See Ma! Studying Medieval and Early Modern Apocalyptic Movements Can be Useful

In the introduction to Messianic Revolution, David Katz and Richard Popkin explain that they were inspired to write the book from witnessing the Waco fiasco and how government negotiators did not understand apocalyptic reasoning even to the extent of failing to understand how the book of Isaiah might be relevant to the situation. One of the negotiators even thought that the "Seven Seals" were animals:

We know now that this failure to attend to the precise meaning of Koresh's references, compounded with the failure to understand the background of a group like the Branch Davidians, created very serious breaks in the chain of reasoning that might have led to an informed decision. The psychologists who advised the FBI concluded that Koresh was paranoid and that there was no point in trying to negotiate with him; the authorities eventually adopted a strategy of "stress escalation" that involved not only cutting off electricity to and training floodlights on the compound's buildings but also the use of other tactics including playing tapes of loud music, Tibetan chants, pleas from family members, and the sounds of animals being killed. Doomsday and death were part of the Branch Davidians' messianic plan, and when they died in the fire at Waco, they believed they were merely playing their parts in a divine script which they clearly understood.

Our sense was that we had seen this all before. On one level, the events at Waco reminded us of another siege by the forces of order, four and a half centuries earlier, at Munster in northern Germany. There, too, a group of religious radicals set up what they considered a divine community of Anabaptists behind a protective wall and held off the authorities for sixteen months, until June 25, 1535, when the gates of Munster mysteriously opened from within, allowing the capture of the Prince-Bishop Franz von Waldeck, who massacred nearly everyone inside. But even more importantly, we believe that much o modern religious radicalism can clearly be traced to earlier groups and their theologies, that it is impossible to understand sects like the Branch Davidians without this historical perspective. (pg. xi)

My mother can rest assured; there is something useful to do with the study of medieval and early modern apocalyptic movements (besides for going into the business for myself, bad health plan and all). I can go to work for the government (assuming I survive the background and sock drawer checks) as an expert in radical religious apocalyptic movements. I think that there is message in my work. Apocalyptics, even those sitting in caves, do inhabit the same physical word that we do and are part of the same political dynamics. (This becomes painfully obvious when apocalyptic visions crash planes into building and attempt to manufacture nuclear weapons.) It is important that we treat them as such.

War and Peace: My First Conference Presentation and My Weekend at Purdue (Part IV)

(Part I, II, III)

I was supposed to be the second of two people speaking at the third session. The other person, whom I have never met and shall remain nameless, did not show up to the conference. So I got a full session all to myself to speak about David Reubeni. This presentation was based on a paper I did for Dr. Robert Davis and I intend to use it in some form for my dissertation. My presentation was on the political thought of David Reubeni, an early sixteenth century Jew who claimed to be an ambassador from several of the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel. Reubeni wandered around Europe for several years attempting to form alliances with various Christian powers to fight the Muslims and was taken seriously by a number of important people, including Pope Clement VII. I argue that Reubeni managed to create a power structure around himself and claimed the sort of authority usually reserved for states. His initial success in this endeavor was due to his claim that he was a representative of a political state and a man of noble birth.

Throughout his diary Reubeni continuously strives to portray himself as a man capable of using violence. Like a political state he and his followers use “legitimate” violence against those who do not have “legitimate” power and, by doing so, bring “peace,” “justice” and “order” to all. The fact that Reubeni represented a state and acting against individuals who did not represent states, by definition, meant that his acts of violence were legitimate and that they were just and that the actions of his opponents were, by definition, illegitimate. In keeping with his interest in violence, Reubeni took a great interest in the instruments of violence such as swords, armor and particularly guns and his ability to possess and use them. I offered an analysis of several episodes found in Reubeni’s diary, where we see him playing the role of a statesman, engaging in acts of violence and thereby attempting to bring about justice, order and peace.

My intention was to move beyond the traditional issues regarding Reubeni - Reubeni the messianic claimant and Reubeni the con-man. He may have been a fraud, but he was also a brilliant political thinker, with a plan of action built around issues pertaining to this world and not just apocalyptic expectations. Ultimately, and this is the main point of my dissertation, I wish to, following in the footsteps of Norman Cohn and Richard Popkin, challenge the distinction between apocalyptic Messianism and earthly politics.

If readers of this blog are interested I might post a fuller version of the paper As I was the sole presenter at this session I spoke for a little longer than my allotted twenty minutes and we had a longer than usual question and answer session afterwards. The people in attendance were simply a fantastic audience so this session ended up going on for close to the allotted hour.

After attending a conference full of post modern liberal sophistry, I was looking forward to driving back to Columbus with Cory Driver. We were driving through rural Indiana (Sarah Palin’s real America) when we stopped at a gas station. In what can only be described as something out of a comedy sketch, the gas station was named Gas America.

I went inside and did not find Achmed the Dead Terrorist behind the counter. Instead I found what looked to be a perfectly normal American girl.

The Scientific Revolution (Q&A and Quiz)

1. It seems from the "Invisible College" article, that new sciences and philosophies were being studied somewhat publicly. Why then, would they call their Oxford club the invisible college?

