Religion in the Honorverse and potential issues

In the Honorverse books, particularly the earlier books, Weber deal a lot with religion but doesn’t fully explain the various theological elements, despite them being an integral part of the series. I have a few cases that have some problems with them in the series that need some fixing. I know I’m coming late to this party but I only started reading the series back in 2014.

The First is with the Grayson/Masada faith. As Weber explains; Grayson uses the New Testament to a degree but Masada doesn't at all. But almost all of Masada's beliefs, especially the subservience of women, come from the New Testament not the Old. So if they only listen to the old and not the new (plus the book of the New Way), then many of their beliefs are problematic and contradictory with that they use as their texts. Also why would a group of religious fanatics name their planet after a secular rebel group's last stand, a secular group that actually assassinated the High Priest in the Temple itself for political reasons? Why would a religious group name themselves after a secular political reactionary group?

Weber also mentions Bishop Telmachi and this new Catholic Church. He dosn't really explain what happened to the old one. Did it go away? Is it still vibrant? What is its relationship with this break off? Because this definitely is not the same Church as the Catholic Church has some things that they believe are ironclad and can never be changed which this one does, so it's obviously a break off church more in the vein of the Anglican break off (and seems to have some similarities to the Anglicans). So is the Old Catholic Church still dominant, a smaller group, etc. and how does this new one fit in with the old one?

Also why does Manticore not have a Chaplain Corps? It’s mentioned in “Flag in Exile” that Honor had to get used to Chaplains in the Grayson Navy, which Manticore did not have. But looking at how modern militaries operate, an military the size of Manticore’s with as religiously diverse population as it has, would, logically, have a Chaplain Corps. Given the size of their military I would assume they have a lot of very devout personnel who would need the use of a chaplain corps to handle their religious needs (like the US Military or literally almost every modern military in the world), and not having them would adversely affect moral. Grayson has a more integrated Chaplain Corps than a military like the US, but the need for such a division in the military makes sense. It’s puzzling that something so critical to moral and wellbeing would be left out for some reason in a society as vast and diverse and Manticore.

The last main religious issue is Weber’s dealing with Judaism in the future. He mentions something about a Judean League, which might be a topic when and if he decides to explore that group. However when dealing with Judaism or Jewish theology in his books, it's obvious that a real lack of research was done regarding Judaism. In Crown of Slaves (making the issues more the fault of Eric Flint than Weber’s) he mentions this new group called "Authentico Judaism". Aside from the really bizzaro Latin based name for a Jewish sect, based on the limited information starting in that book and continuing onwards it seems to be a hybrid cross between Reform Judaism, Reconstructionist Judaism, and evangelical Christianity.
Further there are certain statements regarding it that shows whomever idea it was, is clueless on basic Jewish theology. For instance it mentions that it rejects the idea of the idea of a hereditary chosen people.
1) The idea of a chosen people in Judaism is very different than that in Christianity and Islam, which is the version presented here, not the Jewish concept of it. The Jewish concept of the “Chosen People” (as outlined in Contra Apion, the Talmud, Gaonic Writings, etc), refers to be “chosen for a mission”, specifically the mission of spreading the glory and name of god throughout the world and to bring the world to accept the god of Judaism as the one true god and to abandon all pagan faiths. So why would an alleged "Jewish" religious movement reject a non-Jewish belief and concept as its main breaking point with mainstream Judaism? And it's not hereditary in Judaism, it's either matrilineal lineage or by conversion (I’ve met quite a few converts too).
2) The books mention that it was rejected by most "orthodox sects". But there is only one Orthodox Judaism, there are subgroups which are commonly explained as sects because the real concept is convoluted to explain and is very complex to explain the whole Orthodox world, but there is one sect called Orthodox. And it would be impossible for any group within Orthodoxy to accept this new group as they already don't recognize the legitimacy or any conversions from the other sects in Judaism or the religious legitimacy of all other groups. So it would be "all" not "most" don't recognize it. There are several other bizarre statements about Jewish theology regarding Authentico (which would be better called Second Reformation Judaism), further showing poor research or understanding on the topic.
However in the future Orthodox would probably be the dominant group anyways, especially since it’s heading in that direction already. Break off Jewish sects tend not to last long (Sadducees: 500 years, Baysusim: 300 years, Essenes, 250 years, Reform: Founded 18th century and on the decline, Conservative: Founded 1900 and on the decline, etc), the only ones that lasted long were the ones that formally broke off (Christianity officially broke off in 90CE but the final split was a few hundred years later, Karites split off 1200 years ago, but are only 30,000 today down from their peak of 7 million, etc.) Orthodox Judaism (Originally known as Judaism, then after the first split off by the Sadducees as Pharisees and after 68CE as Rabbinic Judaism, then just Judaism until the Reform split when it became known as Orthodox, but it's the same group over 2300 years so far). Additionally for every Orthodox raised person who leaves, about 5 become Orthodox, and those numbers are turning into a greater margin in favor of the Orthodox these day, in addition to large families. Given the prevailing trends and history this is the most likely outcome.
If there was a Judaism influence faith in the future, it would come out of the Orthodox. Orthodox Judaism has a thing called Noahide's which are non-Jews who accept the Seven Noahide commandments and in Judaism have an equal share in heaven as Jews do, will be redeemed with the Jews when the Messiah comes, etc. In Judaism Jews can go to hell and non-Jews can go to heaven. Judaism doesn't try to convert because in Judaism there is no need to, however if someone does they do convert them and those people become Jews. In the world today it is unknown how many Noahide’s there are, as most are not open about it, as it's not accepted (and outside of Israel Jews don't try to proselytize Noahidism for fear of backlash). However it is estimated about half-a-million in the US, 200,000 in Israel, and (depending on who's numbers you use) between 7 and 25 million in Africa, mostly concentrated in one region in Nigeria. Now the reason why it isn't prosthletized today is because of fear of backlash, in such a future with so many people spread out over so many planets with so many faiths, it would be heavily prosthlitized because there would be so many areas not to worry about backlash. And if there was a Jewish based faith the ex-genetic slaves would be joining up with, it would be Noahides, not some whatever this Authentico is. Non-Orthodox groups tend to collapse and not last in the long run. So given that you have a Judean League it is highly unlikely that it would be something other than Orthodox, and highly unlikely something like Authentico would have any decent sized following. And if Authentico has a following it probably is purely in the Haven sector and probably is a recent group founded within that region of space and probably not existing outside of it.
Authentico in the books has way too many problems with understanding basic Judaism or Jewish theology and unlike the early stuff mentioned which can be explained, this would require a lot of ret-conning to make it work.

