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SALVATION or DAMNATION: The Evidence is in the BLOOD!

SALVATION or DAMNATION: The Evidence is in the BLOOD!. Washed in His blood.

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SALVATION or DAMNATION: The Evidence is in the BLOOD!

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  1. SALVATION or DAMNATION: The Evidence is in the BLOOD! Washed in His blood http://images.google.ca/imgres?imgurl=http://www.washedinhisblood.com/images/blood.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.washedinhisblood.com/&usg=__kqx72ej1KP3vMio-smsnyUd4A2E=&h=280&w=384&sz=15&hl=en&start=1&um=1&tbnid=fH_nZ8ciFG5JVM:&tbnh=90&tbnw=123&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dblood%2Bof%2Bchrist%26hl%3Den%26um%3D1

  2. Blood Stains in Silverblatt’s Modern Inquisitions • THESIS: Race = Belief • Racism is inherited and apparent (pp. 17) • Inquisitors dominated a special kind of knowledge – the purity of blood (pp. 18) • Avila and Avendano’s ‘natural order’ was calibrated by the peculiar race-thinking notion that blood carried stains, and that stains could determined character traits, intelligence, political rights and economic possibilities (pp. 24-5) • The supporters or purity-of-blood laws believed that religious conversion could not erase stains of heretics religious past, and inquisitors, who arrested New Christians on the assumption they were insidious Portuguese- Jewish merchants, were making the case for a ‘racially’ pure Spanish national and for a ‘racially’ pure definition of “Spanishness”. They were also participating in a vision of the world reminiscent of what we today call ‘racial profiling’ (pp. 25)

  3. The Lima Inquisition“ [Pontius Pilate] took water and washed his hands in the sight of the crowd, saying, "I am innocent of this man's blood. Look to it yourselves." (New American Bible, Matthew 27:24) • The Lima Inquisition of 1635-39 – the “Great Jewish Conspiracy” – it was Peru’s bloodiest (pp.31) • The ‘enemy within’ – baptized men and women of Jewish or Muslim decent were considered stained by ancestral heresies, regardless of conversion to Christianity or commitment to the faith (pp. 32) • Portuguese + New Christian + Jew

  4. Racial Castes: Avila & Avendano • God’s hierarchy of races based in purity of blood: Blacks = serve Indian = mines Spaniards = kings/rulers • The explanation for how God could consider all human beings equal but allow such hellish conditions on earth (pp. 102) • God bases his racial hierarchy on military victory (pp.103) • Religion as the ‘opiate of the people’ (Marx) – Indians would find respite from the labours of the mines in ‘heaven’

  5. An Unconvincing God • Genesis for all? Adam the father of all? • Alien Christian God vs. Native gods • The problem of colour – the whiteness of our forefather and mother – guinea pigs and corn – are the new guinea pigs and corn a different race? ... Thus, race =belief... • The Moors and Jews – idolatry and heresy • The English protestant – how can other Christians be un-Christian – does God prefer only one type of Christian? Same ‘race’ as the Spaniards? Thus, race = belief... • God condemns the Jews and Indians by destroying their homeland and allowing them to be conquered and killed (pp. 107)

  6. “Out damned spot! Out!” • Belief is inherited (pp. 108) • The disease of the Indians is not so deeply rooted as that of the Moors and Jews – blood carries the disease • Stained blood – Jews were an evil caste damned forever, but what about Indians?