One of the important things to consider in the rise of modern science is the creation of an international scientific culture. The invention of the printing press plays a major role in making this possible. This new scientific culture is a new power structure and, while there is nothing secret about it, it is not what most people would think of as a society and would therefore not see it as such. I would recommend Elizabeth Eisenstein’s The Printing Revolution in Early Modern Europe if you wish to pursue this topic.
As a way of modern analogy. Think of how the internet with its chat rooms, blogs, and instant messaging has changed how societies are constructed. People, for better or for worse, now find themselves forming relationships with people completely online without ever meeting them in person. So now society is no longer bounded by the people you live near and interact with in your day to day lie.
This new scientific culture is crucial because part of the scientific method is that an experiment has to be able to be duplicated by people in other places and times. We are moving from a model in which knowledge is a secret to be hoarded and guarded by a select few to one where transparency comes to be of ultimate value.

2. I was just wondering what would be the definition of modern sciencewould be with regards to this week’s readings. Is it science as what we would think of today?

The science of the early modern period included things like magic, demonology, alchemy and astrology. This does not mean that these people were bad scientists or irrational or superstitious. These things are better viewed not as counters to science but as failed sciences. To give the example of astrology, technically speaking astrology is true. A heavenly object, the sun, does have a tremendous impact on life on earth. Other objects affect the earth in more subtle ways. The moon’s gravitational pull affects tides. In fact Galileo rejected the theory that the moon affected tide because it sounded too much like astrology to him. Now, considering all this, it is not such a big jump to theorize that Saturn might cause depression. We have failed to find evidence for this so this theory has fallen through. This does not mean, though, that it was a bad theory. One of the flaws in how the history of science is usually taught is that focuses on successes. A major part of science is putting out theories that fail. How many light bulbs did Thomas Edison make before he got one that worked?

3. I wondered, as I read the invisible college, when the average person began to be in any way involved in science, whether it is a product of our public school system, or sometime earlier. I mean by this, science properly called science, because people obviously always practice science, even as we work out problems through trial and error. I mean to ask when people began to learn and participate in experimental science.

To a large extent science is the province of a narrow elite even today. Certainly during the Scientific Revolution experimental science is limited to very few people. That being said a major part of the success of this new scientific culture is its ability to attract popular attention and create a lay scientific culture. We will talk more about this once we come to the Enlightenment.

4. In the Invisible College reading, it says that many of the natural philosophers believed in "faith-ism", meaning what they couldn't explain with science, they explained with faith in religion. Is this thinking the predecessor to the Church of Scientology by chance?

Scientology is a religion created by science fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard in the twentieth century. To the best of my knowledge it has not been influenced by any of our early modern scientists/religious thinkers.

5. Can you further explain this concept of Fideism ("faith-ism")? It sounds pretty interesting and seems to be a unique way of combining two ways of thinking, science and religion, that one typically doesn't think of as meshing.

Anyone interested in the subject should look at Richard Popkin’s History of Scepticism from Savonarola to Bayle. You might think that a book about skepticism would be about people coming to challenge religious dogma. As Popkin reveals, though, much of the revival of radical skepticism in the early modern period is strongly fideistic. One has all these doubts about the ability of the flawed human mind to comprehend any truth, whether in regards to the natural world or in logic. The solution is to make a leap of faith and accept Jesus as your personal savior. This allows you to in turn have faith that, because you have been made open to these divine truths, you can hope to comprehend, through the aid of the Holy Spirit, the truths of science and logic.
In my experience in dealing with religious fundamentalists (some of whom happen to be relatives of mine) I have found that their religious convictions stem not from naïve incredulousness or lack of skepticism but from radical skepticism. These people are skeptical about the validity of the scientific method, the historical method or even logic. From this perspective the bar to believing in a literal interpretation of scripture is quite low. So your science textbook says that life evolved through evolution over millions of years. This other book, the Bible, says that life was created by God in six days. Why should you accept the former book over the later? The later has the endorsement of hundreds of generations of tradition. (Freelance Kiruv Maniac is a good example of this sort of reasoning.) The difference between these fundamentalists and me is that I have a tremendous amount of faith in the scientific and historical methods. As such I take any claim that results from these methods, such as the world being much older than six thousand years, very seriously. It becomes an intellectual non option to simply go against these claims.

6. I'm confused about the events that led to Galileo's Inquisition trial and shown by the video. At first, Galileo had a supporter in the Pope who allowed him to write about his ideas, given certain stipulations. What was it exactly that turned the Pope against Galileo?

You have hit the nail on the head. Pope Urban VIII was not some anti science zealot as he is commonly portrayed. Galileo was not twice put in front of the Inquisition because of heliocentrism. The Dialogues did not directly support heliocentrism and initially even passed censorship. Galileo was, for decades, the best known supporter of heliocentrism in Europe. If the Church had really been interested in stamping out heliocentrism they would have gone after Galileo decades before they did. Galileo made some really bad political decisions. He made fun of a stance taken by the Pope.
Keep in mind that the Thirty Years War is going on in Europe. At stake here is not science but Protestantism and the authority to interpret scripture. Galileo attempted to defend heliocentrism in terms of scripture and as such offered an interpretation of the book of Joshua that was contrary to that of the Catholic Church. From the perspective of the Church this makes Galileo a bit like the Protestants that they are in middle of fighting a war with.

I gave my students their first class quiz. It consisted of the following questions:

1. What faith do Magdalena and Balthasar belong to? What role does God play in their lives? (2 points)

2. List two of Luther’s “predecessors?” (2 points)

3. List three examples of religion wars in the sixteenth century? What was the resolution to these conflicts? (3 points)

4. Name two people involved with the Scientific Revolution and explain why they are important.

5. What was the common word for scientist before the nineteenth century? (1 point)

Bonus: Who was Mennochio the Miller and why do historians find him to be so fascinating?