"The Criminal History of Christianity"?

[neodawson]

Has anybody here read Karlheinz Deschner's "The Criminal History of Christianity"? It's supposedly a 10 volume work detailing all the evil deeds of Christianity.

As far as I know it hasn't been translated into English, although Deschner's website contains a few excerpts in English:
www.deschner.info/en/work/46/excerpt.htm

Any thoughts?

[ignorantianescia]

He's new to me, but the German Wikipedia has some critical voices about him:

Deschner once described his motivation to write as such: "I write out of enmity. Since the history of what I describe has made me to its enemy." Emeritus professor for church history at the University of Bamberg Georg Denzler, who himself has appeared with texts critical of the church, has said about that: "Such a motivation can never be the basis for a description of history that can be taken seriously."*

Says enough, you'd think. Apparantly he studied comtemporary German literature at university, and studied courses in history, law, theology and philosophy at some college. He and his wife were excommunicated from the Roman Catholic Church afterwards.

* Deschner beschrieb einmal seine Motivation zum Schreiben so: „Ich schreibe aus Feindschaft. Denn die Geschichte derer, die ich beschreibe, hat mich zu ihrem Feind gemacht“. Dazu sagte der emeritierte Professor für Kirchengeschichte an der Universität Bamberg, Georg Denzler, der selbst mit kirchenkritischen Texten hervorgetreten ist: „Eine solche Motivation kann niemals die Basis für eine ernst zu nehmende Geschichtsschreibung sein.“

[neodawson]

Thanks for the reply. I haven't been able to find much information about him in English(and my German is terrible atm), although glancing through the English excerpts I noticed some potential problems in how he presents Medieval history.

[domics]

Nov 5, 2012 21:20:54 GMT ignorantianescia said:

He's new to me, but the German Wikipedia has some critical voices about him:

He and his wife were excommunicated from the Roman Catholic Church afterwards.

are you sure that he was excommunicated? I can't find this information.

[ignorantianescia]

Nov 6, 2012 9:48:26 GMT domics said:

Nov 5, 2012 21:20:54 GMT ignorantianescia said:

He's new to me, but the German Wikipedia has some critical voices about him:

He and his wife were excommunicated from the Roman Catholic Church afterwards.

are you sure that he was excommunicated? I can't find this information.

I can't claim any certainty, but it is what the German Wikipedia claims:

"Die katholische Kirche stellte öffentlich die Exkommunikation des Ehepaars wegen ihrer ungültigen Verbindung fest."

roughly translating to:

"The Catholic Church publicly determined the excommunication of the married pair because of their invalid marriage." It refers to Deschner and his wife. Now "feststellen" can also mean "to notice", but that isn't a very probable meaning here.

For what it is worth, the Dutch Wikipedia claims the same (probably of no extra value, since it seems to be the product of ideological fanatics).

Edit: Actually, I had heard of the guy. The Giordano Bruno Foundation (yes, seriously) promotes his work and has named a price after him, which they gave to Dawkins.

[bjorn]

Nov 6, 2012 17:58:53 GMT ignorantianescia said:

Edit: Actually, I had heard of the guy. The Giordano Bruno Foundation (yes, seriously) promotes his work and has named a price after him, which they gave to Dawkins.

Deschner was a well known figure among left wing antireligious writers in the early 70's and one of his books was even translated to Norwegian.

I've got most of his books in German and it seems from a few samples that he takes any atrocity done in any "Christian nation" as a "Christian crime" - whether the ones responsible are kings or clergy.

He has been debated a lot in Germany and there's a highly praised critical analysis of his (and others' similar) conclusions, "Toleranz und Gewalt: Das Christentum zwischen Bibel und Schwert" (www.amazon.de/Toleranz-Gewalt-Christentum-zwischen-Schwert/dp/3402002159), by Arnold Angenendt.

Der international renommierte Kirchenhistoriker Arnold Angenendt behandelt in seinem neuen Buch die heute gängigen Anklagen gegen das Christentum. Die Liste der aufgerechneten "Todsünden" ist lang: Leib- und Geschlechterfeindlichkeit, Erzeugung falscher Schuldgefühle, Anspruch auf alleinseligmachende Wahrheit und damit Intoleranz, Absegnung der Kreuzritter als Beihilfe am Tod unschuldiger Moslems, die Inquisition mit Folterung und Verbrennung der Ketzer wie der Hexen, die Mission als Kolonialkrieg bei Ausrottung ganzer Volksstämme, Antijudaismus als Wegbereiter des Holocaust. Eine "Blutspur" von neun Millionen Opfern habe das Christentum in der Geschichte hinterlassen. In Summe sei es eine altgewordene Weltreligion, die am besten abdanke.

Auf breiter Faktenlage fußend legt Angenendt souverän dar, was die religions-, kultur- und allgemeingeschichtlichen Forschungen zu diesen Anklagen in den letzten zwanzig Jahren erbracht haben. Die Ergebnisse sind frappierend.

[himself]

One could as easily speak of the Criminal History of Males. There is a better basis for The Criminal History of Germany.

[david2011]

Nov 22, 2012 18:53:20 GMT himself said:

One could as easily speak of the Criminal History of Males. There is a better basis for The Criminal History of Germany.

I'd agree, if you wanted you could write about the dark sides of anything and make it seem completely evil, and, there might some radical feminists who''d feel 'the Criminal History of Males' was more justified (and, in some cases, they could have a point). One of the things I don't like about the New Atheist movement is the fact that they attack religion as the cause of all evil, but, they don't seem to realise that you could easily attack males, imperialism (with this one, it be very justified to attack), and a lot of other things as well.

[himself]

Chesterton once wrote that if religion were to be condemned, it should be for the crimes peculiar to it, and not for the crimes common to all mankind.