Why did God allow the British Empire?

[timothyu]

Meanwhile back in the UK... inclusiveness has found a way to eliminate Christianity. Funny how in todays world people think they have the right to make someone else's nation over in their own image. Trouble is, governments are allowing it.

 

[Joseph G]

Meanwhile back in the UK... inclusiveness has found a way to eliminate Christianity. Funny how in todays world people think they have the right to make someone else's nation over in their own image. Trouble is, governments are allowing it.

As if God's perfect plan is the least bit thwarted by any regime under *His* control - good or evil. He builds nations up, He tears nations down. His perfect will has always and always will be accomplished - on earth as it is in heaven...

Psalm 46:10 NIV
"Be still, and know that I am God: I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth."

How so?

John 17:1-3 KJV
"These words spake Jesus, and lifted up his eyes to heaven, and said, Father, the hour is come; glorify thy Son, that thy Son also may glorify thee:

"As thou hast given him power over all flesh, that he should give eternal life to as many as thou hast given him.

"And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent."

And Jesus loses *none* whom His Father desires for His eternal Kingdom.

Check out the entirety of Jesus' prayer for further assurance and remember - God *always* says "Yes" to His Son's prayers!

Bible Gateway passage: John 17 - King James Version

These words spake Jesus, and lifted up his eyes to heaven, and said, Father, the hour is come; glorify thy Son, that thy Son also may glorify thee: As thou hast given him power over all flesh, that he should give eternal life to as many as thou hast given him. And this is life eternal, that they...

www.biblegateway.com

 

[mindlight]

Meanwhile back in the UK... inclusiveness has found a way to eliminate Christianity. Funny how in todays world people think they have the right to make someone else's nation over in their own image. Trouble is, governments are allowing it.

You do not shut down Jesus by persecuting his people, you just get Him mad that way. All these idiots will get their comeuppance.

 

[mindlight]

Imperial Russia was no more brutal, and in some respects less, than the British Empire. Compared to the French Empire, the Dutch Empire, the Portuguese Empire or especially the Belgian Empire, which was vicious and purely profit-driven (compare the former French, English, Dutch and Portuguese parts of Africa with the former Belgian Congo lest there be any doubt on this point), the Russian Empire was angelic, and compared to the dark empires of Islamic and Pagan tyrants, well, if Britain existed as a check on Russia, then Russia existed as a check on these. The Ottoman Empire was diabolical and should never have been assisted in the Crimean War - the prolongation of its existence directly facilitated the genocides against the Bulgarians in 1875, and the Armenians, Assyrians and Pontic Greeks in 1915, and other genocidal actions - any time the Ottomans sent in the infamous mercenaries known as the Bashi Bazouks, the results were usually genocidal.

The USSR was, as Ronald Reagan said, an evil empire, but in contrast Czarist Russia, for its faults (especially after the uncanonical and illegal interference in the operation of the Orthodox Church by Czar Peter I), consistently protected Christians from genocide at the hands of Muslims.

The earlier Grand Duchy of Kievan Rus, where Russian and Ukrainian civilization, was a blessed place, the only medieval European country with no capital punishment, and where Orthodox Christianity was not just the official religion but the way of life. Unfortunately it fell victim to the Mongolian invasions, and the Muscovite regime that followed was less idyllic, particularly under the reign of czars like Ivan the Terrible, who was rebuked by St. Basil the Blessed, for whom the cathedral built at the direction of Ivan was later named.

Now this is not to claim the Russian Empire was devoid of faults. It mistreated the Jews and engaged, like the Ottomans, in occasional pogroms. Its secret police devised anti-Semitic conspiracy theories which still result in Jewish deaths at present. It illegally and uncanonically seized control of the Russian Orthodox Church and forced through westernizations under Czar Peter I, and subsequently was responsible for the spiritual stagnation of the country in the 18th century, and it also for a time violently oppressed those opposed to the liturgical reforms of Patriarch Nikon (who would be the last Patriarch until the Holy Synod was restored St. Tikhon was appointed in 1917; he was later arrested by the Soviets and brutally mistreated, dying in prison as a confessor for Christ). Worse of all, the failings of the Russian Empire allowed for the rise of the evil Soviet Union which in turn agitated Europeans causing the rise of Hitler and National Socialism. Had the Imperial government done more to improve the conditions of the urban population and had it refrained from engaging in WWI, that could have been avoided, but then again without the Soviet union it is likely an Islamic movement would have arisen sooner and become more widely adopted, since the existence of the Soviet union engendered a series of pro-Soviet and pro-Western secularist regimes in the Islamic world which were not interested in the enforcement of Shariyah.

