261 Universalism? Jewish, Christian, Islamic

Universalism? Jewish, Christian, Islamic

This set of articles falls into several parts.

The first consists of material from Roy Tov about the Jewish attack on Christianity. He argues that Christianity preserves the universalism found in the Jewish Bible (Old Testament), whereas Judaism diverted from it via the Talmud.

Then there's an extract from the book of Isaiah, plus some other quotes from the Old Testament, of a very non-universal nature. Given that the whole OT is supposedly revealed, this poses a problem for Christianity too, since it is grafted onto a Jewish rootstock.

Than an article about how the Germanic invasion of the Roman Empire changed the nature of Christianity - from pacifist other-worldly to militarized this-worldly.

Noam Chomsky then argues that Jesuit Liberation Theology, developed in conjunction with the Sandinistas in Nicaragua, was the revival of pacifist pre-Constantine Christianity.

Finally there is a set of articles showing that the Chechen insurrection is based on strict Islam. "Loose" women are now executed in Chechnya.

Eric Walberg puts a sympathetic visage to Islam. He himself is a Communist who converted to Islam. This happened when he was working as a journalist in post-Communist Uzbekistan; the Government there suppressed an uprising by shooting about 1,000 people. Eric's Moslem associates invited him to come to the mosque to mourn for them; this was the start of his conversion. He does not approve of Islamic fundamentalism.

Another interesting case is that of Rowan Berkeley, who used to be on this list. He converted to Islam, but told me that intends to vote BNP, despite that party's opposition to Moslem immigration.

(1) Da Vinci tirade in line with Jewish mockery of Christianity - Roy Tov
(2) Larry David urinates on Jesus - can a Christian urinate on the Talmud? Roy Tov
(3) Elizabeth Dilling's study of the Soncino Talmud - Roy Tov
(4) Isaiah 60: The nation and kingdom that will not serve you shall perish
(5) The Old Testament (Jewish Bible) on Israel vs. "the Nations" ((Gentiles, Pagans, Goyim)
(6) Germanic tribes, invading Roman empire, were baptised but led to Aryan Christianity
(7) Chomsky: Sandinista Jesuit Liberation Theology was the revival of pacifist pre-Constantine Christianity
(8) Chechen insurrection is led by clandestine Islamic mystical brotherhoods
(9) Chechen leader imposes strict Islam: Honour Killings, Death for Adultery
(10) Muslim revival brings polygamy, camels to Chechnya
(11) Islam provided the foundation for Chechen separatism
(12) Stalin deported the Chechens because they mounted an insurrection during German invasion

(1) Da Vinci tirade in line with Jewish mockery of Christianity - Roy Tov

From: Roy Tov <tovroy@gmail.com>  Date: 29.03.2010 10:00 PM

The Da Vinci Nazi

http://www.roytov.com/articles/davinci.htm

... In the past I reported about another article in the Hebrew media. It was published by Haaretz by Ofri Ilani on July 19, 2009. It was titled: "Vatican teaching Hezbollah how to kill Jews, says pamphlet for IDF troops." Among other nonsense, it claimed "The Pope and the cardinals of the Vatican help organize tours of Auschwitz for Hezbollah members to teach them how to wipe out Jews, according to a booklet being distributed to Israel Defense Forces soldiers."

In the October 25, 2009, episode of "Curb Your Enthusiasm" titled "The Bare Midriff," Larry David's urinated on an image of Jesus the Christ. It couldn't have been broadcast without the previous approval of HBO. <http://www.roytov.com/articles/larrydavid.htm>

The list of disturbing attitudes shown by Israelis – and Jews in general – could be expanded significantly without any effort. Several other articles in this website show other examples of Jewish racist attitude and of the indefatigable conspirators' subsequent actions.

Under these circumstances, there is a recent document that shines in the dark skies of these times with several peculiarities. The Da Vinci Code is the name of a book published by Dan Brown in 2003, with the kind help of Bantam Dell Pub Group, a subsidiary of Random House. The book contains an ongoing tirade against the Church, especially the Roman Catholic one. Considering issues like Hate Laws and others, its publication is strange. Why wasn't the author prosecuted in court?

I won't make an analysis of the book here. An excellent one was published by the Catholic Church in an article called Cracking "The Da Vinci Code." It shows how the author manipulates historical facts in favor of a conspiracy theory apparently backed by "old age" people. Those propose returning to the days of horoscopes, numerology and Talmudism.

So we have a little book unsuccessfully attempting to throw mud on the Church. How come it got published by a major publisher and got filmed by Hollywood? Who backs the book? Why it looks in line with the ongoing Jewish attacks and mockery against Christianity? Why can't we see any apparent Jewish influence in this case? I did contact Random House in the past and they did refuse publishing The Cross of Bethlehem  despite my book being at the very center of the political map; however, it criticizes Israel and Judaism.

(2) Larry David urinates on Jesus - can a Christian urinate on the Talmud? Roy Tov

http://www.roytov.com/articles/larrydavid.htm

Larry David | A Blasphemer

This week I learned with disgust, a Jew made a hate television show for HBO. In the October 25, 2009, episode of "Curb Your Enthusiasm" titled "The Bare Midriff," Larry David's urinated on an image of Jesus the Christ. Only a person of such (un)cultural background would fail to perceive the difference between an image and the spiritual reality he lacks. After all, they pray to an old wall.

His infantile act shows us again the vast differences between Christianity and the people that even their sacred texts define as idolaters. As an ethnic Jew that converted a long time ago and regularly preaches in the Church, I want to say Larry David he is pardoned if he repents sincerely. Jesus taught (Matthew 18:15-17):

"Moreover if thy brother shall trespass against thee, go and tell him his fault between thee and him alone: if he shall hear thee, thou hast gained thy brother.
But if he will not hear thee, then take with thee one or two more, that in the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may be established.
And if he shall neglect to hear them, tell it unto the church: but if he neglect to hear the church, let him be unto thee as an heathen man and a publican."

