Maximlianus as conscientious objector - Assignment Example

Maximlianus as conscientious objector Maximlianus objected to the doings of the Church owing to the suffering that he saw around him. The repeated demonstrations and movements that he successfully led pointed towards the futility of the Roman Catholic Church in understanding the problems of the common masses. He directly abhorred the idea of special treatment and care given to kings and royalty and negligent behavior and torture imparted to poor laborer who worked to make the lives of these rich people a comfort. Although a few episodes in Maximlianus’ confrontations were full of violence, his perseverance to keep to his hatred added a massive chapter in the history of violence in Christianity (Boff, 233). Although this is a negative aspect of devotion and dedication for the right cause, we cannot ignore the fact that at that point in time, it was necessary to raise one’s voice in society to create a massive movement, one which took up arms against the prejudiced Church administration. The main change that came in society owing to the torture and killings that ensued after these protests brought in a major change in the society where people became aware of the injustice and wrong being done to others whom they ignored till then. The result was a massive awareness and movement to eradicate mention of violence in Christianity. As it is, it was pretty disgraceful to have violence become a part of Christianity even though it had to be through the conscientious efforts of Maximlianus. Therefore, we credit a major chunk of the educated and elite class shunning elements of torture and oppression to avoid recurrence of such violence in the history of Christianity to the efforts of Maximlianus. Islam and Christianity have both violent histories. What stories from Kurlansky can we find hope for a non-violent Christianity and Islam? (2 pages) Kurlansky runs a complete thesis in the context of trying to understand why and where non-violence went amiss in the glorious pasts of leading religions of the world. Everybody understands that Christianity and Islam have had violence in their histories. But when we study the thesis brought forward by Kurlansky, we see that he has found the precise literary and scholarly articles to show why the religions could not enjoy peaceful histories. Let us begin by Buddha’s teachings of non-violence (BPF, 13). Buddhism has a non-violent history owing to the dictates of patience, love and perseverance. Kurlansky, instead of lifting ideals from the peaceful religions and imposing them on Christianity or Islam, treads a different path wherein he researches and digs out interesting facts about Islam and Christianity from a historical perspective which show that the religions were initially meant to be non-violent but took violence into its stride at later stages of evolving in time. Kurlansky points out that whenever there was a resistance or a movement, oppressive forces of the so called Christian government, that used more of power centric politics in its running and less of teachings from the faith, used violence to diminish such resistances. Whether it was the Anabaptists in the 14th Century, their descendents in 15th century or Blacks in the 19th century (Kurlansky, 61), the government failed to diminish religious talk from political supremacy and used power to define religious practices, traditions and rules in the country. The result was a deeply frustrated section of society which believed in Christ , but not in the Church and its people. The conquest of the blacks and Afro-Americans show how difficult life of Christians had become in the light of being subjected to slavery in history, torture, ignominy, insult and cornering in the 18th and 19th century (Kurlansky, 64). The aftermath of such a discriminative psychology is visible even today where complaints of discrimination occur subtly in the American society. Paid conversions, which started in the Church in around the 18th century, continues even today. In short, Kurlansky shows that through out the history of Christianity, use of dominance is at the core of unrest and violence in society, which ca be rightly combated using non-violent approaches. In the Islamic context, Kurlansky efficiently quotes the Koran and draws out that Jihad was always a peaceful word which never involved killings and torture of human beings, but involved destroying the inner negativity of man and his violent and evil traits. The process was internal and not the external manifestation of violence and power as we see today (Kurlansky, 52). He traces the time in Islamic history where the first wrong interpretation of jihad took place and changed the definition of a peaceful theory in a peaceful religion. When one reads the book, one becomes aware that both the religions have non-violent beginnings and roots and while history shows us that apparently violence is the answer to all forms of resistance, research shows us that the religions never meant to propagate that at all. Therefore, we have a steady hope for a future in which Christians and Islamic followers will not fall prey to their violent or dominant instincts and use restrain and control in following the precepts of individual religions, spread love, compassion and joy around. What is John Dear's philosophy of non-violence? John Dear’s philosophy of non-violence is clearly a psychological understanding and local representation of what humans have grown up learning as emotions called happiness, care, and peaceful existence. His hilarious anecdotes and examples show that he understands that propagating non-violence is an uphill task in modern day word, wherein people do not have the time to undertake peaceful negotiations and are more bent upon taking up arms. His idea is to logically challenge the principles of violence, arms against men and women. He narrates that non-violence is a state of mind in all human beings until they are faced with some form of resistance. It is the reaction to resistance, be it betrayal, oppression or physical or mental attacks which lead to the germs of violence or non-violence grow in a person, a society, a community or a nation. When a child grows up watching the military kill thousands of people in a World War, he has no separate understanding of resistance other than the one shown by the military or members of the opposite nation. Even the military is unready to accept a peaceful way of life, unless somebody questions and reminds them about it (YouTube). John Dear applies logical thinking to reverse psychology and tries to bring this approach in defining non-violence to people in powerful and restive positions in the world. It is indeed important today that one realizes the basics of non-violence and its need in daily and political life. Discipline and decorum are essential aspects to run a nation smoothly, but a dictator or a tyrant leader cannot hope to enslave citizens of the nation through the use of power and oppression, only to fulfill his needs or powerful existence. Use of violence will lead to destruction while use of non-violence will lead to success of the right. References: Kurlansky, Mark. Nonviolence: The history of a dangerous idea. Random House, 2007. Boff, Leonardo. Virtues: For Another Possible World. Wipf and Stock Publishers, 2011. Buddhist Peace Fellowship http://www.bpf.org/ John Dear: Non-violence: Philosophy and Practice http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_LBcmM6Ib6A Read More