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Anti-Christian sentiment

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Anti-Christian sentiment or Christophobia constitutes opposition or objections to Christians, the Christian religion, and/or its practices. Anti-Christian sentiment is sometimes referred to as Christophobia or Christianophobia, although these terms actually encompass "every form of discrimination and intolerance against Christians", according to the Council of European Episcopal Conferences.[1][2][3]

Antiquity

Anti-Christian sentiment began in the Roman Empire during the first century. The steady growth of the Christian movement was viewed with suspicion by both the authorities and the people of Rome. This led to the persecution of Christians in the Roman Empire. During the second century, Christianity was viewed as a negative movement in two ways. The first way encompasses the accusations which were made against adherents of the Christian faith in accordance with the principles which were held by the Roman population. The second way encompasses the supplementary controversy which was aroused during the intellectual age.[4]

Anti-Christian sentiment is visible in the New Testament, and it seems to have been anticipated by Jesus of Nazareth, as it was documented by the writers of the gospels. The anti-Christian sentiment of the first century was not just expressed by the Roman authorities, it was also expressed by the Jews. Because Christianity was a sect which was largely emerging from Judaism at that time,[5] this sentiment was the anger of an established religion towards a new and revolutionary faith. Paul of Tarsus, who persecuted Christians before he became a Christian, highlighted the Crucifixion of Jesus as a 'stumbling block' to the Jews, and the belief that the messiah would have died on a cross was offensive to some of the Jews because they awaited a messiah who had different characteristics.[6]

Early modern period

During the Reign of Terror, a period of the French revolution, radical revolutionaries and their supporters desired a cultural revolution that would rid the French state of all Christian influence.[7] In 1789, church lands were expropriated and priests killed or forced to leave France.[7] Later in 1792, "refractory priests" were targeted and replaced with their secular counterpart from the Jacobin club.[8] Anti-Christian sentiments increased during 1793 and a campaign of dechristianization occurred, and new forms of moral religion emerged, including the deistic Cult of the Supreme Being and the atheistic Cult of Reason.[9] The drownings at Nantes targeted many Catholic priests and nuns. The first drownings happened on the night of 16 November 1793. The victims were 160 arrested Catholic priests that were labeled "refractory clergy" by the National Convention.

Late modern period

Christians fleeing their homes in the Ottoman Empire, c. 1922. Many Christians were persecuted and/or killed during the Armenian genocide, Greek genocide, and Assyrian genocide.[10]

Many Christians were persecuted and/or killed during the Armenian genocide, Greek genocide, and Assyrian genocide.[11] Benny Morris and Dror Ze'evi argue that the Armenian genocide and other contemporaneous persecution of Christians in the Ottoman Empire (Greek genocide, and Assyrian genocide) constitute an extermination campaign, or genocide, carried out by the Ottoman Empire against its Christian subjects.[12][13][14]

The Cristero War was a widespread struggle in central and western Mexico in response to the implementation of secularist and anticlerical articles. The rebellion was instigated as a response to an executive decree by Mexican President Plutarco Elías Calles to strictly enforce Article 130 of the Constitution, a decision known as Calles Law. Calles sought to eliminate the power of the Catholic Church in Mexico, its affiliated organizations and to suppress popular religiosity. To help enforce the law, Calles seized Church properties, expelled foreign priests, and closed monasteries, convents, and religious schools.[15] Some have characterized Calles as the leader of an atheist state[16] and his program as being one to eradicate religion in Mexico.[17] Tomás Garrido Canabal led persecutions against the Church in his state,Tabasco, killing many priests and laymen and driving the remainder underground.[18]

The Red Terror in Spain committed various acts of violence that included the desecration and burning of monasteries, convents, and churches.[19] The failed coup of July 1936 set loose a violent onslaught on those that revolutionaries in the Republican zone identified as enemies; "where the rebellion failed, for several months afterwards merely to be identified as a priest, a religious, or simply a militant Christian or member of some apostolic or pious organization, was enough for a person to be executed without trial".[20]

Throughout the history of the Soviet Union (1917–1991), there were periods when Soviet authorities brutally suppressed and persecuted various forms of Christianity to different extents depending on State interests.[21] The state advocated the destruction of religion, and to achieve this goal, it officially denounced religious beliefs as superstitious and backward.[22][23] The Communist Party destroyed churches, ridiculed, harassed, incarcerated and executed religious leaders, flooded the schools and media with anti-religious teachings, and it introduced a belief system called "scientific atheism", with its own rituals, promises and proselytizers.[24][25] According to some sources, the total number of Christian victims under the Soviet regime has been estimated to range around 12 to 20 million.[26][27] At least 106,300 Russian clergymen were executed between 1937 and 1941.[28]

Contemporary

Remains of a church property burnt down during 2008 Kandhamal violence in Orissa in August 2008.

