Modern Myths
Ecthelion
Rick Wade
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Myths and Modern Myths
Have you ever heard someone describe the Bible as myth? All those
supernatural occurrences couldn't possibly have taken place, it is said.
It's a good story, intended to help people lead a good life and perhaps get
closer to God (if there is one), but not to be taken literally.
What is a myth? A myth is a story that serves to provide meaning and
structure for life. It might have some history behind it, but that isn't
important. It is the ideas that count. Myths are intended to translate the
supposed abstract realities of the world in concrete, story form.
Myths were important to the ancient Greeks for defining who they were and
what the world was like. In modern times, however, we try to de-emphasize
the significance of myths for a culture; we equate myth with fiction, and
fiction isn't to be taken seriously.
In his book, 6 Modern Myths About Christianity and Western Civilization,{1}
Philip Sampson debunks the notion that we've given up myths, even in the
arena of science! According to Sampson there are a number of myths that have
become significant for our culture even though they are false--or at least
misleading--with respect to the facts. In this book, Sampson gives the true
stories behind some of the myths our culture holds as true, such as the idea
that Galileo's fight with the church provides a good example of the supposed
warfare between science and religion.
Myths such as these serve to perpetuate certain notions their promoters want
us to believe. They can develop over time with no conscious aim, or they can
be knowingly advanced for the good of a certain cause. So, as with the
Galileo story, if one wishes to advance the notion that there is a tension
between Christianity and science, with science being clearly in the right,
one might employ a story which pits the knowledgeable, good scientist just
out to present facts against the hierarchy of a church which seeks to keep
people in darkness so as to advance its own cause.
In ancient Greece, myths weren't told as though they were historically true.
In our society, however, facts are important, so myths are told as if they
are scientifically or historically accurate. Thus, with the Galileo story,
there is enough history to seem to give it a factual basis--although
significant facts are left out!
In this article we will look at three of these modern myths: Galileo and the
church, the purported oppression of people by missionaries, and the witch
trials of the 16th and 17th centuries.
Galileo and the Church
One myth that is deeply ingrained in our culture is that of the supposed
"warfare between science and religion." Science deals with fact; religion
deals with nice stories, at best. Whenever there is a conflict, obviously
science wins the day. This myth goes deeper than just who has the best
interpretation of the data. It's as if there is, of necessity, a conflict
between the two, and religion has to be shown to be inferior to science.
One story that seems to serve this myth especially well is the story of
Galileo. You've probably heard about Galileo's celebrated battle with the
church over his views on the nature of the universe. As the story is
typically told, Copernicus discovered that the earth revolves around the
sun. Galileo, who agreed that the earth was not the center of the universe
after all, then developed his work. Supposedly the church wanted to keep man
at the center of God's creation and thus as the supreme part of the created
order. To move earth out of the center was to somehow lower man. Thus, the
church persecuted Galileo and eventually silenced him, showing its raw power
over society.
George Bernard Shaw said, "Galileo was a martyr, and his persecutors
incorrigible ignoramuses."{2} Says writer Patrick Moore, "The Roman Catholic
Church attacked Galileo because the [heliocentric] theory was not
reconcilable with certain passages of the Bible. As a consequence, poor
Galileo spent most of his life in open conflict with the Church."{3}
However, reason ultimately prevailed and science won the day over religious
obscurantism.
The problem with this story is that it ranges from the true to the distorted
to the blatantly untrue! Galileo's primary trouble was with secular
scientists, not with the church. It was when he began reinterpreting
Scripture to promote his cause and publicly ridiculed the pope that he got
into big trouble.
"The Galileo story was developed by French Enlightenment thinkers as part of
their anticlerical program," says Philip Sampson, "but by the late
nineteenth century it had created a language of warfare between science and
religion." Science became the fount of reasoned knowledge, and religion was
"reduced to ignorance and dogma."{4} To accomplish this, however, history
had to be distorted.