  7. The Blood Stain of Indians • “Indian character was marked by other chief qualities, or deficiencies: Indians were not to be trusted, Indians were cowardly, Indian were lazy. Indians were types as thieves and liars, people of ‘little truth’; according, the telling equation: the testimony of six Indians was equivalent to that of one Spaniard. Indians were said to be fearful, gutless, ‘notoriously pussilanimous’, and so craven that ‘trembling, [they] would do whatever was commanded [of them]... [these ideas] were based on published accounts of at least ten highly respected experts” Montenegro (pp. 109) • The case of the ladino – “...Spaniards had encountered native men and women who seemed remarkably like Spaniards: they dressed like Spaniards, ate like Spaniards, wrote like Spaniards. Some could even be richer that Spaniards. These were the viceroyalty’s ‘indios ladinos’ (pp. 109) • How does the blood stain work in this case? Montenegro allows for ‘circumstances’ to explain some of the trembling and cowardice of Indians

  8. The Blood of Christ does NOT cleanse Blood Stains • “...Montenegro (and Acosta) believed that baptism – the life-changing ritual – had little effect on their erroneous beliefs or habits” (pp. 111) • “...inheritance of culture: ‘for these [Indian] are children of idolatry which they inherited with their ancestors blood’ (pp. 112) • “what medium, then, was transmitting this ‘evil of their parents’? Avila summed it up with these words: their stained blood” (pp. 112) • The hierarchy of truth telling according to the degree of stain – blood ranking

  9. Race Thinking & The State • Stain-cards – “How else would we know if someone is stained by a little Jewish, Moorish, Turkish, or English [blood]?” • Confusions of the time – “...the modern confusions of ‘nation’ with religion, of religion with ancestry, and of ancestry with political loyalty (pp. 119) • Portuguese - New Christian – Jew • Duplicity of race-thinking • Purity of blood • Colonial frame • “But a careful look at Peruvian history also suggest that race thinking took several, coeval shapes and that race thinking's duplicity lay in the ways its different manifestations went unrecognized and become intertwined” (pp. 120)

  10. Bleaching the Blood Stain • Jews and Moors were not allowed to hold government office, professions and nobility – Black and Indians could technically hold these positions therefore they were made of superior mettles ad thus carried stained that were easier to bleach (pp. 121-2) • “Solórzano calculated that it would take the descendants of Moors and Jews two hundred years to become like Old Christians, but it would take Indians and blacks only four generations” (pp. 122) • Blood could eventually ‘whiten’ lineage (pp. 125)

  11. How much blood makes you stained? • Intermixing of race and belief leads to fractional race thinking • “Inquisitors followed something like the ‘one drop of blood’ rule in their dealings with New Christians” (pp. 124) • The questions of inter-marriage? Divorce? • “... It would take four generations to rid a body of Indian blood” (pp. 125) than an individual could be considered a Spaniard • When both parties have equal belief, than colour is a representative of % of stain (Montenegro) • Judaizers were thought to be New Christian and possible suspects no matter how little Jewish or Portuguese blood they had (pp. 127)

  12. The Blood of Christ • 1 Cor 11:23-29 - "This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me." For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the death of the Lord until he comes. Therefore whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord unworthily will have to answer for the body and blood of the Lord. • Mk 14:22-24 - Then he took a cup, gave thanks, and gave it to them, and they all drank from it. He said to them, "This is my blood of the covenant, which will be shed for many.“ • Mt 26:26-28 -." Then he took a cup, gave thanks, and gave it to them, saying, "Drink from it, all of you, for this is my blood of the covenant, which will be shed on behalf of many for the forgiveness of sins.“ • Jn 6:53 - Amen, amen, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life within you. • Jn 6:54 - Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life. • Jn 6:55 - For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. • Jn 6:56 -Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in him.

  13. Questions: • Race is defined by belief and practise – blood carries belief and practise and identifies ‘true’ Christians • Can Jesus’ blood cleanse race? Does belief trump ancestry? (Guaman Poma – pp. 128) • If Christianity is in the blood than why bother with a baptism? • How does a New Christian become and Old Christian? As a once you pass the required generations are you an Old Christian? Are the races ‘equal’ then? Is colour and/or caste erased because of Old Christian status? • Does this book merit a look further back into the past where Early Christians, and Jesus (himself?) thought that ‘sacred/sacrificial’ can cleanse followers?

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