For anyone wanting to know my credentials I have an MA in history and have spent over 10 years studying theology (specializing on Judaism) on a advanced collegiate level. I only started reading the books about two years ago and have read them all by now and wish I had come earlier to them so I could have pointed this out earlier as it is one of my favorite series’ of all time and love that Zahn is now writing in it. I was going to post this back in January but I got busy and didn’t have time to finish out my thoughts

To simply address an easy part of your numerous questions, one of the books, Honor talks to some Graysons about why Manticore doesn't have a dedicated Chaplain Corps. I think it was Flag in Exile, plus or minus one book.

It's related to not being a one-religion nation, that just on the bridge of a superdreadnought she served on, there were several different religions. To supply a Chaplain for every religion would be dedicating, I think upwards of 20-ish crew for every single ship in the entire fleet, who's sole purpose is to provide religious comfort and little to nothing else.

Grayson ships can afford that, because until they started taking volunteers from other allied nations, they had a single religion, the Church of Grayson (United, I think) so they only had a need for one guy to supply chaplain duties.

Somtaaw wrote:To simply address an easy part of your numerous questions, one of the books, Honor talks to some Graysons about why Manticore doesn't have a dedicated Chaplain Corps. I think it was Flag in Exile, plus or minus one book.

It's related to not being a one-religion nation, that just on the bridge of a superdreadnought she served on, there were several different religions. To supply a Chaplain for every religion would be dedicating, I think upwards of 20-ish crew for every single ship in the entire fleet, who's sole purpose is to provide religious comfort and little to nothing else.

Grayson ships can afford that, because until they started taking volunteers from other allied nations, they had a single religion, the Church of Grayson (United, I think) so they only had a need for one guy to supply chaplain duties.

It is in "Flag in Exile":

"I was saying Manticoran ships don't have official chaplains. Of course, we've got so many religions and denominations that providing a chaplain for each of them would be the next best thing to impossible even if we tried." She smiled suddenly. "On the first SD I ever served in, the captain was a Roman Catholic—Second Reformation, I think; not the Old Earth denomination—the exec was an Orthodox Jew, the astrogator was a Buddhist, and the com officer was a Scientologist Agnostic. If I remember correctly, the tac officer—my direct superior—was a Mithran, and Chief O'Brien, my tracking yeoman, was a Shinto priest. All of that, mind you, just on the command deck! We had another six thousand odd people in the ship's company, and God only knows how many different religions they represented."

All I can say is that the Honorverse mainline stories take place around 2000 years from now. Think of how many religions have come, gone, and changed over the *past* 2000 years - including the Catholic Church and Judaism.

As for a Chaplain Corps, more than likely, if there are more than 2-3 of the same religion aboard a ship, my bet would be that one of them gets named High Poohbah and holds services for the rest. Certainly a better solution than having a priest for each and every religion represented aboard a ship of 6000+ (or less, as more automation comes into play and crew sizes shrink).

For the Masada question, it may very well be that Masada was named prior to the Masadans getting exiled there. As far as I can recall, it was never stated that the Masadans actually named the planet themselves. Maybe the whole dichotomy that you bring up is why they're such a grumpy bunch.

