4 ms·

Agree mostly with your answer. 20 centuries of Christianity has been reduced to a caricature. Most people don't even understand what has been given up. It's al

Agree mostly with your answer. 20 centuries of Christianity has been reduced to a caricature. Most people don't even understand what has been given up. It's all persecution, corrupt popes, hatred for science, opium for the masses, child molestation and the flying spaghetti monster. Like you mention: being active in a church community in the country where I live, will induce flippant jokes at best and real hostility at worst. I'm also tempted to look at the clergy. They seem to have lost a certain kind of "fighting spirit" and focus on avoiding controversy. Modern masses are spineless and devoid of flavor or a sense of history. It sometimes feels like they hired f*cking Nickelback or the marketing board of the Disney Corporation to advise them on liturgical reform. (Except Nickelback and Disney sell and they don't...) The cultural loss of all this is imho enormous. It's not just stuff like being part of an active community that includes the broadest possible cross section of the population (across class, age, wealth, profession, personal interests, ...). Or the weekly ritual of this community, the gentle but firm reminder that we're all mortal and that we should at least try to live the good life. It's also more mundane stuff like the feasts, the fasts, the saints, the pilgrimages (basically an entire village hiking to a nearby basilica), the processions, the choirs, the maintenance of beautifully decorated popular chapels in the middle of fields, all the local cults and customs, some of which probably even predated Christianity, etc. These things gave local places a lot of flavor and it's all gone in a few short years... Once again, I don't even think you need to believe in God to appreciate all of this wealth. Some day, its loss will be greatly lamented.

eesmith 9y ago
Part of those 20 centuries includes the Inquisition, slavery, selling of indulgences, persecution of the Protestants, the expulsion of the Jews, The Killing Time in Scotland, witch hunts, and corrupt popes, so it's not like this most of these caricatures are new or that a sense of history would help. While it's true that everyone attended the parish church, it's not like historically they mingled and used the church as a place to put worldly status aside. Or rather, not since the 1400s (https://thesecondeclectic.blogspot.com/2012/12/churches-without-chairs-how-christians.html https://thesecondeclectic.blogspot.com/2012/12/churches-with... quotes 'Church Architecture' as “In the late Middle Ages the congregation sat down on the job and there was a drastic change in Christian worship—perhaps the most important in history. People, in effect, became custodians of individual spaces which they occupied throughout the service, and social distinctions made some spaces more privileged than others.” ) That weekly ritual also reminds us that "we have all sinned and fall short of the glory of God." Nothing like a bit of negging to start the week. The pilgrimages were during the medieval era. When I researched it a few years ago (after learning about someone who did the pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela some 20 years ago), I was surprised to know that something like 20-50% of the adult population of Europe went on at least one pilgrimage, during the period 1150-1450. Along with, as you say, many feast days. (Parts of the US still have many feast days; eg, the Native American pueblos in New Mexico.) But then we had the rise of power of central kings, who wanted people to work more, giving power and wealth to the king(dom). For example, the Swedish king Gustav Vasa forbade pilgrimages in 1545. So this loss, and "the State", occurred a long time ago, not just a few years ago. And yet, pilgrimages are on the rise since Paulo Coelho's 1987 book about walking the Camino de Santiago, and the follow-on renewals of other pilgrim routes like Norway's St. Olav’s Way.
- unknown_apostle 9y ago
  This is exactly my point: you mix up 20 centuries of christianity with 20 centuries of specific christian institutions and worldly regimes that existed in christian societies. And then you cherry pick some terrible, big historical events. You completely miss the 20 centuries of Christianity that inspired a vast cultural patrimonium and provided courage, justice, moderation and dignity to its laymen and clergy. Unlike what you say, abandoning this patrimonium has only started recently. Definitely not centuries ago. For instance, where I live, there is still an annual Christian pilgrimage. Attendance started dropping only a few years ago. I'm not sure if it will still exist in a few years. A lot of us are fascinated and sometimes even a little envious when learning about foreign cultures. Yet when our own culture is dying or has died, we shrug. Some even want to beat on the corpse. Also: "we have all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God" sounds to me like a pretty accurate description of mankind, including Christianity itself. Other ways of saying the same thing are: "don't be too satisfied with yourself" or "try to do better next week". I'd say the first version packs more punch but that's a matter of taste. (Then again, as I implied earlier in this thread: maybe this matter of taste is an important part of modern Christianity's problem.)
  - eesmith 9y ago
    When you say "only started recently", you mean since at least the deists of the 1700s, yes? As in Jefferson, whose quotes include: - "Millions of innocent men, women and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined and imprisoned; yet we have not advanced one inch towards uniformity." - "In every country and in every age, the priest has been hostile to liberty. He is always in alliance with the despot, abetting his abuses in return for protection to his own." Or near-deists like Thomas Paine who wrote: - "The Christian religion is a parody on the worship of the sun, in which they put a man called Christ in the place of the sun, and pay him the adoration originally paid to the sun." - "The study of theology, as it stands in the Christian churches, is the study of nothing; it is founded on nothing; it rests on no principles; it proceeds by no authority; it has no data; it can demonstrate nothing, and it admits of no conclusion." I am one of many who recognize that the many good things came from Christianity, but argue that the bad outweighs the good. Please do not mistake that for absolutist portrayal of someone who "completely miss[es]" the good. We also have good things that came from the Ancient Greeks - including things which continue to provide "courage, justice, moderation and dignity" to modern people. And we don't need faith in their gods to enjoy them. You wrote: "where I live, there is still an annual Christian pilgrimage". Sure, and in New Mexico there are people who to the pilgrimage to Chimayo. I've seen them walking along the highway, and it makes the news every year. The number of people who do that pilgrimage is not decreasing. 301,000 people made the pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela last year. That's far more than went a generation ago. But go back to what I wrote. A large fraction of the adult population used to go on long pilgrimages in the medieval era. It ended up being banned in some countries, to force the people to work more. You been talking about this long grand historical period, so doesn't it makes sense to look at the changes in pilgrimages over that entire span, and not some fluctuation in your area in the last generation or so? Do you have any better numbers to show the dying off of pilgrimages? Something stronger than my counter-evidence, which also includes things like "Pilgrimage is enjoying a huge revival across Europe", quoted in https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/earth/countryside/5126285/Easter-2009-top-five-pilgrim-routes-in-Britain.html https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/earth/countryside/5126285/E... , and from https://www.theguardian.com/books/2012/jun/15/rites-of-way-pilgrimage-walks https://www.theguardian.com/books/2012/jun/15/rites-of-way-p... (emphasis mine): > The poet Edmund Blunden wrote in 1942: "We have been increasingly on pilgrimage." We are once again increasingly on pilgrimage. A revival is under way worldwide, with pilgrim numbers rising even as church-going figures fall. Medieval hostelries on the roads to Santiago de Compostela, closed for centuries, are reopening to cater to the volume of travellers. In 1985, 2,491 people received the certificate of completion known as la autentica; more than 270,000 did so in 2010. On the little north Norfolk village of Walsingham – site of an 11th-century vision of the Virgin Mary, recently self-branded as "England's Nazareth" – a quarter of a million pilgrims now converge each year, including participants in the "children's pilgrimage", the "youth pilgrimage" and the "Tamil pilgrimage". You edited your text, did you not? You had a mention of the oppressive power of the "State" in it, which is why I wanted to point out Gustav Vasa's decree from nearly 500 years ago. I don't think you can point to 50 years ago as some recent high water mark when that was only an echo of what it was 800 years ago. "Doing the best we can in this confusing, muddled world of ours" is also a pretty accurate description of humanity. Personally, I can't figure out what "sin" means because that requires a transgression against divine law, and neither "God" nor divine law exist. So no, I don't think Romans 3:23 is at all an accurate description.

