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Home , Monotheism

COLONIZATION & MISSIONS: A CRITICAL REVIEW OF MONOTHEISM IN THE 19th CENTURY

©Charleston C. K. Wang

I. Introduction

Christianity is one of three great that proclaim the One . precedes by two thousand years or more, and follows by a more precise six hundred. The 19th century is a defining watershed period for all three faiths and the protagonist was a Europe powered by the industrial revolution on the one hand and novel ideas of progress on the other. The result was an internal weakening of

Christian within the nations of Europe but an unprecedented strengthening of

European political power outwards in the form of colonialism. It was the hundred years that reshaped both the political and religious map of the world. It is impossible to discuss all the ramifications and this paper will focus critically on the legacy of a dominant Europe on the three Monotheistic faiths.

II. A Quick Prelude:

During any contemporary dialogue involving Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, an adequate way to begin the search for consensus is to mention .1 Everyone at the table will agree that Abraham was their patriarch, spiritual if not actual – beyond that there are few certainties. For a few thousand years, Abraham was patriarch of the .

Then Christianity began in Jerusalem with the ministry, death, and resurrection of

Christ. While drawing upon the which includes the , Christians became practitioners of a new and separate which flourished not in its place in origin, but first in Mediterranean Europe and then across that entire continent. Islam

1 began with the gradual revelation2 of the to followed by the Hijrah or migration of the first Muslim community from Mecca to Medina (also known as

Yathrib).3 While started by a small band of refugees fleeing from the of

Mecca and who acknowledged the other peoples of the Book, Islam established itself as a separate religion and rapidly spread throughout the including Persia, eastward across South and Southeast Asia and westward across North Africa and into

Europe. With the expansion of , both of which acknowledged the prophets of the Old Testament, of Monotheism became the , especially when the number of believers is the criterion.

As territorial gain and loss hung in the balance with the spread of Christianity and

Islam, a clash between the two became inevitable. This clash occurred around the

Mediterranean rim and the Balkan region of Europe. Because Christianity was established in Europe before Islam, the latter became viewed as invaders of Christendom for centuries during the medieval age and into the Renaissance. The first check on the spread of Islam into Europe through Spain occurred in 732 at the Battle of Tours (also known as the Battle of Poitiers).4 In 827 Aghlabi rulers of Tunis occupied Sicily until

878, and from 909-1071, Sicily again fell under the control of Fatimid rulers who also united North Africa and under a Ismaili-Shitte .

1 See, e.g., Feiler, B., Abraham: A Journey to the Heart of the Three Faiths (William Morrow 2002). 2 The spanned a period of twenty-three years during which Mohammad heard the voice of God while in a . 3 The Islamic calendar begins with the Hijrah which occurred in 622 C.E. This small community of outcasts called themselves because they had surrendered themselves to Allah3 which they proclaimed in the shahadah that “there is no god but and that Mohammad is his Prophet.” 4This battle was fought on October 10, 732 between forces under the Frankish leader Charles Martel and an Islamic army led by Emir Abd er Rahman. During the battle, the Franks defeated the Islamic army and Emir Abd er Rahman was killed. The result of this battle stopped the northward advance of Islam from Spain.

2 In the second millennium, troubling Christendom was the prolonged Muslim presence in Jerusalem since 638, and more so, the immediate threat against

Constantinople, the gateway into Europe from the east. The response was to launch the

Crusades in 1095, a war of religion conducted with the blessings of Popes.5 Over a three hundred year period, Jews found themselves caught in the cross-fire, especially during the later Crusades when the enemy was proclaimed to include the remaining pagan and heretical principalities of Europe. When the Crusaders entered Jerusalem in 1099, Jews were expelled from the city.

