Category: Faculty Working Group Events

September 30: The Politics of Buddhist Nationalism in Myanmar, Dr. David Moe

October 14, 2022: The Gods at War: Religion and the Pacific Theater, 1937-1945 with Dr. Dayna Barnes

Religion played an underappreciated role in Asia during the Second World War. Governments used faith and religious organizations to garner support in colonies, pacify occupied areas, and court global allies. Faith leaders participated on the home fronts by building morale and used religious teachings to provide justifications for violence. Allied and Axis powers embedded monks and chaplains into military units as part of the war effort.

This is a complicated history. Three of the major combatants, the United States, Great Britain, and Japan, were empires influenced by religious nationalism. Each also governed over populations which did not adhere to the majority religion. Another major combatant, China, was home to diverse religious communities with transnational ties and a large anti-religious political element represented by the Chinese Communist Party.

This short paper provides a overview of the interplay of Buddhism, Christianity, Shinto, and Islam in the conflict.

Shinto

State Shinto was a modern reinterpretation of Japan’s indigenous religion. It supported nationalism and the legitimacy of the Japanese state by highlighting the divine origin of the Emperor. Domestically, this interpretation brought religious fervor to ultra-nationalism. Religion, nationalism, and militarism were fused by glorifying a citizen’s duty to sacrifice for Emperor and country.

Because State Shinto was tied to the nation state of Japan, it was not exported to occupied territories or puppet states through missionary activity. However, the people of colonized nations (Korea and Taiwan) were legal subjects of the Japanese empire and as such were required engage in emperor worship at Shinto shrines using Shinto religious practices. By 1945, more than a thousand Shinto shrines had been built in Korea for that purpose.[1]

Buddhism was the majority religion in both of Japan’s colonies, and was also widely practiced in Japan (Japanese Buddhism in the war effort will be discussed below). Buddhism and Shinto are non-exclusive religions, so it was possible for individuals to practice both simultaneously. However, mandated State Shinto practices presented a problem for the significant number of Christian Koreans. A monotheistic religion, Christianity prohibits the practice of other religions amongst its followers. This sparked a debate within the Korean Christian community. Is participating in Shinto services at a shrine a religious or secular nationalist act? In the 1930s, Christian school groups refused to attend mandatory trips to shrines, arguing that they could not bow to Shinto gods. The state considered refusal to be subversive, because it challenged an underpinning of Japanese nationalism. During the war period Japan cracked down on such objectors, who were subjected to state violence and imprisonment.[2] Chinese Muslims in territories occupied by Japan also refused to engage in such practices as saluting the Japanese flag or bowing in the direction of the imperial palace on similar religious grounds, but because the support of this minority group was an important part of Japan’s ongoing pacification strategy, exemptions were allowed in their case.[3]

Christianity

Christianity was the majority religion in the United States and was significant in the American war effort. As with State Shinto, the conviction of faith was tied to wartime nationalism. American missionaries had been among the most active Americans in Asia since the 19^th century. They and their children drew on their experience abroad to work as Asia experts within government, think tanks, and media. Exporting American values, like free speech and democracy, was not dissimilar to their work exporting religious doctrine. Because of the small number of Asia experts in America at the time, members of this group had outsized influence on American policy and public opinion.  

Former American missionaries had special sympathy for their co-religionists in Asia, and worked to drum up public and official support for Christian allies. China’s nationalist government was headed by Chiang Kai-shek, a converted Christian. Chiang and his wife Soong Mei-ling, known in America as Madame Chiang, became popular figures in the U.S. A sense of shared religious values contributed to sympathy and support for China even before Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor brought America into the war. In 1943 Madame Chiang embarked on a famous goodwill tour which impressed congressmen and swayed public support for China’s war effort.[4]

Christian ministers also participated in the war directly. They increased morale with sermons, provided prayers for victory, comforted soldiers, and administered burials as chaplains embedded with troop units in the field. Using military-issued chaplain kits equipped with crosses, alter cloths, candlesticks, and communion cups, they lead services from alters set up on the hoods of jeeps and held mass prayers on aircraft carrier decks. Such spiritual aid, organized by the state, kept up troop’s resolution to fight.

By contrast, the religious beliefs of some Christian individuals and churches called for pacifism and non-violence even in the face of war. Approximately 70,000 young American men of draft age received Conscientious Objector (CO) status for alternative service, while other applicants had their requests denied and either enlisted or were imprisoned. COs worked as medics, provided other non-military support functions within the armed services, or worked domestically in specially-created Civilian Public Service labor camps.[5] Thus, while not directly engaged in combat, this small group of young Christians none the less contributed to their nation’s war effort.

Buddhism

Buddhism was practiced by the majority of the population in warring Japan and China both. Leaders of this universalist religion, which holds non-harm as a core value, grappled with doctrine in order to support chauvinistic nationalism and violence. Monks took the view that participating in wartime violence was permissible, and supported the war effort through fundraising and providing medical treatment. Like Christian chaplains, monks also served in military units by performing funeral rites and offering soldiers spiritual guidance to raise morale. Some even picked up weapons themselves.[6]

During the war, violence was widely condoned under a Buddhist principle allowing for “compassionate killing.” Acting to save the nation (interpreted as either Japan or China depending on the monk’s own nationality) was an act of compassion to save the population from external violence. Likewise, if the enemy soldiers were acting as “devils” wreaking devastation, compassion required destroying them to protect the innocent.[7] In Japan, where the Zen school of Buddhism had long been tied to Bushido warrior philosophy, lectures and distributed poetry taught conscripted soldiers equanimity in the face of death.

Pacifism and anti-war sentiment were almost unheard of amongst Japanese Buddhist teachers. A single case of resistance demonstrates the broader absence. In 1937 a monk in central Honshu opined in a public lecture that “war is never a benefit to a nation, rather it is a terrible loss” and called for his country to pull out of China, which it had invaded. In response, he was arrested by the state for “fabrications and wild rumors” and stripped by his religious sect of qualifications to propagate Buddhist teachings. His qualifications were posthumously reinstated by his order in 2007 after the case was re-discovered, and an inscription of his words now stands outside his temple.[8] However, the punishment he received from both government and religious institutions serves to demonstrate how out of step monk Takenaka Shōgen was with the thinking of his time.

