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Shutting of the American Mind
Shutting of the American Mind
By Evaggelos Vallianatos
Christianity�s greatest orator, the “golden-mouth” John Chrysostom, a cleric who was the patriarch of the Eastern Roman Empire from 398 to 404, preached that fishermen, tent-makers and illiterate men were by far superior to Greek philosophers, including Plato. He had nothing but contempt and hatred for Greeks.
No wonder the Greeks were either murdered or made Christians. John Chrysostom was a Church Father, the most eloquent of them all in both East and West. He matched his hatred for Hellenism with his virulent attitude towards the Jews. He considered the Jews a disease that had to be eradicated. His murderous attitudes toward Greeks and Jews became state policy.
Despite the Renaissance, which made the West what it is today, Christianity intervened to cut down in size the impact of the Greeks in the Western tradition.
Westerners, including Americans, keep saying they owe much to the Greeks, but their Christian values often marginalize the philosophical, democratic and liberating influence of Hellenic culture.
In fact there�s often overt racism and hatred for the “modern” Greeks in the Western tradition, especially the press, slandering them and denying they are related to the ancient Greeks.
This sophisticated warfare against the Greeks is also prevalent in the universities of the Western world. Academics accuse the Greeks for being sexists, slavers, and racists. But, above all, the greatest wrath of the Christian scholars, hidden for the most part, takes aim at the polytheism of the Greeks. Underneath the philological claims of the classicists, and behind their culture wars, there�s a resentment of the superiority of the Greeks who were no Christians.
For example, Mark Edwards, an American classical scholar specializing on Homer, uses his 1987 book, “Homer: Poet of the Iliad,” in suggesting that the Greek gods fail to “present an ideal for human conduct, as Jesus did.” He probably means that the Greek gods side with the powerful and “transgress many of the standards they expect their inferiors to follow.”
That may be true in some instances, but Jesus� religion has been siding with the powerful since its legal certification by Emperor Constantine in the fourth century. In fact, Christianity spread by the sword in both Greece and in the rest of the world.
In addition, Christianity blessed slavery and colonialism for more than a millennium.
Thomas Cahill, another American writer, goes beyond Edwards� gentle Christian commentary. He says in his 2003 book, “Sailing the Wine-Dark Sea: Why the Greeks Matter,” that Greek art and architecture “had its origin in Egyptian measurement.”
Cahill slanders the Greeks. He allows his Christian bias to take over his narrative, spoiling whatever correct judgment he made on the Greeks� contribution to Western civilization.
He is quite eloquent with his Christian myth, Christianizing Greece for the greater glory of Jesus. He is one of those Christians trying to make the Greeks path-blazers for Christ – Socrates reaching Christian ends without the benefits of revelation, becoming “the first Greco-Roman secular saint of the Judeo-Christian tradition.”
Cahill, however, respects neither Socrates nor the classical Greeks about whom, he says, they were “classically classist, sexist, and racist.”
He takes pleasure in ridiculing Greek religion, saying the Homeric gods lacked “godliness.” He mocks the piety of Socrates, and attacks the philosophy of Plato. He is also crude and insulting the Greeks. He says that Greek girls of good families begin their introduction into society “as presexual beings” that “are tamed by conjugal penetration.”
The work of Christian writers like Cahill undermines democracy in America.
The Greeks were primarily democrats, defending a modest-sized republic as the best form of government. The founders of America like Thomas Jefferson made their Greek democratic virtue explicit in the constitution and the laws of the republic they brought into being some two hundred years ago.
But now that a faith-based elite governs America, academics have consolidated their position as the hired guns of imperialists. Many are the agents of a developing Christian empire, a dangerous precedent, which received a tremendous boost from the unfortunate events of September 11, 2001.
The election of President Barak Obama has not changed America�s delusions of Christian Nation and imperial might. Obama is waging a war in Afghanistan, as if he learned nothing from George W. Bush�s illegal war in Iraq. In addition, Obama is following on the footsteps of Bush who, in 2004, had the temerity of recognizing a former Yugoslav province as the “Republic of Macedonia.” Obama has not gone out of his way to change this illiterate and insulting policy.
When America�s ruling class acts with such abandon, it sends signals at home and abroad that Western civilization is no more than lipstick.
That�s why authors misrepresenting our Greek traditions are contributing to the closing of the mind in the United States on issues vital for the life of a secular republic.
These Christian writers intend to speed up the process by which America is being made a Christian imperial nation. Their books are designed to bridge the gap between Christianity and the state, which is ominous at a time of rising global conflict between Christians and Moslems, and, particularly, when the enemies of America are followers of fanatical Mohammedan Islam, a sworn enemy of Christianity.
Evaggelos Vallianatos is the author of “This Land is Their Land” and “The Passion of the Greeks.”