Hostility and plunder were directed not just against Muslims and Jews but also against Christians. For example, the Fourth Crusade never reached Palestine but instead sacked Constantinople. This crusade served to worsen the already strained relationship between the Christian East and West. The Byzantine Empire later recovered its capital, but its strength was spent. Abandoned by Western Christendom, Constantinople fell the last time to the Ottomans.in 1453. Turkish interest in Europe continued for another two hundred years: siege was laid on Vienna in 1529 and a climactic battle was fought before the gates of Vienna again in 16836. From the vantage of Europe, the successful defense of Vienna marked the end of the Muslim encroachment through the Balkans as did the

Battle of Tours ended the threat through Spain almost a thousand years earlier. The

5 It has been customary to count the Crusades as eight in number i.e. the first - 1095-1101;the second, headed by Louis VII, 1145-47; the third, conducted by Philip Augustus and Richard I of England 1188-92; the fourth, during which Constantinople was taken, 1204; the fifth, which included the conquest of Damietta 1217; the sixth, involving Frederaick II (1228-29); Thibaud de Champagne and Richard of Cornwall (1239); the seventh, led by St. Louis, 1249-52; the eighth, also under St. Louis, 1270. 6 During this time, Turkish pashas ruled in Budapest and Belgrade.

3 Treaty of Karlowitz in 1699 marked the beginning of the fragmentation of the Ottoman

Empire.

Wars inevitably leave lasting and bitter memories. In the Muslim world, the

Crusades are viewed to this day as cruel aggression and savage pillage by Christendom on Islam. Europeans, especially those in and around the Balkans remember the Ottoman

Islam incursions with comparable distress.

III. Monotheism in the 19th Century

In his book The Crisis of Islam, Professor Bernard Lewis introduces the 19th century very aptly thus:

For most historians, Middle Eastern and Western alike, the conventional beginning of modern history in the Middle East dates from 1798, when the French Revolution, in the of a young general called Napoleon Bonaparte, landed in Egypt. Within a remarkably short time, General Bonaparte and his small expeditionary force were able to conquer, occupy, and rule the country. There had been, before this, attacks, retreats, and losses of territory on the remote frontiers, where the Turks and the Persians faced Austria and Russia. But for a small western force to invade one of the heartlands of Islam was a profound shock.7

What is even more shocking was that the French were forced out of Egypt not solely by a

Muslim army but by a detachment of the British fleet.8 Barbara W. Tuchman describes this dramatically:

In the closing year of the 18th century Englishmen were once again fighting on the beach before Acre, five hundred years to the decade since the Crusaders had lost Acre for the last time. The famous fortress dominating the seaward approach to Palestine and the military highway along the coast had been a prize of arms uncounted times during its embattled career of some thirty centuries. … Now

7 Bernard Lewis, The Crisis of Islam: Holy War and Unholy Terror, p54. (The Modern Library 2003). 8 Id. at p.55.

4 suddenly, after centuries of Islamic sleep, British gunboats boomed in the harbor and fierce Mamelukes desperately defended the walls while a European army laid siege by land. This time, oddly enough, the British were defending the fort, not attacking it. They were fighting on the side of the Turks against … the army of Napoleon beneath them.9

Even as the besieger lay beseiged outside Acre, Napolean issued his promise to restore

Palestine to the Jews, but the proclamation was unimplemented as he was soon obliged to withdraw from Palestine.

Rivalries amongst the Europeans notwithstanding, the dawning of the 19th century brought the age of European colonialism to the Dar-al-Salem and Europe was unstoppable. The now effete Ottoman Empire, like the Byzantines before them, found itself unable to defend the interests of Islam against invasion by the various emergent nation-states of Europe. The end result was the roughshod balkanization of the house of

Islamic into roughly four spheres of influence: (1) the Middle East and North Africa to

Britain, and France, (2) the Caucasus and trans-Caucasus to Russia, (3) greater to

Britain, (4) Southeast Asia to Britain (Malaya and Borneo) and the Netherlands (the

Indonesian islands). Germany and Italy were latecomers to this part of the world; the former had to content itself with seeking common cause with an emerging and the latter with elbowing for scraps in Africa. In the 19th century, the tables have turned and the Christian version of Monotheism clearly dominated the debate over colonies.

