In fact, it was once acceptable to kill or steal from anybody not directly in your tribe. The poetry of Homer was once used as the moral edification of young Greeks the way Christians use the bible, and the acutal hero of The Odyssey (what we would today call an anti-hero)was a soldier-thief who bragged about ransacking towns and stealing whatever booty he could get away with. Nobody thought anything odd about that; It would not be until the triumph of Christianity that people began to internalize the belief that every human life had value because they were created in the image of God, and hence every human had natural rights - popularized in the Declaration of Independence. ("We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights"). This belief led directly to the abolition of slavery, among a hundred other things.
First, the term "Judeo-Christian" is of modern coinage, so whatever connection these two religions had over the centuries, no one thought much of it until recently. Presumably, it became convenient, for one reason or another, to show this connection after years of religions emphasizing their differences.
Second, "Judeo-Christian values" is itself used inconsistently. It's often (usually?) used today by conservatives to attack people they disagree with politically. That many, perhaps most of the people attacked are themselves Jews or Christians speaks volumes about how the phrase is more than merely some wise recognition of the morality shared by two great religions.
Third, the quotes above aren't about "Judeo-Christian" values--or even just "Christian values," though those seem to be the only values discussed--so much as the debate over Jersualem versus Athens. And the chip on the shoulder a lot of religious conservatives seem to have regarding Athens--along with a blind spot about their religion--I find alarming. Without going into the particulars of this tendentious argument, I'd claim much of what we celebrate about our world today (including modern concepts of liberty, democracy, property, personal virtue, bravery, and open philosophic and scientific inquiry), would be unlikley, perhaps unimaginable, without our pagan ancestors.
posted by LAGuy @ 12:47 AM
5 Comments:
I agree with LAGuy's comments about 90%, so just to be perverse I will start with the one point I disagree with him on:
First, the term "Judeo-Christian" is of modern coinage, so whatever connection these two religions had over the centuries, no one thought much of it until recently.
Neither your logic nor your conclusion is correct here. 1. If someone in Pittsburgh coined the word "Luno-tidism" last week, it doesn't follow that no one before a week ago thought much about the connection between the moon and tides. 2. In point of fact, the connection between Judaism and Christianity is central to many discussions by the Church Fathers, was used by Voltaire as an argument for rejecting Christianity, and was discussed in a thousand different ways during the heyday of modern antisemitism in Europe.
Of course, the connection between Judaism and Christianity has been such an object of study for 2000 years precisely because it is so asymmetrical. Religious Jews must reject the core theological and historical beliefs of Christianity, while Christians must accept the core theological and historical beliefs of Judaism.
That being said, I agree with you that Western Civilization is fundamentally the child of both Jerusalem and Athens. And historically, any attempts to build it on just one or the other has resulted in a society that simply does not look like what we call Western Civ. (Think of Cromwell on the one hand, and Marx on the other.)
The Declaration of Independence is a clear case of this:
* "All men are created equal": This comes from the Judeo-Christian tradition, and would have seemed absurd to Aristotle or Plato.
* "Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the consent of the governed": This comes from the Greco-Roman tradition, and would have seemed absurd to King David (who refused to harm Saul, the Lord's anointed, even when Saul had been rejected as king).
Also, you mentioned "scientific inquiry". I think this owes at least as much to the Judeo-Christian theology as it does to paganism.
Many ancient pagans saw the world as fundamentally inscrutable. On the other hand, Catholic philosophy teaches that God created our minds commensurate with the world. Therefore, we have the ability to learn about the world -- even to learn fundamental facts about the universe -- by using our minds.
An atheist may believe that the brains of homo sapiens are capable of deducing the origin of galaxies, the behavior of quarks, and the nature of time itself. But the atheist still has to recognize this as an amazing development. We would a priori expect some species of mammals to evolve into highly intelligent tool users, who can use their brains to hunt very efficiently. It's not impossible that, as an odd side-effect of evolving better tool users, the universe accidentally developed a conscious life-form that can understand galactic dynamics. But it's pretty darn amazing.
So an atheist can be glad that we can do science, but sees the fact that science exists as the result of luck. And many ancient pagans simply denied that it could be done at all.
Of course, the Greek philosophers thought the universe was comprehensible, but this was due at least in part to their metaphysical understanding of "the One" and its connection to the rational soul. And that's a part of Athens which today is disavowed by most agnostics, atheists, and Protestants.
There's no question some of the great scientific achievements of the West were created by religious people, but it seems to me they were working in a tradition of searching for answers in the world, regardless of where your thinking may lead you, unconstrained by dogma, that's as much Greek as anything. (Not that the Greek's didn't have serious flaws as scientists, but that's another issue.)
Also, I agree there's a distinct mystical side to ancient Greece and Rome. And perhaps you'd agree it had a significant influence on Christianity (and Judaism, though obviously not from the start).
The Christians may have changed the Roman world, or redirected it, but much of what they were, was also adopted from that world.
The Christians may have changed the Roman world, or redirected it, but much of what they were, was also adopted from that world.
Agreed. And Judaism, after Maimonides, also adopted quite a bit from the Greco-Roman tradition.