Persecution of Christians in the post–Cold War era refers to the persecution of Christians from 1989 to the present, which is taking place in Africa, the Americas, Europe, Asia and Middle East.

Christians are persecuted widely across the Arab and Islamic world.[29][30][31] Muslim-majority nations in which Christian populations have suffered acute discrimination, persecution, repression, violence and in some cases death, mass murder or ethnic cleansing include; Iraq, Iran, Syria, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Somalia, Qatar, Kuwait, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Maldives.[32] Native Christian communities are subjected to persecution in several Muslim-majority countries such as Egypt[33] and Pakistan.[34]

The persecution of Christians in North Korea is ongoing and systematic.[35][36][37][38][39][40] According to the Christian organization Open Doors, North Korea persecutes Christians more than any other country in the world.[41]

The issue of Christianophobia in the UK was debated on 5 December 2007 in the House of Commons.[42]

See also

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Anti-Christianity.

References

  1. ^ "ANTI-CHRISTIAN - Definition and synonyms of anti-Christian in the English dictionary". educalingo.com. Retrieved 2021-05-20.
  2. ^ "Definition of ANTI-CHRISTIAN". www.merriam-webster.com. Retrieved 2021-05-20.
  3. ^ "ANTI-CHRISTIAN | Definition of ANTI-CHRISTIAN by Oxford Dictionary on Lexico.com also meaning of ANTI-CHRISTIAN". Lexico Dictionaries | English. Archived from the original on October 21, 2020. Retrieved 2021-05-20.
  4. ^ WAGEMAKERS, BART (2010). "INCEST, INFANTICIDE, AND CANNIBALISM: ANTI-CHRISTIAN IMPUTATIONS IN THE ROMAN EMPIRE". Greece & Rome. 57 (2): 337–354. ISSN 0017-3835.
  5. ^ "Religion:Christianity". www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org. Retrieved 9 November 2021.
  6. ^ "Religions: Paul". BBC. Retrieved 9 November 2021.
  7. ^ a b Hunt, Lynn (2019). "The Imagery of Radicalism". Politics, Culture, and Class in the French Revolution. pp. 87–120. doi:10.1525/9780520931046-011. ISBN 978-0-520-93104-6. S2CID 226772970.
  8. ^ Report by the Jacobin Society of Besançon on Refractory Priests, 1792-01-08, retrieved 2021-12-09
  9. ^ Kennedy, Emmet (1989). A Cultural History of the French Revolution. Yale University Press. p. 343. ISBN 9780300044263.
  10. ^ James L. Barton, Turkish Atrocities: Statements of American Missionaries on the Destruction of Christian Communities in Ottoman Turkey, 1915–1917. Gomidas Institute, 1998, ISBN 1-884630-04-9.
  11. ^ James L. Barton, Turkish Atrocities: Statements of American Missionaries on the Destruction of Christian Communities in Ottoman Turkey, 1915–1917. Gomidas Institute, 1998, ISBN 1-884630-04-9.
  12. ^ Morris, Benny; Ze'evi, Dror (2019). The Thirty-Year Genocide: Turkey's Destruction of Its Christian Minorities, 1894–1924. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. pp. 3–5. ISBN 978-0-674-24008-7.
  13. ^ Gutman, David (2019). "The thirty year genocide: Turkey's destruction of its Christian minorities, 1894–1924". Turkish Studies. 21. Routledge: 1–3. doi:10.1080/14683849.2019.1644170. S2CID 201424062.
  14. ^ Morris, Benny; Ze'evi, Dror (4 November 2021). "Then Came the Chance the Turks Have Been Waiting For: To Get Rid of Christians Once and for All". Haaretz. Tel Aviv. Archived from the original on 4 November 2021. Retrieved 5 November 2021.
  15. ^ Warnock, John W. The Other Mexico: The North American Triangle Completed p. 27 (1995 Black Rose Books, Ltd) ISBN 1-55164-028-7
  16. ^ Haas, Ernst B., Nationalism, Liberalism, and Progress: The dismal fate of new nations, Cornell Univ. Press 2000
  17. ^ Cronon, E. David "American Catholics and Mexican Anticlericalism, 1933–1936", pp. 205–208, Mississippi Valley Historical Review, XLV, Sept. 1948
  18. ^ Kirshner, Alan M. "A Setback to Tomas Garrido Canabal's Desire to Eliminate the Church in Mexico". Journal of Church and State (1971) 13 (3): 479-492.