Japan also used shared practices of Buddhism to secure cooperation in Buddhist majority areas it occupied. Under the auspices of a Japan-led pan Asianism, Chinese Buddhist organizations in occupied territories were forced to become part of a Japanese-sponsored Buddhist network directed by Japanese Buddhists, in order to continue operations. Similar oversight was instituted in colonial Korea, although in both cases local resistance and non-compliance limited the impact of Japanese control.[9]

Islam

In Muslim-majority colonies and in sub-national regions, religion created a common identity for resistance and nationalist aspirations. In Indonesia, Malaya, and parts of the Philippines, nationalists from Muslim communities resisted Dutch, British, and American imperialism. This undermined the Allied war effort and created an opening for Japanese imperialists to exploit.

Japan presented its war as a struggle to create a Greater East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere, which would unite the diverse peoples of Asia to fight western imperialism and achieve modern development under Japanese leadership. Japan’s first political experience courting Muslim groups followed its invasion of Manchuria in 1931 and creation of the puppet state Manchukuo. Chinese Muslims in this area were a largely urban group descended from foreign traders whom had remained in China and intermixed with the local population while retaining Muslim faith. The cooperation of leaders from this community helped facilitate Japan’s ambition to indirectly control the area, and in turn Japan provided political and financial support, helping build Muslim schools and mosques, and funding Hajj trips to Mecca. Similar programs were initiated as Japan pressed further into China during the late 1930s. In 1938 Japan established the All China Muslim League to sponsor education, employment, and cultural activities. Although this initiative met with mixed success and low participation, it was similarly aimed at gaining minority local support for Japanese presence.[10]

Building on experience in China, Imperial Japan sought to make its capitol a site of transnational Islamic discourse. It built a grand mosque in Tokyo in 1938 and hosted conferences for Muslim elites from China, South East Asia, Central Asia, the Middle East, and North Africa. Japan also provided scholarships for young Muslim students to study in Tokyo, with the hope of creating a new generation of Japanese-speaking Muslim leaders across Asia with warm ties to Tokyo.[11] Each of these activities initially ingratiated populations in the Western-colonized territories which Japan conquered and made nominally independent during the war.

Japanese occupiers pointed to both the western powers which had colonized these areas, and to domestic communists who opposed religion, as common enemies in order to rally support for its Greater East Asia project. When pushing into Indonesia in 1942, occupiers worked with Muslim nationalist leaders and gave them a platform to write and speak in the Japanese-sponsored press and on the radio.[12] While later in the war many of these leaders became disillusioned with Japan’s delayed promises of independence and extraction of resources, in the initial phases of wartime expansion, Imperial Japan was often able to successfully court Muslim communities as an anti-communist, anti-Western friend of Islam.

Conclusion

Although often neglected in modern retellings, religion was a part of wartime experience and the war effort on all sides of the conflict. These complex strands deserve to be woven back into the history of the Pacific War.

Referenced Works

Dayna L. Barnes, Architects of Occupation: American Experts and the Planning for Postwar Japan, (Cornell University Press), 2017.

Kelly A. Hammond, “Managing Muslims: Imperial Japan, Islamic Policy, and Axis Connections during the Second World War,” Journal of Global History, 12:2 (2017).

Kelly A. Hammond, China’s Muslims and Japan’s Empire: Centering Islam in World War II, (University of North Carolina Press, 2020).

Ethan Mark, Japan’s Occupation of Java in the Second World War: A Transnational History (Bloomsbury, 2018).

Dae Young Ryu, “Missionaries and Imperial Cult: Politics of the Shinto Shrine Rites Controversy in Colonial Korea,” Diplomatic History, 40:4 (September, 2016).

Kue-jin Song, “The Real Face of Korean Buddhism under Japanese Colonial Rule,” Journal of Korean Religions, 10:2 (2019).

Fumihiko Sueki, “Chinese Buddhism and the Anti-Japan War.” Japanese Journal of Religious Studies, 37:1 (2010).

Brian Victoria and Narusawa Muneo, “’War is a Crime’: Takenaka Shōgen and Buddhist Resistance in the Asia-Pacific War and Today,” The Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus,

12:37:4 (2014).

Dong Zhao, ” Buddhism, Nationalism and War: A Comparative Evaluation of Chinese and Japanese Buddhists‘ Reactions to the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937-1945),” International Journal of Social Science and Humanity, 4:5 (2014).

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[1] Dae Young Ryu, “Missionaries and Imperial Cult: Politics of the Shinto Shrine Rites Controversy in Colonial Korea,” Diplomatic History, 40:4 (September, 2016), 609.

[2] Dae Young Ryu, “Missionaries and Imperial Cult: Politics of the Shinto Shrine Rites Controversy in Colonial Korea,” Diplomatic History, 40:4 (September, 2016), 612.

[3] Atsuko Shimbo, “Ethnic Minorities in China under Japanese Occupation: the Muslim Campaign and Education during the Second Sino-Japanese War,” Journal of Contemporary East Asia Studies, 10:1 (2021), 126-128.

[4] Dayna L. Barnes, Architects of Occupation: American Experts and the Planning for Postwar Japan, (Cornell University Press, 2017), chapter 5.

[5] https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/conscientious-objectors-civilian-public-service

[6] Dong Zhao, “Buddhism, Nationalism and War: A Comparative Evaluation of Chinese and Japanese Buddhists‘ Reactions to the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937-1945),” International Journal of Social Science and Humanity, 4:5 (2014).

[7] Fumihiko Sueki, “Chinese Buddhism and the Anti-Japan War,” Japanese Journal of Religious Studies, 37:1 (2010), 17.

[8] Brian Victoria and Narusawa Muneo, “’War is a Crime’: Takenaka Shōgen and Buddhist Resistance in the Asia-Pacific War and Today,” The Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus, 12:37:4 (2014).

[9] Kue-jin Song, “The Real Face of Korean Buddhism under Japanese Colonial Rule,” Journal of Korean Religions, 10:2 (2019).

[10] Atsuko Shimbo, “Ethnic Minorities in China under Japanese Occupation: The Muslim Campaign and Education during the Second Sino-Japanese War,” Journal of Contemporary East Asia Studies, 10:1 (2021), 130.