IV. A Curious Concession: A Mission of Biblical or An Act of Realpolitik?

9 Barbara W. Tuchman, and Sword: England and Palestine from the to Balfour, p. 158 (Ballantine Books 1956)

5 Since the fabled arrival of Joseph of Arimathea in Britain, the people of that island has been drawn towards the Holy Land through two forces: (1) the on-going quest for Biblical truth and to connect with God and (2) in the 19th century, the imperial need to control the route to India (and )10. In the Holy Land itself, the Jews had risen up against the Emperor Nero in 66 C.E. and in 70 C.E. the Romans sacked Jerusalem, burned the Temple, and deported many of the Jews. In 115 C.E., the diaspora Jews rose up against the Emperor Trajan and they too were decimated. Since that time, the

Israelites were without a Temple and denied a homeland.

A significant development in the 19th is the success in England of a movement to restore a homeland for the Jews. In my opinion, this phenomenon is uncharacteristic with the of the times. During a time when the Ottoman Empire had been pronounced the

“sick man of Europe,” the Eastern Question preoccupied the powers of Europe. More specifically, Britain and Russia were engaged in the Great Game over who controlled

Central Asia and whether Czarist Russia could reach a warm water port. This was a time of “finder’s keepers,” and if necessary, “might makes right” insofar as colonial policy are concerned. Out of such amoral Machiavellian compass-points arose a rising call to find a place specifically in the Holy Land11 for the diaspora Jews, a project which appeared to have a weak bearing on imperial priorities, and therefore one of high altruism and religious calling. For example, in 1847, Lindsay wrote:

The soil of Palestine still enjoys her sabbaths, and only waits for the return of her banished children, and the application of industry, commensurate with her

10 After 1869, the added imperative to protect the Suez Canal also preoccupied the British. 11 A British offer of Uganda as a place for the Jewish homeland was rejected by the Zionist movement in 1903.

6 agricultural capabilities, to burst once more into universal luxuriance, and be all that she ever was in the days of Solomon.12

However, a very plausible, temporal counterpoint based on realpolitik is noted by

Barbara Tuchman:

As the Foreign Secretary [Lord Palmerston] saw it the Jews, given a landed interest in their ancient homeland, would act as a prop at the center of the sprawling, collapsing structure that was the Turkish Empire and would, for their own sakes, lend all their considerable effort to keep the structure standing, and this, as we have seen, was the object of British policy. 13

On the spiritual side, following the Reformation and the vital emphasis on the authority of Scripture, various Protestant fleeing identified with the sufferings of the Old Testament as they were persecuted. (But can they also identify with the plight of the nascent Muslim community who fled from Mecca to

Medina with Muhammad during the hijrah?) These Christians modeled their communities on the Old Testament covenant between God and the Hebrews. As they read the biblical concerning the revival of a scattered , fundamentalist

Protestants embraced a literal biblical based mandate for the return of Jews to the Holy

Land. Consider, for example, Lord Shaftesbury, who akin to other famous Victorians never doubted that human instrumentality could bring about divine purpose but who as

Christian also held a literal interpretation of Scripture, especially of eschatological prophecy. Towards the end of his life, Lord Shaftesbury (1801-1885) declared,

12 Crawford, A.W.C. (Lord Lindsay), Letters on Egypt, Edom and the Holy Land, London, H. Colburn 1847, V II, p 71).

7 [The coming of Christ] has been, as far as I can remember, a subject to which I have always held tenaciously. Belief in it has been a moving principle in my life; for I see everything going on in the world subordinate to this one great . It is not a popular . . . ; it is, as a rule, held only by the poor . . . . Things are better than they were, however. I remember the time when it was the rarest thing possible to hear the subject referred to. I know there are many difficulties connected with it, and that different views are held . . . . Of one thing I am satisfied; the great event is not far off.14

Not surprisingly, the Anglican motive for a restored homeland for the Jews was a mixed and complex one.

