Roger Olson - The Disappearing Difference between Rhetoric and Argument

Perception vs. Perceiving

by R.E. Slater

Perception is all we know and it is happening in our consciousness. Perceived is therefore the same as perception for we can never ever be sure about the objective reality of the perceived.... Consciousness that does the perceiving is the only reality that we can ever know or be sure of. - Quora


When we perceive something, we become aware of or notice it. Sometimes we perceive things by using our senses of sight, hearing, and smell. Or we can use our mind to perceive things, which means that we are able to recognize or understand them. - Urban Dictionary

Today's post-truth societies writes its own narratives based upon its own agendas. Jesus said to love one another. If our beliefs are not humane, or humanely enacted, then we are not loving one another.

I've been thinking a lot about things over the years which is also why I've written so much. Except for today. I couldn't focus. The news continues to be exceptionally bad for a nation broken too many times. Without getting into anything, here is something I had worked on back in July of 2017....

"When writing, the best I can do is to expand people's ingrained perceptions knowing that for many, their perception is their reality.

"The term 'interprefacts' may be apt here when claiming perceptual 'truth-claims' as 'fact'. The point is, all claimed 'facts' are someone’s interpretation of reality, including 'belief-claims" in politics, religion, or the bible.

Whether we know it or not, we promote our own narratives at the expense of who we are. As Kurt Vonnegut once said, 'Be careful what you pretend to be. You become what you pretend to be.'

In another sense, 'Our beliefs, far from being primary, are often shaped and adjusted by our social goals.' I think this is a wise observation. What this means is that outcome matters. What we believe produces good or bad outcomes.

Thus the necessity to examine one's beliefs that they error on the side of humanity. The tools we have at hand are always available - compassion, wellbeing, and care for the other. In Jesus' words, if our outcomes are less than humane than our beliefs must be adjusted 'er we fall into blinded darkness.

R.E. Slater

May 27, 2020

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Clue: front "half" view or distorted
side view looking to the left?

The Power of Perception:

You ARE what others PERCEIVE!

http://minds2xcel.com/knowledge/2016/11/28/the-power-of-perception-you-are-what-you-are-perceive/

by the Knowledge Center

Perception is an amazing thing. A double-edged sword that can help you cut through the maze of social dynamics; or one that can cut you down to size. Forming a perception about someone or something comes naturally to us, and we do it subconsciously, whether you want to or not; or even when you tell yourself it is not the right thing to do. Let’s not deny this instinctive nature of ours, as it does help us make sense of our social environment, and of the person whom we are interacting with.

It takes just a few seconds to create an initial perception of someone. In quick time, this perception will become a “judgement”. Sometimes there are already preconceived perception biases existing even before the events happen. On this, I will share a little more on the research that I am conducting on perception bias.

Whether you are perceived positively or unfavourably, will suggest the level of difficulty for you “the perceived” to validate yourself subsequently. That is, if you are perceived positively in the beginning, it is easier for you to continue to reinforce that preception to create a favourable subsequent judgment.

Basically, how you come across to someone is defined through your ‘Presence’; how you ‘Behave’; and how you ‘Communicate’. I call this the “PBC”. This sums up a “persona” that you want others to see of you. Instead of an elaborate explanation, let me share a story to showcase what I mean:

I was posted to an overseas assignment several years back. During a visit from my family friends and hosting them to a sumptuous dinner and a night out to the city, our guests were immersed in the sights and sounds of the weekend city-life of the place. There were great scenery and beautiful people dressing to the nines for the weekend. In particular, we saw two exceptionally well-dressed ladies in the crowd. As our friends were appreciating and commenting on how good they look (there you are – our perception), we were drawn to witness a commotion between these 2 ladies in no time. They were hurling verbal insults at each other. We were obviously shocked. The way they behaved and communicated did not carry their Presence. All the ‘positives’ we perceived of them earlier on just disappeared. This disconnect in the persons’ “PBC” is obvious!

- KC (2016)

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The Disappearing Difference between Rhetoric and Argument

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/rogereolson/2017/07/disappearing-difference-rhetoric-argument/?utm_medium=email&utm_source=BRSS&utm_campaign=Evangelical&utm_content=259

by Roger Olson

July 10, 2017

Recently (during and since the 2016 U.S. presidential election) there has been a lot of “chatter” about “facts.” Someone publicly labeled a public truth claim an “alternative fact.” This neologism created a great deal of consternation, controversy, and more than a little tittering.

This event, or series of events, provoked me to think about truth claims, “facts,” and reality. Long before someone uttered the phrase “alternative fact” someone else said that “perception is reality.” I’ve uttered that myself in certain contexts. Some years ago the “sociology of knowledge” became interpreted by many intellectuals and academics as the “social construction of reality.” Others cautioned that the sociology of knowledge should be interpreted only as the “social construal of reality.”

For quite a long time now European and North American intellectuals (and please don’t think you’re not affected by what they think and say, something I’ll explain later here) adopted “anti-realism” or its softer version “critical realism.” The “social construction of reality” expresses anti-realism; the “social construal of reality” expresses critical realism. Both points of view accept the sociology of knowledge but with different degrees.

I long ago gave up any thought that “facts” (truth claims) match reality perfectly—as it actually is. I adopted a critical realism posture toward truth claims. All truth claims construe reality from within some narrative, some story about what is real and important, some perspective on “the world,” some point of view. As some thinker said, there is no view from nowhere.

I worry, however, that many people in the Western world (Europe, North America, places influenced by their intellectual trends) either 1) Don’t know or accept the inescapable social construal of reality or 2) Embrace the anti-realist social construction of reality view.

Some readers may know that much of what I am talking about here comes, at least partially, from American sociologist Peter Berger who died very recently. I was privileged, over the past two-to-three years to call him my friend. He initiated the friendship and I was simply “blown away,” to use an American colloquialism, by that. We met over lunch a few times, corresponded a few times, and he invited me to respond in a public colloquium or symposium to one of his last books. And he suggested to the editor of a volume of essays responding to that book that I write a chapter. By “friend” I don’t mean we were “chums” or “buddies” or anything like that; we knew each other and had some friendly social as well as professional interactions.