eesmith 9y ago

Part of those 20 centuries includes the Inquisition, slavery, selling of indulgences, persecution of the Protestants, the expulsion of the Jews, The Killing Time in Scotland, witch hunts, and corrupt popes, so it's not like this most of these caricatures are new or that a sense of history would help. While it's true that everyone attended the parish church, it's not like historically they mingled and used the church as a place to put worldly status aside. Or rather, not since the 1400s (https://thesecondeclectic.blogspot.com/2012/12/churches-without-chairs-how-christians.html https://thesecondeclectic.blogspot.com/2012/12/churches-with... quotes 'Church Architecture' as “In the late Middle Ages the congregation sat down on the job and there was a drastic change in Christian worship—perhaps the most important in history. People, in effect, became custodians of individual spaces which they occupied throughout the service, and social distinctions made some spaces more privileged than others.” ) That weekly ritual also reminds us that "we have all sinned and fall short of the glory of God." Nothing like a bit of negging to start the week. The pilgrimages were during the medieval era. When I researched it a few years ago (after learning about someone who did the pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela some 20 years ago), I was surprised to know that something like 20-50% of the adult population of Europe went on at least one pilgrimage, during the period 1150-1450. Along with, as you say, many feast days. (Parts of the US still have many feast days; eg, the Native American pueblos in New Mexico.) But then we had the rise of power of central kings, who wanted people to work more, giving power and wealth to the king(dom). For example, the Swedish king Gustav Vasa forbade pilgrimages in 1545. So this loss, and "the State", occurred a long time ago, not just a few years ago. And yet, pilgrimages are on the rise since Paulo Coelho's 1987 book about walking the Camino de Santiago, and the follow-on renewals of other pilgrim routes like Norway's St. Olav’s Way.