But surprisingly, the Jews of Europe initially showed a tepid interest in this

Protestant Anglican but a steady line of British politicians15 kept alive and nurtured this idea amongst them. This lack of interest perhaps was because the harsh ghetto life in secularized the Jewish communities and caused many

Jewish intellectuals to seek assimilation and to pursue a new basis for a Jewish national identity other than that based strictly on Tanakh prophecy. Perhaps, life was even harsher in Ottoman controlled Palestine. Amongst the Orthodox, there was a feeling that it was not yet God’s time. Whatever the for reluctance, with the inexorable disintegration of the Ottoman house, the dream began to take on tangible manifestation.

Finally Theodor Herzl, a Jewish journalist living in Vienna and of socialistic leanings took up the charge. In 1897, Herzl called the first World Zionist Congress at Basel, which consolidated diverse proto-Zionist groups into one movement. After Herzl’s early

13 Id. at p. 175 citing Palmerston’s Letter of August 11, 1840 (to Posonby) – F.O. 78/390, No. 134, in Rodkey. Also Tempersley, p. 186 and note 275. 14 Lord Shaftesbury, quoted in Edwin Hodder, The Life and Work of the Seventh Earl of Shaftesbury (London: Cassell & Co., 1887) p. 524. 15 Among them we can count Lord Lindsay, Lord Shaftesbury Lord Palmerston, Disraeli, Lord Manchester, George Eliot, Holman Hunt, Sir Charles Warren, Hall Caine and many others.

8 death (1860-1904), the Zionist cause was carried by a Swiss educated biochemist, Chaim

Weizmann (1874-1952).16

In the United States in 1891, the "Blackstone Memorial,17” a petition that carried the signatures of 413 prominent Americans, including the Chief Justice of the Supreme

Court, the Speaker of the House, great industrialists, leading clergymen, authors, and journalists was addressed to President Benjamin Harrison, and Secretary of State James

G. Blaine, asking them to "use their offices and influence . . . to secure the holding at an early date of an international conference to consider the condition of the Israelites and their claims to Palestine as their ancient home." The response of the President is unclear. Thus the venture remained primarily a joint British-Jewish project which began as a vision of Christian biblical literalists after many decades culminated in the Balfour

Declaration of 1917 wherein the government of Lloyd George formally promised

"the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people".

In a zero sum world of limited space and resources, this Declaration was surely at the expense of the Dar-al-Islam, even if it was done as atonement for Christian guilt for the persecution of the Jews. Nevertheless, because of the final outcome of the World

War I, victorious Great Britain received a Mandate over Palestine in 1920 from the

League of Nations, in good part to implement the Balfour Declaration. The for and motivations behind the Balfour Declaration remain fertile ground for debate and

16 With the declaration of the State of Israel in 1947, Weizmann became its the first president. 17 During the 19th century, John Nelson Darby (1800-82), a former Anglican priest from Ireland, popularized and systematized eschatological themes while simultaneously developing a new school of thought which has been called "futurist premillennialism." William E. Blackstone, a follower of Blackstone, brought dispensationalism to millions of Americans through his best seller Jesus Is Coming (1882).

9 speculation; perhaps the teleological answer shall remain with God until another time in the future.

V. Weakening from Within

Notwithstanding this powerful assertion of biblical interpretation that culminated in the Balfour Declaration, the 19th century witnessed a weakening of belief in

Christianity in Europe in general and amongst Protestants in particular. The century was that of Charles Darwin and . The discoveries of the natural, physical and social sciences, coupled with the material advances made available by the industrial revolution gave a sense in the rising supremacy of man. This translated into a growing skepticism towards God, especially the Monotheistic God. The colonial expansion of

Europeans had brought them into close and intimate contact with old cultures that espoused a more ancient and deep-rooted polytheism/, i.e. India () and China (Daoism and , which in turn draws from Hinduism) which in many ways parallel the Hellenistic . This contact translated into a deeper understanding of another’s culture and language which in turn permitted a great appreciation of the mysteries of other immensely different and more complex .

