Posted: May 04, 2015 10:46 am
igorfrankensteen wrote:Another interesting aspect of the story of religions, especially Christianity, is that it has been a religion of rebellion, as much as it has been a religion of conformity and control. Often simultaneously.
It's almost like religious people use religious belief to justify any view they happen to already hold.
igorfrankensteen wrote:In order to utilize it to try to give additional control of the populace to the king or emperor or other local ruler, the ruler often had to adjust their behaviors and methods to make their claim to represent the religion to the people, stick. This was true for all religions which were utilized by governments.
Much fun and games ensued in the 1500s when Martin Luther translated the Bible into German and the general populace found out what Jesus has actually* said about poor people vs. rich people. And by "fun and games" I mean utter social chaos and a lot of people being made dead.
We're talking about religion, remember?
[shameless plug for something I'm a pathetic fanboy of]Really good podcast on this period from Dan Carlin here. It focuses mainly on the Munster Rebellion (bunch of Anabaptists rebel against the tyranny of the RCC, and promptly replicate the tyranny they thought they were escaping) but has some interesting digressions on the Protestant Reformation generally. Also here, for Carlin's take on the "Dark Ages" (although that one's not free) with a bit of discussion on the radical changes that Christianity needed to undergo before it could become "the religion of Feudalism".[/shameless plug for something I'm a pathetic fanboy of]
igorfrankensteen wrote:I have not read this particular book, and I am unlikely to. Not because of any adverse prejudice I have about it, rather simply because of time and monetary constraints. I do have concerns about HOW it proposes that feudal times were the "peak of Christianity." In addition to the debatability of what "peak" means, I would hope that it might go into the evolution of HOW religion was used by governments, and more importantly, how the exact mechanisms of using religion in government, demonstrated whether it was Christianity that was at peak power or influence, or it was the concept of religious leaders as secular leadership, that was at it's peak then.
* Assuming that Jesus existed and the Gospels are an accurate record of what he was about. Which people in this period obviously did, of course.