Jesus famously told his disciples “take up your cross and follow me” and the church has proudly circulated stories of Christian martyrs ever since. Stories of believers who refused to renounce their faith in the face of persecution inspire some to great acts of heroism but can also promote a spirit of victimization. In her new book “The Myth of Christian Persecution” Candida Moss argues that the martyrdom stories from the first centuries of the Christian church have been exaggerated, and in many cases completely fabricated. Contrary to popular accounts of church history there never was any widespread systematic persecution of Christians in the first centuries of the common era. Join us as we discuss her fascinating book.
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the ideology of death – culture industry http://deltamachine.atspace.cc/
Another great episode. The following thought came up for me in response to your comments on terrorism: Non-governmental terrorism is A Bad Idea not because it is always unjustified, just that governments are so much better at terrorism and at spinning it to the public, so all you can hope to accomplish by non-governmental terrorism is your own death, the deaths of innocents, and a general loss of public support for your cause. With the advent of the internet, and while it is still largely outside of direct government control, it is a much better idea to make your case in the myriad forums available through the internet.
Wow! This form has a truly absurd spell-checker. It is flagging “internet” as a spelling error!
I know I harp on this. We need to get past being surprised that there are liberal Christians. I’m sure Notre Dame holds on to a lot of fundamentalists values, but they are an institution of learning. It was the professors in seminaries in the last century that taught the actual history of the Bible that gave us the likes of Bart Ehrmann and others. If we aren’t aware of the reforms that are going on within churches, then we can’t support them. We don’t need to know every detail, but we look uninformed and ignorant if aren’t aware of any of it.
Besides that 2 second comment (“does Notre Dame know about this”), great show as always!!
I get allergic eating shellfish. Ha!
@Lausten North #3:
Article: Wikipedia – Liberal Christianity
Thanks guys, another piece of the ” making-sense-of-religion” jigsaw puzzle has been put in place.
Ps. I like Dave’s pedanticism because I too NEED TO KNOW every little detail of a story. :)
@SkyCaptain;
I have no idea what you are saying with your unreferenced Wiki-statistic. The increasing acceptance of the LGBT community and a Pope with Liberation Theology roots says far more. Even if there were less, knowing who they are would be just as valuable.
@Lausten North#7:
Liberal Christianity != Christians who are politically liberal
@Lausten North#7:
What you reacted to in the podcast @14:47:
The topic was contradicting popular dogma and misconception with scholarship. You mentioned Bart Ehrman, and said “We need to get past being surprised that there are liberal Christians.”
I responded with a statistic suggesting why meeting a christian with that theology would be surprising, and a link to the description (seeing the bible as subject to modern scholarship, rather than dogmatic creeds and miracle assertions). There’s a Barna report (evangelical polling firm) and Gallup if you prefer.
Oh, I had a brain fart composing my previous comment #7:
I quoted the “liberal” theology definition rather than how the “mainline” churches actually incorporate it.
Article: Wikipedia – Mainline Protestant:
So I was reading this: http://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/comment.html?entrynum=2391
And I saw pictures of the flooding in downtown Grand Rapids, Michigan.
I hope you are all safe and sound.
“Liberal Christianity != Christians who are politically liberal”
Ahh, we’re talking about two completely different things. That explains it.
The word “Internet” is supposed to be capitalized – could that be it? My browser (Chrome) doesn’t flag it with a lower-case “i,” but maybe yours does.
The Culture Industry – The Ideology of Death
ireport.cnn.com/docs/DOC-961596
,.,.,,,..,,.
Lausten,
Are you seriously trying to say the new Pope is theologically liberal? For one thing, he doesn’t accept liberation theology like you claim, but in fact helped attempt to stamp liberation theology out in South America.
Have you heard his views on the LGBT and secular community? Calling gay people disturbed individuals, saying the devil invented same-sex marriage, and claiming that atheists pray to Satan is not very liberal. He also says that gay adoption shouldn’t be allowed because it is “discrimination against children.” He is no theological liberal. Politically he may not be as far right-wing on economic issues as many American Republicans, but as far as I can tell his social views on issues like LGBT rights, contraception, abortion, and women’s rights are about as liberal as Rick Santorum’s.
I said “roots”, meaning he was there. He neither led the movement nor helped “stamp it out”. The whole Pope thing is peripheral to my point anyway. I’m not going to analyze the details of Popedom.
