Tag Archives: Phillip Jenkins

Dr. Hassaballa Condemns Beheading of Monk in Istanbul

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In the Name of God, the Kind, the Beautiful
 
In keeping with my consistent policy to condemn acts of violence against the innocent, let me be one of the first to condemn the beheading of a monk in Istanbul. The monk was from the countryside, and apparently the populace was enraged at a church hymn which the monk was accused of modifying. Assailants cut off his head, placed it on a pole, and paraded with the head in the streets. This, after many parts of the city were set on fire by angry mobs.
 
Such horrific violence is abhorrent to me, and I stand and speak out against such barbarity. This is not what God has called for His servants on earth to do. There is nothing godly about beheading a fellow human being. No Prophet of God would ever condone such brutality. I condemn it unequivocally.
 
If you are confused…do not feel bad.
 
No such incident has occurred in Istanbul…in current times. But, such an incident did occur in Constantinople around the year 511. Now, in your mind (be honest) were you thinking that it was Muslims who beheaded a Christian? The truth, you may be shocked to know, is that this incident was Christian on Christian violence:
 
The church of the day had a beloved hymn, the Trisagion or Thrice Holy, which praised, “Holy God, Holy and Mighty, Holy Immortal” (Orthodox churches sing it to this day). But the emperor, Anastasius, wanted to revise it in the Monophysite fashion, by lauding this God “Who was crucified for our sakes.” The new formula proclaimed that it was God alone who walked the soil of Palestine in the first century and suffered on the cross, a view that ignores the human reality of Jesus. So angry were the capital’s residents that they launched a bloody riot:
 
Persons of rank and station were brought into extreme danger, and many principal parts of the city were set on fire. In the house of Marinus the Syrian, the populace found a monk from the country. They cut off his head, saying that the clause had been added at his instigation; and having fixed it upon a pole, jeeringly exclaimed: “See the plotter against the Trinity!”
 

This is taken from Philip Jenkins’ book, Jesus Wars, on page 31. The point of the exercise of this blog post is perfectly summarized by Jenkins’ himself:

 

We can imagine the response if, in the twenty-first century, a Muslim mob beheaded a dissident theologian and paraded the grisly trophy around the streets. Not only would the crime be (properly) denounced, but Westerners would assume that such behavior was part of the fundamental character of that religion – a bloodthirsty, warlike intolerance that could be traced back to the sternest passages of the Quran. The beheading would be seen as a trademark of Islamic fanaticism. Surely, we would say, Christians would never act like that. But they assuredly did. (p. 31)

 
I could not have said it better myself.

An Outsider’s Perspective

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In the Name of God, the Kind, the Beautiful

I am very interested in early Church history…it is sort of an “intellectual hobby” of mine. In keeping with this interest, I am currently reading the book, Jesus Wars: How Four Patriarchs, Three Queens, and Two Emperors Decided What Christians Would Believe for the Next 1,500 Years. It is a very interesting read.

And as I was reading, I came across this section – “Christianity and Islam” - and I was blown away. I wanted to reproduce part of it for you:

Out-of-control clergy, religious demagogues with their consecrated militias, religious parties usurping the functions of the states…It all sounds like the worst stereotypes of contemporary radical Islam, in Iran and Somalia, Iraq and Lebanon. And then, as now, the problem lay not in any characteristics of the religion itself, of its doctrines or Scriptures, but in the state’s inability to control private violence. Just a century after the conversion of the Roman empire, Christian churches were acting precisely on the lines of the most extreme Islamic mullahs today. This in itself suggests that none of the violence or intolerance commonly seen in modern-day Islam is, so to speak, in the DNA of that religion but just reflects particular social and political circumstances. (p. 30)

This is precisely what Muslims have been saying ad nauseum, but it is frequently dismissed as “Muslim taqiyya.” The Islamophobes are constantly saying that the violence seen in some Muslim areas and communities is indicative of Islam’s DNA, to use Philip Jenkins’, the author of Jesus Wars, term. But an outsider, a scholar of Christian history, says the same thing.

Bill Maher, in his film “Religilous,” had a number of Muslims in his film, and when he asked them about the violence done in the name of Islam, they all said, “Politics.” He made it seem like they were all conspiring to say the same thing, that there are political and other motivations behind the violence done in Islam’s name, in order to “hoodwink” non-Muslims. Well, Jenkins seems to vindicate the notion that in many cases, the violence done by Muslims is not because of Islam, per se, but of “particular social and political circumstances.”

This is not to excuse the acts of violence done in the name of Islam…far from it. Islam demands that I stand up against any evil and speak out against any wrong, even if it be against Muslims. And I have tried to do so consistently. But, it is just interesting to read this perspective in a context that is wholly divorced from the issues of Islam and violence: namely the book Jesus Wars. And it further confirms in my mind that those who are constantly attacking Islam as “violent” and “evil” are either completely ignorant of Islam and its history, both ancient and modern, or intellectually dishonest.

Definitely check out his book and buy it. I am loving it already, and it is not because of this paragraph about Islam. It is a genuinely excellent read…and I’m not even done yet!