Sacred Violence in Early America

Sacred Violence examines the “deep cultural history of the theology of violence” through four concepts—blood sacrifice, holy war, malediction (blasphemy and heresy), and iconoclasm—from medieval Europe to the Anglo-American colonies (p. 3). Each chapter discusses the evolution of the concept in Christendom through the Reformation; developments in England, particularly during its civil war; and, finally, the transmission of the paradigm to the colonies where it shaped provincial cultures and violence against Native Americans. The chapter “Blood Sacrifice” begins with the evolution of Catholic transubstantiation, explores how Protestant theologians argued over how to reject that doctrine while still elevating Christ's sacrifice for mankind, and connects that ambivalence to the violence that so frequently marked relations between colonists and natives. Holy war also justified violence against God's enemies but had more political weight and during the Reformation drove a century of incredibly vicious wars in Europe. Although in England during its civil war (despite calls for “holy genocide”), such sacred butchery was rare (p. 97). Similarly, accusations of malediction by English Catholics and Protestants, and later royalists and Puritans, tended less often to drive lethal violence than in other parts of Europe. English Puritans were, however, zealous and effective in their iconoclasm, replacing most ecclesiastical objects with texts as well as targeting “idolatrous thoughts” (p. 218). The English love of radical words and ambivalence about religious violence was reflected in laws expanding the range of violations while ending the death penalty for blasphemy. In part because of those controversies, the first generation of nearly every English colony enacted strict codes that were wielded primarily against Quakers

Ambivalence · Archaeology · Blasphemy · Doctrine · Genocide · Heresy · Iconoclasm · Political science · Politics · Protestantism · Religious violence · Sacrifice · American Constitutional Law and Politics · History · Law · Philosophy · Religious studies