Let's see what really happened with Galileo. It needs to be noted up front
that in Galileo's day the theories of scientists were not thought to give an
actual account of the way the heavens worked; they simply provided models
for ordering the data. They "were regarded as the play things of virtuosi,"
as George Sim Johnston put it.{5} "To the Greek and medieval mind, science
was a kind of formalism, a means of coordinating data, which had no bearing
on the ultimate reality of things."{6}
The fact is that the church didn't care all that much about what Copernicus
and Galileo thought about the order of the universe, scientifically
speaking. Copernicus' book on the subject circulated for seventy years
without any trouble at all. It was the scientists of the day who opposed the
theory, because it went against the received wisdom of Aristotle. Copernicus
believed that his theory actually described the universe the way it was, and
this was unacceptable to the academics. When Galileo published his ideas, it
was the ridicule of fellow astronomers that he feared, not the church.
According to Aristotle, the earth was at the center of the universe, and all
the rest of the universe was situated in concentric spheres around it. From
the moon out, all was thought to be perfect and unchanging. The earth,
however, was obviously changing and thus imperfect. All matter in the
universe was thought to fall downward toward the center of the earth. The
earth is therefore like the trash bin of the universe; it was no compliment
to man to emphasize his place on earth. In other words, to be at the center
of the universe was not a good thing!
To now say that the earth was out with other planets where things had to be
perfect was to seriously undercut Aristotle's ideas. So when Galileo
published his notions it was the ridicule of fellow astronomers that he
feared, not the church.
It's true that Galileo got into hot water with the church, but it was not
because his theory moved man physically from the center of the universe;
that was a good thing, given Aristotle's views. Man was already considered
small in the universe. Most people already believed that the earth was
created for God, not for man. "The doctrine that the earth exists for man's
use," says Philip Sampson, "derives from Greek philosophy, not the
Bible."{7} Thus, the Copernican theory "ennobled" the status of the earth by
making it a planet. So the church in general didn't see the heliocentric
theory as a demotion.
The fact is that Galileo was on good terms with the church for a long time,
even while advancing his theory. He made sure that the idea he was attacking
of the incorruptibility of the universe with its perfect heavens and
imperfect earth was an Aristotelian belief and not a doctrine of the church.
"Indeed," says Sampson, "the church largely accepted his conclusions,
although the die-hard Aristotelians in the universities did not. . . . Far
from being constantly harried by obscurantist priests, he was feted by
cardinals, received by Pope Paul V and befriended by the future Pope Urban
VIII."{8} As historian George Santillana wrote in 1958, "It has been known
for a long time that a major part of the church intellectuals were on the si
de of Galileo, while the clearest opposition to him came from secular
circles."{9} He wasn't afraid of the church; he feared the ridicule of his
fellow scientists!
What did get Galileo in trouble with the church were two things. First,
because the church had historically followed Aristotle (as did secularists)
in interpreting scientific data, it wanted hard evidence to support
Galileo's views, which he did not have. For Galileo to insist that his
theory was true to the way things really were was to step outside proper
scientific boundaries. He simply didn't have enough hard data to make such a
claim. The problem, then, wasn't between religion and science, but between
methods of interpreting the data. But this, in itself, wasn't enough to
bring the church down on him.
The bigger problem was Galileo's manner of promoting his beliefs. To do so,
he reinterpreted Scripture in contradiction to traditional understandings,
which ran counter to the dictates of the Council of Trent. Perhaps even
worse was his mockery of the pope. His treatise, Dialogue Concerning the
Chief World Systems, took the form of a debate. The character that took
Aristotle's view against the heliocentric theory was called Simplicio. His
"role in the dialogue is to be a kind of Aunt Sally to be knocked down by
Galileo. . . .Galileo puts into Simplicio's mouth a favorite argument used
by his friend Pope Urban VIII and then mocks it. In other words, he
concluded his treatise by effectively calling the very pope who had
befriended him a simpleton for not agreeing with Galileo. This was not a
wise move," says Sampson, "and the rest is history."{10} In fact, Galileo
himself believed that the major cause of his trouble was the charge that he
had made fun of the pope, not that he thought the earth moved.
So the condemnation of Galileo did not result from some basic conflict
between science and religion. It "was the result of the complex interplay of
untoward political circumstances, political ambitions, and wounded
prides."{11} However, the myth continues to bolster the status of secular,
naturalistic thought by making religion look bad.
So is there warfare between science and religion? Hardly. This is really
warfare between worldviews.