[11] Kelly A. Hammond, China’s Muslims and Japan’s Empire: Centering Islam in World War II, (University of North Carolina Press, 2020), 82.

[12] Kelly A. Hammond, “Managing Muslims: Imperial Japan, Islamic Policy, and Axis Connections during the Second World War,” Journal of Global History, 12:2 (2017).

Dr. Mark Joffe and Dr. Xiaofei Kang

October 28, 2022: Vampires in Europe and Chinese Witches with Dr. Mark Joffe and Dr. Xiaofei Kang

Prof. Marlene Laruelle, director and research professor at the Institute for European, Russian, and Eurasian Studies (IERES) at George Washington University, speaks to faculty and students on the role of the Russian Orthodox in the war in Ukraine and how the church has aligned itself with Russia’s military.

You can read about the talk as it was covered in The Washington Times.

Tracing Un/Civil Religion

People who study the relationship between religion and politics in American history saw, from as early as Trump’s 2016 campaign, something very interesting about the religious dimension of his support. Much of his support was attributed to a transactional relationship: Here’s a guy who’s going to give us the judges or policy we want, so we’ll support him. But it became clear that there was something deeper, something stranger going on.

Part of it was tonality, the desire for a strong man, a champion who would fight their battles and defeat (or at least vex) their enemies. This may explain why a group that had historically been looking for a level of (professed) piety from its leaders was able to support the boorishness of Trump — because he was “our fighter rather than our pastor.” As the Trump Administration went on, and particularly as Covid and the election increased pressure, the religious and spiritual warfare rhetoric also heightened. So I don’t think we were surprised, as we watched what was happening on January 6, to see so much “religion” being a part of it. That was, we might say, par for the course. But, to fully understand these events, we have to frame them in the larger narrative of American civil religion.

We have a funny situation in the United States. The Constitution set up a secular government in which Congress “can make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” So on the one hand, ostensibly, we’re a secular government, but on the other hand, American politics has always been infused with religion — dominantly, but not exclusively, shaped by Protestant Christianities. And that infusion of religious rhetoric, symbols, and narratives into the American political imagination creates what scholars like Robert Bellah called “civil religion.”

Bellah, who was writing during the Vietnam War period, opened his famous article “Civil Religion in America” with an analysis of John F. Kennedy’s inauguration. Here you have the first Roman Catholic president, speaking in the midst of the Cold War, using vague, capacious God-language that really all monotheists could assent to, suggesting that American freedom and the nation’s activity in the world are set within a larger moral frame. This is not the same as the establishment of Christianity. For Bellah, religious and political rhetoric are combined to legitimize the state and condition its purposes. In the case of Kennedy’s inauguration, the ritual provided stability in the transition from a Republican to Democratic administration. As Bellah said, “it reaffirms … the religious legitimation of the highest political authority.”

Civil religion has this functional dimension: It binds citizens who may not have other things in common. But it also had, for Bellah, a normative dimension, which is that it held American aspirations and projects in the light of divine judgment. It’s important to note that Bellah was writing about American civil religion at a time he believed it was breaking down. e don’t have to accept Bellah’s interpretation, but he’s on to something that, even though we are constitutionally a secular state, politicians, both on the right and on the left, rely on religious rhetoric. Civil religion is supposed to undergird the American democratic political project.

So why did we use the phrase “Uncivil Religion” for this project?” On the one hand, what was going on was, on the face of it, uncivil. It was a riot, an attack on the Capitol. But, on the other hand, many of those religious tropes and symbols that had in the past been deployed for other political purposes were now being deployed in this attack, the purpose of which was to disrupt a particular political ritual, to thwart the peaceful transfer of power, to “stop the steal” under the banner of Heaven. Was it a political rally turned riot, a religious revival, or both?

Religion in Response to January 06

We don’t have established religion in the US, but one of the things that was interesting about Trump is that he literally positioned himself as a defender of the faith, even as it was obvious to his evangelical supporters that he was not of them. Over and again Trump said things like, They’re trying to destroy your Christianity, and I am going to protect your religious liberty. He was not a protector of religious freedom as such, but of a particular kind of Judeo-Christian conservatism. Trump defended their faith and they in turn came to Washington to defend him.

The great image for this, of course, is Trump standing in front of the parish house of St. John’s Episcopalian Church with a Bible, right after protestors had been violently cleared out of Lafayette Square. Why was he going for a photo-op there, in front of a church? Why was he holding a Bible? And not, say, the Constitution? It was a signal to his base. Interestingly, St. John’s is an Episcopalian Church, the daughter denomination of the Church of England, which is, of course, the established church of England — and was the established church of the southern colonies during the colonial period.

Should we consider MAGA as a new civil religion? We know what its symbols are, we know what it’s icons and its totems are. But what is the theology or the motivating spirit of MAGA? It is a kind of nostalgia for an America that never was, and a cultural dominance that has long been receding. 

On the other hand, if we listen to the statements of political leaders about the events — Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senator Dick Durbin, for example — we hear the language of desecration: These people who came in and attacked the Capitol desecrated the temple of our democracy. That leans on religious language. The Capitol building is a sacred space, and by entering it in this violent way — and also by breaking things and smearing feces on the walls — the rioters were infidels desecrating the temple. Yet many people who participated in the insurrection did not see themselves as desecrators; they saw themselves as attempting to liberate the temple of their democracy from the infidels.

So many people involved were deploying religious language. What does the rhetoric of religion do but serve to legitimate one’s activity? It brings it to that heightened level. That’s what Bellah was talking about, that the religious language does something other forms of language, other symbols, aren’t necessarily capable of doing. It’s one thing to say you are involved in a political act. It’s another to give that political act a spiritual motivation and a divine sanction.

Jerome Copulsky is a scholar in residence at American University and a Berkley Center research fellow. He specializes in modern Western religious thought, political theory, and church/state issues. He is currently working on a project on American civil religion (“Uncivil Religion”) in collaboration with the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Alabama and the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History.

Dhammapada Ch. 1 “In this world hostilities are never appeased by hostility. But by the absence of hostility are they appeased. This is an interminable truth.”