Just as important is the rise of the European or world view that aggressively denies God, the best example Marxism in theory and communism in practice, a movement which is better labeled as antitheistic. Amongst 19th century theologians, perhaps the most fascinating is (1804-1872) who boldly asserted:

Theology is : in other words, the object of religion, which in Greek we call theos and in our own language God, expresses nothing other than the of man, man’s God is nothing other than the deified essence of man; so

10 that the or, what amounts to the same thing, of God – for the are as varied as the religions, and the religions are as varied as mankind – is nothing other than the history of man.18

This assertion reinforced the views of Engels, Marx, Nietzsche19 and others who were less interested in finding God but more concerned with finding the perfect human system which must be implemented by revolution and dictatorship when necessary.

Sensing an impending subjugation of God at the hands of man, a concept that even permeated the thinking of theologians, Pope Pius IX, who in 1854 had proclaimed the immaculate conception of Mary, convened the First Vatican Council in

1869. At this Council was formally established papal infallibility which is more fully expressed as the following:

We teach and define that it is a dogma divinely revealed: that the Roman Pontiff, when he speaks ex cathedra, that is, when in discharge of the office of Pastor and Doctor of all Christians, by virtue of his supreme Apostolic authority he defnies a doctrine regarding or morals to be held by the Universal Church, by the divine assistance promised to him in blessed Peter, is possessed if that infallibility with which the divine Redeemer willed that His Church should be endowed for defining doctrine regarding faith or morals: and that therefore such definitions of the Roman Pontiff are irreformable of themselves, and not from the consent of the Church.20 [Emphasis added].

This direct, no-nonsense declaration is softened somewhat by John Henry Newman who sought to defend Roman Catholic dogma from the experience of a former Anglican:

18 Ludwig Fauerbach, Letters on the Essence of Religion, reprinted in Readings in the Hsitory of Church Volume 2 , William C. Placher, ed. (The Westminster Press 1988) at p. 139 19 Friedrich Nietszche's key contentions was that traditional values as represented by Christianity had lost their power in the lives of individuals and he could proclaim via a parable in The Happy Science, Nietzsche ". God remains dead. And we have killed him!" Now if God is dead, he must have been alive once. Traditional was created by weak and resentful people who encouraged such behavior as gentleness and kindness because the behavior served their interests. He claimed that new paradigms such as that of superman should replace the old. 20 First Dogmatic Constitution of the Church of Christ, reprinted in Readings in the Hsitory of Church Tehology Volume , William C. Placher, ed. (The Westminster Press 1988) at p. 144-145.

11 And thus I am brought to speak of the Church’s infallibility, as a provision, adapted by the mercy of the Creator, to preserve religion in the world, and to restrain the freedom of thought, which of course in itself is one of the greatest of our natural gifts, and to rescue it from its suicidal excesses.21

VI. Conclusion

I see a great paradox in religion in the Europe of the 19th century: the literal and unreserved assertion by Christians of the biblical prophecy of the return of Jews to

Jerusalem and the general decline of Christianity within Europe. This watershed century laid the foundations of many of the international political discord that beset the 20th century and which is yet unresolved in the 21st. The United States has picked up that baton carried by Great Britain insofar as the Eastern Question and Great Game, in their newly arrayed forms, are concerned. The stakes and the dangers are much greater in the

Nuclear Age. It has been asserted in a hadith that “Paradise is found under the shade of swords.”22 For a while it had seemed that "Paradise is found under the shade of guns," but should not the post-modern version be “Paradise is found under the shade of the

Bomb?” Finally, the ultimate question is “Will God’s love for humanity provide a way out of our 'suicidal excesses' the worst of which is putative mass destruction?” Certainly,

God holds this answer veiled in the future.

Charleston C. K. Wang January 15, 2004

21John Henry Newman, Apologia Pro Vita Sua,, reprinted in Readings in the Hsitory of Church Tehology Volume (1890) , William C. Placher, ed. (The Westminster Press 1988) at p. 149.

22 Sahih Bukhari Volume 4, Book 52, Number 73: Narrated 'Abdullah bin Abi Aufa: Allah's Apostle said, "Know that Paradise is under the shades of swords."

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