Through my friendly acquaintance and interactions with Berger, widely considered one of the “fathers” of the sociology of knowledge, I discovered that he was not, as many have assumed, an anti-realist. He believed, he told me directly, that there are methods of research, in sociology itself, that filter out bias, subjectivity and perspective. This felt a bit inconsistent to me—at least with many people’s interpretation of Berger’s sociology of knowledge epistemology.

It was not Berger, however, from whom I first learned about critical realism and the role that narrative, perspective, and social location play in everyone’s construal of reality. I first learned that, something I already suspected, from…(drumroll)…Wheaton College philosophy professor Arthur Holmes. In some of his writings (e.g., Contours of a Worldview) he used the term “interprefacts” for all truth claims. The point is that all “facts” are someone’s interpretation of reality. Holmes, an evangelical Christian philosopher who influenced two or three generations of Wheaton College students, and through his writings many others, was a critical realist. (I’m not claiming that he was always consistently that; I’m only saying that some of his writings seemed to me to assume that posture toward epistemology.)

Of course, as everyone who has studied these matters knows, a breakthrough classic of critical realism, if not anti-realism, was Thomas Kuhn whose book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962) fell like a bombshell on the playground of the philosophers and scientists. Kuhn argued that, even in the “hard sciences,” there is no pure objectivity, no “view from nowhere.” Kuhn used the term “paradigms” for what sociologists of knowledge meant by terms like “perspective” and “social location.” All this is modern intellectual history.

Here’s the point and the “rub.” My own experience and observation of my culture—North American academia—leads me to believe that many people with tremendous influence—even where their names are never heard or known outside of academia—have adopted the belief that because of the sociology of knowledge, critical realism or even anti-realism (belief that “knowledge” never even comes close to matching reality-as-it-is if such even exists), because of the “social construction of reality,” all that’s left to us is rhetoric. The traditional ideas of “facts” and “arguments” are simply “old school thinking.” Since that is the case, many movers and shakers of culture believe, there is really no “line” between argument and rhetoric. All arguments (about what is the case) are actually only rhetoric and therefore….

Yes, what follows the “therefore?” Bear with me as I give an example in order to answer that question. A few years ago I met and had lunch with a man who is an executive of a major American “news” corporation that owns numerous “news” outlets spread out all over the United States and even the world. If I mentioned its name every reader would recognize it (or at least one or more of its news outlets—print or broadcast). This executive told me what I already suspected. A high executive of the corporation publicly stated to the people working under him that the purpose of the corporation, other than earning a profit, is to “promote our narrative.”

Now, don’t get me wrong. I admire and respect that news organization executive for at least admitting the truth. But this is why I have largely given up reading, listening to, or watching news outlets. Most, if not all, are driven by some “narrative” which means, some perspective on reality that is tied to a particular group’s overall social location and agenda.

Now, some of you, my dear readers, might be thinking, and preparing to say that this has always been the case so why now stop reading, listening to, and watching the news? I believe there was a time in my life—long ago—when at least some journalists actually tried to deliver news objectively—without his/her delivery being driven by a narrative or agenda. Of course, I don’t believe there ever was a time when news was delivered in a purely objective manner such that the words being spoken matched reality perfectly without any distortion and without any perspective playing a role in how it was gathered and stated. But I think there was a time, even during my own lifetime, when most journalists and academics believed the “pursuit of truth” was worthwhile and that there was a real difference between rhetoric and arguments, between information and manipulation. Now, however, it seems to me that all news delivery includes blatant manipulation. If nothing else, the manipulation lies in delivering “news” that people want to hear or read and ignoring “news” that will harm ratings or readership. But I believe I detect also in it a not-very-well-hidden agenda to persuade readers and viewers toward a certain perspective on reality. In other words, much, if not all, “news” is really social engineering. Once your “eyes” are opened to it, you can’t miss it. It’s everywhere. We all know it’s part of contemporary advertising, but many people still dream that somewhere there is a news outlet that is dedicated to facts separated from any narrative.

So, do I blame the journalists? No. In fact, when I do watch television news (which is rare) I actually have feelings of sympathy for the talking heads, most of who probably know that what they are communicating under the guise of “facts” is really part of some nameless, invisible group’s social agenda rooted in a narrative about how reality is or should be.

Oh, I could give hundreds of examples. One very obvious one is how little we read or hear in American news about events taking place in Africa—unless it affects “American interests.” Do you want to know something about Africa? Watch Anthony Bourdain’s CNN series “Places Unknown.” It doesn’t even pretend to be news, but many of his episodes take place in Africa—from Libya to Senegal to Ethiopia to Zaire. From them you will at least realize what earth-shaking things are happening in Africa that you will never read about in or hear about on American news.

So, some of you will want to say “Watch the news on BBC!” and “Read The Economist.” I have; I’ve stopped. In my opinion, both are also driven by narratives and agendas and by people “at the top” who expect them to promote those narratives and agendas.

Some of you, at least, will think I am being “Chicken Little,” but I don’t think so. In fact, I will go further than Chicken Little and say that the sky has fallen already; it’s too late even to hope for a return to real concern with “the facts” separated from someone’s narrative and agenda. In my opinion, relying on memory and on things I have read about him, Walter Cronkite at least cared about the facts, about attempting to tell us Americans about the realities of world events.

Today, as I see it, the lines between argument and rhetoric, fact and persuasion, news and social engineering (and entertainment), have largely been erased both in academia (professional societies are driven by narratives and agendas that determine what is appropriate to think and say and what is inappropriate to think and say) and in journalism. Which means both are dead in any traditional sense.

If you want to watch a fascinating documentary that well illustrates the implicit anti-realism I am talking about, please get your hands on and watch the final episode of the series The Day the Universe Changed: A Personal View by journalist James Burke (1985). It is entitled “Worlds without End: Changing Knowledge, Changing Reality.”