The Missionaries
A favorite charge against Christians for many years is the belief that
missionaries effectively destroyed other cultures: running roughshod over
the natives' beliefs and culture. Like the myth of the warfare between
science and religion, the myth of the oppressive missionary provides a
vehicle for exalting secularism while denigrating Christianity. According to
this myth, the Christian missionary arrogantly strips natives of their own
culture and forces western Christian culture on them, even to the point of
oppression and exploitation.
Secular literature often leaves one with an impression of missionaries as
stern, joyless oppressors who took advantage of innocent natives in order to
advance their own ends. They forced their art and music on other cultures,
made the people learn the missionaries' language, and manipulated them to
wear western clothing. "Missionaries are accused of exploiting natives for
commercial gain," says Sampson, "colluding with expansionist colonialism and
even committing 'ethnocide.' They are implicated in the theft of land, the
forced removal of children from their parents, the destruction of habitats,
torture, murder, the decline of whole populations into destitution,
alcoholism, and prostitution. Even when they provide disaster relief, they
are guilty of 'buying' converts."{12} There are no "half tones," says
Sampson. Missionaries "impose rigid, joyless, and patriarchal rules" on
natives who are "portrayed as residents in an idyllic land, the victims of
the full might of Western oppression incarnate in the person of 'the
missionary.'"{13}
One of the problems in this assessment is the ready identification of
missionary activity with that of western colonialism and trade. While
missionaries often did import their culture along with the Gospel, they were
not, for the most part, interested in taking over other peoples.
Colonialists, however, were. It was "the Enlightenment visions of
'civilization' and 'progress' that inspired colonial activity from the
eighteenth century and rejected faith in God for faith in reason."
Colonialists had no qualms about attempting to "civilize" the "barbarians"
and "savages." Civilized was a term which "had 'behind it the general spirit
of the Enlightenment with its emphasis on secular and progressive human
self-development.'" Traders, also, were guilty of exploiting other peoples
for their own profit. Consider the power of commercial enterprises such as
the search for gold by the conquistadors and the activity of such
organizations as the British South Africa Company that brought
exploitation.{14}
What this reveals is the role of modernism in the oppression and
exploitation of native peoples. Romanticism established the image of the
"noble savage," the pure, pristine individual who, living close to nature,
had not been corrupted by the influences of civilization. The fact is that
some native peoples were given to human sacrifice and cannibalism, among
other vices. However, the myth of the noble savage took root in western
thinking. Then Darwin taught that there were weaker races that were doomed
to extinction by the unstoppable forces of evolutionary change (new ideas
about eugenics grew out of this thinking). These two images--the noble
savage and the weaker race--combined to paint a picture of vulnerable
nobility. According to the myth, Christian missionaries were guilty of
taking advantage of this vulnerability to advance their own causes. The
reality was that it was often colonialists who exploited these people, and
salved their consciences by picturing the people as doomed to extinction
anyway.
By contrast, what one finds in the literature about missionary activities
includes occasions where they stood against the colonial and trading powers.
The Dominican bishop Bartolomè opposed slavery in the sixteenth century.
John Philip of the London Missionary Society supported native rights in
South Africa in the early nineteenth century. Lancelot Threlkeld demanded
"equal protection under the law for the Awabakal people of Australia."{15}
John Eliot stood up for the Indians in Massachusetts' courts against unjust
settler claims. Even one critic of missionary activity conceded that
evangelical missions in Latin America "tended to treat native people with
more respect than did national governments and fellow citizens."{16}
Missionaries taught people to read their own languages, good hygiene to
indigenous groups, farming skills, and even brought medical help. In some
regards, the missionaries did try to change other cultures, and sometimes
illegitimately. But sometimes that isn't wrong; there should be no apologies
for trying to stop such practices as human sacrifice and cannibalism.
Compare the efforts of contemporary secularists to end female genital
mutilation practiced by some African tribes.