Buddhist nationalism in Burma is the transformation of religion into an ethnic, cultural identity. The philosophical teachings of the Buddha are fundamentally peripheral to the group. Moreover, Buddhist philosophy is disturbingly reinterpreted to follow a fascist ideology, and then relabeled as Buddhist nationalism. In this context, we must ask how this has happened?

In Myanmar, religion and ethnicity have combined to form a hostile environment for minority groups. The Muslim Rohingya and Kachin Christians in Myanmar face harsh discrimination by the dominant Buddhist Bamar ethnic group, a situation that has deteriorated in recent years. While hundreds of years ago these differences were generally accepted, the drawing of post-colonial borders created the Rohingya as a minority inside a minority in Myanmar. The Rohingya resided in Myanmar from as early as the 15^th century, with Muslims continuing to arrive in the 19^th and 20^th centuries. Despite the long history of Muslims in Myanmar, the government of Burma/Myanmar historically denied their claims as an official ethnic group of Myanmar. The lack of legal designation led to the Rohingya being labeled illegal immigrants from Bangladesh. Systemic oppression of the Rohingya led to an increase of tensions between the Rohingya and the Buddhist community in Rakhine State.^[1]

World War II exacerbated the existing tensions between the communities. The Buddhist Burmese leadership and the Muslim Rohingya were on opposing sides of the war. Burmese Buddhists joined the Japanese fight to rid Myanmar of British colonial control, while the Muslims joined the British against the Buddhist/Japanese alliance. This hardened the feelings of ill will, with the Buddhist Nationalists arguing that this was proof that the Rohingya were anti-national and British collaborators.

In the next decades, after the democracy movement gained ground, the Buddhist nationalists became concerned that Muslims would start taking more power under democracy. Buddhist nationalist support for military rule grew. Then in 1982, the Citizenship Law excluded Rohingya (but included 135 groups), making them stateless.

Then in 2017, terror attacks by the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA) against the Myanmar police led to a conflagration. ARSA killed 12 security personnel, but the government of Myanmar responded with disproportionate violence. Human rights organizations accused the government and local men of rapes, crucifixions, and burnings.^[2] The violence sent hundreds of thousands of refugees streaming into neighboring Bangladesh. In the following weeks and months, the Myanmar army claimed that it was defending the state against Muslim terrorists. Burmese Nobel Laureate Aung San Suu Kyi also refrained from condemning the apparent genocide. By 2021, over 900,000 Rohingya were living in refugee camps in Bangladesh. Another estimated 600,000 remained in Myanmar in Rakhine State under intolerable conditions.^[3] As of 2021, the Myanmar government refused to grant the Rohingya citizenship, a decision that made the minority stateless refugees.

Despite the fact that the Burmese Nationalist interpretations are not supported by Buddhist text, they have significant impact on the treatment of women in the country. Women in the Burmese context are often told that they need to be reborn as a man in order to achieve merit. Impoverished women are susceptible to human traffickers and join prostitution as an alternative to achieve merit for their families through suffering.^[4] Many even “believe that they are destined to be prostitutes and lower-class citizens because it is their karmic retribution.”^[5]

The gender hierarchy in Myanmar Buddhism is also supported by the growing nationalist movement. Buddhist women in Myanmar are expected to be the protectors of racial purity in a highly patriarchal system. Nationalists passed a set of laws in 2014 known as the “Protection of Race and Religion Laws,” which both criminalized polygamy and required people wishing to convert to obtain official permission. In addition, interfaith marriages would need to pass a public opinion vote to be accepted.^[6] This concept supports the notion that women are the protectors of racial purity, and if women convert or engage in an interfaith marriage they have sullied the Buddhist race. The underlying philosophy claims that women are inherently inferior. According to a nationalist Buddhist, “Our Buddhist women are not intelligent enough to protect themselves.”^[7] An underlying shift in cultural and religious beliefs would be necessary to address issues of gender inequality in Myanmar.

Buddhist monks are surprisingly at the front of this violence. Ashin Wirathu is leading Buddhist nationalists against the Muslim Rohingya. He claims that they are a Saudi-backed Bangladeshi insurgency that wants to create a caliphate in Myanmar. His group, MaBaTha speaks about ethnicity and religion as though they are interchangeable. The group itself sprouted from the anti-colonial movement against the British in the 1920s. Amyo, Batha, Thathana (MaBaTha) stood for “Race, language, and religion!”^[8] Over time, the movement shifted its focus from the British to the Muslims.

Twisted Religious Interpretation

These ethno-nationalist monks recast the Buddha as a nationalist religious leader of the Sākiya bloodline (clan). In this rewriting of history, the Myanmar/Burmese people claimed descent from the Buddha’s Sākiya Clan. Burmese women were not to mix blood (intermarry) with others to keep the country strong. The “others” became demonized as a threat to the ethnic and religious purity of the Buddhists.^[9] The Buddhist nationalists drift even further from Buddhist theology by claiming that the Buddha was himself an ardent nationalist. According to this argument, the Buddha, “Acting in a selfless way, he sacrificed himself for the greater good by performing the five ‘great sacrifices’, for instance, by offering his children, his limbs, or his body for the sake of others, as a way to fulfill the perfection of generosity.”^[10] In this description, the Buddha was indeed selfless in the traditional Buddhist interpretation. However, the nationalist view takes his sacrifice a step further by adding a purpose to the sacrifice that is selfish and not supported by any Buddhist text. “The self-effacing practices of the bodhisatta path can, in a nationalist reinterpretation, be perceived to be similar to the selfless and heroic sacrifice of oneself for one’s country and nation common in nationalist movements throughout the world.”^[11] This nationalist perspective runs counter to Buddhist philosophy, which denies the existence of race or ethnicity as relevant. Instead, the theology emphasizes the impermanence of all attachments. This would preclude any attachments or sacrifices made in favor of an ethnic group, nation, or even family.

By attaching Buddhist philosophy to an ideology that elevates an ethno-religious group inside Myanmar, the Buddhist nationalists are disturbingly similar to the racial fascists of World War II. While the Nazis blamed Jews for all of the wrongs in Germany, the Buddhist nationalists of Myanmar similarly blame the Rohingya Muslims and Burmese Christians for the ills of Myanmar. Their solution of ethnic cleansing is also in line with other racial fascist movements.