Moving at a Snail's Pace - Reformed Theology's State of Affairs

Dr. Roger Olson has done a little fact-check comparing "what was said then" vs. "what is being said now" to discover several movements in today's Reformed circles:

1) Reformed Theology has loosened up a bit... but not nearly enough; its still buttoned-down and pigeoned-holed by doctrinal presuppositions;

2) Curiously, Reformed churches in general hold to a stricter Reformed theology than its principle heads steeped in doctrinal knowledge; that is to say, the congregant is less forgiving, less imaginative, and less reconciling than their leading theological architects; and,

3) Religious criticism never seems to change. What is "good for the goose is not necessarily good for the gander" depending on which governing body grants theological approval. Denominational authority is famous for pushing up their credentials and approvals while pushing down all those they disagree with. Unless, of course, they later say the same thing themselves - then, it is acceptable. Otherwise, all non-approved sanctioning bodies and publications are deemed unworthy.

In sum, Reformed Theology must become un-Reformed if it is to become better conversant with contemporary postmodern and progressive theologies running circles around its doctrinally bound  creeds and confessions. Until that day comes, other church and academic groups will be doing the hard work of comprehending God's Word so that Jesus may be preached to the nations, His gospel sowed, and souls reaped.

As a postmodern/progressive theologian I leave you with this great quote summarizing all theologies past and present - including mine own. It would be wise to remember when defending our faiths that not all knowledge is certain but must always leave room for movement, openness, and discussion:

“Our little systems have their day; they have their day and cease to be. They are but broken lights of Thee, and Thou, O God, art more than they.” - Alfred Lord Tennyson

R.E. Slater
July 17, 2017

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A New Christian Dogmatics from Eerdmans

article link

by Roger Olson
July 16, 2017
Comments

I recently received from publisher Wm. B. Eerdmans a complimentary copy of Christian Dogmatics: An Introduction by two Dutch theologians Cornelis van der Kooi and Gijsbert van den Brink (2012/2017). It’s a beautifully hard cover volume encompassing 806 pages (including indexes). On the back cover and inside are glowing endorsements by Richard J. Mouw, Michael S. Horton, Charles Van Engen, and John Bolt—all well-known Reformed theologians with evangelical credentials. I have not read the whole volume yet, but have glanced through it and read portions. It is very contemporary, moderate, irenic, broadly Reformed in posture and orientation, and accessible in language. The authors quote a broad range of theologians and philosophers but the influences of certain 20th century Dutch Reformed theologians such as G. C. Berkouwer and Hendrikus Berkhof are notable.

One of the first things I noticed as I scanned the table of contents is that the doctrine of Scripture appears as Chapter 13—on the heels of the doctrine of the Holy Spirit (Chapter 12). That is not to say, of course, that the Bible is not mentioned or used as an authority for theology before that; it is only to note that a complete account of a doctrine of Scripture follows that of the Holy Spirit—which is ironic (at least to me).

Years ago my good, late friend Stanley J. Grenz published his similar one volume “dogmatics” entitled Theology for the Community of God (also published by Eerdmans) and included the full discussion of a doctrine of Scripture after the doctrine of the Holy Spirit—late in the order of chapters. For that he was pummeled and vilified by certain conservative evangelical theologians. I am waiting to hear from them now about van der Kooi and van den Brink who do the same.

Of course, as an evangelical Arminian, I am especially interested in these Dutch Reformed theologians’ treatment of the doctrines of God’s sovereignty—especially providence and election/predestination. I found them to be very moderate—following closely Berkouwer and Berkhof (Hendrikus, not Louis!). There is no hint here of the aggressive “five point Calvinism” of many American Calvinists.

In sum, if someone asked me to recommend to him or her a moderately evangelical, one volume systematic theology from a broadly Reformed perspective I would recommend this one while cautioning that I have not yet read every page. What I have read pleases me even though, naturally, as an Arminian, I would have trouble using it as my own textbook in a course in systematic theology.

We evangelical Arminians need a good, broadly evangelical (not only Wesleyan), contemporary, one volume systematic theology from an Arminian perspective. I have heard rumors of such—that it is “in the works”—from a British Nazarene theologian, but he has cautioned me not to expect it anytime soon. I hope that it may yet appear in publication during my lifetime. I will not write one; I’m not a systematician but a historical theologian. I will leave it to others to risk systematizing revelation and Christian belief; I’m not at all convinced it can be successfully done. I agree with Alfred Lord Tennyson who famously wrote “Our little systems have their day; they have their day and cease to be. They are but broken lights of Thee and Thou, O God, art more than they.”

The Importance of Lay Volunteers to the Church of God (Francis Chan Reflects on His Own Journey)

Pastor, Author Francis Chan, San Francisco, CA

Another short post today on the importance of growing and involving volunteers vs paid staff.  It has been my experience that lay volunteers get more done, with better results and everyone wins.

R.E. Slater

July 17, 2017

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Francis Chan Gets Powerfully Honest

On Why He Left His MegaChurch

link to article

by Judy Clair

July 5, 2017

Wow, you don't often hear a pastor saying this. In a powerfully honest talk to Facebook employees on last Thursday, best-selling author and former pastor of Cornerstone Church in Simi Valley, CA, Francis Chan shared why he really left the megachurch.

"I got frustrated at a point, just biblically," Chan told the group at Facebook, as the Christian Post reports. "I'm going wait a second. According to the Bible, every single one of these people has a supernatural gift that's meant to be used for the body. And I'm like 5,000 people show up every week to hear my gift, see my gift. That's a lot of waste. Then I started thinking how much does it cost to run this thing? Millions of dollars!"

"I was like, 'God, you wanted a church that was known for their love. You wanted a group of people where everyone was expressing their gifts. … We're a body. I'm one member, maybe I'm the mouth. But if the mouth is the only thing that's working and … I'm trying to drag the rest of the body along, chewing on the carpet …"

Chan got really vulnerable about the pride that came with the success of his book, Crazy Love, and how he desperately wanted to return to the person he once was. "I freaked out during that time in my life," Chan recalled. "The pride … [going to] a conference and seeing my face on a magazine … and hearing whispers … and walking in the room and actually liking it."

