From Militant Christianity by A. Kehoe, Chapter 1:
... Thirty years of observing these fellow citizens has convinced me, a professor of anthropology, that the militant American Christian Right is a remarkable case of the persistence of cultural tradition, four thousand years and counting, of an ethos that continues to activate millions of our fellow citizens.
Page 8:
A distinctive worldview is embedded in Indo-European languages. It appears historically four thousand years ago, in Near Eastern texts and in Eurasian archaeological sites. By the standards of 2,500 years ago, it is abundantly documented, the language and culture of the expanding Roman state in the west and among Sanskrit speakers in India in the east. Beyond state borders, artifacts mutely bespeak Indo-European cultures throughout much of Europe and western Asia. Two thousand years ago, a radical Jewish sect caught on with Indo-European-speaking residents in the Roman-dominated eastern Mediterranean. Intervention by a bishop of this sect, interpreting an apparition seen by the Roman emperor Constantine, led to the sect, Christianity, gaining legitimacy in Rome, 312 CE. The powerful Indo-European worldview fueling Rome’s military campaigns overwhelmed the sect prophet’s pacifist egalitarian principles. That worldview persists today, shared by millions throughout the globe. In the United States, adherents are major players in politics, education, and business. The actively militant segment legitimates its ideology by claiming it is Bible-based (i.e., a myth-based social charter). Its rite of passage is to be metaphorically, and often symbolically, “born again.” The “battle-ax culture” ethos glorifying war and competition finds expression in capitalist economics ...
... American Christianity...its worldview and .... remarkable persistence of its IndoEuropean heart.
This was actually a breath of fresh air to hear, to know that my Indo-European ancestors have continued the memory of my people through Christianity.
Chapter 2:
Page 10:
The sign [Constantine saw in the sky] could have well been a battle-ax and crossed spears. These were traditional weapons of Constantine’s forebears, not Roman but Germanic. ... That exaltation of militancy became part of institutionalized Christianity. Today, the militant Christian Right carries on that pre-Christian ideology ...
Page 12-13:
It is noteworthy that [the Roman] Diocletian’s Tetrarchy, as the system of four rulers was called, was composed of men of Germanic origin from the Balkan frontier. Constantius and his household were headquartered in Trier on the Rhine, with visits to outposts elsewhere along the western frontier; Constantius died in York, England, in 306, with his eldest son Constantine in attendance. ...
... Constantine had announced himself a devotee of Apollo the sun god, called Sol Invictus (“Invincible Sun”). On the way to Rome in 310, Constantine said he saw in the afternoon sky a cross above the sun, and the words hoc signo victor eris (by this sign, you will be victorious). What he saw was likely a sun halo with sundogs, the result of ice crystals in high cirrus clouds. ... [A] bishop explained [it] was made up of the first two Greek letters, chi and rho, in the name Christos. Another Christian writer, a tutor to Constantine’s son before the march to Rome, described the sign as the letter X with a vertical line drawn through it and curved around at the top, X with a P through it. The sign came to be termed the labarum, a Celtic word. ...
Plausible as is the Christian clerics’ interpretation of a chi and a rho in monogram form, the sign does look like crossed spears with a battle ax.[3] Battle axes and crossed spears are pagan icons; archaeologists have labeled a third-millennium BCE culture in southern Scandinavia the Battle-Ax Culture, from the frequent inclusion of a stone battle-ax in male graves, and postulated it to represent an early incursion of Indo-European speakers out of the Russian steppes.
She then shows these images of Scandinavian cave art. She also shows this image of ancient warriors on horseback. She goes on to point out on page 15:
... Appearance of the sword-and-battle-ax pair associated with a chiefly class in Scandinavia at this time indicates contacts, perhaps by traveling Scandinavian aristocrats, with the Carpathian region north of the lower Danube and the Black Sea-Pontic steppes region that, in turn, traded with Mycenean Greece and the Aegean. By Constantine’s time, the Norse god Thor wielded the battle-ax and thunderbolts, and Odin/Wotan held the sword. ...