Lausten,
One of your main points was that we were ignoring how influential liberal Christianity is, and the pope’s supposed liberalism was 1 of only 2 examples you used to back up your claim. My point is that you have an extremely confusing definition of liberal if you think that word describes the current pope. I don’t see why you think the point is peripheral, when that was 50% of your evidence
And the current pope certainly does not have “roots” in liberation theology. He loudly denounced the movement, and helped assist the Vatican when they sent high ranking officials to South America to threaten priests supporting liberation theology with excommunication.
Indigenous Atheist: “Ps. I like Dave’s pedanticism”
The word is ‘pedantry’.
I spend an inordinate amount of time on religious chat sites, so when I say that I don’t have time to sort out how you are misconstruing my words, not mention making a mockery of statistical analysis, you might want to take that to heart.
OK, I’ll take it to heart that you are too busy commenting on religious chat sites to correct your misinformation about the influence of liberation theology on the current ‘liberal’ Pope.
(If I said something similar to your claim, like that Michele Bachmann’s positions have secular humanism roots and her prominence shows how tolerant the modern-day GOP is, I would anticipate that I might have to justify that claim, but your time is your time, so enjoy yourself.)
@ andrewryan
Thanks for your correction, the word I should have used is “pedantry”. I knew that as soon as I had clicked on the “Submit Comment” button [of course].
By they way, one of my favourite Rugby League footbal players is named Andrew Ryan, he captained the Canterbury Bulldogs.
Indigenous Atheist, yes that’s me.
Not really, and I’m not the villain of BioShock either. I am, however, Carl Sagan’s third wife.
I don’t normally correct people’s grammar/spelling etc, but I thought it appropriate given that you were discussing pedantry to be a bit pedantic myself!
I would think there were much better theologians out in the Catholic World that this would have been brought out to the public along time ago! Apparently the Christians sent to the Coliseum to be eaten by Lions, the Apostles who Martryed is just lies! What liberal think tank did you come out of!!! I mean you have no better to do than Satan’s work who is the Master of lies and the Prince of Darkness! Perhaps you’ll blasphem the Lord Jesus Christ with some more of Satan’s fairy tales!!! If I were you I would repent and come back to Christ your Savior!
It’s been known that they were myths for a while. This book is just a reminder for the general public.
Most people who call themselves christians barely learn doctrines and a few stories about the bible they heard in church, much less actually read through the bible (to see whether the stories were really in there as described), let alone follow biblical scholarship or classical history.
Clearly, you are all-knowing and infallable.
If someone points out your ignorance they must be a liar.
They words you used are spelled “Colosseum”, “martyred”, and “blaspheme” by the way.
Oh no, all the dictionaries are allied with Satan too!
I think people are getting Liberation theology, Liberal xtian and Liberal theology mixed up (but I am no expert and may be using the wrong vernacular for them).
Liberation theology – interpreting the words of Jesus as a call to action to aid the poor
Liberal xtian – a xtian of any stripe who holds “progressive” social and/or political views, such as a Catholic or Baptist who supports church/state separation or gay rights
Liberal theology– often refers to “higher criticism” or “historical criticism”, which investigates the ancient texts in the context of their historical time period. An example of higher criticism is understanding that that there were a lot people claiming to be the messiah when Jesus was making the same claim; so that people were ripe to follow him. Thus Jesus gaining followers was not as historically unprecedented as many xtians claim. Another example, from the program, is that the martyr stories were more like the martyr memes of their time rather than recounts of actual events.
Higher criticism began in the 17th century, and lead to the writing of The Fundamentals in the 1920’s as a reaction to it. Conservative xtian theologians don’t much like higher criticism, and like to smear it with the “liberal” label.
Sixtus, this stuff has been known for centuries. My Lutheran pastor told us some of this stuff in our Bible study classes 35 years ago! Every seminary trained priest and minister knows it. They just have a hard time educating their congregations about it. The average xtian stops learning about their own religion after they leave Sunday school so most have, at best, a grade 4 level of understanding of the Bible and their church’s theology.
Just wanted to let you guys know that ‘The Myth of Persecution’ was featured on Cracked.com. Pretty cool, huh? http://www.cracked.com/article_20536_5-ridiculous-lies-you-believe-about-ancient-civilizations.html
I forgot to mention that it was a linked in the word “Zip” and goes to another article about the book.
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