"Everything you (God) said you hated, that's me right now," he realized. "I gotta get out of here. I'm losing my soul."

Now Chan is doing something completely different from his former megachurch venture. Called "We Are Church," Chan is leading a group of 30 unpaid pastors who are pastoring about 15 different house churches in the San Francisco area. Each church is set up to be small, to build real community and prompt people to use their gifts.

"We've got a few hundred people now and it costs nothing," Chan explained. "And everyone's growing and everyone's having to read this book (Bible) for themselves and people actually caring for one another. I don't even preach. They just meet in their homes, they study, they pray, they care for one another. They're becoming the church and I'm just loving it and realizing that these 30 guys [are] leading this and the women as well."

The Ungodliness of American Politics

Just a short segment here today taken from a friend's facebook post which I'll post as anon while considering it excellent advice on avoiding the ungodliness of American Politics.

R.E. Slater

July 17, 2017

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The following is inspired by a post by Rachel Held Evens (I took her thoughts but shifted the focus):

• Some people think my preaching is "awfully political." I think it's awfully gospel.

• I don't say it’s wrong to mock people with disabilities because it's political; I say it's wrong because the gospel of Jesus Christ says it's wrong.

• I don't reject the notion that demeaning, groping, insulting, and assaulting women is “just how men are” because it's political; I say it's wrong because the gospel of Jesus Christ says it's wrong.

• I don't demand policy changes, even risking arrest, that address climate change because it's political; I put my body on the line because the gospel of Jesus Christ says I must care for my neighbors, the poor, the vulnerable -- the very people who will suffer the most because of climate change.

• I don't support a free press because it's political; I support a free press because the freedom to follow Jesus is link to the freedom of speech.

• I don't speak out when religious and ethnic minorities are targeted with misinformation campaigns that have dramatically increased hate crimes against them because it's political; I say it's wrong because the gospel of Jesus Christ says it's wrong.

• Don't believe that the president of the United States is above the rule of law because it's political; I believe that everyone is accountable, especially our leaders, to the gospel of Jesus Christ.

• I don't say it's wrong to turn away desperate refugee families, including many children, from safety (a decision that is based on misinformation and fear) because it's political; I say it's wrong because the gospel of Jesus Christ says it's wrong.

• I don't call my Senators to oppose a healthcare bill that would likely increase the abortion rate and definitely leave my friends with special needs kids bankrupt and desperate because it's political; I call my Senators because the gospel of Jesus Christ tells me to care for the sick.

• I don't expect the president of the United States to behave with some semblance of decorum and decency, even on Twitter, because it's political; I expect proper behavior because the gospel of Jesus Christ expect proper behavior.

• I don't get angry when Christian leaders shrug off sexual assault, lying, racism, bullying, cruelty to the vulnerable, and unapologetic greed and self-aggrandizement because it's political; I say it's wrong because the gospel of Jesus Christ says it's wrong.

• I don't turn over tables when Christians sing hymns in honor of this administration's ethno-nationalist agenda because it's political; I do it because the gospel of Jesus Christ says it's wrong.

Sure, it may look political to you, but it's following the Gospel of Jesus Christ to me.

Anon

The Bad (UnChristian) Idea that was "The Crusades" both Then and Now

Islamophobes want to recreate the Crusades.

But they don’t understand them at all.

article link

[It wasn't] a clash of civilizations, or a war of Christianity against Islam.

by Matthew Gabriele

June 6, 2017

*Matthew Gabriele is a professor of medieval studies in the department of religion and culture at Virginia Tech and has published widely on religion and violence in the Middle Ages.

**Author's Perspective was published in the Washington Post, June 6, 2017

The Crusades as we imagine them are different from the actual

conflicts medievals experienced. (Markus Schreiber/AP)

Recent terrorist attacks in London have sparked a new wave of “clash of civilizations” rhetoric — that brand of political language that characterizes events like those in London as the West vs. the East, Christianity vs. Islam. To defeat the terrorists, this logic holds, we must “obliterate these savages from the face of the earth.” In the wake of the attacks in London, some openly wished for an end to Islam altogether, posting under the #NoMoreRamadans hashtag.

Frequently these kinds of statements refer back — longingly — to the Crusades. Shortly after news of the attack in London spread, a writer at the white nationalist website Breitbart tweeted that “the crusades need to come back.” He quickly deleted the tweet, but a TownHall columnist shared that he, too, thought that “Christians were the unequivocal good guys in the Crusades” and that he “supported” the Crusades. Then, Rep. Clay Higgins (R-La.) wrote on Facebook that “all of Christendom … is at war with Islamic horror” and that the only solution is to “kill them all.” This wasn’t the first time. Last year, during his speech at the National Prayer Breakfast, President Barack Obama mentioned the fact that all religious groups have perpetrated violent acts throughout history, citing the Crusades as evidence. That remark sparked a vigorous response from the right, focusing primarily around a defense of the medieval Crusades. Before that, Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum told a group of schoolchildren that “the left” only criticizes the Crusades because “they hate Christendom.” Santorum, too, held that the Crusades were purely a defensive war against Islamic aggression. And there’s plenty more where that came from.

Exploiting a simplified, misleading story of the Crusades (namely, that they were primarily a Western, Christian, defensive response to Middle Eastern incursion on Christian lands) isn’t a strictly contemporary phenomenon. In fact, it came into fashion during the age of colonialism and was reborn again in the early 20th century. In both of those cases — and in our own current climate — the imaginary parallel between the Crusades and our own conflicts does much more to advance our own political causes than to accurately represent the Crusades.