We must not forget Apostle Paul was a Pharisee full of hatred; he persecuted the Church prior his conversion. If he shows repentance, I volunteer to accept Larry David to my congregation and to oversee his conversion. These are the Teachings.

In sharp contrast, what is the Jewish position? Anybody heard of "Hate Laws?" These are pushed by Jewish communities around the world. Why they do not apply to a Jew inciting hate and despise against his neighbour? After all, the inverse argument was used in 2006 by the American Jewish community against the Presbyterian Church after the last decided on an disinvestment policy towards Israel, following the assassination of Rachel Corrie in Israel. The last was supported by the State of Israel, the proof is that the assassin is still free despite his identity being known. Moreover, can a Christian urinate on a copy of the Talmud – a book preaching for violation of little children – on the American television?

Yet, in the American society of the 21st century this article would probably be tagged as hateful against Jews. If I were in the US, I would probably be prosecuted and persecuted for it.

(3) Elizabeth Dilling's study of the Soncino Talmud - Roy Tov
http://www.roytov.com/articles/talmud.htm

Is Quoting the Talmud Anti-Semitic?

{photo caption} Babylonian Talmud | Brahot Front Page {end}

Should one be defined as anti-Semitic for quoting from Talmud texts that preach for committing or justifying crimes? Texts that define the Talmud supporters – at least – as collaborators, or even instigators to commit, a crime?

This question is a serious one, since the modern State of Israel forces on its citizens the religious views of the Pharisees descendants, namely the rabbis. The rabbis act according to the Talmud teachings. In such a way, Israel is accepting the Talmud and its teachings. What does that mean?

Who were the Pharisees?

In 539 BC the Persians conquered Babylon, where many Jews were exiled. He let them return to Jerusalem, where the Sadducees – the priests – became the de facto authority of them. While the priests controlled the Temple, the scribes monopolized the study of the Torah, which was read publicly on market-days.

However, after the fell of the Kingdom of Judah and the exile to Babylon – where the people could witness a more developed society – the prestige of the Sadducees was in decline. The scribes took advantage of that and began the process of organizing themselves into a political party that claimed to possess the correct interpretation of the Bible, what they called the Oral Law. They based the claim on their erudition – they were among the few that could read – and on the failure of the priests to restore the splendor of the former kingdom. "Something is wrong with their interpretation," whispered the Pharisees to the people.

Much later they became the religious leaders of the people and in a brilliant marketing event they changed their title to "rabbi" ("my master," or literally "my much").

What is the Talmud?

The Old Testament was considered dangerous by the Pharisees. Simply, many of the Mosaic Laws were uncomfortable – and inconvenient – to fulfil. Moreover, the prophecies regarding Jesus – their archenemy – in the Bible were difficult to ignore.

Facing such a problem, these industrious men operated a two stages plan. First, an Oral Law was created. These were laws that defined how the Mosaic Laws in the Pentateuch should be interpreted. Using them, they could turn around any law to their convenience. They claim the Oral Law was given verbally by Moses to their ancestors. The Bible does not support this claim.

At certain stage – before Jesus was born – the compilation of this Oral Law into books began. The result was the creation of a new layer of books – collectively known as the Talmud – that included all the formal interpretations of the Pentateuch – the Bible's first five books. All the other books in the Bible were considered little more than fables by the Pharisees.

Nowadays, the rabbis – the Pharisees spiritual descendants – consider the Talmud as the main book of law. Since then, the Pharisees and rabbis can manipulate the law interpretations to their personal benefit.

Jesus and the Talmud

In the times of Jesus the Talmud was still incomplete, but its foundations already managed the Pharisees behaviour. The manipulation of the Mosaic Law for the Pharisees personal profit – the main task of the Talmud – is time and again denounced by Jesus. The strongest text on the issue is the whole of Chapter 23 in the Gospel of Matthew.

But not only there. He also said:

Matt. 15:6-9 ... Thus have ye made the commandment of God of none effect by your tradition.
15:7 Ye hypocrites, well did Esaias prophesy of you, saying,
15:8 This people draweth nigh unto me with their mouth, and honoureth me with their lips; but their heart is far from me.
15:9 But in vain they do worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men.

And:

John 8:44: Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because the truth is not in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar and the father of it.

Disputations

During Medieval times, several disputations took place took place between Christian and Jewish theologians. The Talmud – the official Jewish interpretation of the Pentateuch – became a main topic in two of them.

The first took place in Paris in 1240, and was led by of Nicholas Donin from the Franciscan Order – a convert from Judaism. The Christian theologians commission found the texts so offensive, that it condemned the Talmud to be burned. On June 17, 1244, twenty-four carriage loads of manuscripts were publicly set on fire.

Much more famous than the first, the Disputation of Tortosa was held between 1413 and 1414 in Tortosa, Spain. Again, it was initiated by a Christian convert from Judaism, in this case the Pope's physician, Joshua Lorqui. One of the main topics was defined as: "the errors, heresies, defilement, and blasphemies against the Christian religion" in the Talmud. At its end, the Pope ordered all the Talmud books to be brought to his functionaries for censorship. However, original texts survived.

Soncino

The Talmud – written in Hebrew and Aramaic – was largely ignored by the world until the Jews' College translation was published through Soncino Press between 1935 and 1948. This was the first complete English translation, produced by authoritative Jewish scholars in the world and is considered a reliable text. It is important to keep that in mind while judging the next sections.

Elizabeth Dilling

Once this task was accomplished, the way was open for an international examination of the text. Elizabeth Dilling published the first critique of the Talmud, a book called The Jewish Religion: Its Influence Today. She used the Soncino Talmud, and quotes also the Jewish Encyclopedia, the Universal Jewish Encyclopedia and other publications. Her analysis is considered serious.

My readers can download here her book <http://www.roytov.com/downloads/ElizabethDillingTheJewishReligion.pdf>
and here the bulky exhibits accompanying it. <http://www.roytov.com/downloads/Exhibits.zip>

Before continuing with the answer of the Jewish community to Dilling's publication, I would like to bring some of the commentaries appearing in her book.