Scholars have known for many years that the identification of missions with
oppression is unfair, yet the myth continues to be told. It simply isn't
true that missionaries were responsible for the destruction of native
cultures. But the myth persists, for "it provides the modern mind with an
alibi for its own complicity in oppression."{17}
The Witch Trials
Some critics like to portray the Christian Church as the great persecutor of
the weak and helpless. A popular vehicle for this myth is the story of the
witch trials in Europe and America in the 16th and 17th centuries. Philip
Sampson says that this story "relates that many millions of women throughout
Europe, mainly the elderly, poor and isolated, were tortured by the church
into confessing nonexistent crimes before being burnt to death."{18} The
story of the witch trials provides a handy illustration for the myth that
that the church actively persecutes those who aren't in agreement. "The
history of Christianity is the history of persecution," said one writer,{19}
and this is seen in no bolder outline than in the story of the witch-hunts.
Furthermore, this story provides a good example of the supposed women-hating
attitude of the church since the vast majority of witches tried were women.
There is no denying that Christians were involved in the trial and execution
of witches. But to paint this issue as simply a matter of the powerful
church against the weakest members of society is to distort what really
happened.
Before considering a couple of facts about the trials, the bias of the
critics who write about them should be noted. For most, there simply is no
such thing as a supernatural witch, meaning one who can actually draw on
satanic power to manipulate nature. If this is true, it must be the case
that there is some natural explanation for the strange behavior of those
charged with witchcraft, and the church was completely unjustified in
prosecuting them. But this is a naturalistic bias; it ignores the fact that
"most people of the world throughout most of its history have taken
supernatural witchcraft to be real."{20} Modern writers like to think that
it was the dawning of the Age of Reason that brought about the end of the
witch trials, but today this is seen as mere hubris, "the prejudice of
'indignant rationalists' [who were] more concerned to castigate the
witch-baiters for their credulity and cruelty than to understand what the
phenomenon was all about."{21} It was the centralization of legal power that
brought the trials to an end, not a matter of "Enlightenment overcoming
superstition."{22}
This leads us to ask who and why these charges of witchcraft were brought in
the first place. What we find is that this "was not principally a church
matter, nor was the Inquisition the prime mover in the prosecution of
witches," as is often thought. It was ordinary lay people who typically
brought charges of witchcraft, and mostly women at that!{23} The primary
reasons were not bizarre supernatural behavior or heretical beliefs, but the
tensions brought about by a loss of crops or the failure of bread to rise.
"People commonly appealed to magic and witchcraft to explain tragedies and
misfortunes, or more generally to gain power over neighbors."{24} Even kings
and queens saw witchcraft as a very real threat to their thrones and
well-being. The Inquisition actually supplied a tempering influence.
Historian Hugh Trevor-Roper said, "In general, the established church was
opposed to the persecution" of witches.{25} Likewise, the Protestant
churches were not the real aggressors in the witch trials. John Calvin
believed that witchcraft was a delusion, the cure for which was the Gospel,
not execution.{26}
Estimates of executions in the millions are grossly exaggerated. Recent
studies estimate about 150-300 per year, making a total of between 40,000
and 100,000 who were executed over a period of 300 years. While "this is an
appalling enough catalog of human suffering," as Sampson says,{27} it pales
in comparison to the slaughter of innocent people in the 20th century,
resulting from the excesses of modernistic thinking. "Genocide is an
invention of the modern world," says one writer.{28} Compare the numbers
slaughtered under Nazism or Stalinism to that of the witch trials. If the
witch trials demonstrate the danger of religion to society, the slaughters
under Hitler and Stalin demonstrate the much greater danger of irreligion.
Modern writers like to think that it was the dawning of the Age of Reason
that brought about the end of the witch trials, but today this is seen as
mere hubris. It was the centralization of legal power that brought the
trials to an end, not a matter of "Enlightenment overcoming
superstition."{29}
Conclusion
From the days of the early church we have been called upon to defend not
only our beliefs but also the activities of individual Christians and the
church as a whole. In his book, 6 Modern Myths About Christianity and
Western Civilization, Philip Sampson has given us a tool to better enable us
to do that today. I encourage you to read it.