As scholars of the Crusades have shown for several generations now, there was no necessary evolutionary movement toward the Christian conquest of Jerusalem in 1099. The Arab conquest of Jerusalem in the 7th century was long forgotten by that time, and Latin Europe felt very little (if any) pressure from the highly divided Seljuk Turks, who were quite busy fighting one another as well as the Fatimids in Egypt. Even during their march toward Jerusalem, the crusaders themselves showed absolute willingness to ally with some Muslim leaders against other Muslims (or even fellow Christians). Things only got more complicated once the Kingdom of Jerusalem was established in the 12th century, when the Emperor Frederick II was criticized by contemporaries for his supposed friendliness with Muslims, even after he recovered Jerusalem for the Christians in 1229. In other words, the story is not nearly so simple as Christians vs. Muslims locked in a black-and-white battle for contested lands.

The popular conception of the Crusades comes not from their historical reality, but from two related places: First, from 19th and early 20th century scholars of the Crusades, such as French historian Joseph-Francois Michaud or the German Heinrich von Sybel or the American George Lincoln Burr, who saw their research linked to contemporary nationalistic colonial projects in Africa and the Middle East; and second, from the resurrection of those ideas by 21st century conservatives, such as cold warrior Robert Spencer, Santorum and many surrounding the presidency of George W. Bush.

Indeed, the term “crusade” as it’s used these days is anachronistic, more an artifact of our own politics than those of the medievals. The word “crusade” in Latin (crucesignatus — “one marked by the cross”) didn’t make its first appearance until about 1200, more than 100 years after the phenomenon supposedly began. In English, the gap is even longer, since the words “crusade” and “crusader” don’t really appear until around 1700. Even then, the word’s introduction was meant to resolve a contemporary — not historical — problem: To simultaneously describe wars fought during the Middle Ages and to characterize any struggle against “evil” or “error.” In other words, to link past and present in the era of discovery and colonial expansion. Modern historians have since put the term to political use over and over again: For example, Allenby’s conquest of Jerusalem from the Ottomans in 1917 was linked to Richard the Lionheart’s failure in 1189, while René Grousset concluded his history of the crusades by writing: “The Templars only held until 1303 the islet of Ruad, south of Tortosa, from where one day — in 1914 — the ‘Franks’ would again set foot in Syria.”

Although scholarship on the Crusades may have moved on, these colonialist ideas persist. Together with colleagues Susanna Throop and David Perry, we’ve begun to trace the resurgence of these ideas with the rise (and normalization) of the alt-right. There’s a long history of white nationalists and white supremacists using the Middle Ages (badly) to justify their ideas, and the Crusades are no exception. Most recently, the so-called crying templar meme gained popularity in summer 2016 as a xenophobic response to Syrian refugees entering Europe, while at the same time some protesters showed up in full medieval Templar costume to anti-immigrant rallies, and “Deus Vult” (the supposed war cry of the First Crusaders) became a rallying cry for white nationalists in both Europe and the United States.

But all blame can’t be laid at the feet of the alt-right. At least since Bush used “crusade” to describe the American response to al-Qaeda, many conservatives have been comfortable with positioning the U.S. as the new Latin medieval Europe imposing order on an unruly Middle East as a “defensive” response to aggression. We saw this in Donald H. Rumsfeld’s PowerPoints on Iraq, Erik Prince’s Blackwater, and in the response to Obama’s remarks at the National Prayer Breakfast. Even if mistaken nostalgia for the Middle Ages is most prominent among the fringes of the right, it’s a feature of the mainstream right as well, and the response to the London attacks suggests it isn’t going anywhere soon.

Debating the meaning of the Crusades is debating what it means to be modern: If the conservatives are correct, the world has always been quasi-apocalyptic and won’t ever change; if the historians are correct, different epochs have markedly different characters, and we’re not doomed to repeat our historical mistakes forever. “Crusade” has always said, will always say, more about how we see the world than about the Middle Ages. It’s a modern word imposed on a medieval world, an attempt at a rainbow connection. And a rainbow, after all, dissipates into air when you change your perspective.

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For further reference:

Wikipedia, The Crusades

Wikipedia, Islamaphobia

Readings on the Protestant Reformation: Martin Luther

Martin Luther before the Courts

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Martin Luther’s Burning Questions

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2017/06/08/martin-luthers-burning-questions/

by Ingrid D. Rowland

June 8, 2017

Reading Suggestions

Martin Luther: Art and the Reformation

an exhibition at the Minneapolis Institute of Art, October 30, 2016–January 15, 2017

Catalog of the exhibition edited by Anne-Simone Rous, Katrin Herbst, Ralf Kluttig-Altmann, and others
Dresden: Sandstein, two volumes, 998 pp., $69.96

Word and Image: Martin Luther’s Reformation

an exhibition at the Morgan Library and Museum, New York City, October 7, 2016–January 22, 2017

Law and Grace: Martin Luther, Lucas Cranach, and the Promise of Salvation

an exhibition at the Pitts Theology Library, Atlanta, October 11, 2016–January 16, 2017

Renaissance and Reformation: German Art in the Age of Dürer and Cranach

an exhibition at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, November 20, 2016–March 26, 2017

Catalog of the exhibition by Jeffrey Chipps Smith and others

Prestel, 239 pp., $49.95

Martin Luther: Renegade and Prophet

by Lyndal Roper

Random House, 540 pp., $40.00

Brand Luther: 1517, Printing, and the Making of the Reformation

by Andrew Pettegree

Penguin, 383 pp., $29.95; $18.00 (paper)

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Klassik Stiftung Weimar
'Martin Luther as Junker Jörg,' the name under which
Luther  went into hiding in 1521 | woodcut by
Lucas Cranach the Elder, 1521–1522

On All Hallow’s Eve of 1517, Martin Luther, Augustinian friar and professor of theology, posted a broadsheet on the faculty bulletin board of tiny, provincial Wittenberg University in the German state of Saxony (which happened to be the door of the church attached to the local lord’s castle). The poster was no Halloween prank; it proclaimed, according to academic custom, his willingness to debate a series of propositions in public. Although he also sent copies of the same broadsheet to important statesmen, churchmen, and academics outside Wittenberg, no one seems to have taken up his challenge to a formal discussion. His propositions were too explosive for that; in blunt, forceful language, they questioned the basic beliefs of the church to which, as a Hermit of Saint Augustine, he had vowed his obedience.

