msiduri's Full Review: Helen Ellerbe - The Dark Side of Christian History
My first impression of this book, with its 188 pages of text, was that is was too short to do its subject justice. It is also my final impression. It seems at times hastily written and the author is quite selective in what material she chooses to present. The entire book, including a perusal of its notes and bibliography, could be read over a rainy weekend.
The book is divided into eleven chapters, ten covering a particular period of the history of Christianity and the eleventh a conclusion: "Seeds of Tyranny," "Political Maneuvering: Making Christianity Palatable to the Romans," "Deciding Upon Doctrine: Sex, Free Will, Reincarnation and the Use of Force," "The Church Takes Over: The Dark Ages," "The Church Fights Change: The Middle Ages," "Controlling the Human Spirit: The Inquisition and Slavery," "The Reformation: Converting the Populace," "The Witch Hunts: The End of Magic and Miracles," "Alienation from Nature," "A World Without God," and the conclusion.
The preface opens with a quote from Pope John Paul II about the millennium being good time for the Roman Catholic Church to reflect on its "dark history." Barely a paragraph below it, however, the author talked about an acquaintance who spoke of the Christian church as embodying all that is best in Western civilization and seemed entirely unaware of the history of violence and oppression committed by not only individual Christians but by Christian institutions. That the author--as well as the Pope--was attempting to remedy this ignorance seemed to me a good and hopeful sign and was actually the reason I decided to read the book.
The title is fair warning that the author is not about to present an unbiased history of the church, which is certainly not required for either an interesting or informative read. Her main thesis is stated early and repeated often: The belief in one supreme being leads to oppression because it demands hierarchy and conformity.
"The dark side of Christian history was not an unavoidable result of human nature," Ellerbe concludes, "It was the result of a very specific ideology and belief structure."
*WARNING* A BIT OF GROUSING AND PEDANTRY TO FOLLOW *WARNING*
While she does not argue that polytheism leads to egalitarianism, she does advocate the idea that seeing the many aspects or faces of god(s) can bring about social justice, sexual and racial equality, and peace with one's neighbors. Power can be shared within such systems. In this, she ignores the many hierarchical polytheistic societies past and present. Perhaps the most glaring and obvious contradiction is traditional Hinduism, which comes complete with its own caste system and a practice of sequestering women. Neither the recent tragic violence between Muslims and Hindus in India, nor the decades-long struggle over Kashmir speaks of egalitarianism or power sharing.
The belief in a single supreme being may be responsible for some of the woes we humans tend to inflict on each other, but when I think of how widespread the practice of human sacrifice has been through time and across geography--Aztecs slaughtering prisoners of war to feed the sun with their hearts, for example--I don't see that belief in many gods does much better.
"The Dark Side of Christian History" is filled with quotes from people as diverse as sharp-tongued Tertullian, the "Father of the Latin church," and physicist Stephen Hawking. It makes for delicious reading at times, but I also got the impression that Ellerbe probably has read few of them in their original context. To my dismay, I noticed a quote attributed to St. Cyril of Alexandria (during whose bishopric the learned Hypatia of Alexandria was murdered, possibly with his--at least--tacit consent) sourced in contemporary writer Riane Eisler's "The Chalice and the Blade." I rather like Eisler's book, frankly, but I doubt she has had any conversations with a 4th c. CE North African bishop lately. I would have dug out Eisler's book immediately, but it's one I lent to a friend who didn't see fit to return it. So what is the ultimate source of the Cyril quote?
When Ellerbe deals with any historical person, she tends to present only one side. For instance, Isaac Newton is portrayed as the discoverer of the laws of gravity, thus relieving the world of magic (so her argument goes), which in turn led to Europe's alienation from nature. (Dang--didn't see ever see a Romantic period painting?) She does not mention the fact the Newton himself was a lifelong mystic and an alchemist who held a heretical view of the nature of god. That would... complicate things and obscure the simplicity of her thesis.
Another huge omission is the history of the Eastern Orthodox church. Byzantium barely rates a few paragraphs and then mostly because the Crusaders decided to sack the city between home and the "holy land."
The writing is clear and simple enough and avoids purple passages even when recounting the horrors of the Inquisitions and witch-finding. However, she offers large numbers of victims without qualification or hesitation. On page 95, she cites the number of Protestants (Huguenots) killed in the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre in France in 1572 unequivocally as 10,000. The Catholic Encyclopedia (granted, not an unbiased source) numbers the dead in Paris as 2000, but states, "The number of victims in the provinces is unknown, the figures varying between 2000 and 100,000." In my humble opinion, while she put her figure toward the low end of the possible total, the problem is that she pretends certainty where there is none. I'm sure this is for the sake of simplicity, but as a reader, I've handled the horrors of people being tortured, burnt alive or drowned. I can handle a little uncertainty, particularly when it speaks to careful research and to the honesty of the author.
END OF MOST OF THE GROUSING AND PEDANTRY
Finally, at the end of this extremely long review (for which I ask the reader's forgiveness, assuming any have made it this far), I can only marginally recommend this book It is, perhaps, a good starting place, but there is so much left out and so much sacrificed for the sake of simplicity, I felt cheated. As for the author's thesis, I didn't buy it for a moment, but the subject she brings up does bear some study. The millennium may be old news, but it's always a good time to reflect on the past to learn from mistakes made before us in order to work on creating a world where, as Ellerbe puts it, "we can embrace the hope and pursue the dream that humanity can be free to act humanely."
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