Often, this type of fascist thought is discussed in terms of Christianity and Islam, and even Judaism. Buddhism is most often given a pass as a “peaceful” religion. However, addressing the upheaval and human rights abuses in Myanmar will requires analysis of the use of Buddhism as a weapon in Burmese political culture. Combating human rights abuses inside Myanmar will require ending the misuse of religion, disputing the nationalist rhetoric, and elevating a peaceful interpretation of Buddhism.

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^[1] Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, “Fact-Finding Mission on Myanmar.”

^[2] Lara Jakes, “Genocide Designation for Myanmar Tests Biden’s Human Rights Policy,” The New York Times, June 30, 2021, https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/30/us/politics/biden-genocide-rohingya-myanmar.html.

^[3] “Rohingya,” Human Rights Watch, https://www.hrw.org/tag/rohingya#.

^[4] Grisel d’Elena, “The Gender Problem of Buddhist Nationalism in Myanmar: The 969 Movement and Theravada Nuns,” (MA diss., Florida International University, 2016).

^[5] D’Elena, “Gender Problem.”

^[6] Francis Wade, Myanmar’s Enemy Within, (Zed Books, 2019): 170.

^[7] Wade, “Enemy Within,” 171.

^[8] Randy Rosenthal, “What’s the Connection between Buddhism and Ethnic Cleansing in Myanmar? Lion’s Roar, November 13, 2018, https://www.lionsroar.com/what-does-buddhism-have-to-do-with-the-ethnic-cleansing-in-myanmar/

^[9] Niklas Foxeus, “The Buddha Was a Devoted Nationalist: Buddhist Nationalism, Ressentiment, and Defending Buddhism in Myanmar,” Religion, Vol. 49 (4), May 2019.  

^[10] Foxeus, “The Buddha.”

^[11] Foxeus, “The Buddha.”

Our fears and imagination of afterlife beings are closely connected with the underlying religious beliefs of our communities. This is evident in common perceptions of ghosts, zombies, and vampires. Whereas some cultures place an emphasis on the spirit as the primary actor after death without the body, other cultures found that the body is the key after death, and the one to fear. To some extent, this hinges upon whether the body is even there. If the body is cremated, the zombie or vampire is a removed concept, and there would be few bodies to fear. Where burial is popular, the body becomes far more tangible, and people are able to envision possibilities of the walking dead. 

Before the Middle Ages, in Japan there was the concept of the Hungry Ghosts—the undead corpse-eaters. The Japanese concept is quite similar to the western concept of the afterlife at this time. These Japanese ghosts had done terrible things in their life, for example greed, or violence. They are then punished with an unsatiable hunger that makes them eat horrible things such as excrement or dead bodies. In the painting of the Gaki Zoshi, from the 12^th century, you can see the Hungry Ghost eating a dead body. Certain Gaki were even believed to eat live bodies, which would place them in the category of what we call zombies. 

These Hungry Ghosts also indicated how physically difficult life was in Japan at the time. There was starvation, and people may have been forced to eat unfathomable things to stay alive.

In contrast, in the Christian tradition, the Bible makes very little reference to ghosts. Ghosts were not a part of the spiritual system, as the soul upon death was meant to go to heaven, hell, or in certain cases, purgatory. There was no reason for a soul to be wandering about the world haplessly. Interestingly, the soul in this system could also be punished physically. In hell, the soul could be burned, and in the painting “The Coronation of the Virgin” by Enguerrand Quarton you can see that the souls are also purified in purgatory by being burned. These souls are then very physical, similar to bodies. In these ancient times, the concept of the afterlife on the Japanese side and the Christian side are actually not so different. In either world view existed a painful afterlife where your ghost or soul could be tortured if you had misbehaved. 

At that time, burial was common in both Japan and the Christian regions to dispose of the body. Japan has burial mounds very early on, and both Shintoism and Confucianism, burial was normal. And while the spirit has its place in the Christian tradition, so does the body upon death. In death, there is an important emphasis on physicality that contrasts sharply with the eastern traditions. The resurrection of Jesus into a body of flesh and blood is very much a critical element of Christian theology (Luke 24:39). It is also central in the Christian context that Jesus be accepted as not just a ghostly presence, but a physical one (1). Historically, the Catholic Church taught that the body and the soul ultimately will be reunited, and so the body has to be treated with respect and buried (2). This is a result of two ideas. First and foremost the belief in the resurrection led to the essential nature of burial. 

The second reason was also influential– the fact that atheists who were denying the resurrection during the enlightenment were having cremations done as a form of protest against the church. This set up a situation where the church banned cremation (and protests against the church) as a way of emphasizing faith in the resurrection and clarifying who the rebels were. The Catholic Church ban on cremation for followers continued surprisingly until 1962 (3). 

In Japan, cremation launched in the 8^th century following the spread of Buddhism, with the cremation of a priest in 700 AD and Emperor Jito in 703 AD (4). According to Buddhist philosophy, the body is not permanent, and the process of cremation is purifying for the body and the spirit. Buddhist theology emphasizes that there should be no attachment to the body, and therefore after death, cremation of the body is not only accepted, but recommended. Nonetheless, some debate continued between Confucians who believed in burial and the Buddhist groups, but after the Meiji period, Japan settled upon cremation, as it was far more efficient in terms of use of land and allowing families to keep the remains of loved ones nearby to visit.

You can see that there is a fundamentally different perception of how the spirit and the body are connected. In Japan, the body is not necessary, and in fact you need to remove it to be pure. In the Catholic concept, the body needs to remain, or you are actually in some way denying God by denying the resurrection of Jesus. 

In popular lore, some of the impact of these differences becomes clear in the appearance of the ghosts. In 11^th century Japan, the novel The Tale of Genji has a philandering prince who makes many women jealous (5). So much so that the angry and jealous ghost of one of his lovers, Lady Rokujo, leaves her body while she is still living and kills the lady he loves (Aoi). The painting of the jealous Lady Rokujo shows the ethereal and beautiful depiction of the Japanese ghost. The Tale of Genji is steeped in Buddhist tradition. 

