Posted: May 03, 2015 12:19 pm
Clive Durdle wrote:Read a fascinating comment in Norman Gear The Divine Demon, that xianity is actually the religion of feudalism, and its high point was under the Sun King, with the French Revolution as the beginning of its end.
I thought that was a fascinating way to categorise religions, as core parts of political structures.
Except of course that pesky problem that the early Christian church was seen as anathema to any political structure dependent upon violence due to its pacifism. Becoming the state religion of the late Roman Empire changed Christianity a hell of a lot more than Christianity changed the Empire.
I would seem far more accurate to me to say that the RCC looks and behaves the way it does because it developed in early Medieval Europe. Just as various Protestant strains look and behave the way they do because they developed in Renaissance Europe. Just as modern "megachurches" look and behave the way they do because they developed in late 20th/early 21st century America.
Religion is an artifact of a culture, not a driver of it.