Richard and James Kalb have both responded to my post, The Judeo-Christian West?  So what is religion?  The term itself covers a protean phenomenon, and it would take a great deal of effort to outline my own viewpoint in full, but, I will make a few quick responses to Richard & Jim.

I read The Germanization of Early Medieval Christianity several years ago.  Great book. I would argue that the difference in the nature of the conversion of northern Europe, as opposed to southern Europe, has to do with a bottom-up vs. top-down phenomenon.  In the Roman Empire Christianity was an organic movement which claimed the on the order of 10% of the population as adherents before the Imperial government in the form of the Emperor began to show it favor; much of what characterized Mediterranean Christianity preceded Imperial Christianity.  The situation in northern Europe was different because outside of Ireland Christianity tended to spread through a very top-down process (see The Barbarian Conversion). For decades the only Christians in the lands of the Wends were the duke and his near relations.  The early Christian Emperors had to face men such as St. Ambrose, who were powers in their own right with deep roots in the civil society in the form of the Roman Church.  In contrast, early Christians in northern Europe were dependent on the king, and the first bishops may even have been foreigners with little understanding of the local terrain. These structural differences I think explain more the nature of early medieval Christianity than a deep cultural difference between Roman and German peasants.

As for Jim’s post, he is correct to point out that unbelievers have a peculiar take on religion which tends to reduce the phenomenon to customs & traditions. I will also agree with him that on some level all humans are religious (aside from the autistic).  I believe religion is a natural phenomenon which is evoked from our minds through conventional experience. It is more than simply a set of practices and avowed beliefs, it does express a particular ontology on a psychological level. Where I part company with Jim is accepting that religious ontologies differ, or that the nature of paganism was more pessimistic than the nature of Christianity, or that Christianity had a large effect on European history due to its pecific set of particular doctrines (these are ordered in terms of my certitude as to disagreement).  My support for these seemingly strange claims are in books such as Theological Incorrectness: Why Religious People Believe What They Shouldn’t.

Richard has a post up where he alludes to Ilana Mercer’s VDARE article arguing that the West should support Israel since Israel is an outpost of the West. Both Richard and Illana refer to the term “Judeo-Christian.”  Of possible related interest has been a discussion I have been having recently about whether the term “Judeo-Christian” has any intellectual substance. I argue against it here and here (earlier here).  Ross Douthat argues in favor of it, James Poulos is neutral, while Noah Millman comes down on my side, though with equivocation.

My major thesis is that between 500 and 1800 the West was Christian, full stop. Though Judaism’s influence was formative (Christianity was after all by origin a Jewish religion), Jews were not major players in Western Civilization during this interregnum and developed Rabbinical Judaism in parallel as a subculture within both Christendom and the Dar al-Islam.  The Jewish reengagement with the West after emancipation occurred through integration with the mainstream on the mainstream’s terms.  I claim that non-Orthodox Judaism is arguably Protestantism in Jewish garb.  So if you want use a religious term for the civilization of the West, I think it is accurate to call it Christian, not Judeo-Christian.

Does this have anything to do with current geopolitics?  More than half of the population of Israel last I checked does not have Western antecedents.  That is, Arabs and non-Ashkenazi Jews.  Many of the latter may have accepted the norms of the elite Ashkenazi culture, which is Western, but a substantial minority of the Ashkenazi are Haredim who reject the West.  Nothing is ever so simple in the Middle East….

Remember the 1980s when America was lectured on how it should emulate Japan Inc.?  Tyler Cowen posts some excerpts from Dogs and Demons: Tales from the Dark Side of Japan:

...The construction industry here is so powerful that Japanese commentators often describe their country as doken kokka, a “construction state.”...the millions of jobs supported by construction are not jobs created by real growth but “make work,” paid for by government handouts.  These are filled by people who could have been employed in services, software, and other advanced industries.

Things that make you go hhhmmm….

Joe Klein recently pointed out that Obama’s rumored Middle East negotiating team has many Jews, but no Arabs or Persians.  He then lists some names, saying:

But Cohen has listed some powerhouse Muslims, who would be a terrific addition to Obama’s team—Shibley Telhami, Fawaz Gerges and Vali Nasr, among others.

Here’s a problem with what Klein just asserted: two of the three “Muslims” are actually Christians by background. How do I know this? I take a modest interest in the Middle East, and so know that Fawaz Gerges is a Christian from Lebanon (he mentions this frequently because people often assume he is Muslim).  The name combined with his Lebanese origin should make this a high probability even if you didn’t know the particular detail.  The name was the primary reason that I used something called Google to check whether Shibley Telhami was an Arab Christian or not, and yes, it turns out that he is from a Christian family.  One could defend Klein by suggest that he meant Arab, and that he simply conflated when he said Muslim, but Vali Nasr is an ethnic Persian, not an Arab (though at least Muslim by background).

This is one reason I believe we got into the Iraq mess, and why we should keep our noses out of the Middle East: “pundits” who think they know enough to open their mouths actually don’t.” Whereof one does not know, thereof one must be silent.