for tonight's conversations of great minds i'm joined by canada laws canada is the professor of new testament and early christianity at the university of notre dame and an expert in the role of mark hurd in christian theology are we now and scholar in her field of study she's received recognition for her research from the woodrow wilson foundation an actual endowment for the humanities and the john templeton foundation her new book the myth of persecution our early christians invented a story of martyrdom reveals the truth behind centuries of christian persecution stories is a must read for anyone who wants to understand the mindset of america's religious right and you're welcome thank you so much for having me thanks for joining us a couple of days ago bill o'reilly on fox news declared that there's a new war on religion let me just play this clip for you.

the war in judeo christian tradition continues on in some public school districts in ten days it will be easter sunday but in some schools you are not allowed to say the word easter no easter they're having spring give that's moderated by a spring bunny at least in san diego i don't go for an easter or you know the war on christmas is now over because we're coming up to easter so you know it's important to have another new religious target from the liberals i think this is exactly the kind of thing we see all the time in months of the religious right in particular saying that there's a war that this military attack on some element of christianity and this is i mean this word of this conference this. broad sense of persecution this is why the histories important because you know you can't really say there's a war on christmas or easter that there really isn't so how do we get this idea and

we get it from the early church we get it from the idea that christianity is intrinsically persecuted we're always under attack we can affirm that this period known as the age of the modest after the death of jesus until the rise of the christian empire the masses or the bars yeah so it's this period after the death of jesus before the rise of the christian empire when christians think that they were constantly persecuted for the first three hundred years of projects right the first three hundred years of constant yes so what that means is that it sort of lays the groundwork for the idea that christians by that definition under attack whether it's by the romans or from heretics in their ranks or from now say liberals persecuting christians in america. but there was there an element of truth to that i mean those stories are pretty pervasive you know stephen being having a skin stripped off him being crucified upside down or peter i've mixed it all up

now in my brain over the years but you know we've all heard only. every single one of the of the original apostles there's some sort of martyrdom story. yeah that's interesting you know we have all of these stories thousands of stories in fact but the these stories come from decades centuries sometimes even a millennium after the events that they supposedly described and they've been written by people who want to present at those events they've been embellished so the story about peter he was crucified upside down we're told because he thought he was unworthy to die like jesus it's a great story. now the story itself. is can be dated to the earliest in the second century but he doesn't say he's unworthy to die like jesus he gives a whole other explanation and so well he says that sin has turned the world on its head and so by dying upside down it's a symbol of how christ comes to end of this it's very theological so i was this is

a story being told it's five generations or three yeah i mean this is maybe it's almost one hundred years after he died by someone who never met peter much less you know watched him die and there are other elements of the story that sound a lot like ancient vermont's novels so peter has this kind of magical harry potter style deal with the flying magician he resurrects seriously yes. he resurrects a smoked fish and he you know there are sort of talking animals now in the story the reason why peter ends up dying is because he persuades the wives and concubines of room in officials to stop having sex with these women officials so that understandably annoyed and they call for peter to be sort of put on trial and he dies on charges of atheism he doesn't die because he's a christian and they hate christianity he dies because you stop sex that's right

it's really does that have anything to do with the history of solomon. in the early catholic church you know it's interesting so celibacy doesn't actually enforced until the eleventh century priest getting married for a really long time peter himself had a wife and a daughter. but most other christians thought that people shouldn't be getting married do we know that peter actually had a wife and daughters that just could be just as apocryphal the story is that he was crucified upside down and gave this long theological speech of you know. st thomas aquinas complexity very well yeah there's more evidence the idea that he was married so it comes from multiple sources but with the persecution stories these come from so much later and so we know peter died he's on a life today he must have died and it seems likely that he was executed but was he actually q did you know because of post a q sion because he was a christian and they just hate the christians or was he as is more likely was the

executed as some kind of political revolutionary well there is i mean. function elaine pay goals and what is a richard fog peter fog for getting his first name he wrote the five gospels and then. for a long time have suggested actually particularly the three famous stories the turn the cheek take my cloak there was a third one of those were basically jesus was advised to his followers to force roman citizens to break roman law. you couldn't you could legally force a slave to carry something up to one mile but after one mile you had broken the law because that would incite rebellion and so he said if you must carry something for a mile carry it for to write this these recalls to revolution is that there are you suggesting that there is some truth to that a b that peter by to continue that tradition this certainly seems to have been