Racism

Moses taught again and again that the stranger is to be treated the same as the Israelites:

Lev 19:34 But the stranger that dwelleth with you shall be unto you as one born among you, and thou shalt love him as thyself; for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt: I am the LORD your God.
19:35 Ye shall do no unrighteousness in judgment, in meteyard, in weight, or in measure.

Deut 10:19 Love ye therefore the stranger: for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt.

Numbers 9:14 …ye shall have one ordinance, both for the stranger, and for him that was born in the land.

Yet, the oral law, or the Traditions of the Pharisees, as recorded in the Talmud, reverses Moses teachings. In Baba Mezia 108b it says: "Only ye are designated as 'men.'" The Baba Mezia passage is about the graves of Gentiles which rank like the graves of animals. "The graves of Gentiles do not defile," is the edict.

No wonder Christ said:

Matt 15:3 But he answered and said unto them, Why do ye also transgress the commandment of God by your tradition?

Mark 7:13 Making the word of God of none effect through your tradition, which ye have delivered: and many such like things do ye.

Non-Jews Have No Property Rights

The Talmud teaches in Baba Bathra, Folio 54b, that non-Jews have no property rights. Their possessions are "like unclaimed land in the desert." The passage appears on page 222 of the Soncino edition: "Rab Judah said in the name of Samuel: The property of a heathen is on the same footing as desert land; whoever first occupies it acquires ownership."

Doesn't the occupation of Palestine appear now in a new light?

Bestiality

The Talmud is obsessed with pornographic issues, touching some of them here is unavoidable. Moses commanded that if a woman have intercourse with a beast, both should be killed (Leviticus 20:16), and that a priest must not marry a harlot or woman who is profane (Lev. 21:7), the Talmud inverted that and teaches that "unnatural intercourse does not cause a woman to be forbidden to marry a High Priest," since then "you will find no woman eligible …" (See Exhibit 157, from the Yebamoth, Folios 59a-59b)

Then, the ruling of the rabbis is: "A woman who had intercourse with a beast is eligible to marry a priest — even a High Priest," and "the result of such intercourse being regarded as a mere wound, and the opinion that does not regard an accidentally injured hymen as a disqualification does not regard such as intercourse either." (See Exhibit 158)

Babies

The Talmud enlightens us that baby boys may be used as subjects for sodomy by grown men (See Exhibit 54). The Pharisaic excuse is that until a child reaches sexual maturity, he or she does not rank as a person, hence Biblical laws against sodomy do not apply. Throughout the Talmud "nine years and one day" is the age of male maturity.

According to the Talmud, under "nine years and one day," the "first stage of intercourse" of a boy with the mother, or any grown woman, is harmless. Shammai – who contributed vast texts to the Talmud, lowers the age to eight years in some cases. (See Exhibit 82 from Sanhedrin 69b).

Not less shocking is the following text: "When a grown up man has intercourse with a little girl it is nothing, for when the girl is less than this — that is, less than three years old — it is as if one puts the finger into the eye — tears come to the eye again and again, so does virginity come back to the little girl under three years." (See Exhibit 136, Kethuboth 11b).  <http://www.roytov.com/articles/exhibit.htm>

This is the Talmudic doctrine on babies. Sodomy and intercourse with them is the prerogative of the Talmudic man. What a contrast to Christ's teachings!

However, that's not all. "A maiden aged three years and one day may be acquired in marriage by coition …" See Exhibit 55 (Sanhedrin 55b), Exhibit 81 (Sanhedrin 69a-69b), and others.

Baby girls of three can invoke sadistic punishments on those who have intercourse with them when they are "Niddahs" (menstruating), a physical impossibility (Sanhedrin 55b - Exhibit 55; Sanhedrin 69a - Exhibit 81).

This type of crimes – and all their imaginable variations – appear time and again. What type of men wrote these texts? What type of men are their followers?

Every single rabbi in the world studied this text in order to graduate. Would you hire one as a babysitter?

Quoting the Talmud Heresies in Public is Dangerous

In 1944, Dilling's views involved her in was called "mass sedition trial." The case was ultimately dismissed by a Federal Court as "a travesty on justice."

I am afraid to comment on that, I am already a refugee and do not need to add reasons for my persecution. Instead, I'll bring Dilling's own words that appear on a later edition of her book:

"The hub of world Jewish anti-Christ power, the financial and industrial power best described in Rev. 18:11-, is the AMERICAN JEWISH COMMITTEE with its B'nai B'rith brotherhood, and its "secret police", smear and ruin arm, the Anti-Defamation League. After having pushed a reluctant USA into World War II--to spread Communism across the earth, and with its first world base, Soviet Russia, as our "ally", it was decided to crush all ANTI-COMMUNISTS by trying them as "Fascists, Nazis". A series of indictments against some 30 anti-Communists, of which I was one, was engineered by the American Jewish Committee, in 1942, 1943, 1944. The 1942 indictment never came to trial. The 1943 indictment was dismissed in Washington by Judge Adkins. Only the 1944 indictment went to trial under a stooge judge Eicher. An unbelievable farce was staged without any legality or fact. After the death of judge Eicher, the case was dismissed by Judge Bolitha Laws with the scathing denunciation that it had been a crime to hold those people on trial all that time without a single piece of evidence in accordance with the charge being introduced by the prosecution against ANY defendant. The Communist press had been gloating that the "sedition trial" was part of the "Moscow Purge trials" then in session all over Europe. I reproduced the item on one of my Bulletins, sent to every Congressman."