unknown_apostle 9y ago
This is exactly my point: you mix up 20 centuries of christianity with 20 centuries of specific christian institutions and worldly regimes that existed in christian societies. And then you cherry pick some terrible, big historical events. You completely miss the 20 centuries of Christianity that inspired a vast cultural patrimonium and provided courage, justice, moderation and dignity to its laymen and clergy. Unlike what you say, abandoning this patrimonium has only started recently. Definitely not centuries ago. For instance, where I live, there is still an annual Christian pilgrimage. Attendance started dropping only a few years ago. I'm not sure if it will still exist in a few years. A lot of us are fascinated and sometimes even a little envious when learning about foreign cultures. Yet when our own culture is dying or has died, we shrug. Some even want to beat on the corpse. Also: "we have all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God" sounds to me like a pretty accurate description of mankind, including Christianity itself. Other ways of saying the same thing are: "don't be too satisfied with yourself" or "try to do better next week". I'd say the first version packs more punch but that's a matter of taste. (Then again, as I implied earlier in this thread: maybe this matter of taste is an important part of modern Christianity's problem.)
- eesmith 9y ago
  When you say "only started recently", you mean since at least the deists of the 1700s, yes? As in Jefferson, whose quotes include: - "Millions of innocent men, women and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined and imprisoned; yet we have not advanced one inch towards uniformity." - "In every country and in every age, the priest has been hostile to liberty. He is always in alliance with the despot, abetting his abuses in return for protection to his own." Or near-deists like Thomas Paine who wrote: - "The Christian religion is a parody on the worship of the sun, in which they put a man called Christ in the place of the sun, and pay him the adoration originally paid to the sun." - "The study of theology, as it stands in the Christian churches, is the study of nothing; it is founded on nothing; it rests on no principles; it proceeds by no authority; it has no data; it can demonstrate nothing, and it admits of no conclusion." I am one of many who recognize that the many good things came from Christianity, but argue that the bad outweighs the good. Please do not mistake that for absolutist portrayal of someone who "completely miss[es]" the good. We also have good things that came from the Ancient Greeks - including things which continue to provide "courage, justice, moderation and dignity" to modern people. And we don't need faith in their gods to enjoy them. You wrote: "where I live, there is still an annual Christian pilgrimage". Sure, and in New Mexico there are people who to the pilgrimage to Chimayo. I've seen them walking along the highway, and it makes the news every year. The number of people who do that pilgrimage is not decreasing. 301,000 people made the pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela last year. That's far more than went a generation ago. But go back to what I wrote. A large fraction of the adult population used to go on long pilgrimages in the medieval era. It ended up being banned in some countries, to force the people to work more. You been talking about this long grand historical period, so doesn't it makes sense to look at the changes in pilgrimages over that entire span, and not some fluctuation in your area in the last generation or so? Do you have any better numbers to show the dying off of pilgrimages? Something stronger than my counter-evidence, which also includes things like "Pilgrimage is enjoying a huge revival across Europe", quoted in https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/earth/countryside/5126285/Easter-2009-top-five-pilgrim-routes-in-Britain.html https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/earth/countryside/5126285/E... , and from https://www.theguardian.com/books/2012/jun/15/rites-of-way-pilgrimage-walks https://www.theguardian.com/books/2012/jun/15/rites-of-way-p... (emphasis mine): > The poet Edmund Blunden wrote in 1942: "We have been increasingly on pilgrimage." We are once again increasingly on pilgrimage. A revival is under way worldwide, with pilgrim numbers rising even as church-going figures fall. Medieval hostelries on the roads to Santiago de Compostela, closed for centuries, are reopening to cater to the volume of travellers. In 1985, 2,491 people received the certificate of completion known as la autentica; more than 270,000 did so in 2010. On the little north Norfolk village of Walsingham – site of an 11th-century vision of the Virgin Mary, recently self-branded as "England's Nazareth" – a quarter of a million pilgrims now converge each year, including participants in the "children's pilgrimage", the "youth pilgrimage" and the "Tamil pilgrimage". You edited your text, did you not? You had a mention of the oppressive power of the "State" in it, which is why I wanted to point out Gustav Vasa's decree from nearly 500 years ago. I don't think you can point to 50 years ago as some recent high water mark when that was only an echo of what it was 800 years ago. "Doing the best we can in this confusing, muddled world of ours" is also a pretty accurate description of humanity. Personally, I can't figure out what "sin" means because that requires a transgression against divine law, and neither "God" nor divine law exist. So no, I don't think Romans 3:23 is at all an accurate description.