The spirit is so powerful in the Japanese context that it can do double time—keep someone alive while wandering off and killing. In folklore, if someone dies violently or if the funeral rites weren’t performed, the spirit can return to the world after death until the conflict is resolved. These ghosts (yurei) are usually young women wearing white clothes that are traditional in Buddhist funerals, and long black hair. 

For comparison, in the West we have the cultural influence of Shakespeare on the interpretation of the afterlife. In the 17^th century, he brings in ghosts and witches. The painting by Henry Fusili of Shakespeare’s Macbeth  you can see an armed head. In Shakespeare, there is a physical armed head which depicts a ghost that is telling him the future. The ghost is very physical in that it has a helmet, and it is also just a part of the body. A ghost could theoretically be the full representation of the person, but in this case Shakespeare is specific in identifying the ghost as a very tangible helmeted head upon the floor. 

As we move forward, the divergence of how Christians in the West and Buddhists in Japan view the afterlife becomes apparent. The most famous ghost story from Japan that has set the stage ever since, is about Lady Oiwa, who shows up in Kabuki plays about 200 years ago. She is a lovely woman who is unfortunate enough to be married to a very evil man. He has fallen for another woman who he would like to marry, and the father of his lover is a doctor. The father/doctor sends medicine for Lady Oiwa, but it is in fact poison. She uses this poison unknowingly as medicine, causing her face to become completely disfigured. Her hair then falls out in clumps, and her eye droops—she becomes hideous. The painting of the Ghost of Oiwa shows this pathetically disfigured ghost.

Paintings of the ghost of Lady Oiwa portray her with the long black hair and long white robes that are reminiscent of Lady Rokujo (Tale of Genji). This becomes the established female ghost in Japan. 

In the West, afterlife tales revolve much more around the dead body and its adventures after the burial. In recent years, a skeleton was excavated in Venice, Italy that exhibited signs of local beliefs surrounding the possibility of undead threats. During the Middle Ages and afterward, the existence of the Black Plague created problems with the normal dignified burial process. Whereas normally bodies could be buried and be undisturbed, during the plagues the number of bodies accumulated rapidly. This led to the need for mass graves, and the reopening of graves just months after burial to add more bodies. Apparently upon opening the graves on occasion, people witnessed blood or other liquids from deteriorating bodies exiting the mouth and into the burial shroud. This would appear as though the body was attempting to eat through the shroud and escape to spread disease (5). Fear of these attacking undead led to strange and extreme measures, such as the placing of a brick or stone in the mouth of the body in order to prevent it from eating through and escaping to attack the living. 

In other regions, such as Bulgaria, archaeologists have discovered that people believed the plague corpses would rise as vampires and drink the blood and life of humans and livestock. To prevent these possible attacks, the locals pounded an iron of wooden stake through their chest and into the ground (6). This technique was hoped to keep the body in the grave.  

The physical manifestation of the afterlife as undead bodies in Italy contrasts sharply with the ethereal and flowing ghost of Buddhist Japan. 

Today we can see the manifestation of these differences in scare tactics of the popular Japanese movie Ringu and its American remake, The Ring. In Japanese Ringu, the ghost is a girl who has been killed by her father and thrown in a well, as she was evil. But her ghost nonetheless is clean, wearing a long white dress, and with long black tresses. Her character is clearly modeled upon the image of the ghost of Lady Oiwa, including the detail of the drooping eye (7). She is in many ways a sympathetic ghost, scary not because she is ugly, but because she has spiritual power. However, when the film was being remade in the US, director Gore Verbinski decided that this ghost image was not scary for US audiences. Americans do not find clean white ghosts to be terrifying. The ghost would need to become more familiar to the western concept of the afterlife. In the American version of The Ring, the girl is similarly clothed in a white dress with long black hair, but with a critical difference. She is filthy, her hair matted and dirty, and her face is monstrous (8). She came from the well, and has the physicality of having emerged from the earth. 

1. Matthew James Ketchum, “Specters of Jesus: Ghosts, Gospels, and Resurrection in early Christianity,” Ph.D. Dissertation for Drew University, May 2015. 
2.  Matthew 27:50-54 ⁵⁰ And when Jesus had cried out again in a loud voice, he gave up his spirit. ⁵¹ At that moment the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. The earth shook, the rocks split ⁵² and the tombs broke open. The bodies of many holy people who had died were raised to life. ⁵³ They came out of the tombs after Jesus’ resurrection and^[a^] went into the holy city and appeared to many people. ⁵⁴ When the centurion and those with him who were guarding Jesus saw the earthquake and all that had happened, they were terrified, and exclaimed, “Surely he was the Son of God!”
3. The Vatican (Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith), Instruction Ad resurgendum cum Christo Regarding the Burial of the Deceased and the Conservation of the Ashes in the Case of Cremation, March 2, 2016; https://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_20160815_ad-resurgendum-cum-christo_en.html
4.  Anna Hiatt, “The History of Cremation in Japan,” JSTOR Daily, September 9, 2015. https://daily.jstor.org/history-japan-cremation/ 
5. Murasaki Shikibu, The Tale of Genji, trans. Suematsu Kencho (Tuttle Publishing, 2018). (originally published in 1008 CE). 
6. Daniel Flynn, “”Vampire” Unearthed in Venice Plague Grave,” March 12, 2009, Reuters, https://www.reuters.com/article/us-italy-vampire/vampire-unearthed-in-venice-plague-grave-idUSTRE52B4RU20090312
7.  The Week, “Unearthed: Bulgarian ‘Vampire’ Skeletons,” January 8, 2015, https://theweek.com/articles/474918/unearthed-bulgarian-vampire-skeletons 
8.  Valerie Wee, “Patriarchy and the Horror of the Monstrous Feminine: A Comparative Study of Ringu and The Ring,” Feminist Media Studies, 11(2), 2011. 
9.  Matthew Ducca, “Lost in Translation: Regressive Femininity in American J-Horror Remakes,” City University of New York Thesis, 2015, https://academicworks.cuny.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=&httpsredir=1&article=1926&context=gc_etds 

Dr. Oweidat speaks about her upcoming book, Reform and Its Perils in Contemporary Islam: The Case of Nasr Hamid Abu Zayd (working title).

