Comment to https://web.archive.org/web/20190618172115/https://socialpathology.blogspot.com/2019/06/christian-buddhism.html
Very insightful commentary. Like you, I am a Roman Catholic and I loathe this modern Christian passivity. We behave like a lamb to the slaughter.
Having said that, I wonder if there is not something else. Jesus was not a warrior and suffered like a lamb to the slaughter («The Lamb of God»). The apostles were not warriors either. Stephen, like Jesus, died saying «“Lord, don’t blame them for what they have done.” (Acts 7, 59). So Christian knights don’t have precedents in the New Testament (you should go back to the Old Testament: Maccabees, King David) but Christian Buddhists do.
Compare this to Islam. Mohammed was a warrior and their disciples were warriors too. Islam conquered by the sword (they wanted the blood of infidels). In Christianity, we want our own blood («the blood of martyrs is the seed of Christians»).
I think that, besides industrialization and urbanization, another cause is the Protestant reformation and the extension of literacy. This produced the frequent reading of the Bible. When you read the New Testament, it is difficult to argue for Christian war. But medieval Christian knights didn’t have such a problem. They didn’t read the New Testament.
What do you think?
But blessed are the meek, peacemakers etc… I struggle to find a scripture passage of equal clarity and authority about the need for lionocity.
There are such passages but there are few and not that clear. Jesus getting angry, Jesus driving the Traders from the Temple, «Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword.» Matthew 10:34 (but the context does not seem to support Christian war).