I want to ask again:

Is Quoting the Talmud Anti-Semitic

(4) Isaiah 60: The nation and kingdom that will not serve you shall perish

Isaiah 60:1-22

http://bible.oremus.org/?passage=Isaiah+60:1-9&vnum=yes&version=nrsv

60Arise, shine; for your light has come, and the glory of the LORD has risen upon you. 2For darkness shall cover the earth, and thick darkness the peoples; but the LORD will arise upon you, and his glory will appear over you. 3Nations shall come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your dawn. 4Lift up your eyes and look around; they all gather together, they come to you; your sons shall come from far away, and your daughters shall be carried on their nurses’ arms. 5Then you shall see and be radiant; your heart shall thrill and rejoice, because the abundance of the sea shall be brought to you, the wealth of the nations shall come to you. 6A multitude of camels shall cover you, the young camels of Midian and Ephah; all those from Sheba shall come. They shall bring gold and frankincense, and shall proclaim the praise of the LORD. 7All the flocks of Kedar shall be gathered to you, the rams of Nebaioth shall minister to you; they shall be acceptable on my altar, and I will glorify my glorious house. 8Who are these that fly like a cloud, and like doves to their windows?

9For the coastlands shall wait for me, the ships of Tarshish first, to bring your children from far away, their silver and gold with them, for the name of the LORD your God, and for the Holy One of Israel, because he has glorified you.

10Foreigners shall build up your walls, and their kings shall minister to you; for in my wrath I struck you down, but in my favor I have had mercy on you. 11Your gates shall always be open; day and night they shall not be shut, so that nations shall bring you their wealth, with their kings led in procession. 12For the nation and kingdom that will not serve you shall perish; those nations shall be utterly laid waste. 13The glory of Lebanon shall come to you, the cypress, the plane, and the pine, to beautify the place of my sanctuary; and I will glorify where my feet rest. 14The descendants of those who oppressed you shall come bending low to you, and all who despised you shall bow down at your feet; they shall call you the City of the LORD, the Zion of the Holy One of Israel.

15Whereas you have been forsaken and hated, with no one passing through, I will make you majestic forever, a joy from age to age. 16You shall suck the milk of nations, you shall suck the breasts of kings; and you shall know that I, the LORD, am your Savior and your Redeemer, the Mighty One of Jacob. 17Instead of bronze I will bring gold, instead of iron I will bring silver; instead of wood, bronze, instead of stones, iron. I will appoint Peace as your overseer and Righteousness as your taskmaster. 18Violence shall no more be heard in your land, devastation or destruction within your borders; you shall call your walls Salvation, and your gates Praise. 19The sun shall no longer be your light by day, nor for brightness shall the moon give light to you by night; but the LORD will be your everlasting light, and your God will be your glory. 20Your sun shall no more go down, or your moon withdraw itself; for the LORD will be your everlasting light, and your days of mourning shall be ended. 21Your people shall all be righteous; they shall possess the land forever. They are the shoot that I planted, the work of my hands, so that I might be glorified. 22The least of them shall become a clan, and the smallest one a mighty nation; I am the LORD; in its time I will accomplish it quickly.

(5) The Old Testament (Jewish Bible) on Israel vs. "the Nations" ((Gentiles, Pagans, Goyim)

The Jewish Bible's fundamental distinction is between Israel and "the Nations" (Gentiles, Pagans, Goyim, Non-Jews). Israel is commanded to overcome and destroy them:

"Let peoples serve you, and nations bow down to you" (Genesis 27:29) http://bible.oremus.org/?passage=Genesis+27:29&vnum=yes&version=nrsv

"I will send my terror in front of you, and throw into confusion all the people against whom you shall come ... Little by little I will drive them out from before you, until you have increased and possess the land" (Exodus 23:27-9) http://bible.oremus.org/?passage=Exodus+23:27-29&vnum=yes&version=nrsv

"For I will cast out nations before you, and enlarge your borders; no one shall covet your land when you go up to appear before the LORD your God three times in the year." (Exodus 34:24) http://bible.oremus.org/?passage=Exodus+34:24&vnum=yes&version=nrsv

"Do not defile yourselves in any of these ways, for by all these practices the nations I am casting out before you have defiled themselves" (Leviticus 18:24)
http://bible.oremus.org/?passage=Leviticus+18:24&vnum=yes&version=nrsv

"As for the male and female slaves whom you may have, it is from the nations around you that you may acquire male and female slaves. You may also acquire them from the aliens residing with you ..." (Leviticus 25:44-5) http://bible.oremus.org/?passage=Leviticus+25:44-46&vnum=yes&version=nrsv

"When the LORD your God brings you into the land that you are about to enter and occupy, and he clears away many nations before you ... and the LORD your God
gives them over to you and you defeat them, then you must utterly destroy them" (Deuteronomy 7:1)
http://bible.oremus.org/?passage=Deuteronomy+7:1&vnum=yes&version=nrsv

"The LORD your God will clear away these nations before you little by little; you will not be able to make a quick end of them, otherwise the wild animals would become too
numerous for you. But the LORD your God will give them over to you, and throw them into great panic, until they are destroyed. He will hand their kings over to you and you
shall blot out their name from under heaven; no one will be able to stand against you, until you have destroyed them. (Deuteronomy 7:22-4)
http://bible.oremus.org/?passage=Deuteronomy+7:22-24&vnum=yes&version=nrsv

"You must demolish completely all the places where the nations whom you are about to dispossess served their gods ... Break down their altars, smash their
pillars, burn their sacred poles with fire ... and thus blot out their name from their places" (Deuteronomy 12:2-3)
http://bible.oremus.org/?passage=Deuteronomy+12:2-3&vnum=yes&version=nrsv

"... you will lend to many nations, but you will not borrow; you will rule over many nations, but they will not rule over you" (Deuteronomy 15:6)
http://bible.oremus.org/?passage=Deuteronomy+15:6&vnum=yes&version=nrsv

"You will lend to many nations, but you will not borrow. The LORD will make you the head, and not the tail; you shall be only at the top, and not the bottom ..."
(Deuteronomy 28:12-13) http://bible.oremus.org/?passage=Deuteronomy+28:12-13&vnum=yes&version=nrsv