  19. ^ Cueva, Julio de la (1998). "Religious Persecution, Anticlerical Tradition and Revolution: On Atrocities against the Clergy during the Spanish Civil War". Journal of Contemporary History. XXXIII (3): 355–369. JSTOR 261121.
  20. ^ Hilari Raguer, Gunpowder and Incense, p. 126
  21. ^ "Revelations from the Russian Archives: ANTI-RELIGIOUS CAMPAIGNS". Library of Congress. US Government. Retrieved 2 May 2016.
  22. ^ Daniel, Wallace L. (Winter 2009). "Father Aleksandr Men and the struggle to recover Russia's heritage". Demokratizatsiya: The Journal of Post-Soviet Democratization. 17 (1). Institute for European, Russian and Eurasian Studies (George Washington University): 73–92. doi:10.3200/DEMO.17.1.73-92. ISSN 1940-4603. Retrieved 2014-03-29. Continuing to hold to one's beliefs and one's view of the world required the courage to stand outside a system committed to destroying religious values and perspectives.
  23. ^ Froese, Paul. "'I am an atheist and a Muslim': Islam, communism, and ideological competition." Journal of Church and State 47.3 (2005)
  24. ^ Paul Froese. Forced Secularization in Soviet Russia: Why an Atheistic Monopoly Failed. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, Vol. 43, No. 1 (Mar., 2004), pp. 35-50
  25. ^ Haskins, Ekaterina V. "Russia's postcommunist past: the Cathedral of Christ the Savior and the reimagining of national identity." History and Memory: Studies in Representation of the Past 21.1 (2009)
  26. ^ ”Estimates of the total number all Christian martyrs in the former Soviet Union are about 12 million.”, James M. Nelson, “Psychology, Religion, and Spirituality”, Springer, 2009, ISBN 0387875727, p. 427
  27. ^ ”over 20 million were martyred in Soviet prison camps”, Todd M. Johnson, “Christian Martyrdom: A global demographic assessment“, p. 4
  28. ^ Yakovlev, Alexander N. (2002). A Century of Violence in Soviet Russia. Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0-300-10322-9.
  29. ^ "Christian persecution 'at near genocide levels'". BBC News. 3 May 2019.
  30. ^ "Christians are the most persecuted religious group in the world". www.catholiceducation.org. Archived from the original on 2019-05-08.
  31. ^ "Persecution of Christians 'coming close to genocide' in Middle East – report". TheGuardian.com. 2 May 2019.
  32. ^ "Report: Persecution of Christians reveals most abuse in Muslim countries". The Jerusalem Post - JPost.com.
  33. ^ "The Fate of Egypt's Coptic Christians: Part One With Raymond Ibrahim". 25 April 2013.
  34. ^ "Persecution in Pakistan". Christian Freedom International. Archived from the original on 2 April 2015. Retrieved 24 March 2015.
  35. ^ Casper, Jayson (21 December 2020). "117 Witnesses Detail North Korea's Persecution of Christians". Christianity Today. Archived from the original on 1 September 2021. Retrieved 1 September 2021.
  36. ^ Benedict Rogers (22 July 2021). "The World Must Not Forgot North Korea's Crimes Against Humanity". The Diplomat. Archived from the original on 5 September 2021. Retrieved 5 September 2021.
  37. ^ Harriet Sherwood (16 January 2019). "One in three Christians face persecution in Asia, report finds". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 10 June 2021. Retrieved 5 September 2021.
  38. ^ William J. Cadigan (17 January 2015). "Christian persecution reached record high in 2015, report says". CNN. Archived from the original on 5 September 2021. Retrieved 5 September 2021.
  39. ^ Harriet Sherwood (27 July 2015). "Dying for Christianity: millions at risk amid rise in persecution across the globe". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 8 February 2019. Retrieved 5 September 2021.
  40. ^ Andre Vornic (24 July 2009). "North Korea 'executes Christians'". BBC. Archived from the original on 5 September 2021. Retrieved 6 September 2021.
  41. ^ "World Watch List 2012: North Korea No. 1 Persecutor of Christians for 10th Straight Year". Open Doors, January 2, 2012. Archived from the original on January 14, 2012. Retrieved January 11, 2012.
  42. ^ "Christianophobia". Hansard. Retrieved 19 September 2022.


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