Friday, June 03, 2011

Onward Christian Soldiers

While it is common for some US Christians to complain about the Muslim war against Christianity, we rarely hear about the Christian war against Buddhism.

My friend Dr. Paul Knitter, Paul Tillich Professor of Theology, World Religions, and Culture at Union Theological Seminary, reports of fundamentalist Korean Christians attacking Buddhist monasteries and shrines to conduct exorcisms of images of the Buddha, and marching around shrines claiming the land for Christ.

A bit of research revealed that this has been going on for decades as South Korea becomes more and more Christian, with the Korean government, police, and army coming under Christian rule and being used to destroy Buddhist shrines and conduct “heavy and violent” propaganda campaigns against Buddhism.

You can see photos of the destruction at http://www.buddhapia.com/eng/tedesco/pic1/list.html

This is what we can expect in any country that falls under the control of fundamentalists of any faith. While it is vital that we distinguish between violent fundamentalism and saner liberal varieties of religion, it is important that we stand against fundamentalism.

As my Christian and Jewish friends demand that liberal Muslims speak out against their violent fundamentalist strains, we should be no less demanding of Jews and Christians regarding their own crazy cousins.

2 comments:

BirDeBlogger said...

I leave our Christian brothers and sisters with these words from the New Testament Scriptures from which they read: "You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye." Matthew 7:5 (NIV)

Claire said...

According to your link, these attacks occurred in the late 1990s. Has there been recent activity that prompted your post?