a kind of revolutionary turn to jesus his methods but the thing. the christians were much stronger than that so when they entered roman courtrooms they would say things like well we can't respect your emperor we have our own emperor christ and we look forward to his impending rain when all of you will be judged and they'll be this new christian era now to a roman governor that sounds like rebellion when you saw it talking about your emperor who's going to overthrow the current government and this is this is an era in which you can be executed for adultery for starting fires for making disturbances at night or for slandering people in song it was just life is cheap yeah life was very cheap so if you hear someone saying something that sounds revolutionary and they're trying to attract followers it's nothing to execute that person. was and or you just opened up a whole bunch of things here one of them they were talking about jesus is going to

return that that has been a recurring theme throughout christianity that any minute now he's going to return and and typically that his return is going to be associated it's going to be preceded by more horrible persecution was that part of the early church and when you know when did that come about and how does that play out today it does seem that the followers of jesus thought that jesus would be returning soon and that the wall was basically collapsing around them they saw wars they read the signs of this is a sign of the apocalypse and so they thought things would get us the interesting thing is people have thought that at many points in time sure they thought in the medieval period they thought of twenty years ago they thought it you know eighteen months ago when someone talked about the rapture coming so and every time they've been proven wrong when did christians realize that the end wasn't tomorrow the way they did in the beginning on probably within the first few china relations they realize that maybe they should you know stop putting down roots because jesus

wasn't coming back and in a. matter of months right so this sort of like when it was i wanted white to call her followers in the late nineteenth century up to a moment but you know here comes the end of them the end didn't come and so she said oh well this is called start the so did those churches that's right so was there in the in the early days i mean you had you had jesus twelve disciples and the peter church shall we call it and then you had the people who were killing off the disciples in the followers of the disciples like paul you know solves all of tarsus who never physically met jesus loves you except you know getting knocked off his horse and as a as a physical. to what extent did the peter church die out and get replaced by the pauline church and to what extent did that might that have fed these persecution stories or maybe even be necessary for the persecution stars

right what's interesting about the persecution stories about paul is that some of them are very late so this is acts of the apostles which tells us about paul's damascus right experience and him persecuting the church that was written at. thirty five years after there's offense and perhaps as late as one hundred he is so they've been embellished pull himself talks about how he prosecuted the church but it's kind of a rhetorical trick for pool he says look i was a prosecutor and now i'm. sick you did it so if you know it doesn't work for him it's not so if you know without agenda you might say. the polls show us when it pulls version of christianity one out because he became the apostle to all of the nations and pull seeing himself as suffering like christ and encouraging other people to want to suffer like christ that certainly plays a huge role in people starting to think of themselves as he did right and the peter

church just basically. vanished i mean the actually the regional jesus is a regional church and jesus regional disciples vanished altogether did they go underground or the stories of the gnostics you know there's a bit of that that the egyptian orthodox church the coptic sometimes claimed but you know they got him out of out of peter's church very well everyone who claim that you represent that original church that original message that jesus conveyed to his disciples or anyone can do that is there any evidence that anybody did that . the attack the text that has so much date of the gnostic texts the so much later than the earliest traditions of jesus and so it's quite hard to say that there is preserve the real authentic message that jesus had including the possible story of thomas in the gospel of thomas is pretty early but it's not sort of gnostic with a sort of it's not from this kind of sacked or anything like that. but paul of

course never met jesus. so his brand of christianity you can certainly be concerned about the extent to which jesus' message was sort of lost by pull sort of winning the theological war between the original trial found himself and to some extent that means that his message has been lost in modern machines to some extent you could certainly make that claim whether it's the revolutionary message or whether it's the compassion message i mean what we're yeah well you have to be concerned about the line of transmission because of paul i think that when it comes to the character of christianity people decide for themselves what elements that going to pick up on so you know it's very clear that early christians were sort of radically egalitarian for the time they were all about ministering to the poor that's not something that everyone wants a lot trying to yeah so it really depends on what you bring to the gospel is what you're going to take out interest more conversations with great minds with candida

moss after the. let me let me i want to know we're going to let me ask you a question. here on this network is what we're having a debate we have our knives out. this time to spend staying there again hearing this story we're being i don't want you to talk about the surveillance of me.

