Christians are right...but which ones?

Roland is convinced that Christianity is the true religion and all others are false. The whole Chanson de Roland echoes his conviction. At first, it might seem that Roland is referring to a monolithic Christianity, i.e. one that is uniform in theology and unified in culture. To go further, he believes in the Christianity of the Franks, also known as Latin Christianity. What, then is his attitude (and by extension, the rest of the Franks) to other non-western, or non-Frankish Christians?

Sharon Kinoshita addresses this issue in her article, “Pagans are wrong and Christians are right”. Since the Franks depicted in La Chanson de Roland have more in common with the Crusaders than with the Franks of Charlemange’s era, their understanding of eastern Christianity is as misinformed as their understanding of Islam. Referring to Greek and Armenian Christians in the east, Kinoshita says, “In some ways, the westerners found their eastern coreligionists as strange as the Muslim enemy they had come to fight” (8). It was cultural and ethic differences, rather than theological ones, that caused the Franks to regard their brother Christians in the east as “the other”. Though the Franks may not have cast them in the same light as the idolatrous pagans, they did not consider them as fitting in the scheme of the Latin church. It seems, then, that the Franks were more concerned with the superiority of their national identity, then with the truth of their faith.

Of course, this is not far removed from the present day. Many Catholics, Protestants, and Orthodox war with one another (whether in theological debate or in outright violence) while condemning other religions as false. Cultural identity is as important to them as it was to the Franks. And cultural identity, more so than theology, shapes their view of the world and “the other”. Christians may be right, but which ones?