Hearn and Militant Religion
Posted: January 17, 2010 | Author: Doug | Filed under: Japan, Religion | 5 Comments »This is a quotation from Lafcadio Hearn’s essay “A Conservative” published in 1895 in Kokoro. I just had to post it because it sounds all too familiar:
Even today in the West unthinking millions imagine some divine connection between military power and Christian belief; and utterances are made in our pulpits implying divine justification for political robberies, and heavenly inspiration for the invention of high explosives. There still survives among us the superstition that races professing Christianity are divinely destined to rob or exterminate races holding other beliefs. Some men occasionally express their conviction that we still worship Thor and Odin, — the only difference being that Odin has become a mathematician and that the Hammer Mjönir is now worked by steam. But such people are declared by missionaries to be atheists and men of shameless lives. (pg 190)
Having had similar experiences to what Hearn is describing, I am glad that he did not live to see how the rest of the 20th and 21st centuries turned out.
Hello, this blog is about my life as a father, Buddhist and Japanophile. Any useful information I can pass along will hopefully make the 
Hi Doug,
Do you really think it is true that in the ‘west’ (I’m never sure what is quite meant by that term) “unthinking millions imagine some divine connection between military power and Christian belief”.
Almost every Buddhist blog I’ve looked at this week has been attacking Christianity in one form or other, and I’m tired of seeing it.
In Britain all the churches were against the Iraq wars. All of them. The Pope was against the Iraq war. Peace demonstrations, at least in the UK, were largely organized and attended by Church groups as well as others.
Do you really think that millions believe Christians think themselves “divinely destined to rob or exterminate races holding other beliefs”?
Then what of the active inter-faith forums in just about every single town the entire length and breadth of Britain? Tell me, please, of a single church that believes in ‘exterminating’ races holding other beliefs.
I have Christian friends. Not a single one of them has ever berated me for being a Buddhist. Not one. In fact, when I took formal refuge in Korea in 2008, I got a letter of congratulations and blessing from one of my good friends called Owen Hardwicke, a Catholic Priest.
This same man, many years ago, spent the second world war serving in the Friends Ambulance Unit along with thousands of other Christians who felt they couldn’t take on an armed role in the conflict. A decision of huge bravery.
I simply can not see from my experience how the quote you have provided is indeed “all too familiar”. If it has been in your experience then I am very sorry to hear it. What experiences did you have, and were they indeed representative of “unthinking millions”?
Marcus
Hi Marcus, I don’t know about other Buddhist blogs which I never read anyway. As for my experiences, I once had an older
gentleman explain to me once explain to me that the reason why Asians were “living in a cave for 5,000 years” (his words not mine) was because they didn’t have God. We could write this off as an isolated view, a crackpot but if you watch some of the discussions on places like Fox News in States and certain fundamentalist media, it appears Hearn’s comments are somewhat familiar.
If you read Hearn’s comment carefully, especially the end he is not criticizing the religion but our hypocritical application of it. I am inclined to agree.
I am guessing that at the time Hearn wrote this essay Christianity was used to justfy imperial expansionism and the excesses that entailed. For example in the British rule of India and various parts of Africa.
An interesting essay very much of its time:
http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=tUgLhCX81SkC&pg=PA103&lpg=PA103&dq=lafcadio+hearn+conservative&source=bl&ots=xs-r4TFx4Q&sig=FTeR5KJ66r8Owypo6u0-SxsoPUk&hl=en&ei=DntTS6bVO8n14AbCq5SJCQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=3&ved=0CBMQ6AEwAg#v=onepage&q=&f=false
Hi Jishin, yes that’s exactly it: an unfortunate blend of religion and Imperialist thinking. Hearn’s criticizing the hypocrisy of this view, but even today some still subscribe as a knd of nationalist sentiment. Not sure about the UK bit you can certainly see it in the States and Hearn had lived in the US for quite a while before Japan. Thanks for the essay too, I will certainly read it.
Hi Jishin, this essay you linked is from Kokoro by the way. I read it in there first and was planning on writing about it one of these days.