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well go back to conversations of the great minds i'm speaking with candida moss theologian professor and author of the book the myth of persecution how early christians invented the story of martyrdom it's an extraordinary extraordinary work extraordinary book thank you think writing it. how does. how does the myth the person first of all you've i think it's largely established. with the exception of a couple of years there was one emperor that you talked about it was die and. die pollution with the exception of that one period for a couple of years by and large christians were not the victims of intense persecution in the early church is that yeah that's right i mean there is two years between three or three and three or five when the emperor institutes laws that

really correspond to what we imagine when we think about persecution you know christians being forced to sacrifice being hunted down the romans were really going to make sure that they got them but apart from that brief two year period. we really didn't see anything much like the modern conception of persecution sometimes christians died as a result of legislation that wasn't designed to talk at them but revolutionary religious law so there's an emperor called d.c.s. and he posted to create that was supposed to redefine something called the roman imperial coat the roman imperial called it stabilize the empire it protected them from attack it was even a fight them and it wasn't a religious innovation it was much more like a pledge of allegiance kind of a variation on blue don't do it with a concept that hitler was promoting we are of the soil we are of this race we are therefore this nation ah yeah it's

a little bit like that although i'm sort of loath to bring in any comparisons to him yeah. yeah but what's interesting is christians and historians told us that these this legislation was designed to target christians it was anti christian legislation and it was work it and then we discovered archeological evidence that in fact it was just general legislation it wasn't about the christians and the difference between gentlemen just station that you know what he or you feel you can't you can't act in accordance with and persecution that's designed to get you there's a difference between those things that we have to acknowledge and respect yeah it seems like us. and if a difference it is so if there was really in the in the in the first three hundred years of the church before the church became the state to a large extent. held their ground until watching the italian revolution of the late nineteenth century early twentieth century by being the catholics ruled much of europe mostly or. if that. persecution didn't happen

why is that story so pervasive we touched on this earlier but how did it get how does it get continually we nurture it will there are a couple of reasons before jesus persecution was not a badge of honor it was a sign that your daddy was angry with punishing you was impotent couldn't support you this is the old testament notion right you know good god tells joshua go to the city of i kill everybody cut over their stomachs put right and most everyone in the interim all would have agreed if you were being persecuted you do not have divine support right with christianity with jesus dying on the cross persecution suffering modded and these now become sort badges of honor you're now like jesus so prosecution sort of gets hardwired into the christian psyche now the reason that it's dade was because it's tremendously powerful rhetoric so you could say at the

last well the romans of persecuting us but then with the rise of the christian empire christians maintain the idea that basically the world is part of riced it's us against them and where under attack and we're the good guys except the people who are attacking us and now not the romans but say. you know the ottoman empire or heretics in the church are attacking us just like the romans and once you make that claim you can a legitimate any kind of violence against those groups because you're on the defensive or you're the one who's persecuted and obviously you have to defend yourself this is why press. rhetoric is that affective this is this is i lived in germany for a year we lived in a world where the middle of nowhere there were all these little castles around and . gotten some fascinating conversations with with a few real scholars of those who said basically you know for five hundred thousand years you would have castle in castle b. would have these multi-generational wars where the kings would keep the wars going

because it would cause all the presidents to maintain their loyalty to the king you know it's as if the other guys are out to get us and make him a two kings are good body is but nobody really knows it is that yet that's the psychology of those folks quality of it is that this kind of persecution complex allows your group to really band together it brings about social unity and we can see that now when people use persecution rhetoric it's not if you know if this small tiny little group against the wall that's attacking us so even if your group isn't small and isn't powerless this idea gives your group real social cohesion and so when bill o'reilly goes on fox news and says there's a war on christmas or a worn easter which is kind of laughable when you consider the there's you know a billion just catholics right much not to mention christian. this is rhetoric that is really the the purpose of the function of it is to bind him to his viewers essentially yeah and it sort of creates this community his view is ham

