I did not write, “At all times, all European imperialists used Christian proselytizing as the sole pretext for their agenda.” I did not discuss the proselytizers’ reactions to imperialist pretexts.

The British Empire admits that Christian proselytizing was invoked to justify its expansion. (But it was not always invoked and it was not the only factor that was invoked, okay?)

“Christians and spices.” “The three C’s: Christianity, commerce, and civilization.”
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If Christianity becomes a Sinocentric religion, I would expect feedback to develop between a large Chinese Christian population and the state.

If so, then this represents an extraordinary dedication to the imperialist agenda:

Of St. Gabriel Lalemant it was said that “we saw no part of his body, from the feet even to the head, which had not been broiled, and in which he had not been burned alive, – even the eyes, into which those impious ones had thrust burning coals.” He died uttering a prayer, not a scream or a curse.

It is a mark of modernity to suppose that there are no better men than oneself, or no better motives than ones own, but it is a mistake.

I keep hearing people say that, but the history does not seem to bear it out. Maybe the Spanish and Porguguese did this. But the French missionaries in Canada, Africa and Southeast Asia were acting from religious motives, and sometimes at cross-purposes with the economic and political interests of the French.

This is even more true of British missionaries. The political elite wanted to keep missionaries OUT of the Empire, since they stirred things up. In India for example, the government was strongly opposed to missionary activity. The country was a powderkeg of possible religious animosity as it was, without Christian missionaries running aroung.

So, as with much anti-religious sentiment, this is not based on sound facts. It is a sort of vulgar Marxism to think that the extraordinary and often heroic European missionary activity must have “really” been about money and power. Most of the time it was not. It was about Jesus Christ, the cross, love, sacrifice and martyrdom. Non-economic, non-political motives exist, however hard that may be for some of us to understand.

“That the Chinese might do the same is a ridiculous conjecture…as ridiculous as today’s China would have seemed during the Cultural Revolution?”

Read Spengler’s post. He is not talking about Chinese Christians being a tool of Chinese Copmmunist imperialism. He is talking about Chinese Christians taking over China, or having sufficient strength to act on their own, and acting from religious motives. In other words, he is talking about hundreds of millions of new Chinese Christians acting like real religious activists acting from real religious motivations.

That the Chinese might do the same is a ridiculous conjecture…as ridiculous as today’s China would have seemed during the Cultural Revolution?