"You shall not charge interest on loans to another Israelite, interest on money, interest on provisions, interest on anything that is lent. On loans to a foreigner
you may charge interest, but on loans to another Israelite you may not charge interest ..." (Deuteronomy 23:19-20)
http://bible.oremus.org/?passage=Deuteronomy+23:19-20&vnum=yes&version=nrsv

"nations shall bring you their wealth, with their kings led in procession. For the nation and kingdom that will not serve you shall perish" (Isaiah 60:11-12)
http://bible.oremus.org/?passage=Isaiah+60:11-12&vnum=yes&version=nrsv

The Book of Ezra (Chapter 9) records Ezra saying:

 1 After these things had been done, the officials approached me and said, "The people of Israel, the priests and the levites have not separated themselves from the peoples of the lands with their abominations ... 2 For they have taken some of their daughters as wives for themselves and for their sons. Thus the holy seed has mixed itself with the peoples of the lands ... ." 3 When I heard this, I tore my garment and my mantle, and pulled hair from my head and beard, and sat appalled ... 10 And now, our God, what shall we say after this? For we have forsaken your commandments ... saying, 'The land that you are entering to possess is a land unclean with the pollutions of the peoples of the lands ... Therefore do not give your daughters to their sons, neither take their daughters for your sons, and never seek their peace or prosperity ...' (Ezra 9:1-12)
http://bible.oremus.org/?passage=Ezra+9:1-12&vnum=yes&version=nrsv

In Chapter 10, Ezra continues:

2 Shecaniah ... addressed Ezra, saying, "We have broken faith with our God and have married foreign women ... So now let us make a covenant with our God to send away all these wives and their children" ... 5 Then Ezra stood up and made the leading priests, the Levites, and all Israel swear that they would do as had been said. So they swore. (Ezra 10: 2-5)
http://bible.oremus.org/?passage=Ezra+10:2-5&vnum=yes&version=nrsv

(6) Germanic tribes, invading Roman empire, were baptised but led to Aryan Christianity
The Germanization of Early Medieval Christianity:
 A Sociohistorical Approach to Religious Transformation

James C. Russell
New York: Oxford University Press, 1994.
$19.95 US

Reviewed by Samuel Francis

http://www.theoccidentalquarterly.com/archives/vol1no1/sf-russell.html

"Christian theology is the grandmother of Bolshevism," Oswald Spengler wrote many years ago. What he meant was that Christianity's endorsement of such ideas as universalism, egalitarianism, peace, world brotherhood, and universal altruism helped establish and legitimize the ethics and politics invoked by socialists and communists. Socialists and communists don't always agree, however, which is why another German scholar, Karl Marx, pronounced that religion is in fact a conservatizing force, the opiate of the masses, the drug that prevents the workers of the world from rebelling against their class enemies.

Both of these Teutonic heavyweights might have profited from reading James C. Russell's The Germanization of Early Medieval Christianity, since it speaks, at least indirectly, to the tension between their different views of Christianity, differences that continue to be reflected in political and ideological disputes on the European and American right today. The main question in the controversy is this: Is Christianity a force that supports or opposes the efforts of the right to defend the European-American way of life? Christians on the right argue that their religious commitments are central to Western civilization, while pagans and secularists on the right (especially in Europe) argue, with Spengler, that Christianity undermines the West by pushing a universalism that rejects race, class, family, and even nation.

Mr. Russell, who holds a doctorate in historical theology from Fordham University and teaches at Saint Peter's College, does not quite answer the question, but his immensely learned and closely reasoned book does suggest an answer. His thesis is that early Christianity flourished in the decadent, deracinated, and alienated world of late antiquity precisely because it was able to appeal to various oppressed or dissatisfied sectors of the population -- slaves, urbanized proletarians, women, intellectuals, frustrated aristocrats, and the odd idealist repelled by the pathological materialism, brutality, and banality of the age.

But when Christian missionaries tried to appeal to the Germanic invaders by invoking the universalism, pacifism, and egalitarianism that had attracted the alienated inhabitants of the empire, they failed. That was because the Germans practiced a folk religion that reflected ethnic homogeneity, social hierarchy, military glory and heroism, and "standards of ethical conduct ... derived from a sociobiological drive for group survival through ingroup altruism." Germanic religion and society were "world-accepting," while Hellenic Christianity was "world-rejecting," reflecting the influence of Oriental religions and ethics. By "Germans," it should be noted, Mr. Russell does not mean modern residents of Germany but rather "the Gothic, Frankish, Saxon, Burgundian, Alamannic, Suevic, and Vandal peoples, but also ... the Viking peoples of Scandinavia and the Anglo-Saxon peoples of Britain." With the exception of the Celts and the Slavs, "Germans" thus means almost the same thing as "European" itself.

Given the contradictions between the Christian ethics and world-view and those of the Indo-European culture of the Germanic peoples, the only tactic Christians could use was one of appearing to adopt Germanic values and claiming that Christian values were really compatible with them. The bulk of Mr. Russell's scholarship shows how this process of accommodation took place in the course of about four centuries. The saints and Christ Himself were depicted as Germanic warrior heroes; both festivals and locations sacred in ancient Germanic cults were quietly taken over by the Christians as their own; and words and concepts with religious meanings and connotations were subtly redefined in terms of the new religion. Yet the final result was not that the Germans were converted to the Christianity they had originally encountered, but rather that that form of Christianity was "Germanized," coming to adopt many of the same Indo-European folk values that the old pagan religion had celebrated.

(7) Chomsky: Sandinista Jesuit Liberation Theology was the revival of pacifist pre-Constantine Christianity

From: Kenneth Rasmusson <rasken@kulturservern.se> Date: 27.03.2010 10:02 AM

The evil scourge of terrorism: Reality, construction, remedy

Erich Fromm Lecture 2010

Noam Chomsky

http://chomsky.info/talks/20100323.htm

Text of lecture delivered at the International Erich Fromm Society, Stuttgart, Germany, March 23, 2010

The president could not have been more justified when he condemned "the evil scourge of terrorism." I am quoting Ronald Reagan, who came into office in 1981 declaring that a focus of his foreign policy would be state-directed international terrorism, "the plague of the modern age" and "a return to barbarism in our time," to sample some of the rhetoric of his administration. ...