The last thing to remember is that this is fiction, set 2000 years from now, and there's no rule that says it has to match current societal or religious traditions/beliefs/rules/anything else.

DaveH wrote:Authentico in the books has way too many problems with understanding basic Judaism or Jewish theology and unlike the early stuff mentioned which can be explained, this would require a lot of ret-conning to make it work.

I think you're making an unwarranted assumption that "Authentico" is actually a Jewish Splinter Group. It could very well be the result of a neo-barb system reconstructing what they could from incomplete records -- that could explain the Christian elements.

As MaxxQ says, there's 2000 years or so of history unaccounted for and no hard evidence that the religions are descended from the R/W religions the names suggest.

Masada, for one example, may have been named so because of an incomplete understanding of who the Masadan rebels were and what they believed. OR, it may have absolutely no relation to the historical Masada and been named simply because it sounded cool.

Some interesting questions. I'll jump in because I just got back from attending our ministerial resident's ordination ceremony, so I've got a small amount of knowledge of what a minister or military chaplain does. Writing and delivering a Sunday sermon is not a large part of a minister's job. It's not minor, but there are other things that take up much more time, including being the congregation's religious counselor.

That is, in fact, a military chaplain's primary function. They're someone to talk to about problems who is outside of the chain of command and who can be trusted to keep their mouth shut unless the issue affects the safety of the unit. A chaplain may have to do various ceremonial tasks on occasion, but it's not cis (*) usual job, and it's something that ce's well advised to keep as generic as possible.

It is not a chaplain's job to advise someone about their specific religion's creeds or beliefs. The typical chaplain doesn't know most of them in any detail, and is well advised to keep the actual religious content as generic as possible.

That said, I doubt if there are very many chaplains who could handle a serious problem from someone in a neo-pagan religion. Especially someone whose religion practices real magic.

(*) This is an epicine pronoun of my own devising. It popped out, and my subconscious seems to be averse to editing it out.

JohnRoth wrote:That said, I doubt if there are very many chaplains who could handle a serious problem from someone in a neo-pagan religion. Especially someone whose religion practices real magic.

Nobody practices "real magic" in the honorverse. If they think they do they are delusional. And in general, unless their issue is directly related to religious doctrine, a skilled counselor can probably help and that is what chaplains are supposed to be.

If your are dealing ISIS level doctrinal deep dives into how someone's religion is not compatible with military service (etc) then you will need to get an actual accredited expert if you want to debate this, the logical approach in deep space would be to move them to somewhere where they can do minimal damage until it all gets figured out back at base.

JohnRoth wrote:
That is, in fact, a military chaplain's primary function. They're someone to talk to about problems who is outside of the chain of command and who can be trusted to keep their mouth shut unless the issue affects the safety of the unit. A chaplain may have to do various ceremonial tasks on occasion, but it's not cis (*) usual job, and it's something that ce's well advised to keep as generic as possible.

I think that a Catholic Chaplain could handle a generic Protestant-like Word service. He just couldn't perform whichever of the many Communion rites that the Protestants have developed over the years. He would have to omit all of the foreshadowing from a service built on the TANAK (sp?) for the Jews in his command. But yes, the Odin worshippers would be on their own, as would Muslims, Buddhists, Confucians, and Zoroastrians. Never mind the Yazedis. But are those as clerically oriented as the major strands of Christianity? Like Paul, are not most of their religious leaders expected to have a day job, as well?

On major point to remember in the Honorverse is for roughly 1000 years, every colony was almost completely cut off from Earth, and in that time, each one of 100s of worlds progressed indepently of each other. They each had internal wars, civil strife, and environmental factors to overcome. Some colonies lost all technology (and hense, knowledge) and reverted to industrial age or midieval age societies before they recovered.

So we have 100s, then 1000s of parallel paths of development ( socially, philosophically, technoloically, and theologically), which are later joined back together when technology allowed. The Honorverse today is ~700 years after the warshawski sail knitted the universe back together, and 250 years after the wormholes brought it still closer. In Manticore we see a cosomopolitian society which is a hub of that universe, a future London, Hong Kong, or New York, with the inflence of 1000s of other cultures- and for every influence seen, there are probably 20 absent.

I'm not claiming to be a religious expert by any means, but seeing the religious fractionalization we've seen over the last 2000 years, and multipling that by 1000s of independant groups, it would be suprising if much remained completely unchanged.

Lots of good points here that I won't repeat about being in 2000 years time in a fictional audience.
I'll just add that the tendency in developed countries at present is towards a secular society, not necessarily atheist, religion just doesn't have much of a role in people's lives.
Friends and relatives on the very rare occasion the topic is raised tend to say that they identify on census and other forms as what ever their birth religion was, but haven't been to a church, synagogue, or mosque for decades.
This series is written in the USA which is less secular than many developed countries, and I believe that RFC is a lay preacher or something similar, so this may be of more interest to US citizens than elsewhere.