[Buddha-l] Religious violence, Buddhist violence

[Richard P. Hayes]

On Tue, 2010-01-19 at 02:21 -0500, Dan Lusthaus wrote:

> Islam and Christianity also have a "peace" rhetorical counter-current, which 
> historically always tended to be a tentative minority, and frequently 
> persecuted, moreso in Islam than Christianity. But it is admirable that such 
> countercurrents exist at all, and they should be encouraged (without 
> adopting the false view that they represent "real" Islam" or "real" 
> Christianity; that view only belongs to those minorities and their 
> cheerleaders, not history).

I agree with this up to a point. I think it is irresponsible to call ANY
religious movement the "real" and definitively representative token for
the religion to which it belongs. So I agree with Dan that it would be
irresponsible to call the Brethren, the Quakers, the Mennonites and
other so-called Peace churches the real Christianity. They may make that
claim for themselves, but outsiders need no9t follow suit. At the same
time, I think it is irresponsible to think of crusaders, inquisitors,
and other destructive movements and moments the real Christianity.
Insofar as currents and counter-currents exist and claim to represent
religions, they are all real. 

Dan said a while back that a scholarly objectivity can be taken too far,
giving the example of Aum Shinrikyo as a self-proclaimed Buddhist
movement that scholars of Buddhism should not accept as Buddhist. Here I
profoundly disagree with Dan. As an academic scholar teaching Buddhism,
I see my task as involving, in principle at least, passing on
information of everything that proclaims itself to be Buddhist. As a
Buddhist, I am not especially drawn to Aum Shinrikyo. But as a professor
in a secular university that has courses on Buddhism, I cannot and
should not pass judgment on what is authentically Buddhist and what is
not. In this, I agree with Natalie Quli (I think -- I have learned from
her that I have misrepresented quite a bit of what she says).

-- 
Richard P. Hayes <rhayes at unm.edu>
University of New Mexico