Apart from Cuba, the plague of state terror in the Western hemisphere was initiated with the Brazilian coup in 1964, installing the first of a series of neo-Nazi National Security States and initiating a plague of repression without precedent in the hemisphere, always strongly backed by Washington, hence a particularly violent form of state-directed international terrorism. The campaign was in substantial measure a war against the Church. It was more than symbolic that it culminated in the assassination of six leading Latin American intellectuals, Jesuit priests, in November 1989, a few days after the fall of the Berlin wall. They were murdered by an elite Salvadoran battalion, fresh from renewed training at the John F. Kennedy Special Forces School in North Carolina. As was learned last November, but apparently aroused no interest, the order for the assassination was signed by the chief of staff and his associates, all of them so closely connected to the Pentagon and the US Embassy that it becomes even harder to imagine that Washington was unaware of the plans of its model battalion. This elite force had already left a trail of blood of the usual victims through the hideous decade of the 1980s in El Salvador, which opened with the assassination of Archbishop Romero, "the voice of the voiceless," by much the same hands.

The murder of the Jesuit priests was a crushing blow to liberation theology, the remarkable revival of Christianity initiated by Pope John XXIII at Vatican II, which he opened in 1962, an event that "ushered in a new era in the history of the Catholic Church," in the words of the distinguished theologian and historian of Christianity Hans KŸng. Inspired by Vatican II, Latin American Bishops adopted "the preferential option for the poor," renewing the radical pacifism of the Gospels that had been put to rest when the Emperor Constantine established Christianity as the religion of the Roman Empire -- "a revolution" that converted "the persecuted church" to a "persecuting church," in KŸng's words. In the post-Vatican II attempt to revive the Christianity of the pre-Constantine period, priests, nuns, and laypersons took the message of the Gospels to the poor and the persecuted, brought them together in "base communities," and encouraged them to take their fate into their own hands and to work together to overcome the misery of survival in brutal realms of US power.

The reaction to this grave heresy was not long in coming. The first salvo was Kennedy's military coup in Brazil in 1964, overthrowing a mildly social democratic government and instituting a reign of torture and violence. The campaign ended with the murder of the Jesuit intellectuals 20 years ago. There has been much debate about who deserves credit for the fall of the Berlin wall, but there is none about the responsibility for the brutal demolition of the attempt to revive the church of the Gospels. Washington's School of the Americas, famous for its training of Latin American killers, proudly announced as one of its "talking points" that liberation theology was "defeated with the assistance of the US army" -- given a helping hand, to be sure by the Vatican, using the gentler means of expulsion and suppression.

Comment (Peter M.):

Chomsky applauds "the radical pacifism of the Gospels". But the Sandanistas weren't pacifists; just as Marxism isn't pacifist.

It's one thing to applaud Chavez, who was elected to power and who has used non-violent means of governing, and another matter to support civil war such as the Sandanistas mounted.

Militarised insurgency is just as inconsistent with the early, pacifist Christianity as the later Christianity that developed under Constantine and in the wake of the Germanic invasions.

(8) Chechen insurrection is led by clandestine Islamic mystical brotherhoods

http://www.iol.ie/~afifi/Articles/chechnya.htm

The Religious Roots of Conflict

Russia and Chechnya

By David Damrel

[Originally published in Religious Studies News, September 1995, Vol. 10, No. 3., p. 10.]

There is something basic missing from most Western commentary on Russia’s ferocious war against the secessionist Chechen Republic: the Chechens themselves. While many analysts ponder Yeltsin’s pursuit of his costly, unpopular war in the Caucasus or ask how the international community should respond to Russia’s decimation of Grozny, the Chechens - who call themselves the Nokhchi - appear as little more than an unexplored foil to the Russians.

But what sustains just under a million Muslim Chechens in their improbable resistance to Russian might? What are the religious dimensions of the conflict? How has Islam - and the powerful, clandestine Islamic mystical brotherhoods in particular - survived there, despite two centuries of brutal Czarist, Soviet and now Russian persecution?

While the majority of the former Soviet Union’s 48 million Muslims gained independence with the dissolution of the USSR in 1991, the Russian Federation still contains over seven million ethnically and linguistically diverse Muslim peoples. Two groups of these "internal Muslims" - the Tatars and the Chechens - are important to the Russian Federation for two key reasons. The first is economic: both Chechnya and Tatarstan possess substantial oil reserves, with Tatarstan alone producing 25% of the Russian yield. The second reason is political: of all the former Russian republics and autonomous republics, only Tatarstan and Chechnya refused to ratify the 1992 Russian Federation Treaty that established Yeltsin’s present Russian Federation. Moscow immediately attacked both de facto secessions, and the Tatar case is pending appeal before the new Russian Constitutional Court. In Chechnya two years of Russian threats, bluster and empty negotiations ended with invasion in late 1994.

That the political situation in Chechnya erupted into warfare comes as no surprise to anyone familiar with Moscow’s long and bloody history in the north Caucasus. The Muslim peoples of this multiethnic region claim a tradition of opposition to rule from Moscow that is entering a third century. Invariably at the heart of this Chechen resistance have been the remarkably resilient, furtive, and politically active Islamic mystical brotherhoods of the Caucasus. ...

Zikr (remembrance [of God]) is the central ritual practice of most Caucasian Sufi orders. This mystical ceremony, designed to lead participants into an ecstatic union with God, involves the group repetition of a special prayer or various divine names of God. The Naqshbandis favor a silent form of zikr that is closed to outsiders, but other orders sometimes permit vocal and public zikr assemblies.