This book concerns the efforts of Muslim intellectuals to reconcile their religious identities with liberal values in the contemporary world. Ever since the Islamic world first encountered Western liberalism, the intellectual field of Islamic thought has witnessed vibrant debates and a multiplicity of perspectives on the relationship between Islam and modernity.

Many scholars of Islamic thought have attempted to integrate liberal values, such as equality, freedom of thought, and freedom of conscience, with the Islamic tradition. Muslim modernists argue that these ideals represent the most accurate expression of Islam when it is properly understood, even if the sacred texts and historical realities of Muslim communities seem to contradict their claims.

Dr. Oweidat’s book identifies and analyzes one particular intellectual current that espouses an apolitical view of Islam and a separation between religion and the public sphere and the adoption of liberal values in Muslim communities. It focuses on the prominent Muslim scholar, Nasr Hamid Abu Zayd (1943-2010), whose case illustrates the resistance, even enmity, directed toward Muslim intellectuals who attempt to subject the Islamic tradition to academic scrutiny. A professor of Islamic thought in the Department of Arabic Language and Literature at Cairo University, as well as a practicing Muslim, Abu Zayd became well known in Egypt and globally when the Egyptian Court of Appeals declared him an apostate in 1995, a judgment which in mainstream interpretations of the Islamic law can carry the death penalty. To protect his own life and that of his wife, Abu Zayd fled to the Netherlands.With Abu Zayd as a case study, the book analyzes the intellectual trends that propose a reconciliation between liberal values and Islam. It examines in depth the roadblocks and challenges to liberalizing Islamic thought, both externally in the form of oppressive regimes and an intolerant religious arena, as well as internally at the level of intellectual arguments. A critical analysis of the logic of liberal Islamic thought has been a missing element in current academic study. One reason for this shortage could be the fact that the majority of these works have not been translated into English, making them available only to fluent Arabic speakers. The recent publication of a translation of one of Abu Zayd’s most controversial books, Critique of Religious Discourse (2018) by Yale University Press, is likely to lead to more interest in this subject. Providing a critical exploration of this important intellectual trend is significant for understanding the strengths and weakness of reform efforts in Islamic thought, whether in the academy or beyond.

GARNET Launch Keynote

A Few Words About Terminology

Instead of Christianity, I will use Jesus movement when speaking about the first century. Those in the movement at that time did not call themselves Christians. That came later (very late 1^st or early 2^nd century).

The term translated Jew (Ioudaios) in the New Testament is ambiguous. It can mean either Jew or Judean, and the context must determine the proper translation.

I will try to avoid the term church. It connotes a building; buildings set aside for worship by Jesus followers/Christians did not appear prior to the third century. Instead, I will translate the Greek term ekklēsia as assembly or gathering.

Instead of the Christocentric BC and AD, I will use BCE (Before the Common Era) and CE (Common Era).

The Roman Empire as a Borderless Society

Alexander

Alexander’s defeat of the Persians at Issus (on the coast of the Mediterranean, close what is now the Turkey/Syria border) in 333 BCE paved the way for a more or less culturally unified eastern Mediterranean. Alexander took Greek culture with him. Following his conquest and the empires that grew out of it, primarily the Seleucid (Syria) and Ptolemaic (Egypt) empires, the eastern Mediterranean became Hellenized (Greek-like).

It is important to note that, even though Alexander Hellenized the eastern Mediterranean, ethnic cultures did not disappear. For example, by the mid-2^nd century BCE, Jews outside of Judea could not read their scriptures so the books were translated from Hebrew into Greek. Thus, we can see that the importance of the scriptures endured for the Jews even though those writings were now read in Greek.

With the Hellenization of the eastern Mediterranean, it was much easier to go places. As a result, there was more movement across traditional boundaries. We have a great example of an Egyptian who immigrates to the Greek island of Delos during the time of the Ptolemaic and Seleucid empires. According to a surviving inscription, this Egyptian (a certain Apollonius) moved from Egypt to the Greek island of Delos. Apollonius was a priest of Serapis, an Egyptian God and when he moved, he took the God (likely a small statue) with him. He set it up in his apartment and worshipped the deity there. Perhaps other Egyptian immigrants worshipped with him. After he died, his son continued to honor Serapis in this way as did his grandson. But the deity somehow let the grandson know that he wanted a temple built. Eventually a temple was built and eventually non-Egyptians began worshipping Serapis there. Here we see Egyptian religion (or at least the worship of an Egyptian God) take hold on a Greek island within three generations. We also see something else. Religion has become a “thing” – one could carry it along when emigrating.

With the advent of the Roman Empire, cultural unification from Rome to the East continued (the Romans did not “Romanize” the East; they respected Greek culture, and most educated people in Rome spoke Greek).

Under the Romans, travel was safe and easy; the roads were good. If one wanted, one could walk from Rome around the eastern Mediterranean Sea all the way to Carthage (now Tunis in Tunisia), with no borders to navigate; no customs; and no passport control.

During Roman times, we see the rapid spread of religions from the East. These religions were promoted by freelance (self-authorizing) religious experts (FREs). These FREs included exorcists and healers as well as individuals who claimed the ability to still storms, prevent plagues, or talk to animals.

In any given large city in the empire, one could encounter in public spaces:

• Egyptian diviners,
• Babylonian astrologers,
• Samaritan wonder-workers, and/or
• gender-bending, cross-dressing priests of the Syrian Goddess Artagatis.

This is the context in which the early Jesus movement spread. By the mid 1^st century CE, the Jesus movement was in the three largest cities of the empire: Rome, Syrian Antioch, and Alexandria. It had also reached the important port cities of Ephesus & Corinth. The religious movement was spread by businesspersons but also by missionaries (FREs) who were self-funded or funded by others.

An example of how the Jesus movement at this point directly intersected with international affairs can be inferred from the writings of the Roman historian Suetonius. Suetonius said that Claudius expelled the Jews from Rome “because of Chrestus” (Claudius probably thought that the trouble was started by someone named Chrestus but he misunderstood; the problem was more likely over Christos, that is, Christ or Messiah). From this, we can conclude that there was probably a significant controversy in Rome between messianic Jews (Jesus followers) and non-messianic Jews (non-Jesus following). Claudius expelled the trouble-makers from the city. In the Acts of the Apostles (18:2), we encounter two such exiled individuals who landed in Corinth: Aquila and Priscilla.