Shutting of the American Mind
By Evaggelos Vallianatos
Christianity�s greatest orator, the “golden-mouth” John Chrysostom, a cleric who was the patriarch of the Eastern Roman Empire from 398 to 404, preached that fishermen, tent-makers and illiterate men were by far superior to Greek philosophers, including Plato. He had nothing but contempt and hatred for Greeks.
No wonder the Greeks were either murdered or made Christians. John Chrysostom was a Church Father, the most eloquent of them all in both East and West. He matched his hatred for Hellenism with his virulent attitude towards the Jews. He considered the Jews a disease that had to be eradicated. His murderous attitudes toward Greeks and Jews became state policy.
Despite the Renaissance, which made the West what it is today, Christianity intervened to cut down in size the impact of the Greeks in the Western tradition.
Westerners, including Americans, keep saying they owe much to the Greeks, but their Christian values often marginalize the philosophical, democratic and liberating influence of Hellenic culture.
In fact there�s often overt racism and hatred for the “modern” Greeks in the Western tradition, especially the press, slandering them and denying they are related to the ancient Greeks.
This sophisticated warfare against the Greeks is also prevalent in the universities of the Western world. Academics accuse the Greeks for being sexists, slavers, and racists. But, above all, the greatest wrath of the Christian scholars, hidden for the most part, takes aim at the polytheism of the Greeks. Underneath the philological claims of the classicists, and behind their culture wars, there�s a resentment of the superiority of the Greeks who were no Christians.
For example, Mark Edwards, an American classical scholar specializing on Homer, uses his 1987 book, “Homer: Poet of the Iliad,” in suggesting that the Greek gods fail to “present an ideal for human conduct, as Jesus did.” He probably means that the Greek gods side with the powerful and “transgress many of the standards they expect their inferiors to follow.”
That may be true in some instances, but Jesus� religion has been siding with the powerful since its legal certification by Emperor Constantine in the fourth century. In fact, Christianity spread by the sword in both Greece and in the rest of the world.
In addition, Christianity blessed slavery and colonialism for more than a millennium.
Thomas Cahill, another American writer, goes beyond Edwards� gentle Christian commentary. He says in his 2003 book, “Sailing the Wine-Dark Sea: Why the Greeks Matter,” that Greek art and architecture “had its origin in Egyptian measurement.”
Cahill slanders the Greeks. He allows his Christian bias to take over his narrative, spoiling whatever correct judgment he made on the Greeks� contribution to Western civilization.
He is quite eloquent with his Christian myth, Christianizing Greece for the greater glory of Jesus. He is one of those Christians trying to make the Greeks path-blazers for Christ – Socrates reaching Christian ends without the benefits of revelation, becoming “the first Greco-Roman secular saint of the Judeo-Christian tradition.”
Cahill, however, respects neither Socrates nor the classical Greeks about whom, he says, they were “classically classist, sexist, and racist.”
He takes pleasure in ridiculing Greek religion, saying the Homeric gods lacked “godliness.” He mocks the piety of Socrates, and attacks the philosophy of Plato. He is also crude and insulting the Greeks. He says that Greek girls of good families begin their introduction into society “as presexual beings” that “are tamed by conjugal penetration.”
The work of Christian writers like Cahill undermines democracy in America.
The Greeks were primarily democrats, defending a modest-sized republic as the best form of government. The founders of America like Thomas Jefferson made their Greek democratic virtue explicit in the constitution and the laws of the republic they brought into being some two hundred years ago.
But now that a faith-based elite governs America, academics have consolidated their position as the hired guns of imperialists. Many are the agents of a developing Christian empire, a dangerous precedent, which received a tremendous boost from the unfortunate events of September 11, 2001.
The election of President Barak Obama has not changed America�s delusions of Christian Nation and imperial might. Obama is waging a war in Afghanistan, as if he learned nothing from George W. Bush�s illegal war in Iraq. In addition, Obama is following on the footsteps of Bush who, in 2004, had the temerity of recognizing a former Yugoslav province as the “Republic of Macedonia.” Obama has not gone out of his way to change this illiterate and insulting policy.
When America�s ruling class acts with such abandon, it sends signals at home and abroad that Western civilization is no more than lipstick.
That�s why authors misrepresenting our Greek traditions are contributing to the closing of the mind in the United States on issues vital for the life of a secular republic.
These Christian writers intend to speed up the process by which America is being made a Christian imperial nation. Their books are designed to bridge the gap between Christianity and the state, which is ominous at a time of rising global conflict between Christians and Moslems, and, particularly, when the enemies of America are followers of fanatical Mohammedan Islam, a sworn enemy of Christianity.
Evaggelos Vallianatos is the author of “This Land is Their Land” and “The Passion of the Greeks.”