In my posts, I followed your lead in separating "Jerusalem" from "Athens". I took "Jerusalem" to mean the Judeo-Christian tradition up to about 100 CE. That means that the Catholic tradition (which I adhere to) recognizes both "Jerusalem" and "Athens" as our philosophical parents (although only "Jerusalem" as our theological parent).
First, I appreciate laguy reprinting my comments and giving me a chance to respond. As I reread both posts, it becomes obvious that we are essentially talking past each other because we are having two different conversations. I will try to explain more fully, with the same civility that laguy has shown.
Unfortunately, he seems to have completely misunderstood my reason for the long history lesson. I did not have any interest in arguing Athens vs. Jerusalem. I was pointing out - for reasons directly relevant to the topic - that they were both EQUALLY important in shaping the modern Western world. I have heard Christian fundamentalist preachers state that all of Western civilization owes its existence to the bible, and I imagine that if I were posting a response on their website, I would have to go through a long description of the importance of Greece and Rome in shaping our modern political institutions and culture.
I think the primary confusion in this discussion can be traced to the fact that I am someone who rarely watches television and still reads books, so I tend to interpret the term "Judeo-Christian" the way that I (almost) always see it used in educated works - It is a serious and important (indeed essential)term that is generally used for the complex of values, beliefs, and historical/sociological phenomena which can be traced originally to the Jewish tribes, was incorporated in Christianity, and has had a large influence on our planet. If there were an alternate earth where the Jews had not existed, our entire history would be radically different.
Now the truth is, as I have stated, that I don't watch a lot of television. I get the sense from reading laguy's post that there may be many conservatives who use the term "Judeo-Christian" as an unneccessary synonym for Christianity. Perhaps a Christian who opposes homosexuality may make a reference to "Judeo-Christian values", and I can see that this would be confusing and would lead someone to question why they would use such a phrase. But the point is that just because they are using the term superficially doesn't mean that the term itself is somehow wrong. There are hundreds of cases where important terms are used superficially by people who don't understand the full context.
Look at it this way: Suppose an alien civilization showed up and tried to understand the modern world, human culture and society, and had to write a short paper for their leaders. At least concerning the Western world, the paper would primarily highlight our secular and pagan inheritance from Greece and Rome, and our "Judeo-Christian" tradition. My short history was simply designed to show why this heritage is more important than many people think - Rome was radically different before Christianity, and the modern world would be radically different without it. Laguy continues to stress the differences between Judaism and Christianity, and between different parts of Christianity, but (setting aside the loony fringe groups) these all have much more in common with each other than with other cultures - whether Norse, Haitian Voodoo, classical paganism or a hundred others. This is what the references to the show Rome were designed to highlight. We are so accustomed to modern disputes that a show like Rome shocks us into realizing how trivial these seem from a historical perspective.
Our Judeo-Christian heritage is such a common part of our society - like the air that we breathe - that people don't realize the extent to which it influences many things that they don't think of primarily as religious things at all - from our legal institutions to everyday habits. Shame-based cultures, such as exist in many middle-eastern countries, lead to very different outcomes in many areas than our Western societies based on the morality of conscience. See this scholarly article by Roland Muller:
http://nabataea.net/h&s.html
See also Richard Brookhiser's excellent book The Way of the Wasp.
This is why "Judeo-Christian values" are not only important historically, but continue to have everyday importance when one compares America to other modern non-Western societies.
The bottom line is that something called "Judeo-Christian values" are real, are important, and we would all be living in a very different world if they hadn't existed. It makes sense to speak about "our Judeo-Christian values" even if talking heads on TV use the phrase superficially.
But for all that, I would still have to question whether the term is in fact used that wrongly even if used in the more superficial sense - sexual mores and things like that. If a politician states that he opposes pre-marital sex because of his "Judeo-Christian values", I can understand this as basically a true statement - I suspect that, notwithstanding laguy's point that Jews and Christians disagree with each other, the term is accurate enough in highlighting their essential agreement on sexual morality. But I would still agree with laguy that this a pointless way to say what he really means if talking about his religious belief - There is no good reason to introduce a sociological term to describe his belief, and indeed, such wordings are not usually used by genuinely religious people. It comes off as awkward, as when Al Gore made a reference to his "faith based tradition". Genuine Christians don't usually talk like that - they explain why they don't sin by saying "it's sin".
The matter is more complicated if the politician is making a larger sociological point that is intermediary between his personal religious belief and the long historical view that I have outlined. Suppose that he states that he opposes prostitution or polygamy as against "our traditional Judeo-Christian values". Well, society's views on private sexual matters do in fact have a large impact on the type of society itself (This statement is true independent of one's belief whether the government should have the power to regulate sexuality). For instance, cultures that practice polygamy tend to create a large group of dissatisfied and resentful males that wreck havoc on society, which is why the prominent libertarian Jonathan Rauch has recently come out against polygamy. So the term seems reasonably accurate in this intermediate sociological sense also - "Judeo-Christian values", even if used to describe the sexual morality aspect, can lead to very different types of societies than certain other types of values.
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