A lot of meat in that post. You are right about the Belgians, I just reread Conrad's Heart of Darkness.

The support of the British and French of the Ottomans as a counterweight to Russia in the Crimea War made geo-strategic sense at the time but did not serve the interests of the church.

Russian defence of Christians was a blessing and Russian anti-semitism was a curse on the regime. The abstraction of the regime from the troubles of its people. Their poverty and their pain were its downfall. So, in many ways, it was not Christian enough in practice.
Even the USSR served as a counterweight to the rise of Islamist movements.

 

[timothyu]

His perfect will has always and always will be accomplished - on earth as it is in heaven...

This be true.. yet the purpose of the scattering at Babel is now floundering. One no longer has distinct cultures within their own nations, nor needs armies to invade. When/if Jesus still thinks us worthy of returning for, there certainly won't be any of this corrupting of fellow nations. Of course, as Lennon sang.. no religion too. Anybody having collected sports cards of this competitive league of earthly religions could have a gold mine on their hands when it becomes obsolete.

 

[Maori Aussie]

The Russians did spread Christianity to Alaska, gently and without force. See St. Herman of Alaska, St. innocent of Alaska and St. Peter the Aleut.

As will be verified by my dear friends @prodromos @jas3 @HTacianas and others - there is one particularly expert in this area whose alphanumeric username I cannot recall.

The Russian missionaries may well have abhorred the massacres of the natives of Alaska.
But secular history records the massacres of native Alaskans by Russians:

Awa'uq Massacre - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Battle of Sitka - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[The Liturgist]

The Russian missionaries may well have abhorred the massacres of the natives of Alaska.
But secular history records the massacres of native Alaskans by Russians:

Awa'uq Massacre - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Battle of Sitka - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

I am only talking about the Orthodox Christian missionaries. Obviously the US and Canada do not have a monopoly on mistreating indigenous peoples of the Americas. The Spanish, for example, killed an 15 year old boy from the Aleutian Islands, St. Peter the Aleut, because he made the fatal mistake of fishing in the hitherto safe waters of California, as a baptized Orthodox. Had he practiced the Native Alaskan religion ironically he would not have been murdered, nor in all probability had he been Russia but the idea of a “Schismatic” Native making contact with the Mission Indians terrified the Spanish and thus he received a crown of martyrdom.

St. Peter the Aleut, pray for us!

 

[The Liturgist]

Meanwhile back in the UK... inclusiveness has found a way to eliminate Christianity. Funny how in todays world people think they have the right to make someone else's nation over in their own image. Trouble is, governments are allowing it.

That is unfortunate, but in the US, public schools banned Easter a long time ago. We can’t even have chaplains in public schools in the most of the US due to the lawsuits filed by that unpleasant atheist woman whose name I cannot recall (and in the few that have passed legislation allowing it, the ACLU, which ostensibly exists to protect civil liberties, is opposed to this, and the ACLU actually supported the illegal, unconstitutional restrictions on worship during the Covid pandemic.

 

[The Liturgist]

You do not shut down Jesus by persecuting his people, you just get Him mad that way. All these idiots will get their comeuppance.

We are actually required to pray for them. “Bless those who persecute you.” This is very difficult, obviously - I find it challenging to bless the Muslims slaughtering Christians in the Middle East, but I have to remember, this was the command of Christ our True God, who warned us to expect the world to persecute us, who cried from the Cross “Forgive them, Father, for they know not what they do” and who promised us that those who confess Him before men He will confess before the Father. The martyrs like St. Peter the Aleut I mentioned previously, or the thousands of murdered Christians in Syria, have won a crown of martyrdom.

What we must pray for is that if the time comes, we be able to submit to martyrdom without violent resistance, while blessing those who intend to kills us for our Christian faith. My fear is not martyrdom but denying Christ in an attempt to avoid it. Please pray for me, a sinner.

 

[timothyu]

That is unfortunate, but in the US, public schools banned Easter a long time ago.

Yes, I realize the separation of church and state, but this is ballooning into an issue of church and nation. And for some reason it is ok for other religions to be catered to, just not the one that existed before the others arrived. You will experience this shortly in your communities. New movement.

