Back in October, the Hungarian Spectrum attempted to unpack the refugee crisis in Europe:
“Hungarian public officials quite openly expressed their doubts that such an unexpected
migration of so many people could happen without some central direction.”
There are plausible conspiracy theories.
Then there are those that are moonbat crazy.
The writer, Dr. Eva
Balogh, who used to teach Eastern European history at Yale, couldn’t reasonably
have anticipated the wave of largely immigrant-related violence New Year’s Eve in
Cologne, Germany (the criminal complaints, mostly against migrant men and “refugees”,
have now reached 516, a full 40% of which involved sexual assault). Thus she was naturally dubious
about the suspicions of the Hungarian government a full three months
before they had any hard evidence that uncontrolled migration to European
countries might end badly.
So she shoots down the
usual speculations about statist or anarchist plots: No, she says, it’s
probably not the Americans. Neither do theories
involving Israel, Russia, Turkey, Iran, the Arab States or even ISIS make any sense
to the good doctor from her left-liberal perspective.
Her conclusion: “Forget about the
conspiracy theories”.
The Theories That Won’t Go Away
But as the immigration crisis steadily
worsens and European governments and the media in their pockets double down on
the “nothing to see here” story, the conspiracy theories simply multiply: It’s “ethnic cleansing” of whites. It’s a (possibly coordinated) “mass evasion of the truth”. Perhaps the “unelected leaders of the EU want to make it into a superpower”. Or it’s an attempt by governments to justify “emergency measures” that will never
be rescinded after the crisis abates. Or even that it’s a manifestation of the German struggle to escape the shadow of Nazism.
My favourite? “It’s the Illuminati”.
Sure. Why not?
The Question of Motive
The common thread here is this: batty as we
may think each or all of these conspiracy theories, they uniformly offer the alleged
conspirators some remotely plausible motive.
That is a whole lot more than biblical conspiracy theorists ever bother with.
Christianity, we’re now told, began as “a sophisticated government propaganda exercise used to pacify the subjects of the Roman Empire”.
Joseph Atwill claims “Christianity may be considered a religion, but it was
actually developed and used as a system of mind control to produce slaves that
believed God decreed their slavery”. The “peaceful Messiah”, Atwill says, was
invented to encourage Jews to pay their taxes to Rome.
Uh … yeah, okay. Let’s explore that a bit.
Why Did the Jews Buy In?
Atwill is not the first to allege nonsense
like this, and he won’t be the last. But while he can imagine a logical motive
for first century Roman aristocrats to write a tale of death and resurrection,
he cannot possibly explain that story’s acceptance by Jews within the very same century. Even with Jewish assistance, it is impossible that Rome could have concocted a phony story believable enough to make thousands of Jewish converts on the basis of events alleged to have occurred within their own lifetimes in the very place many of them lived. Worse, it was a story that made the Jews out to be the bad guys!
Furthermore, without more than five hundred
Jewish witnesses to the resurrection, Paul would surely have been more cautious
in his statements to the Corinthian church. But he could confidently aver that “most of” them were still alive at the time he wrote. What sense does this make if Paul himself was a fiction or a Roman pawn? He was still open to having his facts checked.
Why did thousands of Jews come to Christ
in a single day? Not because of Roman “mind control”. Rather, it was because the narrative with
which they were presented was not only logically compelling and spiritually convicting, but also attested to with signs and miracles witnessed by huge crowds.
Yet to the religious authorities of an
oppressed pair of Jewish provinces in the first century Roman empire, the story
of Jesus — far from being a convenient control mechanism for the overlords —
merely added insult to injury.
Atwill’s is among the least plausible propaganda
campaigns in human history.
The Ephesian Puzzle
Paul’s letter to the Ephesians spells out
plainly the sheer offensiveness of the Christian message to the Jewish mind. He
speaks of a mystery revealed explicitly to him, though certainly detectable in
the Old Testament to those with the faith to see it:
“This mystery is that the Gentiles are fellow heirs, members of the same body, and partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel.”
Israel already had their relationship with
God, however poorly it may have been understood and appreciated by the Jewish masses.
But this is a distinctively Christian message: the “Gentiles are fellow heirs”.
Judaism offered nothing like this. It wouldn’t dare. Compared to this blasphemy,
the passing notion observed by the Lord that his followers should “render unto
Caesar” pales into insignificance. It would bother nobody.
Why on earth would Roman aristocrats choose
this singularly divisive, spectacularly repugnant message with which to attempt
to “mind control” the Jews?
They must have been the absolute worst
propagandists ever.
How Did the Propaganda Spread?
These theories about clever Roman elites ignore the obvious: what about the apostles? For
them, there’s no motive at all. There was no money to be made in first century
Christianity, no power to be grasped, no indulgences to be bought and sold, no
gold or jewels to accumulate on earth. Just tons and tons of work, then desertion
by most of their friends, and finally a thoroughly unpleasant and ignominious death.
Conspiracy theories,
in order to be plausible, require a motive. We can certainly debate whether any
of the current Euro-conspiracy memes meets that standard.
Joseph Atwill’s absurd theory does not.
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