Paul (of the New Testament): A Freelance Religious Expert (FRE)

One FRE about whom we have a fair amount of information is Paul of Tarsus (St. Paul to Christians). Our information comes from two sources in the New Testament: Paul’s letters to assemblies that he founded and the Acts of the Apostles. From these sources, we learn that Paul was born in Tarsus, raised in Damascus, and he probably died in Rome on the way to Spain. We also learn that Paul was an artisan (a skēnopoios) – probably meaning tentmaker. He was a Jew/Judean, who originally opposed the Jesus movement but had a change of heart because of a vision of risen Jesus. He believed himself commissioned to preach the message of the Jesus movement to non-Jews. Paul traveled throughout much of Mediterranean world (mostly by foot): Judea, Syria, perhaps Cyprus, Asia Minor, Greece, some of the area that is now Albania, and Rome.

His message was apocalyptic: He proclaimed the end which would come with a great cataclysm; the gentiles were doomed because of their idolatry; but salvation from end time calamity could be possible for them possible if they turned to Jesus, son of the Judean God.

Why was Paul successful?

1. He was from East, like other freelance religious experts (Eastern religions were respected because they were considered more ancient than those of the West).
2. Like other freelance religious experts, he had significant spiritual abilities. For example, he said that when he was in Corinth that he “did not come proclaiming the mystery of God … in lofty words or wisdom … but with a demonstration of the Spirit and of power” (i.e., he was a wonder-worker) He also claimed to have other spiritual abilities, including:
   1. the ability to speak in tongues & prophesy
   1. the ability to interpret the ancient books of Judeans (Jews).
   1. Direct contact with the spiritual realm (via both visions and a heavenly journey).

Why did this movement catch on, and not others (e.g., the worship of Isis)? We can only guess.

• Perhaps the intense apocalyptic enthusiasm of the original missionaries had something to do with it.
• Or maybe it was because the movement welcomed the impoverished, dispossessed, slaves, and allowed leadership roles for women (at least initially).

Regardless, the borderless society of the empire certainly facilitated the movement’s growth.

Question and Answer

Q: If the Imperial cult led to a kind of universal Roman identity, did this lead to ostracization of Jesus followers/Christians?

A: Yes, but the imperial cult is, in my opinion, over emphasized. It probably had more to do with Jesus followers’/Christians’ unwillingness to worship the traditional gods. This would have been viewed as subversive, especially since the Romans believed that their success was due to their piety vis-à-vis the Greco-Roman Gods.

Q: What accounts for the split between the non-Jewish Jesus followers and the Jewish Jesus followers?

A: First, we need to ask why there were non-Jews in this Jewish movement at all. According to the Acts of the Apostles, Jews who fled Judea because of persecution, began preaching to non-Jews in Antioch. We cannot be sure why. But in 50, Paul meets with the leaders of the Jerusalem assembly (James, Peter, and John) to discuss what to do about non-Jews in the movement. Should they be forced to become Jews? Paul says no. The leaders of the Jerusalem assembly agree but decide to split the mission field. Paul (and Barnabas) would go to non-Jews and the Jerusalem leaders would try to bring in Jews. The movement was essentially split. What happened to the Jewish side? We don’t know. Following the Jewish revolt against Rome, we hear little from the Jewish side, perhaps because of the destruction of Jerusalem (and perhaps some of its leaders—although Peter and James were already dead by then).

Q: How much can we trust Paul’s accounts vs. Acts?

A: We cannot forget that Paul always had an axe to grind but we can try to get around that by understanding his agenda in any particular situation. Since his material is the earliest, we have no choice but to put more faith in it than what we get from Acts.

Q: Why did the Romans respect the Greeks?

A: Probably because it was an ancient civilization (for the Romans, old was good, new was bad); also probably because of the arts and philosophy that came out of Greece (thanks to Professor Nadia Oweidat for the latter point).

Q: Were there contributions by the Persians to the borderless society?

A: By the time that the Romans came to the east and conquered the Seleucid Empire, the Seleucids had already lost the territory of the Persians.

Alexander himself had respected the Persians and wanted to combine the best of the West and East. Nevertheless, initially, most of the influence went in one direction (West to East; i.e., Hellenization). But eventually eastern ideas (and religions) began to move into the West.

For example, by the second century CE, the religion of Mithras (originally from Persia) became an important religious movement in the West, especially in the Roman army.

Q: What was the role of women in the Jesus movement/Christianity then, as compared to now?

A: In the first century, women played a role in the movement. Paul quotes a baptismal formula that says that:

“There is no longer:

Jew nor Greek

Slave nor free

Male and female”

To some extent that was true on the ground. Women missionaries and even apostles were recognized in Paul’s letters. But by the second century, the movement (at least in some quarters) began to line itself up with the prevailing societal gender expectations: women were to bear children, but certainly not preach or even speak in the assembly. But in other quarters of Christianity, women continued to be valued. For example, according to the Gospel of Mary Magdalene, Mary is the only one who “gets” Jesus. However, once the church gained power (4^th century), books such as this were suppressed.

Q: Was Constantine’s conversion religious or political?

A: I think it was primarily political. He saw Christianity as a way to unify the empire. He may have even seen no difference between the Jewish/Christian God and the Roman deity, Sol Invictus (“the Unconquered Sun”).

Q: What was the attitude toward ethnicity and race?

A: In the Greco-Roman world, ethnicity was recognized (e.g., Egyptian, Syrian, Judea) but, to my knowledge, there was no overall prejudice against any one ethnicity—with the possible exception of reactions against Jews/Judeans following the revolt against the Romans in 66-70 CE.

Race (i.e., skin color) was not an issue with the Romans. There were dark-skinned emperors (e.g., North African, Syrian). One of the most famous western thinkers in Christianity, Augustine (354-430 CE), was African. So was Tertullian, another Christian thinker (ca. 155-220 CE). No one even mentions the skin color of these various individuals.