 

[timothyu]

I find it challenging to bless the Muslims slaughtering Christians in the Middle East

As they must have when the Crusading Christians slaughtered them. Man is incapable of solving problems by using the same methods that created them

 

[The Liturgist]

As they must have when the Crusading Christians slaughtered them. Man is incapable of solving problems by using the same methods that created them

The Orthodox had nothing to do with the Crusades other than being killed by them, especially the fourth crusade. While the schism began de jure in 1054, it became de facto with the brutalization of the Orthodox during the first crusade, which in some cases in Syria reportedly included acts of cannibalism.

In the case of the Fourth Crusade, it was redirected to attack Constantinople by the Venetians, having been ostensibly raised to retake Jerusalem, but instead being used to conquer the Byzantines (the Venetian occupation would be short lived, but had a terrible impact on the Byzantine military and also resulted in lasting loss of cultural heritage, for example, the Cathedral Typika at the Hagia Sophia went away after that time). The 13th century was a really lousy time to be alive, what with that and the Islamist genocide against the Church of the East.

Note that Islam unlike Christianity has no commandment to bless those who persecute you, rather, Muslims are required to take revenge on enemies of the faith. Also Islam defines martyrdom differently - in Islam a martyr includes those who die in combat against the infidels, whereas in Christianity that does not count as martyrdom, at least not in the Orthodox or, as far as I am aware, Roman Catholic churches.

 

[mindlight]

The Orthodox had nothing to do with the Crusades other than being killed by them, especially the fourth crusade. While the schism began de jure in 1054, it became de facto with the brutalization of the Orthodox during the first crusade, which in some cases in Syria reportedly included acts of cannibalism.

In the case of the Fourth Crusade, it was redirected to attack Constantinople by the Venetians, having been ostensibly raised to retake Jerusalem, but instead being used to conquer the Byzantines (the Venetian occupation would be short lived, but had a terrible impact on the Byzantine military and also resulted in lasting loss of cultural heritage, for example, the Cathedral Typika at the Hagia Sophia went away after that time). The 13th century was a really lousy time to be alive, what with that and the Islamist genocide against the Church of the East.

Note that Islam unlike Christianity has no commandment to bless those who persecute you, rather, Muslims are required to take revenge on enemies of the faith. Also Islam defines martyrdom differently - in Islam a martyr includes those who die in combat against the infidels, whereas in Christianity that does not count as martyrdom, at least not in the Orthodox or, as far as I am aware, Roman Catholic churches.

Islam is more inherently violent lacking the tools for forgiveness and reconciliation that characterize true Christianity. But we are not a pacifist religion and empires like the British, Spanish and Russian ones had a Christian ethos to them however weakly that manifested in practice. Augustinian Just War doctrine or indeed St Paul's Romans 13 justification of the power of the sword for the common good allow for this as does the whole Old Testament descriptions of theocratic government.

The First Crusade was originally about protecting Christians from Muslim persecution and restoring lands that were still majority Christian to Christian control as well as seizing the Holy Land and getting rich along the way. People miss the protection of the weak and defense of the Gospel justification for violence these days but it was predominant in the Middle Ages.

The Templars oath for example:
In front of You, our Lord, we swear to Christ, and never against Him, to protect the Gospel, to protect weak, for the truth, for the justice!

The Fourth Crusade should not really be called a crusade at all. It was just mercenaries attacking Christians for money.

 

[Maori Aussie]

People miss the protection of the weak and defense of the Gospel justification for violence these days but it was predominant in the Middle Ages. The Templars oath for example:
In front of You, our Lord, we swear to Christ, and never against Him, to protect the Gospel, to protect weak, for the truth, for the justice!

This may be why the Knights Hospitaller (Saint John) with their Red Cross are often overlooked in hostile accounts.

 

[The Liturgist]

The First Crusade was originally about protecting Christians from Muslim persecution and restoring lands that were still majority Christian to Christian control as well as seizing the Holy Land and getting rich along the way. People miss the protection of the weak and defense of the Gospel justification for violence these days but it was predominant in the Middle Ages.

And it would have been a good thing if it did not entail violent predation upon Eastern Orthodox and Oriental Orthodox Christians.

 

[Maori Aussie]

And it would have been a good thing if it did not entail violent predation upon Eastern Orthodox and Oriental Orthodox Christians.

Putin's violent predation upon Eastern Orthodox Christians is noted.

 

[mindlight]

And it would have been a good thing if it did not entail violent predation upon Eastern Orthodox and Oriental Orthodox Christians.

Did the First Crusade do that? The frontiers of the Byzantine Empire were extended. Oriental Christians came under the protection of Catholic princes and knights for a season. The knights of Christendom were a mercenary lot but the net effect of the First Crusade was liberation of oppressed Christians not enslavement.