So King Eric #9 of Sweden was this righteous goodly wise fine wonderful and very Christian king who lived and ruled in the 1100s. He felt that he was rich enough (!!) and so levied no taxes on the people. He was fair and impartial in his administration of justice, and he used his familial resources to make life better for the poor, the Church, and the poor who go to Church. This was about as saintly as kings could get.

King Eric IX went to war to fend off and kill Finns, because they were barbaric idolators who would bring bad influences into the lives of a moderately but not securely-enough Christianized Sweden. Butler writes that Eric “vanquished them [the Finns] in a great battle; but after his victory he wept bitterly at the sight of the dead bodies of his enemies which covered the field, because they had been slain unbaptised.” Having subdued Finland, King Eric sent missionaries into that land in a saintly effort to Christianize them.

So this forces the question for me: Do Eric’s slaughter of Finns, grief at his success, and subsequent efforts to change the religious beliefs of the Finns (1) add to his résumé as a saint; (2) detract from that same résumé; or (3) end up as a draw?

Since I don’t know (and perhaps no one actually does–after all, the victors write the histories) what actually happened–was Finland attacking and seeking to invade and take over Sweden? That’s definitely not how Butler presents it. And if not, then it all reads like just way too much Finnish-ness was seeping into Sweden, and since that influence was distinctly not Christian, then it had to be stopped. And, after the carnage, what a shame it cost the lives of so many Finns who would end up going to hell because they never get to know Christ–you see, they were killed by Christians before they could come to know Christ!

Yes, I have a hard time wrapping my mind around this, too…and then I look at how much active and violent bile was expended on portraying former President Obama as a Muslim and how people are quite angry at the thought of Muslims influencing America. And how much Americans previously feared Communist infiltration. And how much Americans still fear non-English speakers coming in and changing things. And then I think about how little those European Christians of the fifteenth through the twentieth centuries (people just like our good King) thought that the people already on the land the Europeans named “America” just might not have wanted to have their own language, or religious practices, or political structures displaced or obliterated by outsiders.

In the end, I have to say NO to this brand of Christian imperialism. If Christianity is so weak that it will buckle in the presence of some full-throated paganism, then it is hardly worthy of being a religion in its own right/rite. If Christianity requires killing off part of a population, followed by pressuring the remainder of that people to become Christian, then it is ungodly. If Christians go about harming people that they feel are lost souls (hating the sin) and then feel “bad” because there are harmed people (loving the sinner), then NO. NO. NO. HELL NO.

I’ve no doubt that Eric Nine acquitted himself well as kings of his time period go. But doesn’t this sound all-too-familiar–Eric’s formula of lowering taxes, engaging in military action, and hating those with different religious beliefs? Though nominally Christian-identified, it is nothing but a recipe for horror and destruction. Such religion must be rejected and uprooted.

Somehow, I’m thinking that the Jesus of the Gospels might agree.