Luther would say that his life’s turning point came two years later, when he had a sudden revelation about the nature of Christian salvation. For his contemporaries, however, the posting of his ninety-five theses in 1517 set off the spark that ignited the Protestant Reformation, and the Reformation in turn marked a fundamental stage in the forging of a collective German identity. To mark the event’s five hundredth anniversary, the Federal Republic of Germany has sponsored a series of Luther celebrations at home and abroad, which began in the fall of 2016 and continue throughout 2017. They include an ambitious series of Luther-themed exhibitions in the United States: major shows in Minneapolis and Los Angeles, with smaller versions of the Minneapolis extravaganza in New York and Atlanta, all providing a fresh, insightful view into Luther’s life and times and the vast, unpredictable forces his rebellion unleashed.

The exhibition catalogs—two impressive five-hundred-page volumes shared by Minneapolis, New York, and Atlanta, and a separate work for Los Angeles—cover a vast range of topics: Martin Luther and Martin Luther King, Martin Luther’s latrine, Lutherans in North America, Luther in Communist East Germany, the unintended consequences of the Reformation. The intensity of their focus is relieved by clever, colorful charts and a bountiful complement of illustrations. It is impossible, given our own recent past, to ponder the Reformation without also pondering its darker legacy of religious warfare, anti-Semitism, and lingering mistrust between Catholics and Protestants, German East and German West; and these are issues the catalogs face head-on.

Yet what drove the friar and his contemporaries to their drastic actions were ideas of transcendent beauty, including the profound inner music behind the cadences of Luther’s oratory and the stirring hymns that set his spiritual armies on the march. To understand this complicated, superbly talented man, and to make the most of the Luther exhibitions, it helps to have a good biography on hand, and Lyndal Roper’s Martin Luther: Renegade and Prophet provides expert and spirited guidance. So, in a more specialized way, does Andrew Pettegree’s Brand Luther, a fascinating study of Luther’s pioneering relationship with the printing press that is especially helpful for understanding these exhibitions dedicated in large measure to books and other mass-produced printed works.

The Protestant Reformation took hold where it did and when it did for a variety of reasons, beginning with the blazing personality of Martin Luther himself. Strictly speaking, he was not a monk, though he is often described as one: he was a preaching friar who belonged to the largest Catholic religious order of his day, the Hermits of Saint Augustine. Rather than spending their time, as monks did, in secluded prayer in a monastery, the Augustinians lived in cities and moved from place to place. They trained to communicate the Christian message in what for the time was a revolutionary new style: borrowing techniques from the orators of classical antiquity and from contemporary preachers who gave sermons in colloquial languages rather than Latin, they appealed openly to the emotions of their hearers.

Friar Martin focused his ire (and most of the ninety-five theses) on one particular practice of the institutional church: the sale of indulgences. These papal dispensations, confirmed by paper certificates, grew out of a traditional medieval conviction that prayer, repentance, good works, and pilgrimage could atone in some measure for sin. It was even possible to do penance for someone else, as Luther did during his stay in Rome, kneeling on the steps of the Holy Stairs at Saint John Lateran to earn an indulgence for his grandfather. Giving alms or endowing a church could also earn remission from sins, reducing the amount of time a person would need to spend after death in the uncomfortable realm of Purgatory, where, in late medieval Christian belief, human souls were gradually cleansed of their iniquities until they were pure enough to enter the Earthly Paradise, there to await final admission to Heaven on Judgment Day. By the late fifteenth century, however, remission from sins could simply be purchased from a papal agent, for oneself or for another person, whether alive or deceased.

The sale of indulgences became an industry only in Luther’s own lifetime and in his own lands, put into place by the “warrior Pope” Julius II and the Augsburg banker Jakob Fugger. After 1506, pope and banker directed the revenue from German indulgences toward the rebuilding of Saint Peter’s in Rome. “Martin Luther: Art and the Reformation,” a monumental exhibition that took inspired advantage of the Minneapolis Institute of Art’s spacious galleries, and “Word and Image: Martin Luther’s Reformation,” a scaled-down version of the Minneapolis show tailored to the intimate spaces of the Morgan Library and Museum in New York, displayed specially-made “indulgence chests,” iron-bound coffers with handy coin slots, the equivalent of immense, armor-plated piggy banks.

These heavy wooden boxes with their multiple locks demonstrate the extent to which the German states were exporting huge quantities of metal to Rome and receiving printed slips of paper in return, exchanging material wealth for the equivalent of checks that drew on the currency of heaven rather than earth. Jakob Fugger took a 3 percent cut—in coins, not release from Purgatory—on every shipment south. Is it any wonder that the man who finally pulled the plug on this improbable trade knew a thing or two himself about the value of metal?

In later life, in one of his famous dinner-table conversations, Martin Luther claimed to come from modest origins, and indeed his father, Hans Luder, ended his life in financial trouble. But in 1483, when Martin came into the world, the Luders were a prosperous family of copper smelters living in the foothills of the ore-rich Harz Mountains. Archaeological remains excavated from the family compound in Mansfeld, where Martin spent his childhood, tell a tale of affluence.

The exhibitions in Minneapolis and New York included fine glassware among the beer steins, as well as gold sequins and other ornaments from the Luder girls’ dresses, buried, perhaps, when plague struck the city in 1505 and killed two of the Luder boys. Dorothea Luder, Martin’s sister, had to sacrifice a monogrammed gold buckle along with her belt for fear of contagion. The family’s rubbish pit also yielded copper slag and an abundance of pig and goose bones, further signs of the household’s prosperity. Hand-rolled clay marbles may have been Martin’s own, along with bowling pins made of knucklebones with a metal weight sunk into one end.

To a remarkable extent, as these exhibitions reveal, Luther’s world, and Luther’s Reformation, revolved around metal. The silver, copper, lead, and iron mined from the Harz Mountains and smelted in small-scale factories like Hans Luder’s copper works took up only a corner of an international market in which Jakob Fugger was one of the most aggressive participants. Fugger may have been shipping coins by the cofferful to the pope in Rome, but metal was also flowing into his own treasury from his silver and copper mines in Tyrol and Bohemia.