Reliable membership figures are impossible to establish, but a 1975 Soviet survey in Chechnya claimed that half of the Muslim population there belonged to local Sufi orders--a stunning total of over 300,000 murids. ...

The revolutionary years were especially bloody in Daghestan and Chechnya. The Qadiris, and a Naqshbandi movement led by Shaykh Uzun Haji battled for eight years against the White and the Red armies to create a "North Caucasian Emirate." The pious, uncompromising Uzun Haji - whose tomb remains a major pilgrimage site for Chechen Muslims - saw little difference between the Czarist Russians and the atheist communists. "I am weaving a rope," he was quoted by his enemies, "to hang engineers, students and in general all those who write from left to right."

His uprising in Daghestan was suppressed in 1925, but the Soviets, branding the Sufis "bandits," "criminals" and "counter-revolutionaries," continued to arrest, execute and deport the "zikrists" almost up to the outbreak of WWII. The brotherhoods braved the crackdown as they always had: the shaykhs disappeared deep into the mountains, the murids organized their zikr assemblies in private homes, and the orders ensured their secrecy through the double bond of spiritual initiation and tight-knit clan loyalty.

During WWII, when disturbances occurred in Chechnya in 1940 and again in 1943, Stalin responded with astonishing brutality that bordered on genocide. Accusing them of still unproven collaboration with Nazi Germany, in 1944 he forcibly relocated six entire Caucasian nationalities, including the whole Chechen and Ingush populations, to special camps in Central Asia. All told, more than a million Muslims from the Caucasus were deported, with tremendous loss of life. By some estimates one third to one-half of the population of Chechen-Ingushetia alone - well over 250,000 people - disappeared after the republic was liquidated in February 1944.

The Chechens and other groups spent more than a decade in isolated work camps in Kazakhstan. But by all accounts, the forced resettlement failed to break either the Sufi brotherhoods or Chechen national spirit. Describing the fearsome "psychology of submission" that prevailed in Soviet relocation camps, Russian author Alexander Solzhenitsyn observed that only one people refused to be broken by the ordeal: "the nation as a whole - the Chechens." And in later sociological surveys Soviet academics euphemistically noted that "the special postwar conditions" had actually strengthened religious beliefs within the exiled Caucasian peoples.

In 1957, when the Chechens and other exiled Caucasian groups were proclaimed "rehabilitated" and returned to their republics, they found that their land had been "Russified." Hundreds of thousands of Russian farmers brought in to work the land during their absence had become permanent residents and now comprised a quarter of the region’s population.

The Chechens, Ingush and Daghestanis also discovered a land scoured of Islam. Soviet authorities had experimented with the near total suppression of Islam in the region, closing over 800 mosques and 400 religious colleges. Mazars were demolished, converted into state museums, or made inaccessible. Only after more than 30 years, in 1978, Soviet authorities in the Caucasus allowed under 40 mosques to reopen and staffed them with less than 300 registered ulema.

These measures against "institutional" Islam had little impact on the Sufi brotherhoods, which had never relied on mosques and madrasas as their centers. Indeed, the orders themselves--particularly the Naqshbandis--are noted to this day for organizing their own clandestine Arabic classes and schools to teach the Qur‘an. And, throughout the 1970s, the orders regained their popularity in Chechnya behind a new Chechen Sufi brotherhood--an order that had formed during the exile in Central Asia. ... --

[David Damrel is a Fellow of St. Cross College, Oxford, and an Associate Faculty Member in the Department of Religious Studies at Arizona State University, Tempe.]

(9) Chechen leader imposes strict Islam: Honour Killings, Death for Adultery

Chechen leader imposes strict Islamic code

By Lynn Berry

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/02/world/europe/02iht-chechen.4.20541553.html?_r=1

GROZNY, Russia — The president of Chechnya emerged from afternoon prayers at a mosque and with chilling composure explained why seven young women who had been shot in the head deserved to die.

Ramzan Kadyrov said the women, whose bodies were found dumped by the roadside, had "loose morals" and were rightfully shot by male relatives in honor killings.

"If a woman runs around and if a man runs around with her, both of them are killed," Kadyrov told journalists in the capital of this Russian republic.

The 32-year-old former militia leader is carrying out a campaign to impose Islamic values and strengthen the traditional customs of predominantly Muslim Chechnya, in an effort to blunt the appeal of hard-line Islamic separatists and shore up his power. In doing so, critics say, he is setting up a dictatorship where Russian laws do not apply.

Some in Russia say Kadyrov's attempt to create an Islamic society violates the Russian Constitution, which guarantees equal rights for women and a separation of church and state. But the Kremlin has given him its staunch backing, seeing him as being crucial to keeping the separatists in check, and that has allowed him to impose his will.

"Kadyrov willfully tries to increase the influence of local customs over the life of the republic because this makes him the absolute ruler of the republic," said Yulia Latynina, a political analyst in Moscow.

Kadyrov's bluster suggests how confident he is of his position. "No one can tell us not to be Muslims," he said outside the mosque. "If anyone says I cannot be a Muslim, he is my enemy."

Few dare to challenge Kadyrov's rule in this southern Russian region of more than one million people which is only now emerging from the devastation of two wars in the past 15 years. The fighting between Islamic separatists and Russian troops, compounded by atrocities on both sides, claimed tens of thousands of lives and terrorized civilians.

Kadyrov describes women as the property of their husbands and says their main role is to bear children. He encourages men to take more than one wife, even though polygamy is illegal in Russia. Women and girls are now required to wear head scarves in schools, universities and government offices.

Some Chechen women say they support or at least accept Kadyrov's strict new guidelines.

"Head scarves make a woman beautiful," said Zulikhan Nakayeva, a medical student whose long, dark hair flowed out from under her head covering, her big brown eyes accentuated by mascara.

But many chafe under the restrictions.

"How do women live in Chechnya? They live as the men say," said Taisiya, 20, who asked that her last name not be used for fear of retribution. She was not wearing a head scarf while shopping in central Grozny, which she said was her way of protesting.

