XPost: alt.books.cs-lewis   
   From: toomuchspam@spammer.org   
      
   Steve Hayes wrote:   
      
   >>> I'd be interested to know whether you think the Church would have   
   >>> behaved worse or better had it won the ascendency in Japan its   
   >>> martyrs were seeking.   
      
   >>But I may want to take umbrage at the last phrase.  The victims were   
   >>not just a bunch of crazy missionaries going in and declaring   
   >>"Convert, or die, or kill me!"  There were lots of Japanese people who   
   >>had decided to adopt this dangerous foreign religion. If I'm wrong   
   >>about this, and the ones killed had sought martyrdom by making public   
   >>disturbances that gave the authorities no alternative to killing them,   
   >>please let me know, with citations.   
   >   
   > Well yes, it does come across as overweeningly arrogant --   
      
   To someone who doesn't understand traditional Christianity, maybe.   
      
   > when   
   > someone who claims to know so little of Japanese history can yet claim   
   > to know so precisely what Christian martyrs there were seeking.   
      
   If they weren't seeking what I said they were seeking, they were heretics   
   by the standards of that age.   
      
   > Of course Buddhism and Confucianism, as well as Christianity, were   
   > considered dangerous foreign religions.   
      
   As they were, from Shintoism's POV.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)