Notes
a.. Philip J. Sampson, 6 Modern Myths About Christianity and Western
Civilization (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2001).
b.. George Bernard Shaw, Saint Joan (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1946), 17,
quoted in Sampson, 28.
c.. Patrick Moore, A Beginner's Guide to Astronomy (London: PRC
Publishing, 1997), 12, quoted in Sampson, 28.
d.. Sampson, 45.
e.. George Sim Johnston, "The Galileo Affair," downloaded from
http://www.catholic.net/rcc/Periodicals/Issues/GalileoAffair.html May 7,
2001.
f.. Ibid.
g.. Sampson, 34.
h.. Sampson, 36-37.
i.. George de Santillana, The Crime of Galileo (London: Heinemann, 1958),
xii, quoted in Sampson, 37.
j.. Sampson, 38.
k.. William R. Shea, "Galileo and the Church" in God and Nature, ed. David
C. Lindberg and Ronald Numbers (Berkley: University of California Press,
1986), 312, quoted in Sampson, 39.
l.. Sampson, 93.
m.. Sampson, 94.
n.. Sampson, 94.
o.. Sampson, 97-98.
p.. D. Stoll, Is Latin America Turning Protestant? (Berkley: University of
California Press, 1990), 12, quoted in Sampson, 98.
q.. Sampson, 99.
r.. Sampson, 130.
s.. Laurie, Cabot, Power of the Witch (Harmondsworth, U.K.: Penguin,
1992), 62, quoted in Sampson, 130.
t.. Sampson, 133.
u.. Sampson, 144.
v.. Sampson, 133.
w.. Sampson, 134-135.
x.. Sampson, 134.
y.. Hugh R. Trevor-Roper, The European Witch-Craze of the Sixteenth and
Seventeenth Centuries (Harmondsworth, U.K.: Penguin, 1969), 37, quoted in
Sampson, 139.
z.. Sampson, 141.
aa.. Sampson 137.
ab.. Trevor-Roper, 22, quoted in Sampson, 137.
ac.. Sampson, 133.
© 2001 Probe Ministries International
About the Author
Rick Wade graduated from Moody Bible Institute with a B.A. in Communications
(radio broadcasting) in 1986. He graduated cum laude in 1990 from Trinity
Evangelical Divinity School with an M.A. in Christian Thought
(theology/philosophy of religion) where his studies culminated in a thesis
on the apologetics of Carl F. H. Henry. Rick and his family make their home
in Garland, Texas. He can be reached via e-mail at rw...@probe.org.
A few useful refutations of common anti-christians myths.
--
Ecthelion of the Fountain
Lord of the Seven Gates of Gondolin
Slayer of Gothmog
"Hell is not a place where people are consigned because they were pretty
good blokes, but they just didn't believe the right stuff. They're
consigned there, first and foremost, because they defy their maker and want
to be the center of the universe. Hell is not filled with people who have
already repented, only God isn't gentle enough or good enough to let them
out. It's filled with people who, for all eternity, still want to be the
center of the universe and who persist in their God-defying rebellion. What
is God to do? If he says it doesn't matter to him, then God is no longer a
God to be admired. He's either amoral or positively creepy. For him to act
in any other way in the face of such blatant defiance would be to reduce God
himself."
- D.A. Carson
PharLap
>
> About the Author
> Rick Wade graduated from Moody Bible Institute with a B.A. in Communications
> (radio broadcasting) in 1986. He graduated cum laude in 1990 from Trinity
> Evangelical Divinity School with an M.A. in Christian Thought
> (theology/philosophy of religion) where his studies culminated in a thesis
> on the apologetics of Carl F. H. Henry. Rick and his family make their home
> in Garland, Texas. He can be reached via e-mail at rw...@probe.org.
>
Now how come this doesn't surprise me.
I saw much of the material put out by Moody as a child
It was never of a particularly high academic standard because it was
always riddled with a determination to prove the Bible as historically
correct that led to false emphasis and conclusions.
Moody is an essentially reactionary view that aims more at evangelism than
truth in my opinion. It is part of the uniquely peculiar structure that
passes for christian scholarship in America. It is a comfortable
prosperous middle class view.
A bit like "Bible study"
(More "Bible" than "study")
And fitting in with the concept overseas of American Christianity as a
religion more about America than about Christianity - an essentially
culturally racist view of the world
Sorry - I realise this may offend some - in my defense I should add that
part of my family is American too.