She then writes on page 16, "Theologian Daniel Maguire remarks, 'Constantine . . . sort of converted to Christianity. It is better said that Constantine converted Christianity to him.” She goes on to argue that Constantine was basically not really a Pauline Christian and adds, "after his 324 victory he promulgated a series of civil edicts, one of them was to make Sunday a day free of legal business, and the wording in the edict is Dies Solis, Day of the Sun ...." This is all positive in my view as Christianity became unified with my Indo-European ancestors.
She then asks:
Can anyone imagine this valiant man of arms [Constantine,] turning the other cheek to an insult? Did Constantine give away all his treasure? Live ascetically? Prefer the company of the poor, of the oppressed, of women, to that of men of power? Would Constantine have said to Peter, “Put up thy sword”?
(pg. 17)
She of course means this as a critique, as if living ascetically (i.e. celibately) and getting bullied is a virtue. From my perspective, as ancestrally Indo-European myself, I see Constantine's valiant frame as a compliment. For, in my view, if Constantine and his Indo-European frame of mind had not integrated Christianity with the Indo-European worldview and Roman structure, I don't think Christianity would have survived. By the author's own questioning, if thrown back at her, one could ask: "Would a truly Pauline Movement of pacifist wimpy celibates seeking poverty and voluntary martyrdom while repressing their masculine instincts, have caused Christianity to thrive?" Of course, not! It was Indo-European energy that caused early Christianity to survive and flourish.
She fails to realize that much of the language of "turning the other cheek" and essentially becoming a pacifist was largely the New Testament author's seeking to quell Jewish Zealots from uprising against Indo-European Rome. As Doug Reed explains in Who Were the Zealots?:
... The zealots favored armed rebellion against Rome. They believed that God would deliver Israel with the sword. ... There was not a unified movement against Rome in first century Palestine. Rebels rose up in many different forms, and at times they ended up fighting each other. ...
... We often hear Jesus words quoted, “… for all who take the sword will perish by the sword (Matt. 26:52).” Some say He was condemning all military action throughout time. If this was the case, Jesus words simply were not true. Everyone who has taken the sword in conflict has not died violently. I believe Jesus’ words were most likely a warning to His own people. He was saying if you try to bring the kingdom of God by violence, you will all die. He was right. Those who rebelled against Rome died often in a very cruel manner.
Also see this article on how Jesus opposed the Zealots.
The New Testament also does not condemn Roman soldiers but often applauds them throughout the New Testament. For example, when Roman soldiers ask for advice from John the Baptist he does not say throw down your swords and become pacifists, but says to basically continue to be soldiers and not be "bad cops" but "good cops" so to speak in Luke 3: 14. This aligns with Romas 13 where Paul is basically pro Roman Law & Order. Then there is the story of a Roman centurion (a high-ranking officer) who says he has authority to give orders and be obeyed, and thus has faith/trust in the new cosmic Emperor Jesus' orders which leads to his servant being healed in Matthew 8:5-13 and Luke 7:1-10; furthermore, Acts 10 mentions Cornelius, another Roman centurion, who became a believer in Jesus.
Some scholars also think that the author of Luke-Acts may have been a Gentile, so a large portion of the New Testament might have been written by a Gentile. New Testament scholar, John Crossan even argues that Luke-Acts presents Indo-European Rome favorbly. As one reviewer of Crossan's book Render Unto Ceasar says:
Crossan’s reading, “love your enemies” was a resistance slogan that Jews would have understood as referring to the Roman enemy, while the “love” messages of turning the other cheek make clear Jesus’s nonviolent strategy against Roman violence. Those messages encoded resistance to Rome without openly making statements that the Romans would see as treason. "
In other words, the nonviolent message is directed at militant Jewish Zealots to stand down. According to Crossan, "“The good news, for Luke-Acts, is that the Holy Spirit moved headquarters from Jerusalem to Rome. ..."
What the New Testament does is present Romans like Pilate as innocent and Jesus basically tricks the Evil Powers into crucifying him through Rome’s mechanism of crucifixion; but Rome is not seen as the enemy in the Gospels but are unknowing pawns in a game where Jesus outwits the Dark Forces to break the curse of Death and Sin; so that Judaic Temple-based Religion could end and a new Indo-European "Sun God" mystery religion could emerge.
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