There are some religions which see themselves as the only true religion. For adherents to this type of religion to abandon it is a religious crime known as apostasy. This is major crime in authoritarian religions in which obedience to religious rules and concepts are viewed as a virtue and disobedience is seen as a sin.
In his book The Handy Religion Answer Book, John Renard writes:
“Apostasy implies a blanket rejection of a faith tradition and a return to former views or another tradition.”
While heresy involves the rejection of some aspects of a religion’s doctrine, apostasy is a rejection of the religion per se.
To understand more about the history of apostasy, let’s start with etymology. The word apostasy came into English in the late fourteenth century with the meaning of “renunciation, abandonment or neglect of established religion.” The word’s origins are found in the Latin apostasia which is from the Greek apostasia meaning “revolt, defection.”
While the religions that actively promote themselves as having exclusive Truth seek converts from other religions, the idea that when a person has been exposed to this Truth should somehow abandon it is seen as unthinkable, perhaps even an indication of insanity. The act of converting from one religion to another requires apostasy. For some religions, the required penalty for apostasy is death. In an essay in Free Inquiry, Chima Iheme writes:
“In Deuteronomy 13, God instructs very firmly that apostates must be put to death, and this is regardless of the executioner’s relationship with the apostate. Thus, if a family member discovers that another family member has lost his faith in God, the former is entitled to kill the latter without any sentiment.”
In Islam, a Muslim is a member of a community of believers whose duty is obedience and submission to the will of God. For a Muslim to reject Islam in word or deed is viewed as a form of desertion and betrayal of the community. Apostasy, from this perspective, is a form of treason. In some forms of Islam, if a male apostate is judged to be sane, he must be executed. The Qur’an states that Allah despises apostasy. Sam Harris writes:
“In Islamic law, conversion from Islam is apostasy—a capital offense for both the one who is misled and the one who misleads him.”
This means that Christian missionaries in Muslim countries are considered to have committed apostasy in their attempts to convert Muslims.
Today the Catechism of the Catholic Church declares that: “apostasy is the total repudiation of the Christian faith.”
In the Spanish conquest of the Americas, Native peoples only had to be exposed to the words of the Truth, not necessarily understand them, and if they failed to submit, then they were apostates and a just war could be waged against them. Indian writer Vine Deloria, in his afterword to America in 1492: The World of Indian Peoples Before the Arrival of Columbus, writes that upon contacting an Indian village, the Spanish conquistadores
“would read a document known as the ‘Requirement,’ which recited the history of the world as they knew it, from the Garden of Eden to the recent discovery, and demanded that the natives accept this fable as true and submit themselves to the Spanish Crown and the Catholic Church.”
It did not make any difference that the natives might not understand Spanish or Latin, or that they might have their own history of the world. Once the word of the Spanish god was revealed, a just war could be waged on those who rejected it.
In a more recent religion, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (commonly called Mormons), married same sex couples are deemed to be apostates. Church doctrine regards marriage as a union solely reserved for a man and a woman and thus same-sex marriage is considered to be an act of renunciation of the Mormon faith.
The International Humanist and Ethical Union, in their 2016 Freedom of Thought Report, found that 22 countries had laws against apostasy and that in 13 countries the death penalty was possible for apostasy.
While apostasy is generally an individual action or religious crime, there have been incidents in which groups of people have committed apostasy. One of these was the Flathead Apostasy of the nineteenth century. The Flatheads, also known as the Bitterroot Salish, were an Indian nation living in Western Montana. They learned about the great spiritual power of the Black Robes—the Jesuit priests of the Catholic Church—from a group of Christian Iroquois from Quebec who had been working for the Canadian fur traders of the North West Company. A decade later, in 1831, some of the Flathead decided that the power of the Black Robes could help them prevail over their enemies. They sent several delegations to St. Louis asking for a Black Robe.
In 1840 the Jesuits sent Father Pierre-Jean De Smet to live among the tribes of Western Montana. In his M.A. Thesis Religious Acculturation of the Flathead Indians, Richard Forbis reports:
“Like the Catholics of medieval Europe, De Smet wanted to make all aspects of life subservient to the Church and to Christianity.”
Father De Smet placed a large hand-hewn cross in the center of a circle. According to J. F. McAlear, in the book The Fabulous Flathead: The Story of the Development of Montana’s Flathead Indian Reservation:
“Following a short service by Father DeSmet, all the Indians, young and old, came forward and solemnly kissed the cross and declared an oath that they would never forsake the religion of the Black Gown.”
In 1846, Father De Smet crossed the Rocky Mountains in order to bring Christianity to the Blackfoot who were enemies of the Flatheads. When the Flatheads had become Christian they had become successful in repelling Blackfoot attacks. This success, according to the Flathead, was due to the superior power of the Black Robes and if this power were to be given to their enemies, they reasoned, they might be exterminated. De Smet’s promiscuous proselytizing – giving the power to their enemies – caused Flathead resentment and hostility toward the priests and toward Christianity. When DeSmet returned to the Flatheads he found that their attitude toward the Black Robes had changed. Now they openly challenged the Black Robes by publicly gambling, an activity which the priests discouraged. Because of the Flathead apostasy, the Jesuits were forced to close their mission in 1850.
Religion 101/201
Religion 101/201 is a series exploring various religious topics in which the concept of religion is not restricted to the Abrahamic religions. Religion 201 is an expansion of an earlier topic in this series. More from this series:
Religion 201: Deism
Religion 201: Blasphemy
Religion 101: Secularism
Religion 101: Confucianism
Religion 101: Naturalism
Religion 101: Deism
Religion 101: The Evolution of Morality
Religion 101: Rites of Passage