other sort of republican commentators or right wing commentators it we're all in it together with this tiny group we have to protect our terrain because we're under attack that out together us so even if the real conversation that's happening the debate that's happening is about how do we run our public schools. and challenges to sort of what has been fundamentally a christian way of organizing society in educating our children even if that's the debate that's happening when you reconfigured that as a war. an attack certainly make you feel bonded as a group i knew mobilized right well. elvis you know in the fifty's there were christians who were going oh my god swivel in his hips the hippies in the sixty's you know free love and sex and drugs and what we can't have that. in the seventy's and eighty's we saw the rise of the jury falwell empire's and his religious dynasty is really. has what are are all those part of one continuous

arc or are there milestones along the way were were to the modern religious right come from those in this kind of persecution. well you know i'm i'm neither american north and north specialist in modern america so i couldn't really say but the rhetoric is sort of continuous part of it's actually in the new testament jesus predicts that christians will be persecuted and so christians they will see jesus told us that we would be what's interesting is that when you look at the specifics of those passages a very different picture emerges so in the gospel of mark jesus says take up your cross and follow me defend me in courtrooms and some of you who are standing here will be alive when i return right now clearly after one generation that starts to that is not true so what why is it that we subscribe to the other part of this prophecy that we're always prosecuting it is because we think that it's been proven

throughout history particularly in that early period that jesus is pacific prophecies one terribly accurate so he says that james and john the sons of seventy would be baptized with his baptism which is sort of a euphemism for die john the son of somebody is the only one of the disciples not to have been mata it. that's not a great track record for prophesies. now we can read this metaphorically we don't have to read it as a prophecy about prosecution the reason that we do is because the. persecution mentality is so useful when it comes to defending out and sort of making claims and sort of discussions about society where would modern christianity be without the persecution stories and do you find these same or similar persecution stories in others of the world's major religions right where would we be without it that's a really interesting question so prosecution language means that your innocent your

bright and those other people they don't have legitimate grievances they just hate you so if we could get rid of that then we would have to try and think about why it is that those who disagree with us make the claims that they do we have to try and empathise with their position we have to try and understand it would be more compassionate and we'd have much better dialogue we'd be able to collaborate about things in ways that we currently can so so that the martyrdom story of the persecution story actually prevents conversation it's polarizing it divides the world into those that think instead of satan and those acting for god and you can't collaborate with satan. it makes perfect sense. has has there been a time in the history of the christian church when the persecution story wasn't front and center the way it is now. there have been christian groups that haven't

identified with this as strongly and there have been periods where christians have acknowledged that they all really powerful group now. but the prosecution language has always a very positive function for at least church institutions because prosecutors in language are lousy to exclude people from your group they're attacking you like the pesky to so it's always sort of so if this role so in writing your book the myth of persecution are really christians invented a story of martyrdom. jupe are you just telling us the history. and here we can do what ever we want with it or are you suggesting that if christians were to wake up and say you know we're not a persecuted minority we have a lot of power. and we've got some really good stuff you know the new testament jesus that's really cool things. that might make a better christianity definitely the latter i'm suggesting that i'm not saying people can't benefit not just no that's one thing but dropping the persecution

language that would improve society that would make for a better christian with members of other faiths and those who profess no religion. it would make for better dialogue between just people living in what is essentially a christian i society and we'd have to drop this sort of constant where we're being attacked there's a war against us kind of mindset that we come to that we have and out of that might come a more civil society i hope so you know it might be naive and idealistic of me to think that but that's what we're supposed to be striving for are supposed to be striving for a better society. from earlier with to some extent persecution stories in judaism and in islam they exist in buddhism and hinduism there have been both british and hindu martyrs. and there have been acts of violence by both those groups against others who have you know actually said to commit

a great violence in the names of the sacred traditions and this is something we have to face up to we're not always the innocent party and sometimes when we think that we're persecuted we're actually the prosecutor. that's right canada moss the book is the myth of persecution really christians invented the story of martyrdom thanks so much for being with us thank you so much pleasure to have you with us to see this or other conversations with great minds go to our website had conversations with great minds. and that's the way it is tonight. friday march twenty second two thousand and thirteen don't forget democracy begins with a new target active tag your.

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