Almost every aspect of these impressive exhibitions intersected with metal somewhere. Friar Martin, for instance, probably stuck his theses to the Castle Church door using glue or wax rather than expending precious metal to nail them. German expertise with metallurgy was so renowned in Renaissance Europe that Italian jewelers sought technical advice from their German colleagues.

At the same time, German artists absorbed lessons in style from Italians, so that Hans Reinhardt and Wenzel Jamnitzer became as internationally renowned for their gold- and silversmithing in the early sixteenth century as Albrecht Dürer was for his copperplate engraving, all three of them joining incomparable German craftsmanship to Italian-inspired flair. The metal typefaces that broadcast the arguments of Reformers and Roman traditionalists back and forth across Europe originated among German metalworkers, and so did the glittering weapons and guns that would soon be carrying out the butchery of new and vicious religious wars. The first treatise on metallurgy was written by an Italian, Vannoccio Biringuccio, but he gained his experience with lead and silver at the Fugger mines in Tyrol.

And metals, of course, meant money. Between 1508 and 1524, Fugger’s firm not only managed the business of indulgences for the German states, but also struck the coins produced by the papal mint in Rome, as Luther may well have learned (or known already) when he visited that city in the winter of 1510–1511. He certainly focused on money in his forty-fifth thesis:

Christians are to be taught that he who sees a needy man and passes him by, yet gives his money for indulgences, does not buy papal indulgences but God’s wrath.

And his forty-eighth:

Christians are to be taught that the pope, in granting indulgences, needs and thus desires their devout prayer more than their money.

And his fiftieth:

Christians are to be taught that if the pope knew the exactions of the indulgence preachers, he would rather that the basilica of Saint Peter were burned to ashes than built up with the skin, flesh, and bones of his sheep.

On an epic scale in Minneapolis, an expansive scale in Los Angeles, and an intimate scale in New York (I was unable to see the exhibition in Atlanta), the aesthetic refinement and technical mastery of German metalwork stood out in all its dazzling virtuosity. Hans Reinhardt’s intricately layered, delicately textured medal depicting the Holy Trinity is probably the most complex example ever created of this popular Renaissance art form. Albrecht Dürer’s triumphant series of engravings from the first decade of the sixteenth century—The Knight, Death and the Devil, Melencolia I, and Saint Jerome in His Study—use black lines on white paper to suggest every possible nuance of light and shadow, along with the dense fur of Saint Jerome’s contented lion, the loose, mangy skin on the ribs of Death’s skinny horse, sunbeams streaming through the glass panes of Saint Jerome’s window, and the ambiguous sunrise in the distance beyond a dark-complexioned Melancholy (Greek for “black bile”). Los Angeles displayed an opulent casket by the Jamnitzer workshop, an enormous piece of jewelry in itself: enameled, engraved, studded with saucy sphinxes and tiny lions, gleaming in silver, gold, and royal blue, with pull-out drawers.

German artists excelled in other media as well. Los Angeles displayed two wooden sculptures by Tilman Riemenschneider of Würzburg: a tender Virgin Mary and a Saint Matthew whose sensitive hands make one wonder what the sculptor’s own must have looked like. (The story that Riemenschneider’s hands were broken by Lutheran iconoclasts is a nineteenth-century myth, one of many vicious rumors spun by both sides of the Reformation.) Priestly vestments of wool and damask (a mixture of wool and silk) hung in elegant folds in New York and especially Minneapolis, embroidered in wool, silk, and metallic wire of silver and gold. Minneapolis and Los Angeles displayed whole suits of armor, the wasp-waisted corrugated panoply of Prince Wolfgang of Anhalt-Köthen standing out among breastplates forged to accommodate multiple chins and beer bellies.

What drove Friar Martin to post his theses, however, was a spiritual insight, a realization so overwhelming that it prompted him to alter his name from Martin Luder to Martinus Eleutherius—“Martin the Free.”*

*Because “Luder,” the family name, could mean “loose woman,” the ninety-five theses already spell Friar Martin’s name as “Lutther.” When, after a few months, Martinus Eleutherius reverted to a more normal name, it was to our familiar “Luther.”

The Christian hope for eternal life, he had come to believe, was a divine gift that no human being, no matter how virtuous, could ever deserve—there was no penance for sin that could truly merit divine indulgence. Salvation, therefore, was not a reward, but an outright gift from God, bestowed out of the sheer abundance of his love for his creation.

For years Friar Martin had chafed at the idea of a judgmental God who lay in wait to punish sinners. But now a phrase that had always irked him, “the righteousness of God,” struck, as he would later say, “like a thunderbolt”:

It is written, “He who through faith is righteous shall live.” There I began to understand that the righteous [person] lives by a gift of God, namely by faith. And this is the meaning: the righteousness of God is revealed by the gospel…with which the merciful God justifies us by faith…. There a totally other face of the entire Scripture showed itself to me.

His thirty-seventh thesis asserted:

Any true Christian, whether living or dead, participates in all the blessings of Christ and the church; and this is granted him by God, even without indulgence letters.

He posted his theses, as the broadsheet declared, “Out of love for the truth and from desire to elucidate it.”

Luther’s message swiftly found followers, especially in the German states: on the spiritual level with his doctrine of justification by faith, and on the practical level with his attack on the alliance between religion and capitalism that had turned remission of sins into a commercial enterprise. He survived the religious and political firestorm he ignited not only because of his courage and eloquence, phenomenal though they were, but also because the local sovereign, Elector Frederick III of Saxony, decided to side with his renegade friar rather than his bishop. Nicknamed “the Wise,” Frederick was as shrewd as he was pious. Over the years he had amassed a staggering number of saints’ relics, some 18,970 by 1520, which he displayed once a year in Wittenberg Castle, each one lovingly installed in an opulent, beautifully wrought metal reliquary (several of which were on view in Minneapolis).