Most women now wear head scarves in public, though the scarves rarely fully cover their hair and in some cases are little more than colorful silk headbands. Women who go out without a head scarf tend to tuck one into their bags just in case.

Many people suspect Kadyrov is branding the seven slayings in November as honor killings to advance his political agenda. He said the women were planning to go abroad to work as prostitutes, but that their relatives learned of it and killed them.

Few Chechens appear to believe that.

"If women are killed according to tradition, then it is done very secretly to prevent too many people from finding out that someone in the family behaved incorrectly," said Natalya Estemirova, a human rights activist in Grozny.

Estemirova said two of the women were married, with two children each. Their husbands held large funerals and buried them in the family plot, which would not have happened if the women had disgraced their families, she said.

Kadyrov's version has also been contradicted by federal prosecutors in Moscow, who have concluded that relatives were not involved. No arrests have been made, and the investigation is continuing. Kadyrov's office refused to comment on the investigators' conclusion.

(10) Muslim revival brings polygamy, camels to Chechnya

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE5BF2JX20091216

Amie Ferris-Rotman

GROZNY, Russia

Wed Dec 16, 2009 8:52am EST

(Reuters) - Adam, 52, keeps his three wives in different towns to stop them squabbling, but the white-bearded Chechen adds he might soon take a fourth.

"Chechnya is Muslim, so this is our right as men. They (the wives) spend time together, but do not always see eye to eye," said the soft-spoken pensioner, who only gave his first name.

Hardline Kremlin-backed leader Ramzan Kadyrov is vying with insurgents for authority in a land ravaged by two secessionist wars with Moscow. Each side is claiming Islam as its flag of legitimacy, each reviles the other as criminal and blasphemous.

Wary of the dangers of separatism in a vast country, Moscow watches uneasily as central power yields to Islamic tenets. It must chose what it might see as the lesser of two evils.

Though polygamy is illegal in Russia, the southern Muslim region of Chechnya encourages the practice, arguing it is allowed by sharia law and the Koran, Islam's holiest book.

By Russian law, Adam is only married to his first wife of 28 years, Zoya, the plump, blue-eyed mother of his three children, with whom he shares a home on the outskirts of the regional capital Grozny.

His "marriages" to the other two -- squirreled away in villages nearby -- were carried out in elaborate celebrations and are recognized by Chechen authorities.

The head of Chechnya's Center for Spiritual-Moral Education, Vakha Khashkanov, set up by Kadyrov a year ago, said Islam should take priority over laws of the Russian constitution.

"If it is allowed in Islam, it is not up for discussion," he told Reuters near Europe's largest mosque, which glistens in central Grozny atop the grounds where the Communist party had its headquarters before the Soviet Union fell in 1991.

"As long as you can feed your wives, and there's equality amongst them, then polygamy is allowed in Chechnya," he added.

Islam is flourishing in Chechnya which, along with its neighbors Dagestan and Ingushetia, is combating an Islamist insurgency which aims to create a Muslim, sharia-based state separate from Russia across the North Caucasus.

Though Islam first arrived in the North Caucasus around 500 years ago, in Dagestan's ancient walled city of Derbent on the Caspian Sea, religion under Communism was strongly discouraged.

Kadyrov, like most of his region's one million people, is Sufi, a mystical branch of Islam which places a greater focus on prayer and recitation.

Political analysts say that in exchange for successfully hunting out Islamist fighters, the Kremlin turns a blind eye to Kadyrov's Muslim-inspired rules.

Today Grozny's cafes hold men sipping smuggled beer out of teacups as alcohol has been all but banned, single-sex schools and gyms are becoming the norm and women must cover their heads in government buildings. ...

(11) Islam provided the foundation for Chechen separatism

http://www.allacademic.com/meta/p_mla_apa_research_citation/0/7/2/4/4/p72447_index.html

The Transnational Mobilization of Islamic Fundamentalism: Separatism in Chechnya and the Wahhabis

Islam provided the foundation for Chechen separatism throughout the 1990s. While the political voices within Chechnya remain full of staunch Islamic rhetoric, factional tensions between the Wahhabi fundamentalists and mainstream Sufi Muslims are emerging. The Wahhabi agenda goes beyond that of mainstream Chechens as they seek a unified Islamic state. The conflict is not isolated; the Wahhabi presence in Chechnya has contributed to the construction of Chechen identity and the factionalization and radicalization of the separatist movement.

(12) Stalin deported the Chechens because they mounted an insurrection during German invasion

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chechnya

Chechen rebellion would characteristically flare up whenever the Russian state faced a period of internal uncertainty. Rebellions occurred during the Russo-Turkish War, the Russian Revolution of 1905, the Russian Revolution of 1917, the Russian Civil War (see Mountainous Republic of the Northern Caucasus), and Collectivization. Under Soviet rule, Chechnya was combined with Ingushetia to form the autonomous republic of Chechen-Ingushetia in the late 1930s.

The Chechens again rose up against Soviet rule during the 1940s, resulting in the deportation of the entire ethnic Chechen and Ingush populations to the Kazakh SSR (later Kazakhstan) and Siberia[citation needed] in 1944 near the end of World War II.[13][14] Stalin and others argued this was punishment to the Chechens for providing assistance to the German forces. Although the German front never made it to the border of Chechnya, an active guerrilla movement threatened to undermine the Soviet defenses of the Caucasus (noted writer Valentin Pikul claims that while the city of Grozny was preparing for a siege in 1942, all of the air bombers stationed on the Caucasian front had to be re-directed towards quelling the Chechen insurrection instead of fighting Germans at the siege of Stalingrad). Chechen-Ingushetia was abolished and the Chechens were allowed to return to their "own ethnic land" after 1956 during de-Stalinization under Nikita Khrushchev.

The Russification policies towards Chechens continued after 1956, with Russian language proficiency required in many aspects of life and for advancement in the Soviet system.

This page was last modified on 29 March 2010 at 18:56.