Pilgrims flocked to see the collection and left their offerings of coins and valuables, ensuring that metal continued to flow into Wittenberg rather than Rome, and keeping Frederick free, unlike his bishop (and his nominal liege lord, the Holy Roman Emperor), of colossal debts to Fugger. Frederick the Wise never entirely sided with Luther’s revolution (he remained Catholic), but neither did he oppose it. And at one crucial juncture in 1521, he saved Luther’s life by hiding him away in Wartburg Castle disguised as a bourgeois layman named “Junker Jörg.”

Private Collection/Bridgeman Images

Lucas Cranach the Younger: Double Portrait of Martin Luther

and Philip Melanchthon, sixteenth century

Luther’s bishop, Albert of Brandenburg, archbishop of Mainz, was one of his first and most powerful detractors. Albert received one of the first copies of the ninety-five theses and reported on them to Pope Leo X. The archbishop had good reason to worry: he was responsible for the sale of indulgences in his metal-rich diocese, and he was hopelessly in debt to Jakob Fugger, who had financed his campaign for office. The pope, duly informed, summoned Friar Martin to Rome to answer for his actions, but it was soon clear that the renegade had no intention of playing into the pontiff’s hands.

Eventually an interview was arranged in Augsburg in 1518, in conjunction with the meeting of the electors of the Holy Roman Empire, the very German statesmen who faced the spreading religious rebellion among their citizens. From the papal point of view, Cardinal Tommaso de Vio da Gaeta (usually known as Cajetan, “the Gaetan”) must have seemed like the ideal man for the job: the former head of the Dominican order and one of the most influential prelates of his era, he was also a trained inquisitor under instructions to make Luther recant or to arrest him and drag him back to Rome.

The meeting between the friar and the cardinal took place in Fugger’s Augsburg house. Cajetan was a master of Scholastic reasoning, the elaborate medieval system of theology, thought, and rhetoric that had developed with the first universities—the very system that new universities like Wittenberg and orders like Luther’s Augustinians were dedicated to overthrowing for new kinds of inquiry and expression. Luther hated Scholasticism and its pedantry at least as passionately as he hated the mixing of religion and business, and few people have ever hated with Luther’s white-hot intensity. Gaunt, ailing, and urgently aware that he might be risking a death sentence, he stood his ground against the cardinal, who lectured him about a few of the theses and let him leave Fugger’s house untouched. The cardinal realized that it was too late for an arrest to solve the problem. Luther already represented a movement. He was not an isolated heretic who could be whisked away in secret.

If he had written little before, now Luther went into overdrive, proclaiming his theology in torrents of prose and poetry in both Latin and German, and spreading his ideas as widely as the printing press could reach. He forged two indispensable partnerships, one with his colleague Philipp Melanchthon, the professor of Greek at Wittenberg, and one with Elector Frederick’s court painter, Lucas Cranach. Melanchthon gave the burgeoning movement its intellectual rigor, and Cranach, together with Luther, turned tiny, remote Wittenberg into a center for publishing; his own workshop became the crucible of Lutheran art.

Cranach already managed a sizable enterprise from his house in the center of Wittenberg, producing portraits, altarpieces, allegories, and history paintings for private patrons as well as for Elector Frederick and his family. His state portraits show that Luther was supported throughout his life by a series of imposingly large men: Frederick the Wise, his brother and successor John, and John’s son John Frederick, whose wife, the slender, cat-eyed Sibylle of Cleves, captivated Cranach. One portrait displayed at the Morgan Library shows the veins beneath her porcelain skin; in another painting, of a hunting expedition that never happened, Sibylle, in her pearl-studded dress, shoots off a massive arquebus with the aplomb of a Renaissance Annie Oakley.

As the Reformation took hold, Cranach continued to work for Catholic patrons as well as Lutherans, but his efforts for Luther were inspired and revolutionary. Quickly the painter and the friar devised a standard format for their publications: quarto books (the size of a large modern paperback) with titles in crisp Gothic letters above a large woodcut image from the Cranach studio, tailored to the new Lutheran vision of heaven and earth. (One popular theme was the contrast between life under the old law and life under the rule of grace, where the old law is both Jewish and Catholic.) Even before Luther’s impassioned words could sink in for readers of his tracts, the black-on-white clarity of their visual presentation already cut as sharply as a sword.

At the same time, Cranach worked on the image of Luther himself. His first portraits of the Reformer show a thin, clean-shaven friar with hollow cheeks, an Augustinian tonsure, a sunburst behind his head, and a look of blazing concentration. As the years go on, he grows in bulk and authority, culminating in the deathbed portrait of a man finally at peace.

Satires, cartoons, and broadsheets followed closely on the stream of tracts and Luther’s translation of the Bible for the first time into German (illustrated by Cranach), with the Protestants almost always striking a clever blow one step ahead of their adversaries. There was nothing refined about Martin Luther’s sense of humor; if he called the world a sewer (cloaca) in Latin, in German he called it (and many of its phenomena) a pile of shit. Freed from his Augustinian vows (which had never included poverty), he continued to live in the same convent in a bachelor’s chaos until 1525, when he married the runaway nun Katharina von Bora.

Luther soon discovered the range of his wife’s talents: she cleaned up the sprawling house, brewed excellent beer, set up a pig farm and a hospital, entertained a host of students at dinner, bore him six children, and cared for four orphan children besides. Archaeological excavations of the Luther household reveal glassware from Venice, broken beer steins, and an abundance of pig bones. For his part, Cranach developed an image of Martin and Katharina as the ideal Christian couple through a new series of portraits, small enough for faithful Lutherans to keep at home, complemented by huge, less expensive, paper images of Luther and Melanchthon that could be posted on walls, presenting both the portly Reformer and the weedy professor as Titans.

Roper’s biography and the exhibition catalogs squarely confront the legacy of Luther’s searing hatred, of Jews especially, but also of papists, Calvinists, and anyone else who failed to see the truth as he did. But what these impressive exhibitions show most of all is an inspired man with an earnest mission in a complex world of money and alchemy, sublime art and music, and burning questions about how faith should fit into a society that had burst its immemorial boundaries.